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Title: Pride and Prejudice Author: Jane Austen Release Date: June, 1998 [eBook #1342] [Most recently updated: August 23, 2021] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 Produced by: Anonymous Volunteers and David Widger *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIDE AND PREJUDICE *** THERE IS AN ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THIS TITLE WHICH MAY VIEWED AT EBOOK [# 42671 ] cover Pride and Prejudice By Jane Austen CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Chapter 48 Chapter 49 Chapter 50 Chapter 51 Chapter 52 Chapter 53 Chapter 54 Chapter 55 Chapter 56 Chapter 57 Chapter 58 Chapter 59 Chapter 60 Chapter 61 Chapter 1 It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. “My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?” Mr. Bennet replied that he had not. “But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.” Mr. Bennet made no answer. “Do not you want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently. “_You_ want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing it.” This was invitation enough. “Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.” “What is his name?” “Bingley.” “Is he married or single?” “Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!” “How so? how can it affect them?” “My dear Mr. Bennet,” replied his wife, “how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.” “Is that his design in settling here?” “Design! nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he _may_ fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes.” “I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley might like you the best of the party.” “My dear, you flatter me. I certainly _have_ had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.” “In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of.” “But, my dear, you must indeed go and see Mr. Bingley when he comes into the neighbourhood.” “It is more than I engage for, I assure you.” “But consider your daughters. Only think what an establishment it would be for one of them. Sir William and Lady Lucas are determined to go, merely on that account, for in general, you know, they visit no newcomers. Indeed you must go, for it will be impossible for _us_ to visit him, if you do not.” “You are over scrupulous, surely. I dare say Mr. Bingley will be very glad to see you; and I will send a few lines by you to assure him of my hearty consent to his marrying whichever he chooses of the girls; though I must throw in a good word for my little Lizzy.” “I desire you will do no such thing. Lizzy is not a bit better than the others; and I am sure she is not half so handsome as Jane, nor half so good-humoured as Lydia. But you are always giving _her_ the preference.” “They have none of them much to recommend them,” replied he; “they are all silly and ignorant like other girls; but Lizzy has something more of quickness than her sisters.” “Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves.” “You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least.” “Ah, you do not know what I suffer.” “But I hope you will get over it, and live to see many young men of four thousand a year come into the neighbourhood.” “It will be no use to us, if twenty such should come, since you will not visit them.” “Depend upon it, my dear, that when there are twenty, I will visit them all.” Mr. Bennet was so odd a mixture of quick parts, sarcastic humour, reserve, and caprice, that the experience of three-and-twenty years had been insufficient to make his wife understand his character. _Her_ mind was less difficult to develop. She was a woman of mean understanding, little information, and uncertain temper. When she was discontented, she fancied herself nervous. The business of her life was to get her daughters married; its solace was visiting and news. Chapter 2 Mr. Bennet was among the earliest of those who waited on Mr. Bingley. He had always intended to visit him, though to the last always assuring his wife that he should not go; and till the evening after the visit was paid she had no knowledge of it. It was then disclosed in the following manner. Observing his second daughter employed in trimming a hat, he suddenly addressed her with, “I hope Mr. Bingley will like it, Lizzy.” “We are not in a way to know _what_ Mr. Bingley likes,” said her mother resentfully, “since we are not to visit.” “But you forget, mamma,” said Elizabeth, “that we shall meet him at the assemblies, and that Mrs. Long has promised to introduce him.” “I do not believe Mrs. Long will do any such thing. She has two nieces of her own. She is a selfish, hypocritical woman, and I have no opinion of her.” “No more have I,” said Mr. Bennet; “and I am glad to find that you do not depend on her serving you.” Mrs. Bennet deigned not to make any reply; but, unable to contain herself, began scolding one of her daughters. “Don’t keep coughing so, Kitty, for heaven’s sake! Have a little compassion on my nerves. You tear them to pieces.” “Kitty has no discretion in her coughs,” said her father; “she times them ill.” “I do not cough for my own amusement,” replied Kitty fretfully. “When is your next ball to be, Lizzy?” “To-morrow fortnight.” “Aye, so it is,” cried her mother, “and Mrs. Long does not come back till the day before; so, it will be impossible for her to introduce him, for she will not know him herself.” “Then, my dear, you may have the advantage of your friend, and introduce Mr. Bingley to _her_.” “Impossible, Mr. Bennet, impossible, when I am not acquainted with him myself; how can you be so teasing?” “I honour your circumspection. A fortnight’s acquaintance is certainly very little. One cannot know what a man really is by the end of a fortnight. But if _we_ do not venture somebody else will; and after all, Mrs. Long and her nieces must stand their chance; and, therefore, as she will think it an act of kindness, if you decline the office, I will take it on myself.” The girls stared at their father. Mrs. Bennet said only, “Nonsense, nonsense!” “What can be the meaning of that emphatic exclamation?” cried he. “Do you consider the forms of introduction, and the stress that is laid on them, as nonsense? I cannot quite agree with you _there_. What say you, Mary? for you are a young lady of deep reflection, I know, and read great books and make extracts.” Mary wished to say something very sensible, but knew not how. “While Mary is adjusting her ideas,” he continued, “let us return to Mr. Bingley.” “I am sick of Mr. Bingley,” cried his wife. “I am sorry to hear _that_; but why did not you tell me so before? If I had known as much this morning, I certainly would not have called on him. It is very unlucky; but as I have actually paid the visit, we cannot escape the acquaintance now.” The astonishment of the ladies was just what he wished; that of Mrs. Bennet perhaps surpassing the rest; though when the first tumult of joy was over, she began to declare that it was what she had expected all the while. “How good it was in you, my dear Mr. Bennet! But I knew I should persuade you at last. I was sure you loved your girls too well to neglect such an acquaintance. Well, how pleased I am! and it is such a good joke, too, that you should have gone this morning, and never said a word about it till now.” “Now, Kitty, you may cough as much as you choose,” said Mr. Bennet; and, as he spoke, he left the room, fatigued with the raptures of his wife. “What an excellent father you have, girls,” said she, when the door was shut. “I do not know how you will ever make him amends for his kindness; or me either, for that matter. At our time of life, it is not so pleasant, I can tell you, to be making new acquaintance every day; but for your sakes, we would do anything. Lydia, my love, though you _are_ the youngest, I dare say Mr. Bingley will dance with you at the next ball.” “Oh!” said Lydia stoutly, “I am not afraid; for though I _am_ the youngest, I’m the tallest.” The rest of the evening was spent in conjecturing how soon he would return Mr. Bennet’s visit, and determining when they should ask him to dinner. Chapter 3 Not all that Mrs. Bennet, however, with the assistance of her five daughters, could ask on the subject, was sufficient to draw from her husband any satisfactory description of Mr. Bingley. They attacked him in various ways; with barefaced questions, ingenious suppositions, and distant surmises; but he eluded the skill of them all; and they were at last obliged to accept the second-hand intelligence of their neighbour, Lady Lucas. Her report was highly favourable. Sir William had been delighted with him. He was quite young, wonderfully handsome, extremely agreeable, and, to crown the whole, he meant to be at the next assembly with a large party. Nothing could be more delightful! To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love; and very lively hopes of Mr. Bingley’s heart were entertained. “If I can but see one of my daughters happily settled at Netherfield,” said Mrs. Bennet to her husband, “and all the others equally well married, I shall have nothing to wish for.” In a few days Mr. Bingley returned Mr. Bennet’s visit, and sat about ten minutes with him in his library. He had entertained hopes of being admitted to a sight of the young ladies, of whose beauty he had heard much; but he saw only the father. The ladies were somewhat more fortunate, for they had the advantage of ascertaining from an upper window, that he wore a blue coat and rode a black horse. An invitation to dinner was soon afterwards dispatched; and already had Mrs. Bennet planned the courses that were to do credit to her housekeeping, when an answer arrived which deferred it all. Mr. Bingley was obliged to be in town the following day, and consequently unable to accept the honour of their invitation, etc. Mrs. Bennet was quite disconcerted. She could not imagine what business he could have in town so soon after his arrival in Hertfordshire; and she began to fear that he might be always flying about from one place to another, and never settled at Netherfield as he ought to be. Lady Lucas quieted her fears a little by starting the idea of his being gone to London only to get a large party for the ball; and a report soon followed that Mr. Bingley was to bring twelve ladies and seven gentlemen with him to the assembly. The girls grieved over such a number of ladies; but were comforted the day before the ball by hearing, that instead of twelve, he had brought only six with him from London, his five sisters and a cousin. And when the party entered the assembly room it consisted of only five altogether; Mr. Bingley, his two sisters, the husband of the eldest, and another young man. Mr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike; he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners. His sisters were fine women, with an air of decided fashion. His brother-in-law, Mr. Hurst, merely looked the gentleman; but his friend Mr. Darcy soon drew the attention of the room by his fine, tall person, handsome features, noble mien, and the report which was in general circulation within five minutes after his entrance, of his having ten thousand a year. The gentlemen pronounced him to be a fine figure of a man, the ladies declared he was much handsomer than Mr. Bingley, and he was looked at with great admiration for about half the evening, till his manners gave a disgust which turned the tide of his popularity; for he was discovered to be proud, to be above his company, and above being pleased; and not all his large estate in Derbyshire could then save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance, and being unworthy to be compared with his friend. Mr. Bingley had soon made himself acquainted with all the principal people in the room; he was lively and unreserved, danced every dance, was angry that the ball closed so early, and talked of giving one himself at Netherfield. Such amiable qualities must speak for themselves. What a contrast between him and his friend! Mr. Darcy danced only once with Mrs. Hurst and once with Miss Bingley, declined being introduced to any other lady, and spent the rest of the evening in walking about the room, speaking occasionally to one of his own party. His character was decided. He was the proudest, most disagreeable man in the world, and everybody hoped that he would never come there again. Amongst the most violent against him was Mrs. Bennet, whose dislike of his general behaviour was sharpened into particular resentment by his having slighted one of her daughters. Elizabeth Bennet had been obliged, by the scarcity of gentlemen, to sit down for two dances; and during part of that time, Mr. Darcy had been standing near enough for her to overhear a conversation between him and Mr. Bingley, who came from the dance for a few minutes, to press his friend to join it. “Come, Darcy,” said he, “I must have you dance. I hate to see you standing about by yourself in this stupid manner. You had much better dance.” “I certainly shall not. You know how I detest it, unless I am particularly acquainted with my partner. At such an assembly as this, it would be insupportable. Your sisters are engaged, and there is not another woman in the room whom it would not be a punishment to me to stand up with.” “I would not be so fastidious as you are,” cried Bingley, “for a kingdom! Upon my honour, I never met with so many pleasant girls in my life as I have this evening; and there are several of them you see uncommonly pretty.” “_You_ are dancing with the only handsome girl in the room,” said Mr. Darcy, looking at the eldest Miss Bennet. “Oh! she is the most beautiful creature I ever beheld! But there is one of her sisters sitting down just behind you, who is very pretty, and I dare say very agreeable. Do let me ask my partner to introduce you.” “Which do you mean?” and turning round, he looked for a moment at Elizabeth, till catching her eye, he withdrew his own and coldly said, “She is tolerable; but not handsome enough to tempt _me_; and I am in no humour at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men. You had better return to your partner and enjoy her smiles, for you are wasting your time with me.” Mr. Bingley followed his advice. Mr. Darcy walked off; and Elizabeth remained with no very cordial feelings towards him. She told the story, however, with great spirit among her friends; for she had a lively, playful disposition, which delighted in anything ridiculous. The evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole family. Mrs. Bennet had seen her eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield party. Mr. Bingley had danced with her twice, and she had been distinguished by his sisters. Jane was as much gratified by this as her mother could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane’s pleasure. Mary had heard herself mentioned to Miss Bingley as the most accomplished girl in the neighbourhood; and Catherine and Lydia had been fortunate enough to be never without partners, which was all that they had yet learnt to care for at a ball. They returned, therefore, in good spirits to Longbourn, the village where they lived, and of which they were the principal inhabitants. They found Mr. Bennet still up. With a book he was regardless of time; and on the present occasion he had a good deal of curiosity as to the event of an evening which had raised such splendid expectations. He had rather hoped that all his wife’s views on the stranger would be disappointed; but he soon found that he had a very different story to hear. “Oh, my dear Mr. Bennet,” as she entered the room, “we have had a most delightful evening, a most excellent ball. I wish you had been there. Jane was so admired, nothing could be like it. Everybody said how well she looked; and Mr. Bingley thought her quite beautiful, and danced with her twice. Only think of _that_, my dear; he actually danced with her twice; and she was the only creature in the room that he asked a second time. First of all, he asked Miss Lucas. I was so vexed to see him stand up with her; but, however, he did not admire her at all; indeed, nobody can, you know; and he seemed quite struck with Jane as she was going down the dance. So he enquired who she was, and got introduced, and asked her for the two next. Then, the two third he danced with Miss King, and the two fourth with Maria Lucas, and the two fifth with Jane again, and the two sixth with Lizzy, and the _Boulanger_—” “If he had had any compassion for _me_,” cried her husband impatiently, “he would not have danced half so much! For God’s sake, say no more of his partners. Oh that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!” “Oh! my dear,” continued Mrs. Bennet, “I am quite delighted with him. He is so excessively handsome! and his sisters are charming women. I never in my life saw anything more elegant than their dresses. I dare say the lace upon Mrs. Hurst’s gown—” Here she was interrupted again. Mr. Bennet protested against any description of finery. She was therefore obliged to seek another branch of the subject, and related, with much bitterness of spirit and some exaggeration, the shocking rudeness of Mr. Darcy. “But I can assure you,” she added, “that Lizzy does not lose much by not suiting _his_ fancy; for he is a most disagreeable, horrid man, not at all worth pleasing. So high and so conceited that there was no enduring him! He walked here, and he walked there, fancying himself so very great! Not handsome enough to dance with! I wish you had been there, my dear, to have given him one of your set-downs. I quite detest the man.” Chapter 4 When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him. “He is just what a young man ought to be,” said she, “sensible, good-humoured, lively; and I never saw such happy manners!—so much ease, with such perfect good breeding!” “He is also handsome,” replied Elizabeth, “which a young man ought likewise to be, if he possibly can. His character is thereby complete.” “I was very much flattered by his asking me to dance a second time. I did not expect such a compliment.” “Did not you? _I_ did for you. But that is one great difference between us. Compliments always take _you_ by surprise, and _me_ never. What could be more natural than his asking you again? He could not help seeing that you were about five times as pretty as every other woman in the room. No thanks to his gallantry for that. Well, he certainly is very agreeable, and I give you leave to like him. You have liked many a stupider person.” “Dear Lizzy!” “Oh! you are a great deal too apt, you know, to like people in general. You never see a fault in anybody. All the world are good and agreeable in your eyes. I never heard you speak ill of a human being in my life.” “I would wish not to be hasty in censuring any one; but I always speak what I think.” “I know you do; and it is _that_ which makes the wonder. With _your_ good sense, to be so honestly blind to the follies and nonsense of others! Affectation of candour is common enough;—one meets with it everywhere. But to be candid without ostentation or design—to take the good of everybody’s character and make it still better, and say nothing of the bad—belongs to you alone. And so, you like this man’s sisters, too, do you? Their manners are not equal to his.” “Certainly not; at first. But they are very pleasing women when you converse with them. Miss Bingley is to live with her brother, and keep his house; and I am much mistaken if we shall not find a very charming neighbour in her.” Elizabeth listened in silence, but was not convinced; their behaviour at the assembly had not been calculated to please in general; and with more quickness of observation and less pliancy of temper than her sister, and with a judgment too unassailed by any attention to herself, she was very little disposed to approve them. They were in fact very fine ladies; not deficient in good humour when they were pleased, nor in the power of being agreeable where they chose it; but proud and conceited. They were rather handsome, had been educated in one of the first private seminaries in town, had a fortune of twenty thousand pounds, were in the habit of spending more than they ought, and of associating with people of rank; and were therefore in every respect entitled to think well of themselves, and meanly of others. They were of a respectable family in the north of England; a circumstance more deeply impressed on their memories than that their brother’s fortune and their own had been acquired by trade. Mr. Bingley inherited property to the amount of nearly a hundred thousand pounds from his father, who had intended to purchase an estate, but did not live to do it. Mr. Bingley intended it likewise, and sometimes made choice of his county; but as he was now provided with a good house and the liberty of a manor, it was doubtful to many of those who best knew the easiness of his temper, whether he might not spend the remainder of his days at Netherfield, and leave the next generation to purchase. His sisters were very anxious for his having an estate of his own; but though he was now established only as a tenant, Miss Bingley was by no means unwilling to preside at his table, nor was Mrs. Hurst, who had married a man of more fashion than fortune, less disposed to consider his house as her home when it suited her. Mr. Bingley had not been of age two years, when he was tempted by an accidental recommendation to look at Netherfield House. He did look at it, and into it for half an hour, was pleased with the situation and the principal rooms, satisfied with what the owner said in its praise, and took it immediately. Between him and Darcy there was a very steady friendship, in spite of great opposition of character. Bingley was endeared to Darcy by the easiness, openness, and ductility of his temper, though no disposition could offer a greater contrast to his own, and though with his own he never appeared dissatisfied. On the strength of Darcy’s regard Bingley had the firmest reliance, and of his judgment the highest opinion. In understanding, Darcy was the superior. Bingley was by no means deficient, but Darcy was clever. He was at the same time haughty, reserved, and fastidious, and his manners, though well bred, were not inviting. In that respect his friend had greatly the advantage. Bingley was sure of being liked wherever he appeared, Darcy was continually giving offence. The manner in which they spoke of the Meryton assembly was sufficiently characteristic. Bingley had never met with pleasanter people or prettier girls in his life; everybody had been most kind and attentive to him; there had been no formality, no stiffness; he had soon felt acquainted with all the room; and as to Miss Bennet, he could not conceive an angel more beautiful. Darcy, on the contrary, had seen a collection of people in whom there was little beauty and no fashion, for none of whom he had felt the smallest interest, and from none received either attention or pleasure. Miss Bennet he acknowledged to be pretty, but she smiled too much. Mrs. Hurst and her sister allowed it to be so—but still they admired her and liked her, and pronounced her to be a sweet girl, and one whom they should not object to know more of. Miss Bennet was therefore established as a sweet girl, and their brother felt authorised by such commendation to think of her as he chose. Chapter 5 Within a short walk of Longbourn lived a family with whom the Bennets were particularly intimate. Sir William Lucas had been formerly in trade in Meryton, where he had made a tolerable fortune, and risen to the honour of knighthood by an address to the king during his mayoralty. The distinction had perhaps been felt too strongly. It had given him a disgust to his business and to his residence in a small market town; and, quitting them both, he had removed with his family to a house about a mile from Meryton, denominated from that period Lucas Lodge, where he could think with pleasure of his own importance, and, unshackled by business, occupy himself solely in being civil to all the world. For, though elated by his rank, it did not render him supercilious; on the contrary, he was all attention to everybody. By nature inoffensive, friendly, and obliging, his presentation at St. James’s had made him courteous. Lady Lucas was a very good kind of woman, not too clever to be a valuable neighbour to Mrs. Bennet. They had several children. The eldest of them, a sensible, intelligent young woman, about twenty-seven, was Elizabeth’s intimate friend. That the Miss Lucases and the Miss Bennets should meet to talk over a ball was absolutely necessary; and the morning after the assembly brought the former to Longbourn to hear and to communicate. “_You_ began the evening well, Charlotte,” said Mrs. Bennet with civil self-command to Miss Lucas. “_You_ were Mr. Bingley’s first choice.” “Yes; but he seemed to like his second better.” “Oh! you mean Jane, I suppose, because he danced with her twice. To be sure that _did_ seem as if he admired her—indeed I rather believe he _did_—I heard something about it—but I hardly know what—something about Mr. Robinson.” “Perhaps you mean what I overheard between him and Mr. Robinson; did not I mention it to you? Mr. Robinson’s asking him how he liked our Meryton assemblies, and whether he did not think there were a great many pretty women in the room, and _which_ he thought the prettiest? and his answering immediately to the last question—‘Oh! the eldest Miss Bennet, beyond a doubt, there cannot be two opinions on that point.’” “Upon my word! Well, that was very decided indeed—that does seem as if—but, however, it may all come to nothing, you know.” “_My_ overhearings were more to the purpose than _yours_, Eliza,” said Charlotte. “Mr. Darcy is not so well worth listening to as his friend, is he?—Poor Eliza!—to be only just _tolerable_.” “I beg you would not put it into Lizzy’s head to be vexed by his ill-treatment, for he is such a disagreeable man that it would be quite a misfortune to be liked by him. Mrs. Long told me last night that he sat close to her for half an hour without once opening his lips.” “Are you quite sure, ma’am?—is not there a little mistake?” said Jane. “I certainly saw Mr. Darcy speaking to her.” “Aye—because she asked him at last how he liked Netherfield, and he could not help answering her; but she said he seemed very angry at being spoke to.” “Miss Bingley told me,” said Jane, “that he never speaks much unless among his intimate acquaintance. With _them_ he is remarkably agreeable.” “I do not believe a word of it, my dear. If he had been so very agreeable, he would have talked to Mrs. Long. But I can guess how it was; everybody says that he is eat up with pride, and I dare say he had heard somehow that Mrs. Long does not keep a carriage, and had come to the ball in a hack chaise.” “I do not mind his not talking to Mrs. Long,” said Miss Lucas, “but I wish he had danced with Eliza.” “Another time, Lizzy,” said her mother, “I would not dance with _him_, if I were you.” “I believe, ma’am, I may safely promise you _never_ to dance with him.” “His pride,” said Miss Lucas, “does not offend _me_ so much as pride often does, because there is an excuse for it. One cannot wonder that so very fine a young man, with family, fortune, everything in his favour, should think highly of himself. If I may so express it, he has a _right_ to be proud.” “That is very true,” replied Elizabeth, “and I could easily forgive _his_ pride, if he had not mortified _mine_.” “Pride,” observed Mary, who piqued herself upon the solidity of her reflections, “is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.” “If I were as rich as Mr. Darcy,” cried a young Lucas, who came with his sisters, “I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine every day.” “Then you would drink a great deal more than you ought,” said Mrs. Bennet; “and if I were to see you at it, I should take away your bottle directly.” The boy protested that she should not; she continued to declare that she would, and the argument ended only with the visit. Chapter 6 The ladies of Longbourn soon waited on those of Netherfield. The visit was returned in due form. Miss Bennet’s pleasing manners grew on the goodwill of Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and though the mother was found to be intolerable, and the younger sisters not worth speaking to, a wish of being better acquainted with _them_ was expressed towards the two eldest. By Jane this attention was received with the greatest pleasure; but Elizabeth still saw superciliousness in their treatment of everybody, hardly excepting even her sister, and could not like them; though their kindness to Jane, such as it was, had a value as arising in all probability from the influence of their brother’s admiration. It was generally evident whenever they met, that he _did_ admire her; and to _her_ it was equally evident that Jane was yielding to the preference which she had begun to entertain for him from the first, and was in a way to be very much in love; but she considered with pleasure that it was not likely to be discovered by the world in general, since Jane united with great strength of feeling, a composure of temper and a uniform cheerfulness of manner which would guard her from the suspicions of the impertinent. She mentioned this to her friend Miss Lucas. “It may perhaps be pleasant,” replied Charlotte, “to be able to impose on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost every attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all _begin_ freely—a slight preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have heart enough to be really in love without encouragement. In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show _more_ affection than she feels. Bingley likes your sister undoubtedly; but he may never do more than like her, if she does not help him on.” “But she does help him on, as much as her nature will allow. If _I_ can perceive her regard for him, he must be a simpleton indeed not to discover it too.” “Remember, Eliza, that he does not know Jane’s disposition as you do.” “But if a woman is partial to a man, and does not endeavour to conceal it, he must find it out.” “Perhaps he must, if he sees enough of her. But though Bingley and Jane meet tolerably often, it is never for many hours together; and as they always see each other in large mixed parties, it is impossible that every moment should be employed in conversing together. Jane should therefore make the most of every half-hour in which she can command his attention. When she is secure of him, there will be leisure for falling in love as much as she chooses.” “Your plan is a good one,” replied Elizabeth, “where nothing is in question but the desire of being well married; and if I were determined to get a rich husband, or any husband, I dare say I should adopt it. But these are not Jane’s feelings; she is not acting by design. As yet, she cannot even be certain of the degree of her own regard, nor of its reasonableness. She has known him only a fortnight. She danced four dances with him at Meryton; she saw him one morning at his own house, and has since dined in company with him four times. This is not quite enough to make her understand his character.” “Not as you represent it. Had she merely _dined_ with him, she might only have discovered whether he had a good appetite; but you must remember that four evenings have been also spent together—and four evenings may do a great deal.” “Yes; these four evenings have enabled them to ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce; but with respect to any other leading characteristic, I do not imagine that much has been unfolded.” “Well,” said Charlotte, “I wish Jane success with all my heart; and if she were married to him to-morrow, I should think she had as good a chance of happiness as if she were to be studying his character for a twelvemonth. Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance. If the dispositions of the parties are ever so well known to each other, or ever so similar beforehand, it does not advance their felicity in the least. They always continue to grow sufficiently unlike afterwards to have their share of vexation; and it is better to know as little as possible of the defects of the person with whom you are to pass your life.” “You make me laugh, Charlotte; but it is not sound. You know it is not sound, and that you would never act in this way yourself.” Occupied in observing Mr. Bingley’s attentions to her sister, Elizabeth was far from suspecting that she was herself becoming an object of some interest in the eyes of his friend. Mr. Darcy had at first scarcely allowed her to be pretty; he had looked at her without admiration at the ball; and when they next met, he looked at her only to criticise. But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying. Though he had detected with a critical eye more than one failure of perfect symmetry in her form, he was forced to acknowledge her figure to be light and pleasing; and in spite of his asserting that her manners were not those of the fashionable world, he was caught by their easy playfulness. Of this she was perfectly unaware;—to her he was only the man who made himself agreeable nowhere, and who had not thought her handsome enough to dance with. He began to wish to know more of her, and as a step towards conversing with her himself, attended to her conversation with others. His doing so drew her notice. It was at Sir William Lucas’s, where a large party were assembled. “What does Mr. Darcy mean,” said she to Charlotte, “by listening to my conversation with Colonel Forster?” “That is a question which Mr. Darcy only can answer.” “But if he does it any more I shall certainly let him know that I see what he is about. He has a very satirical eye, and if I do not begin by being impertinent myself, I shall soon grow afraid of him.” On his approaching them soon afterwards, though without seeming to have any intention of speaking, Miss Lucas defied her friend to mention such a subject to him, which immediately provoking Elizabeth to do it, she turned to him and said, “Did not you think, Mr. Darcy, that I expressed myself uncommonly well just now, when I was teasing Colonel Forster to give us a ball at Meryton?” “With great energy; but it is a subject which always makes a lady energetic.” “You are severe on us.” “It will be _her_ turn soon to be teased,” said Miss Lucas. “I am going to open the instrument, Eliza, and you know what follows.” “You are a very strange creature by way of a friend!—always wanting me to play and sing before anybody and everybody! If my vanity had taken a musical turn, you would have been invaluable; but as it is, I would really rather not sit down before those who must be in the habit of hearing the very best performers.” On Miss Lucas’s persevering, however, she added, “Very well; if it must be so, it must.” And gravely glancing at Mr. Darcy, “There is a fine old saying, which everybody here is of course familiar with—‘Keep your breath to cool your porridge,’—and I shall keep mine to swell my song.” Her performance was pleasing, though by no means capital. After a song or two, and before she could reply to the entreaties of several that she would sing again, she was eagerly succeeded at the instrument by her sister Mary, who having, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked hard for knowledge and accomplishments, was always impatient for display. Mary had neither genius nor taste; and though vanity had given her application, it had given her likewise a pedantic air and conceited manner, which would have injured a higher degree of excellence than she had reached. Elizabeth, easy and unaffected, had been listened to with much more pleasure, though not playing half so well; and Mary, at the end of a long concerto, was glad to purchase praise and gratitude by Scotch and Irish airs, at the request of her younger sisters, who with some of the Lucases, and two or three officers, joined eagerly in dancing at one end of the room. Mr. Darcy stood near them in silent indignation at such a mode of passing the evening, to the exclusion of all conversation, and was too much engrossed by his own thoughts to perceive that Sir William Lucas was his neighbour, till Sir William thus began. “What a charming amusement for young people this is, Mr. Darcy! There is nothing like dancing after all. I consider it as one of the first refinements of polished societies.” “Certainly, sir; and it has the advantage also of being in vogue amongst the less polished societies of the world.—Every savage can dance.” Sir William only smiled. “Your friend performs delightfully,” he continued after a pause, on seeing Bingley join the group; “and I doubt not that you are an adept in the science yourself, Mr. Darcy.” “You saw me dance at Meryton, I believe, sir.” “Yes, indeed, and received no inconsiderable pleasure from the sight. Do you often dance at St. James’s?” “Never, sir.” “Do you not think it would be a proper compliment to the place?” “It is a compliment which I never pay to any place if I can avoid it.” “You have a house in town, I conclude?” Mr. Darcy bowed. “I had once some thoughts of fixing in town myself—for I am fond of superior society; but I did not feel quite certain that the air of London would agree with Lady Lucas.” He paused in hopes of an answer; but his companion was not disposed to make any; and Elizabeth at that instant moving towards them, he was struck with the notion of doing a very gallant thing, and called out to her, “My dear Miss Eliza, why are not you dancing? Mr. Darcy, you must allow me to present this young lady to you as a very desirable partner. You cannot refuse to dance, I am sure, when so much beauty is before you.” And, taking her hand, he would have given it to Mr. Darcy, who, though extremely surprised, was not unwilling to receive it, when she instantly drew back, and said with some discomposure to Sir William, “Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner.” Mr. Darcy, with grave propriety, requested to be allowed the honour of her hand, but in vain. Elizabeth was determined; nor did Sir William at all shake her purpose by his attempt at persuasion. “You excel so much in the dance, Miss Eliza, that it is cruel to deny me the happiness of seeing you; and though this gentleman dislikes the amusement in general, he can have no objection, I am sure, to oblige us for one half-hour.” “Mr. Darcy is all politeness,” said Elizabeth, smiling. “He is, indeed—but, considering the inducement, my dear Miss Eliza, we cannot wonder at his complaisance; for who would object to such a partner?” Elizabeth looked archly, and turned away. Her resistance had not injured her with the gentleman, and he was thinking of her with some complacency, when thus accosted by Miss Bingley, “I can guess the subject of your reverie.” “I should imagine not.” “You are considering how insupportable it would be to pass many evenings in this manner—in such society; and indeed I am quite of your opinion. I was never more annoyed! The insipidity, and yet the noise; the nothingness, and yet the self-importance of all these people! What would I give to hear your strictures on them!” “Your conjecture is totally wrong, I assure you. My mind was more agreeably engaged. I have been meditating on the very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.” Miss Bingley immediately fixed her eyes on his face, and desired he would tell her what lady had the credit of inspiring such reflections. Mr. Darcy replied with great intrepidity, “Miss Elizabeth Bennet.” “Miss Elizabeth Bennet!” repeated Miss Bingley. “I am all astonishment. How long has she been such a favourite?—and pray when am I to wish you joy?” “That is exactly the question which I expected you to ask. A lady’s imagination is very rapid; it jumps from admiration to love, from love to matrimony, in a moment. I knew you would be wishing me joy.” “Nay, if you are so serious about it, I shall consider the matter as absolutely settled. You will have a charming mother-in-law, indeed, and of course she will be always at Pemberley with you.” He listened to her with perfect indifference, while she chose to entertain herself in this manner; and as his composure convinced her that all was safe, her wit flowed long. Chapter 7 Mr. Bennet’s property consisted almost entirely in an estate of two thousand a year, which, unfortunately for his daughters, was entailed, in default of heirs male, on a distant relation; and their mother’s fortune, though ample for her situation in life, could but ill supply the deficiency of his. Her father had been an attorney in Meryton, and had left her four thousand pounds. She had a sister married to a Mr. Phillips, who had been a clerk to their father, and succeeded him in the business, and a brother settled in London in a respectable line of trade. The village of Longbourn was only one mile from Meryton; a most convenient distance for the young ladies, who were usually tempted thither three or four times a week, to pay their duty to their aunt and to a milliner’s shop just over the way. The two youngest of the family, Catherine and Lydia, were particularly frequent in these attentions; their minds were more vacant than their sisters’, and when nothing better offered, a walk to Meryton was necessary to amuse their morning hours and furnish conversation for the evening; and however bare of news the country in general might be, they always contrived to learn some from their aunt. At present, indeed, they were well supplied both with news and happiness by the recent arrival of a militia regiment in the neighbourhood; it was to remain the whole winter, and Meryton was the headquarters. Their visits to Mrs. Philips were now productive of the most interesting intelligence. Every day added something to their knowledge of the officers’ names and connections. Their lodgings were not long a secret, and at length they began to know the officers themselves. Mr. Philips visited them all, and this opened to his nieces a source of felicity unknown before. They could talk of nothing but officers; and Mr. Bingley’s large fortune, the mention of which gave animation to their mother, was worthless in their eyes when opposed to the regimentals of an ensign. After listening one morning to their effusions on this subject, Mr. Bennet coolly observed, “From all that I can collect by your manner of talking, you must be two of the silliest girls in the country. I have suspected it some time, but I am now convinced.” Catherine was disconcerted, and made no answer; but Lydia, with perfect indifference, continued to express her admiration of Captain Carter, and her hope of seeing him in the course of the day, as he was going the next morning to London. “I am astonished, my dear,” said Mrs. Bennet, “that you should be so ready to think your own children silly. If I wished to think slightingly of anybody’s children, it should not be of my own, however.” “If my children are silly, I must hope to be always sensible of it.” “Yes—but as it happens, they are all of them very clever.” “This is the only point, I flatter myself, on which we do not agree. I had hoped that our sentiments coincided in every particular, but I must so far differ from you as to think our two youngest daughters uncommonly foolish.” “My dear Mr. Bennet, you must not expect such girls to have the sense of their father and mother. When they get to our age, I dare say they will not think about officers any more than we do. I remember the time when I liked a red coat myself very well—and, indeed, so I do still at my heart; and if a smart young colonel, with five or six thousand a year, should want one of my girls, I shall not say nay to him; and I thought Colonel Forster looked very becoming the other night at Sir William’s in his regimentals.” “Mamma,” cried Lydia, “my aunt says that Colonel Forster and Captain Carter do not go so often to Miss Watson’s as they did when they first came; she sees them now very often standing in Clarke’s library.” Mrs. Bennet was prevented replying by the entrance of the footman with a note for Miss Bennet; it came from Netherfield, and the servant waited for an answer. Mrs. Bennet’s eyes sparkled with pleasure, and she was eagerly calling out, while her daughter read, “Well, Jane, who is it from? What is it about? What does he say? Well, Jane, make haste and tell us; make haste, my love.” “It is from Miss Bingley,” said Jane, and then read it aloud. “MY DEAR FRIEND,— “If you are not so compassionate as to dine to-day with Louisa and me, we shall be in danger of hating each other for the rest of our lives, for a whole day’s _tête-à-tête_ between two women can never end without a quarrel. Come as soon as you can on the receipt of this. My brother and the gentlemen are to dine with the officers.—Yours ever, “CAROLINE BINGLEY” “With the officers!” cried Lydia. “I wonder my aunt did not tell us of _that_.” “Dining out,” said Mrs. Bennet, “that is very unlucky.” “Can I have the carriage?” said Jane. “No, my dear, you had better go on horseback, because it seems likely to rain; and then you must stay all night.” “That would be a good scheme,” said Elizabeth, “if you were sure that they would not offer to send her home.” “Oh! but the gentlemen will have Mr. Bingley’s chaise to go to Meryton; and the Hursts have no horses to theirs.” “I had much rather go in the coach.” “But, my dear, your father cannot spare the horses, I am sure. They are wanted in the farm, Mr. Bennet, are not they?” “They are wanted in the farm much oftener than I can get them.” “But if you have got them to-day,” said Elizabeth, “my mother’s purpose will be answered.” She did at last extort from her father an acknowledgment that the horses were engaged. Jane was therefore obliged to go on horseback, and her mother attended her to the door with many cheerful prognostics of a bad day. Her hopes were answered; Jane had not been gone long before it rained hard. Her sisters were uneasy for her, but her mother was delighted. The rain continued the whole evening without intermission; Jane certainly could not come back. “This was a lucky idea of mine, indeed!” said Mrs. Bennet, more than once, as if the credit of making it rain were all her own. Till the next morning, however, she was not aware of all the felicity of her contrivance. Breakfast was scarcely over when a servant from Netherfield brought the following note for Elizabeth: “MY DEAREST LIZZY,— “I find myself very unwell this morning, which, I suppose, is to be imputed to my getting wet through yesterday. My kind friends will not hear of my returning home till I am better. They insist also on my seeing Mr. Jones—therefore do not be alarmed if you should hear of his having been to me—and, excepting a sore throat and headache, there is not much the matter with me.—Yours, &c.” “Well, my dear,” said Mr. Bennet, when Elizabeth had read the note aloud, “if your daughter should have a dangerous fit of illness—if she should die, it would be a comfort to know that it was all in pursuit of Mr. Bingley, and under your orders.” “Oh! I am not at all afraid of her dying. People do not die of little trifling colds. She will be taken good care of. As long as she stays there, it is all very well. I would go and see her if I could have the carriage.” Elizabeth, feeling really anxious, was determined to go to her, though the carriage was not to be had; and as she was no horsewoman, walking was her only alternative. She declared her resolution. “How can you be so silly,” cried her mother, “as to think of such a thing, in all this dirt! You will not be fit to be seen when you get there.” “I shall be very fit to see Jane—which is all I want.” “Is this a hint to me, Lizzy,” said her father, “to send for the horses?” “No, indeed. I do not wish to avoid the walk. The distance is nothing, when one has a motive; only three miles. I shall be back by dinner.” “I admire the activity of your benevolence,” observed Mary, “but every impulse of feeling should be guided by reason; and, in my opinion, exertion should always be in proportion to what is required.” “We will go as far as Meryton with you,” said Catherine and Lydia. Elizabeth accepted their company, and the three young ladies set off together. “If we make haste,” said Lydia, as they walked along, “perhaps we may see something of Captain Carter before he goes.” In Meryton they parted; the two youngest repaired to the lodgings of one of the officers’ wives, and Elizabeth continued her walk alone, crossing field after field at a quick pace, jumping over stiles and springing over puddles with impatient activity, and finding herself at last within view of the house, with weary ankles, dirty stockings, and a face glowing with the warmth of exercise. She was shown into the breakfast-parlour, where all but Jane were assembled, and where her appearance created a great deal of surprise. That she should have walked three miles so early in the day, in such dirty weather, and by herself, was almost incredible to Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley; and Elizabeth was convinced that they held her in contempt for it. She was received, however, very politely by them; and in their brother’s manners there was something better than politeness; there was good humour and kindness. Mr. Darcy said very little, and Mr. Hurst nothing at all. The former was divided between admiration of the brilliancy which exercise had given to her complexion, and doubt as to the occasion’s justifying her coming so far alone. The latter was thinking only of his breakfast. Her enquiries after her sister were not very favourably answered. Miss Bennet had slept ill, and though up, was very feverish, and not well enough to leave her room. Elizabeth was glad to be taken to her immediately; and Jane, who had only been withheld by the fear of giving alarm or inconvenience, from expressing in her note how much she longed for such a visit, was delighted at her entrance. She was not equal, however, to much conversation, and when Miss Bingley left them together, could attempt little beside expressions of gratitude for the extraordinary kindness she was treated with. Elizabeth silently attended her. When breakfast was over, they were joined by the sisters; and Elizabeth began to like them herself, when she saw how much affection and solicitude they showed for Jane. The apothecary came, and having examined his patient, said, as might be supposed, that she had caught a violent cold, and that they must endeavour to get the better of it; advised her to return to bed, and promised her some draughts. The advice was followed readily, for the feverish symptoms increased, and her head ached acutely. Elizabeth did not quit her room for a moment, nor were the other ladies often absent; the gentlemen being out, they had in fact nothing to do elsewhere. When the clock struck three, Elizabeth felt that she must go, and very unwillingly said so. Miss Bingley offered her the carriage, and she only wanted a little pressing to accept it, when Jane testified such concern in parting with her, that Miss Bingley was obliged to convert the offer of the chaise to an invitation to remain at Netherfield for the present. Elizabeth most thankfully consented, and a servant was dispatched to Longbourn to acquaint the family with her stay, and bring back a supply of clothes. Chapter 8 At five o’clock the two ladies retired to dress, and at half-past six Elizabeth was summoned to dinner. To the civil enquiries which then poured in, and amongst which she had the pleasure of distinguishing the much superior solicitude of Mr. Bingley’s, she could not make a very favourable answer. Jane was by no means better. The sisters, on hearing this, repeated three or four times how much they were grieved, how shocking it was to have a bad cold, and how excessively they disliked being ill themselves; and then thought no more of the matter: and their indifference towards Jane when not immediately before them, restored Elizabeth to the enjoyment of all her original dislike. Their brother, indeed, was the only one of the party whom she could regard with any complacency. His anxiety for Jane was evident, and his attentions to herself most pleasing, and they prevented her feeling herself so much an intruder as she believed she was considered by the others. She had very little notice from any but him. Miss Bingley was engrossed by Mr. Darcy, her sister scarcely less so; and as for Mr. Hurst, by whom Elizabeth sat, he was an indolent man, who lived only to eat, drink, and play at cards; who, when he found her prefer a plain dish to a ragout, had nothing to say to her. When dinner was over, she returned directly to Jane, and Miss Bingley began abusing her as soon as she was out of the room. Her manners were pronounced to be very bad indeed, a mixture of pride and impertinence; she had no conversation, no style, no taste, no beauty. Mrs. Hurst thought the same, and added, “She has nothing, in short, to recommend her, but being an excellent walker. I shall never forget her appearance this morning. She really looked almost wild.” “She did, indeed, Louisa. I could hardly keep my countenance. Very nonsensical to come at all! Why must _she_ be scampering about the country, because her sister had a cold? Her hair so untidy, so blowsy!” “Yes, and her petticoat; I hope you saw her petticoat, six inches deep in mud, I am absolutely certain; and the gown which had been let down to hide it not doing its office.” “Your picture may be very exact, Louisa,” said Bingley; “but this was all lost upon me. I thought Miss Elizabeth Bennet looked remarkably well when she came into the room this morning. Her dirty petticoat quite escaped my notice.” “_You_ observed it, Mr. Darcy, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley; “and I am inclined to think that you would not wish to see _your sister_ make such an exhibition.” “Certainly not.” “To walk three miles, or four miles, or five miles, or whatever it is, above her ankles in dirt, and alone, quite alone! what could she mean by it? It seems to me to show an abominable sort of conceited independence, a most country-town indifference to decorum.” “It shows an affection for her sister that is very pleasing,” said Bingley. “I am afraid, Mr. Darcy,” observed Miss Bingley, in a half whisper, “that this adventure has rather affected your admiration of her fine eyes.” “Not at all,” he replied; “they were brightened by the exercise.” A short pause followed this speech, and Mrs. Hurst began again. “I have an excessive regard for Miss Jane Bennet, she is really a very sweet girl, and I wish with all my heart she were well settled. But with such a father and mother, and such low connections, I am afraid there is no chance of it.” “I think I have heard you say that their uncle is an attorney in Meryton.” “Yes; and they have another, who lives somewhere near Cheapside.” “That is capital,” added her sister, and they both laughed heartily. “If they had uncles enough to fill _all_ Cheapside,” cried Bingley, “it would not make them one jot less agreeable.” “But it must very materially lessen their chance of marrying men of any consideration in the world,” replied Darcy. To this speech Bingley made no answer; but his sisters gave it their hearty assent, and indulged their mirth for some time at the expense of their dear friend’s vulgar relations. With a renewal of tenderness, however, they repaired to her room on leaving the dining-parlour, and sat with her till summoned to coffee. She was still very poorly, and Elizabeth would not quit her at all, till late in the evening, when she had the comfort of seeing her asleep, and when it appeared to her rather right than pleasant that she should go downstairs herself. On entering the drawing-room she found the whole party at loo, and was immediately invited to join them; but suspecting them to be playing high she declined it, and making her sister the excuse, said she would amuse herself for the short time she could stay below, with a book. Mr. Hurst looked at her with astonishment. “Do you prefer reading to cards?” said he; “that is rather singular.” “Miss Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, “despises cards. She is a great reader, and has no pleasure in anything else.” “I deserve neither such praise nor such censure,” cried Elizabeth; “I am _not_ a great reader, and I have pleasure in many things.” “In nursing your sister I am sure you have pleasure,” said Bingley; “and I hope it will soon be increased by seeing her quite well.” Elizabeth thanked him from her heart, and then walked towards a table where a few books were lying. He immediately offered to fetch her others; all that his library afforded. “And I wish my collection were larger for your benefit and my own credit; but I am an idle fellow, and though I have not many, I have more than I ever looked into.” Elizabeth assured him that she could suit herself perfectly with those in the room. “I am astonished,” said Miss Bingley, “that my father should have left so small a collection of books. What a delightful library you have at Pemberley, Mr. Darcy!” “It ought to be good,” he replied, “it has been the work of many generations.” “And then you have added so much to it yourself, you are always buying books.” “I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these.” “Neglect! I am sure you neglect nothing that can add to the beauties of that noble place. Charles, when you build _your_ house, I wish it may be half as delightful as Pemberley.” “I wish it may.” “But I would really advise you to make your purchase in that neighbourhood, and take Pemberley for a kind of model. There is not a finer county in England than Derbyshire.” “With all my heart; I will buy Pemberley itself if Darcy will sell it.” “I am talking of possibilities, Charles.” “Upon my word, Caroline, I should think it more possible to get Pemberley by purchase than by imitation.” Elizabeth was so much caught by what passed, as to leave her very little attention for her book; and soon laying it wholly aside, she drew near the card-table, and stationed herself between Mr. Bingley and his eldest sister, to observe the game. “Is Miss Darcy much grown since the spring?” said Miss Bingley; “will she be as tall as I am?” “I think she will. She is now about Miss Elizabeth Bennet’s height, or rather taller.” “How I long to see her again! I never met with anybody who delighted me so much. Such a countenance, such manners!—and so extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite.” “It is amazing to me,” said Bingley, “how young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.” “All young ladies accomplished! My dear Charles, what do you mean?” “Yes, all of them, I think. They all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this, and I am sure I never heard a young lady spoken of for the first time, without being informed that she was very accomplished.” “Your list of the common extent of accomplishments,” said Darcy, “has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half a dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished.” “Nor I, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley. “Then,” observed Elizabeth, “you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman.” “Yes; I do comprehend a great deal in it.” “Oh! certainly,” cried his faithful assistant, “no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved.” “All this she must possess,” added Darcy, “and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading.” “I am no longer surprised at your knowing _only_ six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing _any_.” “Are you so severe upon your own sex as to doubt the possibility of all this?” “_I_ never saw such a woman. _I_ never saw such capacity, and taste, and application, and elegance, as you describe, united.” Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley both cried out against the injustice of her implied doubt, and were both protesting that they knew many women who answered this description, when Mr. Hurst called them to order, with bitter complaints of their inattention to what was going forward. As all conversation was thereby at an end, Elizabeth soon afterwards left the room. “Eliza Bennet,” said Miss Bingley, when the door was closed on her, “is one of those young ladies who seek to recommend themselves to the other sex by undervaluing their own; and with many men, I dare say, it succeeds. But, in my opinion, it is a paltry device, a very mean art.” “Undoubtedly,” replied Darcy, to whom this remark was chiefly addressed, “there is meanness in _all_ the arts which ladies sometimes condescend to employ for captivation. Whatever bears affinity to cunning is despicable.” Miss Bingley was not so entirely satisfied with this reply as to continue the subject. Elizabeth joined them again only to say that her sister was worse, and that she could not leave her. Bingley urged Mr. Jones’s being sent for immediately; while his sisters, convinced that no country advice could be of any service, recommended an express to town for one of the most eminent physicians. This she would not hear of; but she was not so unwilling to comply with their brother’s proposal; and it was settled that Mr. Jones should be sent for early in the morning, if Miss Bennet were not decidedly better. Bingley was quite uncomfortable; his sisters declared that they were miserable. They solaced their wretchedness, however, by duets after supper, while he could find no better relief to his feelings than by giving his housekeeper directions that every possible attention might be paid to the sick lady and her sister. Chapter 9 Elizabeth passed the chief of the night in her sister’s room, and in the morning had the pleasure of being able to send a tolerable answer to the enquiries which she very early received from Mr. Bingley by a housemaid, and some time afterwards from the two elegant ladies who waited on his sisters. In spite of this amendment, however, she requested to have a note sent to Longbourn, desiring her mother to visit Jane, and form her own judgment of her situation. The note was immediately dispatched, and its contents as quickly complied with. Mrs. Bennet, accompanied by her two youngest girls, reached Netherfield soon after the family breakfast. Had she found Jane in any apparent danger, Mrs. Bennet would have been very miserable; but being satisfied on seeing her that her illness was not alarming, she had no wish of her recovering immediately, as her restoration to health would probably remove her from Netherfield. She would not listen, therefore, to her daughter’s proposal of being carried home; neither did the apothecary, who arrived about the same time, think it at all advisable. After sitting a little while with Jane, on Miss Bingley’s appearance and invitation, the mother and three daughters all attended her into the breakfast parlour. Bingley met them with hopes that Mrs. Bennet had not found Miss Bennet worse than she expected. “Indeed I have, sir,” was her answer. “She is a great deal too ill to be moved. Mr. Jones says we must not think of moving her. We must trespass a little longer on your kindness.” “Removed!” cried Bingley. “It must not be thought of. My sister, I am sure, will not hear of her removal.” “You may depend upon it, Madam,” said Miss Bingley, with cold civility, “that Miss Bennet shall receive every possible attention while she remains with us.” Mrs. Bennet was profuse in her acknowledgments. “I am sure,” she added, “if it was not for such good friends I do not know what would become of her, for she is very ill indeed, and suffers a vast deal, though with the greatest patience in the world, which is always the way with her, for she has, without exception, the sweetest temper I ever met with. I often tell my other girls they are nothing to _her_. You have a sweet room here, Mr. Bingley, and a charming prospect over that gravel walk. I do not know a place in the country that is equal to Netherfield. You will not think of quitting it in a hurry, I hope, though you have but a short lease.” “Whatever I do is done in a hurry,” replied he; “and therefore if I should resolve to quit Netherfield, I should probably be off in five minutes. At present, however, I consider myself as quite fixed here.” “That is exactly what I should have supposed of you,” said Elizabeth. “You begin to comprehend me, do you?” cried he, turning towards her. “Oh! yes—I understand you perfectly.” “I wish I might take this for a compliment; but to be so easily seen through I am afraid is pitiful.” “That is as it happens. It does not necessarily follow that a deep, intricate character is more or less estimable than such a one as yours.” “Lizzy,” cried her mother, “remember where you are, and do not run on in the wild manner that you are suffered to do at home.” “I did not know before,” continued Bingley immediately, “that you were a studier of character. It must be an amusing study.” “Yes; but intricate characters are the _most_ amusing. They have at least that advantage.” “The country,” said Darcy, “can in general supply but few subjects for such a study. In a country neighbourhood you move in a very confined and unvarying society.” “But people themselves alter so much, that there is something new to be observed in them for ever.” “Yes, indeed,” cried Mrs. Bennet, offended by his manner of mentioning a country neighbourhood. “I assure you there is quite as much of _that_ going on in the country as in town.” Everybody was surprised; and Darcy, after looking at her for a moment, turned silently away. Mrs. Bennet, who fancied she had gained a complete victory over him, continued her triumph. “I cannot see that London has any great advantage over the country, for my part, except the shops and public places. The country is a vast deal pleasanter, is not it, Mr. Bingley?” “When I am in the country,” he replied, “I never wish to leave it; and when I am in town it is pretty much the same. They have each their advantages, and I can be equally happy in either.” “Aye—that is because you have the right disposition. But that gentleman,” looking at Darcy, “seemed to think the country was nothing at all.” “Indeed, Mama, you are mistaken,” said Elizabeth, blushing for her mother. “You quite mistook Mr. Darcy. He only meant that there was not such a variety of people to be met with in the country as in town, which you must acknowledge to be true.” “Certainly, my dear, nobody said there were; but as to not meeting with many people in this neighbourhood, I believe there are few neighbourhoods larger. I know we dine with four-and-twenty families.” Nothing but concern for Elizabeth could enable Bingley to keep his countenance. His sister was less delicate, and directed her eye towards Mr. Darcy with a very expressive smile. Elizabeth, for the sake of saying something that might turn her mother’s thoughts, now asked her if Charlotte Lucas had been at Longbourn since _her_ coming away. “Yes, she called yesterday with her father. What an agreeable man Sir William is, Mr. Bingley—is not he? so much the man of fashion! So genteel and so easy! He has always something to say to everybody. _That_ is my idea of good breeding; and those persons who fancy themselves very important and never open their mouths, quite mistake the matter.” “Did Charlotte dine with you?” “No, she would go home. I fancy she was wanted about the mince-pies. For my part, Mr. Bingley, _I_ always keep servants that can do their own work; _my_ daughters are brought up differently. But everybody is to judge for themselves, and the Lucases are a very good sort of girls, I assure you. It is a pity they are not handsome! Not that _I_ think Charlotte so _very_ plain—but then she is our particular friend.” “She seems a very pleasant young woman,” said Bingley. “Oh! dear, yes; but you must own she is very plain. Lady Lucas herself has often said so, and envied me Jane’s beauty. I do not like to boast of my own child, but to be sure, Jane—one does not often see anybody better looking. It is what everybody says. I do not trust my own partiality. When she was only fifteen, there was a gentleman at my brother Gardiner’s in town so much in love with her, that my sister-in-law was sure he would make her an offer before we came away. But, however, he did not. Perhaps he thought her too young. However, he wrote some verses on her, and very pretty they were.” “And so ended his affection,” said Elizabeth impatiently. “There has been many a one, I fancy, overcome in the same way. I wonder who first discovered the efficacy of poetry in driving away love!” “I have been used to consider poetry as the _food_ of love,” said Darcy. “Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.” Darcy only smiled; and the general pause which ensued made Elizabeth tremble lest her mother should be exposing herself again. She longed to speak, but could think of nothing to say; and after a short silence Mrs. Bennet began repeating her thanks to Mr. Bingley for his kindness to Jane, with an apology for troubling him also with Lizzy. Mr. Bingley was unaffectedly civil in his answer, and forced his younger sister to be civil also, and say what the occasion required. She performed her part indeed without much graciousness, but Mrs. Bennet was satisfied, and soon afterwards ordered her carriage. Upon this signal, the youngest of her daughters put herself forward. The two girls had been whispering to each other during the whole visit, and the result of it was, that the youngest should tax Mr. Bingley with having promised on his first coming into the country to give a ball at Netherfield. Lydia was a stout, well-grown girl of fifteen, with a fine complexion and good-humoured countenance; a favourite with her mother, whose affection had brought her into public at an early age. She had high animal spirits, and a sort of natural self-consequence, which the attentions of the officers, to whom her uncle’s good dinners and her own easy manners recommended her, had increased into assurance. She was very equal, therefore, to address Mr. Bingley on the subject of the ball, and abruptly reminded him of his promise; adding, that it would be the most shameful thing in the world if he did not keep it. His answer to this sudden attack was delightful to their mother’s ear. “I am perfectly ready, I assure you, to keep my engagement; and when your sister is recovered, you shall, if you please, name the very day of the ball. But you would not wish to be dancing while she is ill.” Lydia declared herself satisfied. “Oh! yes—it would be much better to wait till Jane was well, and by that time most likely Captain Carter would be at Meryton again. And when you have given _your_ ball,” she added, “I shall insist on their giving one also. I shall tell Colonel Forster it will be quite a shame if he does not.” Mrs. Bennet and her daughters then departed, and Elizabeth returned instantly to Jane, leaving her own and her relations’ behaviour to the remarks of the two ladies and Mr. Darcy; the latter of whom, however, could not be prevailed on to join in their censure of _her_, in spite of all Miss Bingley’s witticisms on _fine eyes_. Chapter 10 The day passed much as the day before had done. Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley had spent some hours of the morning with the invalid, who continued, though slowly, to mend; and in the evening Elizabeth joined their party in the drawing-room. The loo table, however, did not appear. Mr. Darcy was writing, and Miss Bingley, seated near him, was watching the progress of his letter, and repeatedly calling off his attention by messages to his sister. Mr. Hurst and Mr. Bingley were at piquet, and Mrs. Hurst was observing their game. Elizabeth took up some needlework, and was sufficiently amused in attending to what passed between Darcy and his companion. The perpetual commendations of the lady either on his handwriting, or on the evenness of his lines, or on the length of his letter, with the perfect unconcern with which her praises were received, formed a curious dialogue, and was exactly in unison with her opinion of each. “How delighted Miss Darcy will be to receive such a letter!” He made no answer. “You write uncommonly fast.” “You are mistaken. I write rather slowly.” “How many letters you must have occasion to write in the course of a year! Letters of business, too! How odious I should think them!” “It is fortunate, then, that they fall to my lot instead of to yours.” “Pray tell your sister that I long to see her.” “I have already told her so once, by your desire.” “I am afraid you do not like your pen. Let me mend it for you. I mend pens remarkably well.” “Thank you—but I always mend my own.” “How can you contrive to write so even?” He was silent. “Tell your sister I am delighted to hear of her improvement on the harp, and pray let her know that I am quite in raptures with her beautiful little design for a table, and I think it infinitely superior to Miss Grantley’s.” “Will you give me leave to defer your raptures till I write again? At present I have not room to do them justice.” “Oh! it is of no consequence. I shall see her in January. But do you always write such charming long letters to her, Mr. Darcy?” “They are generally long; but whether always charming, it is not for me to determine.” “It is a rule with me, that a person who can write a long letter with ease, cannot write ill.” “That will not do for a compliment to Darcy, Caroline,” cried her brother, “because he does _not_ write with ease. He studies too much for words of four syllables. Do not you, Darcy?” “My style of writing is very different from yours.” “Oh!” cried Miss Bingley, “Charles writes in the most careless way imaginable. He leaves out half his words, and blots the rest.” “My ideas flow so rapidly that I have not time to express them—by which means my letters sometimes convey no ideas at all to my correspondents.” “Your humility, Mr. Bingley,” said Elizabeth, “must disarm reproof.” “Nothing is more deceitful,” said Darcy, “than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast.” “And which of the two do you call _my_ little recent piece of modesty?” “The indirect boast; for you are really proud of your defects in writing, because you consider them as proceeding from a rapidity of thought and carelessness of execution, which, if not estimable, you think at least highly interesting. The power of doing anything with quickness is always much prized by the possessor, and often without any attention to the imperfection of the performance. When you told Mrs. Bennet this morning that if you ever resolved on quitting Netherfield you should be gone in five minutes, you meant it to be a sort of panegyric, of compliment to yourself—and yet what is there so very laudable in a precipitance which must leave very necessary business undone, and can be of no real advantage to yourself or any one else?” “Nay,” cried Bingley, “this is too much, to remember at night all the foolish things that were said in the morning. And yet, upon my honour, I believed what I said of myself to be true, and I believe it at this moment. At least, therefore, I did not assume the character of needless precipitance merely to show off before the ladies.” “I dare say you believed it; but I am by no means convinced that you would be gone with such celerity. Your conduct would be quite as dependent on chance as that of any man I know; and if, as you were mounting your horse, a friend were to say, ‘Bingley, you had better stay till next week,’ you would probably do it, you would probably not go—and, at another word, might stay a month.” “You have only proved by this,” cried Elizabeth, “that Mr. Bingley did not do justice to his own disposition. You have shown him off now much more than he did himself.” “I am exceedingly gratified,” said Bingley, “by your converting what my friend says into a compliment on the sweetness of my temper. But I am afraid you are giving it a turn which that gentleman did by no means intend; for he would certainly think the better of me, if under such a circumstance I were to give a flat denial, and ride off as fast as I could.” “Would Mr. Darcy then consider the rashness of your original intention as atoned for by your obstinacy in adhering to it?” “Upon my word, I cannot exactly explain the matter, Darcy must speak for himself.” “You expect me to account for opinions which you choose to call mine, but which I have never acknowledged. Allowing the case, however, to stand according to your representation, you must remember, Miss Bennet, that the friend who is supposed to desire his return to the house, and the delay of his plan, has merely desired it, asked it without offering one argument in favour of its propriety.” “To yield readily—easily—to the _persuasion_ of a friend is no merit with you.” “To yield without conviction is no compliment to the understanding of either.” “You appear to me, Mr. Darcy, to allow nothing for the influence of friendship and affection. A regard for the requester would often make one readily yield to a request, without waiting for arguments to reason one into it. I am not particularly speaking of such a case as you have supposed about Mr. Bingley. We may as well wait, perhaps, till the circumstance occurs, before we discuss the discretion of his behaviour thereupon. But in general and ordinary cases between friend and friend, where one of them is desired by the other to change a resolution of no very great moment, should you think ill of that person for complying with the desire, without waiting to be argued into it?” “Will it not be advisable, before we proceed on this subject, to arrange with rather more precision the degree of importance which is to appertain to this request, as well as the degree of intimacy subsisting between the parties?” “By all means,” cried Bingley; “let us hear all the particulars, not forgetting their comparative height and size; for that will have more weight in the argument, Miss Bennet, than you may be aware of. I assure you that if Darcy were not such a great tall fellow, in comparison with myself, I should not pay him half so much deference. I declare I do not know a more awful object than Darcy, on particular occasions, and in particular places; at his own house especially, and of a Sunday evening, when he has nothing to do.” Mr. Darcy smiled; but Elizabeth thought she could perceive that he was rather offended, and therefore checked her laugh. Miss Bingley warmly resented the indignity he had received, in an expostulation with her brother for talking such nonsense. “I see your design, Bingley,” said his friend. “You dislike an argument, and want to silence this.” “Perhaps I do. Arguments are too much like disputes. If you and Miss Bennet will defer yours till I am out of the room, I shall be very thankful; and then you may say whatever you like of me.” “What you ask,” said Elizabeth, “is no sacrifice on my side; and Mr. Darcy had much better finish his letter.” Mr. Darcy took her advice, and did finish his letter. When that business was over, he applied to Miss Bingley and Elizabeth for the indulgence of some music. Miss Bingley moved with alacrity to the pianoforte, and after a polite request that Elizabeth would lead the way, which the other as politely and more earnestly negatived, she seated herself. Mrs. Hurst sang with her sister, and while they were thus employed, Elizabeth could not help observing, as she turned over some music-books that lay on the instrument, how frequently Mr. Darcy’s eyes were fixed on her. She hardly knew how to suppose that she could be an object of admiration to so great a man; and yet that he should look at her because he disliked her, was still more strange. She could only imagine, however, at last, that she drew his notice because there was a something about her more wrong and reprehensible, according to his ideas of right, than in any other person present. The supposition did not pain her. She liked him too little to care for his approbation. After playing some Italian songs, Miss Bingley varied the charm by a lively Scotch air; and soon afterwards Mr. Darcy, drawing near Elizabeth, said to her— “Do not you feel a great inclination, Miss Bennet, to seize such an opportunity of dancing a reel?” She smiled, but made no answer. He repeated the question, with some surprise at her silence. “Oh!” said she, “I heard you before; but I could not immediately determine what to say in reply. You wanted me, I know, to say ‘Yes,’ that you might have the pleasure of despising my taste; but I always delight in overthrowing those kind of schemes, and cheating a person of their premeditated contempt. I have, therefore, made up my mind to tell you, that I do not want to dance a reel at all—and now despise me if you dare.” “Indeed I do not dare.” Elizabeth, having rather expected to affront him, was amazed at his gallantry; but there was a mixture of sweetness and archness in her manner which made it difficult for her to affront anybody; and Darcy had never been so bewitched by any woman as he was by her. He really believed, that were it not for the inferiority of her connections, he should be in some danger. Miss Bingley saw, or suspected enough to be jealous; and her great anxiety for the recovery of her dear friend Jane received some assistance from her desire of getting rid of Elizabeth. She often tried to provoke Darcy into disliking her guest, by talking of their supposed marriage, and planning his happiness in such an alliance. “I hope,” said she, as they were walking together in the shrubbery the next day, “you will give your mother-in-law a few hints, when this desirable event takes place, as to the advantage of holding her tongue; and if you can compass it, do cure the younger girls of running after the officers. And, if I may mention so delicate a subject, endeavour to check that little something, bordering on conceit and impertinence, which your lady possesses.” “Have you anything else to propose for my domestic felicity?” “Oh! yes. Do let the portraits of your uncle and aunt Philips be placed in the gallery at Pemberley. Put them next to your great uncle the judge. They are in the same profession, you know, only in different lines. As for your Elizabeth’s picture, you must not attempt to have it taken, for what painter could do justice to those beautiful eyes?” “It would not be easy, indeed, to catch their expression, but their colour and shape, and the eyelashes, so remarkably fine, might be copied.” At that moment they were met from another walk by Mrs. Hurst and Elizabeth herself. “I did not know that you intended to walk,” said Miss Bingley, in some confusion, lest they had been overheard. “You used us abominably ill,” answered Mrs. Hurst, “running away without telling us that you were coming out.” Then taking the disengaged arm of Mr. Darcy, she left Elizabeth to walk by herself. The path just admitted three. Mr. Darcy felt their rudeness, and immediately said,— “This walk is not wide enough for our party. We had better go into the avenue.” But Elizabeth, who had not the least inclination to remain with them, laughingly answered, “No, no; stay where you are. You are charmingly grouped, and appear to uncommon advantage. The picturesque would be spoilt by admitting a fourth. Good-bye.” She then ran gaily off, rejoicing as she rambled about, in the hope of being at home again in a day or two. Jane was already so much recovered as to intend leaving her room for a couple of hours that evening. Chapter 11 When the ladies removed after dinner, Elizabeth ran up to her sister, and seeing her well guarded from cold, attended her into the drawing-room, where she was welcomed by her two friends with many professions of pleasure; and Elizabeth had never seen them so agreeable as they were during the hour which passed before the gentlemen appeared. Their powers of conversation were considerable. They could describe an entertainment with accuracy, relate an anecdote with humour, and laugh at their acquaintance with spirit. But when the gentlemen entered, Jane was no longer the first object; Miss Bingley’s eyes were instantly turned toward Darcy, and she had something to say to him before he had advanced many steps. He addressed himself to Miss Bennet, with a polite congratulation; Mr. Hurst also made her a slight bow, and said he was “very glad;” but diffuseness and warmth remained for Bingley’s salutation. He was full of joy and attention. The first half-hour was spent in piling up the fire, lest she should suffer from the change of room; and she removed at his desire to the other side of the fireplace, that she might be further from the door. He then sat down by her, and talked scarcely to anyone else. Elizabeth, at work in the opposite corner, saw it all with great delight. When tea was over, Mr. Hurst reminded his sister-in-law of the card-table—but in vain. She had obtained private intelligence that Mr. Darcy did not wish for cards; and Mr. Hurst soon found even his open petition rejected. She assured him that no one intended to play, and the silence of the whole party on the subject seemed to justify her. Mr. Hurst had therefore nothing to do, but to stretch himself on one of the sofas and go to sleep. Darcy took up a book; Miss Bingley did the same; and Mrs. Hurst, principally occupied in playing with her bracelets and rings, joined now and then in her brother’s conversation with Miss Bennet. Miss Bingley’s attention was quite as much engaged in watching Mr. Darcy’s progress through _his_ book, as in reading her own; and she was perpetually either making some enquiry, or looking at his page. She could not win him, however, to any conversation; he merely answered her question, and read on. At length, quite exhausted by the attempt to be amused with her own book, which she had only chosen because it was the second volume of his, she gave a great yawn and said, “How pleasant it is to spend an evening in this way! I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book! When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her book, and cast her eyes round the room in quest for some amusement; when hearing her brother mentioning a ball to Miss Bennet, she turned suddenly towards him and said: “By the bye, Charles, are you really serious in meditating a dance at Netherfield? I would advise you, before you determine on it, to consult the wishes of the present party; I am much mistaken if there are not some among us to whom a ball would be rather a punishment than a pleasure.” “If you mean Darcy,” cried her brother, “he may go to bed, if he chooses, before it begins—but as for the ball, it is quite a settled thing; and as soon as Nicholls has made white soup enough, I shall send round my cards.” “I should like balls infinitely better,” she replied, “if they were carried on in a different manner; but there is something insufferably tedious in the usual process of such a meeting. It would surely be much more rational if conversation instead of dancing were made the order of the day.” “Much more rational, my dear Caroline, I dare say, but it would not be near so much like a ball.” Miss Bingley made no answer, and soon afterwards she got up and walked about the room. Her figure was elegant, and she walked well; but Darcy, at whom it was all aimed, was still inflexibly studious. In the desperation of her feelings, she resolved on one effort more, and, turning to Elizabeth, said: “Miss Eliza Bennet, let me persuade you to follow my example, and take a turn about the room. I assure you it is very refreshing after sitting so long in one attitude.” Elizabeth was surprised, but agreed to it immediately. Miss Bingley succeeded no less in the real object of her civility; Mr. Darcy looked up. He was as much awake to the novelty of attention in that quarter as Elizabeth herself could be, and unconsciously closed his book. He was directly invited to join their party, but he declined it, observing that he could imagine but two motives for their choosing to walk up and down the room together, with either of which motives his joining them would interfere. “What could he mean? She was dying to know what could be his meaning?”—and asked Elizabeth whether she could at all understand him? “Not at all,” was her answer; “but depend upon it, he means to be severe on us, and our surest way of disappointing him will be to ask nothing about it.” Miss Bingley, however, was incapable of disappointing Mr. Darcy in anything, and persevered therefore in requiring an explanation of his two motives. “I have not the smallest objection to explaining them,” said he, as soon as she allowed him to speak. “You either choose this method of passing the evening because you are in each other’s confidence, and have secret affairs to discuss, or because you are conscious that your figures appear to the greatest advantage in walking; if the first, I would be completely in your way, and if the second, I can admire you much better as I sit by the fire.” “Oh! shocking!” cried Miss Bingley. “I never heard anything so abominable. How shall we punish him for such a speech?” “Nothing so easy, if you have but the inclination,” said Elizabeth. “We can all plague and punish one another. Tease him—laugh at him. Intimate as you are, you must know how it is to be done.” “But upon my honour, I do _not_. I do assure you that my intimacy has not yet taught me _that_. Tease calmness of manner and presence of mind! No, no; I feel he may defy us there. And as to laughter, we will not expose ourselves, if you please, by attempting to laugh without a subject. Mr. Darcy may hug himself.” “Mr. Darcy is not to be laughed at!” cried Elizabeth. “That is an uncommon advantage, and uncommon I hope it will continue, for it would be a great loss to _me_ to have many such acquaintances. I dearly love a laugh.” “Miss Bingley,” said he, “has given me more credit than can be. The wisest and the best of men—nay, the wisest and best of their actions—may be rendered ridiculous by a person whose first object in life is a joke.” “Certainly,” replied Elizabeth—“there are such people, but I hope I am not one of _them_. I hope I never ridicule what is wise and good. Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies, _do_ divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can. But these, I suppose, are precisely what you are without.” “Perhaps that is not possible for anyone. But it has been the study of my life to avoid those weaknesses which often expose a strong understanding to ridicule.” “Such as vanity and pride.” “Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride—where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.” Elizabeth turned away to hide a smile. “Your examination of Mr. Darcy is over, I presume,” said Miss Bingley; “and pray what is the result?” “I am perfectly convinced by it that Mr. Darcy has no defect. He owns it himself without disguise.” “No,” said Darcy, “I have made no such pretension. I have faults enough, but they are not, I hope, of understanding. My temper I dare not vouch for. It is, I believe, too little yielding—certainly too little for the convenience of the world. I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offenses against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost, is lost forever.” “_That_ is a failing indeed!” cried Elizabeth. “Implacable resentment _is_ a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well. I really cannot _laugh_ at it. You are safe from me.” “There is, I believe, in every disposition a tendency to some particular evil—a natural defect, which not even the best education can overcome.” “And _your_ defect is to hate everybody.” “And yours,” he replied with a smile, “is willfully to misunderstand them.” “Do let us have a little music,” cried Miss Bingley, tired of a conversation in which she had no share. “Louisa, you will not mind my waking Mr. Hurst?” Her sister had not the smallest objection, and the pianoforte was opened; and Darcy, after a few moments’ recollection, was not sorry for it. He began to feel the danger of paying Elizabeth too much attention. Chapter 12 In consequence of an agreement between the sisters, Elizabeth wrote the next morning to their mother, to beg that the carriage might be sent for them in the course of the day. But Mrs. Bennet, who had calculated on her daughters remaining at Netherfield till the following Tuesday, which would exactly finish Jane’s week, could not bring herself to receive them with pleasure before. Her answer, therefore, was not propitious, at least not to Elizabeth’s wishes, for she was impatient to get home. Mrs. Bennet sent them word that they could not possibly have the carriage before Tuesday; and in her postscript it was added, that if Mr. Bingley and his sister pressed them to stay longer, she could spare them very well. Against staying longer, however, Elizabeth was positively resolved—nor did she much expect it would be asked; and fearful, on the contrary, as being considered as intruding themselves needlessly long, she urged Jane to borrow Mr. Bingley’s carriage immediately, and at length it was settled that their original design of leaving Netherfield that morning should be mentioned, and the request made. The communication excited many professions of concern; and enough was said of wishing them to stay at least till the following day to work on Jane; and till the morrow their going was deferred. Miss Bingley was then sorry that she had proposed the delay, for her jealousy and dislike of one sister much exceeded her affection for the other. The master of the house heard with real sorrow that they were to go so soon, and repeatedly tried to persuade Miss Bennet that it would not be safe for her—that she was not enough recovered; but Jane was firm where she felt herself to be right. To Mr. Darcy it was welcome intelligence—Elizabeth had been at Netherfield long enough. She attracted him more than he liked—and Miss Bingley was uncivil to _her_, and more teasing than usual to himself. He wisely resolved to be particularly careful that no sign of admiration should _now_ escape him, nothing that could elevate her with the hope of influencing his felicity; sensible that if such an idea had been suggested, his behaviour during the last day must have material weight in confirming or crushing it. Steady to his purpose, he scarcely spoke ten words to her through the whole of Saturday, and though they were at one time left by themselves for half-an-hour, he adhered most conscientiously to his book, and would not even look at her. On Sunday, after morning service, the separation, so agreeable to almost all, took place. Miss Bingley’s civility to Elizabeth increased at last very rapidly, as well as her affection for Jane; and when they parted, after assuring the latter of the pleasure it would always give her to see her either at Longbourn or Netherfield, and embracing her most tenderly, she even shook hands with the former. Elizabeth took leave of the whole party in the liveliest of spirits. They were not welcomed home very cordially by their mother. Mrs. Bennet wondered at their coming, and thought them very wrong to give so much trouble, and was sure Jane would have caught cold again. But their father, though very laconic in his expressions of pleasure, was really glad to see them; he had felt their importance in the family circle. The evening conversation, when they were all assembled, had lost much of its animation, and almost all its sense by the absence of Jane and Elizabeth. They found Mary, as usual, deep in the study of thorough-bass and human nature; and had some extracts to admire, and some new observations of threadbare morality to listen to. Catherine and Lydia had information for them of a different sort. Much had been done and much had been said in the regiment since the preceding Wednesday; several of the officers had dined lately with their uncle, a private had been flogged, and it had actually been hinted that Colonel Forster was going to be married. Chapter 13 “I hope, my dear,” said Mr. Bennet to his wife, as they were at breakfast the next morning, “that you have ordered a good dinner to-day, because I have reason to expect an addition to our family party.” “Who do you mean, my dear? I know of nobody that is coming, I am sure, unless Charlotte Lucas should happen to call in—and I hope _my_ dinners are good enough for her. I do not believe she often sees such at home.” “The person of whom I speak is a gentleman, and a stranger.” Mrs. Bennet’s eyes sparkled. “A gentleman and a stranger! It is Mr. Bingley, I am sure! Well, I am sure I shall be extremely glad to see Mr. Bingley. But—good Lord! how unlucky! There is not a bit of fish to be got to-day. Lydia, my love, ring the bell—I must speak to Hill this moment.” “It is _not_ Mr. Bingley,” said her husband; “it is a person whom I never saw in the whole course of my life.” This roused a general astonishment; and he had the pleasure of being eagerly questioned by his wife and his five daughters at once. After amusing himself some time with their curiosity, he thus explained: “About a month ago I received this letter; and about a fortnight ago I answered it, for I thought it a case of some delicacy, and requiring early attention. It is from my cousin, Mr. Collins, who, when I am dead, may turn you all out of this house as soon as he pleases.” “Oh! my dear,” cried his wife, “I cannot bear to hear that mentioned. Pray do not talk of that odious man. I do think it is the hardest thing in the world, that your estate should be entailed away from your own children; and I am sure, if I had been you, I should have tried long ago to do something or other about it.” Jane and Elizabeth tried to explain to her the nature of an entail. They had often attempted to do it before, but it was a subject on which Mrs. Bennet was beyond the reach of reason, and she continued to rail bitterly against the cruelty of settling an estate away from a family of five daughters, in favour of a man whom nobody cared anything about. “It certainly is a most iniquitous affair,” said Mr. Bennet, “and nothing can clear Mr. Collins from the guilt of inheriting Longbourn. But if you will listen to his letter, you may perhaps be a little softened by his manner of expressing himself.” “No, that I am sure I shall not; and I think it is very impertinent of him to write to you at all, and very hypocritical. I hate such false friends. Why could he not keep on quarreling with you, as his father did before him?” “Why, indeed; he does seem to have had some filial scruples on that head, as you will hear.” “Hunsford, near Westerham, Kent, 15_th October_. “Dear Sir,— “The disagreement subsisting between yourself and my late honoured father always gave me much uneasiness, and since I have had the misfortune to lose him, I have frequently wished to heal the breach; but for some time I was kept back by my own doubts, fearing lest it might seem disrespectful to his memory for me to be on good terms with anyone with whom it had always pleased him to be at variance.—‘There, Mrs. Bennet.’—My mind, however, is now made up on the subject, for having received ordination at Easter, I have been so fortunate as to be distinguished by the patronage of the Right Honourable Lady Catherine de Bourgh, widow of Sir Lewis de Bourgh, whose bounty and beneficence has preferred me to the valuable rectory of this parish, where it shall be my earnest endeavour to demean myself with grateful respect towards her ladyship, and be ever ready to perform those rites and ceremonies which are instituted by the Church of England. As a clergyman, moreover, I feel it my duty to promote and establish the blessing of peace in all families within the reach of my influence; and on these grounds I flatter myself that my present overtures are highly commendable, and that the circumstance of my being next in the entail of Longbourn estate will be kindly overlooked on your side, and not lead you to reject the offered olive-branch. I cannot be otherwise than concerned at being the means of injuring your amiable daughters, and beg leave to apologise for it, as well as to assure you of my readiness to make them every possible amends—but of this hereafter. If you should have no objection to receive me into your house, I propose myself the satisfaction of waiting on you and your family, Monday, November 18th, by four o’clock, and shall probably trespass on your hospitality till the Saturday se’ennight following, which I can do without any inconvenience, as Lady Catherine is far from objecting to my occasional absence on a Sunday, provided that some other clergyman is engaged to do the duty of the day.—I remain, dear sir, with respectful compliments to your lady and daughters, your well-wisher and friend, “WILLIAM COLLINS” “At four o’clock, therefore, we may expect this peace-making gentleman,” said Mr. Bennet, as he folded up the letter. “He seems to be a most conscientious and polite young man, upon my word, and I doubt not will prove a valuable acquaintance, especially if Lady Catherine should be so indulgent as to let him come to us again.” “There is some sense in what he says about the girls, however, and if he is disposed to make them any amends, I shall not be the person to discourage him.” “Though it is difficult,” said Jane, “to guess in what way he can mean to make us the atonement he thinks our due, the wish is certainly to his credit.” Elizabeth was chiefly struck by his extraordinary deference for Lady Catherine, and his kind intention of christening, marrying, and burying his parishioners whenever it were required. “He must be an oddity, I think,” said she. “I cannot make him out.—There is something very pompous in his style.—And what can he mean by apologising for being next in the entail?—We cannot suppose he would help it if he could.—Could he be a sensible man, sir?” “No, my dear, I think not. I have great hopes of finding him quite the reverse. There is a mixture of servility and self-importance in his letter, which promises well. I am impatient to see him.” “In point of composition,” said Mary, “the letter does not seem defective. The idea of the olive-branch perhaps is not wholly new, yet I think it is well expressed.” To Catherine and Lydia, neither the letter nor its writer were in any degree interesting. It was next to impossible that their cousin should come in a scarlet coat, and it was now some weeks since they had received pleasure from the society of a man in any other colour. As for their mother, Mr. Collins’s letter had done away much of her ill-will, and she was preparing to see him with a degree of composure which astonished her husband and daughters. Mr. Collins was punctual to his time, and was received with great politeness by the whole family. Mr. Bennet indeed said little; but the ladies were ready enough to talk, and Mr. Collins seemed neither in need of encouragement, nor inclined to be silent himself. He was a tall, heavy-looking young man of five-and-twenty. His air was grave and stately, and his manners were very formal. He had not been long seated before he complimented Mrs. Bennet on having so fine a family of daughters; said he had heard much of their beauty, but that in this instance fame had fallen short of the truth; and added, that he did not doubt her seeing them all in due time disposed of in marriage. This gallantry was not much to the taste of some of his hearers; but Mrs. Bennet, who quarreled with no compliments, answered most readily. “You are very kind, I am sure; and I wish with all my heart it may prove so, for else they will be destitute enough. Things are settled so oddly.” “You allude, perhaps, to the entail of this estate.” “Ah! sir, I do indeed. It is a grievous affair to my poor girls, you must confess. Not that I mean to find fault with _you_, for such things I know are all chance in this world. There is no knowing how estates will go when once they come to be entailed.” “I am very sensible, madam, of the hardship to my fair cousins, and could say much on the subject, but that I am cautious of appearing forward and precipitate. But I can assure the young ladies that I come prepared to admire them. At present I will not say more; but, perhaps, when we are better acquainted—” He was interrupted by a summons to dinner; and the girls smiled on each other. They were not the only objects of Mr. Collins’s admiration. The hall, the dining-room, and all its furniture, were examined and praised; and his commendation of everything would have touched Mrs. Bennet’s heart, but for the mortifying supposition of his viewing it all as his own future property. The dinner too in its turn was highly admired; and he begged to know to which of his fair cousins the excellency of its cooking was owing. But he was set right there by Mrs. Bennet, who assured him with some asperity that they were very well able to keep a good cook, and that her daughters had nothing to do in the kitchen. He begged pardon for having displeased her. In a softened tone she declared herself not at all offended; but he continued to apologise for about a quarter of an hour. Chapter 14 During dinner, Mr. Bennet scarcely spoke at all; but when the servants were withdrawn, he thought it time to have some conversation with his guest, and therefore started a subject in which he expected him to shine, by observing that he seemed very fortunate in his patroness. Lady Catherine de Bourgh’s attention to his wishes, and consideration for his comfort, appeared very remarkable. Mr. Bennet could not have chosen better. Mr. Collins was eloquent in her praise. The subject elevated him to more than usual solemnity of manner, and with a most important aspect he protested that “he had never in his life witnessed such behaviour in a person of rank—such affability and condescension, as he had himself experienced from Lady Catherine. She had been graciously pleased to approve of both of the discourses which he had already had the honour of preaching before her. She had also asked him twice to dine at Rosings, and had sent for him only the Saturday before, to make up her pool of quadrille in the evening. Lady Catherine was reckoned proud by many people he knew, but _he_ had never seen anything but affability in her. She had always spoken to him as she would to any other gentleman; she made not the smallest objection to his joining in the society of the neighbourhood nor to his leaving the parish occasionally for a week or two, to visit his relations. She had even condescended to advise him to marry as soon as he could, provided he chose with discretion; and had once paid him a visit in his humble parsonage, where she had perfectly approved all the alterations he had been making, and had even vouchsafed to suggest some herself—some shelves in the closet up stairs.” “That is all very proper and civil, I am sure,” said Mrs. Bennet, “and I dare say she is a very agreeable woman. It is a pity that great ladies in general are not more like her. Does she live near you, sir?” “The garden in which stands my humble abode is separated only by a lane from Rosings Park, her ladyship’s residence.” “I think you said she was a widow, sir? Has she any family?” “She has only one daughter, the heiress of Rosings, and of very extensive property.” “Ah!” said Mrs. Bennet, shaking her head, “then she is better off than many girls. And what sort of young lady is she? Is she handsome?” “She is a most charming young lady indeed. Lady Catherine herself says that, in point of true beauty, Miss de Bourgh is far superior to the handsomest of her sex, because there is that in her features which marks the young lady of distinguished birth. She is unfortunately of a sickly constitution, which has prevented her from making that progress in many accomplishments which she could not have otherwise failed of, as I am informed by the lady who superintended her education, and who still resides with them. But she is perfectly amiable, and often condescends to drive by my humble abode in her little phaeton and ponies.” “Has she been presented? I do not remember her name among the ladies at court.” “Her indifferent state of health unhappily prevents her being in town; and by that means, as I told Lady Catherine one day, has deprived the British court of its brightest ornament. Her ladyship seemed pleased with the idea; and you may imagine that I am happy on every occasion to offer those little delicate compliments which are always acceptable to ladies. I have more than once observed to Lady Catherine, that her charming daughter seemed born to be a duchess, and that the most elevated rank, instead of giving her consequence, would be adorned by her. These are the kind of little things which please her ladyship, and it is a sort of attention which I conceive myself peculiarly bound to pay.” “You judge very properly,” said Mr. Bennet, “and it is happy for you that you possess the talent of flattering with delicacy. May I ask whether these pleasing attentions proceed from the impulse of the moment, or are the result of previous study?” “They arise chiefly from what is passing at the time, and though I sometimes amuse myself with suggesting and arranging such little elegant compliments as may be adapted to ordinary occasions, I always wish to give them as unstudied an air as possible.” Mr. Bennet’s expectations were fully answered. His cousin was as absurd as he had hoped, and he listened to him with the keenest enjoyment, maintaining at the same time the most resolute composure of countenance, and, except in an occasional glance at Elizabeth, requiring no partner in his pleasure. By tea-time, however, the dose had been enough, and Mr. Bennet was glad to take his guest into the drawing-room again, and, when tea was over, glad to invite him to read aloud to the ladies. Mr. Collins readily assented, and a book was produced; but, on beholding it (for everything announced it to be from a circulating library), he started back, and begging pardon, protested that he never read novels. Kitty stared at him, and Lydia exclaimed. Other books were produced, and after some deliberation he chose Fordyce’s Sermons. Lydia gaped as he opened the volume, and before he had, with very monotonous solemnity, read three pages, she interrupted him with: “Do you know, mamma, that my uncle Phillips talks of turning away Richard; and if he does, Colonel Forster will hire him. My aunt told me so herself on Saturday. I shall walk to Meryton to-morrow to hear more about it, and to ask when Mr. Denny comes back from town.” Lydia was bid by her two eldest sisters to hold her tongue; but Mr. Collins, much offended, laid aside his book, and said: “I have often observed how little young ladies are interested by books of a serious stamp, though written solely for their benefit. It amazes me, I confess; for, certainly, there can be nothing so advantageous to them as instruction. But I will no longer importune my young cousin.” Then turning to Mr. Bennet, he offered himself as his antagonist at backgammon. Mr. Bennet accepted the challenge, observing that he acted very wisely in leaving the girls to their own trifling amusements. Mrs. Bennet and her daughters apologised most civilly for Lydia’s interruption, and promised that it should not occur again, if he would resume his book; but Mr. Collins, after assuring them that he bore his young cousin no ill-will, and should never resent her behaviour as any affront, seated himself at another table with Mr. Bennet, and prepared for backgammon. Chapter 15 Mr. Collins was not a sensible man, and the deficiency of nature had been but little assisted by education or society; the greatest part of his life having been spent under the guidance of an illiterate and miserly father; and though he belonged to one of the universities, he had merely kept the necessary terms, without forming at it any useful acquaintance. The subjection in which his father had brought him up had given him originally great humility of manner; but it was now a good deal counteracted by the self-conceit of a weak head, living in retirement, and the consequential feelings of early and unexpected prosperity. A fortunate chance had recommended him to Lady Catherine de Bourgh when the living of Hunsford was vacant; and the respect which he felt for her high rank, and his veneration for her as his patroness, mingling with a very good opinion of himself, of his authority as a clergyman, and his right as a rector, made him altogether a mixture of pride and obsequiousness, self-importance and humility. Having now a good house and a very sufficient income, he intended to marry; and in seeking a reconciliation with the Longbourn family he had a wife in view, as he meant to choose one of the daughters, if he found them as handsome and amiable as they were represented by common report. This was his plan of amends—of atonement—for inheriting their father’s estate; and he thought it an excellent one, full of eligibility and suitableness, and excessively generous and disinterested on his own part. His plan did not vary on seeing them. Miss Bennet’s lovely face confirmed his views, and established all his strictest notions of what was due to seniority; and for the first evening _she_ was his settled choice. The next morning, however, made an alteration; for in a quarter of an hour’s _tête-à-tête_ with Mrs. Bennet before breakfast, a conversation beginning with his parsonage-house, and leading naturally to the avowal of his hopes, that a mistress might be found for it at Longbourn, produced from her, amid very complaisant smiles and general encouragement, a caution against the very Jane he had fixed on. “As to her _younger_ daughters, she could not take upon her to say—she could not positively answer—but she did not _know_ of any prepossession; her _eldest_ daughter, she must just mention—she felt it incumbent on her to hint, was likely to be very soon engaged.” Mr. Collins had only to change from Jane to Elizabeth—and it was soon done—done while Mrs. Bennet was stirring the fire. Elizabeth, equally next to Jane in birth and beauty, succeeded her of course. Mrs. Bennet treasured up the hint, and trusted that she might soon have two daughters married; and the man whom she could not bear to speak of the day before was now high in her good graces. Lydia’s intention of walking to Meryton was not forgotten; every sister except Mary agreed to go with her; and Mr. Collins was to attend them, at the request of Mr. Bennet, who was most anxious to get rid of him, and have his library to himself; for thither Mr. Collins had followed him after breakfast; and there he would continue, nominally engaged with one of the largest folios in the collection, but really talking to Mr. Bennet, with little cessation, of his house and garden at Hunsford. Such doings discomposed Mr. Bennet exceedingly. In his library he had been always sure of leisure and tranquillity; and though prepared, as he told Elizabeth, to meet with folly and conceit in every other room of the house, he was used to be free from them there; his civility, therefore, was most prompt in inviting Mr. Collins to join his daughters in their walk; and Mr. Collins, being in fact much better fitted for a walker than a reader, was extremely pleased to close his large book, and go. In pompous nothings on his side, and civil assents on that of his cousins, their time passed till they entered Meryton. The attention of the younger ones was then no longer to be gained by _him_. Their eyes were immediately wandering up in the street in quest of the officers, and nothing less than a very smart bonnet indeed, or a really new muslin in a shop window, could recall them. But the attention of every lady was soon caught by a young man, whom they had never seen before, of most gentlemanlike appearance, walking with another officer on the other side of the way. The officer was the very Mr. Denny concerning whose return from London Lydia came to enquire, and he bowed as they passed. All were struck with the stranger’s air, all wondered who he could be; and Kitty and Lydia, determined if possible to find out, led the way across the street, under pretense of wanting something in an opposite shop, and fortunately had just gained the pavement when the two gentlemen, turning back, had reached the same spot. Mr. Denny addressed them directly, and entreated permission to introduce his friend, Mr. Wickham, who had returned with him the day before from town, and he was happy to say had accepted a commission in their corps. This was exactly as it should be; for the young man wanted only regimentals to make him completely charming. His appearance was greatly in his favour; he had all the best part of beauty, a fine countenance, a good figure, and very pleasing address. The introduction was followed up on his side by a happy readiness of conversation—a readiness at the same time perfectly correct and unassuming; and the whole party were still standing and talking together very agreeably, when the sound of horses drew their notice, and Darcy and Bingley were seen riding down the street. On distinguishing the ladies of the group, the two gentlemen came directly towards them, and began the usual civilities. Bingley was the principal spokesman, and Miss Bennet the principal object. He was then, he said, on his way to Longbourn on purpose to enquire after her. Mr. Darcy corroborated it with a bow, and was beginning to determine not to fix his eyes on Elizabeth, when they were suddenly arrested by the sight of the stranger, and Elizabeth happening to see the countenance of both as they looked at each other, was all astonishment at the effect of the meeting. Both changed colour, one looked white, the other red. Mr. Wickham, after a few moments, touched his hat—a salutation which Mr. Darcy just deigned to return. What could be the meaning of it? It was impossible to imagine; it was impossible not to long to know. In another minute, Mr. Bingley, but without seeming to have noticed what passed, took leave and rode on with his friend. Mr. Denny and Mr. Wickham walked with the young ladies to the door of Mr. Phillip’s house, and then made their bows, in spite of Miss Lydia’s pressing entreaties that they should come in, and even in spite of Mrs. Phillips’s throwing up the parlour window and loudly seconding the invitation. Mrs. Phillips was always glad to see her nieces; and the two eldest, from their recent absence, were particularly welcome, and she was eagerly expressing her surprise at their sudden return home, which, as their own carriage had not fetched them, she should have known nothing about, if she had not happened to see Mr. Jones’s shop-boy in the street, who had told her that they were not to send any more draughts to Netherfield because the Miss Bennets were come away, when her civility was claimed towards Mr. Collins by Jane’s introduction of him. She received him with her very best politeness, which he returned with as much more, apologising for his intrusion, without any previous acquaintance with her, which he could not help flattering himself, however, might be justified by his relationship to the young ladies who introduced him to her notice. Mrs. Phillips was quite awed by such an excess of good breeding; but her contemplation of one stranger was soon put to an end by exclamations and enquiries about the other; of whom, however, she could only tell her nieces what they already knew, that Mr. Denny had brought him from London, and that he was to have a lieutenant’s commission in the ——shire. She had been watching him the last hour, she said, as he walked up and down the street, and had Mr. Wickham appeared, Kitty and Lydia would certainly have continued the occupation, but unluckily no one passed windows now except a few of the officers, who, in comparison with the stranger, were become “stupid, disagreeable fellows.” Some of them were to dine with the Phillipses the next day, and their aunt promised to make her husband call on Mr. Wickham, and give him an invitation also, if the family from Longbourn would come in the evening. This was agreed to, and Mrs. Phillips protested that they would have a nice comfortable noisy game of lottery tickets, and a little bit of hot supper afterwards. The prospect of such delights was very cheering, and they parted in mutual good spirits. Mr. Collins repeated his apologies in quitting the room, and was assured with unwearying civility that they were perfectly needless. As they walked home, Elizabeth related to Jane what she had seen pass between the two gentlemen; but though Jane would have defended either or both, had they appeared to be in the wrong, she could no more explain such behaviour than her sister. Mr. Collins on his return highly gratified Mrs. Bennet by admiring Mrs. Phillips’s manners and politeness. He protested that, except Lady Catherine and her daughter, he had never seen a more elegant woman; for she had not only received him with the utmost civility, but even pointedly included him in her invitation for the next evening, although utterly unknown to her before. Something, he supposed, might be attributed to his connection with them, but yet he had never met with so much attention in the whole course of his life. Chapter 16 As no objection was made to the young people’s engagement with their aunt, and all Mr. Collins’s scruples of leaving Mr. and Mrs. Bennet for a single evening during his visit were most steadily resisted, the coach conveyed him and his five cousins at a suitable hour to Meryton; and the girls had the pleasure of hearing, as they entered the drawing-room, that Mr. Wickham had accepted their uncle’s invitation, and was then in the house. When this information was given, and they had all taken their seats, Mr. Collins was at leisure to look around him and admire, and he was so much struck with the size and furniture of the apartment, that he declared he might almost have supposed himself in the small summer breakfast parlour at Rosings; a comparison that did not at first convey much gratification; but when Mrs. Phillips understood from him what Rosings was, and who was its proprietor—when she had listened to the description of only one of Lady Catherine’s drawing-rooms, and found that the chimney-piece alone had cost eight hundred pounds, she felt all the force of the compliment, and would hardly have resented a comparison with the housekeeper’s room. In describing to her all the grandeur of Lady Catherine and her mansion, with occasional digressions in praise of his own humble abode, and the improvements it was receiving, he was happily employed until the gentlemen joined them; and he found in Mrs. Phillips a very attentive listener, whose opinion of his consequence increased with what she heard, and who was resolving to retail it all among her neighbours as soon as she could. To the girls, who could not listen to their cousin, and who had nothing to do but to wish for an instrument, and examine their own indifferent imitations of china on the mantelpiece, the interval of waiting appeared very long. It was over at last, however. The gentlemen did approach, and when Mr. Wickham walked into the room, Elizabeth felt that she had neither been seeing him before, nor thinking of him since, with the smallest degree of unreasonable admiration. The officers of the ——shire were in general a very creditable, gentlemanlike set, and the best of them were of the present party; but Mr. Wickham was as far beyond them all in person, countenance, air, and walk, as _they_ were superior to the broad-faced, stuffy uncle Phillips, breathing port wine, who followed them into the room. Mr. Wickham was the happy man towards whom almost every female eye was turned, and Elizabeth was the happy woman by whom he finally seated himself; and the agreeable manner in which he immediately fell into conversation, though it was only on its being a wet night, made her feel that the commonest, dullest, most threadbare topic might be rendered interesting by the skill of the speaker. With such rivals for the notice of the fair as Mr. Wickham and the officers, Mr. Collins seemed to sink into insignificance; to the young ladies he certainly was nothing; but he had still at intervals a kind listener in Mrs. Phillips, and was by her watchfulness, most abundantly supplied with coffee and muffin. When the card-tables were placed, he had the opportunity of obliging her in turn, by sitting down to whist. “I know little of the game at present,” said he, “but I shall be glad to improve myself, for in my situation in life—” Mrs. Phillips was very glad for his compliance, but could not wait for his reason. Mr. Wickham did not play at whist, and with ready delight was he received at the other table between Elizabeth and Lydia. At first there seemed danger of Lydia’s engrossing him entirely, for she was a most determined talker; but being likewise extremely fond of lottery tickets, she soon grew too much interested in the game, too eager in making bets and exclaiming after prizes to have attention for anyone in particular. Allowing for the common demands of the game, Mr. Wickham was therefore at leisure to talk to Elizabeth, and she was very willing to hear him, though what she chiefly wished to hear she could not hope to be told—the history of his acquaintance with Mr. Darcy. She dared not even mention that gentleman. Her curiosity, however, was unexpectedly relieved. Mr. Wickham began the subject himself. He enquired how far Netherfield was from Meryton; and, after receiving her answer, asked in a hesitating manner how long Mr. Darcy had been staying there. “About a month,” said Elizabeth; and then, unwilling to let the subject drop, added, “He is a man of very large property in Derbyshire, I understand.” “Yes,” replied Mr. Wickham; “his estate there is a noble one. A clear ten thousand per annum. You could not have met with a person more capable of giving you certain information on that head than myself, for I have been connected with his family in a particular manner from my infancy.” Elizabeth could not but look surprised. “You may well be surprised, Miss Bennet, at such an assertion, after seeing, as you probably might, the very cold manner of our meeting yesterday. Are you much acquainted with Mr. Darcy?” “As much as I ever wish to be,” cried Elizabeth very warmly. “I have spent four days in the same house with him, and I think him very disagreeable.” “I have no right to give _my_ opinion,” said Wickham, “as to his being agreeable or otherwise. I am not qualified to form one. I have known him too long and too well to be a fair judge. It is impossible for _me_ to be impartial. But I believe your opinion of him would in general astonish—and perhaps you would not express it quite so strongly anywhere else. Here you are in your own family.” “Upon my word, I say no more _here_ than I might say in any house in the neighbourhood, except Netherfield. He is not at all liked in Hertfordshire. Everybody is disgusted with his pride. You will not find him more favourably spoken of by anyone.” “I cannot pretend to be sorry,” said Wickham, after a short interruption, “that he or that any man should not be estimated beyond their deserts; but with _him_ I believe it does not often happen. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence, or frightened by his high and imposing manners, and sees him only as he chooses to be seen.” “I should take him, even on _my_ slight acquaintance, to be an ill-tempered man.” Wickham only shook his head. “I wonder,” said he, at the next opportunity of speaking, “whether he is likely to be in this country much longer.” “I do not at all know; but I _heard_ nothing of his going away when I was at Netherfield. I hope your plans in favour of the ——shire will not be affected by his being in the neighbourhood.” “Oh! no—it is not for _me_ to be driven away by Mr. Darcy. If _he_ wishes to avoid seeing _me_, he must go. We are not on friendly terms, and it always gives me pain to meet him, but I have no reason for avoiding _him_ but what I might proclaim before all the world, a sense of very great ill-usage, and most painful regrets at his being what he is. His father, Miss Bennet, the late Mr. Darcy, was one of the best men that ever breathed, and the truest friend I ever had; and I can never be in company with this Mr. Darcy without being grieved to the soul by a thousand tender recollections. His behaviour to myself has been scandalous; but I verily believe I could forgive him anything and everything, rather than his disappointing the hopes and disgracing the memory of his father.” Elizabeth found the interest of the subject increase, and listened with all her heart; but the delicacy of it prevented further enquiry. Mr. Wickham began to speak on more general topics, Meryton, the neighbourhood, the society, appearing highly pleased with all that he had yet seen, and speaking of the latter with gentle but very intelligible gallantry. “It was the prospect of constant society, and good society,” he added, “which was my chief inducement to enter the ——shire. I knew it to be a most respectable, agreeable corps, and my friend Denny tempted me further by his account of their present quarters, and the very great attentions and excellent acquaintances Meryton had procured them. Society, I own, is necessary to me. I have been a disappointed man, and my spirits will not bear solitude. I _must_ have employment and society. A military life is not what I was intended for, but circumstances have now made it eligible. The church _ought_ to have been my profession—I was brought up for the church, and I should at this time have been in possession of a most valuable living, had it pleased the gentleman we were speaking of just now.” “Indeed!” “Yes—the late Mr. Darcy bequeathed me the next presentation of the best living in his gift. He was my godfather, and excessively attached to me. I cannot do justice to his kindness. He meant to provide for me amply, and thought he had done it; but when the living fell, it was given elsewhere.” “Good heavens!” cried Elizabeth; “but how could _that_ be? How could his will be disregarded? Why did you not seek legal redress?” “There was just such an informality in the terms of the bequest as to give me no hope from law. A man of honour could not have doubted the intention, but Mr. Darcy chose to doubt it—or to treat it as a merely conditional recommendation, and to assert that I had forfeited all claim to it by extravagance, imprudence—in short anything or nothing. Certain it is, that the living became vacant two years ago, exactly as I was of an age to hold it, and that it was given to another man; and no less certain is it, that I cannot accuse myself of having really done anything to deserve to lose it. I have a warm, unguarded temper, and I may have spoken my opinion _of_ him, and _to_ him, too freely. I can recall nothing worse. But the fact is, that we are very different sort of men, and that he hates me.” “This is quite shocking! He deserves to be publicly disgraced.” “Some time or other he _will_ be—but it shall not be by _me_. Till I can forget his father, I can never defy or expose _him_.” Elizabeth honoured him for such feelings, and thought him handsomer than ever as he expressed them. “But what,” said she, after a pause, “can have been his motive? What can have induced him to behave so cruelly?” “A thorough, determined dislike of me—a dislike which I cannot but attribute in some measure to jealousy. Had the late Mr. Darcy liked me less, his son might have borne with me better; but his father’s uncommon attachment to me irritated him, I believe, very early in life. He had not a temper to bear the sort of competition in which we stood—the sort of preference which was often given me.” “I had not thought Mr. Darcy so bad as this—though I have never liked him. I had not thought so very ill of him. I had supposed him to be despising his fellow-creatures in general, but did not suspect him of descending to such malicious revenge, such injustice, such inhumanity as this.” After a few minutes’ reflection, however, she continued, “I _do_ remember his boasting one day, at Netherfield, of the implacability of his resentments, of his having an unforgiving temper. His disposition must be dreadful.” “I will not trust myself on the subject,” replied Wickham; “_I_ can hardly be just to him.” Elizabeth was again deep in thought, and after a time exclaimed, “To treat in such a manner the godson, the friend, the favourite of his father!” She could have added, “A young man, too, like _you_, whose very countenance may vouch for your being amiable”—but she contented herself with, “and one, too, who had probably been his companion from childhood, connected together, as I think you said, in the closest manner!” “We were born in the same parish, within the same park; the greatest part of our youth was passed together; inmates of the same house, sharing the same amusements, objects of the same parental care. _My_ father began life in the profession which your uncle, Mr. Phillips, appears to do so much credit to—but he gave up everything to be of use to the late Mr. Darcy and devoted all his time to the care of the Pemberley property. He was most highly esteemed by Mr. Darcy, a most intimate, confidential friend. Mr. Darcy often acknowledged himself to be under the greatest obligations to my father’s active superintendence, and when, immediately before my father’s death, Mr. Darcy gave him a voluntary promise of providing for me, I am convinced that he felt it to be as much a debt of gratitude to _him_, as of his affection to myself.” “How strange!” cried Elizabeth. “How abominable! I wonder that the very pride of this Mr. Darcy has not made him just to you! If from no better motive, that he should not have been too proud to be dishonest—for dishonesty I must call it.” “It _is_ wonderful,” replied Wickham, “for almost all his actions may be traced to pride; and pride had often been his best friend. It has connected him nearer with virtue than with any other feeling. But we are none of us consistent, and in his behaviour to me there were stronger impulses even than pride.” “Can such abominable pride as his have ever done him good?” “Yes. It has often led him to be liberal and generous, to give his money freely, to display hospitality, to assist his tenants, and relieve the poor. Family pride, and _filial_ pride—for he is very proud of what his father was—have done this. Not to appear to disgrace his family, to degenerate from the popular qualities, or lose the influence of the Pemberley House, is a powerful motive. He has also _brotherly_ pride, which, with _some_ brotherly affection, makes him a very kind and careful guardian of his sister, and you will hear him generally cried up as the most attentive and best of brothers.” “What sort of girl is Miss Darcy?” He shook his head. “I wish I could call her amiable. It gives me pain to speak ill of a Darcy. But she is too much like her brother—very, very proud. As a child, she was affectionate and pleasing, and extremely fond of me; and I have devoted hours and hours to her amusement. But she is nothing to me now. She is a handsome girl, about fifteen or sixteen, and, I understand, highly accomplished. Since her father’s death, her home has been London, where a lady lives with her, and superintends her education.” After many pauses and many trials of other subjects, Elizabeth could not help reverting once more to the first, and saying: “I am astonished at his intimacy with Mr. Bingley! How can Mr. Bingley, who seems good humour itself, and is, I really believe, truly amiable, be in friendship with such a man? How can they suit each other? Do you know Mr. Bingley?” “Not at all.” “He is a sweet-tempered, amiable, charming man. He cannot know what Mr. Darcy is.” “Probably not; but Mr. Darcy can please where he chooses. He does not want abilities. He can be a conversible companion if he thinks it worth his while. Among those who are at all his equals in consequence, he is a very different man from what he is to the less prosperous. His pride never deserts him; but with the rich he is liberal-minded, just, sincere, rational, honourable, and perhaps agreeable—allowing something for fortune and figure.” The whist party soon afterwards breaking up, the players gathered round the other table and Mr. Collins took his station between his cousin Elizabeth and Mrs. Phillips. The usual enquiries as to his success were made by the latter. It had not been very great; he had lost every point; but when Mrs. Phillips began to express her concern thereupon, he assured her with much earnest gravity that it was not of the least importance, that he considered the money as a mere trifle, and begged that she would not make herself uneasy. “I know very well, madam,” said he, “that when persons sit down to a card-table, they must take their chances of these things, and happily I am not in such circumstances as to make five shillings any object. There are undoubtedly many who could not say the same, but thanks to Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I am removed far beyond the necessity of regarding little matters.” Mr. Wickham’s attention was caught; and after observing Mr. Collins for a few moments, he asked Elizabeth in a low voice whether her relation was very intimately acquainted with the family of de Bourgh. “Lady Catherine de Bourgh,” she replied, “has very lately given him a living. I hardly know how Mr. Collins was first introduced to her notice, but he certainly has not known her long.” “You know of course that Lady Catherine de Bourgh and Lady Anne Darcy were sisters; consequently that she is aunt to the present Mr. Darcy.” “No, indeed, I did not. I knew nothing at all of Lady Catherine’s connections. I never heard of her existence till the day before yesterday.” “Her daughter, Miss de Bourgh, will have a very large fortune, and it is believed that she and her cousin will unite the two estates.” This information made Elizabeth smile, as she thought of poor Miss Bingley. Vain indeed must be all her attentions, vain and useless her affection for his sister and her praise of himself, if he were already self-destined for another. “Mr. Collins,” said she, “speaks highly both of Lady Catherine and her daughter; but from some particulars that he has related of her ladyship, I suspect his gratitude misleads him, and that in spite of her being his patroness, she is an arrogant, conceited woman.” “I believe her to be both in a great degree,” replied Wickham; “I have not seen her for many years, but I very well remember that I never liked her, and that her manners were dictatorial and insolent. She has the reputation of being remarkably sensible and clever; but I rather believe she derives part of her abilities from her rank and fortune, part from her authoritative manner, and the rest from the pride of her nephew, who chooses that everyone connected with him should have an understanding of the first class.” Elizabeth allowed that he had given a very rational account of it, and they continued talking together, with mutual satisfaction till supper put an end to cards, and gave the rest of the ladies their share of Mr. Wickham’s attentions. There could be no conversation in the noise of Mrs. Phillips’s supper party, but his manners recommended him to everybody. Whatever he said, was said well; and whatever he did, done gracefully. Elizabeth went away with her head full of him. She could think of nothing but of Mr. Wickham, and of what he had told her, all the way home; but there was not time for her even to mention his name as they went, for neither Lydia nor Mr. Collins were once silent. Lydia talked incessantly of lottery tickets, of the fish she had lost and the fish she had won; and Mr. Collins in describing the civility of Mr. and Mrs. Phillips, protesting that he did not in the least regard his losses at whist, enumerating all the dishes at supper, and repeatedly fearing that he crowded his cousins, had more to say than he could well manage before the carriage stopped at Longbourn House. Chapter 17 Elizabeth related to Jane the next day what had passed between Mr. Wickham and herself. Jane listened with astonishment and concern; she knew not how to believe that Mr. Darcy could be so unworthy of Mr. Bingley’s regard; and yet, it was not in her nature to question the veracity of a young man of such amiable appearance as Wickham. The possibility of his having endured such unkindness, was enough to interest all her tender feelings; and nothing remained therefore to be done, but to think well of them both, to defend the conduct of each, and throw into the account of accident or mistake whatever could not be otherwise explained. “They have both,” said she, “been deceived, I dare say, in some way or other, of which we can form no idea. Interested people have perhaps misrepresented each to the other. It is, in short, impossible for us to conjecture the causes or circumstances which may have alienated them, without actual blame on either side.” “Very true, indeed; and now, my dear Jane, what have you got to say on behalf of the interested people who have probably been concerned in the business? Do clear _them_ too, or we shall be obliged to think ill of somebody.” “Laugh as much as you choose, but you will not laugh me out of my opinion. My dearest Lizzy, do but consider in what a disgraceful light it places Mr. Darcy, to be treating his father’s favourite in such a manner, one whom his father had promised to provide for. It is impossible. No man of common humanity, no man who had any value for his character, could be capable of it. Can his most intimate friends be so excessively deceived in him? Oh! no.” “I can much more easily believe Mr. Bingley’s being imposed on, than that Mr. Wickham should invent such a history of himself as he gave me last night; names, facts, everything mentioned without ceremony. If it be not so, let Mr. Darcy contradict it. Besides, there was truth in his looks.” “It is difficult indeed—it is distressing. One does not know what to think.” “I beg your pardon; one knows exactly what to think.” But Jane could think with certainty on only one point—that Mr. Bingley, if he _had been_ imposed on, would have much to suffer when the affair became public. The two young ladies were summoned from the shrubbery, where this conversation passed, by the arrival of the very persons of whom they had been speaking; Mr. Bingley and his sisters came to give their personal invitation for the long-expected ball at Netherfield, which was fixed for the following Tuesday. The two ladies were delighted to see their dear friend again, called it an age since they had met, and repeatedly asked what she had been doing with herself since their separation. To the rest of the family they paid little attention; avoiding Mrs. Bennet as much as possible, saying not much to Elizabeth, and nothing at all to the others. They were soon gone again, rising from their seats with an activity which took their brother by surprise, and hurrying off as if eager to escape from Mrs. Bennet’s civilities. The prospect of the Netherfield ball was extremely agreeable to every female of the family. Mrs. Bennet chose to consider it as given in compliment to her eldest daughter, and was particularly flattered by receiving the invitation from Mr. Bingley himself, instead of a ceremonious card. Jane pictured to herself a happy evening in the society of her two friends, and the attentions of their brother; and Elizabeth thought with pleasure of dancing a great deal with Mr. Wickham, and of seeing a confirmation of everything in Mr. Darcy’s look and behaviour. The happiness anticipated by Catherine and Lydia depended less on any single event, or any particular person, for though they each, like Elizabeth, meant to dance half the evening with Mr. Wickham, he was by no means the only partner who could satisfy them, and a ball was, at any rate, a ball. And even Mary could assure her family that she had no disinclination for it. “While I can have my mornings to myself,” said she, “it is enough—I think it is no sacrifice to join occasionally in evening engagements. Society has claims on us all; and I profess myself one of those who consider intervals of recreation and amusement as desirable for everybody.” Elizabeth’s spirits were so high on this occasion, that though she did not often speak unnecessarily to Mr. Collins, she could not help asking him whether he intended to accept Mr. Bingley’s invitation, and if he did, whether he would think it proper to join in the evening’s amusement; and she was rather surprised to find that he entertained no scruple whatever on that head, and was very far from dreading a rebuke either from the Archbishop, or Lady Catherine de Bourgh, by venturing to dance. “I am by no means of the opinion, I assure you,” said he, “that a ball of this kind, given by a young man of character, to respectable people, can have any evil tendency; and I am so far from objecting to dancing myself, that I shall hope to be honoured with the hands of all my fair cousins in the course of the evening; and I take this opportunity of soliciting yours, Miss Elizabeth, for the two first dances especially, a preference which I trust my cousin Jane will attribute to the right cause, and not to any disrespect for her.” Elizabeth felt herself completely taken in. She had fully proposed being engaged by Mr. Wickham for those very dances; and to have Mr. Collins instead! her liveliness had never been worse timed. There was no help for it, however. Mr. Wickham’s happiness and her own were perforce delayed a little longer, and Mr. Collins’s proposal accepted with as good a grace as she could. She was not the better pleased with his gallantry from the idea it suggested of something more. It now first struck her, that _she_ was selected from among her sisters as worthy of being mistress of Hunsford Parsonage, and of assisting to form a quadrille table at Rosings, in the absence of more eligible visitors. The idea soon reached to conviction, as she observed his increasing civilities toward herself, and heard his frequent attempt at a compliment on her wit and vivacity; and though more astonished than gratified herself by this effect of her charms, it was not long before her mother gave her to understand that the probability of their marriage was extremely agreeable to _her_. Elizabeth, however, did not choose to take the hint, being well aware that a serious dispute must be the consequence of any reply. Mr. Collins might never make the offer, and till he did, it was useless to quarrel about him. If there had not been a Netherfield ball to prepare for and talk of, the younger Miss Bennets would have been in a very pitiable state at this time, for from the day of the invitation, to the day of the ball, there was such a succession of rain as prevented their walking to Meryton once. No aunt, no officers, no news could be sought after—the very shoe-roses for Netherfield were got by proxy. Even Elizabeth might have found some trial of her patience in weather which totally suspended the improvement of her acquaintance with Mr. Wickham; and nothing less than a dance on Tuesday, could have made such a Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday endurable to Kitty and Lydia. Chapter 18 Till Elizabeth entered the drawing-room at Netherfield, and looked in vain for Mr. Wickham among the cluster of red coats there assembled, a doubt of his being present had never occurred to her. The certainty of meeting him had not been checked by any of those recollections that might not unreasonably have alarmed her. She had dressed with more than usual care, and prepared in the highest spirits for the conquest of all that remained unsubdued of his heart, trusting that it was not more than might be won in the course of the evening. But in an instant arose the dreadful suspicion of his being purposely omitted for Mr. Darcy’s pleasure in the Bingleys’ invitation to the officers; and though this was not exactly the case, the absolute fact of his absence was pronounced by his friend Denny, to whom Lydia eagerly applied, and who told them that Wickham had been obliged to go to town on business the day before, and was not yet returned; adding, with a significant smile, “I do not imagine his business would have called him away just now, if he had not wanted to avoid a certain gentleman here.” This part of his intelligence, though unheard by Lydia, was caught by Elizabeth, and, as it assured her that Darcy was not less answerable for Wickham’s absence than if her first surmise had been just, every feeling of displeasure against the former was so sharpened by immediate disappointment, that she could hardly reply with tolerable civility to the polite enquiries which he directly afterwards approached to make. Attendance, forbearance, patience with Darcy, was injury to Wickham. She was resolved against any sort of conversation with him, and turned away with a degree of ill-humour which she could not wholly surmount even in speaking to Mr. Bingley, whose blind partiality provoked her. But Elizabeth was not formed for ill-humour; and though every prospect of her own was destroyed for the evening, it could not dwell long on her spirits; and having told all her griefs to Charlotte Lucas, whom she had not seen for a week, she was soon able to make a voluntary transition to the oddities of her cousin, and to point him out to her particular notice. The first two dances, however, brought a return of distress; they were dances of mortification. Mr. Collins, awkward and solemn, apologising instead of attending, and often moving wrong without being aware of it, gave her all the shame and misery which a disagreeable partner for a couple of dances can give. The moment of her release from him was ecstasy. She danced next with an officer, and had the refreshment of talking of Wickham, and of hearing that he was universally liked. When those dances were over, she returned to Charlotte Lucas, and was in conversation with her, when she found herself suddenly addressed by Mr. Darcy who took her so much by surprise in his application for her hand, that, without knowing what she did, she accepted him. He walked away again immediately, and she was left to fret over her own want of presence of mind; Charlotte tried to console her: “I dare say you will find him very agreeable.” “Heaven forbid! _That_ would be the greatest misfortune of all! To find a man agreeable whom one is determined to hate! Do not wish me such an evil.” When the dancing recommenced, however, and Darcy approached to claim her hand, Charlotte could not help cautioning her in a whisper, not to be a simpleton, and allow her fancy for Wickham to make her appear unpleasant in the eyes of a man ten times his consequence. Elizabeth made no answer, and took her place in the set, amazed at the dignity to which she was arrived in being allowed to stand opposite to Mr. Darcy, and reading in her neighbours’ looks, their equal amazement in beholding it. They stood for some time without speaking a word; and she began to imagine that their silence was to last through the two dances, and at first was resolved not to break it; till suddenly fancying that it would be the greater punishment to her partner to oblige him to talk, she made some slight observation on the dance. He replied, and was again silent. After a pause of some minutes, she addressed him a second time with:—“It is _your_ turn to say something now, Mr. Darcy. _I_ talked about the dance, and _you_ ought to make some sort of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.” He smiled, and assured her that whatever she wished him to say should be said. “Very well. That reply will do for the present. Perhaps by and by I may observe that private balls are much pleasanter than public ones. But _now_ we may be silent.” “Do you talk by rule, then, while you are dancing?” “Sometimes. One must speak a little, you know. It would look odd to be entirely silent for half an hour together; and yet for the advantage of _some_, conversation ought to be so arranged, as that they may have the trouble of saying as little as possible.” “Are you consulting your own feelings in the present case, or do you imagine that you are gratifying mine?” “Both,” replied Elizabeth archly; “for I have always seen a great similarity in the turn of our minds. We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the _éclat_ of a proverb.” “This is no very striking resemblance of your own character, I am sure,” said he. “How near it may be to _mine_, I cannot pretend to say. _You_ think it a faithful portrait undoubtedly.” “I must not decide on my own performance.” He made no answer, and they were again silent till they had gone down the dance, when he asked her if she and her sisters did not very often walk to Meryton. She answered in the affirmative, and, unable to resist the temptation, added, “When you met us there the other day, we had just been forming a new acquaintance.” The effect was immediate. A deeper shade of _hauteur_ overspread his features, but he said not a word, and Elizabeth, though blaming herself for her own weakness, could not go on. At length Darcy spoke, and in a constrained manner said, “Mr. Wickham is blessed with such happy manners as may ensure his _making_ friends—whether he may be equally capable of _retaining_ them, is less certain.” “He has been so unlucky as to lose _your_ friendship,” replied Elizabeth with emphasis, “and in a manner which he is likely to suffer from all his life.” Darcy made no answer, and seemed desirous of changing the subject. At that moment, Sir William Lucas appeared close to them, meaning to pass through the set to the other side of the room; but on perceiving Mr. Darcy, he stopped with a bow of superior courtesy to compliment him on his dancing and his partner. “I have been most highly gratified indeed, my dear sir. Such very superior dancing is not often seen. It is evident that you belong to the first circles. Allow me to say, however, that your fair partner does not disgrace you, and that I must hope to have this pleasure often repeated, especially when a certain desirable event, my dear Eliza (glancing at her sister and Bingley) shall take place. What congratulations will then flow in! I appeal to Mr. Darcy:—but let me not interrupt you, sir. You will not thank me for detaining you from the bewitching converse of that young lady, whose bright eyes are also upbraiding me.” The latter part of this address was scarcely heard by Darcy; but Sir William’s allusion to his friend seemed to strike him forcibly, and his eyes were directed with a very serious expression towards Bingley and Jane, who were dancing together. Recovering himself, however, shortly, he turned to his partner, and said, “Sir William’s interruption has made me forget what we were talking of.” “I do not think we were speaking at all. Sir William could not have interrupted two people in the room who had less to say for themselves. We have tried two or three subjects already without success, and what we are to talk of next I cannot imagine.” “What think you of books?” said he, smiling. “Books—oh! no. I am sure we never read the same, or not with the same feelings.” “I am sorry you think so; but if that be the case, there can at least be no want of subject. We may compare our different opinions.” “No—I cannot talk of books in a ball-room; my head is always full of something else.” “The _present_ always occupies you in such scenes—does it?” said he, with a look of doubt. “Yes, always,” she replied, without knowing what she said, for her thoughts had wandered far from the subject, as soon afterwards appeared by her suddenly exclaiming, “I remember hearing you once say, Mr. Darcy, that you hardly ever forgave, that your resentment once created was unappeasable. You are very cautious, I suppose, as to its _being created?_” “I am,” said he, with a firm voice. “And never allow yourself to be blinded by prejudice?” “I hope not.” “It is particularly incumbent on those who never change their opinion, to be secure of judging properly at first.” “May I ask to what these questions tend?” “Merely to the illustration of _your_ character,” said she, endeavouring to shake off her gravity. “I am trying to make it out.” “And what is your success?” She shook her head. “I do not get on at all. I hear such different accounts of you as puzzle me exceedingly.” “I can readily believe,” answered he gravely, “that reports may vary greatly with respect to me; and I could wish, Miss Bennet, that you were not to sketch my character at the present moment, as there is reason to fear that the performance would reflect no credit on either.” “But if I do not take your likeness now, I may never have another opportunity.” “I would by no means suspend any pleasure of yours,” he coldly replied. She said no more, and they went down the other dance and parted in silence; and on each side dissatisfied, though not to an equal degree, for in Darcy’s breast there was a tolerably powerful feeling towards her, which soon procured her pardon, and directed all his anger against another. They had not long separated, when Miss Bingley came towards her, and with an expression of civil disdain accosted her: “So, Miss Eliza, I hear you are quite delighted with George Wickham! Your sister has been talking to me about him, and asking me a thousand questions; and I find that the young man quite forgot to tell you, among his other communication, that he was the son of old Wickham, the late Mr. Darcy’s steward. Let me recommend you, however, as a friend, not to give implicit confidence to all his assertions; for as to Mr. Darcy’s using him ill, it is perfectly false; for, on the contrary, he has always been remarkably kind to him, though George Wickham has treated Mr. Darcy in a most infamous manner. I do not know the particulars, but I know very well that Mr. Darcy is not in the least to blame, that he cannot bear to hear George Wickham mentioned, and that though my brother thought that he could not well avoid including him in his invitation to the officers, he was excessively glad to find that he had taken himself out of the way. His coming into the country at all is a most insolent thing, indeed, and I wonder how he could presume to do it. I pity you, Miss Eliza, for this discovery of your favourite’s guilt; but really, considering his descent, one could not expect much better.” “His guilt and his descent appear by your account to be the same,” said Elizabeth angrily; “for I have heard you accuse him of nothing worse than of being the son of Mr. Darcy’s steward, and of _that_, I can assure you, he informed me himself.” “I beg your pardon,” replied Miss Bingley, turning away with a sneer. “Excuse my interference—it was kindly meant.” “Insolent girl!” said Elizabeth to herself. “You are much mistaken if you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this. I see nothing in it but your own wilful ignorance and the malice of Mr. Darcy.” She then sought her eldest sister, who had undertaken to make enquiries on the same subject of Bingley. Jane met her with a smile of such sweet complacency, a glow of such happy expression, as sufficiently marked how well she was satisfied with the occurrences of the evening. Elizabeth instantly read her feelings, and at that moment solicitude for Wickham, resentment against his enemies, and everything else, gave way before the hope of Jane’s being in the fairest way for happiness. “I want to know,” said she, with a countenance no less smiling than her sister’s, “what you have learnt about Mr. Wickham. But perhaps you have been too pleasantly engaged to think of any third person; in which case you may be sure of my pardon.” “No,” replied Jane, “I have not forgotten him; but I have nothing satisfactory to tell you. Mr. Bingley does not know the whole of his history, and is quite ignorant of the circumstances which have principally offended Mr. Darcy; but he will vouch for the good conduct, the probity, and honour of his friend, and is perfectly convinced that Mr. Wickham has deserved much less attention from Mr. Darcy than he has received; and I am sorry to say by his account as well as his sister’s, Mr. Wickham is by no means a respectable young man. I am afraid he has been very imprudent, and has deserved to lose Mr. Darcy’s regard.” “Mr. Bingley does not know Mr. Wickham himself?” “No; he never saw him till the other morning at Meryton.” “This account then is what he has received from Mr. Darcy. I am satisfied. But what does he say of the living?” “He does not exactly recollect the circumstances, though he has heard them from Mr. Darcy more than once, but he believes that it was left to him _conditionally_ only.” “I have not a doubt of Mr. Bingley’s sincerity,” said Elizabeth warmly; “but you must excuse my not being convinced by assurances only. Mr. Bingley’s defense of his friend was a very able one, I dare say; but since he is unacquainted with several parts of the story, and has learnt the rest from that friend himself, I shall venture to still think of both gentlemen as I did before.” She then changed the discourse to one more gratifying to each, and on which there could be no difference of sentiment. Elizabeth listened with delight to the happy, though modest hopes which Jane entertained of Mr. Bingley’s regard, and said all in her power to heighten her confidence in it. On their being joined by Mr. Bingley himself, Elizabeth withdrew to Miss Lucas; to whose enquiry after the pleasantness of her last partner she had scarcely replied, before Mr. Collins came up to them, and told her with great exultation that he had just been so fortunate as to make a most important discovery. “I have found out,” said he, “by a singular accident, that there is now in the room a near relation of my patroness. I happened to overhear the gentleman himself mentioning to the young lady who does the honours of the house the names of his cousin Miss de Bourgh, and of her mother Lady Catherine. How wonderfully these sort of things occur! Who would have thought of my meeting with, perhaps, a nephew of Lady Catherine de Bourgh in this assembly! I am most thankful that the discovery is made in time for me to pay my respects to him, which I am now going to do, and trust he will excuse my not having done it before. My total ignorance of the connection must plead my apology.” “You are not going to introduce yourself to Mr. Darcy!” “Indeed I am. I shall entreat his pardon for not having done it earlier. I believe him to be Lady Catherine’s _nephew_. It will be in my power to assure him that her ladyship was quite well yesterday se’nnight.” Elizabeth tried hard to dissuade him from such a scheme, assuring him that Mr. Darcy would consider his addressing him without introduction as an impertinent freedom, rather than a compliment to his aunt; that it was not in the least necessary there should be any notice on either side; and that if it were, it must belong to Mr. Darcy, the superior in consequence, to begin the acquaintance. Mr. Collins listened to her with the determined air of following his own inclination, and, when she ceased speaking, replied thus: “My dear Miss Elizabeth, I have the highest opinion in the world in your excellent judgement in all matters within the scope of your understanding; but permit me to say, that there must be a wide difference between the established forms of ceremony amongst the laity, and those which regulate the clergy; for, give me leave to observe that I consider the clerical office as equal in point of dignity with the highest rank in the kingdom—provided that a proper humility of behaviour is at the same time maintained. You must therefore allow me to follow the dictates of my conscience on this occasion, which leads me to perform what I look on as a point of duty. Pardon me for neglecting to profit by your advice, which on every other subject shall be my constant guide, though in the case before us I consider myself more fitted by education and habitual study to decide on what is right than a young lady like yourself.” And with a low bow he left her to attack Mr. Darcy, whose reception of his advances she eagerly watched, and whose astonishment at being so addressed was very evident. Her cousin prefaced his speech with a solemn bow and though she could not hear a word of it, she felt as if hearing it all, and saw in the motion of his lips the words “apology,” “Hunsford,” and “Lady Catherine de Bourgh.” It vexed her to see him expose himself to such a man. Mr. Darcy was eyeing him with unrestrained wonder, and when at last Mr. Collins allowed him time to speak, replied with an air of distant civility. Mr. Collins, however, was not discouraged from speaking again, and Mr. Darcy’s contempt seemed abundantly increasing with the length of his second speech, and at the end of it he only made him a slight bow, and moved another way. Mr. Collins then returned to Elizabeth. “I have no reason, I assure you,” said he, “to be dissatisfied with my reception. Mr. Darcy seemed much pleased with the attention. He answered me with the utmost civility, and even paid me the compliment of saying that he was so well convinced of Lady Catherine’s discernment as to be certain she could never bestow a favour unworthily. It was really a very handsome thought. Upon the whole, I am much pleased with him.” As Elizabeth had no longer any interest of her own to pursue, she turned her attention almost entirely on her sister and Mr. Bingley; and the train of agreeable reflections which her observations gave birth to, made her perhaps almost as happy as Jane. She saw her in idea settled in that very house, in all the felicity which a marriage of true affection could bestow; and she felt capable, under such circumstances, of endeavouring even to like Bingley’s two sisters. Her mother’s thoughts she plainly saw were bent the same way, and she determined not to venture near her, lest she might hear too much. When they sat down to supper, therefore, she considered it a most unlucky perverseness which placed them within one of each other; and deeply was she vexed to find that her mother was talking to that one person (Lady Lucas) freely, openly, and of nothing else but her expectation that Jane would soon be married to Mr. Bingley. It was an animating subject, and Mrs. Bennet seemed incapable of fatigue while enumerating the advantages of the match. His being such a charming young man, and so rich, and living but three miles from them, were the first points of self-gratulation; and then it was such a comfort to think how fond the two sisters were of Jane, and to be certain that they must desire the connection as much as she could do. It was, moreover, such a promising thing for her younger daughters, as Jane’s marrying so greatly must throw them in the way of other rich men; and lastly, it was so pleasant at her time of life to be able to consign her single daughters to the care of their sister, that she might not be obliged to go into company more than she liked. It was necessary to make this circumstance a matter of pleasure, because on such occasions it is the etiquette; but no one was less likely than Mrs. Bennet to find comfort in staying home at any period of her life. She concluded with many good wishes that Lady Lucas might soon be equally fortunate, though evidently and triumphantly believing there was no chance of it. In vain did Elizabeth endeavour to check the rapidity of her mother’s words, or persuade her to describe her felicity in a less audible whisper; for, to her inexpressible vexation, she could perceive that the chief of it was overheard by Mr. Darcy, who sat opposite to them. Her mother only scolded her for being nonsensical. “What is Mr. Darcy to me, pray, that I should be afraid of him? I am sure we owe him no such particular civility as to be obliged to say nothing _he_ may not like to hear.” “For heaven’s sake, madam, speak lower. What advantage can it be for you to offend Mr. Darcy? You will never recommend yourself to his friend by so doing!” Nothing that she could say, however, had any influence. Her mother would talk of her views in the same intelligible tone. Elizabeth blushed and blushed again with shame and vexation. She could not help frequently glancing her eye at Mr. Darcy, though every glance convinced her of what she dreaded; for though he was not always looking at her mother, she was convinced that his attention was invariably fixed by her. The expression of his face changed gradually from indignant contempt to a composed and steady gravity. At length, however, Mrs. Bennet had no more to say; and Lady Lucas, who had been long yawning at the repetition of delights which she saw no likelihood of sharing, was left to the comforts of cold ham and chicken. Elizabeth now began to revive. But not long was the interval of tranquillity; for, when supper was over, singing was talked of, and she had the mortification of seeing Mary, after very little entreaty, preparing to oblige the company. By many significant looks and silent entreaties, did she endeavour to prevent such a proof of complaisance, but in vain; Mary would not understand them; such an opportunity of exhibiting was delightful to her, and she began her song. Elizabeth’s eyes were fixed on her with most painful sensations, and she watched her progress through the several stanzas with an impatience which was very ill rewarded at their close; for Mary, on receiving, amongst the thanks of the table, the hint of a hope that she might be prevailed on to favour them again, after the pause of half a minute began another. Mary’s powers were by no means fitted for such a display; her voice was weak, and her manner affected. Elizabeth was in agonies. She looked at Jane, to see how she bore it; but Jane was very composedly talking to Bingley. She looked at his two sisters, and saw them making signs of derision at each other, and at Darcy, who continued, however, imperturbably grave. She looked at her father to entreat his interference, lest Mary should be singing all night. He took the hint, and when Mary had finished her second song, said aloud, “That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough. Let the other young ladies have time to exhibit.” Mary, though pretending not to hear, was somewhat disconcerted; and Elizabeth, sorry for her, and sorry for her father’s speech, was afraid her anxiety had done no good. Others of the party were now applied to. “If I,” said Mr. Collins, “were so fortunate as to be able to sing, I should have great pleasure, I am sure, in obliging the company with an air; for I consider music as a very innocent diversion, and perfectly compatible with the profession of a clergyman. I do not mean, however, to assert that we can be justified in devoting too much of our time to music, for there are certainly other things to be attended to. The rector of a parish has much to do. In the first place, he must make such an agreement for tithes as may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his patron. He must write his own sermons; and the time that remains will not be too much for his parish duties, and the care and improvement of his dwelling, which he cannot be excused from making as comfortable as possible. And I do not think it of light importance that he should have attentive and conciliatory manners towards everybody, especially towards those to whom he owes his preferment. I cannot acquit him of that duty; nor could I think well of the man who should omit an occasion of testifying his respect towards anybody connected with the family.” And with a bow to Mr. Darcy, he concluded his speech, which had been spoken so loud as to be heard by half the room. Many stared—many smiled; but no one looked more amused than Mr. Bennet himself, while his wife seriously commended Mr. Collins for having spoken so sensibly, and observed in a half-whisper to Lady Lucas, that he was a remarkably clever, good kind of young man. To Elizabeth it appeared that, had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit or finer success; and happy did she think it for Bingley and her sister that some of the exhibition had escaped his notice, and that his feelings were not of a sort to be much distressed by the folly which he must have witnessed. That his two sisters and Mr. Darcy, however, should have such an opportunity of ridiculing her relations, was bad enough, and she could not determine whether the silent contempt of the gentleman, or the insolent smiles of the ladies, were more intolerable. The rest of the evening brought her little amusement. She was teased by Mr. Collins, who continued most perseveringly by her side, and though he could not prevail on her to dance with him again, put it out of her power to dance with others. In vain did she entreat him to stand up with somebody else, and offer to introduce him to any young lady in the room. He assured her, that as to dancing, he was perfectly indifferent to it; that his chief object was by delicate attentions to recommend himself to her and that he should therefore make a point of remaining close to her the whole evening. There was no arguing upon such a project. She owed her greatest relief to her friend Miss Lucas, who often joined them, and good-naturedly engaged Mr. Collins’s conversation to herself. She was at least free from the offense of Mr. Darcy’s further notice; though often standing within a very short distance of her, quite disengaged, he never came near enough to speak. She felt it to be the probable consequence of her allusions to Mr. Wickham, and rejoiced in it. The Longbourn party were the last of all the company to depart, and, by a manoeuvre of Mrs. Bennet, had to wait for their carriage a quarter of an hour after everybody else was gone, which gave them time to see how heartily they were wished away by some of the family. Mrs. Hurst and her sister scarcely opened their mouths, except to complain of fatigue, and were evidently impatient to have the house to themselves. They repulsed every attempt of Mrs. Bennet at conversation, and by so doing threw a languor over the whole party, which was very little relieved by the long speeches of Mr. Collins, who was complimenting Mr. Bingley and his sisters on the elegance of their entertainment, and the hospitality and politeness which had marked their behaviour to their guests. Darcy said nothing at all. Mr. Bennet, in equal silence, was enjoying the scene. Mr. Bingley and Jane were standing together, a little detached from the rest, and talked only to each other. Elizabeth preserved as steady a silence as either Mrs. Hurst or Miss Bingley; and even Lydia was too much fatigued to utter more than the occasional exclamation of “Lord, how tired I am!” accompanied by a violent yawn. When at length they arose to take leave, Mrs. Bennet was most pressingly civil in her hope of seeing the whole family soon at Longbourn, and addressed herself especially to Mr. Bingley, to assure him how happy he would make them by eating a family dinner with them at any time, without the ceremony of a formal invitation. Bingley was all grateful pleasure, and he readily engaged for taking the earliest opportunity of waiting on her, after his return from London, whither he was obliged to go the next day for a short time. Mrs. Bennet was perfectly satisfied, and quitted the house under the delightful persuasion that, allowing for the necessary preparations of settlements, new carriages, and wedding clothes, she should undoubtedly see her daughter settled at Netherfield in the course of three or four months. Of having another daughter married to Mr. Collins, she thought with equal certainty, and with considerable, though not equal, pleasure. Elizabeth was the least dear to her of all her children; and though the man and the match were quite good enough for _her_, the worth of each was eclipsed by Mr. Bingley and Netherfield. Chapter 19 The next day opened a new scene at Longbourn. Mr. Collins made his declaration in form. Having resolved to do it without loss of time, as his leave of absence extended only to the following Saturday, and having no feelings of diffidence to make it distressing to himself even at the moment, he set about it in a very orderly manner, with all the observances, which he supposed a regular part of the business. On finding Mrs. Bennet, Elizabeth, and one of the younger girls together, soon after breakfast, he addressed the mother in these words: “May I hope, madam, for your interest with your fair daughter Elizabeth, when I solicit for the honour of a private audience with her in the course of this morning?” Before Elizabeth had time for anything but a blush of surprise, Mrs. Bennet answered instantly, “Oh dear!—yes—certainly. I am sure Lizzy will be very happy—I am sure she can have no objection. Come, Kitty, I want you up stairs.” And, gathering her work together, she was hastening away, when Elizabeth called out: “Dear madam, do not go. I beg you will not go. Mr. Collins must excuse me. He can have nothing to say to me that anybody need not hear. I am going away myself.” “No, no, nonsense, Lizzy. I desire you to stay where you are.” And upon Elizabeth’s seeming really, with vexed and embarrassed looks, about to escape, she added: “Lizzy, I _insist_ upon your staying and hearing Mr. Collins.” Elizabeth would not oppose such an injunction—and a moment’s consideration making her also sensible that it would be wisest to get it over as soon and as quietly as possible, she sat down again and tried to conceal, by incessant employment the feelings which were divided between distress and diversion. Mrs. Bennet and Kitty walked off, and as soon as they were gone, Mr. Collins began. “Believe me, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that your modesty, so far from doing you any disservice, rather adds to your other perfections. You would have been less amiable in my eyes had there _not_ been this little unwillingness; but allow me to assure you, that I have your respected mother’s permission for this address. You can hardly doubt the purport of my discourse, however your natural delicacy may lead you to dissemble; my attentions have been too marked to be mistaken. Almost as soon as I entered the house, I singled you out as the companion of my future life. But before I am run away with by my feelings on this subject, perhaps it would be advisable for me to state my reasons for marrying—and, moreover, for coming into Hertfordshire with the design of selecting a wife, as I certainly did.” The idea of Mr. Collins, with all his solemn composure, being run away with by his feelings, made Elizabeth so near laughing, that she could not use the short pause he allowed in any attempt to stop him further, and he continued: “My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman in easy circumstances (like myself) to set the example of matrimony in his parish; secondly, that I am convinced that it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly—which perhaps I ought to have mentioned earlier, that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness. Twice has she condescended to give me her opinion (unasked too!) on this subject; and it was but the very Saturday night before I left Hunsford—between our pools at quadrille, while Mrs. Jenkinson was arranging Miss de Bourgh’s footstool, that she said, ‘Mr. Collins, you must marry. A clergyman like you must marry. Choose properly, choose a gentlewoman for _my_ sake; and for your _own_, let her be an active, useful sort of person, not brought up high, but able to make a small income go a good way. This is my advice. Find such a woman as soon as you can, bring her to Hunsford, and I will visit her.’ Allow me, by the way, to observe, my fair cousin, that I do not reckon the notice and kindness of Lady Catherine de Bourgh as among the least of the advantages in my power to offer. You will find her manners beyond anything I can describe; and your wit and vivacity, I think, must be acceptable to her, especially when tempered with the silence and respect which her rank will inevitably excite. Thus much for my general intention in favour of matrimony; it remains to be told why my views were directed towards Longbourn instead of my own neighbourhood, where I can assure you there are many amiable young women. But the fact is, that being, as I am, to inherit this estate after the death of your honoured father (who, however, may live many years longer), I could not satisfy myself without resolving to choose a wife from among his daughters, that the loss to them might be as little as possible, when the melancholy event takes place—which, however, as I have already said, may not be for several years. This has been my motive, my fair cousin, and I flatter myself it will not sink me in your esteem. And now nothing remains for me but to assure you in the most animated language of the violence of my affection. To fortune I am perfectly indifferent, and shall make no demand of that nature on your father, since I am well aware that it could not be complied with; and that one thousand pounds in the four per cents, which will not be yours till after your mother’s decease, is all that you may ever be entitled to. On that head, therefore, I shall be uniformly silent; and you may assure yourself that no ungenerous reproach shall ever pass my lips when we are married.” It was absolutely necessary to interrupt him now. “You are too hasty, sir,” she cried. “You forget that I have made no answer. Let me do it without further loss of time. Accept my thanks for the compliment you are paying me. I am very sensible of the honour of your proposals, but it is impossible for me to do otherwise than to decline them.” “I am not now to learn,” replied Mr. Collins, with a formal wave of the hand, “that it is usual with young ladies to reject the addresses of the man whom they secretly mean to accept, when he first applies for their favour; and that sometimes the refusal is repeated a second, or even a third time. I am therefore by no means discouraged by what you have just said, and shall hope to lead you to the altar ere long.” “Upon my word, sir,” cried Elizabeth, “your hope is a rather extraordinary one after my declaration. I do assure you that I am not one of those young ladies (if such young ladies there are) who are so daring as to risk their happiness on the chance of being asked a second time. I am perfectly serious in my refusal. You could not make _me_ happy, and I am convinced that I am the last woman in the world who could make you so. Nay, were your friend Lady Catherine to know me, I am persuaded she would find me in every respect ill qualified for the situation.” “Were it certain that Lady Catherine would think so,” said Mr. Collins very gravely—“but I cannot imagine that her ladyship would at all disapprove of you. And you may be certain when I have the honour of seeing her again, I shall speak in the very highest terms of your modesty, economy, and other amiable qualification.” “Indeed, Mr. Collins, all praise of me will be unnecessary. You must give me leave to judge for myself, and pay me the compliment of believing what I say. I wish you very happy and very rich, and by refusing your hand, do all in my power to prevent your being otherwise. In making me the offer, you must have satisfied the delicacy of your feelings with regard to my family, and may take possession of Longbourn estate whenever it falls, without any self-reproach. This matter may be considered, therefore, as finally settled.” And rising as she thus spoke, she would have quitted the room, had Mr. Collins not thus addressed her: “When I do myself the honour of speaking to you next on the subject, I shall hope to receive a more favourable answer than you have now given me; though I am far from accusing you of cruelty at present, because I know it to be the established custom of your sex to reject a man on the first application, and perhaps you have even now said as much to encourage my suit as would be consistent with the true delicacy of the female character.” “Really, Mr. Collins,” cried Elizabeth with some warmth, “you puzzle me exceedingly. If what I have hitherto said can appear to you in the form of encouragement, I know not how to express my refusal in such a way as to convince you of its being one.” “You must give me leave to flatter myself, my dear cousin, that your refusal of my addresses is merely words of course. My reasons for believing it are briefly these: It does not appear to me that my hand is unworthy of your acceptance, or that the establishment I can offer would be any other than highly desirable. My situation in life, my connections with the family of de Bourgh, and my relationship to your own, are circumstances highly in my favour; and you should take it into further consideration, that in spite of your manifold attractions, it is by no means certain that another offer of marriage may ever be made you. Your portion is unhappily so small that it will in all likelihood undo the effects of your loveliness and amiable qualifications. As I must therefore conclude that you are not serious in your rejection of me, I shall choose to attribute it to your wish of increasing my love by suspense, according to the usual practice of elegant females.” “I do assure you, sir, that I have no pretensions whatever to that kind of elegance which consists in tormenting a respectable man. I would rather be paid the compliment of being believed sincere. I thank you again and again for the honour you have done me in your proposals, but to accept them is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer? Do not consider me now as an elegant female, intending to plague you, but as a rational creature, speaking the truth from her heart.” “You are uniformly charming!” cried he, with an air of awkward gallantry; “and I am persuaded that when sanctioned by the express authority of both your excellent parents, my proposals will not fail of being acceptable.” To such perseverance in wilful self-deception Elizabeth would make no reply, and immediately and in silence withdrew; determined, if he persisted in considering her repeated refusals as flattering encouragement, to apply to her father, whose negative might be uttered in such a manner as to be decisive, and whose behaviour at least could not be mistaken for the affectation and coquetry of an elegant female. Chapter 20 Mr. Collins was not left long to the silent contemplation of his successful love; for Mrs. Bennet, having dawdled about in the vestibule to watch for the end of the conference, no sooner saw Elizabeth open the door and with quick step pass her towards the staircase, than she entered the breakfast-room, and congratulated both him and herself in warm terms on the happy prospect of their nearer connection. Mr. Collins received and returned these felicitations with equal pleasure, and then proceeded to relate the particulars of their interview, with the result of which he trusted he had every reason to be satisfied, since the refusal which his cousin had steadfastly given him would naturally flow from her bashful modesty and the genuine delicacy of her character. This information, however, startled Mrs. Bennet; she would have been glad to be equally satisfied that her daughter had meant to encourage him by protesting against his proposals, but she dared not believe it, and could not help saying so. “But, depend upon it, Mr. Collins,” she added, “that Lizzy shall be brought to reason. I will speak to her about it directly. She is a very headstrong, foolish girl, and does not know her own interest but I will _make_ her know it.” “Pardon me for interrupting you, madam,” cried Mr. Collins; “but if she is really headstrong and foolish, I know not whether she would altogether be a very desirable wife to a man in my situation, who naturally looks for happiness in the marriage state. If therefore she actually persists in rejecting my suit, perhaps it were better not to force her into accepting me, because if liable to such defects of temper, she could not contribute much to my felicity.” “Sir, you quite misunderstand me,” said Mrs. Bennet, alarmed. “Lizzy is only headstrong in such matters as these. In everything else she is as good-natured a girl as ever lived. I will go directly to Mr. Bennet, and we shall very soon settle it with her, I am sure.” She would not give him time to reply, but hurrying instantly to her husband, called out as she entered the library, “Oh! Mr. Bennet, you are wanted immediately; we are all in an uproar. You must come and make Lizzy marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she will not have him, and if you do not make haste he will change his mind and not have _her_.” Mr. Bennet raised his eyes from his book as she entered, and fixed them on her face with a calm unconcern which was not in the least altered by her communication. “I have not the pleasure of understanding you,” said he, when she had finished her speech. “Of what are you talking?” “Of Mr. Collins and Lizzy. Lizzy declares she will not have Mr. Collins, and Mr. Collins begins to say that he will not have Lizzy.” “And what am I to do on the occasion? It seems an hopeless business.” “Speak to Lizzy about it yourself. Tell her that you insist upon her marrying him.” “Let her be called down. She shall hear my opinion.” Mrs. Bennet rang the bell, and Miss Elizabeth was summoned to the library. “Come here, child,” cried her father as she appeared. “I have sent for you on an affair of importance. I understand that Mr. Collins has made you an offer of marriage. Is it true?” Elizabeth replied that it was. “Very well—and this offer of marriage you have refused?” “I have, sir.” “Very well. We now come to the point. Your mother insists upon your accepting it. Is it not so, Mrs. Bennet?” “Yes, or I will never see her again.” “An unhappy alternative is before you, Elizabeth. From this day you must be a stranger to one of your parents. Your mother will never see you again if you do _not_ marry Mr. Collins, and I will never see you again if you _do_.” Elizabeth could not but smile at such a conclusion of such a beginning, but Mrs. Bennet, who had persuaded herself that her husband regarded the affair as she wished, was excessively disappointed. “What do you mean, Mr. Bennet, in talking this way? You promised me to _insist_ upon her marrying him.” “My dear,” replied her husband, “I have two small favours to request. First, that you will allow me the free use of my understanding on the present occasion; and secondly, of my room. I shall be glad to have the library to myself as soon as may be.” Not yet, however, in spite of her disappointment in her husband, did Mrs. Bennet give up the point. She talked to Elizabeth again and again; coaxed and threatened her by turns. She endeavoured to secure Jane in her interest; but Jane, with all possible mildness, declined interfering; and Elizabeth, sometimes with real earnestness, and sometimes with playful gaiety, replied to her attacks. Though her manner varied, however, her determination never did. Mr. Collins, meanwhile, was meditating in solitude on what had passed. He thought too well of himself to comprehend on what motives his cousin could refuse him; and though his pride was hurt, he suffered in no other way. His regard for her was quite imaginary; and the possibility of her deserving her mother’s reproach prevented his feeling any regret. While the family were in this confusion, Charlotte Lucas came to spend the day with them. She was met in the vestibule by Lydia, who, flying to her, cried in a half whisper, “I am glad you are come, for there is such fun here! What do you think has happened this morning? Mr. Collins has made an offer to Lizzy, and she will not have him.” Charlotte hardly had time to answer, before they were joined by Kitty, who came to tell the same news; and no sooner had they entered the breakfast-room, where Mrs. Bennet was alone, than she likewise began on the subject, calling on Miss Lucas for her compassion, and entreating her to persuade her friend Lizzy to comply with the wishes of all her family. “Pray do, my dear Miss Lucas,” she added in a melancholy tone, “for nobody is on my side, nobody takes part with me. I am cruelly used, nobody feels for my poor nerves.” Charlotte’s reply was spared by the entrance of Jane and Elizabeth. “Aye, there she comes,” continued Mrs. Bennet, “looking as unconcerned as may be, and caring no more for us than if we were at York, provided she can have her own way. But I tell you, Miss Lizzy—if you take it into your head to go on refusing every offer of marriage in this way, you will never get a husband at all—and I am sure I do not know who is to maintain you when your father is dead. _I_ shall not be able to keep you—and so I warn you. I have done with you from this very day. I told you in the library, you know, that I should never speak to you again, and you will find me as good as my word. I have no pleasure in talking to undutiful children. Not that I have much pleasure, indeed, in talking to anybody. People who suffer as I do from nervous complaints can have no great inclination for talking. Nobody can tell what I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied.” Her daughters listened in silence to this effusion, sensible that any attempt to reason with her or soothe her would only increase the irritation. She talked on, therefore, without interruption from any of them, till they were joined by Mr. Collins, who entered the room with an air more stately than usual, and on perceiving whom, she said to the girls, “Now, I do insist upon it, that you, all of you, hold your tongues, and let me and Mr. Collins have a little conversation together.” Elizabeth passed quietly out of the room, Jane and Kitty followed, but Lydia stood her ground, determined to hear all she could; and Charlotte, detained first by the civility of Mr. Collins, whose enquiries after herself and all her family were very minute, and then by a little curiosity, satisfied herself with walking to the window and pretending not to hear. In a doleful voice Mrs. Bennet began the projected conversation: “Oh! Mr. Collins!” “My dear madam,” replied he, “let us be for ever silent on this point. Far be it from me,” he presently continued, in a voice that marked his displeasure, “to resent the behaviour of your daughter. Resignation to inevitable evils is the duty of us all; the peculiar duty of a young man who has been so fortunate as I have been in early preferment; and I trust I am resigned. Perhaps not the less so from feeling a doubt of my positive happiness had my fair cousin honoured me with her hand; for I have often observed that resignation is never so perfect as when the blessing denied begins to lose somewhat of its value in our estimation. You will not, I hope, consider me as showing any disrespect to your family, my dear madam, by thus withdrawing my pretensions to your daughter’s favour, without having paid yourself and Mr. Bennet the compliment of requesting you to interpose your authority in my behalf. My conduct may, I fear, be objectionable in having accepted my dismission from your daughter’s lips instead of your own. But we are all liable to error. I have certainly meant well through the whole affair. My object has been to secure an amiable companion for myself, with due consideration for the advantage of all your family, and if my _manner_ has been at all reprehensible, I here beg leave to apologise.” Chapter 21 The discussion of Mr. Collins’s offer was now nearly at an end, and Elizabeth had only to suffer from the uncomfortable feelings necessarily attending it, and occasionally from some peevish allusions of her mother. As for the gentleman himself, _his_ feelings were chiefly expressed, not by embarrassment or dejection, or by trying to avoid her, but by stiffness of manner and resentful silence. He scarcely ever spoke to her, and the assiduous attentions which he had been so sensible of himself were transferred for the rest of the day to Miss Lucas, whose civility in listening to him was a seasonable relief to them all, and especially to her friend. The morrow produced no abatement of Mrs. Bennet’s ill-humour or ill health. Mr. Collins was also in the same state of angry pride. Elizabeth had hoped that his resentment might shorten his visit, but his plan did not appear in the least affected by it. He was always to have gone on Saturday, and to Saturday he meant to stay. After breakfast, the girls walked to Meryton to enquire if Mr. Wickham were returned, and to lament over his absence from the Netherfield ball. He joined them on their entering the town, and attended them to their aunt’s where his regret and vexation, and the concern of everybody, was well talked over. To Elizabeth, however, he voluntarily acknowledged that the necessity of his absence _had_ been self-imposed. “I found,” said he, “as the time drew near that I had better not meet Mr. Darcy; that to be in the same room, the same party with him for so many hours together, might be more than I could bear, and that scenes might arise unpleasant to more than myself.” She highly approved his forbearance, and they had leisure for a full discussion of it, and for all the commendation which they civilly bestowed on each other, as Wickham and another officer walked back with them to Longbourn, and during the walk he particularly attended to her. His accompanying them was a double advantage; she felt all the compliment it offered to herself, and it was most acceptable as an occasion of introducing him to her father and mother. Soon after their return, a letter was delivered to Miss Bennet; it came from Netherfield. The envelope contained a sheet of elegant, little, hot-pressed paper, well covered with a lady’s fair, flowing hand; and Elizabeth saw her sister’s countenance change as she read it, and saw her dwelling intently on some particular passages. Jane recollected herself soon, and putting the letter away, tried to join with her usual cheerfulness in the general conversation; but Elizabeth felt an anxiety on the subject which drew off her attention even from Wickham; and no sooner had he and his companion taken leave, than a glance from Jane invited her to follow her up stairs. When they had gained their own room, Jane, taking out the letter, said: “This is from Caroline Bingley; what it contains has surprised me a good deal. The whole party have left Netherfield by this time, and are on their way to town—and without any intention of coming back again. You shall hear what she says.” She then read the first sentence aloud, which comprised the information of their having just resolved to follow their brother to town directly, and of their meaning to dine in Grosvenor Street, where Mr. Hurst had a house. The next was in these words: “I do not pretend to regret anything I shall leave in Hertfordshire, except your society, my dearest friend; but we will hope, at some future period, to enjoy many returns of that delightful intercourse we have known, and in the meanwhile may lessen the pain of separation by a very frequent and most unreserved correspondence. I depend on you for that.” To these highflown expressions Elizabeth listened with all the insensibility of distrust; and though the suddenness of their removal surprised her, she saw nothing in it really to lament; it was not to be supposed that their absence from Netherfield would prevent Mr. Bingley’s being there; and as to the loss of their society, she was persuaded that Jane must cease to regard it, in the enjoyment of his. “It is unlucky,” said she, after a short pause, “that you should not be able to see your friends before they leave the country. But may we not hope that the period of future happiness to which Miss Bingley looks forward may arrive earlier than she is aware, and that the delightful intercourse you have known as friends will be renewed with yet greater satisfaction as sisters? Mr. Bingley will not be detained in London by them.” “Caroline decidedly says that none of the party will return into Hertfordshire this winter. I will read it to you:” “When my brother left us yesterday, he imagined that the business which took him to London might be concluded in three or four days; but as we are certain it cannot be so, and at the same time convinced that when Charles gets to town he will be in no hurry to leave it again, we have determined on following him thither, that he may not be obliged to spend his vacant hours in a comfortless hotel. Many of my acquaintances are already there for the winter; I wish that I could hear that you, my dearest friend, had any intention of making one of the crowd—but of that I despair. I sincerely hope your Christmas in Hertfordshire may abound in the gaieties which that season generally brings, and that your beaux will be so numerous as to prevent your feeling the loss of the three of whom we shall deprive you.” “It is evident by this,” added Jane, “that he comes back no more this winter.” “It is only evident that Miss Bingley does not mean that he _should_.” “Why will you think so? It must be his own doing. He is his own master. But you do not know _all_. I _will_ read you the passage which particularly hurts me. I will have no reserves from _you_.” “Mr. Darcy is impatient to see his sister; and, to confess the truth, _we_ are scarcely less eager to meet her again. I really do not think Georgiana Darcy has her equal for beauty, elegance, and accomplishments; and the affection she inspires in Louisa and myself is heightened into something still more interesting, from the hope we dare entertain of her being hereafter our sister. I do not know whether I ever before mentioned to you my feelings on this subject; but I will not leave the country without confiding them, and I trust you will not esteem them unreasonable. My brother admires her greatly already; he will have frequent opportunity now of seeing her on the most intimate footing; her relations all wish the connection as much as his own; and a sister’s partiality is not misleading me, I think, when I call Charles most capable of engaging any woman’s heart. With all these circumstances to favour an attachment, and nothing to prevent it, am I wrong, my dearest Jane, in indulging the hope of an event which will secure the happiness of so many?” “What do you think of _this_ sentence, my dear Lizzy?” said Jane as she finished it. “Is it not clear enough? Does it not expressly declare that Caroline neither expects nor wishes me to be her sister; that she is perfectly convinced of her brother’s indifference; and that if she suspects the nature of my feelings for him, she means (most kindly!) to put me on my guard? Can there be any other opinion on the subject?” “Yes, there can; for mine is totally different. Will you hear it?” “Most willingly.” “You shall have it in a few words. Miss Bingley sees that her brother is in love with you, and wants him to marry Miss Darcy. She follows him to town in hope of keeping him there, and tries to persuade you that he does not care about you.” Jane shook her head. “Indeed, Jane, you ought to believe me. No one who has ever seen you together can doubt his affection. Miss Bingley, I am sure, cannot. She is not such a simpleton. Could she have seen half as much love in Mr. Darcy for herself, she would have ordered her wedding clothes. But the case is this: We are not rich enough or grand enough for them; and she is the more anxious to get Miss Darcy for her brother, from the notion that when there has been _one_ intermarriage, she may have less trouble in achieving a second; in which there is certainly some ingenuity, and I dare say it would succeed, if Miss de Bourgh were out of the way. But, my dearest Jane, you cannot seriously imagine that because Miss Bingley tells you her brother greatly admires Miss Darcy, he is in the smallest degree less sensible of _your_ merit than when he took leave of you on Tuesday, or that it will be in her power to persuade him that, instead of being in love with you, he is very much in love with her friend.” “If we thought alike of Miss Bingley,” replied Jane, “your representation of all this might make me quite easy. But I know the foundation is unjust. Caroline is incapable of wilfully deceiving anyone; and all that I can hope in this case is that she is deceiving herself.” “That is right. You could not have started a more happy idea, since you will not take comfort in mine. Believe her to be deceived, by all means. You have now done your duty by her, and must fret no longer.” “But, my dear sister, can I be happy, even supposing the best, in accepting a man whose sisters and friends are all wishing him to marry elsewhere?” “You must decide for yourself,” said Elizabeth; “and if, upon mature deliberation, you find that the misery of disobliging his two sisters is more than equivalent to the happiness of being his wife, I advise you by all means to refuse him.” “How can you talk so?” said Jane, faintly smiling. “You must know that though I should be exceedingly grieved at their disapprobation, I could not hesitate.” “I did not think you would; and that being the case, I cannot consider your situation with much compassion.” “But if he returns no more this winter, my choice will never be required. A thousand things may arise in six months!” The idea of his returning no more Elizabeth treated with the utmost contempt. It appeared to her merely the suggestion of Caroline’s interested wishes, and she could not for a moment suppose that those wishes, however openly or artfully spoken, could influence a young man so totally independent of everyone. She represented to her sister as forcibly as possible what she felt on the subject, and had soon the pleasure of seeing its happy effect. Jane’s temper was not desponding, and she was gradually led to hope, though the diffidence of affection sometimes overcame the hope, that Bingley would return to Netherfield and answer every wish of her heart. They agreed that Mrs. Bennet should only hear of the departure of the family, without being alarmed on the score of the gentleman’s conduct; but even this partial communication gave her a great deal of concern, and she bewailed it as exceedingly unlucky that the ladies should happen to go away just as they were all getting so intimate together. After lamenting it, however, at some length, she had the consolation that Mr. Bingley would be soon down again and soon dining at Longbourn, and the conclusion of all was the comfortable declaration, that though he had been invited only to a family dinner, she would take care to have two full courses. Chapter 22 The Bennets were engaged to dine with the Lucases and again during the chief of the day was Miss Lucas so kind as to listen to Mr. Collins. Elizabeth took an opportunity of thanking her. “It keeps him in good humour,” said she, “and I am more obliged to you than I can express.” Charlotte assured her friend of her satisfaction in being useful, and that it amply repaid her for the little sacrifice of her time. This was very amiable, but Charlotte’s kindness extended farther than Elizabeth had any conception of; its object was nothing else than to secure her from any return of Mr. Collins’s addresses, by engaging them towards herself. Such was Miss Lucas’s scheme; and appearances were so favourable, that when they parted at night, she would have felt almost secure of success if he had not been to leave Hertfordshire so very soon. But here she did injustice to the fire and independence of his character, for it led him to escape out of Longbourn House the next morning with admirable slyness, and hasten to Lucas Lodge to throw himself at her feet. He was anxious to avoid the notice of his cousins, from a conviction that if they saw him depart, they could not fail to conjecture his design, and he was not willing to have the attempt known till its success might be known likewise; for though feeling almost secure, and with reason, for Charlotte had been tolerably encouraging, he was comparatively diffident since the adventure of Wednesday. His reception, however, was of the most flattering kind. Miss Lucas perceived him from an upper window as he walked towards the house, and instantly set out to meet him accidentally in the lane. But little had she dared to hope that so much love and eloquence awaited her there. In as short a time as Mr. Collins’s long speeches would allow, everything was settled between them to the satisfaction of both; and as they entered the house he earnestly entreated her to name the day that was to make him the happiest of men; and though such a solicitation must be waived for the present, the lady felt no inclination to trifle with his happiness. The stupidity with which he was favoured by nature must guard his courtship from any charm that could make a woman wish for its continuance; and Miss Lucas, who accepted him solely from the pure and disinterested desire of an establishment, cared not how soon that establishment were gained. Sir William and Lady Lucas were speedily applied to for their consent; and it was bestowed with a most joyful alacrity. Mr. Collins’s present circumstances made it a most eligible match for their daughter, to whom they could give little fortune; and his prospects of future wealth were exceedingly fair. Lady Lucas began directly to calculate, with more interest than the matter had ever excited before, how many years longer Mr. Bennet was likely to live; and Sir William gave it as his decided opinion, that whenever Mr. Collins should be in possession of the Longbourn estate, it would be highly expedient that both he and his wife should make their appearance at St. James’s. The whole family, in short, were properly overjoyed on the occasion. The younger girls formed hopes of _coming out_ a year or two sooner than they might otherwise have done; and the boys were relieved from their apprehension of Charlotte’s dying an old maid. Charlotte herself was tolerably composed. She had gained her point, and had time to consider of it. Her reflections were in general satisfactory. Mr. Collins, to be sure, was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attachment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or matrimony, marriage had always been her object; it was the only provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want. This preservative she had now obtained; and at the age of twenty-seven, without having ever been handsome, she felt all the good luck of it. The least agreeable circumstance in the business was the surprise it must occasion to Elizabeth Bennet, whose friendship she valued beyond that of any other person. Elizabeth would wonder, and probably would blame her; and though her resolution was not to be shaken, her feelings must be hurt by such a disapprobation. She resolved to give her the information herself, and therefore charged Mr. Collins, when he returned to Longbourn to dinner, to drop no hint of what had passed before any of the family. A promise of secrecy was of course very dutifully given, but it could not be kept without difficulty; for the curiosity excited by his long absence burst forth in such very direct questions on his return as required some ingenuity to evade, and he was at the same time exercising great self-denial, for he was longing to publish his prosperous love. As he was to begin his journey too early on the morrow to see any of the family, the ceremony of leave-taking was performed when the ladies moved for the night; and Mrs. Bennet, with great politeness and cordiality, said how happy they should be to see him at Longbourn again, whenever his engagements might allow him to visit them. “My dear madam,” he replied, “this invitation is particularly gratifying, because it is what I have been hoping to receive; and you may be very certain that I shall avail myself of it as soon as possible.” They were all astonished; and Mr. Bennet, who could by no means wish for so speedy a return, immediately said: “But is there not danger of Lady Catherine’s disapprobation here, my good sir? You had better neglect your relations than run the risk of offending your patroness.” “My dear sir,” replied Mr. Collins, “I am particularly obliged to you for this friendly caution, and you may depend upon my not taking so material a step without her ladyship’s concurrence.” “You cannot be too much upon your guard. Risk anything rather than her displeasure; and if you find it likely to be raised by your coming to us again, which I should think exceedingly probable, stay quietly at home, and be satisfied that _we_ shall take no offence.” “Believe me, my dear sir, my gratitude is warmly excited by such affectionate attention; and depend upon it, you will speedily receive from me a letter of thanks for this, and for every other mark of your regard during my stay in Hertfordshire. As for my fair cousins, though my absence may not be long enough to render it necessary, I shall now take the liberty of wishing them health and happiness, not excepting my cousin Elizabeth.” With proper civilities the ladies then withdrew; all of them equally surprised that he meditated a quick return. Mrs. Bennet wished to understand by it that he thought of paying his addresses to one of her younger girls, and Mary might have been prevailed on to accept him. She rated his abilities much higher than any of the others; there was a solidity in his reflections which often struck her, and though by no means so clever as herself, she thought that if encouraged to read and improve himself by such an example as hers, he might become a very agreeable companion. But on the following morning, every hope of this kind was done away. Miss Lucas called soon after breakfast, and in a private conference with Elizabeth related the event of the day before. The possibility of Mr. Collins’s fancying himself in love with her friend had once occurred to Elizabeth within the last day or two; but that Charlotte could encourage him seemed almost as far from possibility as she could encourage him herself, and her astonishment was consequently so great as to overcome at first the bounds of decorum, and she could not help crying out: “Engaged to Mr. Collins! My dear Charlotte—impossible!” The steady countenance which Miss Lucas had commanded in telling her story, gave way to a momentary confusion here on receiving so direct a reproach; though, as it was no more than she expected, she soon regained her composure, and calmly replied: “Why should you be surprised, my dear Eliza? Do you think it incredible that Mr. Collins should be able to procure any woman’s good opinion, because he was not so happy as to succeed with you?” But Elizabeth had now recollected herself, and making a strong effort for it, was able to assure with tolerable firmness that the prospect of their relationship was highly grateful to her, and that she wished her all imaginable happiness. “I see what you are feeling,” replied Charlotte. “You must be surprised, very much surprised—so lately as Mr. Collins was wishing to marry you. But when you have had time to think it over, I hope you will be satisfied with what I have done. I am not romantic, you know; I never was. I ask only a comfortable home; and considering Mr. Collins’s character, connection, and situation in life, I am convinced that my chance of happiness with him is as fair as most people can boast on entering the marriage state.” Elizabeth quietly answered “Undoubtedly;” and after an awkward pause, they returned to the rest of the family. Charlotte did not stay much longer, and Elizabeth was then left to reflect on what she had heard. It was a long time before she became at all reconciled to the idea of so unsuitable a match. The strangeness of Mr. Collins’s making two offers of marriage within three days was nothing in comparison of his being now accepted. She had always felt that Charlotte’s opinion of matrimony was not exactly like her own, but she had not supposed it to be possible that, when called into action, she would have sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage. Charlotte the wife of Mr. Collins was a most humiliating picture! And to the pang of a friend disgracing herself and sunk in her esteem, was added the distressing conviction that it was impossible for that friend to be tolerably happy in the lot she had chosen. Chapter 23 Elizabeth was sitting with her mother and sisters, reflecting on what she had heard, and doubting whether she was authorised to mention it, when Sir William Lucas himself appeared, sent by his daughter, to announce her engagement to the family. With many compliments to them, and much self-gratulation on the prospect of a connection between the houses, he unfolded the matter—to an audience not merely wondering, but incredulous; for Mrs. Bennet, with more perseverance than politeness, protested he must be entirely mistaken; and Lydia, always unguarded and often uncivil, boisterously exclaimed: “Good Lord! Sir William, how can you tell such a story? Do not you know that Mr. Collins wants to marry Lizzy?” Nothing less than the complaisance of a courtier could have borne without anger such treatment; but Sir William’s good breeding carried him through it all; and though he begged leave to be positive as to the truth of his information, he listened to all their impertinence with the most forbearing courtesy. Elizabeth, feeling it incumbent on her to relieve him from so unpleasant a situation, now put herself forward to confirm his account, by mentioning her prior knowledge of it from Charlotte herself; and endeavoured to put a stop to the exclamations of her mother and sisters by the earnestness of her congratulations to Sir William, in which she was readily joined by Jane, and by making a variety of remarks on the happiness that might be expected from the match, the excellent character of Mr. Collins, and the convenient distance of Hunsford from London. Mrs. Bennet was in fact too much overpowered to say a great deal while Sir William remained; but no sooner had he left them than her feelings found a rapid vent. In the first place, she persisted in disbelieving the whole of the matter; secondly, she was very sure that Mr. Collins had been taken in; thirdly, she trusted that they would never be happy together; and fourthly, that the match might be broken off. Two inferences, however, were plainly deduced from the whole: one, that Elizabeth was the real cause of the mischief; and the other that she herself had been barbarously misused by them all; and on these two points she principally dwelt during the rest of the day. Nothing could console and nothing could appease her. Nor did that day wear out her resentment. A week elapsed before she could see Elizabeth without scolding her, a month passed away before she could speak to Sir William or Lady Lucas without being rude, and many months were gone before she could at all forgive their daughter. Mr. Bennet’s emotions were much more tranquil on the occasion, and such as he did experience he pronounced to be of a most agreeable sort; for it gratified him, he said, to discover that Charlotte Lucas, whom he had been used to think tolerably sensible, was as foolish as his wife, and more foolish than his daughter! Jane confessed herself a little surprised at the match; but she said less of her astonishment than of her earnest desire for their happiness; nor could Elizabeth persuade her to consider it as improbable. Kitty and Lydia were far from envying Miss Lucas, for Mr. Collins was only a clergyman; and it affected them in no other way than as a piece of news to spread at Meryton. Lady Lucas could not be insensible of triumph on being able to retort on Mrs. Bennet the comfort of having a daughter well married; and she called at Longbourn rather oftener than usual to say how happy she was, though Mrs. Bennet’s sour looks and ill-natured remarks might have been enough to drive happiness away. Between Elizabeth and Charlotte there was a restraint which kept them mutually silent on the subject; and Elizabeth felt persuaded that no real confidence could ever subsist between them again. Her disappointment in Charlotte made her turn with fonder regard to her sister, of whose rectitude and delicacy she was sure her opinion could never be shaken, and for whose happiness she grew daily more anxious, as Bingley had now been gone a week and nothing more was heard of his return. Jane had sent Caroline an early answer to her letter, and was counting the days till she might reasonably hope to hear again. The promised letter of thanks from Mr. Collins arrived on Tuesday, addressed to their father, and written with all the solemnity of gratitude which a twelvemonth’s abode in the family might have prompted. After discharging his conscience on that head, he proceeded to inform them, with many rapturous expressions, of his happiness in having obtained the affection of their amiable neighbour, Miss Lucas, and then explained that it was merely with the view of enjoying her society that he had been so ready to close with their kind wish of seeing him again at Longbourn, whither he hoped to be able to return on Monday fortnight; for Lady Catherine, he added, so heartily approved his marriage, that she wished it to take place as soon as possible, which he trusted would be an unanswerable argument with his amiable Charlotte to name an early day for making him the happiest of men. Mr. Collins’s return into Hertfordshire was no longer a matter of pleasure to Mrs. Bennet. On the contrary, she was as much disposed to complain of it as her husband. It was very strange that he should come to Longbourn instead of to Lucas Lodge; it was also very inconvenient and exceedingly troublesome. She hated having visitors in the house while her health was so indifferent, and lovers were of all people the most disagreeable. Such were the gentle murmurs of Mrs. Bennet, and they gave way only to the greater distress of Mr. Bingley’s continued absence. Neither Jane nor Elizabeth were comfortable on this subject. Day after day passed away without bringing any other tidings of him than the report which shortly prevailed in Meryton of his coming no more to Netherfield the whole winter; a report which highly incensed Mrs. Bennet, and which she never failed to contradict as a most scandalous falsehood. Even Elizabeth began to fear—not that Bingley was indifferent—but that his sisters would be successful in keeping him away. Unwilling as she was to admit an idea so destructive of Jane’s happiness, and so dishonorable to the stability of her lover, she could not prevent its frequently occurring. The united efforts of his two unfeeling sisters and of his overpowering friend, assisted by the attractions of Miss Darcy and the amusements of London might be too much, she feared, for the strength of his attachment. As for Jane, _her_ anxiety under this suspense was, of course, more painful than Elizabeth’s, but whatever she felt she was desirous of concealing, and between herself and Elizabeth, therefore, the subject was never alluded to. But as no such delicacy restrained her mother, an hour seldom passed in which she did not talk of Bingley, express her impatience for his arrival, or even require Jane to confess that if he did not come back she would think herself very ill used. It needed all Jane’s steady mildness to bear these attacks with tolerable tranquillity. Mr. Collins returned most punctually on Monday fortnight, but his reception at Longbourn was not quite so gracious as it had been on his first introduction. He was too happy, however, to need much attention; and luckily for the others, the business of love-making relieved them from a great deal of his company. The chief of every day was spent by him at Lucas Lodge, and he sometimes returned to Longbourn only in time to make an apology for his absence before the family went to bed. Mrs. Bennet was really in a most pitiable state. The very mention of anything concerning the match threw her into an agony of ill-humour, and wherever she went she was sure of hearing it talked of. The sight of Miss Lucas was odious to her. As her successor in that house, she regarded her with jealous abhorrence. Whenever Charlotte came to see them, she concluded her to be anticipating the hour of possession; and whenever she spoke in a low voice to Mr. Collins, was convinced that they were talking of the Longbourn estate, and resolving to turn herself and her daughters out of the house, as soon as Mr. Bennet were dead. She complained bitterly of all this to her husband. “Indeed, Mr. Bennet,” said she, “it is very hard to think that Charlotte Lucas should ever be mistress of this house, that _I_ should be forced to make way for _her_, and live to see her take her place in it!” “My dear, do not give way to such gloomy thoughts. Let us hope for better things. Let us flatter ourselves that _I_ may be the survivor.” This was not very consoling to Mrs. Bennet, and therefore, instead of making any answer, she went on as before. “I cannot bear to think that they should have all this estate. If it was not for the entail, I should not mind it.” “What should not you mind?” “I should not mind anything at all.” “Let us be thankful that you are preserved from a state of such insensibility.” “I never can be thankful, Mr. Bennet, for anything about the entail. How anyone could have the conscience to entail away an estate from one’s own daughters, I cannot understand; and all for the sake of Mr. Collins too! Why should _he_ have it more than anybody else?” “I leave it to yourself to determine,” said Mr. Bennet. Chapter 24 Miss Bingley’s letter arrived, and put an end to doubt. The very first sentence conveyed the assurance of their being all settled in London for the winter, and concluded with her brother’s regret at not having had time to pay his respects to his friends in Hertfordshire before he left the country. Hope was over, entirely over; and when Jane could attend to the rest of the letter, she found little, except the professed affection of the writer, that could give her any comfort. Miss Darcy’s praise occupied the chief of it. Her many attractions were again dwelt on, and Caroline boasted joyfully of their increasing intimacy, and ventured to predict the accomplishment of the wishes which had been unfolded in her former letter. She wrote also with great pleasure of her brother’s being an inmate of Mr. Darcy’s house, and mentioned with raptures some plans of the latter with regard to new furniture. Elizabeth, to whom Jane very soon communicated the chief of all this, heard it in silent indignation. Her heart was divided between concern for her sister, and resentment against all others. To Caroline’s assertion of her brother’s being partial to Miss Darcy she paid no credit. That he was really fond of Jane, she doubted no more than she had ever done; and much as she had always been disposed to like him, she could not think without anger, hardly without contempt, on that easiness of temper, that want of proper resolution, which now made him the slave of his designing friends, and led him to sacrifice of his own happiness to the caprice of their inclination. Had his own happiness, however, been the only sacrifice, he might have been allowed to sport with it in whatever manner he thought best, but her sister’s was involved in it, as she thought he must be sensible himself. It was a subject, in short, on which reflection would be long indulged, and must be unavailing. She could think of nothing else; and yet whether Bingley’s regard had really died away, or were suppressed by his friends’ interference; whether he had been aware of Jane’s attachment, or whether it had escaped his observation; whatever were the case, though her opinion of him must be materially affected by the difference, her sister’s situation remained the same, her peace equally wounded. A day or two passed before Jane had courage to speak of her feelings to Elizabeth; but at last, on Mrs. Bennet’s leaving them together, after a longer irritation than usual about Netherfield and its master, she could not help saying: “Oh, that my dear mother had more command over herself! She can have no idea of the pain she gives me by her continual reflections on him. But I will not repine. It cannot last long. He will be forgot, and we shall all be as we were before.” Elizabeth looked at her sister with incredulous solicitude, but said nothing. “You doubt me,” cried Jane, slightly colouring; “indeed, you have no reason. He may live in my memory as the most amiable man of my acquaintance, but that is all. I have nothing either to hope or fear, and nothing to reproach him with. Thank God! I have not _that_ pain. A little time, therefore—I shall certainly try to get the better.” With a stronger voice she soon added, “I have this comfort immediately, that it has not been more than an error of fancy on my side, and that it has done no harm to anyone but myself.” “My dear Jane!” exclaimed Elizabeth, “you are too good. Your sweetness and disinterestedness are really angelic; I do not know what to say to you. I feel as if I had never done you justice, or loved you as you deserve.” Miss Bennet eagerly disclaimed all extraordinary merit, and threw back the praise on her sister’s warm affection. “Nay,” said Elizabeth, “this is not fair. _You_ wish to think all the world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of anybody. _I_ only want to think _you_ perfect, and you set yourself against it. Do not be afraid of my running into any excess, of my encroaching on your privilege of universal good-will. You need not. There are few people whom I really love, and still fewer of whom I think well. The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of merit or sense. I have met with two instances lately, one I will not mention; the other is Charlotte’s marriage. It is unaccountable! In every view it is unaccountable!” “My dear Lizzy, do not give way to such feelings as these. They will ruin your happiness. You do not make allowance enough for difference of situation and temper. Consider Mr. Collins’s respectability, and Charlotte’s steady, prudent character. Remember that she is one of a large family; that as to fortune, it is a most eligible match; and be ready to believe, for everybody’s sake, that she may feel something like regard and esteem for our cousin.” “To oblige you, I would try to believe almost anything, but no one else could be benefited by such a belief as this; for were I persuaded that Charlotte had any regard for him, I should only think worse of her understanding than I now do of her heart. My dear Jane, Mr. Collins is a conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man; you know he is, as well as I do; and you must feel, as well as I do, that the woman who married him cannot have a proper way of thinking. You shall not defend her, though it is Charlotte Lucas. You shall not, for the sake of one individual, change the meaning of principle and integrity, nor endeavour to persuade yourself or me, that selfishness is prudence, and insensibility of danger security for happiness.” “I must think your language too strong in speaking of both,” replied Jane; “and I hope you will be convinced of it by seeing them happy together. But enough of this. You alluded to something else. You mentioned _two_ instances. I cannot misunderstand you, but I entreat you, dear Lizzy, not to pain me by thinking _that person_ to blame, and saying your opinion of him is sunk. We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man to be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does.” “And men take care that they should.” “If it is designedly done, they cannot be justified; but I have no idea of there being so much design in the world as some persons imagine.” “I am far from attributing any part of Mr. Bingley’s conduct to design,” said Elizabeth; “but without scheming to do wrong, or to make others unhappy, there may be error, and there may be misery. Thoughtlessness, want of attention to other people’s feelings, and want of resolution, will do the business.” “And do you impute it to either of those?” “Yes; to the last. But if I go on, I shall displease you by saying what I think of persons you esteem. Stop me whilst you can.” “You persist, then, in supposing his sisters influence him?” “Yes, in conjunction with his friend.” “I cannot believe it. Why should they try to influence him? They can only wish his happiness; and if he is attached to me, no other woman can secure it.” “Your first position is false. They may wish many things besides his happiness; they may wish his increase of wealth and consequence; they may wish him to marry a girl who has all the importance of money, great connections, and pride.” “Beyond a doubt, they do wish him to choose Miss Darcy,” replied Jane; “but this may be from better feelings than you are supposing. They have known her much longer than they have known me; no wonder if they love her better. But, whatever may be their own wishes, it is very unlikely they should have opposed their brother’s. What sister would think herself at liberty to do it, unless there were something very objectionable? If they believed him attached to me, they would not try to part us; if he were so, they could not succeed. By supposing such an affection, you make everybody acting unnaturally and wrong, and me most unhappy. Do not distress me by the idea. I am not ashamed of having been mistaken—or, at least, it is light, it is nothing in comparison of what I should feel in thinking ill of him or his sisters. Let me take it in the best light, in the light in which it may be understood.” Elizabeth could not oppose such a wish; and from this time Mr. Bingley’s name was scarcely ever mentioned between them. Mrs. Bennet still continued to wonder and repine at his returning no more, and though a day seldom passed in which Elizabeth did not account for it clearly, there was little chance of her ever considering it with less perplexity. Her daughter endeavoured to convince her of what she did not believe herself, that his attentions to Jane had been merely the effect of a common and transient liking, which ceased when he saw her no more; but though the probability of the statement was admitted at the time, she had the same story to repeat every day. Mrs. Bennet’s best comfort was that Mr. Bingley must be down again in the summer. Mr. Bennet treated the matter differently. “So, Lizzy,” said he one day, “your sister is crossed in love, I find. I congratulate her. Next to being married, a girl likes to be crossed a little in love now and then. It is something to think of, and it gives her a sort of distinction among her companions. When is your turn to come? You will hardly bear to be long outdone by Jane. Now is your time. Here are officers enough in Meryton to disappoint all the young ladies in the country. Let Wickham be your man. He is a pleasant fellow, and would jilt you creditably.” “Thank you, sir, but a less agreeable man would satisfy me. We must not all expect Jane’s good fortune.” “True,” said Mr. Bennet, “but it is a comfort to think that whatever of that kind may befall you, you have an affectionate mother who will make the most of it.” Mr. Wickham’s society was of material service in dispelling the gloom which the late perverse occurrences had thrown on many of the Longbourn family. They saw him often, and to his other recommendations was now added that of general unreserve. The whole of what Elizabeth had already heard, his claims on Mr. Darcy, and all that he had suffered from him, was now openly acknowledged and publicly canvassed; and everybody was pleased to know how much they had always disliked Mr. Darcy before they had known anything of the matter. Miss Bennet was the only creature who could suppose there might be any extenuating circumstances in the case, unknown to the society of Hertfordshire; her mild and steady candour always pleaded for allowances, and urged the possibility of mistakes—but by everybody else Mr. Darcy was condemned as the worst of men. Chapter 25 After a week spent in professions of love and schemes of felicity, Mr. Collins was called from his amiable Charlotte by the arrival of Saturday. The pain of separation, however, might be alleviated on his side, by preparations for the reception of his bride; as he had reason to hope, that shortly after his return into Hertfordshire, the day would be fixed that was to make him the happiest of men. He took leave of his relations at Longbourn with as much solemnity as before; wished his fair cousins health and happiness again, and promised their father another letter of thanks. On the following Monday, Mrs. Bennet had the pleasure of receiving her brother and his wife, who came as usual to spend the Christmas at Longbourn. Mr. Gardiner was a sensible, gentlemanlike man, greatly superior to his sister, as well by nature as education. The Netherfield ladies would have had difficulty in believing that a man who lived by trade, and within view of his own warehouses, could have been so well-bred and agreeable. Mrs. Gardiner, who was several years younger than Mrs. Bennet and Mrs. Phillips, was an amiable, intelligent, elegant woman, and a great favourite with all her Longbourn nieces. Between the two eldest and herself especially, there subsisted a particular regard. They had frequently been staying with her in town. The first part of Mrs. Gardiner’s business on her arrival was to distribute her presents and describe the newest fashions. When this was done she had a less active part to play. It became her turn to listen. Mrs. Bennet had many grievances to relate, and much to complain of. They had all been very ill-used since she last saw her sister. Two of her girls had been upon the point of marriage, and after all there was nothing in it. “I do not blame Jane,” she continued, “for Jane would have got Mr. Bingley if she could. But Lizzy! Oh, sister! It is very hard to think that she might have been Mr. Collins’s wife by this time, had it not been for her own perverseness. He made her an offer in this very room, and she refused him. The consequence of it is, that Lady Lucas will have a daughter married before I have, and that the Longbourn estate is just as much entailed as ever. The Lucases are very artful people indeed, sister. They are all for what they can get. I am sorry to say it of them, but so it is. It makes me very nervous and poorly, to be thwarted so in my own family, and to have neighbours who think of themselves before anybody else. However, your coming just at this time is the greatest of comforts, and I am very glad to hear what you tell us, of long sleeves.” Mrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief of this news had been given before, in the course of Jane and Elizabeth’s correspondence with her, made her sister a slight answer, and, in compassion to her nieces, turned the conversation. When alone with Elizabeth afterwards, she spoke more on the subject. “It seems likely to have been a desirable match for Jane,” said she. “I am sorry it went off. But these things happen so often! A young man, such as you describe Mr. Bingley, so easily falls in love with a pretty girl for a few weeks, and when accident separates them, so easily forgets her, that these sort of inconsistencies are very frequent.” “An excellent consolation in its way,” said Elizabeth, “but it will not do for _us_. We do not suffer by accident. It does not often happen that the interference of friends will persuade a young man of independent fortune to think no more of a girl whom he was violently in love with only a few days before.” “But that expression of ‘violently in love’ is so hackneyed, so doubtful, so indefinite, that it gives me very little idea. It is as often applied to feelings which arise from a half-hour’s acquaintance, as to a real, strong attachment. Pray, how _violent was_ Mr. Bingley’s love?” “I never saw a more promising inclination; he was growing quite inattentive to other people, and wholly engrossed by her. Every time they met, it was more decided and remarkable. At his own ball he offended two or three young ladies, by not asking them to dance; and I spoke to him twice myself, without receiving an answer. Could there be finer symptoms? Is not general incivility the very essence of love?” “Oh, yes!—of that kind of love which I suppose him to have felt. Poor Jane! I am sorry for her, because, with her disposition, she may not get over it immediately. It had better have happened to _you_, Lizzy; you would have laughed yourself out of it sooner. But do you think she would be prevailed upon to go back with us? Change of scene might be of service—and perhaps a little relief from home may be as useful as anything.” Elizabeth was exceedingly pleased with this proposal, and felt persuaded of her sister’s ready acquiescence. “I hope,” added Mrs. Gardiner, “that no consideration with regard to this young man will influence her. We live in so different a part of town, all our connections are so different, and, as you well know, we go out so little, that it is very improbable that they should meet at all, unless he really comes to see her.” “And _that_ is quite impossible; for he is now in the custody of his friend, and Mr. Darcy would no more suffer him to call on Jane in such a part of London! My dear aunt, how could you think of it? Mr. Darcy may perhaps have _heard_ of such a place as Gracechurch Street, but he would hardly think a month’s ablution enough to cleanse him from its impurities, were he once to enter it; and depend upon it, Mr. Bingley never stirs without him.” “So much the better. I hope they will not meet at all. But does not Jane correspond with his sister? _She_ will not be able to help calling.” “She will drop the acquaintance entirely.” But in spite of the certainty in which Elizabeth affected to place this point, as well as the still more interesting one of Bingley’s being withheld from seeing Jane, she felt a solicitude on the subject which convinced her, on examination, that she did not consider it entirely hopeless. It was possible, and sometimes she thought it probable, that his affection might be reanimated, and the influence of his friends successfully combated by the more natural influence of Jane’s attractions. Miss Bennet accepted her aunt’s invitation with pleasure; and the Bingleys were no otherwise in her thoughts at the same time, than as she hoped by Caroline’s not living in the same house with her brother, she might occasionally spend a morning with her, without any danger of seeing him. The Gardiners stayed a week at Longbourn; and what with the Phillipses, the Lucases, and the officers, there was not a day without its engagement. Mrs. Bennet had so carefully provided for the entertainment of her brother and sister, that they did not once sit down to a family dinner. When the engagement was for home, some of the officers always made part of it—of which officers Mr. Wickham was sure to be one; and on these occasions, Mrs. Gardiner, rendered suspicious by Elizabeth’s warm commendation, narrowly observed them both. Without supposing them, from what she saw, to be very seriously in love, their preference of each other was plain enough to make her a little uneasy; and she resolved to speak to Elizabeth on the subject before she left Hertfordshire, and represent to her the imprudence of encouraging such an attachment. To Mrs. Gardiner, Wickham had one means of affording pleasure, unconnected with his general powers. About ten or a dozen years ago, before her marriage, she had spent a considerable time in that very part of Derbyshire to which he belonged. They had, therefore, many acquaintances in common; and though Wickham had been little there since the death of Darcy’s father, it was yet in his power to give her fresher intelligence of her former friends than she had been in the way of procuring. Mrs. Gardiner had seen Pemberley, and known the late Mr. Darcy by character perfectly well. Here consequently was an inexhaustible subject of discourse. In comparing her recollection of Pemberley with the minute description which Wickham could give, and in bestowing her tribute of praise on the character of its late possessor, she was delighting both him and herself. On being made acquainted with the present Mr. Darcy’s treatment of him, she tried to remember some of that gentleman’s reputed disposition when quite a lad which might agree with it, and was confident at last that she recollected having heard Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy formerly spoken of as a very proud, ill-natured boy. Chapter 26 Mrs. Gardiner’s caution to Elizabeth was punctually and kindly given on the first favourable opportunity of speaking to her alone; after honestly telling her what she thought, she thus went on: “You are too sensible a girl, Lizzy, to fall in love merely because you are warned against it; and, therefore, I am not afraid of speaking openly. Seriously, I would have you be on your guard. Do not involve yourself or endeavour to involve him in an affection which the want of fortune would make so very imprudent. I have nothing to say against _him_; he is a most interesting young man; and if he had the fortune he ought to have, I should think you could not do better. But as it is, you must not let your fancy run away with you. You have sense, and we all expect you to use it. Your father would depend on _your_ resolution and good conduct, I am sure. You must not disappoint your father.” “My dear aunt, this is being serious indeed.” “Yes, and I hope to engage you to be serious likewise.” “Well, then, you need not be under any alarm. I will take care of myself, and of Mr. Wickham too. He shall not be in love with me, if I can prevent it.” “Elizabeth, you are not serious now.” “I beg your pardon, I will try again. At present I am not in love with Mr. Wickham; no, I certainly am not. But he is, beyond all comparison, the most agreeable man I ever saw—and if he becomes really attached to me—I believe it will be better that he should not. I see the imprudence of it. Oh! _that_ abominable Mr. Darcy! My father’s opinion of me does me the greatest honour, and I should be miserable to forfeit it. My father, however, is partial to Mr. Wickham. In short, my dear aunt, I should be very sorry to be the means of making any of you unhappy; but since we see every day that where there is affection, young people are seldom withheld by immediate want of fortune from entering into engagements with each other, how can I promise to be wiser than so many of my fellow-creatures if I am tempted, or how am I even to know that it would be wisdom to resist? All that I can promise you, therefore, is not to be in a hurry. I will not be in a hurry to believe myself his first object. When I am in company with him, I will not be wishing. In short, I will do my best.” “Perhaps it will be as well if you discourage his coming here so very often. At least, you should not _remind_ your mother of inviting him.” “As I did the other day,” said Elizabeth with a conscious smile: “very true, it will be wise in me to refrain from _that_. But do not imagine that he is always here so often. It is on your account that he has been so frequently invited this week. You know my mother’s ideas as to the necessity of constant company for her friends. But really, and upon my honour, I will try to do what I think to be the wisest; and now I hope you are satisfied.” Her aunt assured her that she was, and Elizabeth having thanked her for the kindness of her hints, they parted; a wonderful instance of advice being given on such a point, without being resented. Mr. Collins returned into Hertfordshire soon after it had been quitted by the Gardiners and Jane; but as he took up his abode with the Lucases, his arrival was no great inconvenience to Mrs. Bennet. His marriage was now fast approaching, and she was at length so far resigned as to think it inevitable, and even repeatedly to say, in an ill-natured tone, that she “_wished_ they might be happy.” Thursday was to be the wedding day, and on Wednesday Miss Lucas paid her farewell visit; and when she rose to take leave, Elizabeth, ashamed of her mother’s ungracious and reluctant good wishes, and sincerely affected herself, accompanied her out of the room. As they went downstairs together, Charlotte said: “I shall depend on hearing from you very often, Eliza.” “_That_ you certainly shall.” “And I have another favour to ask you. Will you come and see me?” “We shall often meet, I hope, in Hertfordshire.” “I am not likely to leave Kent for some time. Promise me, therefore, to come to Hunsford.” Elizabeth could not refuse, though she foresaw little pleasure in the visit. “My father and Maria are coming to me in March,” added Charlotte, “and I hope you will consent to be of the party. Indeed, Eliza, you will be as welcome as either of them.” The wedding took place; the bride and bridegroom set off for Kent from the church door, and everybody had as much to say, or to hear, on the subject as usual. Elizabeth soon heard from her friend; and their correspondence was as regular and frequent as it had ever been; that it should be equally unreserved was impossible. Elizabeth could never address her without feeling that all the comfort of intimacy was over, and though determined not to slacken as a correspondent, it was for the sake of what had been, rather than what was. Charlotte’s first letters were received with a good deal of eagerness; there could not but be curiosity to know how she would speak of her new home, how she would like Lady Catherine, and how happy she would dare pronounce herself to be; though, when the letters were read, Elizabeth felt that Charlotte expressed herself on every point exactly as she might have foreseen. She wrote cheerfully, seemed surrounded with comforts, and mentioned nothing which she could not praise. The house, furniture, neighbourhood, and roads, were all to her taste, and Lady Catherine’s behaviour was most friendly and obliging. It was Mr. Collins’s picture of Hunsford and Rosings rationally softened; and Elizabeth perceived that she must wait for her own visit there to know the rest. Jane had already written a few lines to her sister to announce their safe arrival in London; and when she wrote again, Elizabeth hoped it would be in her power to say something of the Bingleys. Her impatience for this second letter was as well rewarded as impatience generally is. Jane had been a week in town without either seeing or hearing from Caroline. She accounted for it, however, by supposing that her last letter to her friend from Longbourn had by some accident been lost. “My aunt,” she continued, “is going to-morrow into that part of the town, and I shall take the opportunity of calling in Grosvenor Street.” She wrote again when the visit was paid, and she had seen Miss Bingley. “I did not think Caroline in spirits,” were her words, “but she was very glad to see me, and reproached me for giving her no notice of my coming to London. I was right, therefore, my last letter had never reached her. I enquired after their brother, of course. He was well, but so much engaged with Mr. Darcy that they scarcely ever saw him. I found that Miss Darcy was expected to dinner. I wish I could see her. My visit was not long, as Caroline and Mrs. Hurst were going out. I dare say I shall see them soon here.” Elizabeth shook her head over this letter. It convinced her that accident only could discover to Mr. Bingley her sister’s being in town. Four weeks passed away, and Jane saw nothing of him. She endeavoured to persuade herself that she did not regret it; but she could no longer be blind to Miss Bingley’s inattention. After waiting at home every morning for a fortnight, and inventing every evening a fresh excuse for her, the visitor did at last appear; but the shortness of her stay, and yet more, the alteration of her manner would allow Jane to deceive herself no longer. The letter which she wrote on this occasion to her sister will prove what she felt. “My dearest Lizzy will, I am sure, be incapable of triumphing in her better judgement, at my expense, when I confess myself to have been entirely deceived in Miss Bingley’s regard for me. But, my dear sister, though the event has proved you right, do not think me obstinate if I still assert that, considering what her behaviour was, my confidence was as natural as your suspicion. I do not at all comprehend her reason for wishing to be intimate with me; but if the same circumstances were to happen again, I am sure I should be deceived again. Caroline did not return my visit till yesterday; and not a note, not a line, did I receive in the meantime. When she did come, it was very evident that she had no pleasure in it; she made a slight, formal apology, for not calling before, said not a word of wishing to see me again, and was in every respect so altered a creature, that when she went away I was perfectly resolved to continue the acquaintance no longer. I pity, though I cannot help blaming her. She was very wrong in singling me out as she did; I can safely say that every advance to intimacy began on her side. But I pity her, because she must feel that she has been acting wrong, and because I am very sure that anxiety for her brother is the cause of it. I need not explain myself farther; and though _we_ know this anxiety to be quite needless, yet if she feels it, it will easily account for her behaviour to me; and so deservedly dear as he is to his sister, whatever anxiety she must feel on his behalf is natural and amiable. I cannot but wonder, however, at her having any such fears now, because, if he had at all cared about me, we must have met, long ago. He knows of my being in town, I am certain, from something she said herself; and yet it would seem, by her manner of talking, as if she wanted to persuade herself that he is really partial to Miss Darcy. I cannot understand it. If I were not afraid of judging harshly, I should be almost tempted to say that there is a strong appearance of duplicity in all this. But I will endeavour to banish every painful thought, and think only of what will make me happy—your affection, and the invariable kindness of my dear uncle and aunt. Let me hear from you very soon. Miss Bingley said something of his never returning to Netherfield again, of giving up the house, but not with any certainty. We had better not mention it. I am extremely glad that you have such pleasant accounts from our friends at Hunsford. Pray go to see them, with Sir William and Maria. I am sure you will be very comfortable there.—Yours, etc.” This letter gave Elizabeth some pain; but her spirits returned as she considered that Jane would no longer be duped, by the sister at least. All expectation from the brother was now absolutely over. She would not even wish for a renewal of his attentions. His character sunk on every review of it; and as a punishment for him, as well as a possible advantage to Jane, she seriously hoped he might really soon marry Mr. Darcy’s sister, as by Wickham’s account, she would make him abundantly regret what he had thrown away. Mrs. Gardiner about this time reminded Elizabeth of her promise concerning that gentleman, and required information; and Elizabeth had such to send as might rather give contentment to her aunt than to herself. His apparent partiality had subsided, his attentions were over, he was the admirer of some one else. Elizabeth was watchful enough to see it all, but she could see it and write of it without material pain. Her heart had been but slightly touched, and her vanity was satisfied with believing that _she_ would have been his only choice, had fortune permitted it. The sudden acquisition of ten thousand pounds was the most remarkable charm of the young lady to whom he was now rendering himself agreeable; but Elizabeth, less clear-sighted perhaps in this case than in Charlotte’s, did not quarrel with him for his wish of independence. Nothing, on the contrary, could be more natural; and while able to suppose that it cost him a few struggles to relinquish her, she was ready to allow it a wise and desirable measure for both, and could very sincerely wish him happy. All this was acknowledged to Mrs. Gardiner; and after relating the circumstances, she thus went on: “I am now convinced, my dear aunt, that I have never been much in love; for had I really experienced that pure and elevating passion, I should at present detest his very name, and wish him all manner of evil. But my feelings are not only cordial towards _him_; they are even impartial towards Miss King. I cannot find out that I hate her at all, or that I am in the least unwilling to think her a very good sort of girl. There can be no love in all this. My watchfulness has been effectual; and though I certainly should be a more interesting object to all my acquaintances were I distractedly in love with him, I cannot say that I regret my comparative insignificance. Importance may sometimes be purchased too dearly. Kitty and Lydia take his defection much more to heart than I do. They are young in the ways of the world, and not yet open to the mortifying conviction that handsome young men must have something to live on as well as the plain.” Chapter 27 With no greater events than these in the Longbourn family, and otherwise diversified by little beyond the walks to Meryton, sometimes dirty and sometimes cold, did January and February pass away. March was to take Elizabeth to Hunsford. She had not at first thought very seriously of going thither; but Charlotte, she soon found, was depending on the plan and she gradually learned to consider it herself with greater pleasure as well as greater certainty. Absence had increased her desire of seeing Charlotte again, and weakened her disgust of Mr. Collins. There was novelty in the scheme, and as, with such a mother and such uncompanionable sisters, home could not be faultless, a little change was not unwelcome for its own sake. The journey would moreover give her a peep at Jane; and, in short, as the time drew near, she would have been very sorry for any delay. Everything, however, went on smoothly, and was finally settled according to Charlotte’s first sketch. She was to accompany Sir William and his second daughter. The improvement of spending a night in London was added in time, and the plan became perfect as plan could be. The only pain was in leaving her father, who would certainly miss her, and who, when it came to the point, so little liked her going, that he told her to write to him, and almost promised to answer her letter. The farewell between herself and Mr. Wickham was perfectly friendly; on his side even more. His present pursuit could not make him forget that Elizabeth had been the first to excite and to deserve his attention, the first to listen and to pity, the first to be admired; and in his manner of bidding her adieu, wishing her every enjoyment, reminding her of what she was to expect in Lady Catherine de Bourgh, and trusting their opinion of her—their opinion of everybody—would always coincide, there was a solicitude, an interest which she felt must ever attach her to him with a most sincere regard; and she parted from him convinced that, whether married or single, he must always be her model of the amiable and pleasing. Her fellow-travellers the next day were not of a kind to make her think him less agreeable. Sir William Lucas, and his daughter Maria, a good-humoured girl, but as empty-headed as himself, had nothing to say that could be worth hearing, and were listened to with about as much delight as the rattle of the chaise. Elizabeth loved absurdities, but she had known Sir William’s too long. He could tell her nothing new of the wonders of his presentation and knighthood; and his civilities were worn out, like his information. It was a journey of only twenty-four miles, and they began it so early as to be in Gracechurch Street by noon. As they drove to Mr. Gardiner’s door, Jane was at a drawing-room window watching their arrival; when they entered the passage she was there to welcome them, and Elizabeth, looking earnestly in her face, was pleased to see it healthful and lovely as ever. On the stairs were a troop of little boys and girls, whose eagerness for their cousin’s appearance would not allow them to wait in the drawing-room, and whose shyness, as they had not seen her for a twelvemonth, prevented their coming lower. All was joy and kindness. The day passed most pleasantly away; the morning in bustle and shopping, and the evening at one of the theatres. Elizabeth then contrived to sit by her aunt. Their first object was her sister; and she was more grieved than astonished to hear, in reply to her minute enquiries, that though Jane always struggled to support her spirits, there were periods of dejection. It was reasonable, however, to hope that they would not continue long. Mrs. Gardiner gave her the particulars also of Miss Bingley’s visit in Gracechurch Street, and repeated conversations occurring at different times between Jane and herself, which proved that the former had, from her heart, given up the acquaintance. Mrs. Gardiner then rallied her niece on Wickham’s desertion, and complimented her on bearing it so well. “But my dear Elizabeth,” she added, “what sort of girl is Miss King? I should be sorry to think our friend mercenary.” “Pray, my dear aunt, what is the difference in matrimonial affairs, between the mercenary and the prudent motive? Where does discretion end, and avarice begin? Last Christmas you were afraid of his marrying me, because it would be imprudent; and now, because he is trying to get a girl with only ten thousand pounds, you want to find out that he is mercenary.” “If you will only tell me what sort of girl Miss King is, I shall know what to think.” “She is a very good kind of girl, I believe. I know no harm of her.” “But he paid her not the smallest attention till her grandfather’s death made her mistress of this fortune.” “No—why should he? If it were not allowable for him to gain _my_ affections because I had no money, what occasion could there be for making love to a girl whom he did not care about, and who was equally poor?” “But there seems an indelicacy in directing his attentions towards her so soon after this event.” “A man in distressed circumstances has not time for all those elegant decorums which other people may observe. If _she_ does not object to it, why should _we_?” “_Her_ not objecting does not justify _him_. It only shows her being deficient in something herself—sense or feeling.” “Well,” cried Elizabeth, “have it as you choose. _He_ shall be mercenary, and _she_ shall be foolish.” “No, Lizzy, that is what I do _not_ choose. I should be sorry, you know, to think ill of a young man who has lived so long in Derbyshire.” “Oh! if that is all, I have a very poor opinion of young men who live in Derbyshire; and their intimate friends who live in Hertfordshire are not much better. I am sick of them all. Thank Heaven! I am going to-morrow where I shall find a man who has not one agreeable quality, who has neither manner nor sense to recommend him. Stupid men are the only ones worth knowing, after all.” “Take care, Lizzy; that speech savours strongly of disappointment.” Before they were separated by the conclusion of the play, she had the unexpected happiness of an invitation to accompany her uncle and aunt in a tour of pleasure which they proposed taking in the summer. “We have not determined how far it shall carry us,” said Mrs. Gardiner, “but, perhaps, to the Lakes.” No scheme could have been more agreeable to Elizabeth, and her acceptance of the invitation was most ready and grateful. “Oh, my dear, dear aunt,” she rapturously cried, “what delight! what felicity! You give me fresh life and vigour. Adieu to disappointment and spleen. What are young men to rocks and mountains? Oh! what hours of transport we shall spend! And when we _do_ return, it shall not be like other travellers, without being able to give one accurate idea of anything. We _will_ know where we have gone—we _will_ recollect what we have seen. Lakes, mountains, and rivers shall not be jumbled together in our imaginations; nor when we attempt to describe any particular scene, will we begin quarreling about its relative situation. Let _our_ first effusions be less insupportable than those of the generality of travellers.” Chapter 28 Every object in the next day’s journey was new and interesting to Elizabeth; and her spirits were in a state of enjoyment; for she had seen her sister looking so well as to banish all fear for her health, and the prospect of her northern tour was a constant source of delight. When they left the high road for the lane to Hunsford, every eye was in search of the Parsonage, and every turning expected to bring it in view. The palings of Rosings Park was their boundary on one side. Elizabeth smiled at the recollection of all that she had heard of its inhabitants. At length the Parsonage was discernible. The garden sloping to the road, the house standing in it, the green pales, and the laurel hedge, everything declared they were arriving. Mr. Collins and Charlotte appeared at the door, and the carriage stopped at the small gate which led by a short gravel walk to the house, amidst the nods and smiles of the whole party. In a moment they were all out of the chaise, rejoicing at the sight of each other. Mrs. Collins welcomed her friend with the liveliest pleasure, and Elizabeth was more and more satisfied with coming when she found herself so affectionately received. She saw instantly that her cousin’s manners were not altered by his marriage; his formal civility was just what it had been, and he detained her some minutes at the gate to hear and satisfy his enquiries after all her family. They were then, with no other delay than his pointing out the neatness of the entrance, taken into the house; and as soon as they were in the parlour, he welcomed them a second time, with ostentatious formality to his humble abode, and punctually repeated all his wife’s offers of refreshment. Elizabeth was prepared to see him in his glory; and she could not help in fancying that in displaying the good proportion of the room, its aspect and its furniture, he addressed himself particularly to her, as if wishing to make her feel what she had lost in refusing him. But though everything seemed neat and comfortable, she was not able to gratify him by any sigh of repentance, and rather looked with wonder at her friend that she could have so cheerful an air with such a companion. When Mr. Collins said anything of which his wife might reasonably be ashamed, which certainly was not unseldom, she involuntarily turned her eye on Charlotte. Once or twice she could discern a faint blush; but in general Charlotte wisely did not hear. After sitting long enough to admire every article of furniture in the room, from the sideboard to the fender, to give an account of their journey, and of all that had happened in London, Mr. Collins invited them to take a stroll in the garden, which was large and well laid out, and to the cultivation of which he attended himself. To work in this garden was one of his most respectable pleasures; and Elizabeth admired the command of countenance with which Charlotte talked of the healthfulness of the exercise, and owned she encouraged it as much as possible. Here, leading the way through every walk and cross walk, and scarcely allowing them an interval to utter the praises he asked for, every view was pointed out with a minuteness which left beauty entirely behind. He could number the fields in every direction, and could tell how many trees there were in the most distant clump. But of all the views which his garden, or which the country or kingdom could boast, none were to be compared with the prospect of Rosings, afforded by an opening in the trees that bordered the park nearly opposite the front of his house. It was a handsome modern building, well situated on rising ground. From his garden, Mr. Collins would have led them round his two meadows; but the ladies, not having shoes to encounter the remains of a white frost, turned back; and while Sir William accompanied him, Charlotte took her sister and friend over the house, extremely well pleased, probably, to have the opportunity of showing it without her husband’s help. It was rather small, but well built and convenient; and everything was fitted up and arranged with a neatness and consistency of which Elizabeth gave Charlotte all the credit. When Mr. Collins could be forgotten, there was really an air of great comfort throughout, and by Charlotte’s evident enjoyment of it, Elizabeth supposed he must be often forgotten. She had already learnt that Lady Catherine was still in the country. It was spoken of again while they were at dinner, when Mr. Collins joining in, observed: “Yes, Miss Elizabeth, you will have the honour of seeing Lady Catherine de Bourgh on the ensuing Sunday at church, and I need not say you will be delighted with her. She is all affability and condescension, and I doubt not but you will be honoured with some portion of her notice when service is over. I have scarcely any hesitation in saying she will include you and my sister Maria in every invitation with which she honours us during your stay here. Her behaviour to my dear Charlotte is charming. We dine at Rosings twice every week, and are never allowed to walk home. Her ladyship’s carriage is regularly ordered for us. I _should_ say, one of her ladyship’s carriages, for she has several.” “Lady Catherine is a very respectable, sensible woman indeed,” added Charlotte, “and a most attentive neighbour.” “Very true, my dear, that is exactly what I say. She is the sort of woman whom one cannot regard with too much deference.” The evening was spent chiefly in talking over Hertfordshire news, and telling again what had already been written; and when it closed, Elizabeth, in the solitude of her chamber, had to meditate upon Charlotte’s degree of contentment, to understand her address in guiding, and composure in bearing with, her husband, and to acknowledge that it was all done very well. She had also to anticipate how her visit would pass, the quiet tenor of their usual employments, the vexatious interruptions of Mr. Collins, and the gaieties of their intercourse with Rosings. A lively imagination soon settled it all. About the middle of the next day, as she was in her room getting ready for a walk, a sudden noise below seemed to speak the whole house in confusion; and, after listening a moment, she heard somebody running up stairs in a violent hurry, and calling loudly after her. She opened the door and met Maria in the landing place, who, breathless with agitation, cried out— “Oh, my dear Eliza! pray make haste and come into the dining-room, for there is such a sight to be seen! I will not tell you what it is. Make haste, and come down this moment.” Elizabeth asked questions in vain; Maria would tell her nothing more, and down they ran into the dining-room, which fronted the lane, in quest of this wonder; It was two ladies stopping in a low phaeton at the garden gate. “And is this all?” cried Elizabeth. “I expected at least that the pigs were got into the garden, and here is nothing but Lady Catherine and her daughter.” “La! my dear,” said Maria, quite shocked at the mistake, “it is not Lady Catherine. The old lady is Mrs. Jenkinson, who lives with them; the other is Miss de Bourgh. Only look at her. She is quite a little creature. Who would have thought that she could be so thin and small?” “She is abominably rude to keep Charlotte out of doors in all this wind. Why does she not come in?” “Oh, Charlotte says she hardly ever does. It is the greatest of favours when Miss de Bourgh comes in.” “I like her appearance,” said Elizabeth, struck with other ideas. “She looks sickly and cross. Yes, she will do for him very well. She will make him a very proper wife.” Mr. Collins and Charlotte were both standing at the gate in conversation with the ladies; and Sir William, to Elizabeth’s high diversion, was stationed in the doorway, in earnest contemplation of the greatness before him, and constantly bowing whenever Miss de Bourgh looked that way. At length there was nothing more to be said; the ladies drove on, and the others returned into the house. Mr. Collins no sooner saw the two girls than he began to congratulate them on their good fortune, which Charlotte explained by letting them know that the whole party was asked to dine at Rosings the next day. Chapter 29 Mr. Collins’s triumph, in consequence of this invitation, was complete. The power of displaying the grandeur of his patroness to his wondering visitors, and of letting them see her civility towards himself and his wife, was exactly what he had wished for; and that an opportunity of doing it should be given so soon, was such an instance of Lady Catherine’s condescension, as he knew not how to admire enough. “I confess,” said he, “that I should not have been at all surprised by her ladyship’s asking us on Sunday to drink tea and spend the evening at Rosings. I rather expected, from my knowledge of her affability, that it would happen. But who could have foreseen such an attention as this? Who could have imagined that we should receive an invitation to dine there (an invitation, moreover, including the whole party) so immediately after your arrival!” “I am the less surprised at what has happened,” replied Sir William, “from that knowledge of what the manners of the great really are, which my situation in life has allowed me to acquire. About the court, such instances of elegant breeding are not uncommon.” Scarcely anything was talked of the whole day or next morning but their visit to Rosings. Mr. Collins was carefully instructing them in what they were to expect, that the sight of such rooms, so many servants, and so splendid a dinner, might not wholly overpower them. When the ladies were separating for the toilette, he said to Elizabeth— “Do not make yourself uneasy, my dear cousin, about your apparel. Lady Catherine is far from requiring that elegance of dress in us which becomes herself and her daughter. I would advise you merely to put on whatever of your clothes is superior to the rest—there is no occasion for anything more. Lady Catherine will not think the worse of you for being simply dressed. She likes to have the distinction of rank preserved.” While they were dressing, he came two or three times to their different doors, to recommend their being quick, as Lady Catherine very much objected to be kept waiting for her dinner. Such formidable accounts of her ladyship, and her manner of living, quite frightened Maria Lucas who had been little used to company, and she looked forward to her introduction at Rosings with as much apprehension as her father had done to his presentation at St. James’s. As the weather was fine, they had a pleasant walk of about half a mile across the park. Every park has its beauty and its prospects; and Elizabeth saw much to be pleased with, though she could not be in such raptures as Mr. Collins expected the scene to inspire, and was but slightly affected by his enumeration of the windows in front of the house, and his relation of what the glazing altogether had originally cost Sir Lewis de Bourgh. When they ascended the steps to the hall, Maria’s alarm was every moment increasing, and even Sir William did not look perfectly calm. Elizabeth’s courage did not fail her. She had heard nothing of Lady Catherine that spoke her awful from any extraordinary talents or miraculous virtue, and the mere stateliness of money or rank she thought she could witness without trepidation. From the entrance-hall, of which Mr. Collins pointed out, with a rapturous air, the fine proportion and the finished ornaments, they followed the servants through an ante-chamber, to the room where Lady Catherine, her daughter, and Mrs. Jenkinson were sitting. Her ladyship, with great condescension, arose to receive them; and as Mrs. Collins had settled it with her husband that the office of introduction should be hers, it was performed in a proper manner, without any of those apologies and thanks which he would have thought necessary. In spite of having been at St. James’s, Sir William was so completely awed by the grandeur surrounding him, that he had but just courage enough to make a very low bow, and take his seat without saying a word; and his daughter, frightened almost out of her senses, sat on the edge of her chair, not knowing which way to look. Elizabeth found herself quite equal to the scene, and could observe the three ladies before her composedly. Lady Catherine was a tall, large woman, with strongly-marked features, which might once have been handsome. Her air was not conciliating, nor was her manner of receiving them such as to make her visitors forget their inferior rank. She was not rendered formidable by silence; but whatever she said was spoken in so authoritative a tone, as marked her self-importance, and brought Mr. Wickham immediately to Elizabeth’s mind; and from the observation of the day altogether, she believed Lady Catherine to be exactly what he represented. When, after examining the mother, in whose countenance and deportment she soon found some resemblance of Mr. Darcy, she turned her eyes on the daughter, she could almost have joined in Maria’s astonishment at her being so thin and so small. There was neither in figure nor face any likeness between the ladies. Miss de Bourgh was pale and sickly; her features, though not plain, were insignificant; and she spoke very little, except in a low voice, to Mrs. Jenkinson, in whose appearance there was nothing remarkable, and who was entirely engaged in listening to what she said, and placing a screen in the proper direction before her eyes. After sitting a few minutes, they were all sent to one of the windows to admire the view, Mr. Collins attending them to point out its beauties, and Lady Catherine kindly informing them that it was much better worth looking at in the summer. The dinner was exceedingly handsome, and there were all the servants and all the articles of plate which Mr. Collins had promised; and, as he had likewise foretold, he took his seat at the bottom of the table, by her ladyship’s desire, and looked as if he felt that life could furnish nothing greater. He carved, and ate, and praised with delighted alacrity; and every dish was commended, first by him and then by Sir William, who was now enough recovered to echo whatever his son-in-law said, in a manner which Elizabeth wondered Lady Catherine could bear. But Lady Catherine seemed gratified by their excessive admiration, and gave most gracious smiles, especially when any dish on the table proved a novelty to them. The party did not supply much conversation. Elizabeth was ready to speak whenever there was an opening, but she was seated between Charlotte and Miss de Bourgh—the former of whom was engaged in listening to Lady Catherine, and the latter said not a word to her all dinner-time. Mrs. Jenkinson was chiefly employed in watching how little Miss de Bourgh ate, pressing her to try some other dish, and fearing she was indisposed. Maria thought speaking out of the question, and the gentlemen did nothing but eat and admire. When the ladies returned to the drawing-room, there was little to be done but to hear Lady Catherine talk, which she did without any intermission till coffee came in, delivering her opinion on every subject in so decisive a manner, as proved that she was not used to have her judgement controverted. She enquired into Charlotte’s domestic concerns familiarly and minutely, gave her a great deal of advice as to the management of them all; told her how everything ought to be regulated in so small a family as hers, and instructed her as to the care of her cows and her poultry. Elizabeth found that nothing was beneath this great lady’s attention, which could furnish her with an occasion of dictating to others. In the intervals of her discourse with Mrs. Collins, she addressed a variety of questions to Maria and Elizabeth, but especially to the latter, of whose connections she knew the least, and who she observed to Mrs. Collins was a very genteel, pretty kind of girl. She asked her, at different times, how many sisters she had, whether they were older or younger than herself, whether any of them were likely to be married, whether they were handsome, where they had been educated, what carriage her father kept, and what had been her mother’s maiden name? Elizabeth felt all the impertinence of her questions but answered them very composedly. Lady Catherine then observed, “Your father’s estate is entailed on Mr. Collins, I think. For your sake,” turning to Charlotte, “I am glad of it; but otherwise I see no occasion for entailing estates from the female line. It was not thought necessary in Sir Lewis de Bourgh’s family. Do you play and sing, Miss Bennet?” “A little.” “Oh! then—some time or other we shall be happy to hear you. Our instrument is a capital one, probably superior to——You shall try it some day. Do your sisters play and sing?” “One of them does.” “Why did not you all learn? You ought all to have learned. The Miss Webbs all play, and their father has not so good an income as yours. Do you draw?” “No, not at all.” “What, none of you?” “Not one.” “That is very strange. But I suppose you had no opportunity. Your mother should have taken you to town every spring for the benefit of masters.” “My mother would have had no objection, but my father hates London.” “Has your governess left you?” “We never had any governess.” “No governess! How was that possible? Five daughters brought up at home without a governess! I never heard of such a thing. Your mother must have been quite a slave to your education.” Elizabeth could hardly help smiling as she assured her that had not been the case. “Then, who taught you? who attended to you? Without a governess, you must have been neglected.” “Compared with some families, I believe we were; but such of us as wished to learn never wanted the means. We were always encouraged to read, and had all the masters that were necessary. Those who chose to be idle, certainly might.” “Aye, no doubt; but that is what a governess will prevent, and if I had known your mother, I should have advised her most strenuously to engage one. I always say that nothing is to be done in education without steady and regular instruction, and nobody but a governess can give it. It is wonderful how many families I have been the means of supplying in that way. I am always glad to get a young person well placed out. Four nieces of Mrs. Jenkinson are most delightfully situated through my means; and it was but the other day that I recommended another young person, who was merely accidentally mentioned to me, and the family are quite delighted with her. Mrs. Collins, did I tell you of Lady Metcalf’s calling yesterday to thank me? She finds Miss Pope a treasure. ‘Lady Catherine,’ said she, ‘you have given me a treasure.’ Are any of your younger sisters out, Miss Bennet?” “Yes, ma’am, all.” “All! What, all five out at once? Very odd! And you only the second. The younger ones out before the elder ones are married! Your younger sisters must be very young?” “Yes, my youngest is not sixteen. Perhaps _she_ is full young to be much in company. But really, ma’am, I think it would be very hard upon younger sisters, that they should not have their share of society and amusement, because the elder may not have the means or inclination to marry early. The last-born has as good a right to the pleasures of youth as the first. And to be kept back on _such_ a motive! I think it would not be very likely to promote sisterly affection or delicacy of mind.” “Upon my word,” said her ladyship, “you give your opinion very decidedly for so young a person. Pray, what is your age?” “With three younger sisters grown up,” replied Elizabeth, smiling, “your ladyship can hardly expect me to own it.” Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence. “You cannot be more than twenty, I am sure, therefore you need not conceal your age.” “I am not one-and-twenty.” When the gentlemen had joined them, and tea was over, the card-tables were placed. Lady Catherine, Sir William, and Mr. and Mrs. Collins sat down to quadrille; and as Miss de Bourgh chose to play at cassino, the two girls had the honour of assisting Mrs. Jenkinson to make up her party. Their table was superlatively stupid. Scarcely a syllable was uttered that did not relate to the game, except when Mrs. Jenkinson expressed her fears of Miss de Bourgh’s being too hot or too cold, or having too much or too little light. A great deal more passed at the other table. Lady Catherine was generally speaking—stating the mistakes of the three others, or relating some anecdote of herself. Mr. Collins was employed in agreeing to everything her ladyship said, thanking her for every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many. Sir William did not say much. He was storing his memory with anecdotes and noble names. When Lady Catherine and her daughter had played as long as they chose, the tables were broken up, the carriage was offered to Mrs. Collins, gratefully accepted and immediately ordered. The party then gathered round the fire to hear Lady Catherine determine what weather they were to have on the morrow. From these instructions they were summoned by the arrival of the coach; and with many speeches of thankfulness on Mr. Collins’s side and as many bows on Sir William’s they departed. As soon as they had driven from the door, Elizabeth was called on by her cousin to give her opinion of all that she had seen at Rosings, which, for Charlotte’s sake, she made more favourable than it really was. But her commendation, though costing her some trouble, could by no means satisfy Mr. Collins, and he was very soon obliged to take her ladyship’s praise into his own hands. Chapter 30 Sir William stayed only a week at Hunsford, but his visit was long enough to convince him of his daughter’s being most comfortably settled, and of her possessing such a husband and such a neighbour as were not often met with. While Sir William was with them, Mr. Collins devoted his morning to driving him out in his gig, and showing him the country; but when he went away, the whole family returned to their usual employments, and Elizabeth was thankful to find that they did not see more of her cousin by the alteration, for the chief of the time between breakfast and dinner was now passed by him either at work in the garden or in reading and writing, and looking out of the window in his own book-room, which fronted the road. The room in which the ladies sat was backwards. Elizabeth had at first rather wondered that Charlotte should not prefer the dining-parlour for common use; it was a better sized room, and had a more pleasant aspect; but she soon saw that her friend had an excellent reason for what she did, for Mr. Collins would undoubtedly have been much less in his own apartment, had they sat in one equally lively; and she gave Charlotte credit for the arrangement. From the drawing-room they could distinguish nothing in the lane, and were indebted to Mr. Collins for the knowledge of what carriages went along, and how often especially Miss de Bourgh drove by in her phaeton, which he never failed coming to inform them of, though it happened almost every day. She not unfrequently stopped at the Parsonage, and had a few minutes’ conversation with Charlotte, but was scarcely ever prevailed upon to get out. Very few days passed in which Mr. Collins did not walk to Rosings, and not many in which his wife did not think it necessary to go likewise; and till Elizabeth recollected that there might be other family livings to be disposed of, she could not understand the sacrifice of so many hours. Now and then they were honoured with a call from her ladyship, and nothing escaped her observation that was passing in the room during these visits. She examined into their employments, looked at their work, and advised them to do it differently; found fault with the arrangement of the furniture; or detected the housemaid in negligence; and if she accepted any refreshment, seemed to do it only for the sake of finding out that Mrs. Collins’s joints of meat were too large for her family. Elizabeth soon perceived, that though this great lady was not in the commission of the peace of the county, she was a most active magistrate in her own parish, the minutest concerns of which were carried to her by Mr. Collins; and whenever any of the cottagers were disposed to be quarrelsome, discontented, or too poor, she sallied forth into the village to settle their differences, silence their complaints, and scold them into harmony and plenty. The entertainment of dining at Rosings was repeated about twice a week; and, allowing for the loss of Sir William, and there being only one card-table in the evening, every such entertainment was the counterpart of the first. Their other engagements were few, as the style of living in the neighbourhood in general was beyond Mr. Collins’s reach. This, however, was no evil to Elizabeth, and upon the whole she spent her time comfortably enough; there were half-hours of pleasant conversation with Charlotte, and the weather was so fine for the time of year that she had often great enjoyment out of doors. Her favourite walk, and where she frequently went while the others were calling on Lady Catherine, was along the open grove which edged that side of the park, where there was a nice sheltered path, which no one seemed to value but herself, and where she felt beyond the reach of Lady Catherine’s curiosity. In this quiet way, the first fortnight of her visit soon passed away. Easter was approaching, and the week preceding it was to bring an addition to the family at Rosings, which in so small a circle must be important. Elizabeth had heard soon after her arrival that Mr. Darcy was expected there in the course of a few weeks, and though there were not many of her acquaintances whom she did not prefer, his coming would furnish one comparatively new to look at in their Rosings parties, and she might be amused in seeing how hopeless Miss Bingley’s designs on him were, by his behaviour to his cousin, for whom he was evidently destined by Lady Catherine, who talked of his coming with the greatest satisfaction, spoke of him in terms of the highest admiration, and seemed almost angry to find that he had already been frequently seen by Miss Lucas and herself. His arrival was soon known at the Parsonage; for Mr. Collins was walking the whole morning within view of the lodges opening into Hunsford Lane, in order to have the earliest assurance of it, and after making his bow as the carriage turned into the Park, hurried home with the great intelligence. On the following morning he hastened to Rosings to pay his respects. There were two nephews of Lady Catherine to require them, for Mr. Darcy had brought with him a Colonel Fitzwilliam, the younger son of his uncle Lord ——, and, to the great surprise of all the party, when Mr. Collins returned, the gentlemen accompanied him. Charlotte had seen them from her husband’s room, crossing the road, and immediately running into the other, told the girls what an honour they might expect, adding: “I may thank you, Eliza, for this piece of civility. Mr. Darcy would never have come so soon to wait upon me.” Elizabeth had scarcely time to disclaim all right to the compliment, before their approach was announced by the door-bell, and shortly afterwards the three gentlemen entered the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam, who led the way, was about thirty, not handsome, but in person and address most truly the gentleman. Mr. Darcy looked just as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire—paid his compliments, with his usual reserve, to Mrs. Collins, and whatever might be his feelings toward her friend, met her with every appearance of composure. Elizabeth merely curtseyed to him without saying a word. Colonel Fitzwilliam entered into conversation directly with the readiness and ease of a well-bred man, and talked very pleasantly; but his cousin, after having addressed a slight observation on the house and garden to Mrs. Collins, sat for some time without speaking to anybody. At length, however, his civility was so far awakened as to enquire of Elizabeth after the health of her family. She answered him in the usual way, and after a moment’s pause, added: “My eldest sister has been in town these three months. Have you never happened to see her there?” She was perfectly sensible that he never had; but she wished to see whether he would betray any consciousness of what had passed between the Bingleys and Jane, and she thought he looked a little confused as he answered that he had never been so fortunate as to meet Miss Bennet. The subject was pursued no farther, and the gentlemen soon afterwards went away. Chapter 31 Colonel Fitzwilliam’s manners were very much admired at the Parsonage, and the ladies all felt that he must add considerably to the pleasures of their engagements at Rosings. It was some days, however, before they received any invitation thither—for while there were visitors in the house, they could not be necessary; and it was not till Easter-day, almost a week after the gentlemen’s arrival, that they were honoured by such an attention, and then they were merely asked on leaving church to come there in the evening. For the last week they had seen very little of Lady Catherine or her daughter. Colonel Fitzwilliam had called at the Parsonage more than once during the time, but Mr. Darcy they had seen only at church. The invitation was accepted of course, and at a proper hour they joined the party in Lady Catherine’s drawing-room. Her ladyship received them civilly, but it was plain that their company was by no means so acceptable as when she could get nobody else; and she was, in fact, almost engrossed by her nephews, speaking to them, especially to Darcy, much more than to any other person in the room. Colonel Fitzwilliam seemed really glad to see them; anything was a welcome relief to him at Rosings; and Mrs. Collins’s pretty friend had moreover caught his fancy very much. He now seated himself by her, and talked so agreeably of Kent and Hertfordshire, of travelling and staying at home, of new books and music, that Elizabeth had never been half so well entertained in that room before; and they conversed with so much spirit and flow, as to draw the attention of Lady Catherine herself, as well as of Mr. Darcy. _His_ eyes had been soon and repeatedly turned towards them with a look of curiosity; and that her ladyship, after a while, shared the feeling, was more openly acknowledged, for she did not scruple to call out: “What is that you are saying, Fitzwilliam? What is it you are talking of? What are you telling Miss Bennet? Let me hear what it is.” “We are speaking of music, madam,” said he, when no longer able to avoid a reply. “Of music! Then pray speak aloud. It is of all subjects my delight. I must have my share in the conversation if you are speaking of music. There are few people in England, I suppose, who have more true enjoyment of music than myself, or a better natural taste. If I had ever learnt, I should have been a great proficient. And so would Anne, if her health had allowed her to apply. I am confident that she would have performed delightfully. How does Georgiana get on, Darcy?” Mr. Darcy spoke with affectionate praise of his sister’s proficiency. “I am very glad to hear such a good account of her,” said Lady Catherine; “and pray tell her from me, that she cannot expect to excel if she does not practice a good deal.” “I assure you, madam,” he replied, “that she does not need such advice. She practises very constantly.” “So much the better. It cannot be done too much; and when I next write to her, I shall charge her not to neglect it on any account. I often tell young ladies that no excellence in music is to be acquired without constant practice. I have told Miss Bennet several times, that she will never play really well unless she practises more; and though Mrs. Collins has no instrument, she is very welcome, as I have often told her, to come to Rosings every day, and play on the pianoforte in Mrs. Jenkinson’s room. She would be in nobody’s way, you know, in that part of the house.” Mr. Darcy looked a little ashamed of his aunt’s ill-breeding, and made no answer. When coffee was over, Colonel Fitzwilliam reminded Elizabeth of having promised to play to him; and she sat down directly to the instrument. He drew a chair near her. Lady Catherine listened to half a song, and then talked, as before, to her other nephew; till the latter walked away from her, and making with his usual deliberation towards the pianoforte stationed himself so as to command a full view of the fair performer’s countenance. Elizabeth saw what he was doing, and at the first convenient pause, turned to him with an arch smile, and said: “You mean to frighten me, Mr. Darcy, by coming in all this state to hear me? I will not be alarmed though your sister _does_ play so well. There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me.” “I shall not say you are mistaken,” he replied, “because you could not really believe me to entertain any design of alarming you; and I have had the pleasure of your acquaintance long enough to know that you find great enjoyment in occasionally professing opinions which in fact are not your own.” Elizabeth laughed heartily at this picture of herself, and said to Colonel Fitzwilliam, “Your cousin will give you a very pretty notion of me, and teach you not to believe a word I say. I am particularly unlucky in meeting with a person so able to expose my real character, in a part of the world where I had hoped to pass myself off with some degree of credit. Indeed, Mr. Darcy, it is very ungenerous in you to mention all that you knew to my disadvantage in Hertfordshire—and, give me leave to say, very impolitic too—for it is provoking me to retaliate, and such things may come out as will shock your relations to hear.” “I am not afraid of you,” said he, smilingly. “Pray let me hear what you have to accuse him of,” cried Colonel Fitzwilliam. “I should like to know how he behaves among strangers.” “You shall hear then—but prepare yourself for something very dreadful. The first time of my ever seeing him in Hertfordshire, you must know, was at a ball—and at this ball, what do you think he did? He danced only four dances, though gentlemen were scarce; and, to my certain knowledge, more than one young lady was sitting down in want of a partner. Mr. Darcy, you cannot deny the fact.” “I had not at that time the honour of knowing any lady in the assembly beyond my own party.” “True; and nobody can ever be introduced in a ball-room. Well, Colonel Fitzwilliam, what do I play next? My fingers wait your orders.” “Perhaps,” said Darcy, “I should have judged better, had I sought an introduction; but I am ill-qualified to recommend myself to strangers.” “Shall we ask your cousin the reason of this?” said Elizabeth, still addressing Colonel Fitzwilliam. “Shall we ask him why a man of sense and education, and who has lived in the world, is ill qualified to recommend himself to strangers?” “I can answer your question,” said Fitzwilliam, “without applying to him. It is because he will not give himself the trouble.” “I certainly have not the talent which some people possess,” said Darcy, “of conversing easily with those I have never seen before. I cannot catch their tone of conversation, or appear interested in their concerns, as I often see done.” “My fingers,” said Elizabeth, “do not move over this instrument in the masterly manner which I see so many women’s do. They have not the same force or rapidity, and do not produce the same expression. But then I have always supposed it to be my own fault—because I will not take the trouble of practising. It is not that I do not believe _my_ fingers as capable as any other woman’s of superior execution.” Darcy smiled and said, “You are perfectly right. You have employed your time much better. No one admitted to the privilege of hearing you can think anything wanting. We neither of us perform to strangers.” Here they were interrupted by Lady Catherine, who called out to know what they were talking of. Elizabeth immediately began playing again. Lady Catherine approached, and, after listening for a few minutes, said to Darcy: “Miss Bennet would not play at all amiss if she practised more, and could have the advantage of a London master. She has a very good notion of fingering, though her taste is not equal to Anne’s. Anne would have been a delightful performer, had her health allowed her to learn.” Elizabeth looked at Darcy to see how cordially he assented to his cousin’s praise; but neither at that moment nor at any other could she discern any symptom of love; and from the whole of his behaviour to Miss de Bourgh she derived this comfort for Miss Bingley, that he might have been just as likely to marry _her_, had she been his relation. Lady Catherine continued her remarks on Elizabeth’s performance, mixing with them many instructions on execution and taste. Elizabeth received them with all the forbearance of civility, and, at the request of the gentlemen, remained at the instrument till her ladyship’s carriage was ready to take them all home. Chapter 32 Elizabeth was sitting by herself the next morning, and writing to Jane while Mrs. Collins and Maria were gone on business into the village, when she was startled by a ring at the door, the certain signal of a visitor. As she had heard no carriage, she thought it not unlikely to be Lady Catherine, and under that apprehension was putting away her half-finished letter that she might escape all impertinent questions, when the door opened, and, to her very great surprise, Mr. Darcy, and Mr. Darcy only, entered the room. He seemed astonished too on finding her alone, and apologised for his intrusion by letting her know that he had understood all the ladies were to be within. They then sat down, and when her enquiries after Rosings were made, seemed in danger of sinking into total silence. It was absolutely necessary, therefore, to think of something, and in this emergence recollecting _when_ she had seen him last in Hertfordshire, and feeling curious to know what he would say on the subject of their hasty departure, she observed: “How very suddenly you all quitted Netherfield last November, Mr. Darcy! It must have been a most agreeable surprise to Mr. Bingley to see you all after him so soon; for, if I recollect right, he went but the day before. He and his sisters were well, I hope, when you left London?” “Perfectly so, I thank you.” She found that she was to receive no other answer, and, after a short pause added: “I think I have understood that Mr. Bingley has not much idea of ever returning to Netherfield again?” “I have never heard him say so; but it is probable that he may spend very little of his time there in the future. He has many friends, and is at a time of life when friends and engagements are continually increasing.” “If he means to be but little at Netherfield, it would be better for the neighbourhood that he should give up the place entirely, for then we might possibly get a settled family there. But, perhaps, Mr. Bingley did not take the house so much for the convenience of the neighbourhood as for his own, and we must expect him to keep it or quit it on the same principle.” “I should not be surprised,” said Darcy, “if he were to give it up as soon as any eligible purchase offers.” Elizabeth made no answer. She was afraid of talking longer of his friend; and, having nothing else to say, was now determined to leave the trouble of finding a subject to him. He took the hint, and soon began with, “This seems a very comfortable house. Lady Catherine, I believe, did a great deal to it when Mr. Collins first came to Hunsford.” “I believe she did—and I am sure she could not have bestowed her kindness on a more grateful object.” “Mr. Collins appears to be very fortunate in his choice of a wife.” “Yes, indeed, his friends may well rejoice in his having met with one of the very few sensible women who would have accepted him, or have made him happy if they had. My friend has an excellent understanding—though I am not certain that I consider her marrying Mr. Collins as the wisest thing she ever did. She seems perfectly happy, however, and in a prudential light it is certainly a very good match for her.” “It must be very agreeable for her to be settled within so easy a distance of her own family and friends.” “An easy distance, do you call it? It is nearly fifty miles.” “And what is fifty miles of good road? Little more than half a day’s journey. Yes, I call it a very easy distance.” “I should never have considered the distance as one of the _advantages_ of the match,” cried Elizabeth. “I should never have said Mrs. Collins was settled _near_ her family.” “It is a proof of your own attachment to Hertfordshire. Anything beyond the very neighbourhood of Longbourn, I suppose, would appear far.” As he spoke there was a sort of smile which Elizabeth fancied she understood; he must be supposing her to be thinking of Jane and Netherfield, and she blushed as she answered: “I do not mean to say that a woman may not be settled too near her family. The far and the near must be relative, and depend on many varying circumstances. Where there is fortune to make the expenses of travelling unimportant, distance becomes no evil. But that is not the case _here_. Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a comfortable income, but not such a one as will allow of frequent journeys—and I am persuaded my friend would not call herself _near_ her family under less than _half_ the present distance.” Mr. Darcy drew his chair a little towards her, and said, “_You_ cannot have a right to such very strong local attachment. _You_ cannot have been always at Longbourn.” Elizabeth looked surprised. The gentleman experienced some change of feeling; he drew back his chair, took a newspaper from the table, and glancing over it, said, in a colder voice: “Are you pleased with Kent?” A short dialogue on the subject of the country ensued, on either side calm and concise—and soon put an end to by the entrance of Charlotte and her sister, just returned from her walk. The _tête-à-tête_ surprised them. Mr. Darcy related the mistake which had occasioned his intruding on Miss Bennet, and after sitting a few minutes longer without saying much to anybody, went away. “What can be the meaning of this?” said Charlotte, as soon as he was gone. “My dear, Eliza, he must be in love with you, or he would never have called on us in this familiar way.” But when Elizabeth told of his silence, it did not seem very likely, even to Charlotte’s wishes, to be the case; and after various conjectures, they could at last only suppose his visit to proceed from the difficulty of finding anything to do, which was the more probable from the time of year. All field sports were over. Within doors there was Lady Catherine, books, and a billiard-table, but gentlemen cannot always be within doors; and in the nearness of the Parsonage, or the pleasantness of the walk to it, or of the people who lived in it, the two cousins found a temptation from this period of walking thither almost every day. They called at various times of the morning, sometimes separately, sometimes together, and now and then accompanied by their aunt. It was plain to them all that Colonel Fitzwilliam came because he had pleasure in their society, a persuasion which of course recommended him still more; and Elizabeth was reminded by her own satisfaction in being with him, as well as by his evident admiration of her, of her former favourite George Wickham; and though, in comparing them, she saw there was less captivating softness in Colonel Fitzwilliam’s manners, she believed he might have the best informed mind. But why Mr. Darcy came so often to the Parsonage, it was more difficult to understand. It could not be for society, as he frequently sat there ten minutes together without opening his lips; and when he did speak, it seemed the effect of necessity rather than of choice—a sacrifice to propriety, not a pleasure to himself. He seldom appeared really animated. Mrs. Collins knew not what to make of him. Colonel Fitzwilliam’s occasionally laughing at his stupidity, proved that he was generally different, which her own knowledge of him could not have told her; and as she would liked to have believed this change the effect of love, and the object of that love her friend Eliza, she set herself seriously to work to find it out. She watched him whenever they were at Rosings, and whenever he came to Hunsford; but without much success. He certainly looked at her friend a great deal, but the expression of that look was disputable. It was an earnest, steadfast gaze, but she often doubted whether there were much admiration in it, and sometimes it seemed nothing but absence of mind. She had once or twice suggested to Elizabeth the possibility of his being partial to her, but Elizabeth always laughed at the idea; and Mrs. Collins did not think it right to press the subject, from the danger of raising expectations which might only end in disappointment; for in her opinion it admitted not of a doubt, that all her friend’s dislike would vanish, if she could suppose him to be in her power. In her kind schemes for Elizabeth, she sometimes planned her marrying Colonel Fitzwilliam. He was beyond comparison the most pleasant man; he certainly admired her, and his situation in life was most eligible; but, to counterbalance these advantages, Mr. Darcy had considerable patronage in the church, and his cousin could have none at all. Chapter 33 More than once did Elizabeth, in her ramble within the park, unexpectedly meet Mr. Darcy. She felt all the perverseness of the mischance that should bring him where no one else was brought, and, to prevent its ever happening again, took care to inform him at first that it was a favourite haunt of hers. How it could occur a second time, therefore, was very odd! Yet it did, and even a third. It seemed like wilful ill-nature, or a voluntary penance, for on these occasions it was not merely a few formal enquiries and an awkward pause and then away, but he actually thought it necessary to turn back and walk with her. He never said a great deal, nor did she give herself the trouble of talking or of listening much; but it struck her in the course of their third rencontre that he was asking some odd unconnected questions—about her pleasure in being at Hunsford, her love of solitary walks, and her opinion of Mr. and Mrs. Collins’s happiness; and that in speaking of Rosings and her not perfectly understanding the house, he seemed to expect that whenever she came into Kent again she would be staying _there_ too. His words seemed to imply it. Could he have Colonel Fitzwilliam in his thoughts? She supposed, if he meant anything, he must mean an allusion to what might arise in that quarter. It distressed her a little, and she was quite glad to find herself at the gate in the pales opposite the Parsonage. She was engaged one day as she walked, in perusing Jane’s last letter, and dwelling on some passages which proved that Jane had not written in spirits, when, instead of being again surprised by Mr. Darcy, she saw on looking up that Colonel Fitzwilliam was meeting her. Putting away the letter immediately and forcing a smile, she said: “I did not know before that you ever walked this way.” “I have been making the tour of the park,” he replied, “as I generally do every year, and intend to close it with a call at the Parsonage. Are you going much farther?” “No, I should have turned in a moment.” And accordingly she did turn, and they walked towards the Parsonage together. “Do you certainly leave Kent on Saturday?” said she. “Yes—if Darcy does not put it off again. But I am at his disposal. He arranges the business just as he pleases.” “And if not able to please himself in the arrangement, he has at least pleasure in the great power of choice. I do not know anybody who seems more to enjoy the power of doing what he likes than Mr. Darcy.” “He likes to have his own way very well,” replied Colonel Fitzwilliam. “But so we all do. It is only that he has better means of having it than many others, because he is rich, and many others are poor. I speak feelingly. A younger son, you know, must be inured to self-denial and dependence.” “In my opinion, the younger son of an earl can know very little of either. Now seriously, what have you ever known of self-denial and dependence? When have you been prevented by want of money from going wherever you chose, or procuring anything you had a fancy for?” “These are home questions—and perhaps I cannot say that I have experienced many hardships of that nature. But in matters of greater weight, I may suffer from want of money. Younger sons cannot marry where they like.” “Unless where they like women of fortune, which I think they very often do.” “Our habits of expense make us too dependent, and there are not many in my rank of life who can afford to marry without some attention to money.” “Is this,” thought Elizabeth, “meant for me?” and she coloured at the idea; but, recovering herself, said in a lively tone, “And pray, what is the usual price of an earl’s younger son? Unless the elder brother is very sickly, I suppose you would not ask above fifty thousand pounds.” He answered her in the same style, and the subject dropped. To interrupt a silence which might make him fancy her affected with what had passed, she soon afterwards said: “I imagine your cousin brought you down with him chiefly for the sake of having someone at his disposal. I wonder he does not marry, to secure a lasting convenience of that kind. But, perhaps, his sister does as well for the present, and, as she is under his sole care, he may do what he likes with her.” “No,” said Colonel Fitzwilliam, “that is an advantage which he must divide with me. I am joined with him in the guardianship of Miss Darcy.” “Are you indeed? And pray what sort of guardians do you make? Does your charge give you much trouble? Young ladies of her age are sometimes a little difficult to manage, and if she has the true Darcy spirit, she may like to have her own way.” As she spoke she observed him looking at her earnestly; and the manner in which he immediately asked her why she supposed Miss Darcy likely to give them any uneasiness, convinced her that she had somehow or other got pretty near the truth. She directly replied: “You need not be frightened. I never heard any harm of her; and I dare say she is one of the most tractable creatures in the world. She is a very great favourite with some ladies of my acquaintance, Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley. I think I have heard you say that you know them.” “I know them a little. Their brother is a pleasant gentlemanlike man—he is a great friend of Darcy’s.” “Oh! yes,” said Elizabeth drily; “Mr. Darcy is uncommonly kind to Mr. Bingley, and takes a prodigious deal of care of him.” “Care of him! Yes, I really believe Darcy _does_ take care of him in those points where he most wants care. From something that he told me in our journey hither, I have reason to think Bingley very much indebted to him. But I ought to beg his pardon, for I have no right to suppose that Bingley was the person meant. It was all conjecture.” “What is it you mean?” “It is a circumstance which Darcy could not wish to be generally known, because if it were to get round to the lady’s family, it would be an unpleasant thing.” “You may depend upon my not mentioning it.” “And remember that I have not much reason for supposing it to be Bingley. What he told me was merely this: that he congratulated himself on having lately saved a friend from the inconveniences of a most imprudent marriage, but without mentioning names or any other particulars, and I only suspected it to be Bingley from believing him the kind of young man to get into a scrape of that sort, and from knowing them to have been together the whole of last summer.” “Did Mr. Darcy give you reasons for this interference?” “I understood that there were some very strong objections against the lady.” “And what arts did he use to separate them?” “He did not talk to me of his own arts,” said Fitzwilliam, smiling. “He only told me what I have now told you.” Elizabeth made no answer, and walked on, her heart swelling with indignation. After watching her a little, Fitzwilliam asked her why she was so thoughtful. “I am thinking of what you have been telling me,” said she. “Your cousin’s conduct does not suit my feelings. Why was he to be the judge?” “You are rather disposed to call his interference officious?” “I do not see what right Mr. Darcy had to decide on the propriety of his friend’s inclination, or why, upon his own judgement alone, he was to determine and direct in what manner his friend was to be happy. But,” she continued, recollecting herself, “as we know none of the particulars, it is not fair to condemn him. It is not to be supposed that there was much affection in the case.” “That is not an unnatural surmise,” said Fitzwilliam, “but it is a lessening of the honour of my cousin’s triumph very sadly.” This was spoken jestingly; but it appeared to her so just a picture of Mr. Darcy, that she would not trust herself with an answer, and therefore, abruptly changing the conversation talked on indifferent matters until they reached the Parsonage. There, shut into her own room, as soon as their visitor left them, she could think without interruption of all that she had heard. It was not to be supposed that any other people could be meant than those with whom she was connected. There could not exist in the world _two_ men over whom Mr. Darcy could have such boundless influence. That he had been concerned in the measures taken to separate Bingley and Jane she had never doubted; but she had always attributed to Miss Bingley the principal design and arrangement of them. If his own vanity, however, did not mislead him, _he_ was the cause, his pride and caprice were the cause, of all that Jane had suffered, and still continued to suffer. He had ruined for a while every hope of happiness for the most affectionate, generous heart in the world; and no one could say how lasting an evil he might have inflicted. “There were some very strong objections against the lady,” were Colonel Fitzwilliam’s words; and those strong objections probably were, her having one uncle who was a country attorney, and another who was in business in London. “To Jane herself,” she exclaimed, “there could be no possibility of objection; all loveliness and goodness as she is!—her understanding excellent, her mind improved, and her manners captivating. Neither could anything be urged against my father, who, though with some peculiarities, has abilities Mr. Darcy himself need not disdain, and respectability which he will probably never reach.” When she thought of her mother, her confidence gave way a little; but she would not allow that any objections _there_ had material weight with Mr. Darcy, whose pride, she was convinced, would receive a deeper wound from the want of importance in his friend’s connections, than from their want of sense; and she was quite decided, at last, that he had been partly governed by this worst kind of pride, and partly by the wish of retaining Mr. Bingley for his sister. The agitation and tears which the subject occasioned, brought on a headache; and it grew so much worse towards the evening, that, added to her unwillingness to see Mr. Darcy, it determined her not to attend her cousins to Rosings, where they were engaged to drink tea. Mrs. Collins, seeing that she was really unwell, did not press her to go and as much as possible prevented her husband from pressing her; but Mr. Collins could not conceal his apprehension of Lady Catherine’s being rather displeased by her staying at home. Chapter 34 When they were gone, Elizabeth, as if intending to exasperate herself as much as possible against Mr. Darcy, chose for her employment the examination of all the letters which Jane had written to her since her being in Kent. They contained no actual complaint, nor was there any revival of past occurrences, or any communication of present suffering. But in all, and in almost every line of each, there was a want of that cheerfulness which had been used to characterise her style, and which, proceeding from the serenity of a mind at ease with itself and kindly disposed towards everyone, had been scarcely ever clouded. Elizabeth noticed every sentence conveying the idea of uneasiness, with an attention which it had hardly received on the first perusal. Mr. Darcy’s shameful boast of what misery he had been able to inflict, gave her a keener sense of her sister’s sufferings. It was some consolation to think that his visit to Rosings was to end on the day after the next—and, a still greater, that in less than a fortnight she should herself be with Jane again, and enabled to contribute to the recovery of her spirits, by all that affection could do. She could not think of Darcy’s leaving Kent without remembering that his cousin was to go with him; but Colonel Fitzwilliam had made it clear that he had no intentions at all, and agreeable as he was, she did not mean to be unhappy about him. While settling this point, she was suddenly roused by the sound of the door-bell, and her spirits were a little fluttered by the idea of its being Colonel Fitzwilliam himself, who had once before called late in the evening, and might now come to enquire particularly after her. But this idea was soon banished, and her spirits were very differently affected, when, to her utter amazement, she saw Mr. Darcy walk into the room. In an hurried manner he immediately began an enquiry after her health, imputing his visit to a wish of hearing that she were better. She answered him with cold civility. He sat down for a few moments, and then getting up, walked about the room. Elizabeth was surprised, but said not a word. After a silence of several minutes, he came towards her in an agitated manner, and thus began: “In vain I have struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you.” Elizabeth’s astonishment was beyond expression. She stared, coloured, doubted, and was silent. This he considered sufficient encouragement; and the avowal of all that he felt, and had long felt for her, immediately followed. He spoke well; but there were feelings besides those of the heart to be detailed; and he was not more eloquent on the subject of tenderness than of pride. His sense of her inferiority—of its being a degradation—of the family obstacles which had always opposed to inclination, were dwelt on with a warmth which seemed due to the consequence he was wounding, but was very unlikely to recommend his suit. In spite of her deeply-rooted dislike, she could not be insensible to the compliment of such a man’s affection, and though her intentions did not vary for an instant, she was at first sorry for the pain he was to receive; till, roused to resentment by his subsequent language, she lost all compassion in anger. She tried, however, to compose herself to answer him with patience, when he should have done. He concluded with representing to her the strength of that attachment which, in spite of all his endeavours, he had found impossible to conquer; and with expressing his hope that it would now be rewarded by her acceptance of his hand. As he said this, she could easily see that he had no doubt of a favourable answer. He _spoke_ of apprehension and anxiety, but his countenance expressed real security. Such a circumstance could only exasperate farther, and, when he ceased, the colour rose into her cheeks, and she said: “In such cases as this, it is, I believe, the established mode to express a sense of obligation for the sentiments avowed, however unequally they may be returned. It is natural that obligation should be felt, and if I could _feel_ gratitude, I would now thank you. But I cannot—I have never desired your good opinion, and you have certainly bestowed it most unwillingly. I am sorry to have occasioned pain to anyone. It has been most unconsciously done, however, and I hope will be of short duration. The feelings which, you tell me, have long prevented the acknowledgment of your regard, can have little difficulty in overcoming it after this explanation.” Mr. Darcy, who was leaning against the mantelpiece with his eyes fixed on her face, seemed to catch her words with no less resentment than surprise. His complexion became pale with anger, and the disturbance of his mind was visible in every feature. He was struggling for the appearance of composure, and would not open his lips till he believed himself to have attained it. The pause was to Elizabeth’s feelings dreadful. At length, with a voice of forced calmness, he said: “And this is all the reply which I am to have the honour of expecting! I might, perhaps, wish to be informed why, with so little _endeavour_ at civility, I am thus rejected. But it is of small importance.” “I might as well enquire,” replied she, “why with so evident a desire of offending and insulting me, you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against your reason, and even against your character? Was not this some excuse for incivility, if I _was_ uncivil? But I have other provocations. You know I have. Had not my feelings decided against you—had they been indifferent, or had they even been favourable, do you think that any consideration would tempt me to accept the man who has been the means of ruining, perhaps for ever, the happiness of a most beloved sister?” As she pronounced these words, Mr. Darcy changed colour; but the emotion was short, and he listened without attempting to interrupt her while she continued: “I have every reason in the world to think ill of you. No motive can excuse the unjust and ungenerous part you acted _there_. You dare not, you cannot deny, that you have been the principal, if not the only means of dividing them from each other—of exposing one to the censure of the world for caprice and instability, and the other to its derision for disappointed hopes, and involving them both in misery of the acutest kind.” She paused, and saw with no slight indignation that he was listening with an air which proved him wholly unmoved by any feeling of remorse. He even looked at her with a smile of affected incredulity. “Can you deny that you have done it?” she repeated. With assumed tranquillity he then replied: “I have no wish of denying that I did everything in my power to separate my friend from your sister, or that I rejoice in my success. Towards _him_ I have been kinder than towards myself.” Elizabeth disdained the appearance of noticing this civil reflection, but its meaning did not escape, nor was it likely to conciliate her. “But it is not merely this affair,” she continued, “on which my dislike is founded. Long before it had taken place my opinion of you was decided. Your character was unfolded in the recital which I received many months ago from Mr. Wickham. On this subject, what can you have to say? In what imaginary act of friendship can you here defend yourself? or under what misrepresentation can you here impose upon others?” “You take an eager interest in that gentleman’s concerns,” said Darcy, in a less tranquil tone, and with a heightened colour. “Who that knows what his misfortunes have been, can help feeling an interest in him?” “His misfortunes!” repeated Darcy contemptuously; “yes, his misfortunes have been great indeed.” “And of your infliction,” cried Elizabeth with energy. “You have reduced him to his present state of poverty—comparative poverty. You have withheld the advantages which you must know to have been designed for him. You have deprived the best years of his life of that independence which was no less his due than his desert. You have done all this! and yet you can treat the mention of his misfortune with contempt and ridicule.” “And this,” cried Darcy, as he walked with quick steps across the room, “is your opinion of me! This is the estimation in which you hold me! I thank you for explaining it so fully. My faults, according to this calculation, are heavy indeed! But perhaps,” added he, stopping in his walk, and turning towards her, “these offenses might have been overlooked, had not your pride been hurt by my honest confession of the scruples that had long prevented my forming any serious design. These bitter accusations might have been suppressed, had I, with greater policy, concealed my struggles, and flattered you into the belief of my being impelled by unqualified, unalloyed inclination; by reason, by reflection, by everything. But disguise of every sort is my abhorrence. Nor am I ashamed of the feelings I related. They were natural and just. Could you expect me to rejoice in the inferiority of your connections?—to congratulate myself on the hope of relations, whose condition in life is so decidedly beneath my own?” Elizabeth felt herself growing more angry every moment; yet she tried to the utmost to speak with composure when she said: “You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.” She saw him start at this, but he said nothing, and she continued: “You could not have made the offer of your hand in any possible way that would have tempted me to accept it.” Again his astonishment was obvious; and he looked at her with an expression of mingled incredulity and mortification. She went on: “From the very beginning—from the first moment, I may almost say—of my acquaintance with you, your manners, impressing me with the fullest belief of your arrogance, your conceit, and your selfish disdain of the feelings of others, were such as to form the groundwork of disapprobation on which succeeding events have built so immovable a dislike; and I had not known you a month before I felt that you were the last man in the world whom I could ever be prevailed on to marry.” “You have said quite enough, madam. I perfectly comprehend your feelings, and have now only to be ashamed of what my own have been. Forgive me for having taken up so much of your time, and accept my best wishes for your health and happiness.” And with these words he hastily left the room, and Elizabeth heard him the next moment open the front door and quit the house. The tumult of her mind, was now painfully great. She knew not how to support herself, and from actual weakness sat down and cried for half-an-hour. Her astonishment, as she reflected on what had passed, was increased by every review of it. That she should receive an offer of marriage from Mr. Darcy! That he should have been in love with her for so many months! So much in love as to wish to marry her in spite of all the objections which had made him prevent his friend’s marrying her sister, and which must appear at least with equal force in his own case—was almost incredible! It was gratifying to have inspired unconsciously so strong an affection. But his pride, his abominable pride—his shameless avowal of what he had done with respect to Jane—his unpardonable assurance in acknowledging, though he could not justify it, and the unfeeling manner in which he had mentioned Mr. Wickham, his cruelty towards whom he had not attempted to deny, soon overcame the pity which the consideration of his attachment had for a moment excited. She continued in very agitated reflections till the sound of Lady Catherine’s carriage made her feel how unequal she was to encounter Charlotte’s observation, and hurried her away to her room. Chapter 35 Elizabeth awoke the next morning to the same thoughts and meditations which had at length closed her eyes. She could not yet recover from the surprise of what had happened; it was impossible to think of anything else; and, totally indisposed for employment, she resolved, soon after breakfast, to indulge herself in air and exercise. She was proceeding directly to her favourite walk, when the recollection of Mr. Darcy’s sometimes coming there stopped her, and instead of entering the park, she turned up the lane, which led farther from the turnpike-road. The park paling was still the boundary on one side, and she soon passed one of the gates into the ground. After walking two or three times along that part of the lane, she was tempted, by the pleasantness of the morning, to stop at the gates and look into the park. The five weeks which she had now passed in Kent had made a great difference in the country, and every day was adding to the verdure of the early trees. She was on the point of continuing her walk, when she caught a glimpse of a gentleman within the sort of grove which edged the park; he was moving that way; and, fearful of its being Mr. Darcy, she was directly retreating. But the person who advanced was now near enough to see her, and stepping forward with eagerness, pronounced her name. She had turned away; but on hearing herself called, though in a voice which proved it to be Mr. Darcy, she moved again towards the gate. He had by that time reached it also, and, holding out a letter, which she instinctively took, said, with a look of haughty composure, “I have been walking in the grove some time in the hope of meeting you. Will you do me the honour of reading that letter?” And then, with a slight bow, turned again into the plantation, and was soon out of sight. With no expectation of pleasure, but with the strongest curiosity, Elizabeth opened the letter, and, to her still increasing wonder, perceived an envelope containing two sheets of letter-paper, written quite through, in a very close hand. The envelope itself was likewise full. Pursuing her way along the lane, she then began it. It was dated from Rosings, at eight o’clock in the morning, and was as follows:— “Be not alarmed, madam, on receiving this letter, by the apprehension of its containing any repetition of those sentiments or renewal of those offers which were last night so disgusting to you. I write without any intention of paining you, or humbling myself, by dwelling on wishes which, for the happiness of both, cannot be too soon forgotten; and the effort which the formation and the perusal of this letter must occasion, should have been spared, had not my character required it to be written and read. You must, therefore, pardon the freedom with which I demand your attention; your feelings, I know, will bestow it unwillingly, but I demand it of your justice. “Two offenses of a very different nature, and by no means of equal magnitude, you last night laid to my charge. The first mentioned was, that, regardless of the sentiments of either, I had detached Mr. Bingley from your sister, and the other, that I had, in defiance of various claims, in defiance of honour and humanity, ruined the immediate prosperity and blasted the prospects of Mr. Wickham. Wilfully and wantonly to have thrown off the companion of my youth, the acknowledged favourite of my father, a young man who had scarcely any other dependence than on our patronage, and who had been brought up to expect its exertion, would be a depravity, to which the separation of two young persons, whose affection could be the growth of only a few weeks, could bear no comparison. But from the severity of that blame which was last night so liberally bestowed, respecting each circumstance, I shall hope to be in the future secured, when the following account of my actions and their motives has been read. If, in the explanation of them, which is due to myself, I am under the necessity of relating feelings which may be offensive to yours, I can only say that I am sorry. The necessity must be obeyed, and further apology would be absurd. “I had not been long in Hertfordshire, before I saw, in common with others, that Bingley preferred your elder sister to any other young woman in the country. But it was not till the evening of the dance at Netherfield that I had any apprehension of his feeling a serious attachment. I had often seen him in love before. At that ball, while I had the honour of dancing with you, I was first made acquainted, by Sir William Lucas’s accidental information, that Bingley’s attentions to your sister had given rise to a general expectation of their marriage. He spoke of it as a certain event, of which the time alone could be undecided. From that moment I observed my friend’s behaviour attentively; and I could then perceive that his partiality for Miss Bennet was beyond what I had ever witnessed in him. Your sister I also watched. Her look and manners were open, cheerful, and engaging as ever, but without any symptom of peculiar regard, and I remained convinced from the evening’s scrutiny, that though she received his attentions with pleasure, she did not invite them by any participation of sentiment. If _you_ have not been mistaken here, _I_ must have been in error. Your superior knowledge of your sister must make the latter probable. If it be so, if I have been misled by such error to inflict pain on her, your resentment has not been unreasonable. But I shall not scruple to assert, that the serenity of your sister’s countenance and air was such as might have given the most acute observer a conviction that, however amiable her temper, her heart was not likely to be easily touched. That I was desirous of believing her indifferent is certain—but I will venture to say that my investigation and decisions are not usually influenced by my hopes or fears. I did not believe her to be indifferent because I wished it; I believed it on impartial conviction, as truly as I wished it in reason. My objections to the marriage were not merely those which I last night acknowledged to have required the utmost force of passion to put aside, in my own case; the want of connection could not be so great an evil to my friend as to me. But there were other causes of repugnance; causes which, though still existing, and existing to an equal degree in both instances, I had myself endeavoured to forget, because they were not immediately before me. These causes must be stated, though briefly. The situation of your mother’s family, though objectionable, was nothing in comparison to that total want of propriety so frequently, so almost uniformly betrayed by herself, by your three younger sisters, and occasionally even by your father. Pardon me. It pains me to offend you. But amidst your concern for the defects of your nearest relations, and your displeasure at this representation of them, let it give you consolation to consider that, to have conducted yourselves so as to avoid any share of the like censure, is praise no less generally bestowed on you and your elder sister, than it is honourable to the sense and disposition of both. I will only say farther that from what passed that evening, my opinion of all parties was confirmed, and every inducement heightened which could have led me before, to preserve my friend from what I esteemed a most unhappy connection. He left Netherfield for London, on the day following, as you, I am certain, remember, with the design of soon returning. “The part which I acted is now to be explained. His sisters’ uneasiness had been equally excited with my own; our coincidence of feeling was soon discovered, and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in London. We accordingly went—and there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my friend the certain evils of such a choice. I described, and enforced them earnestly. But, however this remonstrance might have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose that it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been seconded by the assurance that I hesitated not in giving, of your sister’s indifference. He had before believed her to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal regard. But Bingley has great natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgement than on his own. To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself, was no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the work of a moment. I cannot blame myself for having done thus much. There is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister’s being in town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley; but her brother is even yet ignorant of it. That they might have met without ill consequence is perhaps probable; but his regard did not appear to me enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger. Perhaps this concealment, this disguise was beneath me; it is done, however, and it was done for the best. On this subject I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister’s feelings, it was unknowingly done and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them. “With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he has _particularly_ accused me I am ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity. “Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates, and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him; and on George Wickham, who was his godson, his kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridge—most important assistance, as his own father, always poor from the extravagance of his wife, would have been unable to give him a gentleman’s education. My father was not only fond of this young man’s society, whose manners were always engaging; he had also the highest opinion of him, and hoping the church would be his profession, intended to provide for him in it. As for myself, it is many, many years since I first began to think of him in a very different manner. The vicious propensities—the want of principle, which he was careful to guard from the knowledge of his best friend, could not escape the observation of a young man of nearly the same age with himself, and who had opportunities of seeing him in unguarded moments, which Mr. Darcy could not have. Here again I shall give you pain—to what degree you only can tell. But whatever may be the sentiments which Mr. Wickham has created, a suspicion of their nature shall not prevent me from unfolding his real character—it adds even another motive. “My excellent father died about five years ago; and his attachment to Mr. Wickham was to the last so steady, that in his will he particularly recommended it to me, to promote his advancement in the best manner that his profession might allow—and if he took orders, desired that a valuable family living might be his as soon as it became vacant. There was also a legacy of one thousand pounds. His own father did not long survive mine, and within half a year from these events, Mr. Wickham wrote to inform me that, having finally resolved against taking orders, he hoped I should not think it unreasonable for him to expect some more immediate pecuniary advantage, in lieu of the preferment, by which he could not be benefited. He had some intention, he added, of studying law, and I must be aware that the interest of one thousand pounds would be a very insufficient support therein. I rather wished, than believed him to be sincere; but, at any rate, was perfectly ready to accede to his proposal. I knew that Mr. Wickham ought not to be a clergyman; the business was therefore soon settled—he resigned all claim to assistance in the church, were it possible that he could ever be in a situation to receive it, and accepted in return three thousand pounds. All connection between us seemed now dissolved. I thought too ill of him to invite him to Pemberley, or admit his society in town. In town I believe he chiefly lived, but his studying the law was a mere pretence, and being now free from all restraint, his life was a life of idleness and dissipation. For about three years I heard little of him; but on the decease of the incumbent of the living which had been designed for him, he applied to me again by letter for the presentation. His circumstances, he assured me, and I had no difficulty in believing it, were exceedingly bad. He had found the law a most unprofitable study, and was now absolutely resolved on being ordained, if I would present him to the living in question—of which he trusted there could be little doubt, as he was well assured that I had no other person to provide for, and I could not have forgotten my revered father’s intentions. You will hardly blame me for refusing to comply with this entreaty, or for resisting every repetition to it. His resentment was in proportion to the distress of his circumstances—and he was doubtless as violent in his abuse of me to others as in his reproaches to myself. After this period every appearance of acquaintance was dropped. How he lived I know not. But last summer he was again most painfully obtruded on my notice. “I must now mention a circumstance which I would wish to forget myself, and which no obligation less than the present should induce me to unfold to any human being. Having said thus much, I feel no doubt of your secrecy. My sister, who is more than ten years my junior, was left to the guardianship of my mother’s nephew, Colonel Fitzwilliam, and myself. About a year ago, she was taken from school, and an establishment formed for her in London; and last summer she went with the lady who presided over it, to Ramsgate; and thither also went Mr. Wickham, undoubtedly by design; for there proved to have been a prior acquaintance between him and Mrs. Younge, in whose character we were most unhappily deceived; and by her connivance and aid, he so far recommended himself to Georgiana, whose affectionate heart retained a strong impression of his kindness to her as a child, that she was persuaded to believe herself in love, and to consent to an elopement. She was then but fifteen, which must be her excuse; and after stating her imprudence, I am happy to add, that I owed the knowledge of it to herself. I joined them unexpectedly a day or two before the intended elopement, and then Georgiana, unable to support the idea of grieving and offending a brother whom she almost looked up to as a father, acknowledged the whole to me. You may imagine what I felt and how I acted. Regard for my sister’s credit and feelings prevented any public exposure; but I wrote to Mr. Wickham, who left the place immediately, and Mrs. Younge was of course removed from her charge. Mr. Wickham’s chief object was unquestionably my sister’s fortune, which is thirty thousand pounds; but I cannot help supposing that the hope of revenging himself on me was a strong inducement. His revenge would have been complete indeed. “This, madam, is a faithful narrative of every event in which we have been concerned together; and if you do not absolutely reject it as false, you will, I hope, acquit me henceforth of cruelty towards Mr. Wickham. I know not in what manner, under what form of falsehood he had imposed on you; but his success is not perhaps to be wondered at. Ignorant as you previously were of everything concerning either, detection could not be in your power, and suspicion certainly not in your inclination. “You may possibly wonder why all this was not told you last night; but I was not then master enough of myself to know what could or ought to be revealed. For the truth of everything here related, I can appeal more particularly to the testimony of Colonel Fitzwilliam, who, from our near relationship and constant intimacy, and, still more, as one of the executors of my father’s will, has been unavoidably acquainted with every particular of these transactions. If your abhorrence of _me_ should make _my_ assertions valueless, you cannot be prevented by the same cause from confiding in my cousin; and that there may be the possibility of consulting him, I shall endeavour to find some opportunity of putting this letter in your hands in the course of the morning. I will only add, God bless you. “FITZWILLIAM DARCY” Chapter 36 If Elizabeth, when Mr. Darcy gave her the letter, did not expect it to contain a renewal of his offers, she had formed no expectation at all of its contents. But such as they were, it may well be supposed how eagerly she went through them, and what a contrariety of emotion they excited. Her feelings as she read were scarcely to be defined. With amazement did she first understand that he believed any apology to be in his power; and steadfastly was she persuaded, that he could have no explanation to give, which a just sense of shame would not conceal. With a strong prejudice against everything he might say, she began his account of what had happened at Netherfield. She read with an eagerness which hardly left her power of comprehension, and from impatience of knowing what the next sentence might bring, was incapable of attending to the sense of the one before her eyes. His belief of her sister’s insensibility she instantly resolved to be false; and his account of the real, the worst objections to the match, made her too angry to have any wish of doing him justice. He expressed no regret for what he had done which satisfied her; his style was not penitent, but haughty. It was all pride and insolence. But when this subject was succeeded by his account of Mr. Wickham—when she read with somewhat clearer attention a relation of events which, if true, must overthrow every cherished opinion of his worth, and which bore so alarming an affinity to his own history of himself—her feelings were yet more acutely painful and more difficult of definition. Astonishment, apprehension, and even horror, oppressed her. She wished to discredit it entirely, repeatedly exclaiming, “This must be false! This cannot be! This must be the grossest falsehood!”—and when she had gone through the whole letter, though scarcely knowing anything of the last page or two, put it hastily away, protesting that she would not regard it, that she would never look in it again. In this perturbed state of mind, with thoughts that could rest on nothing, she walked on; but it would not do; in half a minute the letter was unfolded again, and collecting herself as well as she could, she again began the mortifying perusal of all that related to Wickham, and commanded herself so far as to examine the meaning of every sentence. The account of his connection with the Pemberley family was exactly what he had related himself; and the kindness of the late Mr. Darcy, though she had not before known its extent, agreed equally well with his own words. So far each recital confirmed the other; but when she came to the will, the difference was great. What Wickham had said of the living was fresh in her memory, and as she recalled his very words, it was impossible not to feel that there was gross duplicity on one side or the other; and, for a few moments, she flattered herself that her wishes did not err. But when she read and re-read with the closest attention, the particulars immediately following of Wickham’s resigning all pretensions to the living, of his receiving in lieu so considerable a sum as three thousand pounds, again was she forced to hesitate. She put down the letter, weighed every circumstance with what she meant to be impartiality—deliberated on the probability of each statement—but with little success. On both sides it was only assertion. Again she read on; but every line proved more clearly that the affair, which she had believed it impossible that any contrivance could so represent as to render Mr. Darcy’s conduct in it less than infamous, was capable of a turn which must make him entirely blameless throughout the whole. The extravagance and general profligacy which he scrupled not to lay at Mr. Wickham’s charge, exceedingly shocked her; the more so, as she could bring no proof of its injustice. She had never heard of him before his entrance into the ——shire Militia, in which he had engaged at the persuasion of the young man who, on meeting him accidentally in town, had there renewed a slight acquaintance. Of his former way of life nothing had been known in Hertfordshire but what he told himself. As to his real character, had information been in her power, she had never felt a wish of enquiring. His countenance, voice, and manner had established him at once in the possession of every virtue. She tried to recollect some instance of goodness, some distinguished trait of integrity or benevolence, that might rescue him from the attacks of Mr. Darcy; or at least, by the predominance of virtue, atone for those casual errors under which she would endeavour to class what Mr. Darcy had described as the idleness and vice of many years’ continuance. But no such recollection befriended her. She could see him instantly before her, in every charm of air and address; but she could remember no more substantial good than the general approbation of the neighbourhood, and the regard which his social powers had gained him in the mess. After pausing on this point a considerable while, she once more continued to read. But, alas! the story which followed, of his designs on Miss Darcy, received some confirmation from what had passed between Colonel Fitzwilliam and herself only the morning before; and at last she was referred for the truth of every particular to Colonel Fitzwilliam himself—from whom she had previously received the information of his near concern in all his cousin’s affairs, and whose character she had no reason to question. At one time she had almost resolved on applying to him, but the idea was checked by the awkwardness of the application, and at length wholly banished by the conviction that Mr. Darcy would never have hazarded such a proposal, if he had not been well assured of his cousin’s corroboration. She perfectly remembered everything that had passed in conversation between Wickham and herself, in their first evening at Mr. Phillips’s. Many of his expressions were still fresh in her memory. She was _now_ struck with the impropriety of such communications to a stranger, and wondered it had escaped her before. She saw the indelicacy of putting himself forward as he had done, and the inconsistency of his professions with his conduct. She remembered that he had boasted of having no fear of seeing Mr. Darcy—that Mr. Darcy might leave the country, but that _he_ should stand his ground; yet he had avoided the Netherfield ball the very next week. She remembered also that, till the Netherfield family had quitted the country, he had told his story to no one but herself; but that after their removal it had been everywhere discussed; that he had then no reserves, no scruples in sinking Mr. Darcy’s character, though he had assured her that respect for the father would always prevent his exposing the son. How differently did everything now appear in which he was concerned! His attentions to Miss King were now the consequence of views solely and hatefully mercenary; and the mediocrity of her fortune proved no longer the moderation of his wishes, but his eagerness to grasp at anything. His behaviour to herself could now have had no tolerable motive; he had either been deceived with regard to her fortune, or had been gratifying his vanity by encouraging the preference which she believed she had most incautiously shown. Every lingering struggle in his favour grew fainter and fainter; and in farther justification of Mr. Darcy, she could not but allow that Mr. Bingley, when questioned by Jane, had long ago asserted his blamelessness in the affair; that proud and repulsive as were his manners, she had never, in the whole course of their acquaintance—an acquaintance which had latterly brought them much together, and given her a sort of intimacy with his ways—seen anything that betrayed him to be unprincipled or unjust—anything that spoke him of irreligious or immoral habits; that among his own connections he was esteemed and valued—that even Wickham had allowed him merit as a brother, and that she had often heard him speak so affectionately of his sister as to prove him capable of some amiable feeling; that had his actions been what Mr. Wickham represented them, so gross a violation of everything right could hardly have been concealed from the world; and that friendship between a person capable of it, and such an amiable man as Mr. Bingley, was incomprehensible. She grew absolutely ashamed of herself. Of neither Darcy nor Wickham could she think without feeling she had been blind, partial, prejudiced, absurd. “How despicably I have acted!” she cried; “I, who have prided myself on my discernment! I, who have valued myself on my abilities! who have often disdained the generous candour of my sister, and gratified my vanity in useless or blameable mistrust! How humiliating is this discovery! Yet, how just a humiliation! Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind! But vanity, not love, has been my folly. Pleased with the preference of one, and offended by the neglect of the other, on the very beginning of our acquaintance, I have courted prepossession and ignorance, and driven reason away, where either were concerned. Till this moment I never knew myself.” From herself to Jane—from Jane to Bingley, her thoughts were in a line which soon brought to her recollection that Mr. Darcy’s explanation _there_ had appeared very insufficient, and she read it again. Widely different was the effect of a second perusal. How could she deny that credit to his assertions in one instance, which she had been obliged to give in the other? He declared himself to be totally unsuspicious of her sister’s attachment; and she could not help remembering what Charlotte’s opinion had always been. Neither could she deny the justice of his description of Jane. She felt that Jane’s feelings, though fervent, were little displayed, and that there was a constant complacency in her air and manner not often united with great sensibility. When she came to that part of the letter in which her family were mentioned in terms of such mortifying, yet merited reproach, her sense of shame was severe. The justice of the charge struck her too forcibly for denial, and the circumstances to which he particularly alluded as having passed at the Netherfield ball, and as confirming all his first disapprobation, could not have made a stronger impression on his mind than on hers. The compliment to herself and her sister was not unfelt. It soothed, but it could not console her for the contempt which had thus been self-attracted by the rest of her family; and as she considered that Jane’s disappointment had in fact been the work of her nearest relations, and reflected how materially the credit of both must be hurt by such impropriety of conduct, she felt depressed beyond anything she had ever known before. After wandering along the lane for two hours, giving way to every variety of thought—re-considering events, determining probabilities, and reconciling herself, as well as she could, to a change so sudden and so important, fatigue, and a recollection of her long absence, made her at length return home; and she entered the house with the wish of appearing cheerful as usual, and the resolution of repressing such reflections as must make her unfit for conversation. She was immediately told that the two gentlemen from Rosings had each called during her absence; Mr. Darcy, only for a few minutes, to take leave—but that Colonel Fitzwilliam had been sitting with them at least an hour, hoping for her return, and almost resolving to walk after her till she could be found. Elizabeth could but just _affect_ concern in missing him; she really rejoiced at it. Colonel Fitzwilliam was no longer an object; she could think only of her letter. Chapter 37 The two gentlemen left Rosings the next morning, and Mr. Collins having been in waiting near the lodges, to make them his parting obeisance, was able to bring home the pleasing intelligence, of their appearing in very good health, and in as tolerable spirits as could be expected, after the melancholy scene so lately gone through at Rosings. To Rosings he then hastened, to console Lady Catherine and her daughter; and on his return brought back, with great satisfaction, a message from her ladyship, importing that she felt herself so dull as to make her very desirous of having them all to dine with her. Elizabeth could not see Lady Catherine without recollecting that, had she chosen it, she might by this time have been presented to her as her future niece; nor could she think, without a smile, of what her ladyship’s indignation would have been. “What would she have said? how would she have behaved?” were questions with which she amused herself. Their first subject was the diminution of the Rosings party. “I assure you, I feel it exceedingly,” said Lady Catherine; “I believe no one feels the loss of friends so much as I do. But I am particularly attached to these young men, and know them to be so much attached to me! They were excessively sorry to go! But so they always are. The dear Colonel rallied his spirits tolerably till just at last; but Darcy seemed to feel it most acutely, more, I think, than last year. His attachment to Rosings certainly increases.” Mr. Collins had a compliment, and an allusion to throw in here, which were kindly smiled on by the mother and daughter. Lady Catherine observed, after dinner, that Miss Bennet seemed out of spirits, and immediately accounting for it herself, by supposing that she did not like to go home again so soon, she added: “But if that is the case, you must write to your mother and beg that you may stay a little longer. Mrs. Collins will be very glad of your company, I am sure.” “I am much obliged to your ladyship for your kind invitation,” replied Elizabeth, “but it is not in my power to accept it. I must be in town next Saturday.” “Why, at that rate, you will have been here only six weeks. I expected you to stay two months. I told Mrs. Collins so before you came. There can be no occasion for your going so soon. Mrs. Bennet could certainly spare you for another fortnight.” “But my father cannot. He wrote last week to hurry my return.” “Oh! your father of course may spare you, if your mother can. Daughters are never of so much consequence to a father. And if you will stay another _month_ complete, it will be in my power to take one of you as far as London, for I am going there early in June, for a week; and as Dawson does not object to the barouche-box, there will be very good room for one of you—and indeed, if the weather should happen to be cool, I should not object to taking you both, as you are neither of you large.” “You are all kindness, madam; but I believe we must abide by our original plan.” Lady Catherine seemed resigned. “Mrs. Collins, you must send a servant with them. You know I always speak my mind, and I cannot bear the idea of two young women travelling post by themselves. It is highly improper. You must contrive to send somebody. I have the greatest dislike in the world to that sort of thing. Young women should always be properly guarded and attended, according to their situation in life. When my niece Georgiana went to Ramsgate last summer, I made a point of her having two men-servants go with her. Miss Darcy, the daughter of Mr. Darcy, of Pemberley, and Lady Anne, could not have appeared with propriety in a different manner. I am excessively attentive to all those things. You must send John with the young ladies, Mrs. Collins. I am glad it occurred to me to mention it; for it would really be discreditable to _you_ to let them go alone.” “My uncle is to send a servant for us.” “Oh! Your uncle! He keeps a man-servant, does he? I am very glad you have somebody who thinks of these things. Where shall you change horses? Oh! Bromley, of course. If you mention my name at the Bell, you will be attended to.” Lady Catherine had many other questions to ask respecting their journey, and as she did not answer them all herself, attention was necessary, which Elizabeth believed to be lucky for her; or, with a mind so occupied, she might have forgotten where she was. Reflection must be reserved for solitary hours; whenever she was alone, she gave way to it as the greatest relief; and not a day went by without a solitary walk, in which she might indulge in all the delight of unpleasant recollections. Mr. Darcy’s letter she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart. She studied every sentence; and her feelings towards its writer were at times widely different. When she remembered the style of his address, she was still full of indignation; but when she considered how unjustly she had condemned and upbraided him, her anger was turned against herself; and his disappointed feelings became the object of compassion. His attachment excited gratitude, his general character respect; but she could not approve him; nor could she for a moment repent her refusal, or feel the slightest inclination ever to see him again. In her own past behaviour, there was a constant source of vexation and regret; and in the unhappy defects of her family, a subject of yet heavier chagrin. They were hopeless of remedy. Her father, contented with laughing at them, would never exert himself to restrain the wild giddiness of his youngest daughters; and her mother, with manners so far from right herself, was entirely insensible of the evil. Elizabeth had frequently united with Jane in an endeavour to check the imprudence of Catherine and Lydia; but while they were supported by their mother’s indulgence, what chance could there be of improvement? Catherine, weak-spirited, irritable, and completely under Lydia’s guidance, had been always affronted by their advice; and Lydia, self-willed and careless, would scarcely give them a hearing. They were ignorant, idle, and vain. While there was an officer in Meryton, they would flirt with him; and while Meryton was within a walk of Longbourn, they would be going there forever. Anxiety on Jane’s behalf was another prevailing concern; and Mr. Darcy’s explanation, by restoring Bingley to all her former good opinion, heightened the sense of what Jane had lost. His affection was proved to have been sincere, and his conduct cleared of all blame, unless any could attach to the implicitness of his confidence in his friend. How grievous then was the thought that, of a situation so desirable in every respect, so replete with advantage, so promising for happiness, Jane had been deprived, by the folly and indecorum of her own family! When to these recollections was added the development of Wickham’s character, it may be easily believed that the happy spirits which had seldom been depressed before, were now so much affected as to make it almost impossible for her to appear tolerably cheerful. Their engagements at Rosings were as frequent during the last week of her stay as they had been at first. The very last evening was spent there; and her ladyship again enquired minutely into the particulars of their journey, gave them directions as to the best method of packing, and was so urgent on the necessity of placing gowns in the only right way, that Maria thought herself obliged, on her return, to undo all the work of the morning, and pack her trunk afresh. When they parted, Lady Catherine, with great condescension, wished them a good journey, and invited them to come to Hunsford again next year; and Miss de Bourgh exerted herself so far as to curtsey and hold out her hand to both. Chapter 38 On Saturday morning Elizabeth and Mr. Collins met for breakfast a few minutes before the others appeared; and he took the opportunity of paying the parting civilities which he deemed indispensably necessary. “I know not, Miss Elizabeth,” said he, “whether Mrs. Collins has yet expressed her sense of your kindness in coming to us; but I am very certain you will not leave the house without receiving her thanks for it. The favour of your company has been much felt, I assure you. We know how little there is to tempt anyone to our humble abode. Our plain manner of living, our small rooms and few domestics, and the little we see of the world, must make Hunsford extremely dull to a young lady like yourself; but I hope you will believe us grateful for the condescension, and that we have done everything in our power to prevent your spending your time unpleasantly.” Elizabeth was eager with her thanks and assurances of happiness. She had spent six weeks with great enjoyment; and the pleasure of being with Charlotte, and the kind attentions she had received, must make _her_ feel the obliged. Mr. Collins was gratified, and with a more smiling solemnity replied: “It gives me great pleasure to hear that you have passed your time not disagreeably. We have certainly done our best; and most fortunately having it in our power to introduce you to very superior society, and, from our connection with Rosings, the frequent means of varying the humble home scene, I think we may flatter ourselves that your Hunsford visit cannot have been entirely irksome. Our situation with regard to Lady Catherine’s family is indeed the sort of extraordinary advantage and blessing which few can boast. You see on what a footing we are. You see how continually we are engaged there. In truth I must acknowledge that, with all the disadvantages of this humble parsonage, I should not think anyone abiding in it an object of compassion, while they are sharers of our intimacy at Rosings.” Words were insufficient for the elevation of his feelings; and he was obliged to walk about the room, while Elizabeth tried to unite civility and truth in a few short sentences. “You may, in fact, carry a very favourable report of us into Hertfordshire, my dear cousin. I flatter myself at least that you will be able to do so. Lady Catherine’s great attentions to Mrs. Collins you have been a daily witness of; and altogether I trust it does not appear that your friend has drawn an unfortunate—but on this point it will be as well to be silent. Only let me assure you, my dear Miss Elizabeth, that I can from my heart most cordially wish you equal felicity in marriage. My dear Charlotte and I have but one mind and one way of thinking. There is in everything a most remarkable resemblance of character and ideas between us. We seem to have been designed for each other.” Elizabeth could safely say that it was a great happiness where that was the case, and with equal sincerity could add, that she firmly believed and rejoiced in his domestic comforts. She was not sorry, however, to have the recital of them interrupted by the lady from whom they sprang. Poor Charlotte! it was melancholy to leave her to such society! But she had chosen it with her eyes open; and though evidently regretting that her visitors were to go, she did not seem to ask for compassion. Her home and her housekeeping, her parish and her poultry, and all their dependent concerns, had not yet lost their charms. At length the chaise arrived, the trunks were fastened on, the parcels placed within, and it was pronounced to be ready. After an affectionate parting between the friends, Elizabeth was attended to the carriage by Mr. Collins, and as they walked down the garden he was commissioning her with his best respects to all her family, not forgetting his thanks for the kindness he had received at Longbourn in the winter, and his compliments to Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, though unknown. He then handed her in, Maria followed, and the door was on the point of being closed, when he suddenly reminded them, with some consternation, that they had hitherto forgotten to leave any message for the ladies at Rosings. “But,” he added, “you will of course wish to have your humble respects delivered to them, with your grateful thanks for their kindness to you while you have been here.” Elizabeth made no objection; the door was then allowed to be shut, and the carriage drove off. “Good gracious!” cried Maria, after a few minutes’ silence, “it seems but a day or two since we first came! and yet how many things have happened!” “A great many indeed,” said her companion with a sigh. “We have dined nine times at Rosings, besides drinking tea there twice! How much I shall have to tell!” Elizabeth added privately, “And how much I shall have to conceal!” Their journey was performed without much conversation, or any alarm; and within four hours of their leaving Hunsford they reached Mr. Gardiner’s house, where they were to remain a few days. Jane looked well, and Elizabeth had little opportunity of studying her spirits, amidst the various engagements which the kindness of her aunt had reserved for them. But Jane was to go home with her, and at Longbourn there would be leisure enough for observation. It was not without an effort, meanwhile, that she could wait even for Longbourn, before she told her sister of Mr. Darcy’s proposals. To know that she had the power of revealing what would so exceedingly astonish Jane, and must, at the same time, so highly gratify whatever of her own vanity she had not yet been able to reason away, was such a temptation to openness as nothing could have conquered but the state of indecision in which she remained as to the extent of what she should communicate; and her fear, if she once entered on the subject, of being hurried into repeating something of Bingley which might only grieve her sister further. Chapter 39 It was the second week in May, in which the three young ladies set out together from Gracechurch Street for the town of ——, in Hertfordshire; and, as they drew near the appointed inn where Mr. Bennet’s carriage was to meet them, they quickly perceived, in token of the coachman’s punctuality, both Kitty and Lydia looking out of a dining-room up stairs. These two girls had been above an hour in the place, happily employed in visiting an opposite milliner, watching the sentinel on guard, and dressing a salad and cucumber. After welcoming their sisters, they triumphantly displayed a table set out with such cold meat as an inn larder usually affords, exclaiming, “Is not this nice? Is not this an agreeable surprise?” “And we mean to treat you all,” added Lydia, “but you must lend us the money, for we have just spent ours at the shop out there.” Then, showing her purchases—“Look here, I have bought this bonnet. I do not think it is very pretty; but I thought I might as well buy it as not. I shall pull it to pieces as soon as I get home, and see if I can make it up any better.” And when her sisters abused it as ugly, she added, with perfect unconcern, “Oh! but there were two or three much uglier in the shop; and when I have bought some prettier-coloured satin to trim it with fresh, I think it will be very tolerable. Besides, it will not much signify what one wears this summer, after the ——shire have left Meryton, and they are going in a fortnight.” “Are they indeed!” cried Elizabeth, with the greatest satisfaction. “They are going to be encamped near Brighton; and I do so want papa to take us all there for the summer! It would be such a delicious scheme; and I dare say would hardly cost anything at all. Mamma would like to go too of all things! Only think what a miserable summer else we shall have!” “Yes,” thought Elizabeth, “_that_ would be a delightful scheme indeed, and completely do for us at once. Good Heaven! Brighton, and a whole campful of soldiers, to us, who have been overset already by one poor regiment of militia, and the monthly balls of Meryton!” “Now I have got some news for you,” said Lydia, as they sat down at table. “What do you think? It is excellent news—capital news—and about a certain person we all like!” Jane and Elizabeth looked at each other, and the waiter was told he need not stay. Lydia laughed, and said: “Aye, that is just like your formality and discretion. You thought the waiter must not hear, as if he cared! I dare say he often hears worse things said than I am going to say. But he is an ugly fellow! I am glad he is gone. I never saw such a long chin in my life. Well, but now for my news; it is about dear Wickham; too good for the waiter, is it not? There is no danger of Wickham’s marrying Mary King. There’s for you! She is gone down to her uncle at Liverpool: gone to stay. Wickham is safe.” “And Mary King is safe!” added Elizabeth; “safe from a connection imprudent as to fortune.” “She is a great fool for going away, if she liked him.” “But I hope there is no strong attachment on either side,” said Jane. “I am sure there is not on _his_. I will answer for it, he never cared three straws about her—who _could_ about such a nasty little freckled thing?” Elizabeth was shocked to think that, however incapable of such coarseness of _expression_ herself, the coarseness of the _sentiment_ was little other than her own breast had harboured and fancied liberal! As soon as all had ate, and the elder ones paid, the carriage was ordered; and after some contrivance, the whole party, with all their boxes, work-bags, and parcels, and the unwelcome addition of Kitty’s and Lydia’s purchases, were seated in it. “How nicely we are all crammed in,” cried Lydia. “I am glad I bought my bonnet, if it is only for the fun of having another bandbox! Well, now let us be quite comfortable and snug, and talk and laugh all the way home. And in the first place, let us hear what has happened to you all since you went away. Have you seen any pleasant men? Have you had any flirting? I was in great hopes that one of you would have got a husband before you came back. Jane will be quite an old maid soon, I declare. She is almost three-and-twenty! Lord, how ashamed I should be of not being married before three-and-twenty! My aunt Phillips wants you so to get husbands, you can’t think. She says Lizzy had better have taken Mr. Collins; but _I_ do not think there would have been any fun in it. Lord! how I should like to be married before any of you; and then I would _chaperon_ you about to all the balls. Dear me! we had such a good piece of fun the other day at Colonel Forster’s. Kitty and me were to spend the day there, and Mrs. Forster promised to have a little dance in the evening; (by the bye, Mrs. Forster and me are _such_ friends!) and so she asked the two Harringtons to come, but Harriet was ill, and so Pen was forced to come by herself; and then, what do you think we did? We dressed up Chamberlayne in woman’s clothes on purpose to pass for a lady, only think what fun! Not a soul knew of it, but Colonel and Mrs. Forster, and Kitty and me, except my aunt, for we were forced to borrow one of her gowns; and you cannot imagine how well he looked! When Denny, and Wickham, and Pratt, and two or three more of the men came in, they did not know him in the least. Lord! how I laughed! and so did Mrs. Forster. I thought I should have died. And _that_ made the men suspect something, and then they soon found out what was the matter.” With such kinds of histories of their parties and good jokes, did Lydia, assisted by Kitty’s hints and additions, endeavour to amuse her companions all the way to Longbourn. Elizabeth listened as little as she could, but there was no escaping the frequent mention of Wickham’s name. Their reception at home was most kind. Mrs. Bennet rejoiced to see Jane in undiminished beauty; and more than once during dinner did Mr. Bennet say voluntarily to Elizabeth: “I am glad you are come back, Lizzy.” Their party in the dining-room was large, for almost all the Lucases came to meet Maria and hear the news; and various were the subjects that occupied them: Lady Lucas was enquiring of Maria, after the welfare and poultry of her eldest daughter; Mrs. Bennet was doubly engaged, on one hand collecting an account of the present fashions from Jane, who sat some way below her, and, on the other, retailing them all to the younger Lucases; and Lydia, in a voice rather louder than any other person’s, was enumerating the various pleasures of the morning to anybody who would hear her. “Oh! Mary,” said she, “I wish you had gone with us, for we had such fun! As we went along, Kitty and I drew up the blinds, and pretended there was nobody in the coach; and I should have gone so all the way, if Kitty had not been sick; and when we got to the George, I do think we behaved very handsomely, for we treated the other three with the nicest cold luncheon in the world, and if you would have gone, we would have treated you too. And then when we came away it was such fun! I thought we never should have got into the coach. I was ready to die of laughter. And then we were so merry all the way home! we talked and laughed so loud, that anybody might have heard us ten miles off!” To this Mary very gravely replied, “Far be it from me, my dear sister, to depreciate such pleasures! They would doubtless be congenial with the generality of female minds. But I confess they would have no charms for _me_—I should infinitely prefer a book.” But of this answer Lydia heard not a word. She seldom listened to anybody for more than half a minute, and never attended to Mary at all. In the afternoon Lydia was urgent with the rest of the girls to walk to Meryton, and to see how everybody went on; but Elizabeth steadily opposed the scheme. It should not be said that the Miss Bennets could not be at home half a day before they were in pursuit of the officers. There was another reason too for her opposition. She dreaded seeing Mr. Wickham again, and was resolved to avoid it as long as possible. The comfort to _her_ of the regiment’s approaching removal was indeed beyond expression. In a fortnight they were to go—and once gone, she hoped there could be nothing more to plague her on his account. She had not been many hours at home before she found that the Brighton scheme, of which Lydia had given them a hint at the inn, was under frequent discussion between her parents. Elizabeth saw directly that her father had not the smallest intention of yielding; but his answers were at the same time so vague and equivocal, that her mother, though often disheartened, had never yet despaired of succeeding at last. Chapter 40 Elizabeth’s impatience to acquaint Jane with what had happened could no longer be overcome; and at length, resolving to suppress every particular in which her sister was concerned, and preparing her to be surprised, she related to her the next morning the chief of the scene between Mr. Darcy and herself. Miss Bennet’s astonishment was soon lessened by the strong sisterly partiality which made any admiration of Elizabeth appear perfectly natural; and all surprise was shortly lost in other feelings. She was sorry that Mr. Darcy should have delivered his sentiments in a manner so little suited to recommend them; but still more was she grieved for the unhappiness which her sister’s refusal must have given him. “His being so sure of succeeding was wrong,” said she, “and certainly ought not to have appeared; but consider how much it must increase his disappointment!” “Indeed,” replied Elizabeth, “I am heartily sorry for him; but he has other feelings, which will probably soon drive away his regard for me. You do not blame me, however, for refusing him?” “Blame you! Oh, no.” “But you blame me for having spoken so warmly of Wickham?” “No—I do not know that you were wrong in saying what you did.” “But you _will_ know it, when I tell you what happened the very next day.” She then spoke of the letter, repeating the whole of its contents as far as they concerned George Wickham. What a stroke was this for poor Jane! who would willingly have gone through the world without believing that so much wickedness existed in the whole race of mankind, as was here collected in one individual. Nor was Darcy’s vindication, though grateful to her feelings, capable of consoling her for such discovery. Most earnestly did she labour to prove the probability of error, and seek to clear the one without involving the other. “This will not do,” said Elizabeth; “you never will be able to make both of them good for anything. Take your choice, but you must be satisfied with only one. There is but such a quantity of merit between them; just enough to make one good sort of man; and of late it has been shifting about pretty much. For my part, I am inclined to believe it all Darcy’s; but you shall do as you choose.” It was some time, however, before a smile could be extorted from Jane. “I do not know when I have been more shocked,” said she. “Wickham so very bad! It is almost past belief. And poor Mr. Darcy! Dear Lizzy, only consider what he must have suffered. Such a disappointment! and with the knowledge of your ill opinion, too! and having to relate such a thing of his sister! It is really too distressing. I am sure you must feel it so.” “Oh! no, my regret and compassion are all done away by seeing you so full of both. I know you will do him such ample justice, that I am growing every moment more unconcerned and indifferent. Your profusion makes me saving; and if you lament over him much longer, my heart will be as light as a feather.” “Poor Wickham! there is such an expression of goodness in his countenance! such an openness and gentleness in his manner!” “There certainly was some great mismanagement in the education of those two young men. One has got all the goodness, and the other all the appearance of it.” “I never thought Mr. Darcy so deficient in the _appearance_ of it as you used to do.” “And yet I meant to be uncommonly clever in taking so decided a dislike to him, without any reason. It is such a spur to one’s genius, such an opening for wit, to have a dislike of that kind. One may be continually abusive without saying anything just; but one cannot always be laughing at a man without now and then stumbling on something witty.” “Lizzy, when you first read that letter, I am sure you could not treat the matter as you do now.” “Indeed, I could not. I was uncomfortable enough, I may say unhappy. And with no one to speak to about what I felt, no Jane to comfort me and say that I had not been so very weak and vain and nonsensical as I knew I had! Oh! how I wanted you!” “How unfortunate that you should have used such very strong expressions in speaking of Wickham to Mr. Darcy, for now they _do_ appear wholly undeserved.” “Certainly. But the misfortune of speaking with bitterness is a most natural consequence of the prejudices I had been encouraging. There is one point on which I want your advice. I want to be told whether I ought, or ought not, to make our acquaintances in general understand Wickham’s character.” Miss Bennet paused a little, and then replied, “Surely there can be no occasion for exposing him so dreadfully. What is your opinion?” “That it ought not to be attempted. Mr. Darcy has not authorised me to make his communication public. On the contrary, every particular relative to his sister was meant to be kept as much as possible to myself; and if I endeavour to undeceive people as to the rest of his conduct, who will believe me? The general prejudice against Mr. Darcy is so violent, that it would be the death of half the good people in Meryton to attempt to place him in an amiable light. I am not equal to it. Wickham will soon be gone; and therefore it will not signify to anyone here what he really is. Some time hence it will be all found out, and then we may laugh at their stupidity in not knowing it before. At present I will say nothing about it.” “You are quite right. To have his errors made public might ruin him for ever. He is now, perhaps, sorry for what he has done, and anxious to re-establish a character. We must not make him desperate.” The tumult of Elizabeth’s mind was allayed by this conversation. She had got rid of two of the secrets which had weighed on her for a fortnight, and was certain of a willing listener in Jane, whenever she might wish to talk again of either. But there was still something lurking behind, of which prudence forbade the disclosure. She dared not relate the other half of Mr. Darcy’s letter, nor explain to her sister how sincerely she had been valued by her friend. Here was knowledge in which no one could partake; and she was sensible that nothing less than a perfect understanding between the parties could justify her in throwing off this last encumbrance of mystery. “And then,” said she, “if that very improbable event should ever take place, I shall merely be able to tell what Bingley may tell in a much more agreeable manner himself. The liberty of communication cannot be mine till it has lost all its value!” She was now, on being settled at home, at leisure to observe the real state of her sister’s spirits. Jane was not happy. She still cherished a very tender affection for Bingley. Having never even fancied herself in love before, her regard had all the warmth of first attachment, and, from her age and disposition, greater steadiness than most first attachments often boast; and so fervently did she value his remembrance, and prefer him to every other man, that all her good sense, and all her attention to the feelings of her friends, were requisite to check the indulgence of those regrets which must have been injurious to her own health and their tranquillity. “Well, Lizzy,” said Mrs. Bennet one day, “what is your opinion _now_ of this sad business of Jane’s? For my part, I am determined never to speak of it again to anybody. I told my sister Phillips so the other day. But I cannot find out that Jane saw anything of him in London. Well, he is a very undeserving young man—and I do not suppose there’s the least chance in the world of her ever getting him now. There is no talk of his coming to Netherfield again in the summer; and I have enquired of everybody, too, who is likely to know.” “I do not believe he will ever live at Netherfield any more.” “Oh well! it is just as he chooses. Nobody wants him to come. Though I shall always say he used my daughter extremely ill; and if I was her, I would not have put up with it. Well, my comfort is, I am sure Jane will die of a broken heart; and then he will be sorry for what he has done.” But as Elizabeth could not receive comfort from any such expectation, she made no answer. “Well, Lizzy,” continued her mother, soon afterwards, “and so the Collinses live very comfortable, do they? Well, well, I only hope it will last. And what sort of table do they keep? Charlotte is an excellent manager, I dare say. If she is half as sharp as her mother, she is saving enough. There is nothing extravagant in _their_ housekeeping, I dare say.” “No, nothing at all.” “A great deal of good management, depend upon it. Yes, yes. _They_ will take care not to outrun their income. _They_ will never be distressed for money. Well, much good may it do them! And so, I suppose, they often talk of having Longbourn when your father is dead. They look upon it as quite their own, I dare say, whenever that happens.” “It was a subject which they could not mention before me.” “No; it would have been strange if they had; but I make no doubt they often talk of it between themselves. Well, if they can be easy with an estate that is not lawfully their own, so much the better. _I_ should be ashamed of having one that was only entailed on me.” Chapter 41 The first week of their return was soon gone. The second began. It was the last of the regiment’s stay in Meryton, and all the young ladies in the neighbourhood were drooping apace. The dejection was almost universal. The elder Miss Bennets alone were still able to eat, drink, and sleep, and pursue the usual course of their employments. Very frequently were they reproached for this insensibility by Kitty and Lydia, whose own misery was extreme, and who could not comprehend such hard-heartedness in any of the family. “Good Heaven! what is to become of us? What are we to do?” would they often exclaim in the bitterness of woe. “How can you be smiling so, Lizzy?” Their affectionate mother shared all their grief; she remembered what she had herself endured on a similar occasion, five-and-twenty years ago. “I am sure,” said she, “I cried for two days together when Colonel Miller’s regiment went away. I thought I should have broken my heart.” “I am sure I shall break _mine_,” said Lydia. “If one could but go to Brighton!” observed Mrs. Bennet. “Oh, yes!—if one could but go to Brighton! But papa is so disagreeable.” “A little sea-bathing would set me up forever.” “And my aunt Phillips is sure it would do _me_ a great deal of good,” added Kitty. Such were the kind of lamentations resounding perpetually through Longbourn House. Elizabeth tried to be diverted by them; but all sense of pleasure was lost in shame. She felt anew the justice of Mr. Darcy’s objections; and never had she been so much disposed to pardon his interference in the views of his friend. But the gloom of Lydia’s prospect was shortly cleared away; for she received an invitation from Mrs. Forster, the wife of the colonel of the regiment, to accompany her to Brighton. This invaluable friend was a very young woman, and very lately married. A resemblance in good humour and good spirits had recommended her and Lydia to each other, and out of their _three_ months’ acquaintance they had been intimate _two_. The rapture of Lydia on this occasion, her adoration of Mrs. Forster, the delight of Mrs. Bennet, and the mortification of Kitty, are scarcely to be described. Wholly inattentive to her sister’s feelings, Lydia flew about the house in restless ecstasy, calling for everyone’s congratulations, and laughing and talking with more violence than ever; whilst the luckless Kitty continued in the parlour repining at her fate in terms as unreasonable as her accent was peevish. “I cannot see why Mrs. Forster should not ask _me_ as well as Lydia,” said she, “Though I am _not_ her particular friend. I have just as much right to be asked as she has, and more too, for I am two years older.” In vain did Elizabeth attempt to make her reasonable, and Jane to make her resigned. As for Elizabeth herself, this invitation was so far from exciting in her the same feelings as in her mother and Lydia, that she considered it as the death warrant of all possibility of common sense for the latter; and detestable as such a step must make her were it known, she could not help secretly advising her father not to let her go. She represented to him all the improprieties of Lydia’s general behaviour, the little advantage she could derive from the friendship of such a woman as Mrs. Forster, and the probability of her being yet more imprudent with such a companion at Brighton, where the temptations must be greater than at home. He heard her attentively, and then said: “Lydia will never be easy until she has exposed herself in some public place or other, and we can never expect her to do it with so little expense or inconvenience to her family as under the present circumstances.” “If you were aware,” said Elizabeth, “of the very great disadvantage to us all which must arise from the public notice of Lydia’s unguarded and imprudent manner—nay, which has already arisen from it, I am sure you would judge differently in the affair.” “Already arisen?” repeated Mr. Bennet. “What, has she frightened away some of your lovers? Poor little Lizzy! But do not be cast down. Such squeamish youths as cannot bear to be connected with a little absurdity are not worth a regret. Come, let me see the list of pitiful fellows who have been kept aloof by Lydia’s folly.” “Indeed you are mistaken. I have no such injuries to resent. It is not of particular, but of general evils, which I am now complaining. Our importance, our respectability in the world must be affected by the wild volatility, the assurance and disdain of all restraint which mark Lydia’s character. Excuse me, for I must speak plainly. If you, my dear father, will not take the trouble of checking her exuberant spirits, and of teaching her that her present pursuits are not to be the business of her life, she will soon be beyond the reach of amendment. Her character will be fixed, and she will, at sixteen, be the most determined flirt that ever made herself or her family ridiculous; a flirt, too, in the worst and meanest degree of flirtation; without any attraction beyond youth and a tolerable person; and, from the ignorance and emptiness of her mind, wholly unable to ward off any portion of that universal contempt which her rage for admiration will excite. In this danger Kitty also is comprehended. She will follow wherever Lydia leads. Vain, ignorant, idle, and absolutely uncontrolled! Oh! my dear father, can you suppose it possible that they will not be censured and despised wherever they are known, and that their sisters will not be often involved in the disgrace?” Mr. Bennet saw that her whole heart was in the subject, and affectionately taking her hand said in reply: “Do not make yourself uneasy, my love. Wherever you and Jane are known you must be respected and valued; and you will not appear to less advantage for having a couple of—or I may say, three—very silly sisters. We shall have no peace at Longbourn if Lydia does not go to Brighton. Let her go, then. Colonel Forster is a sensible man, and will keep her out of any real mischief; and she is luckily too poor to be an object of prey to anybody. At Brighton she will be of less importance even as a common flirt than she has been here. The officers will find women better worth their notice. Let us hope, therefore, that her being there may teach her her own insignificance. At any rate, she cannot grow many degrees worse, without authorising us to lock her up for the rest of her life.” With this answer Elizabeth was forced to be content; but her own opinion continued the same, and she left him disappointed and sorry. It was not in her nature, however, to increase her vexations by dwelling on them. She was confident of having performed her duty, and to fret over unavoidable evils, or augment them by anxiety, was no part of her disposition. Had Lydia and her mother known the substance of her conference with her father, their indignation would hardly have found expression in their united volubility. In Lydia’s imagination, a visit to Brighton comprised every possibility of earthly happiness. She saw, with the creative eye of fancy, the streets of that gay bathing-place covered with officers. She saw herself the object of attention, to tens and to scores of them at present unknown. She saw all the glories of the camp—its tents stretched forth in beauteous uniformity of lines, crowded with the young and the gay, and dazzling with scarlet; and, to complete the view, she saw herself seated beneath a tent, tenderly flirting with at least six officers at once. Had she known her sister sought to tear her from such prospects and such realities as these, what would have been her sensations? They could have been understood only by her mother, who might have felt nearly the same. Lydia’s going to Brighton was all that consoled her for her melancholy conviction of her husband’s never intending to go there himself. But they were entirely ignorant of what had passed; and their raptures continued, with little intermission, to the very day of Lydia’s leaving home. Elizabeth was now to see Mr. Wickham for the last time. Having been frequently in company with him since her return, agitation was pretty well over; the agitations of former partiality entirely so. She had even learnt to detect, in the very gentleness which had first delighted her, an affectation and a sameness to disgust and weary. In his present behaviour to herself, moreover, she had a fresh source of displeasure, for the inclination he soon testified of renewing those intentions which had marked the early part of their acquaintance could only serve, after what had since passed, to provoke her. She lost all concern for him in finding herself thus selected as the object of such idle and frivolous gallantry; and while she steadily repressed it, could not but feel the reproof contained in his believing, that however long, and for whatever cause, his attentions had been withdrawn, her vanity would be gratified, and her preference secured at any time by their renewal. On the very last day of the regiment’s remaining at Meryton, he dined, with others of the officers, at Longbourn; and so little was Elizabeth disposed to part from him in good humour, that on his making some enquiry as to the manner in which her time had passed at Hunsford, she mentioned Colonel Fitzwilliam’s and Mr. Darcy’s having both spent three weeks at Rosings, and asked him, if he was acquainted with the former. He looked surprised, displeased, alarmed; but with a moment’s recollection and a returning smile, replied, that he had formerly seen him often; and, after observing that he was a very gentlemanlike man, asked her how she had liked him. Her answer was warmly in his favour. With an air of indifference he soon afterwards added: “How long did you say he was at Rosings?” “Nearly three weeks.” “And you saw him frequently?” “Yes, almost every day.” “His manners are very different from his cousin’s.” “Yes, very different. But I think Mr. Darcy improves upon acquaintance.” “Indeed!” cried Mr. Wickham with a look which did not escape her. “And pray, may I ask?—” But checking himself, he added, in a gayer tone, “Is it in address that he improves? Has he deigned to add aught of civility to his ordinary style?—for I dare not hope,” he continued in a lower and more serious tone, “that he is improved in essentials.” “Oh, no!” said Elizabeth. “In essentials, I believe, he is very much what he ever was.” While she spoke, Wickham looked as if scarcely knowing whether to rejoice over her words, or to distrust their meaning. There was a something in her countenance which made him listen with an apprehensive and anxious attention, while she added: “When I said that he improved on acquaintance, I did not mean that his mind or his manners were in a state of improvement, but that, from knowing him better, his disposition was better understood.” Wickham’s alarm now appeared in a heightened complexion and agitated look; for a few minutes he was silent, till, shaking off his embarrassment, he turned to her again, and said in the gentlest of accents: “You, who so well know my feeling towards Mr. Darcy, will readily comprehend how sincerely I must rejoice that he is wise enough to assume even the _appearance_ of what is right. His pride, in that direction, may be of service, if not to himself, to many others, for it must only deter him from such foul misconduct as I have suffered by. I only fear that the sort of cautiousness to which you, I imagine, have been alluding, is merely adopted on his visits to his aunt, of whose good opinion and judgement he stands much in awe. His fear of her has always operated, I know, when they were together; and a good deal is to be imputed to his wish of forwarding the match with Miss de Bourgh, which I am certain he has very much at heart.” Elizabeth could not repress a smile at this, but she answered only by a slight inclination of the head. She saw that he wanted to engage her on the old subject of his grievances, and she was in no humour to indulge him. The rest of the evening passed with the _appearance_, on his side, of usual cheerfulness, but with no further attempt to distinguish Elizabeth; and they parted at last with mutual civility, and possibly a mutual desire of never meeting again. When the party broke up, Lydia returned with Mrs. Forster to Meryton, from whence they were to set out early the next morning. The separation between her and her family was rather noisy than pathetic. Kitty was the only one who shed tears; but she did weep from vexation and envy. Mrs. Bennet was diffuse in her good wishes for the felicity of her daughter, and impressive in her injunctions that she should not miss the opportunity of enjoying herself as much as possible—advice which there was every reason to believe would be well attended to; and in the clamorous happiness of Lydia herself in bidding farewell, the more gentle adieus of her sisters were uttered without being heard. Chapter 42 Had Elizabeth’s opinion been all drawn from her own family, she could not have formed a very pleasing opinion of conjugal felicity or domestic comfort. Her father, captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever; and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of the country and of books; and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. To his wife he was very little otherwise indebted, than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his wife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given. Elizabeth, however, had never been blind to the impropriety of her father’s behaviour as a husband. She had always seen it with pain; but respecting his abilities, and grateful for his affectionate treatment of herself, she endeavoured to forget what she could not overlook, and to banish from her thoughts that continual breach of conjugal obligation and decorum which, in exposing his wife to the contempt of her own children, was so highly reprehensible. But she had never felt so strongly as now the disadvantages which must attend the children of so unsuitable a marriage, nor ever been so fully aware of the evils arising from so ill-judged a direction of talents; talents, which, rightly used, might at least have preserved the respectability of his daughters, even if incapable of enlarging the mind of his wife. When Elizabeth had rejoiced over Wickham’s departure she found little other cause for satisfaction in the loss of the regiment. Their parties abroad were less varied than before, and at home she had a mother and sister whose constant repinings at the dullness of everything around them threw a real gloom over their domestic circle; and, though Kitty might in time regain her natural degree of sense, since the disturbers of her brain were removed, her other sister, from whose disposition greater evil might be apprehended, was likely to be hardened in all her folly and assurance by a situation of such double danger as a watering-place and a camp. Upon the whole, therefore, she found, what has been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had looked forward with impatient desire did not, in taking place, bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself. It was consequently necessary to name some other period for the commencement of actual felicity—to have some other point on which her wishes and hopes might be fixed, and by again enjoying the pleasure of anticipation, console herself for the present, and prepare for another disappointment. Her tour to the Lakes was now the object of her happiest thoughts; it was her best consolation for all the uncomfortable hours which the discontentedness of her mother and Kitty made inevitable; and could she have included Jane in the scheme, every part of it would have been perfect. “But it is fortunate,” thought she, “that I have something to wish for. Were the whole arrangement complete, my disappointment would be certain. But here, by carrying with me one ceaseless source of regret in my sister’s absence, I may reasonably hope to have all my expectations of pleasure realised. A scheme of which every part promises delight can never be successful; and general disappointment is only warded off by the defence of some little peculiar vexation.” When Lydia went away she promised to write very often and very minutely to her mother and Kitty; but her letters were always long expected, and always very short. Those to her mother contained little else than that they were just returned from the library, where such and such officers had attended them, and where she had seen such beautiful ornaments as made her quite wild; that she had a new gown, or a new parasol, which she would have described more fully, but was obliged to leave off in a violent hurry, as Mrs. Forster called her, and they were going off to the camp; and from her correspondence with her sister, there was still less to be learnt—for her letters to Kitty, though rather longer, were much too full of lines under the words to be made public. After the first fortnight or three weeks of her absence, health, good humour, and cheerfulness began to reappear at Longbourn. Everything wore a happier aspect. The families who had been in town for the winter came back again, and summer finery and summer engagements arose. Mrs. Bennet was restored to her usual querulous serenity; and, by the middle of June, Kitty was so much recovered as to be able to enter Meryton without tears; an event of such happy promise as to make Elizabeth hope that by the following Christmas she might be so tolerably reasonable as not to mention an officer above once a day, unless, by some cruel and malicious arrangement at the War Office, another regiment should be quartered in Meryton. The time fixed for the beginning of their northern tour was now fast approaching, and a fortnight only was wanting of it, when a letter arrived from Mrs. Gardiner, which at once delayed its commencement and curtailed its extent. Mr. Gardiner would be prevented by business from setting out till a fortnight later in July, and must be in London again within a month, and as that left too short a period for them to go so far, and see so much as they had proposed, or at least to see it with the leisure and comfort they had built on, they were obliged to give up the Lakes, and substitute a more contracted tour, and, according to the present plan, were to go no farther northwards than Derbyshire. In that county there was enough to be seen to occupy the chief of their three weeks; and to Mrs. Gardiner it had a peculiarly strong attraction. The town where she had formerly passed some years of her life, and where they were now to spend a few days, was probably as great an object of her curiosity as all the celebrated beauties of Matlock, Chatsworth, Dovedale, or the Peak. Elizabeth was excessively disappointed; she had set her heart on seeing the Lakes, and still thought there might have been time enough. But it was her business to be satisfied—and certainly her temper to be happy; and all was soon right again. With the mention of Derbyshire there were many ideas connected. It was impossible for her to see the word without thinking of Pemberley and its owner. “But surely,” said she, “I may enter his county with impunity, and rob it of a few petrified spars without his perceiving me.” The period of expectation was now doubled. Four weeks were to pass away before her uncle and aunt’s arrival. But they did pass away, and Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, with their four children, did at length appear at Longbourn. The children, two girls of six and eight years old, and two younger boys, were to be left under the particular care of their cousin Jane, who was the general favourite, and whose steady sense and sweetness of temper exactly adapted her for attending to them in every way—teaching them, playing with them, and loving them. The Gardiners stayed only one night at Longbourn, and set off the next morning with Elizabeth in pursuit of novelty and amusement. One enjoyment was certain—that of suitableness of companions; a suitableness which comprehended health and temper to bear inconveniences—cheerfulness to enhance every pleasure—and affection and intelligence, which might supply it among themselves if there were disappointments abroad. It is not the object of this work to give a description of Derbyshire, nor of any of the remarkable places through which their route thither lay; Oxford, Blenheim, Warwick, Kenilworth, Birmingham, etc. are sufficiently known. A small part of Derbyshire is all the present concern. To the little town of Lambton, the scene of Mrs. Gardiner’s former residence, and where she had lately learned some acquaintance still remained, they bent their steps, after having seen all the principal wonders of the country; and within five miles of Lambton, Elizabeth found from her aunt that Pemberley was situated. It was not in their direct road, nor more than a mile or two out of it. In talking over their route the evening before, Mrs. Gardiner expressed an inclination to see the place again. Mr. Gardiner declared his willingness, and Elizabeth was applied to for her approbation. “My love, should not you like to see a place of which you have heard so much?” said her aunt; “a place, too, with which so many of your acquaintances are connected. Wickham passed all his youth there, you know.” Elizabeth was distressed. She felt that she had no business at Pemberley, and was obliged to assume a disinclination for seeing it. She must own that she was tired of seeing great houses; after going over so many, she really had no pleasure in fine carpets or satin curtains. Mrs. Gardiner abused her stupidity. “If it were merely a fine house richly furnished,” said she, “I should not care about it myself; but the grounds are delightful. They have some of the finest woods in the country.” Elizabeth said no more—but her mind could not acquiesce. The possibility of meeting Mr. Darcy, while viewing the place, instantly occurred. It would be dreadful! She blushed at the very idea, and thought it would be better to speak openly to her aunt than to run such a risk. But against this there were objections; and she finally resolved that it could be the last resource, if her private enquiries to the absence of the family were unfavourably answered. Accordingly, when she retired at night, she asked the chambermaid whether Pemberley were not a very fine place? what was the name of its proprietor? and, with no little alarm, whether the family were down for the summer? A most welcome negative followed the last question—and her alarms now being removed, she was at leisure to feel a great deal of curiosity to see the house herself; and when the subject was revived the next morning, and she was again applied to, could readily answer, and with a proper air of indifference, that she had not really any dislike to the scheme. To Pemberley, therefore, they were to go. Chapter 43 Elizabeth, as they drove along, watched for the first appearance of Pemberley Woods with some perturbation; and when at length they turned in at the lodge, her spirits were in a high flutter. The park was very large, and contained great variety of ground. They entered it in one of its lowest points, and drove for some time through a beautiful wood stretching over a wide extent. Elizabeth’s mind was too full for conversation, but she saw and admired every remarkable spot and point of view. They gradually ascended for half-a-mile, and then found themselves at the top of a considerable eminence, where the wood ceased, and the eye was instantly caught by Pemberley House, situated on the opposite side of a valley, into which the road with some abruptness wound. It was a large, handsome stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater, but without any artificial appearance. Its banks were neither formal nor falsely adorned. Elizabeth was delighted. She had never seen a place for which nature had done more, or where natural beauty had been so little counteracted by an awkward taste. They were all of them warm in their admiration; and at that moment she felt that to be mistress of Pemberley might be something! They descended the hill, crossed the bridge, and drove to the door; and, while examining the nearer aspect of the house, all her apprehension of meeting its owner returned. She dreaded lest the chambermaid had been mistaken. On applying to see the place, they were admitted into the hall; and Elizabeth, as they waited for the housekeeper, had leisure to wonder at her being where she was. The housekeeper came; a respectable-looking elderly woman, much less fine, and more civil, than she had any notion of finding her. They followed her into the dining-parlour. It was a large, well proportioned room, handsomely fitted up. Elizabeth, after slightly surveying it, went to a window to enjoy its prospect. The hill, crowned with wood, which they had descended, receiving increased abruptness from the distance, was a beautiful object. Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks and the winding of the valley, as far as she could trace it, with delight. As they passed into other rooms these objects were taking different positions; but from every window there were beauties to be seen. The rooms were lofty and handsome, and their furniture suitable to the fortune of its proprietor; but Elizabeth saw, with admiration of his taste, that it was neither gaudy nor uselessly fine; with less of splendour, and more real elegance, than the furniture of Rosings. “And of this place,” thought she, “I might have been mistress! With these rooms I might now have been familiarly acquainted! Instead of viewing them as a stranger, I might have rejoiced in them as my own, and welcomed to them as visitors my uncle and aunt. But no,”—recollecting herself—“that could never be; my uncle and aunt would have been lost to me; I should not have been allowed to invite them.” This was a lucky recollection—it saved her from something very like regret. She longed to enquire of the housekeeper whether her master was really absent, but had not the courage for it. At length however, the question was asked by her uncle; and she turned away with alarm, while Mrs. Reynolds replied that he was, adding, “But we expect him to-morrow, with a large party of friends.” How rejoiced was Elizabeth that their own journey had not by any circumstance been delayed a day! Her aunt now called her to look at a picture. She approached and saw the likeness of Mr. Wickham, suspended, amongst several other miniatures, over the mantelpiece. Her aunt asked her, smilingly, how she liked it. The housekeeper came forward, and told them it was a picture of a young gentleman, the son of her late master’s steward, who had been brought up by him at his own expense. “He is now gone into the army,” she added; “but I am afraid he has turned out very wild.” Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece with a smile, but Elizabeth could not return it. “And that,” said Mrs. Reynolds, pointing to another of the miniatures, “is my master—and very like him. It was drawn at the same time as the other—about eight years ago.” “I have heard much of your master’s fine person,” said Mrs. Gardiner, looking at the picture; “it is a handsome face. But, Lizzy, you can tell us whether it is like or not.” Mrs. Reynolds respect for Elizabeth seemed to increase on this intimation of her knowing her master. “Does that young lady know Mr. Darcy?” Elizabeth coloured, and said: “A little.” “And do not you think him a very handsome gentleman, ma’am?” “Yes, very handsome.” “I am sure _I_ know none so handsome; but in the gallery up stairs you will see a finer, larger picture of him than this. This room was my late master’s favourite room, and these miniatures are just as they used to be then. He was very fond of them.” This accounted to Elizabeth for Mr. Wickham’s being among them. Mrs. Reynolds then directed their attention to one of Miss Darcy, drawn when she was only eight years old. “And is Miss Darcy as handsome as her brother?” said Mrs. Gardiner. “Oh! yes—the handsomest young lady that ever was seen; and so accomplished!—She plays and sings all day long. In the next room is a new instrument just come down for her—a present from my master; she comes here to-morrow with him.” Mr. Gardiner, whose manners were very easy and pleasant, encouraged her communicativeness by his questions and remarks; Mrs. Reynolds, either by pride or attachment, had evidently great pleasure in talking of her master and his sister. “Is your master much at Pemberley in the course of the year?” “Not so much as I could wish, sir; but I dare say he may spend half his time here; and Miss Darcy is always down for the summer months.” “Except,” thought Elizabeth, “when she goes to Ramsgate.” “If your master would marry, you might see more of him.” “Yes, sir; but I do not know when _that_ will be. I do not know who is good enough for him.” Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner smiled. Elizabeth could not help saying, “It is very much to his credit, I am sure, that you should think so.” “I say no more than the truth, and everybody will say that knows him,” replied the other. Elizabeth thought this was going pretty far; and she listened with increasing astonishment as the housekeeper added, “I have never known a cross word from him in my life, and I have known him ever since he was four years old.” This was praise, of all others most extraordinary, most opposite to her ideas. That he was not a good-tempered man had been her firmest opinion. Her keenest attention was awakened; she longed to hear more, and was grateful to her uncle for saying: “There are very few people of whom so much can be said. You are lucky in having such a master.” “Yes, sir, I know I am. If I were to go through the world, I could not meet with a better. But I have always observed, that they who are good-natured when children, are good-natured when they grow up; and he was always the sweetest-tempered, most generous-hearted boy in the world.” Elizabeth almost stared at her. “Can this be Mr. Darcy?” thought she. “His father was an excellent man,” said Mrs. Gardiner. “Yes, ma’am, that he was indeed; and his son will be just like him—just as affable to the poor.” Elizabeth listened, wondered, doubted, and was impatient for more. Mrs. Reynolds could interest her on no other point. She related the subjects of the pictures, the dimensions of the rooms, and the price of the furniture, in vain. Mr. Gardiner, highly amused by the kind of family prejudice to which he attributed her excessive commendation of her master, soon led again to the subject; and she dwelt with energy on his many merits as they proceeded together up the great staircase. “He is the best landlord, and the best master,” said she, “that ever lived; not like the wild young men nowadays, who think of nothing but themselves. There is not one of his tenants or servants but will give him a good name. Some people call him proud; but I am sure I never saw anything of it. To my fancy, it is only because he does not rattle away like other young men.” “In what an amiable light does this place him!” thought Elizabeth. “This fine account of him,” whispered her aunt as they walked, “is not quite consistent with his behaviour to our poor friend.” “Perhaps we might be deceived.” “That is not very likely; our authority was too good.” On reaching the spacious lobby above they were shown into a very pretty sitting-room, lately fitted up with greater elegance and lightness than the apartments below; and were informed that it was but just done to give pleasure to Miss Darcy, who had taken a liking to the room when last at Pemberley. “He is certainly a good brother,” said Elizabeth, as she walked towards one of the windows. Mrs. Reynolds anticipated Miss Darcy’s delight, when she should enter the room. “And this is always the way with him,” she added. “Whatever can give his sister any pleasure is sure to be done in a moment. There is nothing he would not do for her.” The picture-gallery, and two or three of the principal bedrooms, were all that remained to be shown. In the former were many good paintings; but Elizabeth knew nothing of the art; and from such as had been already visible below, she had willingly turned to look at some drawings of Miss Darcy’s, in crayons, whose subjects were usually more interesting, and also more intelligible. In the gallery there were many family portraits, but they could have little to fix the attention of a stranger. Elizabeth walked in quest of the only face whose features would be known to her. At last it arrested her—and she beheld a striking resemblance to Mr. Darcy, with such a smile over the face as she remembered to have sometimes seen when he looked at her. She stood several minutes before the picture, in earnest contemplation, and returned to it again before they quitted the gallery. Mrs. Reynolds informed them that it had been taken in his father’s lifetime. There was certainly at this moment, in Elizabeth’s mind, a more gentle sensation towards the original than she had ever felt at the height of their acquaintance. The commendation bestowed on him by Mrs. Reynolds was of no trifling nature. What praise is more valuable than the praise of an intelligent servant? As a brother, a landlord, a master, she considered how many people’s happiness were in his guardianship!—how much of pleasure or pain was it in his power to bestow!—how much of good or evil must be done by him! Every idea that had been brought forward by the housekeeper was favourable to his character, and as she stood before the canvas on which he was represented, and fixed his eyes upon herself, she thought of his regard with a deeper sentiment of gratitude than it had ever raised before; she remembered its warmth, and softened its impropriety of expression. When all of the house that was open to general inspection had been seen, they returned downstairs, and, taking leave of the housekeeper, were consigned over to the gardener, who met them at the hall-door. As they walked across the hall towards the river, Elizabeth turned back to look again; her uncle and aunt stopped also, and while the former was conjecturing as to the date of the building, the owner of it himself suddenly came forward from the road, which led behind it to the stables. They were within twenty yards of each other, and so abrupt was his appearance, that it was impossible to avoid his sight. Their eyes instantly met, and the cheeks of both were overspread with the deepest blush. He absolutely started, and for a moment seemed immovable from surprise; but shortly recovering himself, advanced towards the party, and spoke to Elizabeth, if not in terms of perfect composure, at least of perfect civility. She had instinctively turned away; but stopping on his approach, received his compliments with an embarrassment impossible to be overcome. Had his first appearance, or his resemblance to the picture they had just been examining, been insufficient to assure the other two that they now saw Mr. Darcy, the gardener’s expression of surprise, on beholding his master, must immediately have told it. They stood a little aloof while he was talking to their niece, who, astonished and confused, scarcely dared lift her eyes to his face, and knew not what answer she returned to his civil enquiries after her family. Amazed at the alteration of his manner since they last parted, every sentence that he uttered was increasing her embarrassment; and every idea of the impropriety of her being found there recurring to her mind, the few minutes in which they continued were some of the most uncomfortable in her life. Nor did he seem much more at ease; when he spoke, his accent had none of its usual sedateness; and he repeated his enquiries as to the time of her having left Longbourn, and of her stay in Derbyshire, so often, and in so hurried a way, as plainly spoke the distraction of his thoughts. At length every idea seemed to fail him; and, after standing a few moments without saying a word, he suddenly recollected himself, and took leave. The others then joined her, and expressed admiration of his figure; but Elizabeth heard not a word, and wholly engrossed by her own feelings, followed them in silence. She was overpowered by shame and vexation. Her coming there was the most unfortunate, the most ill-judged thing in the world! How strange it must appear to him! In what a disgraceful light might it not strike so vain a man! It might seem as if she had purposely thrown herself in his way again! Oh! why did she come? Or, why did he thus come a day before he was expected? Had they been only ten minutes sooner, they should have been beyond the reach of his discrimination; for it was plain that he was that moment arrived—that moment alighted from his horse or his carriage. She blushed again and again over the perverseness of the meeting. And his behaviour, so strikingly altered—what could it mean? That he should even speak to her was amazing!—but to speak with such civility, to enquire after her family! Never in her life had she seen his manners so little dignified, never had he spoken with such gentleness as on this unexpected meeting. What a contrast did it offer to his last address in Rosings Park, when he put his letter into her hand! She knew not what to think, or how to account for it. They had now entered a beautiful walk by the side of the water, and every step was bringing forward a nobler fall of ground, or a finer reach of the woods to which they were approaching; but it was some time before Elizabeth was sensible of any of it; and, though she answered mechanically to the repeated appeals of her uncle and aunt, and seemed to direct her eyes to such objects as they pointed out, she distinguished no part of the scene. Her thoughts were all fixed on that one spot of Pemberley House, whichever it might be, where Mr. Darcy then was. She longed to know what at the moment was passing in his mind—in what manner he thought of her, and whether, in defiance of everything, she was still dear to him. Perhaps he had been civil only because he felt himself at ease; yet there had been _that_ in his voice which was not like ease. Whether he had felt more of pain or of pleasure in seeing her she could not tell, but he certainly had not seen her with composure. At length, however, the remarks of her companions on her absence of mind aroused her, and she felt the necessity of appearing more like herself. They entered the woods, and bidding adieu to the river for a while, ascended some of the higher grounds; when, in spots where the opening of the trees gave the eye power to wander, were many charming views of the valley, the opposite hills, with the long range of woods overspreading many, and occasionally part of the stream. Mr. Gardiner expressed a wish of going round the whole park, but feared it might be beyond a walk. With a triumphant smile they were told that it was ten miles round. It settled the matter; and they pursued the accustomed circuit; which brought them again, after some time, in a descent among hanging woods, to the edge of the water, and one of its narrowest parts. They crossed it by a simple bridge, in character with the general air of the scene; it was a spot less adorned than any they had yet visited; and the valley, here contracted into a glen, allowed room only for the stream, and a narrow walk amidst the rough coppice-wood which bordered it. Elizabeth longed to explore its windings; but when they had crossed the bridge, and perceived their distance from the house, Mrs. Gardiner, who was not a great walker, could go no farther, and thought only of returning to the carriage as quickly as possible. Her niece was, therefore, obliged to submit, and they took their way towards the house on the opposite side of the river, in the nearest direction; but their progress was slow, for Mr. Gardiner, though seldom able to indulge the taste, was very fond of fishing, and was so much engaged in watching the occasional appearance of some trout in the water, and talking to the man about them, that he advanced but little. Whilst wandering on in this slow manner, they were again surprised, and Elizabeth’s astonishment was quite equal to what it had been at first, by the sight of Mr. Darcy approaching them, and at no great distance. The walk being here less sheltered than on the other side, allowed them to see him before they met. Elizabeth, however astonished, was at least more prepared for an interview than before, and resolved to appear and to speak with calmness, if he really intended to meet them. For a few moments, indeed, she felt that he would probably strike into some other path. The idea lasted while a turning in the walk concealed him from their view; the turning past, he was immediately before them. With a glance, she saw that he had lost none of his recent civility; and, to imitate his politeness, she began, as they met, to admire the beauty of the place; but she had not got beyond the words “delightful,” and “charming,” when some unlucky recollections obtruded, and she fancied that praise of Pemberley from her might be mischievously construed. Her colour changed, and she said no more. Mrs. Gardiner was standing a little behind; and on her pausing, he asked her if she would do him the honour of introducing him to her friends. This was a stroke of civility for which she was quite unprepared; and she could hardly suppress a smile at his being now seeking the acquaintance of some of those very people against whom his pride had revolted in his offer to herself. “What will be his surprise,” thought she, “when he knows who they are? He takes them now for people of fashion.” The introduction, however, was immediately made; and as she named their relationship to herself, she stole a sly look at him, to see how he bore it, and was not without the expectation of his decamping as fast as he could from such disgraceful companions. That he was _surprised_ by the connection was evident; he sustained it, however, with fortitude, and so far from going away, turned back with them, and entered into conversation with Mr. Gardiner. Elizabeth could not but be pleased, could not but triumph. It was consoling that he should know she had some relations for whom there was no need to blush. She listened most attentively to all that passed between them, and gloried in every expression, every sentence of her uncle, which marked his intelligence, his taste, or his good manners. The conversation soon turned upon fishing; and she heard Mr. Darcy invite him, with the greatest civility, to fish there as often as he chose while he continued in the neighbourhood, offering at the same time to supply him with fishing tackle, and pointing out those parts of the stream where there was usually most sport. Mrs. Gardiner, who was walking arm-in-arm with Elizabeth, gave her a look expressive of wonder. Elizabeth said nothing, but it gratified her exceedingly; the compliment must be all for herself. Her astonishment, however, was extreme, and continually was she repeating, “Why is he so altered? From what can it proceed? It cannot be for _me_—it cannot be for _my_ sake that his manners are thus softened. My reproofs at Hunsford could not work such a change as this. It is impossible that he should still love me.” After walking some time in this way, the two ladies in front, the two gentlemen behind, on resuming their places, after descending to the brink of the river for the better inspection of some curious water-plant, there chanced to be a little alteration. It originated in Mrs. Gardiner, who, fatigued by the exercise of the morning, found Elizabeth’s arm inadequate to her support, and consequently preferred her husband’s. Mr. Darcy took her place by her niece, and they walked on together. After a short silence, the lady first spoke. She wished him to know that she had been assured of his absence before she came to the place, and accordingly began by observing, that his arrival had been very unexpected—“for your housekeeper,” she added, “informed us that you would certainly not be here till to-morrow; and indeed, before we left Bakewell, we understood that you were not immediately expected in the country.” He acknowledged the truth of it all, and said that business with his steward had occasioned his coming forward a few hours before the rest of the party with whom he had been travelling. “They will join me early to-morrow,” he continued, “and among them are some who will claim an acquaintance with you—Mr. Bingley and his sisters.” Elizabeth answered only by a slight bow. Her thoughts were instantly driven back to the time when Mr. Bingley’s name had been the last mentioned between them; and, if she might judge by his complexion, _his_ mind was not very differently engaged. “There is also one other person in the party,” he continued after a pause, “who more particularly wishes to be known to you. Will you allow me, or do I ask too much, to introduce my sister to your acquaintance during your stay at Lambton?” The surprise of such an application was great indeed; it was too great for her to know in what manner she acceded to it. She immediately felt that whatever desire Miss Darcy might have of being acquainted with her must be the work of her brother, and, without looking farther, it was satisfactory; it was gratifying to know that his resentment had not made him think really ill of her. They now walked on in silence, each of them deep in thought. Elizabeth was not comfortable; that was impossible; but she was flattered and pleased. His wish of introducing his sister to her was a compliment of the highest kind. They soon outstripped the others, and when they had reached the carriage, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were half a quarter of a mile behind. He then asked her to walk into the house—but she declared herself not tired, and they stood together on the lawn. At such a time much might have been said, and silence was very awkward. She wanted to talk, but there seemed to be an embargo on every subject. At last she recollected that she had been travelling, and they talked of Matlock and Dove Dale with great perseverance. Yet time and her aunt moved slowly—and her patience and her ideas were nearly worn out before the _tête-à-tête_ was over. On Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner’s coming up they were all pressed to go into the house and take some refreshment; but this was declined, and they parted on each side with utmost politeness. Mr. Darcy handed the ladies into the carriage; and when it drove off, Elizabeth saw him walking slowly towards the house. The observations of her uncle and aunt now began; and each of them pronounced him to be infinitely superior to anything they had expected. “He is perfectly well behaved, polite, and unassuming,” said her uncle. “There _is_ something a little stately in him, to be sure,” replied her aunt, “but it is confined to his air, and is not unbecoming. I can now say with the housekeeper, that though some people may call him proud, _I_ have seen nothing of it.” “I was never more surprised than by his behaviour to us. It was more than civil; it was really attentive; and there was no necessity for such attention. His acquaintance with Elizabeth was very trifling.” “To be sure, Lizzy,” said her aunt, “he is not so handsome as Wickham; or, rather, he has not Wickham’s countenance, for his features are perfectly good. But how came you to tell me that he was so disagreeable?” Elizabeth excused herself as well as she could; said that she had liked him better when they had met in Kent than before, and that she had never seen him so pleasant as this morning. “But perhaps he may be a little whimsical in his civilities,” replied her uncle. “Your great men often are; and therefore I shall not take him at his word, as he might change his mind another day, and warn me off his grounds.” Elizabeth felt that they had entirely misunderstood his character, but said nothing. “From what we have seen of him,” continued Mrs. Gardiner, “I really should not have thought that he could have behaved in so cruel a way by anybody as he has done by poor Wickham. He has not an ill-natured look. On the contrary, there is something pleasing about his mouth when he speaks. And there is something of dignity in his countenance that would not give one an unfavourable idea of his heart. But, to be sure, the good lady who showed us his house did give him a most flaming character! I could hardly help laughing aloud sometimes. But he is a liberal master, I suppose, and _that_ in the eye of a servant comprehends every virtue.” Elizabeth here felt herself called on to say something in vindication of his behaviour to Wickham; and therefore gave them to understand, in as guarded a manner as she could, that by what she had heard from his relations in Kent, his actions were capable of a very different construction; and that his character was by no means so faulty, nor Wickham’s so amiable, as they had been considered in Hertfordshire. In confirmation of this, she related the particulars of all the pecuniary transactions in which they had been connected, without actually naming her authority, but stating it to be such as might be relied on. Mrs. Gardiner was surprised and concerned; but as they were now approaching the scene of her former pleasures, every idea gave way to the charm of recollection; and she was too much engaged in pointing out to her husband all the interesting spots in its environs to think of anything else. Fatigued as she had been by the morning’s walk they had no sooner dined than she set off again in quest of her former acquaintance, and the evening was spent in the satisfactions of an intercourse renewed after many years’ discontinuance. The occurrences of the day were too full of interest to leave Elizabeth much attention for any of these new friends; and she could do nothing but think, and think with wonder, of Mr. Darcy’s civility, and, above all, of his wishing her to be acquainted with his sister. Chapter 44 Elizabeth had settled it that Mr. Darcy would bring his sister to visit her the very day after her reaching Pemberley; and was consequently resolved not to be out of sight of the inn the whole of that morning. But her conclusion was false; for on the very morning after their arrival at Lambton, these visitors came. They had been walking about the place with some of their new friends, and were just returning to the inn to dress themselves for dining with the same family, when the sound of a carriage drew them to a window, and they saw a gentleman and a lady in a curricle driving up the street. Elizabeth immediately recognizing the livery, guessed what it meant, and imparted no small degree of her surprise to her relations by acquainting them with the honour which she expected. Her uncle and aunt were all amazement; and the embarrassment of her manner as she spoke, joined to the circumstance itself, and many of the circumstances of the preceding day, opened to them a new idea on the business. Nothing had ever suggested it before, but they felt that there was no other way of accounting for such attentions from such a quarter than by supposing a partiality for their niece. While these newly-born notions were passing in their heads, the perturbation of Elizabeth’s feelings was at every moment increasing. She was quite amazed at her own discomposure; but amongst other causes of disquiet, she dreaded lest the partiality of the brother should have said too much in her favour; and, more than commonly anxious to please, she naturally suspected that every power of pleasing would fail her. She retreated from the window, fearful of being seen; and as she walked up and down the room, endeavouring to compose herself, saw such looks of enquiring surprise in her uncle and aunt as made everything worse. Miss Darcy and her brother appeared, and this formidable introduction took place. With astonishment did Elizabeth see that her new acquaintance was at least as much embarrassed as herself. Since her being at Lambton, she had heard that Miss Darcy was exceedingly proud; but the observation of a very few minutes convinced her that she was only exceedingly shy. She found it difficult to obtain even a word from her beyond a monosyllable. Miss Darcy was tall, and on a larger scale than Elizabeth; and, though little more than sixteen, her figure was formed, and her appearance womanly and graceful. She was less handsome than her brother; but there was sense and good humour in her face, and her manners were perfectly unassuming and gentle. Elizabeth, who had expected to find in her as acute and unembarrassed an observer as ever Mr. Darcy had been, was much relieved by discerning such different feelings. They had not long been together before Mr. Darcy told her that Bingley was also coming to wait on her; and she had barely time to express her satisfaction, and prepare for such a visitor, when Bingley’s quick step was heard on the stairs, and in a moment he entered the room. All Elizabeth’s anger against him had been long done away; but had she still felt any, it could hardly have stood its ground against the unaffected cordiality with which he expressed himself on seeing her again. He enquired in a friendly, though general way, after her family, and looked and spoke with the same good-humoured ease that he had ever done. To Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner he was scarcely a less interesting personage than to herself. They had long wished to see him. The whole party before them, indeed, excited a lively attention. The suspicions which had just arisen of Mr. Darcy and their niece directed their observation towards each with an earnest though guarded enquiry; and they soon drew from those enquiries the full conviction that one of them at least knew what it was to love. Of the lady’s sensations they remained a little in doubt; but that the gentleman was overflowing with admiration was evident enough. Elizabeth, on her side, had much to do. She wanted to ascertain the feelings of each of her visitors; she wanted to compose her own, and to make herself agreeable to all; and in the latter object, where she feared most to fail, she was most sure of success, for those to whom she endeavoured to give pleasure were prepossessed in her favour. Bingley was ready, Georgiana was eager, and Darcy determined, to be pleased. In seeing Bingley, her thoughts naturally flew to her sister; and, oh! how ardently did she long to know whether any of his were directed in a like manner. Sometimes she could fancy that he talked less than on former occasions, and once or twice pleased herself with the notion that, as he looked at her, he was trying to trace a resemblance. But, though this might be imaginary, she could not be deceived as to his behaviour to Miss Darcy, who had been set up as a rival to Jane. No look appeared on either side that spoke particular regard. Nothing occurred between them that could justify the hopes of his sister. On this point she was soon satisfied; and two or three little circumstances occurred ere they parted, which, in her anxious interpretation, denoted a recollection of Jane not untinctured by tenderness, and a wish of saying more that might lead to the mention of her, had he dared. He observed to her, at a moment when the others were talking together, and in a tone which had something of real regret, that it “was a very long time since he had had the pleasure of seeing her;” and, before she could reply, he added, “It is above eight months. We have not met since the 26th of November, when we were all dancing together at Netherfield.” Elizabeth was pleased to find his memory so exact; and he afterwards took occasion to ask her, when unattended to by any of the rest, whether _all_ her sisters were at Longbourn. There was not much in the question, nor in the preceding remark; but there was a look and a manner which gave them meaning. It was not often that she could turn her eyes on Mr. Darcy himself; but, whenever she did catch a glimpse, she saw an expression of general complaisance, and in all that he said she heard an accent so removed from _hauteur_ or disdain of his companions, as convinced her that the improvement of manners which she had yesterday witnessed however temporary its existence might prove, had at least outlived one day. When she saw him thus seeking the acquaintance and courting the good opinion of people with whom any intercourse a few months ago would have been a disgrace—when she saw him thus civil, not only to herself, but to the very relations whom he had openly disdained, and recollected their last lively scene in Hunsford Parsonage—the difference, the change was so great, and struck so forcibly on her mind, that she could hardly restrain her astonishment from being visible. Never, even in the company of his dear friends at Netherfield, or his dignified relations at Rosings, had she seen him so desirous to please, so free from self-consequence or unbending reserve, as now, when no importance could result from the success of his endeavours, and when even the acquaintance of those to whom his attentions were addressed would draw down the ridicule and censure of the ladies both of Netherfield and Rosings. Their visitors stayed with them above half-an-hour; and when they arose to depart, Mr. Darcy called on his sister to join him in expressing their wish of seeing Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner, and Miss Bennet, to dinner at Pemberley, before they left the country. Miss Darcy, though with a diffidence which marked her little in the habit of giving invitations, readily obeyed. Mrs. Gardiner looked at her niece, desirous of knowing how _she_, whom the invitation most concerned, felt disposed as to its acceptance, but Elizabeth had turned away her head. Presuming however, that this studied avoidance spoke rather a momentary embarrassment than any dislike of the proposal, and seeing in her husband, who was fond of society, a perfect willingness to accept it, she ventured to engage for her attendance, and the day after the next was fixed on. Bingley expressed great pleasure in the certainty of seeing Elizabeth again, having still a great deal to say to her, and many enquiries to make after all their Hertfordshire friends. Elizabeth, construing all this into a wish of hearing her speak of her sister, was pleased, and on this account, as well as some others, found herself, when their visitors left them, capable of considering the last half-hour with some satisfaction, though while it was passing, the enjoyment of it had been little. Eager to be alone, and fearful of enquiries or hints from her uncle and aunt, she stayed with them only long enough to hear their favourable opinion of Bingley, and then hurried away to dress. But she had no reason to fear Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner’s curiosity; it was not their wish to force her communication. It was evident that she was much better acquainted with Mr. Darcy than they had before any idea of; it was evident that he was very much in love with her. They saw much to interest, but nothing to justify enquiry. Of Mr. Darcy it was now a matter of anxiety to think well; and, as far as their acquaintance reached, there was no fault to find. They could not be untouched by his politeness; and had they drawn his character from their own feelings and his servant’s report, without any reference to any other account, the circle in Hertfordshire to which he was known would not have recognized it for Mr. Darcy. There was now an interest, however, in believing the housekeeper; and they soon became sensible that the authority of a servant who had known him since he was four years old, and whose own manners indicated respectability, was not to be hastily rejected. Neither had anything occurred in the intelligence of their Lambton friends that could materially lessen its weight. They had nothing to accuse him of but pride; pride he probably had, and if not, it would certainly be imputed by the inhabitants of a small market-town where the family did not visit. It was acknowledged, however, that he was a liberal man, and did much good among the poor. With respect to Wickham, the travellers soon found that he was not held there in much estimation; for though the chief of his concerns with the son of his patron were imperfectly understood, it was yet a well-known fact that, on his quitting Derbyshire, he had left many debts behind him, which Mr. Darcy afterwards discharged. As for Elizabeth, her thoughts were at Pemberley this evening more than the last; and the evening, though as it passed it seemed long, was not long enough to determine her feelings towards _one_ in that mansion; and she lay awake two whole hours endeavouring to make them out. She certainly did not hate him. No; hatred had vanished long ago, and she had almost as long been ashamed of ever feeling a dislike against him, that could be so called. The respect created by the conviction of his valuable qualities, though at first unwillingly admitted, had for some time ceased to be repugnant to her feeling; and it was now heightened into somewhat of a friendlier nature, by the testimony so highly in his favour, and bringing forward his disposition in so amiable a light, which yesterday had produced. But above all, above respect and esteem, there was a motive within her of goodwill which could not be overlooked. It was gratitude; gratitude, not merely for having once loved her, but for loving her still well enough to forgive all the petulance and acrimony of her manner in rejecting him, and all the unjust accusations accompanying her rejection. He who, she had been persuaded, would avoid her as his greatest enemy, seemed, on this accidental meeting, most eager to preserve the acquaintance, and without any indelicate display of regard, or any peculiarity of manner, where their two selves only were concerned, was soliciting the good opinion of her friends, and bent on making her known to his sister. Such a change in a man of so much pride exciting not only astonishment but gratitude—for to love, ardent love, it must be attributed; and as such its impression on her was of a sort to be encouraged, as by no means unpleasing, though it could not be exactly defined. She respected, she esteemed, she was grateful to him, she felt a real interest in his welfare; and she only wanted to know how far she wished that welfare to depend upon herself, and how far it would be for the happiness of both that she should employ the power, which her fancy told her she still possessed, of bringing on her the renewal of his addresses. It had been settled in the evening between the aunt and the niece, that such a striking civility as Miss Darcy’s in coming to see them on the very day of her arrival at Pemberley, for she had reached it only to a late breakfast, ought to be imitated, though it could not be equalled, by some exertion of politeness on their side; and, consequently, that it would be highly expedient to wait on her at Pemberley the following morning. They were, therefore, to go. Elizabeth was pleased; though when she asked herself the reason, she had very little to say in reply. Mr. Gardiner left them soon after breakfast. The fishing scheme had been renewed the day before, and a positive engagement made of his meeting some of the gentlemen at Pemberley before noon. Chapter 45 Convinced as Elizabeth now was that Miss Bingley’s dislike of her had originated in jealousy, she could not help feeling how unwelcome her appearance at Pemberley must be to her, and was curious to know with how much civility on that lady’s side the acquaintance would now be renewed. On reaching the house, they were shown through the hall into the saloon, whose northern aspect rendered it delightful for summer. Its windows opening to the ground, admitted a most refreshing view of the high woody hills behind the house, and of the beautiful oaks and Spanish chestnuts which were scattered over the intermediate lawn. In this house they were received by Miss Darcy, who was sitting there with Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley, and the lady with whom she lived in London. Georgiana’s reception of them was very civil, but attended with all the embarrassment which, though proceeding from shyness and the fear of doing wrong, would easily give to those who felt themselves inferior the belief of her being proud and reserved. Mrs. Gardiner and her niece, however, did her justice, and pitied her. By Mrs. Hurst and Miss Bingley they were noticed only by a curtsey; and, on their being seated, a pause, awkward as such pauses must always be, succeeded for a few moments. It was first broken by Mrs. Annesley, a genteel, agreeable-looking woman, whose endeavour to introduce some kind of discourse proved her to be more truly well-bred than either of the others; and between her and Mrs. Gardiner, with occasional help from Elizabeth, the conversation was carried on. Miss Darcy looked as if she wished for courage enough to join in it; and sometimes did venture a short sentence when there was least danger of its being heard. Elizabeth soon saw that she was herself closely watched by Miss Bingley, and that she could not speak a word, especially to Miss Darcy, without calling her attention. This observation would not have prevented her from trying to talk to the latter, had they not been seated at an inconvenient distance; but she was not sorry to be spared the necessity of saying much. Her own thoughts were employing her. She expected every moment that some of the gentlemen would enter the room. She wished, she feared that the master of the house might be amongst them; and whether she wished or feared it most, she could scarcely determine. After sitting in this manner a quarter of an hour without hearing Miss Bingley’s voice, Elizabeth was roused by receiving from her a cold enquiry after the health of her family. She answered with equal indifference and brevity, and the other said no more. The next variation which their visit afforded was produced by the entrance of servants with cold meat, cake, and a variety of all the finest fruits in season; but this did not take place till after many a significant look and smile from Mrs. Annesley to Miss Darcy had been given, to remind her of her post. There was now employment for the whole party—for though they could not all talk, they could all eat; and the beautiful pyramids of grapes, nectarines, and peaches soon collected them round the table. While thus engaged, Elizabeth had a fair opportunity of deciding whether she most feared or wished for the appearance of Mr. Darcy, by the feelings which prevailed on his entering the room; and then, though but a moment before she had believed her wishes to predominate, she began to regret that he came. He had been some time with Mr. Gardiner, who, with two or three other gentlemen from the house, was engaged by the river, and had left him only on learning that the ladies of the family intended a visit to Georgiana that morning. No sooner did he appear than Elizabeth wisely resolved to be perfectly easy and unembarrassed; a resolution the more necessary to be made, but perhaps not the more easily kept, because she saw that the suspicions of the whole party were awakened against them, and that there was scarcely an eye which did not watch his behaviour when he first came into the room. In no countenance was attentive curiosity so strongly marked as in Miss Bingley’s, in spite of the smiles which overspread her face whenever she spoke to one of its objects; for jealousy had not yet made her desperate, and her attentions to Mr. Darcy were by no means over. Miss Darcy, on her brother’s entrance, exerted herself much more to talk, and Elizabeth saw that he was anxious for his sister and herself to get acquainted, and forwarded as much as possible, every attempt at conversation on either side. Miss Bingley saw all this likewise; and, in the imprudence of anger, took the first opportunity of saying, with sneering civility: “Pray, Miss Eliza, are not the ——shire Militia removed from Meryton? They must be a great loss to _your_ family.” In Darcy’s presence she dared not mention Wickham’s name; but Elizabeth instantly comprehended that he was uppermost in her thoughts; and the various recollections connected with him gave her a moment’s distress; but exerting herself vigorously to repel the ill-natured attack, she presently answered the question in a tolerably detached tone. While she spoke, an involuntary glance showed her Darcy, with a heightened complexion, earnestly looking at her, and his sister overcome with confusion, and unable to lift up her eyes. Had Miss Bingley known what pain she was then giving her beloved friend, she undoubtedly would have refrained from the hint; but she had merely intended to discompose Elizabeth by bringing forward the idea of a man to whom she believed her partial, to make her betray a sensibility which might injure her in Darcy’s opinion, and, perhaps, to remind the latter of all the follies and absurdities by which some part of her family were connected with that corps. Not a syllable had ever reached her of Miss Darcy’s meditated elopement. To no creature had it been revealed, where secrecy was possible, except to Elizabeth; and from all Bingley’s connections her brother was particularly anxious to conceal it, from the very wish which Elizabeth had long ago attributed to him, of their becoming hereafter her own. He had certainly formed such a plan, and without meaning that it should affect his endeavour to separate him from Miss Bennet, it is probable that it might add something to his lively concern for the welfare of his friend. Elizabeth’s collected behaviour, however, soon quieted his emotion; and as Miss Bingley, vexed and disappointed, dared not approach nearer to Wickham, Georgiana also recovered in time, though not enough to be able to speak any more. Her brother, whose eye she feared to meet, scarcely recollected her interest in the affair, and the very circumstance which had been designed to turn his thoughts from Elizabeth seemed to have fixed them on her more and more cheerfully. Their visit did not continue long after the question and answer above mentioned; and while Mr. Darcy was attending them to their carriage Miss Bingley was venting her feelings in criticisms on Elizabeth’s person, behaviour, and dress. But Georgiana would not join her. Her brother’s recommendation was enough to ensure her favour; his judgement could not err. And he had spoken in such terms of Elizabeth as to leave Georgiana without the power of finding her otherwise than lovely and amiable. When Darcy returned to the saloon, Miss Bingley could not help repeating to him some part of what she had been saying to his sister. “How very ill Miss Eliza Bennet looks this morning, Mr. Darcy,” she cried; “I never in my life saw anyone so much altered as she is since the winter. She is grown so brown and coarse! Louisa and I were agreeing that we should not have known her again.” However little Mr. Darcy might have liked such an address, he contented himself with coolly replying that he perceived no other alteration than her being rather tanned, no miraculous consequence of travelling in the summer. “For my own part,” she rejoined, “I must confess that I never could see any beauty in her. Her face is too thin; her complexion has no brilliancy; and her features are not at all handsome. Her nose wants character—there is nothing marked in its lines. Her teeth are tolerable, but not out of the common way; and as for her eyes, which have sometimes been called so fine, I could never see anything extraordinary in them. They have a sharp, shrewish look, which I do not like at all; and in her air altogether there is a self-sufficiency without fashion, which is intolerable.” Persuaded as Miss Bingley was that Darcy admired Elizabeth, this was not the best method of recommending herself; but angry people are not always wise; and in seeing him at last look somewhat nettled, she had all the success she expected. He was resolutely silent, however, and, from a determination of making him speak, she continued: “I remember, when we first knew her in Hertfordshire, how amazed we all were to find that she was a reputed beauty; and I particularly recollect your saying one night, after they had been dining at Netherfield, ‘_She_ a beauty!—I should as soon call her mother a wit.’ But afterwards she seemed to improve on you, and I believe you thought her rather pretty at one time.” “Yes,” replied Darcy, who could contain himself no longer, “but _that_ was only when I first saw her, for it is many months since I have considered her as one of the handsomest women of my acquaintance.” He then went away, and Miss Bingley was left to all the satisfaction of having forced him to say what gave no one any pain but herself. Mrs. Gardiner and Elizabeth talked of all that had occurred during their visit, as they returned, except what had particularly interested them both. The look and behaviour of everybody they had seen were discussed, except of the person who had mostly engaged their attention. They talked of his sister, his friends, his house, his fruit—of everything but himself; yet Elizabeth was longing to know what Mrs. Gardiner thought of him, and Mrs. Gardiner would have been highly gratified by her niece’s beginning the subject. Chapter 46 Elizabeth had been a good deal disappointed in not finding a letter from Jane on their first arrival at Lambton; and this disappointment had been renewed on each of the mornings that had now been spent there; but on the third her repining was over, and her sister justified, by the receipt of two letters from her at once, on one of which was marked that it had been missent elsewhere. Elizabeth was not surprised at it, as Jane had written the direction remarkably ill. They had just been preparing to walk as the letters came in; and her uncle and aunt, leaving her to enjoy them in quiet, set off by themselves. The one missent must first be attended to; it had been written five days ago. The beginning contained an account of all their little parties and engagements, with such news as the country afforded; but the latter half, which was dated a day later, and written in evident agitation, gave more important intelligence. It was to this effect: “Since writing the above, dearest Lizzy, something has occurred of a most unexpected and serious nature; but I am afraid of alarming you—be assured that we are all well. What I have to say relates to poor Lydia. An express came at twelve last night, just as we were all gone to bed, from Colonel Forster, to inform us that she was gone off to Scotland with one of his officers; to own the truth, with Wickham! Imagine our surprise. To Kitty, however, it does not seem so wholly unexpected. I am very, very sorry. So imprudent a match on both sides! But I am willing to hope the best, and that his character has been misunderstood. Thoughtless and indiscreet I can easily believe him, but this step (and let us rejoice over it) marks nothing bad at heart. His choice is disinterested at least, for he must know my father can give her nothing. Our poor mother is sadly grieved. My father bears it better. How thankful am I that we never let them know what has been said against him; we must forget it ourselves. They were off Saturday night about twelve, as is conjectured, but were not missed till yesterday morning at eight. The express was sent off directly. My dear Lizzy, they must have passed within ten miles of us. Colonel Forster gives us reason to expect him here soon. Lydia left a few lines for his wife, informing her of their intention. I must conclude, for I cannot be long from my poor mother. I am afraid you will not be able to make it out, but I hardly know what I have written.” Without allowing herself time for consideration, and scarcely knowing what she felt, Elizabeth on finishing this letter instantly seized the other, and opening it with the utmost impatience, read as follows: it had been written a day later than the conclusion of the first. “By this time, my dearest sister, you have received my hurried letter; I wish this may be more intelligible, but though not confined for time, my head is so bewildered that I cannot answer for being coherent. Dearest Lizzy, I hardly know what I would write, but I have bad news for you, and it cannot be delayed. Imprudent as the marriage between Mr. Wickham and our poor Lydia would be, we are now anxious to be assured it has taken place, for there is but too much reason to fear they are not gone to Scotland. Colonel Forster came yesterday, having left Brighton the day before, not many hours after the express. Though Lydia’s short letter to Mrs. F. gave them to understand that they were going to Gretna Green, something was dropped by Denny expressing his belief that W. never intended to go there, or to marry Lydia at all, which was repeated to Colonel F., who, instantly taking the alarm, set off from B. intending to trace their route. He did trace them easily to Clapham, but no further; for on entering that place, they removed into a hackney coach, and dismissed the chaise that brought them from Epsom. All that is known after this is, that they were seen to continue the London road. I know not what to think. After making every possible enquiry on that side London, Colonel F. came on into Hertfordshire, anxiously renewing them at all the turnpikes, and at the inns in Barnet and Hatfield, but without any success—no such people had been seen to pass through. With the kindest concern he came on to Longbourn, and broke his apprehensions to us in a manner most creditable to his heart. I am sincerely grieved for him and Mrs. F., but no one can throw any blame on them. Our distress, my dear Lizzy, is very great. My father and mother believe the worst, but I cannot think so ill of him. Many circumstances might make it more eligible for them to be married privately in town than to pursue their first plan; and even if _he_ could form such a design against a young woman of Lydia’s connections, which is not likely, can I suppose her so lost to everything? Impossible! I grieve to find, however, that Colonel F. is not disposed to depend upon their marriage; he shook his head when I expressed my hopes, and said he feared W. was not a man to be trusted. My poor mother is really ill, and keeps her room. Could she exert herself, it would be better; but this is not to be expected. And as to my father, I never in my life saw him so affected. Poor Kitty has anger for having concealed their attachment; but as it was a matter of confidence, one cannot wonder. I am truly glad, dearest Lizzy, that you have been spared something of these distressing scenes; but now, as the first shock is over, shall I own that I long for your return? I am not so selfish, however, as to press for it, if inconvenient. Adieu! I take up my pen again to do what I have just told you I would not; but circumstances are such that I cannot help earnestly begging you all to come here as soon as possible. I know my dear uncle and aunt so well, that I am not afraid of requesting it, though I have still something more to ask of the former. My father is going to London with Colonel Forster instantly, to try to discover her. What he means to do I am sure I know not; but his excessive distress will not allow him to pursue any measure in the best and safest way, and Colonel Forster is obliged to be at Brighton again to-morrow evening. In such an exigence, my uncle’s advice and assistance would be everything in the world; he will immediately comprehend what I must feel, and I rely upon his goodness.” “Oh! where, where is my uncle?” cried Elizabeth, darting from her seat as she finished the letter, in eagerness to follow him, without losing a moment of the time so precious; but as she reached the door it was opened by a servant, and Mr. Darcy appeared. Her pale face and impetuous manner made him start, and before he could recover himself to speak, she, in whose mind every idea was superseded by Lydia’s situation, hastily exclaimed, “I beg your pardon, but I must leave you. I must find Mr. Gardiner this moment, on business that cannot be delayed; I have not an instant to lose.” “Good God! what is the matter?” cried he, with more feeling than politeness; then recollecting himself, “I will not detain you a minute; but let me, or let the servant go after Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner. You are not well enough; you cannot go yourself.” Elizabeth hesitated, but her knees trembled under her and she felt how little would be gained by her attempting to pursue them. Calling back the servant, therefore, she commissioned him, though in so breathless an accent as made her almost unintelligible, to fetch his master and mistress home instantly. On his quitting the room she sat down, unable to support herself, and looking so miserably ill, that it was impossible for Darcy to leave her, or to refrain from saying, in a tone of gentleness and commiseration, “Let me call your maid. Is there nothing you could take to give you present relief? A glass of wine; shall I get you one? You are very ill.” “No, I thank you,” she replied, endeavouring to recover herself. “There is nothing the matter with me. I am quite well; I am only distressed by some dreadful news which I have just received from Longbourn.” She burst into tears as she alluded to it, and for a few minutes could not speak another word. Darcy, in wretched suspense, could only say something indistinctly of his concern, and observe her in compassionate silence. At length she spoke again. “I have just had a letter from Jane, with such dreadful news. It cannot be concealed from anyone. My younger sister has left all her friends—has eloped; has thrown herself into the power of—of Mr. Wickham. They are gone off together from Brighton. _You_ know him too well to doubt the rest. She has no money, no connections, nothing that can tempt him to—she is lost for ever.” Darcy was fixed in astonishment. “When I consider,” she added in a yet more agitated voice, “that _I_ might have prevented it! _I_ who knew what he was. Had I but explained some part of it only—some part of what I learnt, to my own family! Had his character been known, this could not have happened. But it is all—all too late now.” “I am grieved indeed,” cried Darcy; “grieved—shocked. But is it certain—absolutely certain?” “Oh, yes! They left Brighton together on Sunday night, and were traced almost to London, but not beyond; they are certainly not gone to Scotland.” “And what has been done, what has been attempted, to recover her?” “My father is gone to London, and Jane has written to beg my uncle’s immediate assistance; and we shall be off, I hope, in half-an-hour. But nothing can be done—I know very well that nothing can be done. How is such a man to be worked on? How are they even to be discovered? I have not the smallest hope. It is every way horrible!” Darcy shook his head in silent acquiescence. “When _my_ eyes were opened to his real character—Oh! had I known what I ought, what I dared to do! But I knew not—I was afraid of doing too much. Wretched, wretched mistake!” Darcy made no answer. He seemed scarcely to hear her, and was walking up and down the room in earnest meditation, his brow contracted, his air gloomy. Elizabeth soon observed, and instantly understood it. Her power was sinking; everything _must_ sink under such a proof of family weakness, such an assurance of the deepest disgrace. She could neither wonder nor condemn, but the belief of his self-conquest brought nothing consolatory to her bosom, afforded no palliation of her distress. It was, on the contrary, exactly calculated to make her understand her own wishes; and never had she so honestly felt that she could have loved him, as now, when all love must be vain. But self, though it would intrude, could not engross her. Lydia—the humiliation, the misery she was bringing on them all, soon swallowed up every private care; and covering her face with her handkerchief, Elizabeth was soon lost to everything else; and, after a pause of several minutes, was only recalled to a sense of her situation by the voice of her companion, who, in a manner which, though it spoke compassion, spoke likewise restraint, said, “I am afraid you have been long desiring my absence, nor have I anything to plead in excuse of my stay, but real, though unavailing concern. Would to Heaven that anything could be either said or done on my part that might offer consolation to such distress! But I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may seem purposely to ask for your thanks. This unfortunate affair will, I fear, prevent my sister’s having the pleasure of seeing you at Pemberley to-day.” “Oh, yes. Be so kind as to apologise for us to Miss Darcy. Say that urgent business calls us home immediately. Conceal the unhappy truth as long as it is possible, I know it cannot be long.” He readily assured her of his secrecy; again expressed his sorrow for her distress, wished it a happier conclusion than there was at present reason to hope, and leaving his compliments for her relations, with only one serious, parting look, went away. As he quitted the room, Elizabeth felt how improbable it was that they should ever see each other again on such terms of cordiality as had marked their several meetings in Derbyshire; and as she threw a retrospective glance over the whole of their acquaintance, so full of contradictions and varieties, sighed at the perverseness of those feelings which would now have promoted its continuance, and would formerly have rejoiced in its termination. If gratitude and esteem are good foundations of affection, Elizabeth’s change of sentiment will be neither improbable nor faulty. But if otherwise—if regard springing from such sources is unreasonable or unnatural, in comparison of what is so often described as arising on a first interview with its object, and even before two words have been exchanged, nothing can be said in her defence, except that she had given somewhat of a trial to the latter method in her partiality for Wickham, and that its ill success might, perhaps, authorise her to seek the other less interesting mode of attachment. Be that as it may, she saw him go with regret; and in this early example of what Lydia’s infamy must produce, found additional anguish as she reflected on that wretched business. Never, since reading Jane’s second letter, had she entertained a hope of Wickham’s meaning to marry her. No one but Jane, she thought, could flatter herself with such an expectation. Surprise was the least of her feelings on this development. While the contents of the first letter remained in her mind, she was all surprise—all astonishment that Wickham should marry a girl whom it was impossible he could marry for money; and how Lydia could ever have attached him had appeared incomprehensible. But now it was all too natural. For such an attachment as this she might have sufficient charms; and though she did not suppose Lydia to be deliberately engaging in an elopement without the intention of marriage, she had no difficulty in believing that neither her virtue nor her understanding would preserve her from falling an easy prey. She had never perceived, while the regiment was in Hertfordshire, that Lydia had any partiality for him; but she was convinced that Lydia wanted only encouragement to attach herself to anybody. Sometimes one officer, sometimes another, had been her favourite, as their attentions raised them in her opinion. Her affections had continually been fluctuating but never without an object. The mischief of neglect and mistaken indulgence towards such a girl—oh! how acutely did she now feel it! She was wild to be at home—to hear, to see, to be upon the spot to share with Jane in the cares that must now fall wholly upon her, in a family so deranged, a father absent, a mother incapable of exertion, and requiring constant attendance; and though almost persuaded that nothing could be done for Lydia, her uncle’s interference seemed of the utmost importance, and till he entered the room her impatience was severe. Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner had hurried back in alarm, supposing by the servant’s account that their niece was taken suddenly ill; but satisfying them instantly on that head, she eagerly communicated the cause of their summons, reading the two letters aloud, and dwelling on the postscript of the last with trembling energy.— Though Lydia had never been a favourite with them, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner could not but be deeply afflicted. Not Lydia only, but all were concerned in it; and after the first exclamations of surprise and horror, Mr. Gardiner promised every assistance in his power. Elizabeth, though expecting no less, thanked him with tears of gratitude; and all three being actuated by one spirit, everything relating to their journey was speedily settled. They were to be off as soon as possible. “But what is to be done about Pemberley?” cried Mrs. Gardiner. “John told us Mr. Darcy was here when you sent for us; was it so?” “Yes; and I told him we should not be able to keep our engagement. _That_ is all settled.” “That is all settled;” repeated the other, as she ran into her room to prepare. “And are they upon such terms as for her to disclose the real truth? Oh, that I knew how it was!” But wishes were vain, or at least could only serve to amuse her in the hurry and confusion of the following hour. Had Elizabeth been at leisure to be idle, she would have remained certain that all employment was impossible to one so wretched as herself; but she had her share of business as well as her aunt, and amongst the rest there were notes to be written to all their friends at Lambton, with false excuses for their sudden departure. An hour, however, saw the whole completed; and Mr. Gardiner meanwhile having settled his account at the inn, nothing remained to be done but to go; and Elizabeth, after all the misery of the morning, found herself, in a shorter space of time than she could have supposed, seated in the carriage, and on the road to Longbourn. Chapter 47 “I have been thinking it over again, Elizabeth,” said her uncle, as they drove from the town; “and really, upon serious consideration, I am much more inclined than I was to judge as your eldest sister does on the matter. It appears to me so very unlikely that any young man should form such a design against a girl who is by no means unprotected or friendless, and who was actually staying in his colonel’s family, that I am strongly inclined to hope the best. Could he expect that her friends would not step forward? Could he expect to be noticed again by the regiment, after such an affront to Colonel Forster? His temptation is not adequate to the risk!” “Do you really think so?” cried Elizabeth, brightening up for a moment. “Upon my word,” said Mrs. Gardiner, “I begin to be of your uncle’s opinion. It is really too great a violation of decency, honour, and interest, for him to be guilty of. I cannot think so very ill of Wickham. Can you yourself, Lizzy, so wholly give him up, as to believe him capable of it?” “Not, perhaps, of neglecting his own interest; but of every other neglect I can believe him capable. If, indeed, it should be so! But I dare not hope it. Why should they not go on to Scotland if that had been the case?” “In the first place,” replied Mr. Gardiner, “there is no absolute proof that they are not gone to Scotland.” “Oh! but their removing from the chaise into a hackney coach is such a presumption! And, besides, no traces of them were to be found on the Barnet road.” “Well, then—supposing them to be in London. They may be there, though for the purpose of concealment, for no more exceptional purpose. It is not likely that money should be very abundant on either side; and it might strike them that they could be more economically, though less expeditiously, married in London than in Scotland.” “But why all this secrecy? Why any fear of detection? Why must their marriage be private? Oh, no, no—this is not likely. His most particular friend, you see by Jane’s account, was persuaded of his never intending to marry her. Wickham will never marry a woman without some money. He cannot afford it. And what claims has Lydia—what attraction has she beyond youth, health, and good humour that could make him, for her sake, forego every chance of benefiting himself by marrying well? As to what restraint the apprehensions of disgrace in the corps might throw on a dishonourable elopement with her, I am not able to judge; for I know nothing of the effects that such a step might produce. But as to your other objection, I am afraid it will hardly hold good. Lydia has no brothers to step forward; and he might imagine, from my father’s behaviour, from his indolence and the little attention he has ever seemed to give to what was going forward in his family, that _he_ would do as little, and think as little about it, as any father could do, in such a matter.” “But can you think that Lydia is so lost to everything but love of him as to consent to live with him on any terms other than marriage?” “It does seem, and it is most shocking indeed,” replied Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes, “that a sister’s sense of decency and virtue in such a point should admit of doubt. But, really, I know not what to say. Perhaps I am not doing her justice. But she is very young; she has never been taught to think on serious subjects; and for the last half-year, nay, for a twelvemonth—she has been given up to nothing but amusement and vanity. She has been allowed to dispose of her time in the most idle and frivolous manner, and to adopt any opinions that came in her way. Since the ——shire were first quartered in Meryton, nothing but love, flirtation, and officers have been in her head. She has been doing everything in her power by thinking and talking on the subject, to give greater—what shall I call it? susceptibility to her feelings; which are naturally lively enough. And we all know that Wickham has every charm of person and address that can captivate a woman.” “But you see that Jane,” said her aunt, “does not think so very ill of Wickham as to believe him capable of the attempt.” “Of whom does Jane ever think ill? And who is there, whatever might be their former conduct, that she would think capable of such an attempt, till it were proved against them? But Jane knows, as well as I do, what Wickham really is. We both know that he has been profligate in every sense of the word; that he has neither integrity nor honour; that he is as false and deceitful as he is insinuating.” “And do you really know all this?” cried Mrs. Gardiner, whose curiosity as to the mode of her intelligence was all alive. “I do indeed,” replied Elizabeth, colouring. “I told you, the other day, of his infamous behaviour to Mr. Darcy; and you yourself, when last at Longbourn, heard in what manner he spoke of the man who had behaved with such forbearance and liberality towards him. And there are other circumstances which I am not at liberty—which it is not worth while to relate; but his lies about the whole Pemberley family are endless. From what he said of Miss Darcy I was thoroughly prepared to see a proud, reserved, disagreeable girl. Yet he knew to the contrary himself. He must know that she was as amiable and unpretending as we have found her.” “But does Lydia know nothing of this? can she be ignorant of what you and Jane seem so well to understand?” “Oh, yes!—that, that is the worst of all. Till I was in Kent, and saw so much both of Mr. Darcy and his relation Colonel Fitzwilliam, I was ignorant of the truth myself. And when I returned home, the ——shire was to leave Meryton in a week or fortnight’s time. As that was the case, neither Jane, to whom I related the whole, nor I, thought it necessary to make our knowledge public; for of what use could it apparently be to any one, that the good opinion which all the neighbourhood had of him should then be overthrown? And even when it was settled that Lydia should go with Mrs. Forster, the necessity of opening her eyes to his character never occurred to me. That _she_ could be in any danger from the deception never entered my head. That such a consequence as _this_ could ensue, you may easily believe, was far enough from my thoughts.” “When they all removed to Brighton, therefore, you had no reason, I suppose, to believe them fond of each other?” “Not the slightest. I can remember no symptom of affection on either side; and had anything of the kind been perceptible, you must be aware that ours is not a family on which it could be thrown away. When first he entered the corps, she was ready enough to admire him; but so we all were. Every girl in or near Meryton was out of her senses about him for the first two months; but he never distinguished _her_ by any particular attention; and, consequently, after a moderate period of extravagant and wild admiration, her fancy for him gave way, and others of the regiment, who treated her with more distinction, again became her favourites.” It may be easily believed, that however little of novelty could be added to their fears, hopes, and conjectures, on this interesting subject, by its repeated discussion, no other could detain them from it long, during the whole of the journey. From Elizabeth’s thoughts it was never absent. Fixed there by the keenest of all anguish, self-reproach, she could find no interval of ease or forgetfulness. They travelled as expeditiously as possible, and, sleeping one night on the road, reached Longbourn by dinner time the next day. It was a comfort to Elizabeth to consider that Jane could not have been wearied by long expectations. The little Gardiners, attracted by the sight of a chaise, were standing on the steps of the house as they entered the paddock; and, when the carriage drove up to the door, the joyful surprise that lighted up their faces, and displayed itself over their whole bodies, in a variety of capers and frisks, was the first pleasing earnest of their welcome. Elizabeth jumped out; and, after giving each of them a hasty kiss, hurried into the vestibule, where Jane, who came running down from her mother’s apartment, immediately met her. Elizabeth, as she affectionately embraced her, whilst tears filled the eyes of both, lost not a moment in asking whether anything had been heard of the fugitives. “Not yet,” replied Jane. “But now that my dear uncle is come, I hope everything will be well.” “Is my father in town?” “Yes, he went on Tuesday, as I wrote you word.” “And have you heard from him often?” “We have heard only twice. He wrote me a few lines on Wednesday to say that he had arrived in safety, and to give me his directions, which I particularly begged him to do. He merely added that he should not write again till he had something of importance to mention.” “And my mother—how is she? How are you all?” “My mother is tolerably well, I trust; though her spirits are greatly shaken. She is up stairs and will have great satisfaction in seeing you all. She does not yet leave her dressing-room. Mary and Kitty, thank Heaven, are quite well.” “But you—how are you?” cried Elizabeth. “You look pale. How much you must have gone through!” Her sister, however, assured her of her being perfectly well; and their conversation, which had been passing while Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner were engaged with their children, was now put an end to by the approach of the whole party. Jane ran to her uncle and aunt, and welcomed and thanked them both, with alternate smiles and tears. When they were all in the drawing-room, the questions which Elizabeth had already asked were of course repeated by the others, and they soon found that Jane had no intelligence to give. The sanguine hope of good, however, which the benevolence of her heart suggested had not yet deserted her; she still expected that it would all end well, and that every morning would bring some letter, either from Lydia or her father, to explain their proceedings, and, perhaps, announce their marriage. Mrs. Bennet, to whose apartment they all repaired, after a few minutes’ conversation together, received them exactly as might be expected; with tears and lamentations of regret, invectives against the villainous conduct of Wickham, and complaints of her own sufferings and ill-usage; blaming everybody but the person to whose ill-judging indulgence the errors of her daughter must principally be owing. “If I had been able,” said she, “to carry my point in going to Brighton, with all my family, _this_ would not have happened; but poor dear Lydia had nobody to take care of her. Why did the Forsters ever let her go out of their sight? I am sure there was some great neglect or other on their side, for she is not the kind of girl to do such a thing if she had been well looked after. I always thought they were very unfit to have the charge of her; but I was overruled, as I always am. Poor dear child! And now here’s Mr. Bennet gone away, and I know he will fight Wickham, wherever he meets him and then he will be killed, and what is to become of us all? The Collinses will turn us out before he is cold in his grave, and if you are not kind to us, brother, I do not know what we shall do.” They all exclaimed against such terrific ideas; and Mr. Gardiner, after general assurances of his affection for her and all her family, told her that he meant to be in London the very next day, and would assist Mr. Bennet in every endeavour for recovering Lydia. “Do not give way to useless alarm,” added he; “though it is right to be prepared for the worst, there is no occasion to look on it as certain. It is not quite a week since they left Brighton. In a few days more we may gain some news of them; and till we know that they are not married, and have no design of marrying, do not let us give the matter over as lost. As soon as I get to town I shall go to my brother, and make him come home with me to Gracechurch Street; and then we may consult together as to what is to be done.” “Oh! my dear brother,” replied Mrs. Bennet, “that is exactly what I could most wish for. And now do, when you get to town, find them out, wherever they may be; and if they are not married already, _make_ them marry. And as for wedding clothes, do not let them wait for that, but tell Lydia she shall have as much money as she chooses to buy them, after they are married. And, above all, keep Mr. Bennet from fighting. Tell him what a dreadful state I am in, that I am frighted out of my wits—and have such tremblings, such flutterings, all over me—such spasms in my side and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that I can get no rest by night nor by day. And tell my dear Lydia not to give any directions about her clothes till she has seen me, for she does not know which are the best warehouses. Oh, brother, how kind you are! I know you will contrive it all.” But Mr. Gardiner, though he assured her again of his earnest endeavours in the cause, could not avoid recommending moderation to her, as well in her hopes as her fear; and after talking with her in this manner till dinner was on the table, they all left her to vent all her feelings on the housekeeper, who attended in the absence of her daughters. Though her brother and sister were persuaded that there was no real occasion for such a seclusion from the family, they did not attempt to oppose it, for they knew that she had not prudence enough to hold her tongue before the servants, while they waited at table, and judged it better that _one_ only of the household, and the one whom they could most trust should comprehend all her fears and solicitude on the subject. In the dining-room they were soon joined by Mary and Kitty, who had been too busily engaged in their separate apartments to make their appearance before. One came from her books, and the other from her toilette. The faces of both, however, were tolerably calm; and no change was visible in either, except that the loss of her favourite sister, or the anger which she had herself incurred in this business, had given more of fretfulness than usual to the accents of Kitty. As for Mary, she was mistress enough of herself to whisper to Elizabeth, with a countenance of grave reflection, soon after they were seated at table: “This is a most unfortunate affair, and will probably be much talked of. But we must stem the tide of malice, and pour into the wounded bosoms of each other the balm of sisterly consolation.” Then, perceiving in Elizabeth no inclination of replying, she added, “Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson: that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.” Elizabeth lifted up her eyes in amazement, but was too much oppressed to make any reply. Mary, however, continued to console herself with such kind of moral extractions from the evil before them. In the afternoon, the two elder Miss Bennets were able to be for half-an-hour by themselves; and Elizabeth instantly availed herself of the opportunity of making many enquiries, which Jane was equally eager to satisfy. After joining in general lamentations over the dreadful sequel of this event, which Elizabeth considered as all but certain, and Miss Bennet could not assert to be wholly impossible, the former continued the subject, by saying, “But tell me all and everything about it which I have not already heard. Give me further particulars. What did Colonel Forster say? Had they no apprehension of anything before the elopement took place? They must have seen them together for ever.” “Colonel Forster did own that he had often suspected some partiality, especially on Lydia’s side, but nothing to give him any alarm. I am so grieved for him! His behaviour was attentive and kind to the utmost. He _was_ coming to us, in order to assure us of his concern, before he had any idea of their not being gone to Scotland: when that apprehension first got abroad, it hastened his journey.” “And was Denny convinced that Wickham would not marry? Did he know of their intending to go off? Had Colonel Forster seen Denny himself?” “Yes; but, when questioned by _him_, Denny denied knowing anything of their plans, and would not give his real opinion about it. He did not repeat his persuasion of their not marrying—and from _that_, I am inclined to hope, he might have been misunderstood before.” “And till Colonel Forster came himself, not one of you entertained a doubt, I suppose, of their being really married?” “How was it possible that such an idea should enter our brains? I felt a little uneasy—a little fearful of my sister’s happiness with him in marriage, because I knew that his conduct had not been always quite right. My father and mother knew nothing of that; they only felt how imprudent a match it must be. Kitty then owned, with a very natural triumph on knowing more than the rest of us, that in Lydia’s last letter she had prepared her for such a step. She had known, it seems, of their being in love with each other, many weeks.” “But not before they went to Brighton?” “No, I believe not.” “And did Colonel Forster appear to think well of Wickham himself? Does he know his real character?” “I must confess that he did not speak so well of Wickham as he formerly did. He believed him to be imprudent and extravagant. And since this sad affair has taken place, it is said that he left Meryton greatly in debt; but I hope this may be false.” “Oh, Jane, had we been less secret, had we told what we knew of him, this could not have happened!” “Perhaps it would have been better,” replied her sister. “But to expose the former faults of any person without knowing what their present feelings were, seemed unjustifiable. We acted with the best intentions.” “Could Colonel Forster repeat the particulars of Lydia’s note to his wife?” “He brought it with him for us to see.” Jane then took it from her pocket-book, and gave it to Elizabeth. These were the contents: “My dear Harriet, “You will laugh when you know where I am gone, and I cannot help laughing myself at your surprise to-morrow morning, as soon as I am missed. I am going to Gretna Green, and if you cannot guess with who, I shall think you a simpleton, for there is but one man in the world I love, and he is an angel. I should never be happy without him, so think it no harm to be off. You need not send them word at Longbourn of my going, if you do not like it, for it will make the surprise the greater, when I write to them and sign my name ‘Lydia Wickham.’ What a good joke it will be! I can hardly write for laughing. Pray make my excuses to Pratt for not keeping my engagement, and dancing with him to-night. Tell him I hope he will excuse me when he knows all; and tell him I will dance with him at the next ball we meet, with great pleasure. I shall send for my clothes when I get to Longbourn; but I wish you would tell Sally to mend a great slit in my worked muslin gown before they are packed up. Good-bye. Give my love to Colonel Forster. I hope you will drink to our good journey. “Your affectionate friend, “LYDIA BENNET.” “Oh! thoughtless, thoughtless Lydia!” cried Elizabeth when she had finished it. “What a letter is this, to be written at such a moment! But at least it shows that _she_ was serious on the subject of their journey. Whatever he might afterwards persuade her to, it was not on her side a _scheme_ of infamy. My poor father! how he must have felt it!” “I never saw anyone so shocked. He could not speak a word for full ten minutes. My mother was taken ill immediately, and the whole house in such confusion!” “Oh! Jane,” cried Elizabeth, “was there a servant belonging to it who did not know the whole story before the end of the day?” “I do not know. I hope there was. But to be guarded at such a time is very difficult. My mother was in hysterics, and though I endeavoured to give her every assistance in my power, I am afraid I did not do so much as I might have done! But the horror of what might possibly happen almost took from me my faculties.” “Your attendance upon her has been too much for you. You do not look well. Oh that I had been with you! you have had every care and anxiety upon yourself alone.” “Mary and Kitty have been very kind, and would have shared in every fatigue, I am sure; but I did not think it right for either of them. Kitty is slight and delicate; and Mary studies so much, that her hours of repose should not be broken in on. My aunt Phillips came to Longbourn on Tuesday, after my father went away; and was so good as to stay till Thursday with me. She was of great use and comfort to us all. And Lady Lucas has been very kind; she walked here on Wednesday morning to condole with us, and offered her services, or any of her daughters’, if they should be of use to us.” “She had better have stayed at home,” cried Elizabeth; “perhaps she _meant_ well, but, under such a misfortune as this, one cannot see too little of one’s neighbours. Assistance is impossible; condolence insufferable. Let them triumph over us at a distance, and be satisfied.” She then proceeded to enquire into the measures which her father had intended to pursue, while in town, for the recovery of his daughter. “He meant I believe,” replied Jane, “to go to Epsom, the place where they last changed horses, see the postilions and try if anything could be made out from them. His principal object must be to discover the number of the hackney coach which took them from Clapham. It had come with a fare from London; and as he thought that the circumstance of a gentleman and lady’s removing from one carriage into another might be remarked he meant to make enquiries at Clapham. If he could anyhow discover at what house the coachman had before set down his fare, he determined to make enquiries there, and hoped it might not be impossible to find out the stand and number of the coach. I do not know of any other designs that he had formed; but he was in such a hurry to be gone, and his spirits so greatly discomposed, that I had difficulty in finding out even so much as this.” Chapter 48 The whole party were in hopes of a letter from Mr. Bennet the next morning, but the post came in without bringing a single line from him. His family knew him to be, on all common occasions, a most negligent and dilatory correspondent; but at such a time they had hoped for exertion. They were forced to conclude that he had no pleasing intelligence to send; but even of _that_ they would have been glad to be certain. Mr. Gardiner had waited only for the letters before he set off. When he was gone, they were certain at least of receiving constant information of what was going on, and their uncle promised, at parting, to prevail on Mr. Bennet to return to Longbourn, as soon as he could, to the great consolation of his sister, who considered it as the only security for her husband’s not being killed in a duel. Mrs. Gardiner and the children were to remain in Hertfordshire a few days longer, as the former thought her presence might be serviceable to her nieces. She shared in their attendance on Mrs. Bennet, and was a great comfort to them in their hours of freedom. Their other aunt also visited them frequently, and always, as she said, with the design of cheering and heartening them up—though, as she never came without reporting some fresh instance of Wickham’s extravagance or irregularity, she seldom went away without leaving them more dispirited than she found them. All Meryton seemed striving to blacken the man who, but three months before, had been almost an angel of light. He was declared to be in debt to every tradesman in the place, and his intrigues, all honoured with the title of seduction, had been extended into every tradesman’s family. Everybody declared that he was the wickedest young man in the world; and everybody began to find out that they had always distrusted the appearance of his goodness. Elizabeth, though she did not credit above half of what was said, believed enough to make her former assurance of her sister’s ruin more certain; and even Jane, who believed still less of it, became almost hopeless, more especially as the time was now come when, if they had gone to Scotland, which she had never before entirely despaired of, they must in all probability have gained some news of them. Mr. Gardiner left Longbourn on Sunday; on Tuesday his wife received a letter from him; it told them that, on his arrival, he had immediately found out his brother, and persuaded him to come to Gracechurch Street; that Mr. Bennet had been to Epsom and Clapham, before his arrival, but without gaining any satisfactory information; and that he was now determined to enquire at all the principal hotels in town, as Mr. Bennet thought it possible they might have gone to one of them, on their first coming to London, before they procured lodgings. Mr. Gardiner himself did not expect any success from this measure, but as his brother was eager in it, he meant to assist him in pursuing it. He added that Mr. Bennet seemed wholly disinclined at present to leave London and promised to write again very soon. There was also a postscript to this effect: “I have written to Colonel Forster to desire him to find out, if possible, from some of the young man’s intimates in the regiment, whether Wickham has any relations or connections who would be likely to know in what part of town he has now concealed himself. If there were anyone that one could apply to with a probability of gaining such a clue as that, it might be of essential consequence. At present we have nothing to guide us. Colonel Forster will, I dare say, do everything in his power to satisfy us on this head. But, on second thoughts, perhaps, Lizzy could tell us what relations he has now living, better than any other person.” Elizabeth was at no loss to understand from whence this deference to her authority proceeded; but it was not in her power to give any information of so satisfactory a nature as the compliment deserved. She had never heard of his having had any relations, except a father and mother, both of whom had been dead many years. It was possible, however, that some of his companions in the ——shire might be able to give more information; and though she was not very sanguine in expecting it, the application was a something to look forward to. Every day at Longbourn was now a day of anxiety; but the most anxious part of each was when the post was expected. The arrival of letters was the grand object of every morning’s impatience. Through letters, whatever of good or bad was to be told would be communicated, and every succeeding day was expected to bring some news of importance. But before they heard again from Mr. Gardiner, a letter arrived for their father, from a different quarter, from Mr. Collins; which, as Jane had received directions to open all that came for him in his absence, she accordingly read; and Elizabeth, who knew what curiosities his letters always were, looked over her, and read it likewise. It was as follows: “My dear Sir, “I feel myself called upon, by our relationship, and my situation in life, to condole with you on the grievous affliction you are now suffering under, of which we were yesterday informed by a letter from Hertfordshire. Be assured, my dear sir, that Mrs. Collins and myself sincerely sympathise with you and all your respectable family, in your present distress, which must be of the bitterest kind, because proceeding from a cause which no time can remove. No arguments shall be wanting on my part that can alleviate so severe a misfortune—or that may comfort you, under a circumstance that must be of all others the most afflicting to a parent’s mind. The death of your daughter would have been a blessing in comparison of this. And it is the more to be lamented, because there is reason to suppose as my dear Charlotte informs me, that this licentiousness of behaviour in your daughter has proceeded from a faulty degree of indulgence; though, at the same time, for the consolation of yourself and Mrs. Bennet, I am inclined to think that her own disposition must be naturally bad, or she could not be guilty of such an enormity, at so early an age. Howsoever that may be, you are grievously to be pitied; in which opinion I am not only joined by Mrs. Collins, but likewise by Lady Catherine and her daughter, to whom I have related the affair. They agree with me in apprehending that this false step in one daughter will be injurious to the fortunes of all the others; for who, as Lady Catherine herself condescendingly says, will connect themselves with such a family? And this consideration leads me moreover to reflect, with augmented satisfaction, on a certain event of last November; for had it been otherwise, I must have been involved in all your sorrow and disgrace. Let me then advise you, dear sir, to console yourself as much as possible, to throw off your unworthy child from your affection for ever, and leave her to reap the fruits of her own heinous offense. “I am, dear sir, etc., etc.” Mr. Gardiner did not write again till he had received an answer from Colonel Forster; and then he had nothing of a pleasant nature to send. It was not known that Wickham had a single relationship with whom he kept up any connection, and it was certain that he had no near one living. His former acquaintances had been numerous; but since he had been in the militia, it did not appear that he was on terms of particular friendship with any of them. There was no one, therefore, who could be pointed out as likely to give any news of him. And in the wretched state of his own finances, there was a very powerful motive for secrecy, in addition to his fear of discovery by Lydia’s relations, for it had just transpired that he had left gaming debts behind him to a very considerable amount. Colonel Forster believed that more than a thousand pounds would be necessary to clear his expenses at Brighton. He owed a good deal in town, but his debts of honour were still more formidable. Mr. Gardiner did not attempt to conceal these particulars from the Longbourn family. Jane heard them with horror. “A gamester!” she cried. “This is wholly unexpected. I had not an idea of it.” Mr. Gardiner added in his letter, that they might expect to see their father at home on the following day, which was Saturday. Rendered spiritless by the ill-success of all their endeavours, he had yielded to his brother-in-law’s entreaty that he would return to his family, and leave it to him to do whatever occasion might suggest to be advisable for continuing their pursuit. When Mrs. Bennet was told of this, she did not express so much satisfaction as her children expected, considering what her anxiety for his life had been before. “What, is he coming home, and without poor Lydia?” she cried. “Sure he will not leave London before he has found them. Who is to fight Wickham, and make him marry her, if he comes away?” As Mrs. Gardiner began to wish to be at home, it was settled that she and the children should go to London, at the same time that Mr. Bennet came from it. The coach, therefore, took them the first stage of their journey, and brought its master back to Longbourn. Mrs. Gardiner went away in all the perplexity about Elizabeth and her Derbyshire friend that had attended her from that part of the world. His name had never been voluntarily mentioned before them by her niece; and the kind of half-expectation which Mrs. Gardiner had formed, of their being followed by a letter from him, had ended in nothing. Elizabeth had received none since her return that could come from Pemberley. The present unhappy state of the family rendered any other excuse for the lowness of her spirits unnecessary; nothing, therefore, could be fairly conjectured from _that_, though Elizabeth, who was by this time tolerably well acquainted with her own feelings, was perfectly aware that, had she known nothing of Darcy, she could have borne the dread of Lydia’s infamy somewhat better. It would have spared her, she thought, one sleepless night out of two. When Mr. Bennet arrived, he had all the appearance of his usual philosophic composure. He said as little as he had ever been in the habit of saying; made no mention of the business that had taken him away, and it was some time before his daughters had courage to speak of it. It was not till the afternoon, when he had joined them at tea, that Elizabeth ventured to introduce the subject; and then, on her briefly expressing her sorrow for what he must have endured, he replied, “Say nothing of that. Who should suffer but myself? It has been my own doing, and I ought to feel it.” “You must not be too severe upon yourself,” replied Elizabeth. “You may well warn me against such an evil. Human nature is so prone to fall into it! No, Lizzy, let me once in my life feel how much I have been to blame. I am not afraid of being overpowered by the impression. It will pass away soon enough.” “Do you suppose them to be in London?” “Yes; where else can they be so well concealed?” “And Lydia used to want to go to London,” added Kitty. “She is happy then,” said her father drily; “and her residence there will probably be of some duration.” Then after a short silence he continued: “Lizzy, I bear you no ill-will for being justified in your advice to me last May, which, considering the event, shows some greatness of mind.” They were interrupted by Miss Bennet, who came to fetch her mother’s tea. “This is a parade,” he cried, “which does one good; it gives such an elegance to misfortune! Another day I will do the same; I will sit in my library, in my nightcap and powdering gown, and give as much trouble as I can; or, perhaps, I may defer it till Kitty runs away.” “I am not going to run away, papa,” said Kitty fretfully. “If _I_ should ever go to Brighton, I would behave better than Lydia.” “_You_ go to Brighton. I would not trust you so near it as Eastbourne for fifty pounds! No, Kitty, I have at last learnt to be cautious, and you will feel the effects of it. No officer is ever to enter into my house again, nor even to pass through the village. Balls will be absolutely prohibited, unless you stand up with one of your sisters. And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner.” Kitty, who took all these threats in a serious light, began to cry. “Well, well,” said he, “do not make yourself unhappy. If you are a good girl for the next ten years, I will take you to a review at the end of them.” Chapter 49 Two days after Mr. Bennet’s return, as Jane and Elizabeth were walking together in the shrubbery behind the house, they saw the housekeeper coming towards them, and, concluding that she came to call them to their mother, went forward to meet her; but, instead of the expected summons, when they approached her, she said to Miss Bennet, “I beg your pardon, madam, for interrupting you, but I was in hopes you might have got some good news from town, so I took the liberty of coming to ask.” “What do you mean, Hill? We have heard nothing from town.” “Dear madam,” cried Mrs. Hill, in great astonishment, “don’t you know there is an express come for master from Mr. Gardiner? He has been here this half-hour, and master has had a letter.” Away ran the girls, too eager to get in to have time for speech. They ran through the vestibule into the breakfast-room; from thence to the library; their father was in neither; and they were on the point of seeking him up stairs with their mother, when they were met by the butler, who said: “If you are looking for my master, ma’am, he is walking towards the little copse.” Upon this information, they instantly passed through the hall once more, and ran across the lawn after their father, who was deliberately pursuing his way towards a small wood on one side of the paddock. Jane, who was not so light nor so much in the habit of running as Elizabeth, soon lagged behind, while her sister, panting for breath, came up with him, and eagerly cried out: “Oh, papa, what news—what news? Have you heard from my uncle?” “Yes I have had a letter from him by express.” “Well, and what news does it bring—good or bad?” “What is there of good to be expected?” said he, taking the letter from his pocket. “But perhaps you would like to read it.” Elizabeth impatiently caught it from his hand. Jane now came up. “Read it aloud,” said their father, “for I hardly know myself what it is about.” “Gracechurch Street, _Monday, August_ 2. “My dear Brother, “At last I am able to send you some tidings of my niece, and such as, upon the whole, I hope it will give you satisfaction. Soon after you left me on Saturday, I was fortunate enough to find out in what part of London they were. The particulars I reserve till we meet; it is enough to know they are discovered. I have seen them both—” “Then it is as I always hoped,” cried Jane; “they are married!” Elizabeth read on: “I have seen them both. They are not married, nor can I find there was any intention of being so; but if you are willing to perform the engagements which I have ventured to make on your side, I hope it will not be long before they are. All that is required of you is, to assure to your daughter, by settlement, her equal share of the five thousand pounds secured among your children after the decease of yourself and my sister; and, moreover, to enter into an engagement of allowing her, during your life, one hundred pounds per annum. These are conditions which, considering everything, I had no hesitation in complying with, as far as I thought myself privileged, for you. I shall send this by express, that no time may be lost in bringing me your answer. You will easily comprehend, from these particulars, that Mr. Wickham’s circumstances are not so hopeless as they are generally believed to be. The world has been deceived in that respect; and I am happy to say there will be some little money, even when all his debts are discharged, to settle on my niece, in addition to her own fortune. If, as I conclude will be the case, you send me full powers to act in your name throughout the whole of this business, I will immediately give directions to Haggerston for preparing a proper settlement. There will not be the smallest occasion for your coming to town again; therefore stay quiet at Longbourn, and depend on my diligence and care. Send back your answer as fast as you can, and be careful to write explicitly. We have judged it best that my niece should be married from this house, of which I hope you will approve. She comes to us to-day. I shall write again as soon as anything more is determined on. Yours, etc., “EDW. GARDINER.” “Is it possible?” cried Elizabeth, when she had finished. “Can it be possible that he will marry her?” “Wickham is not so undeserving, then, as we thought him,” said her sister. “My dear father, I congratulate you.” “And have you answered the letter?” cried Elizabeth. “No; but it must be done soon.” Most earnestly did she then entreat him to lose no more time before he wrote. “Oh! my dear father,” she cried, “come back and write immediately. Consider how important every moment is in such a case.” “Let me write for you,” said Jane, “if you dislike the trouble yourself.” “I dislike it very much,” he replied; “but it must be done.” And so saying, he turned back with them, and walked towards the house. “And may I ask—” said Elizabeth; “but the terms, I suppose, must be complied with.” “Complied with! I am only ashamed of his asking so little.” “And they _must_ marry! Yet he is _such_ a man!” “Yes, yes, they must marry. There is nothing else to be done. But there are two things that I want very much to know; one is, how much money your uncle has laid down to bring it about; and the other, how am I ever to pay him.” “Money! My uncle!” cried Jane, “what do you mean, sir?” “I mean, that no man in his senses would marry Lydia on so slight a temptation as one hundred a year during my life, and fifty after I am gone.” “That is very true,” said Elizabeth; “though it had not occurred to me before. His debts to be discharged, and something still to remain! Oh! it must be my uncle’s doings! Generous, good man, I am afraid he has distressed himself. A small sum could not do all this.” “No,” said her father; “Wickham’s a fool if he takes her with a farthing less than ten thousand pounds. I should be sorry to think so ill of him, in the very beginning of our relationship.” “Ten thousand pounds! Heaven forbid! How is half such a sum to be repaid?” Mr. Bennet made no answer, and each of them, deep in thought, continued silent till they reached the house. Their father then went on to the library to write, and the girls walked into the breakfast-room. “And they are really to be married!” cried Elizabeth, as soon as they were by themselves. “How strange this is! And for _this_ we are to be thankful. That they should marry, small as is their chance of happiness, and wretched as is his character, we are forced to rejoice. Oh, Lydia!” “I comfort myself with thinking,” replied Jane, “that he certainly would not marry Lydia if he had not a real regard for her. Though our kind uncle has done something towards clearing him, I cannot believe that ten thousand pounds, or anything like it, has been advanced. He has children of his own, and may have more. How could he spare half ten thousand pounds?” “If he were ever able to learn what Wickham’s debts have been,” said Elizabeth, “and how much is settled on his side on our sister, we shall exactly know what Mr. Gardiner has done for them, because Wickham has not sixpence of his own. The kindness of my uncle and aunt can never be requited. Their taking her home, and affording her their personal protection and countenance, is such a sacrifice to her advantage as years of gratitude cannot enough acknowledge. By this time she is actually with them! If such goodness does not make her miserable now, she will never deserve to be happy! What a meeting for her, when she first sees my aunt!” “We must endeavour to forget all that has passed on either side,” said Jane: “I hope and trust they will yet be happy. His consenting to marry her is a proof, I will believe, that he is come to a right way of thinking. Their mutual affection will steady them; and I flatter myself they will settle so quietly, and live in so rational a manner, as may in time make their past imprudence forgotten.” “Their conduct has been such,” replied Elizabeth, “as neither you, nor I, nor anybody can ever forget. It is useless to talk of it.” It now occurred to the girls that their mother was in all likelihood perfectly ignorant of what had happened. They went to the library, therefore, and asked their father whether he would not wish them to make it known to her. He was writing and, without raising his head, coolly replied: “Just as you please.” “May we take my uncle’s letter to read to her?” “Take whatever you like, and get away.” Elizabeth took the letter from his writing-table, and they went up stairs together. Mary and Kitty were both with Mrs. Bennet: one communication would, therefore, do for all. After a slight preparation for good news, the letter was read aloud. Mrs. Bennet could hardly contain herself. As soon as Jane had read Mr. Gardiner’s hope of Lydia’s being soon married, her joy burst forth, and every following sentence added to its exuberance. She was now in an irritation as violent from delight, as she had ever been fidgety from alarm and vexation. To know that her daughter would be married was enough. She was disturbed by no fear for her felicity, nor humbled by any remembrance of her misconduct. “My dear, dear Lydia!” she cried. “This is delightful indeed! She will be married! I shall see her again! She will be married at sixteen! My good, kind brother! I knew how it would be. I knew he would manage everything! How I long to see her! and to see dear Wickham too! But the clothes, the wedding clothes! I will write to my sister Gardiner about them directly. Lizzy, my dear, run down to your father, and ask him how much he will give her. Stay, stay, I will go myself. Ring the bell, Kitty, for Hill. I will put on my things in a moment. My dear, dear Lydia! How merry we shall be together when we meet!” Her eldest daughter endeavoured to give some relief to the violence of these transports, by leading her thoughts to the obligations which Mr. Gardiner’s behaviour laid them all under. “For we must attribute this happy conclusion,” she added, “in a great measure to his kindness. We are persuaded that he has pledged himself to assist Mr. Wickham with money.” “Well,” cried her mother, “it is all very right; who should do it but her own uncle? If he had not had a family of his own, I and my children must have had all his money, you know; and it is the first time we have ever had anything from him, except a few presents. Well! I am so happy! In a short time I shall have a daughter married. Mrs. Wickham! How well it sounds! And she was only sixteen last June. My dear Jane, I am in such a flutter, that I am sure I can’t write; so I will dictate, and you write for me. We will settle with your father about the money afterwards; but the things should be ordered immediately.” She was then proceeding to all the particulars of calico, muslin, and cambric, and would shortly have dictated some very plentiful orders, had not Jane, though with some difficulty, persuaded her to wait till her father was at leisure to be consulted. One day’s delay, she observed, would be of small importance; and her mother was too happy to be quite so obstinate as usual. Other schemes, too, came into her head. “I will go to Meryton,” said she, “as soon as I am dressed, and tell the good, good news to my sister Philips. And as I come back, I can call on Lady Lucas and Mrs. Long. Kitty, run down and order the carriage. An airing would do me a great deal of good, I am sure. Girls, can I do anything for you in Meryton? Oh! Here comes Hill! My dear Hill, have you heard the good news? Miss Lydia is going to be married; and you shall all have a bowl of punch to make merry at her wedding.” Mrs. Hill began instantly to express her joy. Elizabeth received her congratulations amongst the rest, and then, sick of this folly, took refuge in her own room, that she might think with freedom. Poor Lydia’s situation must, at best, be bad enough; but that it was no worse, she had need to be thankful. She felt it so; and though, in looking forward, neither rational happiness nor worldly prosperity could be justly expected for her sister, in looking back to what they had feared, only two hours ago, she felt all the advantages of what they had gained. Chapter 50 Mr. Bennet had very often wished before this period of his life that, instead of spending his whole income, he had laid by an annual sum for the better provision of his children, and of his wife, if she survived him. He now wished it more than ever. Had he done his duty in that respect, Lydia need not have been indebted to her uncle for whatever of honour or credit could now be purchased for her. The satisfaction of prevailing on one of the most worthless young men in Great Britain to be her husband might then have rested in its proper place. He was seriously concerned that a cause of so little advantage to anyone should be forwarded at the sole expense of his brother-in-law, and he was determined, if possible, to find out the extent of his assistance, and to discharge the obligation as soon as he could. When first Mr. Bennet had married, economy was held to be perfectly useless, for, of course, they were to have a son. The son was to join in cutting off the entail, as soon as he should be of age, and the widow and younger children would by that means be provided for. Five daughters successively entered the world, but yet the son was to come; and Mrs. Bennet, for many years after Lydia’s birth, had been certain that he would. This event had at last been despaired of, but it was then too late to be saving. Mrs. Bennet had no turn for economy, and her husband’s love of independence had alone prevented their exceeding their income. Five thousand pounds was settled by marriage articles on Mrs. Bennet and the children. But in what proportions it should be divided amongst the latter depended on the will of the parents. This was one point, with regard to Lydia, at least, which was now to be settled, and Mr. Bennet could have no hesitation in acceding to the proposal before him. In terms of grateful acknowledgment for the kindness of his brother, though expressed most concisely, he then delivered on paper his perfect approbation of all that was done, and his willingness to fulfil the engagements that had been made for him. He had never before supposed that, could Wickham be prevailed on to marry his daughter, it would be done with so little inconvenience to himself as by the present arrangement. He would scarcely be ten pounds a year the loser by the hundred that was to be paid them; for, what with her board and pocket allowance, and the continual presents in money which passed to her through her mother’s hands, Lydia’s expenses had been very little within that sum. That it would be done with such trifling exertion on his side, too, was another very welcome surprise; for his wish at present was to have as little trouble in the business as possible. When the first transports of rage which had produced his activity in seeking her were over, he naturally returned to all his former indolence. His letter was soon dispatched; for, though dilatory in undertaking business, he was quick in its execution. He begged to know further particulars of what he was indebted to his brother, but was too angry with Lydia to send any message to her. The good news spread quickly through the house, and with proportionate speed through the neighbourhood. It was borne in the latter with decent philosophy. To be sure, it would have been more for the advantage of conversation had Miss Lydia Bennet come upon the town; or, as the happiest alternative, been secluded from the world, in some distant farmhouse. But there was much to be talked of in marrying her; and the good-natured wishes for her well-doing which had proceeded before from all the spiteful old ladies in Meryton lost but a little of their spirit in this change of circumstances, because with such an husband her misery was considered certain. It was a fortnight since Mrs. Bennet had been downstairs; but on this happy day she again took her seat at the head of her table, and in spirits oppressively high. No sentiment of shame gave a damp to her triumph. The marriage of a daughter, which had been the first object of her wishes since Jane was sixteen, was now on the point of accomplishment, and her thoughts and her words ran wholly on those attendants of elegant nuptials, fine muslins, new carriages, and servants. She was busily searching through the neighbourhood for a proper situation for her daughter, and, without knowing or considering what their income might be, rejected many as deficient in size and importance. “Haye Park might do,” said she, “if the Gouldings could quit it—or the great house at Stoke, if the drawing-room were larger; but Ashworth is too far off! I could not bear to have her ten miles from me; and as for Pulvis Lodge, the attics are dreadful.” Her husband allowed her to talk on without interruption while the servants remained. But when they had withdrawn, he said to her: “Mrs. Bennet, before you take any or all of these houses for your son and daughter, let us come to a right understanding. Into _one_ house in this neighbourhood they shall never have admittance. I will not encourage the impudence of either, by receiving them at Longbourn.” A long dispute followed this declaration; but Mr. Bennet was firm. It soon led to another; and Mrs. Bennet found, with amazement and horror, that her husband would not advance a guinea to buy clothes for his daughter. He protested that she should receive from him no mark of affection whatever on the occasion. Mrs. Bennet could hardly comprehend it. That his anger could be carried to such a point of inconceivable resentment as to refuse his daughter a privilege without which her marriage would scarcely seem valid, exceeded all she could believe possible. She was more alive to the disgrace which her want of new clothes must reflect on her daughter’s nuptials, than to any sense of shame at her eloping and living with Wickham a fortnight before they took place. Elizabeth was now most heartily sorry that she had, from the distress of the moment, been led to make Mr. Darcy acquainted with their fears for her sister; for since her marriage would so shortly give the proper termination to the elopement, they might hope to conceal its unfavourable beginning from all those who were not immediately on the spot. She had no fear of its spreading farther through his means. There were few people on whose secrecy she would have more confidently depended; but, at the same time, there was no one whose knowledge of a sister’s frailty would have mortified her so much—not, however, from any fear of disadvantage from it individually to herself, for, at any rate, there seemed a gulf impassable between them. Had Lydia’s marriage been concluded on the most honourable terms, it was not to be supposed that Mr. Darcy would connect himself with a family where, to every other objection, would now be added an alliance and relationship of the nearest kind with a man whom he so justly scorned. From such a connection she could not wonder that he would shrink. The wish of procuring her regard, which she had assured herself of his feeling in Derbyshire, could not in rational expectation survive such a blow as this. She was humbled, she was grieved; she repented, though she hardly knew of what. She became jealous of his esteem, when she could no longer hope to be benefited by it. She wanted to hear of him, when there seemed the least chance of gaining intelligence. She was convinced that she could have been happy with him, when it was no longer likely they should meet. What a triumph for him, as she often thought, could he know that the proposals which she had proudly spurned only four months ago, would now have been most gladly and gratefully received! He was as generous, she doubted not, as the most generous of his sex; but while he was mortal, there must be a triumph. She began now to comprehend that he was exactly the man who, in disposition and talents, would most suit her. His understanding and temper, though unlike her own, would have answered all her wishes. It was an union that must have been to the advantage of both; by her ease and liveliness, his mind might have been softened, his manners improved; and from his judgement, information, and knowledge of the world, she must have received benefit of greater importance. But no such happy marriage could now teach the admiring multitude what connubial felicity really was. An union of a different tendency, and precluding the possibility of the other, was soon to be formed in their family. How Wickham and Lydia were to be supported in tolerable independence, she could not imagine. But how little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture. Mr. Gardiner soon wrote again to his brother. To Mr. Bennet’s acknowledgments he briefly replied, with assurance of his eagerness to promote the welfare of any of his family; and concluded with entreaties that the subject might never be mentioned to him again. The principal purport of his letter was to inform them that Mr. Wickham had resolved on quitting the militia. “It was greatly my wish that he should do so,” he added, “as soon as his marriage was fixed on. And I think you will agree with me, in considering the removal from that corps as highly advisable, both on his account and my niece’s. It is Mr. Wickham’s intention to go into the regulars; and among his former friends, there are still some who are able and willing to assist him in the army. He has the promise of an ensigncy in General ——’s regiment, now quartered in the North. It is an advantage to have it so far from this part of the kingdom. He promises fairly; and I hope among different people, where they may each have a character to preserve, they will both be more prudent. I have written to Colonel Forster, to inform him of our present arrangements, and to request that he will satisfy the various creditors of Mr. Wickham in and near Brighton, with assurances of speedy payment, for which I have pledged myself. And will you give yourself the trouble of carrying similar assurances to his creditors in Meryton, of whom I shall subjoin a list according to his information? He has given in all his debts; I hope at least he has not deceived us. Haggerston has our directions, and all will be completed in a week. They will then join his regiment, unless they are first invited to Longbourn; and I understand from Mrs. Gardiner, that my niece is very desirous of seeing you all before she leaves the South. She is well, and begs to be dutifully remembered to you and her mother.—Yours, etc., “E. GARDINER.” Mr. Bennet and his daughters saw all the advantages of Wickham’s removal from the ——shire as clearly as Mr. Gardiner could do. But Mrs. Bennet was not so well pleased with it. Lydia’s being settled in the North, just when she had expected most pleasure and pride in her company, for she had by no means given up her plan of their residing in Hertfordshire, was a severe disappointment; and, besides, it was such a pity that Lydia should be taken from a regiment where she was acquainted with everybody, and had so many favourites. “She is so fond of Mrs. Forster,” said she, “it will be quite shocking to send her away! And there are several of the young men, too, that she likes very much. The officers may not be so pleasant in General ——’s regiment.” His daughter’s request, for such it might be considered, of being admitted into her family again before she set off for the North, received at first an absolute negative. But Jane and Elizabeth, who agreed in wishing, for the sake of their sister’s feelings and consequence, that she should be noticed on her marriage by her parents, urged him so earnestly yet so rationally and so mildly, to receive her and her husband at Longbourn, as soon as they were married, that he was prevailed on to think as they thought, and act as they wished. And their mother had the satisfaction of knowing that she would be able to show her married daughter in the neighbourhood before she was banished to the North. When Mr. Bennet wrote again to his brother, therefore, he sent his permission for them to come; and it was settled, that as soon as the ceremony was over, they should proceed to Longbourn. Elizabeth was surprised, however, that Wickham should consent to such a scheme, and had she consulted only her own inclination, any meeting with him would have been the last object of her wishes. Chapter 51 Their sister’s wedding day arrived; and Jane and Elizabeth felt for her probably more than she felt for herself. The carriage was sent to meet them at ——, and they were to return in it by dinner-time. Their arrival was dreaded by the elder Miss Bennets, and Jane more especially, who gave Lydia the feelings which would have attended herself, had _she_ been the culprit, and was wretched in the thought of what her sister must endure. They came. The family were assembled in the breakfast room to receive them. Smiles decked the face of Mrs. Bennet as the carriage drove up to the door; her husband looked impenetrably grave; her daughters, alarmed, anxious, uneasy. Lydia’s voice was heard in the vestibule; the door was thrown open, and she ran into the room. Her mother stepped forwards, embraced her, and welcomed her with rapture; gave her hand, with an affectionate smile, to Wickham, who followed his lady; and wished them both joy with an alacrity which shewed no doubt of their happiness. Their reception from Mr. Bennet, to whom they then turned, was not quite so cordial. His countenance rather gained in austerity; and he scarcely opened his lips. The easy assurance of the young couple, indeed, was enough to provoke him. Elizabeth was disgusted, and even Miss Bennet was shocked. Lydia was Lydia still; untamed, unabashed, wild, noisy, and fearless. She turned from sister to sister, demanding their congratulations; and when at length they all sat down, looked eagerly round the room, took notice of some little alteration in it, and observed, with a laugh, that it was a great while since she had been there. Wickham was not at all more distressed than herself, but his manners were always so pleasing, that had his character and his marriage been exactly what they ought, his smiles and his easy address, while he claimed their relationship, would have delighted them all. Elizabeth had not before believed him quite equal to such assurance; but she sat down, resolving within herself to draw no limits in future to the impudence of an impudent man. _She_ blushed, and Jane blushed; but the cheeks of the two who caused their confusion suffered no variation of colour. There was no want of discourse. The bride and her mother could neither of them talk fast enough; and Wickham, who happened to sit near Elizabeth, began enquiring after his acquaintance in that neighbourhood, with a good humoured ease which she felt very unable to equal in her replies. They seemed each of them to have the happiest memories in the world. Nothing of the past was recollected with pain; and Lydia led voluntarily to subjects which her sisters would not have alluded to for the world. “Only think of its being three months,” she cried, “since I went away; it seems but a fortnight I declare; and yet there have been things enough happened in the time. Good gracious! when I went away, I am sure I had no more idea of being married till I came back again! though I thought it would be very good fun if I was.” Her father lifted up his eyes. Jane was distressed. Elizabeth looked expressively at Lydia; but she, who never heard nor saw anything of which she chose to be insensible, gaily continued, “Oh! mamma, do the people hereabouts know I am married to-day? I was afraid they might not; and we overtook William Goulding in his curricle, so I was determined he should know it, and so I let down the side-glass next to him, and took off my glove, and let my hand just rest upon the window frame, so that he might see the ring, and then I bowed and smiled like anything.” Elizabeth could bear it no longer. She got up, and ran out of the room; and returned no more, till she heard them passing through the hall to the dining parlour. She then joined them soon enough to see Lydia, with anxious parade, walk up to her mother’s right hand, and hear her say to her eldest sister, “Ah! Jane, I take your place now, and you must go lower, because I am a married woman.” It was not to be supposed that time would give Lydia that embarrassment from which she had been so wholly free at first. Her ease and good spirits increased. She longed to see Mrs. Phillips, the Lucases, and all their other neighbours, and to hear herself called “Mrs. Wickham” by each of them; and in the mean time, she went after dinner to show her ring, and boast of being married, to Mrs. Hill and the two housemaids. “Well, mamma,” said she, when they were all returned to the breakfast room, “and what do you think of my husband? Is not he a charming man? I am sure my sisters must all envy me. I only hope they may have half my good luck. They must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get husbands. What a pity it is, mamma, we did not all go.” “Very true; and if I had my will, we should. But my dear Lydia, I don’t at all like your going such a way off. Must it be so?” “Oh, lord! yes;—there is nothing in that. I shall like it of all things. You and papa, and my sisters, must come down and see us. We shall be at Newcastle all the winter, and I dare say there will be some balls, and I will take care to get good partners for them all.” “I should like it beyond anything!” said her mother. “And then when you go away, you may leave one or two of my sisters behind you; and I dare say I shall get husbands for them before the winter is over.” “I thank you for my share of the favour,” said Elizabeth; “but I do not particularly like your way of getting husbands.” Their visitors were not to remain above ten days with them. Mr. Wickham had received his commission before he left London, and he was to join his regiment at the end of a fortnight. No one but Mrs. Bennet regretted that their stay would be so short; and she made the most of the time by visiting about with her daughter, and having very frequent parties at home. These parties were acceptable to all; to avoid a family circle was even more desirable to such as did think, than such as did not. Wickham’s affection for Lydia was just what Elizabeth had expected to find it; not equal to Lydia’s for him. She had scarcely needed her present observation to be satisfied, from the reason of things, that their elopement had been brought on by the strength of her love, rather than by his; and she would have wondered why, without violently caring for her, he chose to elope with her at all, had she not felt certain that his flight was rendered necessary by distress of circumstances; and if that were the case, he was not the young man to resist an opportunity of having a companion. Lydia was exceedingly fond of him. He was her dear Wickham on every occasion; no one was to be put in competition with him. He did every thing best in the world; and she was sure he would kill more birds on the first of September, than any body else in the country. One morning, soon after their arrival, as she was sitting with her two elder sisters, she said to Elizabeth: “Lizzy, I never gave _you_ an account of my wedding, I believe. You were not by, when I told mamma and the others all about it. Are not you curious to hear how it was managed?” “No really,” replied Elizabeth; “I think there cannot be too little said on the subject.” “La! You are so strange! But I must tell you how it went off. We were married, you know, at St. Clement’s, because Wickham’s lodgings were in that parish. And it was settled that we should all be there by eleven o’clock. My uncle and aunt and I were to go together; and the others were to meet us at the church. Well, Monday morning came, and I was in such a fuss! I was so afraid, you know, that something would happen to put it off, and then I should have gone quite distracted. And there was my aunt, all the time I was dressing, preaching and talking away just as if she was reading a sermon. However, I did not hear above one word in ten, for I was thinking, you may suppose, of my dear Wickham. I longed to know whether he would be married in his blue coat.” “Well, and so we breakfasted at ten as usual; I thought it would never be over; for, by the bye, you are to understand, that my uncle and aunt were horrid unpleasant all the time I was with them. If you’ll believe me, I did not once put my foot out of doors, though I was there a fortnight. Not one party, or scheme, or anything. To be sure London was rather thin, but, however, the Little Theatre was open. Well, and so just as the carriage came to the door, my uncle was called away upon business to that horrid man Mr. Stone. And then, you know, when once they get together, there is no end of it. Well, I was so frightened I did not know what to do, for my uncle was to give me away; and if we were beyond the hour, we could not be married all day. But, luckily, he came back again in ten minutes’ time, and then we all set out. However, I recollected afterwards that if he _had_ been prevented going, the wedding need not be put off, for Mr. Darcy might have done as well.” “Mr. Darcy!” repeated Elizabeth, in utter amazement. “Oh, yes!—he was to come there with Wickham, you know. But gracious me! I quite forgot! I ought not to have said a word about it. I promised them so faithfully! What will Wickham say? It was to be such a secret!” “If it was to be secret,” said Jane, “say not another word on the subject. You may depend upon my seeking no further.” “Oh! certainly,” said Elizabeth, though burning with curiosity; “we will ask you no questions.” “Thank you,” said Lydia, “for if you did, I should certainly tell you all, and then Wickham would be angry.” On such encouragement to ask, Elizabeth was forced to put it out of her power, by running away. But to live in ignorance on such a point was impossible; or at least it was impossible not to try for information. Mr. Darcy had been at her sister’s wedding. It was exactly a scene, and exactly among people, where he had apparently least to do, and least temptation to go. Conjectures as to the meaning of it, rapid and wild, hurried into her brain; but she was satisfied with none. Those that best pleased her, as placing his conduct in the noblest light, seemed most improbable. She could not bear such suspense; and hastily seizing a sheet of paper, wrote a short letter to her aunt, to request an explanation of what Lydia had dropt, if it were compatible with the secrecy which had been intended. “You may readily comprehend,” she added, “what my curiosity must be to know how a person unconnected with any of us, and (comparatively speaking) a stranger to our family, should have been amongst you at such a time. Pray write instantly, and let me understand it—unless it is, for very cogent reasons, to remain in the secrecy which Lydia seems to think necessary; and then I must endeavour to be satisfied with ignorance.” “Not that I _shall_, though,” she added to herself, as she finished the letter; “and my dear aunt, if you do not tell me in an honourable manner, I shall certainly be reduced to tricks and stratagems to find it out.” Jane’s delicate sense of honour would not allow her to speak to Elizabeth privately of what Lydia had let fall; Elizabeth was glad of it;—till it appeared whether her enquiries would receive any satisfaction, she had rather be without a confidante. Chapter 52 Elizabeth had the satisfaction of receiving an answer to her letter as soon as she possibly could. She was no sooner in possession of it than, hurrying into the little copse, where she was least likely to be interrupted, she sat down on one of the benches and prepared to be happy; for the length of the letter convinced her that it did not contain a denial. “Gracechurch Street, _Sept_. 6. “My dear Niece, “I have just received your letter, and shall devote this whole morning to answering it, as I foresee that a _little_ writing will not comprise what I have to tell you. I must confess myself surprised by your application; I did not expect it from _you_. Don’t think me angry, however, for I only mean to let you know that I had not imagined such enquiries to be necessary on _your_ side. If you do not choose to understand me, forgive my impertinence. Your uncle is as much surprised as I am—and nothing but the belief of your being a party concerned would have allowed him to act as he has done. But if you are really innocent and ignorant, I must be more explicit. “On the very day of my coming home from Longbourn, your uncle had a most unexpected visitor. Mr. Darcy called, and was shut up with him several hours. It was all over before I arrived; so my curiosity was not so dreadfully racked as _yours_ seems to have been. He came to tell Mr. Gardiner that he had found out where your sister and Mr. Wickham were, and that he had seen and talked with them both; Wickham repeatedly, Lydia once. From what I can collect, he left Derbyshire only one day after ourselves, and came to town with the resolution of hunting for them. The motive professed was his conviction of its being owing to himself that Wickham’s worthlessness had not been so well known as to make it impossible for any young woman of character to love or confide in him. He generously imputed the whole to his mistaken pride, and confessed that he had before thought it beneath him to lay his private actions open to the world. His character was to speak for itself. He called it, therefore, his duty to step forward, and endeavour to remedy an evil which had been brought on by himself. If he _had another_ motive, I am sure it would never disgrace him. He had been some days in town, before he was able to discover them; but he had something to direct his search, which was more than _we_ had; and the consciousness of this was another reason for his resolving to follow us. “There is a lady, it seems, a Mrs. Younge, who was some time ago governess to Miss Darcy, and was dismissed from her charge on some cause of disapprobation, though he did not say what. She then took a large house in Edward-street, and has since maintained herself by letting lodgings. This Mrs. Younge was, he knew, intimately acquainted with Wickham; and he went to her for intelligence of him as soon as he got to town. But it was two or three days before he could get from her what he wanted. She would not betray her trust, I suppose, without bribery and corruption, for she really did know where her friend was to be found. Wickham indeed had gone to her on their first arrival in London, and had she been able to receive them into her house, they would have taken up their abode with her. At length, however, our kind friend procured the wished-for direction. They were in —— street. He saw Wickham, and afterwards insisted on seeing Lydia. His first object with her, he acknowledged, had been to persuade her to quit her present disgraceful situation, and return to her friends as soon as they could be prevailed on to receive her, offering his assistance, as far as it would go. But he found Lydia absolutely resolved on remaining where she was. She cared for none of her friends; she wanted no help of his; she would not hear of leaving Wickham. She was sure they should be married some time or other, and it did not much signify when. Since such were her feelings, it only remained, he thought, to secure and expedite a marriage, which, in his very first conversation with Wickham, he easily learnt had never been _his_ design. He confessed himself obliged to leave the regiment, on account of some debts of honour, which were very pressing; and scrupled not to lay all the ill-consequences of Lydia’s flight on her own folly alone. He meant to resign his commission immediately; and as to his future situation, he could conjecture very little about it. He must go somewhere, but he did not know where, and he knew he should have nothing to live on. “Mr. Darcy asked him why he had not married your sister at once. Though Mr. Bennet was not imagined to be very rich, he would have been able to do something for him, and his situation must have been benefited by marriage. But he found, in reply to this question, that Wickham still cherished the hope of more effectually making his fortune by marriage in some other country. Under such circumstances, however, he was not likely to be proof against the temptation of immediate relief. “They met several times, for there was much to be discussed. Wickham of course wanted more than he could get; but at length was reduced to be reasonable. “Everything being settled between _them_, Mr. Darcy’s next step was to make your uncle acquainted with it, and he first called in Gracechurch street the evening before I came home. But Mr. Gardiner could not be seen, and Mr. Darcy found, on further enquiry, that your father was still with him, but would quit town the next morning. He did not judge your father to be a person whom he could so properly consult as your uncle, and therefore readily postponed seeing him till after the departure of the former. He did not leave his name, and till the next day it was only known that a gentleman had called on business. “On Saturday he came again. Your father was gone, your uncle at home, and, as I said before, they had a great deal of talk together. “They met again on Sunday, and then _I_ saw him too. It was not all settled before Monday: as soon as it was, the express was sent off to Longbourn. But our visitor was very obstinate. I fancy, Lizzy, that obstinacy is the real defect of his character, after all. He has been accused of many faults at different times, but _this_ is the true one. Nothing was to be done that he did not do himself; though I am sure (and I do not speak it to be thanked, therefore say nothing about it), your uncle would most readily have settled the whole. “They battled it together for a long time, which was more than either the gentleman or lady concerned in it deserved. But at last your uncle was forced to yield, and instead of being allowed to be of use to his niece, was forced to put up with only having the probable credit of it, which went sorely against the grain; and I really believe your letter this morning gave him great pleasure, because it required an explanation that would rob him of his borrowed feathers, and give the praise where it was due. But, Lizzy, this must go no farther than yourself, or Jane at most. “You know pretty well, I suppose, what has been done for the young people. His debts are to be paid, amounting, I believe, to considerably more than a thousand pounds, another thousand in addition to her own settled upon _her_, and his commission purchased. The reason why all this was to be done by him alone, was such as I have given above. It was owing to him, to his reserve and want of proper consideration, that Wickham’s character had been so misunderstood, and consequently that he had been received and noticed as he was. Perhaps there was some truth in _this_; though I doubt whether _his_ reserve, or _anybody’s_ reserve, can be answerable for the event. But in spite of all this fine talking, my dear Lizzy, you may rest perfectly assured that your uncle would never have yielded, if we had not given him credit for _another interest_ in the affair. “When all this was resolved on, he returned again to his friends, who were still staying at Pemberley; but it was agreed that he should be in London once more when the wedding took place, and all money matters were then to receive the last finish. “I believe I have now told you every thing. It is a relation which you tell me is to give you great surprise; I hope at least it will not afford you any displeasure. Lydia came to us; and Wickham had constant admission to the house. _He_ was exactly what he had been, when I knew him in Hertfordshire; but I would not tell you how little I was satisfied with _her_ behaviour while she staid with us, if I had not perceived, by Jane’s letter last Wednesday, that her conduct on coming home was exactly of a piece with it, and therefore what I now tell you can give you no fresh pain. I talked to her repeatedly in the most serious manner, representing to her all the wickedness of what she had done, and all the unhappiness she had brought on her family. If she heard me, it was by good luck, for I am sure she did not listen. I was sometimes quite provoked, but then I recollected my dear Elizabeth and Jane, and for their sakes had patience with her. “Mr. Darcy was punctual in his return, and as Lydia informed you, attended the wedding. He dined with us the next day, and was to leave town again on Wednesday or Thursday. Will you be very angry with me, my dear Lizzy, if I take this opportunity of saying (what I was never bold enough to say before) how much I like him. His behaviour to us has, in every respect, been as pleasing as when we were in Derbyshire. His understanding and opinions all please me; he wants nothing but a little more liveliness, and _that_, if he marry _prudently_, his wife may teach him. I thought him very sly;—he hardly ever mentioned your name. But slyness seems the fashion. “Pray forgive me if I have been very presuming, or at least do not punish me so far as to exclude me from P. I shall never be quite happy till I have been all round the park. A low phaeton, with a nice little pair of ponies, would be the very thing. “But I must write no more. The children have been wanting me this half hour. “Yours, very sincerely, “M. GARDINER.” The contents of this letter threw Elizabeth into a flutter of spirits, in which it was difficult to determine whether pleasure or pain bore the greatest share. The vague and unsettled suspicions which uncertainty had produced of what Mr. Darcy might have been doing to forward her sister’s match, which she had feared to encourage as an exertion of goodness too great to be probable, and at the same time dreaded to be just, from the pain of obligation, were proved beyond their greatest extent to be true! He had followed them purposely to town, he had taken on himself all the trouble and mortification attendant on such a research; in which supplication had been necessary to a woman whom he must abominate and despise, and where he was reduced to meet, frequently meet, reason with, persuade, and finally bribe, the man whom he always most wished to avoid, and whose very name it was punishment to him to pronounce. He had done all this for a girl whom he could neither regard nor esteem. Her heart did whisper that he had done it for her. But it was a hope shortly checked by other considerations, and she soon felt that even her vanity was insufficient, when required to depend on his affection for her—for a woman who had already refused him—as able to overcome a sentiment so natural as abhorrence against relationship with Wickham. Brother-in-law of Wickham! Every kind of pride must revolt from the connection. He had, to be sure, done much. She was ashamed to think how much. But he had given a reason for his interference, which asked no extraordinary stretch of belief. It was reasonable that he should feel he had been wrong; he had liberality, and he had the means of exercising it; and though she would not place herself as his principal inducement, she could, perhaps, believe that remaining partiality for her might assist his endeavours in a cause where her peace of mind must be materially concerned. It was painful, exceedingly painful, to know that they were under obligations to a person who could never receive a return. They owed the restoration of Lydia, her character, every thing, to him. Oh! how heartily did she grieve over every ungracious sensation she had ever encouraged, every saucy speech she had ever directed towards him. For herself she was humbled; but she was proud of him. Proud that in a cause of compassion and honour, he had been able to get the better of himself. She read over her aunt’s commendation of him again and again. It was hardly enough; but it pleased her. She was even sensible of some pleasure, though mixed with regret, on finding how steadfastly both she and her uncle had been persuaded that affection and confidence subsisted between Mr. Darcy and herself. She was roused from her seat, and her reflections, by some one’s approach; and before she could strike into another path, she was overtaken by Wickham. “I am afraid I interrupt your solitary ramble, my dear sister?” said he, as he joined her. “You certainly do,” she replied with a smile; “but it does not follow that the interruption must be unwelcome.” “I should be sorry indeed, if it were. _We_ were always good friends; and now we are better.” “True. Are the others coming out?” “I do not know. Mrs. Bennet and Lydia are going in the carriage to Meryton. And so, my dear sister, I find, from our uncle and aunt, that you have actually seen Pemberley.” She replied in the affirmative. “I almost envy you the pleasure, and yet I believe it would be too much for me, or else I could take it in my way to Newcastle. And you saw the old housekeeper, I suppose? Poor Reynolds, she was always very fond of me. But of course she did not mention my name to you.” “Yes, she did.” “And what did she say?” “That you were gone into the army, and she was afraid had—not turned out well. At such a distance as _that_, you know, things are strangely misrepresented.” “Certainly,” he replied, biting his lips. Elizabeth hoped she had silenced him; but he soon afterwards said: “I was surprised to see Darcy in town last month. We passed each other several times. I wonder what he can be doing there.” “Perhaps preparing for his marriage with Miss de Bourgh,” said Elizabeth. “It must be something particular, to take him there at this time of year.” “Undoubtedly. Did you see him while you were at Lambton? I thought I understood from the Gardiners that you had.” “Yes; he introduced us to his sister.” “And do you like her?” “Very much.” “I have heard, indeed, that she is uncommonly improved within this year or two. When I last saw her, she was not very promising. I am very glad you liked her. I hope she will turn out well.” “I dare say she will; she has got over the most trying age.” “Did you go by the village of Kympton?” “I do not recollect that we did.” “I mention it, because it is the living which I ought to have had. A most delightful place!—Excellent Parsonage House! It would have suited me in every respect.” “How should you have liked making sermons?” “Exceedingly well. I should have considered it as part of my duty, and the exertion would soon have been nothing. One ought not to repine;—but, to be sure, it would have been such a thing for me! The quiet, the retirement of such a life would have answered all my ideas of happiness! But it was not to be. Did you ever hear Darcy mention the circumstance, when you were in Kent?” “I _have_ heard from authority, which I thought _as good_, that it was left you conditionally only, and at the will of the present patron.” “You have. Yes, there was something in _that_; I told you so from the first, you may remember.” “I _did_ hear, too, that there was a time, when sermon-making was not so palatable to you as it seems to be at present; that you actually declared your resolution of never taking orders, and that the business had been compromised accordingly.” “You did! and it was not wholly without foundation. You may remember what I told you on that point, when first we talked of it.” They were now almost at the door of the house, for she had walked fast to get rid of him; and unwilling, for her sister’s sake, to provoke him, she only said in reply, with a good-humoured smile: “Come, Mr. Wickham, we are brother and sister, you know. Do not let us quarrel about the past. In future, I hope we shall be always of one mind.” She held out her hand; he kissed it with affectionate gallantry, though he hardly knew how to look, and they entered the house. Chapter 53 Mr. Wickham was so perfectly satisfied with this conversation that he never again distressed himself, or provoked his dear sister Elizabeth, by introducing the subject of it; and she was pleased to find that she had said enough to keep him quiet. The day of his and Lydia’s departure soon came, and Mrs. Bennet was forced to submit to a separation, which, as her husband by no means entered into her scheme of their all going to Newcastle, was likely to continue at least a twelvemonth. “Oh! my dear Lydia,” she cried, “when shall we meet again?” “Oh, lord! I don’t know. Not these two or three years, perhaps.” “Write to me very often, my dear.” “As often as I can. But you know married women have never much time for writing. My sisters may write to _me_. They will have nothing else to do.” Mr. Wickham’s adieus were much more affectionate than his wife’s. He smiled, looked handsome, and said many pretty things. “He is as fine a fellow,” said Mr. Bennet, as soon as they were out of the house, “as ever I saw. He simpers, and smirks, and makes love to us all. I am prodigiously proud of him. I defy even Sir William Lucas himself to produce a more valuable son-in-law.” The loss of her daughter made Mrs. Bennet very dull for several days. “I often think,” said she, “that there is nothing so bad as parting with one’s friends. One seems so forlorn without them.” “This is the consequence, you see, Madam, of marrying a daughter,” said Elizabeth. “It must make you better satisfied that your other four are single.” “It is no such thing. Lydia does not leave me because she is married, but only because her husband’s regiment happens to be so far off. If that had been nearer, she would not have gone so soon.” But the spiritless condition which this event threw her into was shortly relieved, and her mind opened again to the agitation of hope, by an article of news which then began to be in circulation. The housekeeper at Netherfield had received orders to prepare for the arrival of her master, who was coming down in a day or two, to shoot there for several weeks. Mrs. Bennet was quite in the fidgets. She looked at Jane, and smiled and shook her head by turns. “Well, well, and so Mr. Bingley is coming down, sister,” (for Mrs. Phillips first brought her the news). “Well, so much the better. Not that I care about it, though. He is nothing to us, you know, and I am sure I never want to see him again. But, however, he is very welcome to come to Netherfield, if he likes it. And who knows what _may_ happen? But that is nothing to us. You know, sister, we agreed long ago never to mention a word about it. And so, is it quite certain he is coming?” “You may depend on it,” replied the other, “for Mrs. Nicholls was in Meryton last night; I saw her passing by, and went out myself on purpose to know the truth of it; and she told me that it was certain true. He comes down on Thursday at the latest, very likely on Wednesday. She was going to the butcher’s, she told me, on purpose to order in some meat on Wednesday, and she has got three couple of ducks just fit to be killed.” Miss Bennet had not been able to hear of his coming without changing colour. It was many months since she had mentioned his name to Elizabeth; but now, as soon as they were alone together, she said: “I saw you look at me to-day, Lizzy, when my aunt told us of the present report; and I know I appeared distressed. But don’t imagine it was from any silly cause. I was only confused for the moment, because I felt that I _should_ be looked at. I do assure you that the news does not affect me either with pleasure or pain. I am glad of one thing, that he comes alone; because we shall see the less of him. Not that I am afraid of _myself_, but I dread other people’s remarks.” Elizabeth did not know what to make of it. Had she not seen him in Derbyshire, she might have supposed him capable of coming there with no other view than what was acknowledged; but she still thought him partial to Jane, and she wavered as to the greater probability of his coming there _with_ his friend’s permission, or being bold enough to come without it. “Yet it is hard,” she sometimes thought, “that this poor man cannot come to a house which he has legally hired, without raising all this speculation! I _will_ leave him to himself.” In spite of what her sister declared, and really believed to be her feelings in the expectation of his arrival, Elizabeth could easily perceive that her spirits were affected by it. They were more disturbed, more unequal, than she had often seen them. The subject which had been so warmly canvassed between their parents, about a twelvemonth ago, was now brought forward again. “As soon as ever Mr. Bingley comes, my dear,” said Mrs. Bennet, “you will wait on him of course.” “No, no. You forced me into visiting him last year, and promised, if I went to see him, he should marry one of my daughters. But it ended in nothing, and I will not be sent on a fool’s errand again.” His wife represented to him how absolutely necessary such an attention would be from all the neighbouring gentlemen, on his returning to Netherfield. “’Tis an _etiquette_ I despise,” said he. “If he wants our society, let him seek it. He knows where we live. I will not spend _my_ hours in running after my neighbours every time they go away and come back again.” “Well, all I know is, that it will be abominably rude if you do not wait on him. But, however, that shan’t prevent my asking him to dine here, I am determined. We must have Mrs. Long and the Gouldings soon. That will make thirteen with ourselves, so there will be just room at table for him.” Consoled by this resolution, she was the better able to bear her husband’s incivility; though it was very mortifying to know that her neighbours might all see Mr. Bingley, in consequence of it, before _they_ did. As the day of his arrival drew near,— “I begin to be sorry that he comes at all,” said Jane to her sister. “It would be nothing; I could see him with perfect indifference, but I can hardly bear to hear it thus perpetually talked of. My mother means well; but she does not know, no one can know, how much I suffer from what she says. Happy shall I be, when his stay at Netherfield is over!” “I wish I could say anything to comfort you,” replied Elizabeth; “but it is wholly out of my power. You must feel it; and the usual satisfaction of preaching patience to a sufferer is denied me, because you have always so much.” Mr. Bingley arrived. Mrs. Bennet, through the assistance of servants, contrived to have the earliest tidings of it, that the period of anxiety and fretfulness on her side might be as long as it could. She counted the days that must intervene before their invitation could be sent; hopeless of seeing him before. But on the third morning after his arrival in Hertfordshire, she saw him, from her dressing-room window, enter the paddock and ride towards the house. Her daughters were eagerly called to partake of her joy. Jane resolutely kept her place at the table; but Elizabeth, to satisfy her mother, went to the window—she looked,—she saw Mr. Darcy with him, and sat down again by her sister. “There is a gentleman with him, mamma,” said Kitty; “who can it be?” “Some acquaintance or other, my dear, I suppose; I am sure I do not know.” “La!” replied Kitty, “it looks just like that man that used to be with him before. Mr. what’s-his-name. That tall, proud man.” “Good gracious! Mr. Darcy!—and so it does, I vow. Well, any friend of Mr. Bingley’s will always be welcome here, to be sure; but else I must say that I hate the very sight of him.” Jane looked at Elizabeth with surprise and concern. She knew but little of their meeting in Derbyshire, and therefore felt for the awkwardness which must attend her sister, in seeing him almost for the first time after receiving his explanatory letter. Both sisters were uncomfortable enough. Each felt for the other, and of course for themselves; and their mother talked on, of her dislike of Mr. Darcy, and her resolution to be civil to him only as Mr. Bingley’s friend, without being heard by either of them. But Elizabeth had sources of uneasiness which could not be suspected by Jane, to whom she had never yet had courage to shew Mrs. Gardiner’s letter, or to relate her own change of sentiment towards him. To Jane, he could be only a man whose proposals she had refused, and whose merit she had undervalued; but to her own more extensive information, he was the person to whom the whole family were indebted for the first of benefits, and whom she regarded herself with an interest, if not quite so tender, at least as reasonable and just as what Jane felt for Bingley. Her astonishment at his coming—at his coming to Netherfield, to Longbourn, and voluntarily seeking her again, was almost equal to what she had known on first witnessing his altered behaviour in Derbyshire. The colour which had been driven from her face, returned for half a minute with an additional glow, and a smile of delight added lustre to her eyes, as she thought for that space of time that his affection and wishes must still be unshaken. But she would not be secure. “Let me first see how he behaves,” said she; “it will then be early enough for expectation.” She sat intently at work, striving to be composed, and without daring to lift up her eyes, till anxious curiosity carried them to the face of her sister as the servant was approaching the door. Jane looked a little paler than usual, but more sedate than Elizabeth had expected. On the gentlemen’s appearing, her colour increased; yet she received them with tolerable ease, and with a propriety of behaviour equally free from any symptom of resentment or any unnecessary complaisance. Elizabeth said as little to either as civility would allow, and sat down again to her work, with an eagerness which it did not often command. She had ventured only one glance at Darcy. He looked serious, as usual; and, she thought, more as he had been used to look in Hertfordshire, than as she had seen him at Pemberley. But, perhaps he could not in her mother’s presence be what he was before her uncle and aunt. It was a painful, but not an improbable, conjecture. Bingley, she had likewise seen for an instant, and in that short period saw him looking both pleased and embarrassed. He was received by Mrs. Bennet with a degree of civility which made her two daughters ashamed, especially when contrasted with the cold and ceremonious politeness of her curtsey and address to his friend. Elizabeth, particularly, who knew that her mother owed to the latter the preservation of her favourite daughter from irremediable infamy, was hurt and distressed to a most painful degree by a distinction so ill applied. Darcy, after enquiring of her how Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner did, a question which she could not answer without confusion, said scarcely anything. He was not seated by her; perhaps that was the reason of his silence; but it had not been so in Derbyshire. There he had talked to her friends, when he could not to herself. But now several minutes elapsed without bringing the sound of his voice; and when occasionally, unable to resist the impulse of curiosity, she raised her eyes to his face, she as often found him looking at Jane as at herself, and frequently on no object but the ground. More thoughtfulness and less anxiety to please, than when they last met, were plainly expressed. She was disappointed, and angry with herself for being so. “Could I expect it to be otherwise!” said she. “Yet why did he come?” She was in no humour for conversation with anyone but himself; and to him she had hardly courage to speak. She enquired after his sister, but could do no more. “It is a long time, Mr. Bingley, since you went away,” said Mrs. Bennet. He readily agreed to it. “I began to be afraid you would never come back again. People _did_ say you meant to quit the place entirely at Michaelmas; but, however, I hope it is not true. A great many changes have happened in the neighbourhood, since you went away. Miss Lucas is married and settled. And one of my own daughters. I suppose you have heard of it; indeed, you must have seen it in the papers. It was in The Times and The Courier, I know; though it was not put in as it ought to be. It was only said, ‘Lately, George Wickham, Esq. to Miss Lydia Bennet,’ without there being a syllable said of her father, or the place where she lived, or anything. It was my brother Gardiner’s drawing up too, and I wonder how he came to make such an awkward business of it. Did you see it?” Bingley replied that he did, and made his congratulations. Elizabeth dared not lift up her eyes. How Mr. Darcy looked, therefore, she could not tell. “It is a delightful thing, to be sure, to have a daughter well married,” continued her mother, “but at the same time, Mr. Bingley, it is very hard to have her taken such a way from me. They are gone down to Newcastle, a place quite northward, it seems, and there they are to stay I do not know how long. His regiment is there; for I suppose you have heard of his leaving the ——shire, and of his being gone into the regulars. Thank Heaven! he has _some_ friends, though perhaps not so many as he deserves.” Elizabeth, who knew this to be levelled at Mr. Darcy, was in such misery of shame, that she could hardly keep her seat. It drew from her, however, the exertion of speaking, which nothing else had so effectually done before; and she asked Bingley whether he meant to make any stay in the country at present. A few weeks, he believed. “When you have killed all your own birds, Mr. Bingley,” said her mother, “I beg you will come here, and shoot as many as you please on Mr. Bennet’s manor. I am sure he will be vastly happy to oblige you, and will save all the best of the covies for you.” Elizabeth’s misery increased, at such unnecessary, such officious attention! Were the same fair prospect to arise at present as had flattered them a year ago, every thing, she was persuaded, would be hastening to the same vexatious conclusion. At that instant, she felt that years of happiness could not make Jane or herself amends for moments of such painful confusion. “The first wish of my heart,” said she to herself, “is never more to be in company with either of them. Their society can afford no pleasure that will atone for such wretchedness as this! Let me never see either one or the other again!” Yet the misery, for which years of happiness were to offer no compensation, received soon afterwards material relief, from observing how much the beauty of her sister re-kindled the admiration of her former lover. When first he came in, he had spoken to her but little; but every five minutes seemed to be giving her more of his attention. He found her as handsome as she had been last year; as good natured, and as unaffected, though not quite so chatty. Jane was anxious that no difference should be perceived in her at all, and was really persuaded that she talked as much as ever. But her mind was so busily engaged, that she did not always know when she was silent. When the gentlemen rose to go away, Mrs. Bennet was mindful of her intended civility, and they were invited and engaged to dine at Longbourn in a few days time. “You are quite a visit in my debt, Mr. Bingley,” she added, “for when you went to town last winter, you promised to take a family dinner with us, as soon as you returned. I have not forgot, you see; and I assure you, I was very much disappointed that you did not come back and keep your engagement.” Bingley looked a little silly at this reflection, and said something of his concern at having been prevented by business. They then went away. Mrs. Bennet had been strongly inclined to ask them to stay and dine there that day; but, though she always kept a very good table, she did not think anything less than two courses could be good enough for a man on whom she had such anxious designs, or satisfy the appetite and pride of one who had ten thousand a year. Chapter 54 As soon as they were gone, Elizabeth walked out to recover her spirits; or in other words, to dwell without interruption on those subjects that must deaden them more. Mr. Darcy’s behaviour astonished and vexed her. “Why, if he came only to be silent, grave, and indifferent,” said she, “did he come at all?” She could settle it in no way that gave her pleasure. “He could be still amiable, still pleasing, to my uncle and aunt, when he was in town; and why not to me? If he fears me, why come hither? If he no longer cares for me, why silent? Teasing, teasing, man! I will think no more about him.” Her resolution was for a short time involuntarily kept by the approach of her sister, who joined her with a cheerful look, which showed her better satisfied with their visitors, than Elizabeth. “Now,” said she, “that this first meeting is over, I feel perfectly easy. I know my own strength, and I shall never be embarrassed again by his coming. I am glad he dines here on Tuesday. It will then be publicly seen that, on both sides, we meet only as common and indifferent acquaintance.” “Yes, very indifferent indeed,” said Elizabeth, laughingly. “Oh, Jane, take care.” “My dear Lizzy, you cannot think me so weak, as to be in danger now?” “I think you are in very great danger of making him as much in love with you as ever.” They did not see the gentlemen again till Tuesday; and Mrs. Bennet, in the meanwhile, was giving way to all the happy schemes, which the good humour and common politeness of Bingley, in half an hour’s visit, had revived. On Tuesday there was a large party assembled at Longbourn; and the two who were most anxiously expected, to the credit of their punctuality as sportsmen, were in very good time. When they repaired to the dining-room, Elizabeth eagerly watched to see whether Bingley would take the place, which, in all their former parties, had belonged to him, by her sister. Her prudent mother, occupied by the same ideas, forbore to invite him to sit by herself. On entering the room, he seemed to hesitate; but Jane happened to look round, and happened to smile: it was decided. He placed himself by her. Elizabeth, with a triumphant sensation, looked towards his friend. He bore it with noble indifference, and she would have imagined that Bingley had received his sanction to be happy, had she not seen his eyes likewise turned towards Mr. Darcy, with an expression of half-laughing alarm. His behaviour to her sister was such, during dinner time, as showed an admiration of her, which, though more guarded than formerly, persuaded Elizabeth, that if left wholly to himself, Jane’s happiness, and his own, would be speedily secured. Though she dared not depend upon the consequence, she yet received pleasure from observing his behaviour. It gave her all the animation that her spirits could boast; for she was in no cheerful humour. Mr. Darcy was almost as far from her as the table could divide them. He was on one side of her mother. She knew how little such a situation would give pleasure to either, or make either appear to advantage. She was not near enough to hear any of their discourse, but she could see how seldom they spoke to each other, and how formal and cold was their manner whenever they did. Her mother’s ungraciousness, made the sense of what they owed him more painful to Elizabeth’s mind; and she would, at times, have given anything to be privileged to tell him that his kindness was neither unknown nor unfelt by the whole of the family. She was in hopes that the evening would afford some opportunity of bringing them together; that the whole of the visit would not pass away without enabling them to enter into something more of conversation than the mere ceremonious salutation attending his entrance. Anxious and uneasy, the period which passed in the drawing-room, before the gentlemen came, was wearisome and dull to a degree that almost made her uncivil. She looked forward to their entrance as the point on which all her chance of pleasure for the evening must depend. “If he does not come to me, _then_,” said she, “I shall give him up for ever.” The gentlemen came; and she thought he looked as if he would have answered her hopes; but, alas! the ladies had crowded round the table, where Miss Bennet was making tea, and Elizabeth pouring out the coffee, in so close a confederacy that there was not a single vacancy near her which would admit of a chair. And on the gentlemen’s approaching, one of the girls moved closer to her than ever, and said, in a whisper: “The men shan’t come and part us, I am determined. We want none of them; do we?” Darcy had walked away to another part of the room. She followed him with her eyes, envied everyone to whom he spoke, had scarcely patience enough to help anybody to coffee; and then was enraged against herself for being so silly! “A man who has once been refused! How could I ever be foolish enough to expect a renewal of his love? Is there one among the sex, who would not protest against such a weakness as a second proposal to the same woman? There is no indignity so abhorrent to their feelings!” She was a little revived, however, by his bringing back his coffee cup himself; and she seized the opportunity of saying: “Is your sister at Pemberley still?” “Yes, she will remain there till Christmas.” “And quite alone? Have all her friends left her?” “Mrs. Annesley is with her. The others have been gone on to Scarborough, these three weeks.” She could think of nothing more to say; but if he wished to converse with her, he might have better success. He stood by her, however, for some minutes, in silence; and, at last, on the young lady’s whispering to Elizabeth again, he walked away. When the tea-things were removed, and the card-tables placed, the ladies all rose, and Elizabeth was then hoping to be soon joined by him, when all her views were overthrown by seeing him fall a victim to her mother’s rapacity for whist players, and in a few moments after seated with the rest of the party. She now lost every expectation of pleasure. They were confined for the evening at different tables, and she had nothing to hope, but that his eyes were so often turned towards her side of the room, as to make him play as unsuccessfully as herself. Mrs. Bennet had designed to keep the two Netherfield gentlemen to supper; but their carriage was unluckily ordered before any of the others, and she had no opportunity of detaining them. “Well girls,” said she, as soon as they were left to themselves, “What say you to the day? I think every thing has passed off uncommonly well, I assure you. The dinner was as well dressed as any I ever saw. The venison was roasted to a turn—and everybody said they never saw so fat a haunch. The soup was fifty times better than what we had at the Lucases’ last week; and even Mr. Darcy acknowledged, that the partridges were remarkably well done; and I suppose he has two or three French cooks at least. And, my dear Jane, I never saw you look in greater beauty. Mrs. Long said so too, for I asked her whether you did not. And what do you think she said besides? ‘Ah! Mrs. Bennet, we shall have her at Netherfield at last.’ She did indeed. I do think Mrs. Long is as good a creature as ever lived—and her nieces are very pretty behaved girls, and not at all handsome: I like them prodigiously.” Mrs. Bennet, in short, was in very great spirits; she had seen enough of Bingley’s behaviour to Jane, to be convinced that she would get him at last; and her expectations of advantage to her family, when in a happy humour, were so far beyond reason, that she was quite disappointed at not seeing him there again the next day, to make his proposals. “It has been a very agreeable day,” said Miss Bennet to Elizabeth. “The party seemed so well selected, so suitable one with the other. I hope we may often meet again.” Elizabeth smiled. “Lizzy, you must not do so. You must not suspect me. It mortifies me. I assure you that I have now learnt to enjoy his conversation as an agreeable and sensible young man, without having a wish beyond it. I am perfectly satisfied, from what his manners now are, that he never had any design of engaging my affection. It is only that he is blessed with greater sweetness of address, and a stronger desire of generally pleasing, than any other man.” “You are very cruel,” said her sister, “you will not let me smile, and are provoking me to it every moment.” “How hard it is in some cases to be believed!” “And how impossible in others!” “But why should you wish to persuade me that I feel more than I acknowledge?” “That is a question which I hardly know how to answer. We all love to instruct, though we can teach only what is not worth knowing. Forgive me; and if you persist in indifference, do not make _me_ your confidante.” Chapter 55 A few days after this visit, Mr. Bingley called again, and alone. His friend had left him that morning for London, but was to return home in ten days time. He sat with them above an hour, and was in remarkably good spirits. Mrs. Bennet invited him to dine with them; but, with many expressions of concern, he confessed himself engaged elsewhere. “Next time you call,” said she, “I hope we shall be more lucky.” He should be particularly happy at any time, etc. etc.; and if she would give him leave, would take an early opportunity of waiting on them. “Can you come to-morrow?” Yes, he had no engagement at all for to-morrow; and her invitation was accepted with alacrity. He came, and in such very good time that the ladies were none of them dressed. In ran Mrs. Bennet to her daughter’s room, in her dressing gown, and with her hair half finished, crying out: “My dear Jane, make haste and hurry down. He is come—Mr. Bingley is come. He is, indeed. Make haste, make haste. Here, Sarah, come to Miss Bennet this moment, and help her on with her gown. Never mind Miss Lizzy’s hair.” “We will be down as soon as we can,” said Jane; “but I dare say Kitty is forwarder than either of us, for she went up stairs half an hour ago.” “Oh! hang Kitty! what has she to do with it? Come be quick, be quick! Where is your sash, my dear?” But when her mother was gone, Jane would not be prevailed on to go down without one of her sisters. The same anxiety to get them by themselves was visible again in the evening. After tea, Mr. Bennet retired to the library, as was his custom, and Mary went up stairs to her instrument. Two obstacles of the five being thus removed, Mrs. Bennet sat looking and winking at Elizabeth and Catherine for a considerable time, without making any impression on them. Elizabeth would not observe her; and when at last Kitty did, she very innocently said, “What is the matter mamma? What do you keep winking at me for? What am I to do?” “Nothing child, nothing. I did not wink at you.” She then sat still five minutes longer; but unable to waste such a precious occasion, she suddenly got up, and saying to Kitty, “Come here, my love, I want to speak to you,” took her out of the room. Jane instantly gave a look at Elizabeth which spoke her distress at such premeditation, and her entreaty that _she_ would not give in to it. In a few minutes, Mrs. Bennet half-opened the door and called out: “Lizzy, my dear, I want to speak with you.” Elizabeth was forced to go. “We may as well leave them by themselves you know;” said her mother, as soon as she was in the hall. “Kitty and I are going up stairs to sit in my dressing-room.” Elizabeth made no attempt to reason with her mother, but remained quietly in the hall, till she and Kitty were out of sight, then returned into the drawing-room. Mrs. Bennet’s schemes for this day were ineffectual. Bingley was every thing that was charming, except the professed lover of her daughter. His ease and cheerfulness rendered him a most agreeable addition to their evening party; and he bore with the ill-judged officiousness of the mother, and heard all her silly remarks with a forbearance and command of countenance particularly grateful to the daughter. He scarcely needed an invitation to stay supper; and before he went away, an engagement was formed, chiefly through his own and Mrs. Bennet’s means, for his coming next morning to shoot with her husband. After this day, Jane said no more of her indifference. Not a word passed between the sisters concerning Bingley; but Elizabeth went to bed in the happy belief that all must speedily be concluded, unless Mr. Darcy returned within the stated time. Seriously, however, she felt tolerably persuaded that all this must have taken place with that gentleman’s concurrence. Bingley was punctual to his appointment; and he and Mr. Bennet spent the morning together, as had been agreed on. The latter was much more agreeable than his companion expected. There was nothing of presumption or folly in Bingley that could provoke his ridicule, or disgust him into silence; and he was more communicative, and less eccentric, than the other had ever seen him. Bingley of course returned with him to dinner; and in the evening Mrs. Bennet’s invention was again at work to get every body away from him and her daughter. Elizabeth, who had a letter to write, went into the breakfast room for that purpose soon after tea; for as the others were all going to sit down to cards, she could not be wanted to counteract her mother’s schemes. But on returning to the drawing-room, when her letter was finished, she saw, to her infinite surprise, there was reason to fear that her mother had been too ingenious for her. On opening the door, she perceived her sister and Bingley standing together over the hearth, as if engaged in earnest conversation; and had this led to no suspicion, the faces of both, as they hastily turned round and moved away from each other, would have told it all. _Their_ situation was awkward enough; but _hers_ she thought was still worse. Not a syllable was uttered by either; and Elizabeth was on the point of going away again, when Bingley, who as well as the other had sat down, suddenly rose, and whispering a few words to her sister, ran out of the room. Jane could have no reserves from Elizabeth, where confidence would give pleasure; and instantly embracing her, acknowledged, with the liveliest emotion, that she was the happiest creature in the world. “’Tis too much!” she added, “by far too much. I do not deserve it. Oh! why is not everybody as happy?” Elizabeth’s congratulations were given with a sincerity, a warmth, a delight, which words could but poorly express. Every sentence of kindness was a fresh source of happiness to Jane. But she would not allow herself to stay with her sister, or say half that remained to be said for the present. “I must go instantly to my mother;” she cried. “I would not on any account trifle with her affectionate solicitude; or allow her to hear it from anyone but myself. He is gone to my father already. Oh! Lizzy, to know that what I have to relate will give such pleasure to all my dear family! how shall I bear so much happiness!” She then hastened away to her mother, who had purposely broken up the card party, and was sitting up stairs with Kitty. Elizabeth, who was left by herself, now smiled at the rapidity and ease with which an affair was finally settled, that had given them so many previous months of suspense and vexation. “And this,” said she, “is the end of all his friend’s anxious circumspection! of all his sister’s falsehood and contrivance! the happiest, wisest, most reasonable end!” In a few minutes she was joined by Bingley, whose conference with her father had been short and to the purpose. “Where is your sister?” said he hastily, as he opened the door. “With my mother up stairs. She will be down in a moment, I dare say.” He then shut the door, and, coming up to her, claimed the good wishes and affection of a sister. Elizabeth honestly and heartily expressed her delight in the prospect of their relationship. They shook hands with great cordiality; and then, till her sister came down, she had to listen to all he had to say of his own happiness, and of Jane’s perfections; and in spite of his being a lover, Elizabeth really believed all his expectations of felicity to be rationally founded, because they had for basis the excellent understanding, and super-excellent disposition of Jane, and a general similarity of feeling and taste between her and himself. It was an evening of no common delight to them all; the satisfaction of Miss Bennet’s mind gave a glow of such sweet animation to her face, as made her look handsomer than ever. Kitty simpered and smiled, and hoped her turn was coming soon. Mrs. Bennet could not give her consent or speak her approbation in terms warm enough to satisfy her feelings, though she talked to Bingley of nothing else for half an hour; and when Mr. Bennet joined them at supper, his voice and manner plainly showed how really happy he was. Not a word, however, passed his lips in allusion to it, till their visitor took his leave for the night; but as soon as he was gone, he turned to his daughter, and said: “Jane, I congratulate you. You will be a very happy woman.” Jane went to him instantly, kissed him, and thanked him for his goodness. “You are a good girl;” he replied, “and I have great pleasure in thinking you will be so happily settled. I have not a doubt of your doing very well together. Your tempers are by no means unlike. You are each of you so complying, that nothing will ever be resolved on; so easy, that every servant will cheat you; and so generous, that you will always exceed your income.” “I hope not so. Imprudence or thoughtlessness in money matters would be unpardonable in _me_.” “Exceed their income! My dear Mr. Bennet,” cried his wife, “what are you talking of? Why, he has four or five thousand a year, and very likely more.” Then addressing her daughter, “Oh! my dear, dear Jane, I am so happy! I am sure I shan’t get a wink of sleep all night. I knew how it would be. I always said it must be so, at last. I was sure you could not be so beautiful for nothing! I remember, as soon as ever I saw him, when he first came into Hertfordshire last year, I thought how likely it was that you should come together. Oh! he is the handsomest young man that ever was seen!” Wickham, Lydia, were all forgotten. Jane was beyond competition her favourite child. At that moment, she cared for no other. Her younger sisters soon began to make interest with her for objects of happiness which she might in future be able to dispense. Mary petitioned for the use of the library at Netherfield; and Kitty begged very hard for a few balls there every winter. Bingley, from this time, was of course a daily visitor at Longbourn; coming frequently before breakfast, and always remaining till after supper; unless when some barbarous neighbour, who could not be enough detested, had given him an invitation to dinner which he thought himself obliged to accept. Elizabeth had now but little time for conversation with her sister; for while he was present, Jane had no attention to bestow on anyone else; but she found herself considerably useful to both of them in those hours of separation that must sometimes occur. In the absence of Jane, he always attached himself to Elizabeth, for the pleasure of talking of her; and when Bingley was gone, Jane constantly sought the same means of relief. “He has made me so happy,” said she, one evening, “by telling me that he was totally ignorant of my being in town last spring! I had not believed it possible.” “I suspected as much,” replied Elizabeth. “But how did he account for it?” “It must have been his sister’s doing. They were certainly no friends to his acquaintance with me, which I cannot wonder at, since he might have chosen so much more advantageously in many respects. But when they see, as I trust they will, that their brother is happy with me, they will learn to be contented, and we shall be on good terms again; though we can never be what we once were to each other.” “That is the most unforgiving speech,” said Elizabeth, “that I ever heard you utter. Good girl! It would vex me, indeed, to see you again the dupe of Miss Bingley’s pretended regard.” “Would you believe it, Lizzy, that when he went to town last November, he really loved me, and nothing but a persuasion of _my_ being indifferent would have prevented his coming down again!” “He made a little mistake to be sure; but it is to the credit of his modesty.” This naturally introduced a panegyric from Jane on his diffidence, and the little value he put on his own good qualities. Elizabeth was pleased to find that he had not betrayed the interference of his friend; for, though Jane had the most generous and forgiving heart in the world, she knew it was a circumstance which must prejudice her against him. “I am certainly the most fortunate creature that ever existed!” cried Jane. “Oh! Lizzy, why am I thus singled from my family, and blessed above them all! If I could but see you as happy! If there were but such another man for you!” “If you were to give me forty such men, I never could be so happy as you. Till I have your disposition, your goodness, I never can have your happiness. No, no, let me shift for myself; and, perhaps, if I have very good luck, I may meet with another Mr. Collins in time.” The situation of affairs in the Longbourn family could not be long a secret. Mrs. Bennet was privileged to whisper it to Mrs. Phillips, and she ventured, without any permission, to do the same by all her neighbours in Meryton. The Bennets were speedily pronounced to be the luckiest family in the world, though only a few weeks before, when Lydia had first run away, they had been generally proved to be marked out for misfortune. Chapter 56 One morning, about a week after Bingley’s engagement with Jane had been formed, as he and the females of the family were sitting together in the dining-room, their attention was suddenly drawn to the window, by the sound of a carriage; and they perceived a chaise and four driving up the lawn. It was too early in the morning for visitors, and besides, the equipage did not answer to that of any of their neighbours. The horses were post; and neither the carriage, nor the livery of the servant who preceded it, were familiar to them. As it was certain, however, that somebody was coming, Bingley instantly prevailed on Miss Bennet to avoid the confinement of such an intrusion, and walk away with him into the shrubbery. They both set off, and the conjectures of the remaining three continued, though with little satisfaction, till the door was thrown open and their visitor entered. It was Lady Catherine de Bourgh. They were of course all intending to be surprised; but their astonishment was beyond their expectation; and on the part of Mrs. Bennet and Kitty, though she was perfectly unknown to them, even inferior to what Elizabeth felt. She entered the room with an air more than usually ungracious, made no other reply to Elizabeth’s salutation than a slight inclination of the head, and sat down without saying a word. Elizabeth had mentioned her name to her mother on her ladyship’s entrance, though no request of introduction had been made. Mrs. Bennet, all amazement, though flattered by having a guest of such high importance, received her with the utmost politeness. After sitting for a moment in silence, she said very stiffly to Elizabeth, “I hope you are well, Miss Bennet. That lady, I suppose, is your mother.” Elizabeth replied very concisely that she was. “And _that_ I suppose is one of your sisters.” “Yes, madam,” said Mrs. Bennet, delighted to speak to Lady Catherine. “She is my youngest girl but one. My youngest of all is lately married, and my eldest is somewhere about the grounds, walking with a young man who, I believe, will soon become a part of the family.” “You have a very small park here,” returned Lady Catherine after a short silence. “It is nothing in comparison of Rosings, my lady, I dare say; but I assure you it is much larger than Sir William Lucas’s.” “This must be a most inconvenient sitting room for the evening, in summer; the windows are full west.” Mrs. Bennet assured her that they never sat there after dinner, and then added: “May I take the liberty of asking your ladyship whether you left Mr. and Mrs. Collins well.” “Yes, very well. I saw them the night before last.” Elizabeth now expected that she would produce a letter for her from Charlotte, as it seemed the only probable motive for her calling. But no letter appeared, and she was completely puzzled. Mrs. Bennet, with great civility, begged her ladyship to take some refreshment; but Lady Catherine very resolutely, and not very politely, declined eating anything; and then, rising up, said to Elizabeth, “Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it, if you will favour me with your company.” “Go, my dear,” cried her mother, “and show her ladyship about the different walks. I think she will be pleased with the hermitage.” Elizabeth obeyed, and running into her own room for her parasol, attended her noble guest downstairs. As they passed through the hall, Lady Catherine opened the doors into the dining-parlour and drawing-room, and pronouncing them, after a short survey, to be decent looking rooms, walked on. Her carriage remained at the door, and Elizabeth saw that her waiting-woman was in it. They proceeded in silence along the gravel walk that led to the copse; Elizabeth was determined to make no effort for conversation with a woman who was now more than usually insolent and disagreeable. “How could I ever think her like her nephew?” said she, as she looked in her face. As soon as they entered the copse, Lady Catherine began in the following manner:— “You can be at no loss, Miss Bennet, to understand the reason of my journey hither. Your own heart, your own conscience, must tell you why I come.” Elizabeth looked with unaffected astonishment. “Indeed, you are mistaken, Madam. I have not been at all able to account for the honour of seeing you here.” “Miss Bennet,” replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, “you ought to know, that I am not to be trifled with. But however insincere _you_ may choose to be, you shall not find _me_ so. My character has ever been celebrated for its sincerity and frankness, and in a cause of such moment as this, I shall certainly not depart from it. A report of a most alarming nature reached me two days ago. I was told that not only your sister was on the point of being most advantageously married, but that you, that Miss Elizabeth Bennet, would, in all likelihood, be soon afterwards united to my nephew, my own nephew, Mr. Darcy. Though I _know_ it must be a scandalous falsehood, though I would not injure him so much as to suppose the truth of it possible, I instantly resolved on setting off for this place, that I might make my sentiments known to you.” “If you believed it impossible to be true,” said Elizabeth, colouring with astonishment and disdain, “I wonder you took the trouble of coming so far. What could your ladyship propose by it?” “At once to insist upon having such a report universally contradicted.” “Your coming to Longbourn, to see me and my family,” said Elizabeth coolly, “will be rather a confirmation of it; if, indeed, such a report is in existence.” “If! Do you then pretend to be ignorant of it? Has it not been industriously circulated by yourselves? Do you not know that such a report is spread abroad?” “I never heard that it was.” “And can you likewise declare, that there is no _foundation_ for it?” “I do not pretend to possess equal frankness with your ladyship. _You_ may ask questions which _I_ shall not choose to answer.” “This is not to be borne. Miss Bennet, I insist on being satisfied. Has he, has my nephew, made you an offer of marriage?” “Your ladyship has declared it to be impossible.” “It ought to be so; it must be so, while he retains the use of his reason. But _your_ arts and allurements may, in a moment of infatuation, have made him forget what he owes to himself and to all his family. You may have drawn him in.” “If I have, I shall be the last person to confess it.” “Miss Bennet, do you know who I am? I have not been accustomed to such language as this. I am almost the nearest relation he has in the world, and am entitled to know all his dearest concerns.” “But you are not entitled to know _mine;_ nor will such behaviour as this, ever induce me to be explicit.” “Let me be rightly understood. This match, to which you have the presumption to aspire, can never take place. No, never. Mr. Darcy is engaged to _my daughter_. Now what have you to say?” “Only this; that if he is so, you can have no reason to suppose he will make an offer to me.” Lady Catherine hesitated for a moment, and then replied: “The engagement between them is of a peculiar kind. From their infancy, they have been intended for each other. It was the favourite wish of _his_ mother, as well as of hers. While in their cradles, we planned the union: and now, at the moment when the wishes of both sisters would be accomplished in their marriage, to be prevented by a young woman of inferior birth, of no importance in the world, and wholly unallied to the family! Do you pay no regard to the wishes of his friends? To his tacit engagement with Miss de Bourgh? Are you lost to every feeling of propriety and delicacy? Have you not heard me say that from his earliest hours he was destined for his cousin?” “Yes, and I had heard it before. But what is that to me? If there is no other objection to my marrying your nephew, I shall certainly not be kept from it by knowing that his mother and aunt wished him to marry Miss de Bourgh. You both did as much as you could in planning the marriage. Its completion depended on others. If Mr. Darcy is neither by honour nor inclination confined to his cousin, why is not he to make another choice? And if I am that choice, why may not I accept him?” “Because honour, decorum, prudence, nay, interest, forbid it. Yes, Miss Bennet, interest; for do not expect to be noticed by his family or friends, if you wilfully act against the inclinations of all. You will be censured, slighted, and despised, by everyone connected with him. Your alliance will be a disgrace; your name will never even be mentioned by any of us.” “These are heavy misfortunes,” replied Elizabeth. “But the wife of Mr. Darcy must have such extraordinary sources of happiness necessarily attached to her situation, that she could, upon the whole, have no cause to repine.” “Obstinate, headstrong girl! I am ashamed of you! Is this your gratitude for my attentions to you last spring? Is nothing due to me on that score? Let us sit down. You are to understand, Miss Bennet, that I came here with the determined resolution of carrying my purpose; nor will I be dissuaded from it. I have not been used to submit to any person’s whims. I have not been in the habit of brooking disappointment.” “_That_ will make your ladyship’s situation at present more pitiable; but it will have no effect on _me_.” “I will not be interrupted. Hear me in silence. My daughter and my nephew are formed for each other. They are descended, on the maternal side, from the same noble line; and, on the father’s, from respectable, honourable, and ancient—though untitled—families. Their fortune on both sides is splendid. They are destined for each other by the voice of every member of their respective houses; and what is to divide them? The upstart pretensions of a young woman without family, connections, or fortune. Is this to be endured! But it must not, shall not be. If you were sensible of your own good, you would not wish to quit the sphere in which you have been brought up.” “In marrying your nephew, I should not consider myself as quitting that sphere. He is a gentleman; I am a gentleman’s daughter; so far we are equal.” “True. You _are_ a gentleman’s daughter. But who was your mother? Who are your uncles and aunts? Do not imagine me ignorant of their condition.” “Whatever my connections may be,” said Elizabeth, “if your nephew does not object to them, they can be nothing to _you_.” “Tell me once for all, are you engaged to him?” Though Elizabeth would not, for the mere purpose of obliging Lady Catherine, have answered this question, she could not but say, after a moment’s deliberation: “I am not.” Lady Catherine seemed pleased. “And will you promise me, never to enter into such an engagement?” “I will make no promise of the kind.” “Miss Bennet I am shocked and astonished. I expected to find a more reasonable young woman. But do not deceive yourself into a belief that I will ever recede. I shall not go away till you have given me the assurance I require.” “And I certainly _never_ shall give it. I am not to be intimidated into anything so wholly unreasonable. Your ladyship wants Mr. Darcy to marry your daughter; but would my giving you the wished-for promise make _their_ marriage at all more probable? Supposing him to be attached to me, would _my_ refusing to accept his hand make him wish to bestow it on his cousin? Allow me to say, Lady Catherine, that the arguments with which you have supported this extraordinary application have been as frivolous as the application was ill-judged. You have widely mistaken my character, if you think I can be worked on by such persuasions as these. How far your nephew might approve of your interference in _his_ affairs, I cannot tell; but you have certainly no right to concern yourself in mine. I must beg, therefore, to be importuned no farther on the subject.” “Not so hasty, if you please. I have by no means done. To all the objections I have already urged, I have still another to add. I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister’s infamous elopement. I know it all; that the young man’s marrying her was a patched-up business, at the expence of your father and uncles. And is _such_ a girl to be my nephew’s sister? Is _her_ husband, who is the son of his late father’s steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!—of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?” “You can _now_ have nothing further to say,” she resentfully answered. “You have insulted me in every possible method. I must beg to return to the house.” And she rose as she spoke. Lady Catherine rose also, and they turned back. Her ladyship was highly incensed. “You have no regard, then, for the honour and credit of my nephew! Unfeeling, selfish girl! Do you not consider that a connection with you must disgrace him in the eyes of everybody?” “Lady Catherine, I have nothing further to say. You know my sentiments.” “You are then resolved to have him?” “I have said no such thing. I am only resolved to act in that manner, which will, in my own opinion, constitute my happiness, without reference to _you_, or to any person so wholly unconnected with me.” “It is well. You refuse, then, to oblige me. You refuse to obey the claims of duty, honour, and gratitude. You are determined to ruin him in the opinion of all his friends, and make him the contempt of the world.” “Neither duty, nor honour, nor gratitude,” replied Elizabeth, “have any possible claim on me, in the present instance. No principle of either would be violated by my marriage with Mr. Darcy. And with regard to the resentment of his family, or the indignation of the world, if the former _were_ excited by his marrying me, it would not give me one moment’s concern—and the world in general would have too much sense to join in the scorn.” “And this is your real opinion! This is your final resolve! Very well. I shall now know how to act. Do not imagine, Miss Bennet, that your ambition will ever be gratified. I came to try you. I hoped to find you reasonable; but, depend upon it, I will carry my point.” In this manner Lady Catherine talked on, till they were at the door of the carriage, when, turning hastily round, she added, “I take no leave of you, Miss Bennet. I send no compliments to your mother. You deserve no such attention. I am most seriously displeased.” Elizabeth made no answer; and without attempting to persuade her ladyship to return into the house, walked quietly into it herself. She heard the carriage drive away as she proceeded up stairs. Her mother impatiently met her at the door of the dressing-room, to ask why Lady Catherine would not come in again and rest herself. “She did not choose it,” said her daughter, “she would go.” “She is a very fine-looking woman! and her calling here was prodigiously civil! for she only came, I suppose, to tell us the Collinses were well. She is on her road somewhere, I dare say, and so, passing through Meryton, thought she might as well call on you. I suppose she had nothing particular to say to you, Lizzy?” Elizabeth was forced to give into a little falsehood here; for to acknowledge the substance of their conversation was impossible. Chapter 57 The discomposure of spirits which this extraordinary visit threw Elizabeth into, could not be easily overcome; nor could she, for many hours, learn to think of it less than incessantly. Lady Catherine, it appeared, had actually taken the trouble of this journey from Rosings, for the sole purpose of breaking off her supposed engagement with Mr. Darcy. It was a rational scheme, to be sure! but from what the report of their engagement could originate, Elizabeth was at a loss to imagine; till she recollected that _his_ being the intimate friend of Bingley, and _her_ being the sister of Jane, was enough, at a time when the expectation of one wedding made everybody eager for another, to supply the idea. She had not herself forgotten to feel that the marriage of her sister must bring them more frequently together. And her neighbours at Lucas Lodge, therefore (for through their communication with the Collinses, the report, she concluded, had reached Lady Catherine), had only set _that_ down as almost certain and immediate, which _she_ had looked forward to as possible at some future time. In revolving Lady Catherine’s expressions, however, she could not help feeling some uneasiness as to the possible consequence of her persisting in this interference. From what she had said of her resolution to prevent their marriage, it occurred to Elizabeth that she must meditate an application to her nephew; and how he might take a similar representation of the evils attached to a connection with her, she dared not pronounce. She knew not the exact degree of his affection for his aunt, or his dependence on her judgment, but it was natural to suppose that he thought much higher of her ladyship than _she_ could do; and it was certain that, in enumerating the miseries of a marriage with _one_, whose immediate connections were so unequal to his own, his aunt would address him on his weakest side. With his notions of dignity, he would probably feel that the arguments, which to Elizabeth had appeared weak and ridiculous, contained much good sense and solid reasoning. If he had been wavering before as to what he should do, which had often seemed likely, the advice and entreaty of so near a relation might settle every doubt, and determine him at once to be as happy as dignity unblemished could make him. In that case he would return no more. Lady Catherine might see him in her way through town; and his engagement to Bingley of coming again to Netherfield must give way. “If, therefore, an excuse for not keeping his promise should come to his friend within a few days,” she added, “I shall know how to understand it. I shall then give over every expectation, every wish of his constancy. If he is satisfied with only regretting me, when he might have obtained my affections and hand, I shall soon cease to regret him at all.” The surprise of the rest of the family, on hearing who their visitor had been, was very great; but they obligingly satisfied it, with the same kind of supposition which had appeased Mrs. Bennet’s curiosity; and Elizabeth was spared from much teasing on the subject. The next morning, as she was going downstairs, she was met by her father, who came out of his library with a letter in his hand. “Lizzy,” said he, “I was going to look for you; come into my room.” She followed him thither; and her curiosity to know what he had to tell her was heightened by the supposition of its being in some manner connected with the letter he held. It suddenly struck her that it might be from Lady Catherine; and she anticipated with dismay all the consequent explanations. She followed her father to the fire place, and they both sat down. He then said, “I have received a letter this morning that has astonished me exceedingly. As it principally concerns yourself, you ought to know its contents. I did not know before, that I had _two_ daughters on the brink of matrimony. Let me congratulate you on a very important conquest.” The colour now rushed into Elizabeth’s cheeks in the instantaneous conviction of its being a letter from the nephew, instead of the aunt; and she was undetermined whether most to be pleased that he explained himself at all, or offended that his letter was not rather addressed to herself; when her father continued: “You look conscious. Young ladies have great penetration in such matters as these; but I think I may defy even _your_ sagacity, to discover the name of your admirer. This letter is from Mr. Collins.” “From Mr. Collins! and what can _he_ have to say?” “Something very much to the purpose of course. He begins with congratulations on the approaching nuptials of my eldest daughter, of which, it seems, he has been told by some of the good-natured, gossiping Lucases. I shall not sport with your impatience, by reading what he says on that point. What relates to yourself, is as follows: ‘Having thus offered you the sincere congratulations of Mrs. Collins and myself on this happy event, let me now add a short hint on the subject of another; of which we have been advertised by the same authority. Your daughter Elizabeth, it is presumed, will not long bear the name of Bennet, after her elder sister has resigned it, and the chosen partner of her fate may be reasonably looked up to as one of the most illustrious personages in this land.’ “Can you possibly guess, Lizzy, who is meant by this? ‘This young gentleman is blessed, in a peculiar way, with every thing the heart of mortal can most desire,—splendid property, noble kindred, and extensive patronage. Yet in spite of all these temptations, let me warn my cousin Elizabeth, and yourself, of what evils you may incur by a precipitate closure with this gentleman’s proposals, which, of course, you will be inclined to take immediate advantage of.’ “Have you any idea, Lizzy, who this gentleman is? But now it comes out: “‘My motive for cautioning you is as follows. We have reason to imagine that his aunt, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, does not look on the match with a friendly eye.’ “_Mr. Darcy_, you see, is the man! Now, Lizzy, I think I _have_ surprised you. Could he, or the Lucases, have pitched on any man within the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at _you_ in his life! It is admirable!” Elizabeth tried to join in her father’s pleasantry, but could only force one most reluctant smile. Never had his wit been directed in a manner so little agreeable to her. “Are you not diverted?” “Oh! yes. Pray read on.” “‘After mentioning the likelihood of this marriage to her ladyship last night, she immediately, with her usual condescension, expressed what she felt on the occasion; when it became apparent, that on the score of some family objections on the part of my cousin, she would never give her consent to what she termed so disgraceful a match. I thought it my duty to give the speediest intelligence of this to my cousin, that she and her noble admirer may be aware of what they are about, and not run hastily into a marriage which has not been properly sanctioned.’ Mr. Collins moreover adds, ‘I am truly rejoiced that my cousin Lydia’s sad business has been so well hushed up, and am only concerned that their living together before the marriage took place should be so generally known. I must not, however, neglect the duties of my station, or refrain from declaring my amazement at hearing that you received the young couple into your house as soon as they were married. It was an encouragement of vice; and had I been the rector of Longbourn, I should very strenuously have opposed it. You ought certainly to forgive them, as a Christian, but never to admit them in your sight, or allow their names to be mentioned in your hearing.’ _That_ is his notion of Christian forgiveness! The rest of his letter is only about his dear Charlotte’s situation, and his expectation of a young olive-branch. But, Lizzy, you look as if you did not enjoy it. You are not going to be _missish_, I hope, and pretend to be affronted at an idle report. For what do we live, but to make sport for our neighbours, and laugh at them in our turn?” “Oh!” cried Elizabeth, “I am excessively diverted. But it is so strange!” “Yes—_that_ is what makes it amusing. Had they fixed on any other man it would have been nothing; but _his_ perfect indifference, and _your_ pointed dislike, make it so delightfully absurd! Much as I abominate writing, I would not give up Mr. Collins’s correspondence for any consideration. Nay, when I read a letter of his, I cannot help giving him the preference even over Wickham, much as I value the impudence and hypocrisy of my son-in-law. And pray, Lizzy, what said Lady Catherine about this report? Did she call to refuse her consent?” To this question his daughter replied only with a laugh; and as it had been asked without the least suspicion, she was not distressed by his repeating it. Elizabeth had never been more at a loss to make her feelings appear what they were not. It was necessary to laugh, when she would rather have cried. Her father had most cruelly mortified her, by what he said of Mr. Darcy’s indifference, and she could do nothing but wonder at such a want of penetration, or fear that perhaps, instead of his seeing too _little_, she might have fancied too _much_. Chapter 58 Instead of receiving any such letter of excuse from his friend, as Elizabeth half expected Mr. Bingley to do, he was able to bring Darcy with him to Longbourn before many days had passed after Lady Catherine’s visit. The gentlemen arrived early; and, before Mrs. Bennet had time to tell him of their having seen his aunt, of which her daughter sat in momentary dread, Bingley, who wanted to be alone with Jane, proposed their all walking out. It was agreed to. Mrs. Bennet was not in the habit of walking; Mary could never spare time; but the remaining five set off together. Bingley and Jane, however, soon allowed the others to outstrip them. They lagged behind, while Elizabeth, Kitty, and Darcy were to entertain each other. Very little was said by either; Kitty was too much afraid of him to talk; Elizabeth was secretly forming a desperate resolution; and perhaps he might be doing the same. They walked towards the Lucases, because Kitty wished to call upon Maria; and as Elizabeth saw no occasion for making it a general concern, when Kitty left them she went boldly on with him alone. Now was the moment for her resolution to be executed, and, while her courage was high, she immediately said: “Mr. Darcy, I am a very selfish creature; and, for the sake of giving relief to my own feelings, care not how much I may be wounding yours. I can no longer help thanking you for your unexampled kindness to my poor sister. Ever since I have known it, I have been most anxious to acknowledge to you how gratefully I feel it. Were it known to the rest of my family, I should not have merely my own gratitude to express.” “I am sorry, exceedingly sorry,” replied Darcy, in a tone of surprise and emotion, “that you have ever been informed of what may, in a mistaken light, have given you uneasiness. I did not think Mrs. Gardiner was so little to be trusted.” “You must not blame my aunt. Lydia’s thoughtlessness first betrayed to me that you had been concerned in the matter; and, of course, I could not rest till I knew the particulars. Let me thank you again and again, in the name of all my family, for that generous compassion which induced you to take so much trouble, and bear so many mortifications, for the sake of discovering them.” “If you _will_ thank me,” he replied, “let it be for yourself alone. That the wish of giving happiness to you might add force to the other inducements which led me on, I shall not attempt to deny. But your _family_ owe me nothing. Much as I respect them, I believe I thought only of _you_.” Elizabeth was too much embarrassed to say a word. After a short pause, her companion added, “You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once. _My_ affections and wishes are unchanged, but one word from you will silence me on this subject for ever.” Elizabeth, feeling all the more than common awkwardness and anxiety of his situation, now forced herself to speak; and immediately, though not very fluently, gave him to understand that her sentiments had undergone so material a change, since the period to which he alluded, as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances. The happiness which this reply produced, was such as he had probably never felt before; and he expressed himself on the occasion as sensibly and as warmly as a man violently in love can be supposed to do. Had Elizabeth been able to encounter his eye, she might have seen how well the expression of heartfelt delight, diffused over his face, became him; but, though she could not look, she could listen, and he told her of feelings, which, in proving of what importance she was to him, made his affection every moment more valuable. They walked on, without knowing in what direction. There was too much to be thought, and felt, and said, for attention to any other objects. She soon learnt that they were indebted for their present good understanding to the efforts of his aunt, who _did_ call on him in her return through London, and there relate her journey to Longbourn, its motive, and the substance of her conversation with Elizabeth; dwelling emphatically on every expression of the latter which, in her ladyship’s apprehension, peculiarly denoted her perverseness and assurance; in the belief that such a relation must assist her endeavours to obtain that promise from her nephew which _she_ had refused to give. But, unluckily for her ladyship, its effect had been exactly contrariwise. “It taught me to hope,” said he, “as I had scarcely ever allowed myself to hope before. I knew enough of your disposition to be certain that, had you been absolutely, irrevocably decided against me, you would have acknowledged it to Lady Catherine, frankly and openly.” Elizabeth coloured and laughed as she replied, “Yes, you know enough of my _frankness_ to believe me capable of _that_. After abusing you so abominably to your face, I could have no scruple in abusing you to all your relations.” “What did you say of me, that I did not deserve? For, though your accusations were ill-founded, formed on mistaken premises, my behaviour to you at the time had merited the severest reproof. It was unpardonable. I cannot think of it without abhorrence.” “We will not quarrel for the greater share of blame annexed to that evening,” said Elizabeth. “The conduct of neither, if strictly examined, will be irreproachable; but since then, we have both, I hope, improved in civility.” “I cannot be so easily reconciled to myself. The recollection of what I then said, of my conduct, my manners, my expressions during the whole of it, is now, and has been many months, inexpressibly painful to me. Your reproof, so well applied, I shall never forget: ‘had you behaved in a more gentlemanlike manner.’ Those were your words. You know not, you can scarcely conceive, how they have tortured me;—though it was some time, I confess, before I was reasonable enough to allow their justice.” “I was certainly very far from expecting them to make so strong an impression. I had not the smallest idea of their being ever felt in such a way.” “I can easily believe it. You thought me then devoid of every proper feeling, I am sure you did. The turn of your countenance I shall never forget, as you said that I could not have addressed you in any possible way that would induce you to accept me.” “Oh! do not repeat what I then said. These recollections will not do at all. I assure you that I have long been most heartily ashamed of it.” Darcy mentioned his letter. “Did it,” said he, “did it soon make you think better of me? Did you, on reading it, give any credit to its contents?” She explained what its effect on her had been, and how gradually all her former prejudices had been removed. “I knew,” said he, “that what I wrote must give you pain, but it was necessary. I hope you have destroyed the letter. There was one part especially, the opening of it, which I should dread your having the power of reading again. I can remember some expressions which might justly make you hate me.” “The letter shall certainly be burnt, if you believe it essential to the preservation of my regard; but, though we have both reason to think my opinions not entirely unalterable, they are not, I hope, quite so easily changed as that implies.” “When I wrote that letter,” replied Darcy, “I believed myself perfectly calm and cool, but I am since convinced that it was written in a dreadful bitterness of spirit.” “The letter, perhaps, began in bitterness, but it did not end so. The adieu is charity itself. But think no more of the letter. The feelings of the person who wrote, and the person who received it, are now so widely different from what they were then, that every unpleasant circumstance attending it ought to be forgotten. You must learn some of my philosophy. Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.” “I cannot give you credit for any philosophy of the kind. _Your_ retrospections must be so totally void of reproach, that the contentment arising from them is not of philosophy, but, what is much better, of innocence. But with _me_, it is not so. Painful recollections will intrude which cannot, which ought not, to be repelled. I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was _right_, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit. Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only _child_), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to _wish_ at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own. Such I was, from eight to eight and twenty; and such I might still have been but for you, dearest, loveliest Elizabeth! What do I not owe you! You taught me a lesson, hard indeed at first, but most advantageous. By you, I was properly humbled. I came to you without a doubt of my reception. You showed me how insufficient were all my pretensions to please a woman worthy of being pleased.” “Had you then persuaded yourself that I should?” “Indeed I had. What will you think of my vanity? I believed you to be wishing, expecting my addresses.” “My manners must have been in fault, but not intentionally, I assure you. I never meant to deceive you, but my spirits might often lead me wrong. How you must have hated me after _that_ evening?” “Hate you! I was angry perhaps at first, but my anger soon began to take a proper direction.” “I am almost afraid of asking what you thought of me, when we met at Pemberley. You blamed me for coming?” “No indeed; I felt nothing but surprise.” “Your surprise could not be greater than _mine_ in being noticed by you. My conscience told me that I deserved no extraordinary politeness, and I confess that I did not expect to receive _more_ than my due.” “My object _then_,” replied Darcy, “was to show you, by every civility in my power, that I was not so mean as to resent the past; and I hoped to obtain your forgiveness, to lessen your ill opinion, by letting you see that your reproofs had been attended to. How soon any other wishes introduced themselves I can hardly tell, but I believe in about half an hour after I had seen you.” He then told her of Georgiana’s delight in her acquaintance, and of her disappointment at its sudden interruption; which naturally leading to the cause of that interruption, she soon learnt that his resolution of following her from Derbyshire in quest of her sister had been formed before he quitted the inn, and that his gravity and thoughtfulness there had arisen from no other struggles than what such a purpose must comprehend. She expressed her gratitude again, but it was too painful a subject to each, to be dwelt on farther. After walking several miles in a leisurely manner, and too busy to know anything about it, they found at last, on examining their watches, that it was time to be at home. “What could become of Mr. Bingley and Jane!” was a wonder which introduced the discussion of _their_ affairs. Darcy was delighted with their engagement; his friend had given him the earliest information of it. “I must ask whether you were surprised?” said Elizabeth. “Not at all. When I went away, I felt that it would soon happen.” “That is to say, you had given your permission. I guessed as much.” And though he exclaimed at the term, she found that it had been pretty much the case. “On the evening before my going to London,” said he, “I made a confession to him, which I believe I ought to have made long ago. I told him of all that had occurred to make my former interference in his affairs absurd and impertinent. His surprise was great. He had never had the slightest suspicion. I told him, moreover, that I believed myself mistaken in supposing, as I had done, that your sister was indifferent to him; and as I could easily perceive that his attachment to her was unabated, I felt no doubt of their happiness together.” Elizabeth could not help smiling at his easy manner of directing his friend. “Did you speak from your own observation,” said she, “when you told him that my sister loved him, or merely from my information last spring?” “From the former. I had narrowly observed her during the two visits which I had lately made here; and I was convinced of her affection.” “And your assurance of it, I suppose, carried immediate conviction to him.” “It did. Bingley is most unaffectedly modest. His diffidence had prevented his depending on his own judgment in so anxious a case, but his reliance on mine made every thing easy. I was obliged to confess one thing, which for a time, and not unjustly, offended him. I could not allow myself to conceal that your sister had been in town three months last winter, that I had known it, and purposely kept it from him. He was angry. But his anger, I am persuaded, lasted no longer than he remained in any doubt of your sister’s sentiments. He has heartily forgiven me now.” Elizabeth longed to observe that Mr. Bingley had been a most delightful friend; so easily guided that his worth was invaluable; but she checked herself. She remembered that he had yet to learn to be laughed at, and it was rather too early to begin. In anticipating the happiness of Bingley, which of course was to be inferior only to his own, he continued the conversation till they reached the house. In the hall they parted. Chapter 59 “My dear Lizzy, where can you have been walking to?” was a question which Elizabeth received from Jane as soon as she entered their room, and from all the others when they sat down to table. She had only to say in reply, that they had wandered about, till she was beyond her own knowledge. She coloured as she spoke; but neither that, nor anything else, awakened a suspicion of the truth. The evening passed quietly, unmarked by anything extraordinary. The acknowledged lovers talked and laughed, the unacknowledged were silent. Darcy was not of a disposition in which happiness overflows in mirth; and Elizabeth, agitated and confused, rather _knew_ that she was happy than _felt_ herself to be so; for, besides the immediate embarrassment, there were other evils before her. She anticipated what would be felt in the family when her situation became known; she was aware that no one liked him but Jane; and even feared that with the others it was a _dislike_ which not all his fortune and consequence might do away. At night she opened her heart to Jane. Though suspicion was very far from Miss Bennet’s general habits, she was absolutely incredulous here. “You are joking, Lizzy. This cannot be!—engaged to Mr. Darcy! No, no, you shall not deceive me. I know it to be impossible.” “This is a wretched beginning indeed! My sole dependence was on you; and I am sure nobody else will believe me, if you do not. Yet, indeed, I am in earnest. I speak nothing but the truth. He still loves me, and we are engaged.” Jane looked at her doubtingly. “Oh, Lizzy! it cannot be. I know how much you dislike him.” “You know nothing of the matter. _That_ is all to be forgot. Perhaps I did not always love him so well as I do now. But in such cases as these, a good memory is unpardonable. This is the last time I shall ever remember it myself.” Miss Bennet still looked all amazement. Elizabeth again, and more seriously assured her of its truth. “Good Heaven! can it be really so! Yet now I must believe you,” cried Jane. “My dear, dear Lizzy, I would—I do congratulate you—but are you certain? forgive the question—are you quite certain that you can be happy with him?” “There can be no doubt of that. It is settled between us already, that we are to be the happiest couple in the world. But are you pleased, Jane? Shall you like to have such a brother?” “Very, very much. Nothing could give either Bingley or myself more delight. But we considered it, we talked of it as impossible. And do you really love him quite well enough? Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection. Are you quite sure that you feel what you ought to do?” “Oh, yes! You will only think I feel _more_ than I ought to do, when I tell you all.” “What do you mean?” “Why, I must confess that I love him better than I do Bingley. I am afraid you will be angry.” “My dearest sister, now _be_ serious. I want to talk very seriously. Let me know every thing that I am to know, without delay. Will you tell me how long you have loved him?” “It has been coming on so gradually, that I hardly know when it began. But I believe I must date it from my first seeing his beautiful grounds at Pemberley.” Another entreaty that she would be serious, however, produced the desired effect; and she soon satisfied Jane by her solemn assurances of attachment. When convinced on that article, Miss Bennet had nothing further to wish. “Now I am quite happy,” said she, “for you will be as happy as myself. I always had a value for him. Were it for nothing but his love of you, I must always have esteemed him; but now, as Bingley’s friend and your husband, there can be only Bingley and yourself more dear to me. But Lizzy, you have been very sly, very reserved with me. How little did you tell me of what passed at Pemberley and Lambton! I owe all that I know of it to another, not to you.” Elizabeth told her the motives of her secrecy. She had been unwilling to mention Bingley; and the unsettled state of her own feelings had made her equally avoid the name of his friend. But now she would no longer conceal from her his share in Lydia’s marriage. All was acknowledged, and half the night spent in conversation. “Good gracious!” cried Mrs. Bennet, as she stood at a window the next morning, “if that disagreeable Mr. Darcy is not coming here again with our dear Bingley! What can he mean by being so tiresome as to be always coming here? I had no notion but he would go a-shooting, or something or other, and not disturb us with his company. What shall we do with him? Lizzy, you must walk out with him again, that he may not be in Bingley’s way.” Elizabeth could hardly help laughing at so convenient a proposal; yet was really vexed that her mother should be always giving him such an epithet. As soon as they entered, Bingley looked at her so expressively, and shook hands with such warmth, as left no doubt of his good information; and he soon afterwards said aloud, “Mrs. Bennet, have you no more lanes hereabouts in which Lizzy may lose her way again to-day?” “I advise Mr. Darcy, and Lizzy, and Kitty,” said Mrs. Bennet, “to walk to Oakham Mount this morning. It is a nice long walk, and Mr. Darcy has never seen the view.” “It may do very well for the others,” replied Mr. Bingley; “but I am sure it will be too much for Kitty. Won’t it, Kitty?” Kitty owned that she had rather stay at home. Darcy professed a great curiosity to see the view from the Mount, and Elizabeth silently consented. As she went up stairs to get ready, Mrs. Bennet followed her, saying: “I am quite sorry, Lizzy, that you should be forced to have that disagreeable man all to yourself. But I hope you will not mind it: it is all for Jane’s sake, you know; and there is no occasion for talking to him, except just now and then. So, do not put yourself to inconvenience.” During their walk, it was resolved that Mr. Bennet’s consent should be asked in the course of the evening. Elizabeth reserved to herself the application for her mother’s. She could not determine how her mother would take it; sometimes doubting whether all his wealth and grandeur would be enough to overcome her abhorrence of the man. But whether she were violently set against the match, or violently delighted with it, it was certain that her manner would be equally ill adapted to do credit to her sense; and she could no more bear that Mr. Darcy should hear the first raptures of her joy, than the first vehemence of her disapprobation. In the evening, soon after Mr. Bennet withdrew to the library, she saw Mr. Darcy rise also and follow him, and her agitation on seeing it was extreme. She did not fear her father’s opposition, but he was going to be made unhappy; and that it should be through her means—that _she_, his favourite child, should be distressing him by her choice, should be filling him with fears and regrets in disposing of her—was a wretched reflection, and she sat in misery till Mr. Darcy appeared again, when, looking at him, she was a little relieved by his smile. In a few minutes he approached the table where she was sitting with Kitty; and, while pretending to admire her work said in a whisper, “Go to your father, he wants you in the library.” She was gone directly. Her father was walking about the room, looking grave and anxious. “Lizzy,” said he, “what are you doing? Are you out of your senses, to be accepting this man? Have not you always hated him?” How earnestly did she then wish that her former opinions had been more reasonable, her expressions more moderate! It would have spared her from explanations and professions which it was exceedingly awkward to give; but they were now necessary, and she assured him, with some confusion, of her attachment to Mr. Darcy. “Or, in other words, you are determined to have him. He is rich, to be sure, and you may have more fine clothes and fine carriages than Jane. But will they make you happy?” “Have you any other objection,” said Elizabeth, “than your belief of my indifference?” “None at all. We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him.” “I do, I do like him,” she replied, with tears in her eyes, “I love him. Indeed he has no improper pride. He is perfectly amiable. You do not know what he really is; then pray do not pain me by speaking of him in such terms.” “Lizzy,” said her father, “I have given him my consent. He is the kind of man, indeed, to whom I should never dare refuse anything, which he condescended to ask. I now give it to _you_, if you are resolved on having him. But let me advise you to think better of it. I know your disposition, Lizzy. I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked up to him as a superior. Your lively talents would place you in the greatest danger in an unequal marriage. You could scarcely escape discredit and misery. My child, let me not have the grief of seeing _you_ unable to respect your partner in life. You know not what you are about.” Elizabeth, still more affected, was earnest and solemn in her reply; and at length, by repeated assurances that Mr. Darcy was really the object of her choice, by explaining the gradual change which her estimation of him had undergone, relating her absolute certainty that his affection was not the work of a day, but had stood the test of many months’ suspense, and enumerating with energy all his good qualities, she did conquer her father’s incredulity, and reconcile him to the match. “Well, my dear,” said he, when she ceased speaking, “I have no more to say. If this be the case, he deserves you. I could not have parted with you, my Lizzy, to anyone less worthy.” To complete the favourable impression, she then told him what Mr. Darcy had voluntarily done for Lydia. He heard her with astonishment. “This is an evening of wonders, indeed! And so, Darcy did every thing; made up the match, gave the money, paid the fellow’s debts, and got him his commission! So much the better. It will save me a world of trouble and economy. Had it been your uncle’s doing, I must and _would_ have paid him; but these violent young lovers carry every thing their own way. I shall offer to pay him to-morrow; he will rant and storm about his love for you, and there will be an end of the matter.” He then recollected her embarrassment a few days before, on his reading Mr. Collins’s letter; and after laughing at her some time, allowed her at last to go—saying, as she quitted the room, “If any young men come for Mary or Kitty, send them in, for I am quite at leisure.” Elizabeth’s mind was now relieved from a very heavy weight; and, after half an hour’s quiet reflection in her own room, she was able to join the others with tolerable composure. Every thing was too recent for gaiety, but the evening passed tranquilly away; there was no longer anything material to be dreaded, and the comfort of ease and familiarity would come in time. When her mother went up to her dressing-room at night, she followed her, and made the important communication. Its effect was most extraordinary; for on first hearing it, Mrs. Bennet sat quite still, and unable to utter a syllable. Nor was it under many, many minutes that she could comprehend what she heard; though not in general backward to credit what was for the advantage of her family, or that came in the shape of a lover to any of them. She began at length to recover, to fidget about in her chair, get up, sit down again, wonder, and bless herself. “Good gracious! Lord bless me! only think! dear me! Mr. Darcy! Who would have thought it! And is it really true? Oh! my sweetest Lizzy! how rich and how great you will be! What pin-money, what jewels, what carriages you will have! Jane’s is nothing to it—nothing at all. I am so pleased—so happy. Such a charming man!—so handsome! so tall!—Oh, my dear Lizzy! pray apologise for my having disliked him so much before. I hope he will overlook it. Dear, dear Lizzy. A house in town! Every thing that is charming! Three daughters married! Ten thousand a year! Oh, Lord! What will become of me. I shall go distracted.” This was enough to prove that her approbation need not be doubted: and Elizabeth, rejoicing that such an effusion was heard only by herself, soon went away. But before she had been three minutes in her own room, her mother followed her. “My dearest child,” she cried, “I can think of nothing else! Ten thousand a year, and very likely more! ’Tis as good as a Lord! And a special licence. You must and shall be married by a special licence. But my dearest love, tell me what dish Mr. Darcy is particularly fond of, that I may have it to-morrow.” This was a sad omen of what her mother’s behaviour to the gentleman himself might be; and Elizabeth found that, though in the certain possession of his warmest affection, and secure of her relations’ consent, there was still something to be wished for. But the morrow passed off much better than she expected; for Mrs. Bennet luckily stood in such awe of her intended son-in-law that she ventured not to speak to him, unless it was in her power to offer him any attention, or mark her deference for his opinion. Elizabeth had the satisfaction of seeing her father taking pains to get acquainted with him; and Mr. Bennet soon assured her that he was rising every hour in his esteem. “I admire all my three sons-in-law highly,” said he. “Wickham, perhaps, is my favourite; but I think I shall like _your_ husband quite as well as Jane’s.” Chapter 60 Elizabeth’s spirits soon rising to playfulness again, she wanted Mr. Darcy to account for his having ever fallen in love with her. “How could you begin?” said she. “I can comprehend your going on charmingly, when you had once made a beginning; but what could set you off in the first place?” “I cannot fix on the hour, or the spot, or the look, or the words, which laid the foundation. It is too long ago. I was in the middle before I knew that I _had_ begun.” “My beauty you had early withstood, and as for my manners—my behaviour to _you_ was at least always bordering on the uncivil, and I never spoke to you without rather wishing to give you pain than not. Now be sincere; did you admire me for my impertinence?” “For the liveliness of your mind, I did.” “You may as well call it impertinence at once. It was very little less. The fact is, that you were sick of civility, of deference, of officious attention. You were disgusted with the women who were always speaking, and looking, and thinking for _your_ approbation alone. I roused, and interested you, because I was so unlike _them_. Had you not been really amiable, you would have hated me for it; but in spite of the pains you took to disguise yourself, your feelings were always noble and just; and in your heart, you thoroughly despised the persons who so assiduously courted you. There—I have saved you the trouble of accounting for it; and really, all things considered, I begin to think it perfectly reasonable. To be sure, you knew no actual good of me—but nobody thinks of _that_ when they fall in love.” “Was there no good in your affectionate behaviour to Jane while she was ill at Netherfield?” “Dearest Jane! who could have done less for her? But make a virtue of it by all means. My good qualities are under your protection, and you are to exaggerate them as much as possible; and, in return, it belongs to me to find occasions for teasing and quarrelling with you as often as may be; and I shall begin directly by asking you what made you so unwilling to come to the point at last. What made you so shy of me, when you first called, and afterwards dined here? Why, especially, when you called, did you look as if you did not care about me?” “Because you were grave and silent, and gave me no encouragement.” “But I was embarrassed.” “And so was I.” “You might have talked to me more when you came to dinner.” “A man who had felt less, might.” “How unlucky that you should have a reasonable answer to give, and that I should be so reasonable as to admit it! But I wonder how long you _would_ have gone on, if you had been left to yourself. I wonder when you _would_ have spoken, if I had not asked you! My resolution of thanking you for your kindness to Lydia had certainly great effect. _Too much_, I am afraid; for what becomes of the moral, if our comfort springs from a breach of promise? for I ought not to have mentioned the subject. This will never do.” “You need not distress yourself. The moral will be perfectly fair. Lady Catherine’s unjustifiable endeavours to separate us were the means of removing all my doubts. I am not indebted for my present happiness to your eager desire of expressing your gratitude. I was not in a humour to wait for any opening of yours. My aunt’s intelligence had given me hope, and I was determined at once to know every thing.” “Lady Catherine has been of infinite use, which ought to make her happy, for she loves to be of use. But tell me, what did you come down to Netherfield for? Was it merely to ride to Longbourn and be embarrassed? or had you intended any more serious consequence?” “My real purpose was to see _you_, and to judge, if I could, whether I might ever hope to make you love me. My avowed one, or what I avowed to myself, was to see whether your sister were still partial to Bingley, and if she were, to make the confession to him which I have since made.” “Shall you ever have courage to announce to Lady Catherine what is to befall her?” “I am more likely to want time than courage, Elizabeth. But it ought to be done, and if you will give me a sheet of paper, it shall be done directly.” “And if I had not a letter to write myself, I might sit by you and admire the evenness of your writing, as another young lady once did. But I have an aunt, too, who must not be longer neglected.” From an unwillingness to confess how much her intimacy with Mr. Darcy had been over-rated, Elizabeth had never yet answered Mrs. Gardiner’s long letter; but now, having _that_ to communicate which she knew would be most welcome, she was almost ashamed to find that her uncle and aunt had already lost three days of happiness, and immediately wrote as follows: “I would have thanked you before, my dear aunt, as I ought to have done, for your long, kind, satisfactory, detail of particulars; but to say the truth, I was too cross to write. You supposed more than really existed. But _now_ suppose as much as you choose; give a loose rein to your fancy, indulge your imagination in every possible flight which the subject will afford, and unless you believe me actually married, you cannot greatly err. You must write again very soon, and praise him a great deal more than you did in your last. I thank you, again and again, for not going to the Lakes. How could I be so silly as to wish it! Your idea of the ponies is delightful. We will go round the Park every day. I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh. Mr. Darcy sends you all the love in the world that he can spare from me. You are all to come to Pemberley at Christmas. Yours, etc.” Mr. Darcy’s letter to Lady Catherine was in a different style; and still different from either was what Mr. Bennet sent to Mr. Collins, in reply to his last. “Dear Sir, “I must trouble you once more for congratulations. Elizabeth will soon be the wife of Mr. Darcy. Console Lady Catherine as well as you can. But, if I were you, I would stand by the nephew. He has more to give. “Yours sincerely, etc.” Miss Bingley’s congratulations to her brother, on his approaching marriage, were all that was affectionate and insincere. She wrote even to Jane on the occasion, to express her delight, and repeat all her former professions of regard. Jane was not deceived, but she was affected; and though feeling no reliance on her, could not help writing her a much kinder answer than she knew was deserved. The joy which Miss Darcy expressed on receiving similar information, was as sincere as her brother’s in sending it. Four sides of paper were insufficient to contain all her delight, and all her earnest desire of being loved by her sister. Before any answer could arrive from Mr. Collins, or any congratulations to Elizabeth from his wife, the Longbourn family heard that the Collinses were come themselves to Lucas Lodge. The reason of this sudden removal was soon evident. Lady Catherine had been rendered so exceedingly angry by the contents of her nephew’s letter, that Charlotte, really rejoicing in the match, was anxious to get away till the storm was blown over. At such a moment, the arrival of her friend was a sincere pleasure to Elizabeth, though in the course of their meetings she must sometimes think the pleasure dearly bought, when she saw Mr. Darcy exposed to all the parading and obsequious civility of her husband. He bore it, however, with admirable calmness. He could even listen to Sir William Lucas, when he complimented him on carrying away the brightest jewel of the country, and expressed his hopes of their all meeting frequently at St. James’s, with very decent composure. If he did shrug his shoulders, it was not till Sir William was out of sight. Mrs. Phillips’s vulgarity was another, and perhaps a greater, tax on his forbearance; and though Mrs. Phillips, as well as her sister, stood in too much awe of him to speak with the familiarity which Bingley’s good humour encouraged, yet, whenever she _did_ speak, she must be vulgar. Nor was her respect for him, though it made her more quiet, at all likely to make her more elegant. Elizabeth did all she could to shield him from the frequent notice of either, and was ever anxious to keep him to herself, and to those of her family with whom he might converse without mortification; and though the uncomfortable feelings arising from all this took from the season of courtship much of its pleasure, it added to the hope of the future; and she looked forward with delight to the time when they should be removed from society so little pleasing to either, to all the comfort and elegance of their family party at Pemberley. Chapter 61 Happy for all her maternal feelings was the day on which Mrs. Bennet got rid of her two most deserving daughters. With what delighted pride she afterwards visited Mrs. Bingley, and talked of Mrs. Darcy, may be guessed. I wish I could say, for the sake of her family, that the accomplishment of her earnest desire in the establishment of so many of her children produced so happy an effect as to make her a sensible, amiable, well-informed woman for the rest of her life; though perhaps it was lucky for her husband, who might not have relished domestic felicity in so unusual a form, that she still was occasionally nervous and invariably silly. Mr. Bennet missed his second daughter exceedingly; his affection for her drew him oftener from home than anything else could do. He delighted in going to Pemberley, especially when he was least expected. Mr. Bingley and Jane remained at Netherfield only a twelvemonth. So near a vicinity to her mother and Meryton relations was not desirable even to _his_ easy temper, or _her_ affectionate heart. The darling wish of his sisters was then gratified; he bought an estate in a neighbouring county to Derbyshire, and Jane and Elizabeth, in addition to every other source of happiness, were within thirty miles of each other. Kitty, to her very material advantage, spent the chief of her time with her two elder sisters. In society so superior to what she had generally known, her improvement was great. She was not of so ungovernable a temper as Lydia; and, removed from the influence of Lydia’s example, she became, by proper attention and management, less irritable, less ignorant, and less insipid. From the further disadvantage of Lydia’s society she was of course carefully kept, and though Mrs. Wickham frequently invited her to come and stay with her, with the promise of balls and young men, her father would never consent to her going. Mary was the only daughter who remained at home; and she was necessarily drawn from the pursuit of accomplishments by Mrs. Bennet’s being quite unable to sit alone. Mary was obliged to mix more with the world, but she could still moralize over every morning visit; and as she was no longer mortified by comparisons between her sisters’ beauty and her own, it was suspected by her father that she submitted to the change without much reluctance. As for Wickham and Lydia, their characters suffered no revolution from the marriage of her sisters. He bore with philosophy the conviction that Elizabeth must now become acquainted with whatever of his ingratitude and falsehood had before been unknown to her; and in spite of every thing, was not wholly without hope that Darcy might yet be prevailed on to make his fortune. The congratulatory letter which Elizabeth received from Lydia on her marriage, explained to her that, by his wife at least, if not by himself, such a hope was cherished. The letter was to this effect: “My dear Lizzy, “I wish you joy. If you love Mr. Darcy half as well as I do my dear Wickham, you must be very happy. It is a great comfort to have you so rich, and when you have nothing else to do, I hope you will think of us. I am sure Wickham would like a place at court very much, and I do not think we shall have quite money enough to live upon without some help. Any place would do, of about three or four hundred a year; but however, do not speak to Mr. Darcy about it, if you had rather not. “Yours, etc.” As it happened that Elizabeth had much rather not, she endeavoured in her answer to put an end to every entreaty and expectation of the kind. Such relief, however, as it was in her power to afford, by the practice of what might be called economy in her own private expences, she frequently sent them. It had always been evident to her that such an income as theirs, under the direction of two persons so extravagant in their wants, and heedless of the future, must be very insufficient to their support; and whenever they changed their quarters, either Jane or herself were sure of being applied to for some little assistance towards discharging their bills. Their manner of living, even when the restoration of peace dismissed them to a home, was unsettled in the extreme. They were always moving from place to place in quest of a cheap situation, and always spending more than they ought. His affection for her soon sunk into indifference; hers lasted a little longer; and in spite of her youth and her manners, she retained all the claims to reputation which her marriage had given her. Though Darcy could never receive _him_ at Pemberley, yet, for Elizabeth’s sake, he assisted him further in his profession. Lydia was occasionally a visitor there, when her husband was gone to enjoy himself in London or Bath; and with the Bingleys they both of them frequently staid so long, that even Bingley’s good humour was overcome, and he proceeded so far as to _talk_ of giving them a hint to be gone. Miss Bingley was very deeply mortified by Darcy’s marriage; but as she thought it advisable to retain the right of visiting at Pemberley, she dropt all her resentment; was fonder than ever of Georgiana, almost as attentive to Darcy as heretofore, and paid off every arrear of civility to Elizabeth. Pemberley was now Georgiana’s home; and the attachment of the sisters was exactly what Darcy had hoped to see. They were able to love each other even as well as they intended. Georgiana had the highest opinion in the world of Elizabeth; though at first she often listened with an astonishment bordering on alarm at her lively, sportive, manner of talking to her brother. He, who had always inspired in herself a respect which almost overcame her affection, she now saw the object of open pleasantry. Her mind received knowledge which had never before fallen in her way. By Elizabeth’s instructions, she began to comprehend that a woman may take liberties with her husband which a brother will not always allow in a sister more than ten years younger than himself. Lady Catherine was extremely indignant on the marriage of her nephew; and as she gave way to all the genuine frankness of her character in her reply to the letter which announced its arrangement, she sent him language so very abusive, especially of Elizabeth, that for some time all intercourse was at an end. But at length, by Elizabeth’s persuasion, he was prevailed on to overlook the offence, and seek a reconciliation; and, after a little further resistance on the part of his aunt, her resentment gave way, either to her affection for him, or her curiosity to see how his wife conducted herself; and she condescended to wait on them at Pemberley, in spite of that pollution which its woods had received, not merely from the presence of such a mistress, but the visits of her uncle and aunt from the city. With the Gardiners, they were always on the most intimate terms. Darcy, as well as Elizabeth, really loved them; and they were both ever sensible of the warmest gratitude towards the persons who, by bringing her into Derbyshire, had been the means of uniting them. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PRIDE AND PREJUDICE *** Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: A Tale of Two Cities A Story of the French Revolution Author: Charles Dickens Release Date: January, 1994 [eBook #98] [Most recently updated: December 20, 2020] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 Produced by: Judith Boss and David Widger *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TALE OF TWO CITIES *** A TALE OF TWO CITIES A STORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION By Charles Dickens CONTENTS Book the First--Recalled to Life CHAPTER I The Period CHAPTER II The Mail CHAPTER III The Night Shadows CHAPTER IV The Preparation CHAPTER V The Wine-shop CHAPTER VI The Shoemaker Book the Second--the Golden Thread CHAPTER I Five Years Later CHAPTER II A Sight CHAPTER III A Disappointment CHAPTER IV Congratulatory CHAPTER V The Jackal CHAPTER VI Hundreds of People CHAPTER VII Monseigneur in Town CHAPTER VIII Monseigneur in the Country CHAPTER IX The Gorgon’s Head CHAPTER X Two Promises CHAPTER XI A Companion Picture CHAPTER XII The Fellow of Delicacy CHAPTER XIII The Fellow of no Delicacy CHAPTER XIV The Honest Tradesman CHAPTER XV Knitting CHAPTER XVI Still Knitting CHAPTER XVII One Night CHAPTER XVIII Nine Days CHAPTER XIX An Opinion CHAPTER XX A Plea CHAPTER XXI Echoing Footsteps CHAPTER XXII The Sea Still Rises CHAPTER XXIII Fire Rises CHAPTER XXIV Drawn to the Loadstone Rock Book the Third--the Track of a Storm CHAPTER I In Secret CHAPTER II The Grindstone CHAPTER III The Shadow CHAPTER IV Calm in Storm CHAPTER V The Wood-sawyer CHAPTER VI Triumph CHAPTER VII A Knock at the Door CHAPTER VIII A Hand at Cards CHAPTER IX The Game Made CHAPTER X The Substance of the Shadow CHAPTER XI Dusk CHAPTER XII Darkness CHAPTER XIII Fifty-two CHAPTER XIV The Knitting Done CHAPTER XV The Footsteps Die Out For Ever Book the First--Recalled to Life CHAPTER I. The Period It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. Mrs. Southcott had recently attained her five-and-twentieth blessed birthday, of whom a prophetic private in the Life Guards had heralded the sublime appearance by announcing that arrangements were made for the swallowing up of London and Westminster. Even the Cock-lane ghost had been laid only a round dozen of years, after rapping out its messages, as the spirits of this very year last past (supernaturally deficient in originality) rapped out theirs. Mere messages in the earthly order of events had lately come to the English Crown and People, from a congress of British subjects in America: which, strange to relate, have proved more important to the human race than any communications yet received through any of the chickens of the Cock-lane brood. France, less favoured on the whole as to matters spiritual than her sister of the shield and trident, rolled with exceeding smoothness down hill, making paper money and spending it. Under the guidance of her Christian pastors, she entertained herself, besides, with such humane achievements as sentencing a youth to have his hands cut off, his tongue torn out with pincers, and his body burned alive, because he had not kneeled down in the rain to do honour to a dirty procession of monks which passed within his view, at a distance of some fifty or sixty yards. It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrils of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. In England, there was scarcely an amount of order and protection to justify much national boasting. Daring burglaries by armed men, and highway robberies, took place in the capital itself every night; families were publicly cautioned not to go out of town without removing their furniture to upholsterers’ warehouses for security; the highwayman in the dark was a City tradesman in the light, and, being recognised and challenged by his fellow-tradesman whom he stopped in his character of “the Captain,” gallantly shot him through the head and rode away; the mail was waylaid by seven robbers, and the guard shot three dead, and then got shot dead himself by the other four, “in consequence of the failure of his ammunition:” after which the mail was robbed in peace; that magnificent potentate, the Lord Mayor of London, was made to stand and deliver on Turnham Green, by one highwayman, who despoiled the illustrious creature in sight of all his retinue; prisoners in London gaols fought battles with their turnkeys, and the majesty of the law fired blunderbusses in among them, loaded with rounds of shot and ball; thieves snipped off diamond crosses from the necks of noble lords at Court drawing-rooms; musketeers went into St. Giles’s, to search for contraband goods, and the mob fired on the musketeers, and the musketeers fired on the mob, and nobody thought any of these occurrences much out of the common way. In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer’s boy of sixpence. All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures--the creatures of this chronicle among the rest--along the roads that lay before them. CHAPTER II. The Mail It was the Dover road that lay, on a Friday night late in November, before the first of the persons with whom this history has business. The Dover road lay, as to him, beyond the Dover mail, as it lumbered up Shooter’s Hill. He walked up hill in the mire by the side of the mail, as the rest of the passengers did; not because they had the least relish for walking exercise, under the circumstances, but because the hill, and the harness, and the mud, and the mail, were all so heavy, that the horses had three times already come to a stop, besides once drawing the coach across the road, with the mutinous intent of taking it back to Blackheath. Reins and whip and coachman and guard, however, in combination, had read that article of war which forbade a purpose otherwise strongly in favour of the argument, that some brute animals are endued with Reason; and the team had capitulated and returned to their duty. With drooping heads and tremulous tails, they mashed their way through the thick mud, floundering and stumbling between whiles, as if they were falling to pieces at the larger joints. As often as the driver rested them and brought them to a stand, with a wary “Wo-ho! so-ho-then!” the near leader violently shook his head and everything upon it--like an unusually emphatic horse, denying that the coach could be got up the hill. Whenever the leader made this rattle, the passenger started, as a nervous passenger might, and was disturbed in mind. There was a steaming mist in all the hollows, and it had roamed in its forlornness up the hill, like an evil spirit, seeking rest and finding none. A clammy and intensely cold mist, it made its slow way through the air in ripples that visibly followed and overspread one another, as the waves of an unwholesome sea might do. It was dense enough to shut out everything from the light of the coach-lamps but these its own workings, and a few yards of road; and the reek of the labouring horses steamed into it, as if they had made it all. Two other passengers, besides the one, were plodding up the hill by the side of the mail. All three were wrapped to the cheekbones and over the ears, and wore jack-boots. Not one of the three could have said, from anything he saw, what either of the other two was like; and each was hidden under almost as many wrappers from the eyes of the mind, as from the eyes of the body, of his two companions. In those days, travellers were very shy of being confidential on a short notice, for anybody on the road might be a robber or in league with robbers. As to the latter, when every posting-house and ale-house could produce somebody in “the Captain’s” pay, ranging from the landlord to the lowest stable non-descript, it was the likeliest thing upon the cards. So the guard of the Dover mail thought to himself, that Friday night in November, one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, lumbering up Shooter’s Hill, as he stood on his own particular perch behind the mail, beating his feet, and keeping an eye and a hand on the arm-chest before him, where a loaded blunderbuss lay at the top of six or eight loaded horse-pistols, deposited on a substratum of cutlass. The Dover mail was in its usual genial position that the guard suspected the passengers, the passengers suspected one another and the guard, they all suspected everybody else, and the coachman was sure of nothing but the horses; as to which cattle he could with a clear conscience have taken his oath on the two Testaments that they were not fit for the journey. “Wo-ho!” said the coachman. “So, then! One more pull and you’re at the top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to get you to it!--Joe!” “Halloa!” the guard replied. “What o’clock do you make it, Joe?” “Ten minutes, good, past eleven.” “My blood!” ejaculated the vexed coachman, “and not atop of Shooter’s yet! Tst! Yah! Get on with you!” The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followed suit. Once more, the Dover mail struggled on, with the jack-boots of its passengers squashing along by its side. They had stopped when the coach stopped, and they kept close company with it. If any one of the three had had the hardihood to propose to another to walk on a little ahead into the mist and darkness, he would have put himself in a fair way of getting shot instantly as a highwayman. The last burst carried the mail to the summit of the hill. The horses stopped to breathe again, and the guard got down to skid the wheel for the descent, and open the coach-door to let the passengers in. “Tst! Joe!” cried the coachman in a warning voice, looking down from his box. “What do you say, Tom?” They both listened. “I say a horse at a canter coming up, Joe.” “_I_ say a horse at a gallop, Tom,” returned the guard, leaving his hold of the door, and mounting nimbly to his place. “Gentlemen! In the king’s name, all of you!” With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on the offensive. The passenger booked by this history, was on the coach-step, getting in; the two other passengers were close behind him, and about to follow. He remained on the step, half in the coach and half out of; they remained in the road below him. They all looked from the coachman to the guard, and from the guard to the coachman, and listened. The coachman looked back and the guard looked back, and even the emphatic leader pricked up his ears and looked back, without contradicting. The stillness consequent on the cessation of the rumbling and labouring of the coach, added to the stillness of the night, made it very quiet indeed. The panting of the horses communicated a tremulous motion to the coach, as if it were in a state of agitation. The hearts of the passengers beat loud enough perhaps to be heard; but at any rate, the quiet pause was audibly expressive of people out of breath, and holding the breath, and having the pulses quickened by expectation. The sound of a horse at a gallop came fast and furiously up the hill. “So-ho!” the guard sang out, as loud as he could roar. “Yo there! Stand! I shall fire!” The pace was suddenly checked, and, with much splashing and floundering, a man’s voice called from the mist, “Is that the Dover mail?” “Never you mind what it is!” the guard retorted. “What are you?” “_Is_ that the Dover mail?” “Why do you want to know?” “I want a passenger, if it is.” “What passenger?” “Mr. Jarvis Lorry.” Our booked passenger showed in a moment that it was his name. The guard, the coachman, and the two other passengers eyed him distrustfully. “Keep where you are,” the guard called to the voice in the mist, “because, if I should make a mistake, it could never be set right in your lifetime. Gentleman of the name of Lorry answer straight.” “What is the matter?” asked the passenger, then, with mildly quavering speech. “Who wants me? Is it Jerry?” (“I don’t like Jerry’s voice, if it is Jerry,” growled the guard to himself. “He’s hoarser than suits me, is Jerry.”) “Yes, Mr. Lorry.” “What is the matter?” “A despatch sent after you from over yonder. T. and Co.” “I know this messenger, guard,” said Mr. Lorry, getting down into the road--assisted from behind more swiftly than politely by the other two passengers, who immediately scrambled into the coach, shut the door, and pulled up the window. “He may come close; there’s nothing wrong.” “I hope there ain’t, but I can’t make so ‘Nation sure of that,” said the guard, in gruff soliloquy. “Hallo you!” “Well! And hallo you!” said Jerry, more hoarsely than before. “Come on at a footpace! d’ye mind me? And if you’ve got holsters to that saddle o’ yourn, don’t let me see your hand go nigh ’em. For I’m a devil at a quick mistake, and when I make one it takes the form of Lead. So now let’s look at you.” The figures of a horse and rider came slowly through the eddying mist, and came to the side of the mail, where the passenger stood. The rider stooped, and, casting up his eyes at the guard, handed the passenger a small folded paper. The rider’s horse was blown, and both horse and rider were covered with mud, from the hoofs of the horse to the hat of the man. “Guard!” said the passenger, in a tone of quiet business confidence. The watchful guard, with his right hand at the stock of his raised blunderbuss, his left at the barrel, and his eye on the horseman, answered curtly, “Sir.” “There is nothing to apprehend. I belong to Tellson’s Bank. You must know Tellson’s Bank in London. I am going to Paris on business. A crown to drink. I may read this?” “If so be as you’re quick, sir.” He opened it in the light of the coach-lamp on that side, and read--first to himself and then aloud: “‘Wait at Dover for Mam’selle.’ It’s not long, you see, guard. Jerry, say that my answer was, RECALLED TO LIFE.” Jerry started in his saddle. “That’s a Blazing strange answer, too,” said he, at his hoarsest. “Take that message back, and they will know that I received this, as well as if I wrote. Make the best of your way. Good night.” With those words the passenger opened the coach-door and got in; not at all assisted by his fellow-passengers, who had expeditiously secreted their watches and purses in their boots, and were now making a general pretence of being asleep. With no more definite purpose than to escape the hazard of originating any other kind of action. The coach lumbered on again, with heavier wreaths of mist closing round it as it began the descent. The guard soon replaced his blunderbuss in his arm-chest, and, having looked to the rest of its contents, and having looked to the supplementary pistols that he wore in his belt, looked to a smaller chest beneath his seat, in which there were a few smith’s tools, a couple of torches, and a tinder-box. For he was furnished with that completeness that if the coach-lamps had been blown and stormed out, which did occasionally happen, he had only to shut himself up inside, keep the flint and steel sparks well off the straw, and get a light with tolerable safety and ease (if he were lucky) in five minutes. “Tom!” softly over the coach roof. “Hallo, Joe.” “Did you hear the message?” “I did, Joe.” “What did you make of it, Tom?” “Nothing at all, Joe.” “That’s a coincidence, too,” the guard mused, “for I made the same of it myself.” Jerry, left alone in the mist and darkness, dismounted meanwhile, not only to ease his spent horse, but to wipe the mud from his face, and shake the wet out of his hat-brim, which might be capable of holding about half a gallon. After standing with the bridle over his heavily-splashed arm, until the wheels of the mail were no longer within hearing and the night was quite still again, he turned to walk down the hill. “After that there gallop from Temple Bar, old lady, I won’t trust your fore-legs till I get you on the level,” said this hoarse messenger, glancing at his mare. “‘Recalled to life.’ That’s a Blazing strange message. Much of that wouldn’t do for you, Jerry! I say, Jerry! You’d be in a Blazing bad way, if recalling to life was to come into fashion, Jerry!” CHAPTER III. The Night Shadows A wonderful fact to reflect upon, that every human creature is constituted to be that profound secret and mystery to every other. A solemn consideration, when I enter a great city by night, that every one of those darkly clustered houses encloses its own secret; that every room in every one of them encloses its own secret; that every beating heart in the hundreds of thousands of breasts there, is, in some of its imaginings, a secret to the heart nearest it! Something of the awfulness, even of Death itself, is referable to this. No more can I turn the leaves of this dear book that I loved, and vainly hope in time to read it all. No more can I look into the depths of this unfathomable water, wherein, as momentary lights glanced into it, I have had glimpses of buried treasure and other things submerged. It was appointed that the book should shut with a spring, for ever and for ever, when I had read but a page. It was appointed that the water should be locked in an eternal frost, when the light was playing on its surface, and I stood in ignorance on the shore. My friend is dead, my neighbour is dead, my love, the darling of my soul, is dead; it is the inexorable consolidation and perpetuation of the secret that was always in that individuality, and which I shall carry in mine to my life’s end. In any of the burial-places of this city through which I pass, is there a sleeper more inscrutable than its busy inhabitants are, in their innermost personality, to me, or than I am to them? As to this, his natural and not to be alienated inheritance, the messenger on horseback had exactly the same possessions as the King, the first Minister of State, or the richest merchant in London. So with the three passengers shut up in the narrow compass of one lumbering old mail coach; they were mysteries to one another, as complete as if each had been in his own coach and six, or his own coach and sixty, with the breadth of a county between him and the next. The messenger rode back at an easy trot, stopping pretty often at ale-houses by the way to drink, but evincing a tendency to keep his own counsel, and to keep his hat cocked over his eyes. He had eyes that assorted very well with that decoration, being of a surface black, with no depth in the colour or form, and much too near together--as if they were afraid of being found out in something, singly, if they kept too far apart. They had a sinister expression, under an old cocked-hat like a three-cornered spittoon, and over a great muffler for the chin and throat, which descended nearly to the wearer’s knees. When he stopped for drink, he moved this muffler with his left hand, only while he poured his liquor in with his right; as soon as that was done, he muffled again. “No, Jerry, no!” said the messenger, harping on one theme as he rode. “It wouldn’t do for you, Jerry. Jerry, you honest tradesman, it wouldn’t suit _your_ line of business! Recalled--! Bust me if I don’t think he’d been a drinking!” His message perplexed his mind to that degree that he was fain, several times, to take off his hat to scratch his head. Except on the crown, which was raggedly bald, he had stiff, black hair, standing jaggedly all over it, and growing down hill almost to his broad, blunt nose. It was so like Smith’s work, so much more like the top of a strongly spiked wall than a head of hair, that the best of players at leap-frog might have declined him, as the most dangerous man in the world to go over. While he trotted back with the message he was to deliver to the night watchman in his box at the door of Tellson’s Bank, by Temple Bar, who was to deliver it to greater authorities within, the shadows of the night took such shapes to him as arose out of the message, and took such shapes to the mare as arose out of _her_ private topics of uneasiness. They seemed to be numerous, for she shied at every shadow on the road. What time, the mail-coach lumbered, jolted, rattled, and bumped upon its tedious way, with its three fellow-inscrutables inside. To whom, likewise, the shadows of the night revealed themselves, in the forms their dozing eyes and wandering thoughts suggested. Tellson’s Bank had a run upon it in the mail. As the bank passenger--with an arm drawn through the leathern strap, which did what lay in it to keep him from pounding against the next passenger, and driving him into his corner, whenever the coach got a special jolt--nodded in his place, with half-shut eyes, the little coach-windows, and the coach-lamp dimly gleaming through them, and the bulky bundle of opposite passenger, became the bank, and did a great stroke of business. The rattle of the harness was the chink of money, and more drafts were honoured in five minutes than even Tellson’s, with all its foreign and home connection, ever paid in thrice the time. Then the strong-rooms underground, at Tellson’s, with such of their valuable stores and secrets as were known to the passenger (and it was not a little that he knew about them), opened before him, and he went in among them with the great keys and the feebly-burning candle, and found them safe, and strong, and sound, and still, just as he had last seen them. But, though the bank was almost always with him, and though the coach (in a confused way, like the presence of pain under an opiate) was always with him, there was another current of impression that never ceased to run, all through the night. He was on his way to dig some one out of a grave. Now, which of the multitude of faces that showed themselves before him was the true face of the buried person, the shadows of the night did not indicate; but they were all the faces of a man of five-and-forty by years, and they differed principally in the passions they expressed, and in the ghastliness of their worn and wasted state. Pride, contempt, defiance, stubbornness, submission, lamentation, succeeded one another; so did varieties of sunken cheek, cadaverous colour, emaciated hands and figures. But the face was in the main one face, and every head was prematurely white. A hundred times the dozing passenger inquired of this spectre: “Buried how long?” The answer was always the same: “Almost eighteen years.” “You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?” “Long ago.” “You know that you are recalled to life?” “They tell me so.” “I hope you care to live?” “I can’t say.” “Shall I show her to you? Will you come and see her?” The answers to this question were various and contradictory. Sometimes the broken reply was, “Wait! It would kill me if I saw her too soon.” Sometimes, it was given in a tender rain of tears, and then it was, “Take me to her.” Sometimes it was staring and bewildered, and then it was, “I don’t know her. I don’t understand.” After such imaginary discourse, the passenger in his fancy would dig, and dig, dig--now with a spade, now with a great key, now with his hands--to dig this wretched creature out. Got out at last, with earth hanging about his face and hair, he would suddenly fan away to dust. The passenger would then start to himself, and lower the window, to get the reality of mist and rain on his cheek. Yet even when his eyes were opened on the mist and rain, on the moving patch of light from the lamps, and the hedge at the roadside retreating by jerks, the night shadows outside the coach would fall into the train of the night shadows within. The real Banking-house by Temple Bar, the real business of the past day, the real strong rooms, the real express sent after him, and the real message returned, would all be there. Out of the midst of them, the ghostly face would rise, and he would accost it again. “Buried how long?” “Almost eighteen years.” “I hope you care to live?” “I can’t say.” Dig--dig--dig--until an impatient movement from one of the two passengers would admonish him to pull up the window, draw his arm securely through the leathern strap, and speculate upon the two slumbering forms, until his mind lost its hold of them, and they again slid away into the bank and the grave. “Buried how long?” “Almost eighteen years.” “You had abandoned all hope of being dug out?” “Long ago.” The words were still in his hearing as just spoken--distinctly in his hearing as ever spoken words had been in his life--when the weary passenger started to the consciousness of daylight, and found that the shadows of the night were gone. He lowered the window, and looked out at the rising sun. There was a ridge of ploughed land, with a plough upon it where it had been left last night when the horses were unyoked; beyond, a quiet coppice-wood, in which many leaves of burning red and golden yellow still remained upon the trees. Though the earth was cold and wet, the sky was clear, and the sun rose bright, placid, and beautiful. “Eighteen years!” said the passenger, looking at the sun. “Gracious Creator of day! To be buried alive for eighteen years!” CHAPTER IV. The Preparation When the mail got successfully to Dover, in the course of the forenoon, the head drawer at the Royal George Hotel opened the coach-door as his custom was. He did it with some flourish of ceremony, for a mail journey from London in winter was an achievement to congratulate an adventurous traveller upon. By that time, there was only one adventurous traveller left be congratulated: for the two others had been set down at their respective roadside destinations. The mildewy inside of the coach, with its damp and dirty straw, its disagreeable smell, and its obscurity, was rather like a larger dog-kennel. Mr. Lorry, the passenger, shaking himself out of it in chains of straw, a tangle of shaggy wrapper, flapping hat, and muddy legs, was rather like a larger sort of dog. “There will be a packet to Calais, tomorrow, drawer?” “Yes, sir, if the weather holds and the wind sets tolerable fair. The tide will serve pretty nicely at about two in the afternoon, sir. Bed, sir?” “I shall not go to bed till night; but I want a bedroom, and a barber.” “And then breakfast, sir? Yes, sir. That way, sir, if you please. Show Concord! Gentleman’s valise and hot water to Concord. Pull off gentleman’s boots in Concord. (You will find a fine sea-coal fire, sir.) Fetch barber to Concord. Stir about there, now, for Concord!” The Concord bed-chamber being always assigned to a passenger by the mail, and passengers by the mail being always heavily wrapped up from head to foot, the room had the odd interest for the establishment of the Royal George, that although but one kind of man was seen to go into it, all kinds and varieties of men came out of it. Consequently, another drawer, and two porters, and several maids and the landlady, were all loitering by accident at various points of the road between the Concord and the coffee-room, when a gentleman of sixty, formally dressed in a brown suit of clothes, pretty well worn, but very well kept, with large square cuffs and large flaps to the pockets, passed along on his way to his breakfast. The coffee-room had no other occupant, that forenoon, than the gentleman in brown. His breakfast-table was drawn before the fire, and as he sat, with its light shining on him, waiting for the meal, he sat so still, that he might have been sitting for his portrait. Very orderly and methodical he looked, with a hand on each knee, and a loud watch ticking a sonorous sermon under his flapped waist-coat, as though it pitted its gravity and longevity against the levity and evanescence of the brisk fire. He had a good leg, and was a little vain of it, for his brown stockings fitted sleek and close, and were of a fine texture; his shoes and buckles, too, though plain, were trim. He wore an odd little sleek crisp flaxen wig, setting very close to his head: which wig, it is to be presumed, was made of hair, but which looked far more as though it were spun from filaments of silk or glass. His linen, though not of a fineness in accordance with his stockings, was as white as the tops of the waves that broke upon the neighbouring beach, or the specks of sail that glinted in the sunlight far at sea. A face habitually suppressed and quieted, was still lighted up under the quaint wig by a pair of moist bright eyes that it must have cost their owner, in years gone by, some pains to drill to the composed and reserved expression of Tellson’s Bank. He had a healthy colour in his cheeks, and his face, though lined, bore few traces of anxiety. But, perhaps the confidential bachelor clerks in Tellson’s Bank were principally occupied with the cares of other people; and perhaps second-hand cares, like second-hand clothes, come easily off and on. Completing his resemblance to a man who was sitting for his portrait, Mr. Lorry dropped off to sleep. The arrival of his breakfast roused him, and he said to the drawer, as he moved his chair to it: “I wish accommodation prepared for a young lady who may come here at any time to-day. She may ask for Mr. Jarvis Lorry, or she may only ask for a gentleman from Tellson’s Bank. Please to let me know.” “Yes, sir. Tellson’s Bank in London, sir?” “Yes.” “Yes, sir. We have oftentimes the honour to entertain your gentlemen in their travelling backwards and forwards betwixt London and Paris, sir. A vast deal of travelling, sir, in Tellson and Company’s House.” “Yes. We are quite a French House, as well as an English one.” “Yes, sir. Not much in the habit of such travelling yourself, I think, sir?” “Not of late years. It is fifteen years since we--since I--came last from France.” “Indeed, sir? That was before my time here, sir. Before our people’s time here, sir. The George was in other hands at that time, sir.” “I believe so.” “But I would hold a pretty wager, sir, that a House like Tellson and Company was flourishing, a matter of fifty, not to speak of fifteen years ago?” “You might treble that, and say a hundred and fifty, yet not be far from the truth.” “Indeed, sir!” Rounding his mouth and both his eyes, as he stepped backward from the table, the waiter shifted his napkin from his right arm to his left, dropped into a comfortable attitude, and stood surveying the guest while he ate and drank, as from an observatory or watchtower. According to the immemorial usage of waiters in all ages. When Mr. Lorry had finished his breakfast, he went out for a stroll on the beach. The little narrow, crooked town of Dover hid itself away from the beach, and ran its head into the chalk cliffs, like a marine ostrich. The beach was a desert of heaps of sea and stones tumbling wildly about, and the sea did what it liked, and what it liked was destruction. It thundered at the town, and thundered at the cliffs, and brought the coast down, madly. The air among the houses was of so strong a piscatory flavour that one might have supposed sick fish went up to be dipped in it, as sick people went down to be dipped in the sea. A little fishing was done in the port, and a quantity of strolling about by night, and looking seaward: particularly at those times when the tide made, and was near flood. Small tradesmen, who did no business whatever, sometimes unaccountably realised large fortunes, and it was remarkable that nobody in the neighbourhood could endure a lamplighter. As the day declined into the afternoon, and the air, which had been at intervals clear enough to allow the French coast to be seen, became again charged with mist and vapour, Mr. Lorry’s thoughts seemed to cloud too. When it was dark, and he sat before the coffee-room fire, awaiting his dinner as he had awaited his breakfast, his mind was busily digging, digging, digging, in the live red coals. A bottle of good claret after dinner does a digger in the red coals no harm, otherwise than as it has a tendency to throw him out of work. Mr. Lorry had been idle a long time, and had just poured out his last glassful of wine with as complete an appearance of satisfaction as is ever to be found in an elderly gentleman of a fresh complexion who has got to the end of a bottle, when a rattling of wheels came up the narrow street, and rumbled into the inn-yard. He set down his glass untouched. “This is Mam’selle!” said he. In a very few minutes the waiter came in to announce that Miss Manette had arrived from London, and would be happy to see the gentleman from Tellson’s. “So soon?” Miss Manette had taken some refreshment on the road, and required none then, and was extremely anxious to see the gentleman from Tellson’s immediately, if it suited his pleasure and convenience. The gentleman from Tellson’s had nothing left for it but to empty his glass with an air of stolid desperation, settle his odd little flaxen wig at the ears, and follow the waiter to Miss Manette’s apartment. It was a large, dark room, furnished in a funereal manner with black horsehair, and loaded with heavy dark tables. These had been oiled and oiled, until the two tall candles on the table in the middle of the room were gloomily reflected on every leaf; as if _they_ were buried, in deep graves of black mahogany, and no light to speak of could be expected from them until they were dug out. The obscurity was so difficult to penetrate that Mr. Lorry, picking his way over the well-worn Turkey carpet, supposed Miss Manette to be, for the moment, in some adjacent room, until, having got past the two tall candles, he saw standing to receive him by the table between them and the fire, a young lady of not more than seventeen, in a riding-cloak, and still holding her straw travelling-hat by its ribbon in her hand. As his eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair, a pair of blue eyes that met his own with an inquiring look, and a forehead with a singular capacity (remembering how young and smooth it was), of rifting and knitting itself into an expression that was not quite one of perplexity, or wonder, or alarm, or merely of a bright fixed attention, though it included all the four expressions--as his eyes rested on these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him, of a child whom he had held in his arms on the passage across that very Channel, one cold time, when the hail drifted heavily and the sea ran high. The likeness passed away, like a breath along the surface of the gaunt pier-glass behind her, on the frame of which, a hospital procession of negro cupids, several headless and all cripples, were offering black baskets of Dead Sea fruit to black divinities of the feminine gender--and he made his formal bow to Miss Manette. “Pray take a seat, sir.” In a very clear and pleasant young voice; a little foreign in its accent, but a very little indeed. “I kiss your hand, miss,” said Mr. Lorry, with the manners of an earlier date, as he made his formal bow again, and took his seat. “I received a letter from the Bank, sir, yesterday, informing me that some intelligence--or discovery--” “The word is not material, miss; either word will do.” “--respecting the small property of my poor father, whom I never saw--so long dead--” Mr. Lorry moved in his chair, and cast a troubled look towards the hospital procession of negro cupids. As if _they_ had any help for anybody in their absurd baskets! “--rendered it necessary that I should go to Paris, there to communicate with a gentleman of the Bank, so good as to be despatched to Paris for the purpose.” “Myself.” “As I was prepared to hear, sir.” She curtseyed to him (young ladies made curtseys in those days), with a pretty desire to convey to him that she felt how much older and wiser he was than she. He made her another bow. “I replied to the Bank, sir, that as it was considered necessary, by those who know, and who are so kind as to advise me, that I should go to France, and that as I am an orphan and have no friend who could go with me, I should esteem it highly if I might be permitted to place myself, during the journey, under that worthy gentleman’s protection. The gentleman had left London, but I think a messenger was sent after him to beg the favour of his waiting for me here.” “I was happy,” said Mr. Lorry, “to be entrusted with the charge. I shall be more happy to execute it.” “Sir, I thank you indeed. I thank you very gratefully. It was told me by the Bank that the gentleman would explain to me the details of the business, and that I must prepare myself to find them of a surprising nature. I have done my best to prepare myself, and I naturally have a strong and eager interest to know what they are.” “Naturally,” said Mr. Lorry. “Yes--I--” After a pause, he added, again settling the crisp flaxen wig at the ears, “It is very difficult to begin.” He did not begin, but, in his indecision, met her glance. The young forehead lifted itself into that singular expression--but it was pretty and characteristic, besides being singular--and she raised her hand, as if with an involuntary action she caught at, or stayed some passing shadow. “Are you quite a stranger to me, sir?” “Am I not?” Mr. Lorry opened his hands, and extended them outwards with an argumentative smile. Between the eyebrows and just over the little feminine nose, the line of which was as delicate and fine as it was possible to be, the expression deepened itself as she took her seat thoughtfully in the chair by which she had hitherto remained standing. He watched her as she mused, and the moment she raised her eyes again, went on: “In your adopted country, I presume, I cannot do better than address you as a young English lady, Miss Manette?” “If you please, sir.” “Miss Manette, I am a man of business. I have a business charge to acquit myself of. In your reception of it, don’t heed me any more than if I was a speaking machine--truly, I am not much else. I will, with your leave, relate to you, miss, the story of one of our customers.” “Story!” He seemed wilfully to mistake the word she had repeated, when he added, in a hurry, “Yes, customers; in the banking business we usually call our connection our customers. He was a French gentleman; a scientific gentleman; a man of great acquirements--a Doctor.” “Not of Beauvais?” “Why, yes, of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentleman was of Beauvais. Like Monsieur Manette, your father, the gentleman was of repute in Paris. I had the honour of knowing him there. Our relations were business relations, but confidential. I was at that time in our French House, and had been--oh! twenty years.” “At that time--I may ask, at what time, sir?” “I speak, miss, of twenty years ago. He married--an English lady--and I was one of the trustees. His affairs, like the affairs of many other French gentlemen and French families, were entirely in Tellson’s hands. In a similar way I am, or I have been, trustee of one kind or other for scores of our customers. These are mere business relations, miss; there is no friendship in them, no particular interest, nothing like sentiment. I have passed from one to another, in the course of my business life, just as I pass from one of our customers to another in the course of my business day; in short, I have no feelings; I am a mere machine. To go on--” “But this is my father’s story, sir; and I begin to think”--the curiously roughened forehead was very intent upon him--“that when I was left an orphan through my mother’s surviving my father only two years, it was you who brought me to England. I am almost sure it was you.” Mr. Lorry took the hesitating little hand that confidingly advanced to take his, and he put it with some ceremony to his lips. He then conducted the young lady straightway to her chair again, and, holding the chair-back with his left hand, and using his right by turns to rub his chin, pull his wig at the ears, or point what he said, stood looking down into her face while she sat looking up into his. “Miss Manette, it _was_ I. And you will see how truly I spoke of myself just now, in saying I had no feelings, and that all the relations I hold with my fellow-creatures are mere business relations, when you reflect that I have never seen you since. No; you have been the ward of Tellson’s House since, and I have been busy with the other business of Tellson’s House since. Feelings! I have no time for them, no chance of them. I pass my whole life, miss, in turning an immense pecuniary Mangle.” After this odd description of his daily routine of employment, Mr. Lorry flattened his flaxen wig upon his head with both hands (which was most unnecessary, for nothing could be flatter than its shining surface was before), and resumed his former attitude. “So far, miss (as you have remarked), this is the story of your regretted father. Now comes the difference. If your father had not died when he did--Don’t be frightened! How you start!” She did, indeed, start. And she caught his wrist with both her hands. “Pray,” said Mr. Lorry, in a soothing tone, bringing his left hand from the back of the chair to lay it on the supplicatory fingers that clasped him in so violent a tremble: “pray control your agitation--a matter of business. As I was saying--” Her look so discomposed him that he stopped, wandered, and began anew: “As I was saying; if Monsieur Manette had not died; if he had suddenly and silently disappeared; if he had been spirited away; if it had not been difficult to guess to what dreadful place, though no art could trace him; if he had an enemy in some compatriot who could exercise a privilege that I in my own time have known the boldest people afraid to speak of in a whisper, across the water there; for instance, the privilege of filling up blank forms for the consignment of any one to the oblivion of a prison for any length of time; if his wife had implored the king, the queen, the court, the clergy, for any tidings of him, and all quite in vain;--then the history of your father would have been the history of this unfortunate gentleman, the Doctor of Beauvais.” “I entreat you to tell me more, sir.” “I will. I am going to. You can bear it?” “I can bear anything but the uncertainty you leave me in at this moment.” “You speak collectedly, and you--_are_ collected. That’s good!” (Though his manner was less satisfied than his words.) “A matter of business. Regard it as a matter of business--business that must be done. Now if this doctor’s wife, though a lady of great courage and spirit, had suffered so intensely from this cause before her little child was born--” “The little child was a daughter, sir.” “A daughter. A-a-matter of business--don’t be distressed. Miss, if the poor lady had suffered so intensely before her little child was born, that she came to the determination of sparing the poor child the inheritance of any part of the agony she had known the pains of, by rearing her in the belief that her father was dead--No, don’t kneel! In Heaven’s name why should you kneel to me!” “For the truth. O dear, good, compassionate sir, for the truth!” “A--a matter of business. You confuse me, and how can I transact business if I am confused? Let us be clear-headed. If you could kindly mention now, for instance, what nine times ninepence are, or how many shillings in twenty guineas, it would be so encouraging. I should be so much more at my ease about your state of mind.” Without directly answering to this appeal, she sat so still when he had very gently raised her, and the hands that had not ceased to clasp his wrists were so much more steady than they had been, that she communicated some reassurance to Mr. Jarvis Lorry. “That’s right, that’s right. Courage! Business! You have business before you; useful business. Miss Manette, your mother took this course with you. And when she died--I believe broken-hearted--having never slackened her unavailing search for your father, she left you, at two years old, to grow to be blooming, beautiful, and happy, without the dark cloud upon you of living in uncertainty whether your father soon wore his heart out in prison, or wasted there through many lingering years.” As he said the words he looked down, with an admiring pity, on the flowing golden hair; as if he pictured to himself that it might have been already tinged with grey. “You know that your parents had no great possession, and that what they had was secured to your mother and to you. There has been no new discovery, of money, or of any other property; but--” He felt his wrist held closer, and he stopped. The expression in the forehead, which had so particularly attracted his notice, and which was now immovable, had deepened into one of pain and horror. “But he has been--been found. He is alive. Greatly changed, it is too probable; almost a wreck, it is possible; though we will hope the best. Still, alive. Your father has been taken to the house of an old servant in Paris, and we are going there: I, to identify him if I can: you, to restore him to life, love, duty, rest, comfort.” A shiver ran through her frame, and from it through his. She said, in a low, distinct, awe-stricken voice, as if she were saying it in a dream, “I am going to see his Ghost! It will be his Ghost--not him!” Mr. Lorry quietly chafed the hands that held his arm. “There, there, there! See now, see now! The best and the worst are known to you, now. You are well on your way to the poor wronged gentleman, and, with a fair sea voyage, and a fair land journey, you will be soon at his dear side.” She repeated in the same tone, sunk to a whisper, “I have been free, I have been happy, yet his Ghost has never haunted me!” “Only one thing more,” said Mr. Lorry, laying stress upon it as a wholesome means of enforcing her attention: “he has been found under another name; his own, long forgotten or long concealed. It would be worse than useless now to inquire which; worse than useless to seek to know whether he has been for years overlooked, or always designedly held prisoner. It would be worse than useless now to make any inquiries, because it would be dangerous. Better not to mention the subject, anywhere or in any way, and to remove him--for a while at all events--out of France. Even I, safe as an Englishman, and even Tellson’s, important as they are to French credit, avoid all naming of the matter. I carry about me, not a scrap of writing openly referring to it. This is a secret service altogether. My credentials, entries, and memoranda, are all comprehended in the one line, ‘Recalled to Life;’ which may mean anything. But what is the matter! She doesn’t notice a word! Miss Manette!” Perfectly still and silent, and not even fallen back in her chair, she sat under his hand, utterly insensible; with her eyes open and fixed upon him, and with that last expression looking as if it were carved or branded into her forehead. So close was her hold upon his arm, that he feared to detach himself lest he should hurt her; therefore he called out loudly for assistance without moving. A wild-looking woman, whom even in his agitation, Mr. Lorry observed to be all of a red colour, and to have red hair, and to be dressed in some extraordinary tight-fitting fashion, and to have on her head a most wonderful bonnet like a Grenadier wooden measure, and good measure too, or a great Stilton cheese, came running into the room in advance of the inn servants, and soon settled the question of his detachment from the poor young lady, by laying a brawny hand upon his chest, and sending him flying back against the nearest wall. (“I really think this must be a man!” was Mr. Lorry’s breathless reflection, simultaneously with his coming against the wall.) “Why, look at you all!” bawled this figure, addressing the inn servants. “Why don’t you go and fetch things, instead of standing there staring at me? I am not so much to look at, am I? Why don’t you go and fetch things? I’ll let you know, if you don’t bring smelling-salts, cold water, and vinegar, quick, I will.” There was an immediate dispersal for these restoratives, and she softly laid the patient on a sofa, and tended her with great skill and gentleness: calling her “my precious!” and “my bird!” and spreading her golden hair aside over her shoulders with great pride and care. “And you in brown!” she said, indignantly turning to Mr. Lorry; “couldn’t you tell her what you had to tell her, without frightening her to death? Look at her, with her pretty pale face and her cold hands. Do you call _that_ being a Banker?” Mr. Lorry was so exceedingly disconcerted by a question so hard to answer, that he could only look on, at a distance, with much feebler sympathy and humility, while the strong woman, having banished the inn servants under the mysterious penalty of “letting them know” something not mentioned if they stayed there, staring, recovered her charge by a regular series of gradations, and coaxed her to lay her drooping head upon her shoulder. “I hope she will do well now,” said Mr. Lorry. “No thanks to you in brown, if she does. My darling pretty!” “I hope,” said Mr. Lorry, after another pause of feeble sympathy and humility, “that you accompany Miss Manette to France?” “A likely thing, too!” replied the strong woman. “If it was ever intended that I should go across salt water, do you suppose Providence would have cast my lot in an island?” This being another question hard to answer, Mr. Jarvis Lorry withdrew to consider it. CHAPTER V. The Wine-shop A large cask of wine had been dropped and broken, in the street. The accident had happened in getting it out of a cart; the cask had tumbled out with a run, the hoops had burst, and it lay on the stones just outside the door of the wine-shop, shattered like a walnut-shell. All the people within reach had suspended their business, or their idleness, to run to the spot and drink the wine. The rough, irregular stones of the street, pointing every way, and designed, one might have thought, expressly to lame all living creatures that approached them, had dammed it into little pools; these were surrounded, each by its own jostling group or crowd, according to its size. Some men kneeled down, made scoops of their two hands joined, and sipped, or tried to help women, who bent over their shoulders, to sip, before the wine had all run out between their fingers. Others, men and women, dipped in the puddles with little mugs of mutilated earthenware, or even with handkerchiefs from women’s heads, which were squeezed dry into infants’ mouths; others made small mud-embankments, to stem the wine as it ran; others, directed by lookers-on up at high windows, darted here and there, to cut off little streams of wine that started away in new directions; others devoted themselves to the sodden and lee-dyed pieces of the cask, licking, and even champing the moister wine-rotted fragments with eager relish. There was no drainage to carry off the wine, and not only did it all get taken up, but so much mud got taken up along with it, that there might have been a scavenger in the street, if anybody acquainted with it could have believed in such a miraculous presence. A shrill sound of laughter and of amused voices--voices of men, women, and children--resounded in the street while this wine game lasted. There was little roughness in the sport, and much playfulness. There was a special companionship in it, an observable inclination on the part of every one to join some other one, which led, especially among the luckier or lighter-hearted, to frolicsome embraces, drinking of healths, shaking of hands, and even joining of hands and dancing, a dozen together. When the wine was gone, and the places where it had been most abundant were raked into a gridiron-pattern by fingers, these demonstrations ceased, as suddenly as they had broken out. The man who had left his saw sticking in the firewood he was cutting, set it in motion again; the women who had left on a door-step the little pot of hot ashes, at which she had been trying to soften the pain in her own starved fingers and toes, or in those of her child, returned to it; men with bare arms, matted locks, and cadaverous faces, who had emerged into the winter light from cellars, moved away, to descend again; and a gloom gathered on the scene that appeared more natural to it than sunshine. The wine was red wine, and had stained the ground of the narrow street in the suburb of Saint Antoine, in Paris, where it was spilled. It had stained many hands, too, and many faces, and many naked feet, and many wooden shoes. The hands of the man who sawed the wood, left red marks on the billets; and the forehead of the woman who nursed her baby, was stained with the stain of the old rag she wound about her head again. Those who had been greedy with the staves of the cask, had acquired a tigerish smear about the mouth; and one tall joker so besmirched, his head more out of a long squalid bag of a nightcap than in it, scrawled upon a wall with his finger dipped in muddy wine-lees--BLOOD. The time was to come, when that wine too would be spilled on the street-stones, and when the stain of it would be red upon many there. And now that the cloud settled on Saint Antoine, which a momentary gleam had driven from his sacred countenance, the darkness of it was heavy--cold, dirt, sickness, ignorance, and want, were the lords in waiting on the saintly presence--nobles of great power all of them; but, most especially the last. Samples of a people that had undergone a terrible grinding and regrinding in the mill, and certainly not in the fabulous mill which ground old people young, shivered at every corner, passed in and out at every doorway, looked from every window, fluttered in every vestige of a garment that the wind shook. The mill which had worked them down, was the mill that grinds young people old; the children had ancient faces and grave voices; and upon them, and upon the grown faces, and ploughed into every furrow of age and coming up afresh, was the sigh, Hunger. It was prevalent everywhere. Hunger was pushed out of the tall houses, in the wretched clothing that hung upon poles and lines; Hunger was patched into them with straw and rag and wood and paper; Hunger was repeated in every fragment of the small modicum of firewood that the man sawed off; Hunger stared down from the smokeless chimneys, and started up from the filthy street that had no offal, among its refuse, of anything to eat. Hunger was the inscription on the baker’s shelves, written in every small loaf of his scanty stock of bad bread; at the sausage-shop, in every dead-dog preparation that was offered for sale. Hunger rattled its dry bones among the roasting chestnuts in the turned cylinder; Hunger was shred into atomics in every farthing porringer of husky chips of potato, fried with some reluctant drops of oil. Its abiding place was in all things fitted to it. A narrow winding street, full of offence and stench, with other narrow winding streets diverging, all peopled by rags and nightcaps, and all smelling of rags and nightcaps, and all visible things with a brooding look upon them that looked ill. In the hunted air of the people there was yet some wild-beast thought of the possibility of turning at bay. Depressed and slinking though they were, eyes of fire were not wanting among them; nor compressed lips, white with what they suppressed; nor foreheads knitted into the likeness of the gallows-rope they mused about enduring, or inflicting. The trade signs (and they were almost as many as the shops) were, all, grim illustrations of Want. The butcher and the porkman painted up, only the leanest scrags of meat; the baker, the coarsest of meagre loaves. The people rudely pictured as drinking in the wine-shops, croaked over their scanty measures of thin wine and beer, and were gloweringly confidential together. Nothing was represented in a flourishing condition, save tools and weapons; but, the cutler’s knives and axes were sharp and bright, the smith’s hammers were heavy, and the gunmaker’s stock was murderous. The crippling stones of the pavement, with their many little reservoirs of mud and water, had no footways, but broke off abruptly at the doors. The kennel, to make amends, ran down the middle of the street--when it ran at all: which was only after heavy rains, and then it ran, by many eccentric fits, into the houses. Across the streets, at wide intervals, one clumsy lamp was slung by a rope and pulley; at night, when the lamplighter had let these down, and lighted, and hoisted them again, a feeble grove of dim wicks swung in a sickly manner overhead, as if they were at sea. Indeed they were at sea, and the ship and crew were in peril of tempest. For, the time was to come, when the gaunt scarecrows of that region should have watched the lamplighter, in their idleness and hunger, so long, as to conceive the idea of improving on his method, and hauling up men by those ropes and pulleys, to flare upon the darkness of their condition. But, the time was not come yet; and every wind that blew over France shook the rags of the scarecrows in vain, for the birds, fine of song and feather, took no warning. The wine-shop was a corner shop, better than most others in its appearance and degree, and the master of the wine-shop had stood outside it, in a yellow waistcoat and green breeches, looking on at the struggle for the lost wine. “It’s not my affair,” said he, with a final shrug of the shoulders. “The people from the market did it. Let them bring another.” There, his eyes happening to catch the tall joker writing up his joke, he called to him across the way: “Say, then, my Gaspard, what do you do there?” The fellow pointed to his joke with immense significance, as is often the way with his tribe. It missed its mark, and completely failed, as is often the way with his tribe too. “What now? Are you a subject for the mad hospital?” said the wine-shop keeper, crossing the road, and obliterating the jest with a handful of mud, picked up for the purpose, and smeared over it. “Why do you write in the public streets? Is there--tell me thou--is there no other place to write such words in?” In his expostulation he dropped his cleaner hand (perhaps accidentally, perhaps not) upon the joker’s heart. The joker rapped it with his own, took a nimble spring upward, and came down in a fantastic dancing attitude, with one of his stained shoes jerked off his foot into his hand, and held out. A joker of an extremely, not to say wolfishly practical character, he looked, under those circumstances. “Put it on, put it on,” said the other. “Call wine, wine; and finish there.” With that advice, he wiped his soiled hand upon the joker’s dress, such as it was--quite deliberately, as having dirtied the hand on his account; and then recrossed the road and entered the wine-shop. This wine-shop keeper was a bull-necked, martial-looking man of thirty, and he should have been of a hot temperament, for, although it was a bitter day, he wore no coat, but carried one slung over his shoulder. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, too, and his brown arms were bare to the elbows. Neither did he wear anything more on his head than his own crisply-curling short dark hair. He was a dark man altogether, with good eyes and a good bold breadth between them. Good-humoured looking on the whole, but implacable-looking, too; evidently a man of a strong resolution and a set purpose; a man not desirable to be met, rushing down a narrow pass with a gulf on either side, for nothing would turn the man. Madame Defarge, his wife, sat in the shop behind the counter as he came in. Madame Defarge was a stout woman of about his own age, with a watchful eye that seldom seemed to look at anything, a large hand heavily ringed, a steady face, strong features, and great composure of manner. There was a character about Madame Defarge, from which one might have predicated that she did not often make mistakes against herself in any of the reckonings over which she presided. Madame Defarge being sensitive to cold, was wrapped in fur, and had a quantity of bright shawl twined about her head, though not to the concealment of her large earrings. Her knitting was before her, but she had laid it down to pick her teeth with a toothpick. Thus engaged, with her right elbow supported by her left hand, Madame Defarge said nothing when her lord came in, but coughed just one grain of cough. This, in combination with the lifting of her darkly defined eyebrows over her toothpick by the breadth of a line, suggested to her husband that he would do well to look round the shop among the customers, for any new customer who had dropped in while he stepped over the way. The wine-shop keeper accordingly rolled his eyes about, until they rested upon an elderly gentleman and a young lady, who were seated in a corner. Other company were there: two playing cards, two playing dominoes, three standing by the counter lengthening out a short supply of wine. As he passed behind the counter, he took notice that the elderly gentleman said in a look to the young lady, “This is our man.” “What the devil do _you_ do in that galley there?” said Monsieur Defarge to himself; “I don’t know you.” But, he feigned not to notice the two strangers, and fell into discourse with the triumvirate of customers who were drinking at the counter. “How goes it, Jacques?” said one of these three to Monsieur Defarge. “Is all the spilt wine swallowed?” “Every drop, Jacques,” answered Monsieur Defarge. When this interchange of Christian name was effected, Madame Defarge, picking her teeth with her toothpick, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. “It is not often,” said the second of the three, addressing Monsieur Defarge, “that many of these miserable beasts know the taste of wine, or of anything but black bread and death. Is it not so, Jacques?” “It is so, Jacques,” Monsieur Defarge returned. At this second interchange of the Christian name, Madame Defarge, still using her toothpick with profound composure, coughed another grain of cough, and raised her eyebrows by the breadth of another line. The last of the three now said his say, as he put down his empty drinking vessel and smacked his lips. “Ah! So much the worse! A bitter taste it is that such poor cattle always have in their mouths, and hard lives they live, Jacques. Am I right, Jacques?” “You are right, Jacques,” was the response of Monsieur Defarge. This third interchange of the Christian name was completed at the moment when Madame Defarge put her toothpick by, kept her eyebrows up, and slightly rustled in her seat. “Hold then! True!” muttered her husband. “Gentlemen--my wife!” The three customers pulled off their hats to Madame Defarge, with three flourishes. She acknowledged their homage by bending her head, and giving them a quick look. Then she glanced in a casual manner round the wine-shop, took up her knitting with great apparent calmness and repose of spirit, and became absorbed in it. “Gentlemen,” said her husband, who had kept his bright eye observantly upon her, “good day. The chamber, furnished bachelor-fashion, that you wished to see, and were inquiring for when I stepped out, is on the fifth floor. The doorway of the staircase gives on the little courtyard close to the left here,” pointing with his hand, “near to the window of my establishment. But, now that I remember, one of you has already been there, and can show the way. Gentlemen, adieu!” They paid for their wine, and left the place. The eyes of Monsieur Defarge were studying his wife at her knitting when the elderly gentleman advanced from his corner, and begged the favour of a word. “Willingly, sir,” said Monsieur Defarge, and quietly stepped with him to the door. Their conference was very short, but very decided. Almost at the first word, Monsieur Defarge started and became deeply attentive. It had not lasted a minute, when he nodded and went out. The gentleman then beckoned to the young lady, and they, too, went out. Madame Defarge knitted with nimble fingers and steady eyebrows, and saw nothing. Mr. Jarvis Lorry and Miss Manette, emerging from the wine-shop thus, joined Monsieur Defarge in the doorway to which he had directed his own company just before. It opened from a stinking little black courtyard, and was the general public entrance to a great pile of houses, inhabited by a great number of people. In the gloomy tile-paved entry to the gloomy tile-paved staircase, Monsieur Defarge bent down on one knee to the child of his old master, and put her hand to his lips. It was a gentle action, but not at all gently done; a very remarkable transformation had come over him in a few seconds. He had no good-humour in his face, nor any openness of aspect left, but had become a secret, angry, dangerous man. “It is very high; it is a little difficult. Better to begin slowly.” Thus, Monsieur Defarge, in a stern voice, to Mr. Lorry, as they began ascending the stairs. “Is he alone?” the latter whispered. “Alone! God help him, who should be with him!” said the other, in the same low voice. “Is he always alone, then?” “Yes.” “Of his own desire?” “Of his own necessity. As he was, when I first saw him after they found me and demanded to know if I would take him, and, at my peril be discreet--as he was then, so he is now.” “He is greatly changed?” “Changed!” The keeper of the wine-shop stopped to strike the wall with his hand, and mutter a tremendous curse. No direct answer could have been half so forcible. Mr. Lorry’s spirits grew heavier and heavier, as he and his two companions ascended higher and higher. Such a staircase, with its accessories, in the older and more crowded parts of Paris, would be bad enough now; but, at that time, it was vile indeed to unaccustomed and unhardened senses. Every little habitation within the great foul nest of one high building--that is to say, the room or rooms within every door that opened on the general staircase--left its own heap of refuse on its own landing, besides flinging other refuse from its own windows. The uncontrollable and hopeless mass of decomposition so engendered, would have polluted the air, even if poverty and deprivation had not loaded it with their intangible impurities; the two bad sources combined made it almost insupportable. Through such an atmosphere, by a steep dark shaft of dirt and poison, the way lay. Yielding to his own disturbance of mind, and to his young companion’s agitation, which became greater every instant, Mr. Jarvis Lorry twice stopped to rest. Each of these stoppages was made at a doleful grating, by which any languishing good airs that were left uncorrupted, seemed to escape, and all spoilt and sickly vapours seemed to crawl in. Through the rusted bars, tastes, rather than glimpses, were caught of the jumbled neighbourhood; and nothing within range, nearer or lower than the summits of the two great towers of Notre-Dame, had any promise on it of healthy life or wholesome aspirations. At last, the top of the staircase was gained, and they stopped for the third time. There was yet an upper staircase, of a steeper inclination and of contracted dimensions, to be ascended, before the garret story was reached. The keeper of the wine-shop, always going a little in advance, and always going on the side which Mr. Lorry took, as though he dreaded to be asked any question by the young lady, turned himself about here, and, carefully feeling in the pockets of the coat he carried over his shoulder, took out a key. “The door is locked then, my friend?” said Mr. Lorry, surprised. “Ay. Yes,” was the grim reply of Monsieur Defarge. “You think it necessary to keep the unfortunate gentleman so retired?” “I think it necessary to turn the key.” Monsieur Defarge whispered it closer in his ear, and frowned heavily. “Why?” “Why! Because he has lived so long, locked up, that he would be frightened--rave--tear himself to pieces--die--come to I know not what harm--if his door was left open.” “Is it possible!” exclaimed Mr. Lorry. “Is it possible!” repeated Defarge, bitterly. “Yes. And a beautiful world we live in, when it _is_ possible, and when many other such things are possible, and not only possible, but done--done, see you!--under that sky there, every day. Long live the Devil. Let us go on.” This dialogue had been held in so very low a whisper, that not a word of it had reached the young lady’s ears. But, by this time she trembled under such strong emotion, and her face expressed such deep anxiety, and, above all, such dread and terror, that Mr. Lorry felt it incumbent on him to speak a word or two of reassurance. “Courage, dear miss! Courage! Business! The worst will be over in a moment; it is but passing the room-door, and the worst is over. Then, all the good you bring to him, all the relief, all the happiness you bring to him, begin. Let our good friend here, assist you on that side. That’s well, friend Defarge. Come, now. Business, business!” They went up slowly and softly. The staircase was short, and they were soon at the top. There, as it had an abrupt turn in it, they came all at once in sight of three men, whose heads were bent down close together at the side of a door, and who were intently looking into the room to which the door belonged, through some chinks or holes in the wall. On hearing footsteps close at hand, these three turned, and rose, and showed themselves to be the three of one name who had been drinking in the wine-shop. “I forgot them in the surprise of your visit,” explained Monsieur Defarge. “Leave us, good boys; we have business here.” The three glided by, and went silently down. There appearing to be no other door on that floor, and the keeper of the wine-shop going straight to this one when they were left alone, Mr. Lorry asked him in a whisper, with a little anger: “Do you make a show of Monsieur Manette?” “I show him, in the way you have seen, to a chosen few.” “Is that well?” “_I_ think it is well.” “Who are the few? How do you choose them?” “I choose them as real men, of my name--Jacques is my name--to whom the sight is likely to do good. Enough; you are English; that is another thing. Stay there, if you please, a little moment.” With an admonitory gesture to keep them back, he stooped, and looked in through the crevice in the wall. Soon raising his head again, he struck twice or thrice upon the door--evidently with no other object than to make a noise there. With the same intention, he drew the key across it, three or four times, before he put it clumsily into the lock, and turned it as heavily as he could. The door slowly opened inward under his hand, and he looked into the room and said something. A faint voice answered something. Little more than a single syllable could have been spoken on either side. He looked back over his shoulder, and beckoned them to enter. Mr. Lorry got his arm securely round the daughter’s waist, and held her; for he felt that she was sinking. “A-a-a-business, business!” he urged, with a moisture that was not of business shining on his cheek. “Come in, come in!” “I am afraid of it,” she answered, shuddering. “Of it? What?” “I mean of him. Of my father.” Rendered in a manner desperate, by her state and by the beckoning of their conductor, he drew over his neck the arm that shook upon his shoulder, lifted her a little, and hurried her into the room. He sat her down just within the door, and held her, clinging to him. Defarge drew out the key, closed the door, locked it on the inside, took out the key again, and held it in his hand. All this he did, methodically, and with as loud and harsh an accompaniment of noise as he could make. Finally, he walked across the room with a measured tread to where the window was. He stopped there, and faced round. The garret, built to be a depository for firewood and the like, was dim and dark: for, the window of dormer shape, was in truth a door in the roof, with a little crane over it for the hoisting up of stores from the street: unglazed, and closing up the middle in two pieces, like any other door of French construction. To exclude the cold, one half of this door was fast closed, and the other was opened but a very little way. Such a scanty portion of light was admitted through these means, that it was difficult, on first coming in, to see anything; and long habit alone could have slowly formed in any one, the ability to do any work requiring nicety in such obscurity. Yet, work of that kind was being done in the garret; for, with his back towards the door, and his face towards the window where the keeper of the wine-shop stood looking at him, a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes. CHAPTER VI. The Shoemaker “Good day!” said Monsieur Defarge, looking down at the white head that bent low over the shoemaking. It was raised for a moment, and a very faint voice responded to the salutation, as if it were at a distance: “Good day!” “You are still hard at work, I see?” After a long silence, the head was lifted for another moment, and the voice replied, “Yes--I am working.” This time, a pair of haggard eyes had looked at the questioner, before the face had dropped again. The faintness of the voice was pitiable and dreadful. It was not the faintness of physical weakness, though confinement and hard fare no doubt had their part in it. Its deplorable peculiarity was, that it was the faintness of solitude and disuse. It was like the last feeble echo of a sound made long and long ago. So entirely had it lost the life and resonance of the human voice, that it affected the senses like a once beautiful colour faded away into a poor weak stain. So sunken and suppressed it was, that it was like a voice underground. So expressive it was, of a hopeless and lost creature, that a famished traveller, wearied out by lonely wandering in a wilderness, would have remembered home and friends in such a tone before lying down to die. Some minutes of silent work had passed: and the haggard eyes had looked up again: not with any interest or curiosity, but with a dull mechanical perception, beforehand, that the spot where the only visitor they were aware of had stood, was not yet empty. “I want,” said Defarge, who had not removed his gaze from the shoemaker, “to let in a little more light here. You can bear a little more?” The shoemaker stopped his work; looked with a vacant air of listening, at the floor on one side of him; then similarly, at the floor on the other side of him; then, upward at the speaker. “What did you say?” “You can bear a little more light?” “I must bear it, if you let it in.” (Laying the palest shadow of a stress upon the second word.) The opened half-door was opened a little further, and secured at that angle for the time. A broad ray of light fell into the garret, and showed the workman with an unfinished shoe upon his lap, pausing in his labour. His few common tools and various scraps of leather were at his feet and on his bench. He had a white beard, raggedly cut, but not very long, a hollow face, and exceedingly bright eyes. The hollowness and thinness of his face would have caused them to look large, under his yet dark eyebrows and his confused white hair, though they had been really otherwise; but, they were naturally large, and looked unnaturally so. His yellow rags of shirt lay open at the throat, and showed his body to be withered and worn. He, and his old canvas frock, and his loose stockings, and all his poor tatters of clothes, had, in a long seclusion from direct light and air, faded down to such a dull uniformity of parchment-yellow, that it would have been hard to say which was which. He had put up a hand between his eyes and the light, and the very bones of it seemed transparent. So he sat, with a steadfastly vacant gaze, pausing in his work. He never looked at the figure before him, without first looking down on this side of himself, then on that, as if he had lost the habit of associating place with sound; he never spoke, without first wandering in this manner, and forgetting to speak. “Are you going to finish that pair of shoes to-day?” asked Defarge, motioning to Mr. Lorry to come forward. “What did you say?” “Do you mean to finish that pair of shoes to-day?” “I can’t say that I mean to. I suppose so. I don’t know.” But, the question reminded him of his work, and he bent over it again. Mr. Lorry came silently forward, leaving the daughter by the door. When he had stood, for a minute or two, by the side of Defarge, the shoemaker looked up. He showed no surprise at seeing another figure, but the unsteady fingers of one of his hands strayed to his lips as he looked at it (his lips and his nails were of the same pale lead-colour), and then the hand dropped to his work, and he once more bent over the shoe. The look and the action had occupied but an instant. “You have a visitor, you see,” said Monsieur Defarge. “What did you say?” “Here is a visitor.” The shoemaker looked up as before, but without removing a hand from his work. “Come!” said Defarge. “Here is monsieur, who knows a well-made shoe when he sees one. Show him that shoe you are working at. Take it, monsieur.” Mr. Lorry took it in his hand. “Tell monsieur what kind of shoe it is, and the maker’s name.” There was a longer pause than usual, before the shoemaker replied: “I forget what it was you asked me. What did you say?” “I said, couldn’t you describe the kind of shoe, for monsieur’s information?” “It is a lady’s shoe. It is a young lady’s walking-shoe. It is in the present mode. I never saw the mode. I have had a pattern in my hand.” He glanced at the shoe with some little passing touch of pride. “And the maker’s name?” said Defarge. Now that he had no work to hold, he laid the knuckles of the right hand in the hollow of the left, and then the knuckles of the left hand in the hollow of the right, and then passed a hand across his bearded chin, and so on in regular changes, without a moment’s intermission. The task of recalling him from the vagrancy into which he always sank when he had spoken, was like recalling some very weak person from a swoon, or endeavouring, in the hope of some disclosure, to stay the spirit of a fast-dying man. “Did you ask me for my name?” “Assuredly I did.” “One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” “Is that all?” “One Hundred and Five, North Tower.” With a weary sound that was not a sigh, nor a groan, he bent to work again, until the silence was again broken. “You are not a shoemaker by trade?” said Mr. Lorry, looking steadfastly at him. His haggard eyes turned to Defarge as if he would have transferred the question to him: but as no help came from that quarter, they turned back on the questioner when they had sought the ground. “I am not a shoemaker by trade? No, I was not a shoemaker by trade. I-I learnt it here. I taught myself. I asked leave to--” He lapsed away, even for minutes, ringing those measured changes on his hands the whole time. His eyes came slowly back, at last, to the face from which they had wandered; when they rested on it, he started, and resumed, in the manner of a sleeper that moment awake, reverting to a subject of last night. “I asked leave to teach myself, and I got it with much difficulty after a long while, and I have made shoes ever since.” As he held out his hand for the shoe that had been taken from him, Mr. Lorry said, still looking steadfastly in his face: “Monsieur Manette, do you remember nothing of me?” The shoe dropped to the ground, and he sat looking fixedly at the questioner. “Monsieur Manette”; Mr. Lorry laid his hand upon Defarge’s arm; “do you remember nothing of this man? Look at him. Look at me. Is there no old banker, no old business, no old servant, no old time, rising in your mind, Monsieur Manette?” As the captive of many years sat looking fixedly, by turns, at Mr. Lorry and at Defarge, some long obliterated marks of an actively intent intelligence in the middle of the forehead, gradually forced themselves through the black mist that had fallen on him. They were overclouded again, they were fainter, they were gone; but they had been there. And so exactly was the expression repeated on the fair young face of her who had crept along the wall to a point where she could see him, and where she now stood looking at him, with hands which at first had been only raised in frightened compassion, if not even to keep him off and shut out the sight of him, but which were now extending towards him, trembling with eagerness to lay the spectral face upon her warm young breast, and love it back to life and hope--so exactly was the expression repeated (though in stronger characters) on her fair young face, that it looked as though it had passed like a moving light, from him to her. Darkness had fallen on him in its place. He looked at the two, less and less attentively, and his eyes in gloomy abstraction sought the ground and looked about him in the old way. Finally, with a deep long sigh, he took the shoe up, and resumed his work. “Have you recognised him, monsieur?” asked Defarge in a whisper. “Yes; for a moment. At first I thought it quite hopeless, but I have unquestionably seen, for a single moment, the face that I once knew so well. Hush! Let us draw further back. Hush!” She had moved from the wall of the garret, very near to the bench on which he sat. There was something awful in his unconsciousness of the figure that could have put out its hand and touched him as he stooped over his labour. Not a word was spoken, not a sound was made. She stood, like a spirit, beside him, and he bent over his work. It happened, at length, that he had occasion to change the instrument in his hand, for his shoemaker’s knife. It lay on that side of him which was not the side on which she stood. He had taken it up, and was stooping to work again, when his eyes caught the skirt of her dress. He raised them, and saw her face. The two spectators started forward, but she stayed them with a motion of her hand. She had no fear of his striking at her with the knife, though they had. He stared at her with a fearful look, and after a while his lips began to form some words, though no sound proceeded from them. By degrees, in the pauses of his quick and laboured breathing, he was heard to say: “What is this?” With the tears streaming down her face, she put her two hands to her lips, and kissed them to him; then clasped them on her breast, as if she laid his ruined head there. “You are not the gaoler’s daughter?” She sighed “No.” “Who are you?” Not yet trusting the tones of her voice, she sat down on the bench beside him. He recoiled, but she laid her hand upon his arm. A strange thrill struck him when she did so, and visibly passed over his frame; he laid the knife down softly, as he sat staring at her. Her golden hair, which she wore in long curls, had been hurriedly pushed aside, and fell down over her neck. Advancing his hand by little and little, he took it up and looked at it. In the midst of the action he went astray, and, with another deep sigh, fell to work at his shoemaking. But not for long. Releasing his arm, she laid her hand upon his shoulder. After looking doubtfully at it, two or three times, as if to be sure that it was really there, he laid down his work, put his hand to his neck, and took off a blackened string with a scrap of folded rag attached to it. He opened this, carefully, on his knee, and it contained a very little quantity of hair: not more than one or two long golden hairs, which he had, in some old day, wound off upon his finger. He took her hair into his hand again, and looked closely at it. “It is the same. How can it be! When was it! How was it!” As the concentrated expression returned to his forehead, he seemed to become conscious that it was in hers too. He turned her full to the light, and looked at her. “She had laid her head upon my shoulder, that night when I was summoned out--she had a fear of my going, though I had none--and when I was brought to the North Tower they found these upon my sleeve. ‘You will leave me them? They can never help me to escape in the body, though they may in the spirit.’ Those were the words I said. I remember them very well.” He formed this speech with his lips many times before he could utter it. But when he did find spoken words for it, they came to him coherently, though slowly. “How was this?--_Was it you_?” Once more, the two spectators started, as he turned upon her with a frightful suddenness. But she sat perfectly still in his grasp, and only said, in a low voice, “I entreat you, good gentlemen, do not come near us, do not speak, do not move!” “Hark!” he exclaimed. “Whose voice was that?” His hands released her as he uttered this cry, and went up to his white hair, which they tore in a frenzy. It died out, as everything but his shoemaking did die out of him, and he refolded his little packet and tried to secure it in his breast; but he still looked at her, and gloomily shook his head. “No, no, no; you are too young, too blooming. It can’t be. See what the prisoner is. These are not the hands she knew, this is not the face she knew, this is not a voice she ever heard. No, no. She was--and He was--before the slow years of the North Tower--ages ago. What is your name, my gentle angel?” Hailing his softened tone and manner, his daughter fell upon her knees before him, with her appealing hands upon his breast. “O, sir, at another time you shall know my name, and who my mother was, and who my father, and how I never knew their hard, hard history. But I cannot tell you at this time, and I cannot tell you here. All that I may tell you, here and now, is, that I pray to you to touch me and to bless me. Kiss me, kiss me! O my dear, my dear!” His cold white head mingled with her radiant hair, which warmed and lighted it as though it were the light of Freedom shining on him. “If you hear in my voice--I don’t know that it is so, but I hope it is--if you hear in my voice any resemblance to a voice that once was sweet music in your ears, weep for it, weep for it! If you touch, in touching my hair, anything that recalls a beloved head that lay on your breast when you were young and free, weep for it, weep for it! If, when I hint to you of a Home that is before us, where I will be true to you with all my duty and with all my faithful service, I bring back the remembrance of a Home long desolate, while your poor heart pined away, weep for it, weep for it!” She held him closer round the neck, and rocked him on her breast like a child. “If, when I tell you, dearest dear, that your agony is over, and that I have come here to take you from it, and that we go to England to be at peace and at rest, I cause you to think of your useful life laid waste, and of our native France so wicked to you, weep for it, weep for it! And if, when I shall tell you of my name, and of my father who is living, and of my mother who is dead, you learn that I have to kneel to my honoured father, and implore his pardon for having never for his sake striven all day and lain awake and wept all night, because the love of my poor mother hid his torture from me, weep for it, weep for it! Weep for her, then, and for me! Good gentlemen, thank God! I feel his sacred tears upon my face, and his sobs strike against my heart. O, see! Thank God for us, thank God!” He had sunk in her arms, and his face dropped on her breast: a sight so touching, yet so terrible in the tremendous wrong and suffering which had gone before it, that the two beholders covered their faces. When the quiet of the garret had been long undisturbed, and his heaving breast and shaken form had long yielded to the calm that must follow all storms--emblem to humanity, of the rest and silence into which the storm called Life must hush at last--they came forward to raise the father and daughter from the ground. He had gradually dropped to the floor, and lay there in a lethargy, worn out. She had nestled down with him, that his head might lie upon her arm; and her hair drooping over him curtained him from the light. “If, without disturbing him,” she said, raising her hand to Mr. Lorry as he stooped over them, after repeated blowings of his nose, “all could be arranged for our leaving Paris at once, so that, from the very door, he could be taken away--” “But, consider. Is he fit for the journey?” asked Mr. Lorry. “More fit for that, I think, than to remain in this city, so dreadful to him.” “It is true,” said Defarge, who was kneeling to look on and hear. “More than that; Monsieur Manette is, for all reasons, best out of France. Say, shall I hire a carriage and post-horses?” “That’s business,” said Mr. Lorry, resuming on the shortest notice his methodical manners; “and if business is to be done, I had better do it.” “Then be so kind,” urged Miss Manette, “as to leave us here. You see how composed he has become, and you cannot be afraid to leave him with me now. Why should you be? If you will lock the door to secure us from interruption, I do not doubt that you will find him, when you come back, as quiet as you leave him. In any case, I will take care of him until you return, and then we will remove him straight.” Both Mr. Lorry and Defarge were rather disinclined to this course, and in favour of one of them remaining. But, as there were not only carriage and horses to be seen to, but travelling papers; and as time pressed, for the day was drawing to an end, it came at last to their hastily dividing the business that was necessary to be done, and hurrying away to do it. Then, as the darkness closed in, the daughter laid her head down on the hard ground close at the father’s side, and watched him. The darkness deepened and deepened, and they both lay quiet, until a light gleamed through the chinks in the wall. Mr. Lorry and Monsieur Defarge had made all ready for the journey, and had brought with them, besides travelling cloaks and wrappers, bread and meat, wine, and hot coffee. Monsieur Defarge put this provender, and the lamp he carried, on the shoemaker’s bench (there was nothing else in the garret but a pallet bed), and he and Mr. Lorry roused the captive, and assisted him to his feet. No human intelligence could have read the mysteries of his mind, in the scared blank wonder of his face. Whether he knew what had happened, whether he recollected what they had said to him, whether he knew that he was free, were questions which no sagacity could have solved. They tried speaking to him; but, he was so confused, and so very slow to answer, that they took fright at his bewilderment, and agreed for the time to tamper with him no more. He had a wild, lost manner of occasionally clasping his head in his hands, that had not been seen in him before; yet, he had some pleasure in the mere sound of his daughter’s voice, and invariably turned to it when she spoke. In the submissive way of one long accustomed to obey under coercion, he ate and drank what they gave him to eat and drink, and put on the cloak and other wrappings, that they gave him to wear. He readily responded to his daughter’s drawing her arm through his, and took--and kept--her hand in both his own. They began to descend; Monsieur Defarge going first with the lamp, Mr. Lorry closing the little procession. They had not traversed many steps of the long main staircase when he stopped, and stared at the roof and round at the walls. “You remember the place, my father? You remember coming up here?” “What did you say?” But, before she could repeat the question, he murmured an answer as if she had repeated it. “Remember? No, I don’t remember. It was so very long ago.” That he had no recollection whatever of his having been brought from his prison to that house, was apparent to them. They heard him mutter, “One Hundred and Five, North Tower;” and when he looked about him, it evidently was for the strong fortress-walls which had long encompassed him. On their reaching the courtyard he instinctively altered his tread, as being in expectation of a drawbridge; and when there was no drawbridge, and he saw the carriage waiting in the open street, he dropped his daughter’s hand and clasped his head again. No crowd was about the door; no people were discernible at any of the many windows; not even a chance passerby was in the street. An unnatural silence and desertion reigned there. Only one soul was to be seen, and that was Madame Defarge--who leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing. The prisoner had got into a coach, and his daughter had followed him, when Mr. Lorry’s feet were arrested on the step by his asking, miserably, for his shoemaking tools and the unfinished shoes. Madame Defarge immediately called to her husband that she would get them, and went, knitting, out of the lamplight, through the courtyard. She quickly brought them down and handed them in;--and immediately afterwards leaned against the door-post, knitting, and saw nothing. Defarge got upon the box, and gave the word “To the Barrier!” The postilion cracked his whip, and they clattered away under the feeble over-swinging lamps. Under the over-swinging lamps--swinging ever brighter in the better streets, and ever dimmer in the worse--and by lighted shops, gay crowds, illuminated coffee-houses, and theatre-doors, to one of the city gates. Soldiers with lanterns, at the guard-house there. “Your papers, travellers!” “See here then, Monsieur the Officer,” said Defarge, getting down, and taking him gravely apart, “these are the papers of monsieur inside, with the white head. They were consigned to me, with him, at the--” He dropped his voice, there was a flutter among the military lanterns, and one of them being handed into the coach by an arm in uniform, the eyes connected with the arm looked, not an every day or an every night look, at monsieur with the white head. “It is well. Forward!” from the uniform. “Adieu!” from Defarge. And so, under a short grove of feebler and feebler over-swinging lamps, out under the great grove of stars. Beneath that arch of unmoved and eternal lights; some, so remote from this little earth that the learned tell us it is doubtful whether their rays have even yet discovered it, as a point in space where anything is suffered or done: the shadows of the night were broad and black. All through the cold and restless interval, until dawn, they once more whispered in the ears of Mr. Jarvis Lorry--sitting opposite the buried man who had been dug out, and wondering what subtle powers were for ever lost to him, and what were capable of restoration--the old inquiry: “I hope you care to be recalled to life?” And the old answer: “I can’t say.” The end of the first book. Book the Second--the Golden Thread CHAPTER I. Five Years Later Tellson’s Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in the moral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of its smallness, proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness. They were even boastful of its eminence in those particulars, and were fired by an express conviction that, if it were less objectionable, it would be less respectable. This was no passive belief, but an active weapon which they flashed at more convenient places of business. Tellson’s (they said) wanted no elbow-room, Tellson’s wanted no light, Tellson’s wanted no embellishment. Noakes and Co.’s might, or Snooks Brothers’ might; but Tellson’s, thank Heaven--! Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the question of rebuilding Tellson’s. In this respect the House was much on a par with the Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for suggesting improvements in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable, but were only the more respectable. Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson’s was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson’s down two steps, and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little counters, where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet-street, and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper, and the heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing “the House,” you were put into a species of Condemned Hold at the back, where you meditated on a misspent life, until the House came with its hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink at it in the dismal twilight. Your money came out of, or went into, wormy old wooden drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your throat when they were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as if they were fast decomposing into rags again. Your plate was stowed away among the neighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted its good polish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporised strong-rooms made of kitchens and sculleries, and fretted all the fat out of their parchments into the banking-house air. Your lighter boxes of family papers went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great dining-table in it and never had a dinner, and where, even in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty, the first letters written to you by your old love, or by your little children, were but newly released from the horror of being ogled through the windows, by the heads exposed on Temple Bar with an insensate brutality and ferocity worthy of Abyssinia or Ashantee. But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue with all trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson’s. Death is Nature’s remedy for all things, and why not Legislation’s? Accordingly, the forger was put to Death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; the unlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner of forty shillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder of a horse at Tellson’s door, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shilling was put to Death; the sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the whole gamut of Crime, were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in the way of prevention--it might almost have been worth remarking that the fact was exactly the reverse--but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble of each particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be looked after. Thus, Tellson’s, in its day, like greater places of business, its contemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid low before it had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being privately disposed of, they would probably have excluded what little light the ground floor had, in a rather significant manner. Cramped in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson’s, the oldest of men carried on the business gravely. When they took a young man into Tellson’s London house, they hid him somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment. Outside Tellson’s--never by any means in it, unless called in--was an odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, who served as the live sign of the house. He was never absent during business hours, unless upon an errand, and then he was represented by his son: a grisly urchin of twelve, who was his express image. People understood that Tellson’s, in a stately way, tolerated the odd-job-man. The house had always tolerated some person in that capacity, and time and tide had drifted this person to the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on the youthful occasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of darkness, in the easterly parish church of Hounsditch, he had received the added appellation of Jerry. The scene was Mr. Cruncher’s private lodging in Hanging-sword-alley, Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy March morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himself always spoke of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently under the impression that the Christian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by a lady who had bestowed her name upon it.) Mr. Cruncher’s apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and were but two in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass in it might be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early as it was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he lay abed was already scrubbed throughout; and between the cups and saucers arranged for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table, a very clean white cloth was spread. Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a Harlequin at home. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to roll and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky hair looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture, he exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation: “Bust me, if she ain’t at it agin!” A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her knees in a corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show that she was the person referred to. “What!” said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot. “You’re at it agin, are you?” After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot at the woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may introduce the odd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher’s domestic economy, that, whereas he often came home after banking hours with clean boots, he often got up next morning to find the same boots covered with clay. “What,” said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing his mark--“what are you up to, Aggerawayter?” “I was only saying my prayers.” “Saying your prayers! You’re a nice woman! What do you mean by flopping yourself down and praying agin me?” “I was not praying against you; I was praying for you.” “You weren’t. And if you were, I won’t be took the liberty with. Here! your mother’s a nice woman, young Jerry, going a praying agin your father’s prosperity. You’ve got a dutiful mother, you have, my son. You’ve got a religious mother, you have, my boy: going and flopping herself down, and praying that the bread-and-butter may be snatched out of the mouth of her only child.” Master Cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and, turning to his mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of his personal board. “And what do you suppose, you conceited female,” said Mr. Cruncher, with unconscious inconsistency, “that the worth of _your_ prayers may be? Name the price that you put _your_ prayers at!” “They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth no more than that.” “Worth no more than that,” repeated Mr. Cruncher. “They ain’t worth much, then. Whether or no, I won’t be prayed agin, I tell you. I can’t afford it. I’m not a going to be made unlucky by _your_ sneaking. If you must go flopping yourself down, flop in favour of your husband and child, and not in opposition to ’em. If I had had any but a unnat’ral wife, and this poor boy had had any but a unnat’ral mother, I might have made some money last week instead of being counter-prayed and countermined and religiously circumwented into the worst of luck. B-u-u-ust me!” said Mr. Cruncher, who all this time had been putting on his clothes, “if I ain’t, what with piety and one blowed thing and another, been choused this last week into as bad luck as ever a poor devil of a honest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dress yourself, my boy, and while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your mother now and then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call. For, I tell you,” here he addressed his wife once more, “I won’t be gone agin, in this manner. I am as rickety as a hackney-coach, I’m as sleepy as laudanum, my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn’t know, if it wasn’t for the pain in ’em, which was me and which somebody else, yet I’m none the better for it in pocket; and it’s my suspicion that you’ve been at it from morning to night to prevent me from being the better for it in pocket, and I won’t put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now!” Growling, in addition, such phrases as “Ah! yes! You’re religious, too. You wouldn’t put yourself in opposition to the interests of your husband and child, would you? Not you!” and throwing off other sarcastic sparks from the whirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook himself to his boot-cleaning and his general preparation for business. In the meantime, his son, whose head was garnished with tenderer spikes, and whose young eyes stood close by one another, as his father’s did, kept the required watch upon his mother. He greatly disturbed that poor woman at intervals, by darting out of his sleeping closet, where he made his toilet, with a suppressed cry of “You are going to flop, mother. --Halloa, father!” and, after raising this fictitious alarm, darting in again with an undutiful grin. Mr. Cruncher’s temper was not at all improved when he came to his breakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher’s saying grace with particular animosity. “Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it again?” His wife explained that she had merely “asked a blessing.” “Don’t do it!” said Mr. Crunches looking about, as if he rather expected to see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife’s petitions. “I ain’t a going to be blest out of house and home. I won’t have my wittles blest off my table. Keep still!” Exceedingly red-eyed and grim, as if he had been up all night at a party which had taken anything but a convivial turn, Jerry Cruncher worried his breakfast rather than ate it, growling over it like any four-footed inmate of a menagerie. Towards nine o’clock he smoothed his ruffled aspect, and, presenting as respectable and business-like an exterior as he could overlay his natural self with, issued forth to the occupation of the day. It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favourite description of himself as “a honest tradesman.” His stock consisted of a wooden stool, made out of a broken-backed chair cut down, which stool, young Jerry, walking at his father’s side, carried every morning to beneath the banking-house window that was nearest Temple Bar: where, with the addition of the first handful of straw that could be gleaned from any passing vehicle to keep the cold and wet from the odd-job-man’s feet, it formed the encampment for the day. On this post of his, Mr. Cruncher was as well known to Fleet-street and the Temple, as the Bar itself,--and was almost as in-looking. Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch his three-cornered hat to the oldest of men as they passed in to Tellson’s, Jerry took up his station on this windy March morning, with young Jerry standing by him, when not engaged in making forays through the Bar, to inflict bodily and mental injuries of an acute description on passing boys who were small enough for his amiable purpose. Father and son, extremely like each other, looking silently on at the morning traffic in Fleet-street, with their two heads as near to one another as the two eyes of each were, bore a considerable resemblance to a pair of monkeys. The resemblance was not lessened by the accidental circumstance, that the mature Jerry bit and spat out straw, while the twinkling eyes of the youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful of him as of everything else in Fleet-street. The head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to Tellson’s establishment was put through the door, and the word was given: “Porter wanted!” “Hooray, father! Here’s an early job to begin with!” Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated himself on the stool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his father had been chewing, and cogitated. “Al-ways rusty! His fingers is al-ways rusty!” muttered young Jerry. “Where does my father get all that iron rust from? He don’t get no iron rust here!” CHAPTER II. A Sight “You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?” said one of the oldest of clerks to Jerry the messenger. “Ye-es, sir,” returned Jerry, in something of a dogged manner. “I _do_ know the Bailey.” “Just so. And you know Mr. Lorry.” “I know Mr. Lorry, sir, much better than I know the Bailey. Much better,” said Jerry, not unlike a reluctant witness at the establishment in question, “than I, as a honest tradesman, wish to know the Bailey.” “Very well. Find the door where the witnesses go in, and show the door-keeper this note for Mr. Lorry. He will then let you in.” “Into the court, sir?” “Into the court.” Mr. Cruncher’s eyes seemed to get a little closer to one another, and to interchange the inquiry, “What do you think of this?” “Am I to wait in the court, sir?” he asked, as the result of that conference. “I am going to tell you. The door-keeper will pass the note to Mr. Lorry, and do you make any gesture that will attract Mr. Lorry’s attention, and show him where you stand. Then what you have to do, is, to remain there until he wants you.” “Is that all, sir?” “That’s all. He wishes to have a messenger at hand. This is to tell him you are there.” As the ancient clerk deliberately folded and superscribed the note, Mr. Cruncher, after surveying him in silence until he came to the blotting-paper stage, remarked: “I suppose they’ll be trying Forgeries this morning?” “Treason!” “That’s quartering,” said Jerry. “Barbarous!” “It is the law,” remarked the ancient clerk, turning his surprised spectacles upon him. “It is the law.” “It’s hard in the law to spile a man, I think. It’s hard enough to kill him, but it’s wery hard to spile him, sir.” “Not at all,” retained the ancient clerk. “Speak well of the law. Take care of your chest and voice, my good friend, and leave the law to take care of itself. I give you that advice.” “It’s the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice,” said Jerry. “I leave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is.” “Well, well,” said the old clerk; “we all have our various ways of gaining a livelihood. Some of us have damp ways, and some of us have dry ways. Here is the letter. Go along.” Jerry took the letter, and, remarking to himself with less internal deference than he made an outward show of, “You are a lean old one, too,” made his bow, informed his son, in passing, of his destination, and went his way. They hanged at Tyburn, in those days, so the street outside Newgate had not obtained one infamous notoriety that has since attached to it. But, the gaol was a vile place, in which most kinds of debauchery and villainy were practised, and where dire diseases were bred, that came into court with the prisoners, and sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off the bench. It had more than once happened, that the Judge in the black cap pronounced his own doom as certainly as the prisoner’s, and even died before him. For the rest, the Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly inn-yard, from which pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on a violent passage into the other world: traversing some two miles and a half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also, for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action; also, for extensive transactions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom, systematically leading to the most frightful mercenary crimes that could be committed under Heaven. Altogether, the Old Bailey, at that date, was a choice illustration of the precept, that “Whatever is is right;” an aphorism that would be as final as it is lazy, did it not include the troublesome consequence, that nothing that ever was, was wrong. Making his way through the tainted crowd, dispersed up and down this hideous scene of action, with the skill of a man accustomed to make his way quietly, the messenger found out the door he sought, and handed in his letter through a trap in it. For, people then paid to see the play at the Old Bailey, just as they paid to see the play in Bedlam--only the former entertainment was much the dearer. Therefore, all the Old Bailey doors were well guarded--except, indeed, the social doors by which the criminals got there, and those were always left wide open. After some delay and demur, the door grudgingly turned on its hinges a very little way, and allowed Mr. Jerry Cruncher to squeeze himself into court. “What’s on?” he asked, in a whisper, of the man he found himself next to. “Nothing yet.” “What’s coming on?” “The Treason case.” “The quartering one, eh?” “Ah!” returned the man, with a relish; “he’ll be drawn on a hurdle to be half hanged, and then he’ll be taken down and sliced before his own face, and then his inside will be taken out and burnt while he looks on, and then his head will be chopped off, and he’ll be cut into quarters. That’s the sentence.” “If he’s found Guilty, you mean to say?” Jerry added, by way of proviso. “Oh! they’ll find him guilty,” said the other. “Don’t you be afraid of that.” Mr. Cruncher’s attention was here diverted to the door-keeper, whom he saw making his way to Mr. Lorry, with the note in his hand. Mr. Lorry sat at a table, among the gentlemen in wigs: not far from a wigged gentleman, the prisoner’s counsel, who had a great bundle of papers before him: and nearly opposite another wigged gentleman with his hands in his pockets, whose whole attention, when Mr. Cruncher looked at him then or afterwards, seemed to be concentrated on the ceiling of the court. After some gruff coughing and rubbing of his chin and signing with his hand, Jerry attracted the notice of Mr. Lorry, who had stood up to look for him, and who quietly nodded and sat down again. “What’s _he_ got to do with the case?” asked the man he had spoken with. “Blest if I know,” said Jerry. “What have _you_ got to do with it, then, if a person may inquire?” “Blest if I know that either,” said Jerry. The entrance of the Judge, and a consequent great stir and settling down in the court, stopped the dialogue. Presently, the dock became the central point of interest. Two gaolers, who had been standing there, went out, and the prisoner was brought in, and put to the bar. Everybody present, except the one wigged gentleman who looked at the ceiling, stared at him. All the human breath in the place, rolled at him, like a sea, or a wind, or a fire. Eager faces strained round pillars and corners, to get a sight of him; spectators in back rows stood up, not to miss a hair of him; people on the floor of the court, laid their hands on the shoulders of the people before them, to help themselves, at anybody’s cost, to a view of him--stood a-tiptoe, got upon ledges, stood upon next to nothing, to see every inch of him. Conspicuous among these latter, like an animated bit of the spiked wall of Newgate, Jerry stood: aiming at the prisoner the beery breath of a whet he had taken as he came along, and discharging it to mingle with the waves of other beer, and gin, and tea, and coffee, and what not, that flowed at him, and already broke upon the great windows behind him in an impure mist and rain. The object of all this staring and blaring, was a young man of about five-and-twenty, well-grown and well-looking, with a sunburnt cheek and a dark eye. His condition was that of a young gentleman. He was plainly dressed in black, or very dark grey, and his hair, which was long and dark, was gathered in a ribbon at the back of his neck; more to be out of his way than for ornament. As an emotion of the mind will express itself through any covering of the body, so the paleness which his situation engendered came through the brown upon his cheek, showing the soul to be stronger than the sun. He was otherwise quite self-possessed, bowed to the Judge, and stood quiet. The sort of interest with which this man was stared and breathed at, was not a sort that elevated humanity. Had he stood in peril of a less horrible sentence--had there been a chance of any one of its savage details being spared--by just so much would he have lost in his fascination. The form that was to be doomed to be so shamefully mangled, was the sight; the immortal creature that was to be so butchered and torn asunder, yielded the sensation. Whatever gloss the various spectators put upon the interest, according to their several arts and powers of self-deceit, the interest was, at the root of it, Ogreish. Silence in the court! Charles Darnay had yesterday pleaded Not Guilty to an indictment denouncing him (with infinite jingle and jangle) for that he was a false traitor to our serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, prince, our Lord the King, by reason of his having, on divers occasions, and by divers means and ways, assisted Lewis, the French King, in his wars against our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth; that was to say, by coming and going, between the dominions of our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, and those of the said French Lewis, and wickedly, falsely, traitorously, and otherwise evil-adverbiously, revealing to the said French Lewis what forces our said serene, illustrious, excellent, and so forth, had in preparation to send to Canada and North America. This much, Jerry, with his head becoming more and more spiky as the law terms bristled it, made out with huge satisfaction, and so arrived circuitously at the understanding that the aforesaid, and over and over again aforesaid, Charles Darnay, stood there before him upon his trial; that the jury were swearing in; and that Mr. Attorney-General was making ready to speak. The accused, who was (and who knew he was) being mentally hanged, beheaded, and quartered, by everybody there, neither flinched from the situation, nor assumed any theatrical air in it. He was quiet and attentive; watched the opening proceedings with a grave interest; and stood with his hands resting on the slab of wood before him, so composedly, that they had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which it was strewn. The court was all bestrewn with herbs and sprinkled with vinegar, as a precaution against gaol air and gaol fever. Over the prisoner’s head there was a mirror, to throw the light down upon him. Crowds of the wicked and the wretched had been reflected in it, and had passed from its surface and this earth’s together. Haunted in a most ghastly manner that abominable place would have been, if the glass could ever have rendered back its reflections, as the ocean is one day to give up its dead. Some passing thought of the infamy and disgrace for which it had been reserved, may have struck the prisoner’s mind. Be that as it may, a change in his position making him conscious of a bar of light across his face, he looked up; and when he saw the glass his face flushed, and his right hand pushed the herbs away. It happened, that the action turned his face to that side of the court which was on his left. About on a level with his eyes, there sat, in that corner of the Judge’s bench, two persons upon whom his look immediately rested; so immediately, and so much to the changing of his aspect, that all the eyes that were turned upon him, turned to them. The spectators saw in the two figures, a young lady of little more than twenty, and a gentleman who was evidently her father; a man of a very remarkable appearance in respect of the absolute whiteness of his hair, and a certain indescribable intensity of face: not of an active kind, but pondering and self-communing. When this expression was upon him, he looked as if he were old; but when it was stirred and broken up--as it was now, in a moment, on his speaking to his daughter--he became a handsome man, not past the prime of life. His daughter had one of her hands drawn through his arm, as she sat by him, and the other pressed upon it. She had drawn close to him, in her dread of the scene, and in her pity for the prisoner. Her forehead had been strikingly expressive of an engrossing terror and compassion that saw nothing but the peril of the accused. This had been so very noticeable, so very powerfully and naturally shown, that starers who had had no pity for him were touched by her; and the whisper went about, “Who are they?” Jerry, the messenger, who had made his own observations, in his own manner, and who had been sucking the rust off his fingers in his absorption, stretched his neck to hear who they were. The crowd about him had pressed and passed the inquiry on to the nearest attendant, and from him it had been more slowly pressed and passed back; at last it got to Jerry: “Witnesses.” “For which side?” “Against.” “Against what side?” “The prisoner’s.” The Judge, whose eyes had gone in the general direction, recalled them, leaned back in his seat, and looked steadily at the man whose life was in his hand, as Mr. Attorney-General rose to spin the rope, grind the axe, and hammer the nails into the scaffold. CHAPTER III. A Disappointment Mr. Attorney-General had to inform the jury, that the prisoner before them, though young in years, was old in the treasonable practices which claimed the forfeit of his life. That this correspondence with the public enemy was not a correspondence of to-day, or of yesterday, or even of last year, or of the year before. That, it was certain the prisoner had, for longer than that, been in the habit of passing and repassing between France and England, on secret business of which he could give no honest account. That, if it were in the nature of traitorous ways to thrive (which happily it never was), the real wickedness and guilt of his business might have remained undiscovered. That Providence, however, had put it into the heart of a person who was beyond fear and beyond reproach, to ferret out the nature of the prisoner’s schemes, and, struck with horror, to disclose them to his Majesty’s Chief Secretary of State and most honourable Privy Council. That, this patriot would be produced before them. That, his position and attitude were, on the whole, sublime. That, he had been the prisoner’s friend, but, at once in an auspicious and an evil hour detecting his infamy, had resolved to immolate the traitor he could no longer cherish in his bosom, on the sacred altar of his country. That, if statues were decreed in Britain, as in ancient Greece and Rome, to public benefactors, this shining citizen would assuredly have had one. That, as they were not so decreed, he probably would not have one. That, Virtue, as had been observed by the poets (in many passages which he well knew the jury would have, word for word, at the tips of their tongues; whereat the jury’s countenances displayed a guilty consciousness that they knew nothing about the passages), was in a manner contagious; more especially the bright virtue known as patriotism, or love of country. That, the lofty example of this immaculate and unimpeachable witness for the Crown, to refer to whom however unworthily was an honour, had communicated itself to the prisoner’s servant, and had engendered in him a holy determination to examine his master’s table-drawers and pockets, and secrete his papers. That, he (Mr. Attorney-General) was prepared to hear some disparagement attempted of this admirable servant; but that, in a general way, he preferred him to his (Mr. Attorney-General’s) brothers and sisters, and honoured him more than his (Mr. Attorney-General’s) father and mother. That, he called with confidence on the jury to come and do likewise. That, the evidence of these two witnesses, coupled with the documents of their discovering that would be produced, would show the prisoner to have been furnished with lists of his Majesty’s forces, and of their disposition and preparation, both by sea and land, and would leave no doubt that he had habitually conveyed such information to a hostile power. That, these lists could not be proved to be in the prisoner’s handwriting; but that it was all the same; that, indeed, it was rather the better for the prosecution, as showing the prisoner to be artful in his precautions. That, the proof would go back five years, and would show the prisoner already engaged in these pernicious missions, within a few weeks before the date of the very first action fought between the British troops and the Americans. That, for these reasons, the jury, being a loyal jury (as he knew they were), and being a responsible jury (as _they_ knew they were), must positively find the prisoner Guilty, and make an end of him, whether they liked it or not. That, they never could lay their heads upon their pillows; that, they never could tolerate the idea of their wives laying their heads upon their pillows; that, they never could endure the notion of their children laying their heads upon their pillows; in short, that there never more could be, for them or theirs, any laying of heads upon pillows at all, unless the prisoner’s head was taken off. That head Mr. Attorney-General concluded by demanding of them, in the name of everything he could think of with a round turn in it, and on the faith of his solemn asseveration that he already considered the prisoner as good as dead and gone. When the Attorney-General ceased, a buzz arose in the court as if a cloud of great blue-flies were swarming about the prisoner, in anticipation of what he was soon to become. When toned down again, the unimpeachable patriot appeared in the witness-box. Mr. Solicitor-General then, following his leader’s lead, examined the patriot: John Barsad, gentleman, by name. The story of his pure soul was exactly what Mr. Attorney-General had described it to be--perhaps, if it had a fault, a little too exactly. Having released his noble bosom of its burden, he would have modestly withdrawn himself, but that the wigged gentleman with the papers before him, sitting not far from Mr. Lorry, begged to ask him a few questions. The wigged gentleman sitting opposite, still looking at the ceiling of the court. Had he ever been a spy himself? No, he scorned the base insinuation. What did he live upon? His property. Where was his property? He didn’t precisely remember where it was. What was it? No business of anybody’s. Had he inherited it? Yes, he had. From whom? Distant relation. Very distant? Rather. Ever been in prison? Certainly not. Never in a debtors’ prison? Didn’t see what that had to do with it. Never in a debtors’ prison?--Come, once again. Never? Yes. How many times? Two or three times. Not five or six? Perhaps. Of what profession? Gentleman. Ever been kicked? Might have been. Frequently? No. Ever kicked downstairs? Decidedly not; once received a kick on the top of a staircase, and fell downstairs of his own accord. Kicked on that occasion for cheating at dice? Something to that effect was said by the intoxicated liar who committed the assault, but it was not true. Swear it was not true? Positively. Ever live by cheating at play? Never. Ever live by play? Not more than other gentlemen do. Ever borrow money of the prisoner? Yes. Ever pay him? No. Was not this intimacy with the prisoner, in reality a very slight one, forced upon the prisoner in coaches, inns, and packets? No. Sure he saw the prisoner with these lists? Certain. Knew no more about the lists? No. Had not procured them himself, for instance? No. Expect to get anything by this evidence? No. Not in regular government pay and employment, to lay traps? Oh dear no. Or to do anything? Oh dear no. Swear that? Over and over again. No motives but motives of sheer patriotism? None whatever. The virtuous servant, Roger Cly, swore his way through the case at a great rate. He had taken service with the prisoner, in good faith and simplicity, four years ago. He had asked the prisoner, aboard the Calais packet, if he wanted a handy fellow, and the prisoner had engaged him. He had not asked the prisoner to take the handy fellow as an act of charity--never thought of such a thing. He began to have suspicions of the prisoner, and to keep an eye upon him, soon afterwards. In arranging his clothes, while travelling, he had seen similar lists to these in the prisoner’s pockets, over and over again. He had taken these lists from the drawer of the prisoner’s desk. He had not put them there first. He had seen the prisoner show these identical lists to French gentlemen at Calais, and similar lists to French gentlemen, both at Calais and Boulogne. He loved his country, and couldn’t bear it, and had given information. He had never been suspected of stealing a silver tea-pot; he had been maligned respecting a mustard-pot, but it turned out to be only a plated one. He had known the last witness seven or eight years; that was merely a coincidence. He didn’t call it a particularly curious coincidence; most coincidences were curious. Neither did he call it a curious coincidence that true patriotism was _his_ only motive too. He was a true Briton, and hoped there were many like him. The blue-flies buzzed again, and Mr. Attorney-General called Mr. Jarvis Lorry. “Mr. Jarvis Lorry, are you a clerk in Tellson’s bank?” “I am.” “On a certain Friday night in November one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five, did business occasion you to travel between London and Dover by the mail?” “It did.” “Were there any other passengers in the mail?” “Two.” “Did they alight on the road in the course of the night?” “They did.” “Mr. Lorry, look upon the prisoner. Was he one of those two passengers?” “I cannot undertake to say that he was.” “Does he resemble either of these two passengers?” “Both were so wrapped up, and the night was so dark, and we were all so reserved, that I cannot undertake to say even that.” “Mr. Lorry, look again upon the prisoner. Supposing him wrapped up as those two passengers were, is there anything in his bulk and stature to render it unlikely that he was one of them?” “No.” “You will not swear, Mr. Lorry, that he was not one of them?” “No.” “So at least you say he may have been one of them?” “Yes. Except that I remember them both to have been--like myself--timorous of highwaymen, and the prisoner has not a timorous air.” “Did you ever see a counterfeit of timidity, Mr. Lorry?” “I certainly have seen that.” “Mr. Lorry, look once more upon the prisoner. Have you seen him, to your certain knowledge, before?” “I have.” “When?” “I was returning from France a few days afterwards, and, at Calais, the prisoner came on board the packet-ship in which I returned, and made the voyage with me.” “At what hour did he come on board?” “At a little after midnight.” “In the dead of the night. Was he the only passenger who came on board at that untimely hour?” “He happened to be the only one.” “Never mind about ‘happening,’ Mr. Lorry. He was the only passenger who came on board in the dead of the night?” “He was.” “Were you travelling alone, Mr. Lorry, or with any companion?” “With two companions. A gentleman and lady. They are here.” “They are here. Had you any conversation with the prisoner?” “Hardly any. The weather was stormy, and the passage long and rough, and I lay on a sofa, almost from shore to shore.” “Miss Manette!” The young lady, to whom all eyes had been turned before, and were now turned again, stood up where she had sat. Her father rose with her, and kept her hand drawn through his arm. “Miss Manette, look upon the prisoner.” To be confronted with such pity, and such earnest youth and beauty, was far more trying to the accused than to be confronted with all the crowd. Standing, as it were, apart with her on the edge of his grave, not all the staring curiosity that looked on, could, for the moment, nerve him to remain quite still. His hurried right hand parcelled out the herbs before him into imaginary beds of flowers in a garden; and his efforts to control and steady his breathing shook the lips from which the colour rushed to his heart. The buzz of the great flies was loud again. “Miss Manette, have you seen the prisoner before?” “Yes, sir.” “Where?” “On board of the packet-ship just now referred to, sir, and on the same occasion.” “You are the young lady just now referred to?” “O! most unhappily, I am!” The plaintive tone of her compassion merged into the less musical voice of the Judge, as he said something fiercely: “Answer the questions put to you, and make no remark upon them.” “Miss Manette, had you any conversation with the prisoner on that passage across the Channel?” “Yes, sir.” “Recall it.” In the midst of a profound stillness, she faintly began: “When the gentleman came on board--” “Do you mean the prisoner?” inquired the Judge, knitting his brows. “Yes, my Lord.” “Then say the prisoner.” “When the prisoner came on board, he noticed that my father,” turning her eyes lovingly to him as he stood beside her, “was much fatigued and in a very weak state of health. My father was so reduced that I was afraid to take him out of the air, and I had made a bed for him on the deck near the cabin steps, and I sat on the deck at his side to take care of him. There were no other passengers that night, but we four. The prisoner was so good as to beg permission to advise me how I could shelter my father from the wind and weather, better than I had done. I had not known how to do it well, not understanding how the wind would set when we were out of the harbour. He did it for me. He expressed great gentleness and kindness for my father’s state, and I am sure he felt it. That was the manner of our beginning to speak together.” “Let me interrupt you for a moment. Had he come on board alone?” “No.” “How many were with him?” “Two French gentlemen.” “Had they conferred together?” “They had conferred together until the last moment, when it was necessary for the French gentlemen to be landed in their boat.” “Had any papers been handed about among them, similar to these lists?” “Some papers had been handed about among them, but I don’t know what papers.” “Like these in shape and size?” “Possibly, but indeed I don’t know, although they stood whispering very near to me: because they stood at the top of the cabin steps to have the light of the lamp that was hanging there; it was a dull lamp, and they spoke very low, and I did not hear what they said, and saw only that they looked at papers.” “Now, to the prisoner’s conversation, Miss Manette.” “The prisoner was as open in his confidence with me--which arose out of my helpless situation--as he was kind, and good, and useful to my father. I hope,” bursting into tears, “I may not repay him by doing him harm to-day.” Buzzing from the blue-flies. “Miss Manette, if the prisoner does not perfectly understand that you give the evidence which it is your duty to give--which you must give--and which you cannot escape from giving--with great unwillingness, he is the only person present in that condition. Please to go on.” “He told me that he was travelling on business of a delicate and difficult nature, which might get people into trouble, and that he was therefore travelling under an assumed name. He said that this business had, within a few days, taken him to France, and might, at intervals, take him backwards and forwards between France and England for a long time to come.” “Did he say anything about America, Miss Manette? Be particular.” “He tried to explain to me how that quarrel had arisen, and he said that, so far as he could judge, it was a wrong and foolish one on England’s part. He added, in a jesting way, that perhaps George Washington might gain almost as great a name in history as George the Third. But there was no harm in his way of saying this: it was said laughingly, and to beguile the time.” Any strongly marked expression of face on the part of a chief actor in a scene of great interest to whom many eyes are directed, will be unconsciously imitated by the spectators. Her forehead was painfully anxious and intent as she gave this evidence, and, in the pauses when she stopped for the Judge to write it down, watched its effect upon the counsel for and against. Among the lookers-on there was the same expression in all quarters of the court; insomuch, that a great majority of the foreheads there, might have been mirrors reflecting the witness, when the Judge looked up from his notes to glare at that tremendous heresy about George Washington. Mr. Attorney-General now signified to my Lord, that he deemed it necessary, as a matter of precaution and form, to call the young lady’s father, Doctor Manette. Who was called accordingly. “Doctor Manette, look upon the prisoner. Have you ever seen him before?” “Once. When he called at my lodgings in London. Some three years, or three years and a half ago.” “Can you identify him as your fellow-passenger on board the packet, or speak to his conversation with your daughter?” “Sir, I can do neither.” “Is there any particular and special reason for your being unable to do either?” He answered, in a low voice, “There is.” “Has it been your misfortune to undergo a long imprisonment, without trial, or even accusation, in your native country, Doctor Manette?” He answered, in a tone that went to every heart, “A long imprisonment.” “Were you newly released on the occasion in question?” “They tell me so.” “Have you no remembrance of the occasion?” “None. My mind is a blank, from some time--I cannot even say what time--when I employed myself, in my captivity, in making shoes, to the time when I found myself living in London with my dear daughter here. She had become familiar to me, when a gracious God restored my faculties; but, I am quite unable even to say how she had become familiar. I have no remembrance of the process.” Mr. Attorney-General sat down, and the father and daughter sat down together. A singular circumstance then arose in the case. The object in hand being to show that the prisoner went down, with some fellow-plotter untracked, in the Dover mail on that Friday night in November five years ago, and got out of the mail in the night, as a blind, at a place where he did not remain, but from which he travelled back some dozen miles or more, to a garrison and dockyard, and there collected information; a witness was called to identify him as having been at the precise time required, in the coffee-room of an hotel in that garrison-and-dockyard town, waiting for another person. The prisoner’s counsel was cross-examining this witness with no result, except that he had never seen the prisoner on any other occasion, when the wigged gentleman who had all this time been looking at the ceiling of the court, wrote a word or two on a little piece of paper, screwed it up, and tossed it to him. Opening this piece of paper in the next pause, the counsel looked with great attention and curiosity at the prisoner. “You say again you are quite sure that it was the prisoner?” The witness was quite sure. “Did you ever see anybody very like the prisoner?” Not so like (the witness said) as that he could be mistaken. “Look well upon that gentleman, my learned friend there,” pointing to him who had tossed the paper over, “and then look well upon the prisoner. How say you? Are they very like each other?” Allowing for my learned friend’s appearance being careless and slovenly if not debauched, they were sufficiently like each other to surprise, not only the witness, but everybody present, when they were thus brought into comparison. My Lord being prayed to bid my learned friend lay aside his wig, and giving no very gracious consent, the likeness became much more remarkable. My Lord inquired of Mr. Stryver (the prisoner’s counsel), whether they were next to try Mr. Carton (name of my learned friend) for treason? But, Mr. Stryver replied to my Lord, no; but he would ask the witness to tell him whether what happened once, might happen twice; whether he would have been so confident if he had seen this illustration of his rashness sooner, whether he would be so confident, having seen it; and more. The upshot of which, was, to smash this witness like a crockery vessel, and shiver his part of the case to useless lumber. Mr. Cruncher had by this time taken quite a lunch of rust off his fingers in his following of the evidence. He had now to attend while Mr. Stryver fitted the prisoner’s case on the jury, like a compact suit of clothes; showing them how the patriot, Barsad, was a hired spy and traitor, an unblushing trafficker in blood, and one of the greatest scoundrels upon earth since accursed Judas--which he certainly did look rather like. How the virtuous servant, Cly, was his friend and partner, and was worthy to be; how the watchful eyes of those forgers and false swearers had rested on the prisoner as a victim, because some family affairs in France, he being of French extraction, did require his making those passages across the Channel--though what those affairs were, a consideration for others who were near and dear to him, forbade him, even for his life, to disclose. How the evidence that had been warped and wrested from the young lady, whose anguish in giving it they had witnessed, came to nothing, involving the mere little innocent gallantries and politenesses likely to pass between any young gentleman and young lady so thrown together;--with the exception of that reference to George Washington, which was altogether too extravagant and impossible to be regarded in any other light than as a monstrous joke. How it would be a weakness in the government to break down in this attempt to practise for popularity on the lowest national antipathies and fears, and therefore Mr. Attorney-General had made the most of it; how, nevertheless, it rested upon nothing, save that vile and infamous character of evidence too often disfiguring such cases, and of which the State Trials of this country were full. But, there my Lord interposed (with as grave a face as if it had not been true), saying that he could not sit upon that Bench and suffer those allusions. Mr. Stryver then called his few witnesses, and Mr. Cruncher had next to attend while Mr. Attorney-General turned the whole suit of clothes Mr. Stryver had fitted on the jury, inside out; showing how Barsad and Cly were even a hundred times better than he had thought them, and the prisoner a hundred times worse. Lastly, came my Lord himself, turning the suit of clothes, now inside out, now outside in, but on the whole decidedly trimming and shaping them into grave-clothes for the prisoner. And now, the jury turned to consider, and the great flies swarmed again. Mr. Carton, who had so long sat looking at the ceiling of the court, changed neither his place nor his attitude, even in this excitement. While his learned friend, Mr. Stryver, massing his papers before him, whispered with those who sat near, and from time to time glanced anxiously at the jury; while all the spectators moved more or less, and grouped themselves anew; while even my Lord himself arose from his seat, and slowly paced up and down his platform, not unattended by a suspicion in the minds of the audience that his state was feverish; this one man sat leaning back, with his torn gown half off him, his untidy wig put on just as it had happened to light on his head after its removal, his hands in his pockets, and his eyes on the ceiling as they had been all day. Something especially reckless in his demeanour, not only gave him a disreputable look, but so diminished the strong resemblance he undoubtedly bore to the prisoner (which his momentary earnestness, when they were compared together, had strengthened), that many of the lookers-on, taking note of him now, said to one another they would hardly have thought the two were so alike. Mr. Cruncher made the observation to his next neighbour, and added, “I’d hold half a guinea that _he_ don’t get no law-work to do. Don’t look like the sort of one to get any, do he?” Yet, this Mr. Carton took in more of the details of the scene than he appeared to take in; for now, when Miss Manette’s head dropped upon her father’s breast, he was the first to see it, and to say audibly: “Officer! look to that young lady. Help the gentleman to take her out. Don’t you see she will fall!” There was much commiseration for her as she was removed, and much sympathy with her father. It had evidently been a great distress to him, to have the days of his imprisonment recalled. He had shown strong internal agitation when he was questioned, and that pondering or brooding look which made him old, had been upon him, like a heavy cloud, ever since. As he passed out, the jury, who had turned back and paused a moment, spoke, through their foreman. They were not agreed, and wished to retire. My Lord (perhaps with George Washington on his mind) showed some surprise that they were not agreed, but signified his pleasure that they should retire under watch and ward, and retired himself. The trial had lasted all day, and the lamps in the court were now being lighted. It began to be rumoured that the jury would be out a long while. The spectators dropped off to get refreshment, and the prisoner withdrew to the back of the dock, and sat down. Mr. Lorry, who had gone out when the young lady and her father went out, now reappeared, and beckoned to Jerry: who, in the slackened interest, could easily get near him. “Jerry, if you wish to take something to eat, you can. But, keep in the way. You will be sure to hear when the jury come in. Don’t be a moment behind them, for I want you to take the verdict back to the bank. You are the quickest messenger I know, and will get to Temple Bar long before I can.” Jerry had just enough forehead to knuckle, and he knuckled it in acknowledgment of this communication and a shilling. Mr. Carton came up at the moment, and touched Mr. Lorry on the arm. “How is the young lady?” “She is greatly distressed; but her father is comforting her, and she feels the better for being out of court.” “I’ll tell the prisoner so. It won’t do for a respectable bank gentleman like you, to be seen speaking to him publicly, you know.” Mr. Lorry reddened as if he were conscious of having debated the point in his mind, and Mr. Carton made his way to the outside of the bar. The way out of court lay in that direction, and Jerry followed him, all eyes, ears, and spikes. “Mr. Darnay!” The prisoner came forward directly. “You will naturally be anxious to hear of the witness, Miss Manette. She will do very well. You have seen the worst of her agitation.” “I am deeply sorry to have been the cause of it. Could you tell her so for me, with my fervent acknowledgments?” “Yes, I could. I will, if you ask it.” Mr. Carton’s manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. He stood, half turned from the prisoner, lounging with his elbow against the bar. “I do ask it. Accept my cordial thanks.” “What,” said Carton, still only half turned towards him, “do you expect, Mr. Darnay?” “The worst.” “It’s the wisest thing to expect, and the likeliest. But I think their withdrawing is in your favour.” Loitering on the way out of court not being allowed, Jerry heard no more: but left them--so like each other in feature, so unlike each other in manner--standing side by side, both reflected in the glass above them. An hour and a half limped heavily away in the thief-and-rascal crowded passages below, even though assisted off with mutton pies and ale. The hoarse messenger, uncomfortably seated on a form after taking that refection, had dropped into a doze, when a loud murmur and a rapid tide of people setting up the stairs that led to the court, carried him along with them. “Jerry! Jerry!” Mr. Lorry was already calling at the door when he got there. “Here, sir! It’s a fight to get back again. Here I am, sir!” Mr. Lorry handed him a paper through the throng. “Quick! Have you got it?” “Yes, sir.” Hastily written on the paper was the word “ACQUITTED.” “If you had sent the message, ‘Recalled to Life,’ again,” muttered Jerry, as he turned, “I should have known what you meant, this time.” He had no opportunity of saying, or so much as thinking, anything else, until he was clear of the Old Bailey; for, the crowd came pouring out with a vehemence that nearly took him off his legs, and a loud buzz swept into the street as if the baffled blue-flies were dispersing in search of other carrion. CHAPTER IV. Congratulatory From the dimly-lighted passages of the court, the last sediment of the human stew that had been boiling there all day, was straining off, when Doctor Manette, Lucie Manette, his daughter, Mr. Lorry, the solicitor for the defence, and its counsel, Mr. Stryver, stood gathered round Mr. Charles Darnay--just released--congratulating him on his escape from death. It would have been difficult by a far brighter light, to recognise in Doctor Manette, intellectual of face and upright of bearing, the shoemaker of the garret in Paris. Yet, no one could have looked at him twice, without looking again: even though the opportunity of observation had not extended to the mournful cadence of his low grave voice, and to the abstraction that overclouded him fitfully, without any apparent reason. While one external cause, and that a reference to his long lingering agony, would always--as on the trial--evoke this condition from the depths of his soul, it was also in its nature to arise of itself, and to draw a gloom over him, as incomprehensible to those unacquainted with his story as if they had seen the shadow of the actual Bastille thrown upon him by a summer sun, when the substance was three hundred miles away. Only his daughter had the power of charming this black brooding from his mind. She was the golden thread that united him to a Past beyond his misery, and to a Present beyond his misery: and the sound of her voice, the light of her face, the touch of her hand, had a strong beneficial influence with him almost always. Not absolutely always, for she could recall some occasions on which her power had failed; but they were few and slight, and she believed them over. Mr. Darnay had kissed her hand fervently and gratefully, and had turned to Mr. Stryver, whom he warmly thanked. Mr. Stryver, a man of little more than thirty, but looking twenty years older than he was, stout, loud, red, bluff, and free from any drawback of delicacy, had a pushing way of shouldering himself (morally and physically) into companies and conversations, that argued well for his shouldering his way up in life. He still had his wig and gown on, and he said, squaring himself at his late client to that degree that he squeezed the innocent Mr. Lorry clean out of the group: “I am glad to have brought you off with honour, Mr. Darnay. It was an infamous prosecution, grossly infamous; but not the less likely to succeed on that account.” “You have laid me under an obligation to you for life--in two senses,” said his late client, taking his hand. “I have done my best for you, Mr. Darnay; and my best is as good as another man’s, I believe.” It clearly being incumbent on some one to say, “Much better,” Mr. Lorry said it; perhaps not quite disinterestedly, but with the interested object of squeezing himself back again. “You think so?” said Mr. Stryver. “Well! you have been present all day, and you ought to know. You are a man of business, too.” “And as such,” quoth Mr. Lorry, whom the counsel learned in the law had now shouldered back into the group, just as he had previously shouldered him out of it--“as such I will appeal to Doctor Manette, to break up this conference and order us all to our homes. Miss Lucie looks ill, Mr. Darnay has had a terrible day, we are worn out.” “Speak for yourself, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver; “I have a night’s work to do yet. Speak for yourself.” “I speak for myself,” answered Mr. Lorry, “and for Mr. Darnay, and for Miss Lucie, and--Miss Lucie, do you not think I may speak for us all?” He asked her the question pointedly, and with a glance at her father. His face had become frozen, as it were, in a very curious look at Darnay: an intent look, deepening into a frown of dislike and distrust, not even unmixed with fear. With this strange expression on him his thoughts had wandered away. “My father,” said Lucie, softly laying her hand on his. He slowly shook the shadow off, and turned to her. “Shall we go home, my father?” With a long breath, he answered “Yes.” The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under the impression--which he himself had originated--that he would not be released that night. The lights were nearly all extinguished in the passages, the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle, and the dismal place was deserted until to-morrow morning’s interest of gallows, pillory, whipping-post, and branding-iron, should repeople it. Walking between her father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette passed into the open air. A hackney-coach was called, and the father and daughter departed in it. Mr. Stryver had left them in the passages, to shoulder his way back to the robing-room. Another person, who had not joined the group, or interchanged a word with any one of them, but who had been leaning against the wall where its shadow was darkest, had silently strolled out after the rest, and had looked on until the coach drove away. He now stepped up to where Mr. Lorry and Mr. Darnay stood upon the pavement. “So, Mr. Lorry! Men of business may speak to Mr. Darnay now?” Nobody had made any acknowledgment of Mr. Carton’s part in the day’s proceedings; nobody had known of it. He was unrobed, and was none the better for it in appearance. “If you knew what a conflict goes on in the business mind, when the business mind is divided between good-natured impulse and business appearances, you would be amused, Mr. Darnay.” Mr. Lorry reddened, and said, warmly, “You have mentioned that before, sir. We men of business, who serve a House, are not our own masters. We have to think of the House more than ourselves.” “_I_ know, _I_ know,” rejoined Mr. Carton, carelessly. “Don’t be nettled, Mr. Lorry. You are as good as another, I have no doubt: better, I dare say.” “And indeed, sir,” pursued Mr. Lorry, not minding him, “I really don’t know what you have to do with the matter. If you’ll excuse me, as very much your elder, for saying so, I really don’t know that it is your business.” “Business! Bless you, _I_ have no business,” said Mr. Carton. “It is a pity you have not, sir.” “I think so, too.” “If you had,” pursued Mr. Lorry, “perhaps you would attend to it.” “Lord love you, no!--I shouldn’t,” said Mr. Carton. “Well, sir!” cried Mr. Lorry, thoroughly heated by his indifference, “business is a very good thing, and a very respectable thing. And, sir, if business imposes its restraints and its silences and impediments, Mr. Darnay as a young gentleman of generosity knows how to make allowance for that circumstance. Mr. Darnay, good night, God bless you, sir! I hope you have been this day preserved for a prosperous and happy life.--Chair there!” Perhaps a little angry with himself, as well as with the barrister, Mr. Lorry bustled into the chair, and was carried off to Tellson’s. Carton, who smelt of port wine, and did not appear to be quite sober, laughed then, and turned to Darnay: “This is a strange chance that throws you and me together. This must be a strange night to you, standing alone here with your counterpart on these street stones?” “I hardly seem yet,” returned Charles Darnay, “to belong to this world again.” “I don’t wonder at it; it’s not so long since you were pretty far advanced on your way to another. You speak faintly.” “I begin to think I _am_ faint.” “Then why the devil don’t you dine? I dined, myself, while those numskulls were deliberating which world you should belong to--this, or some other. Let me show you the nearest tavern to dine well at.” Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate-hill to Fleet-street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. Here, they were shown into a little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine: while Carton sat opposite to him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port before him, and his fully half-insolent manner upon him. “Do you feel, yet, that you belong to this terrestrial scheme again, Mr. Darnay?” “I am frightfully confused regarding time and place; but I am so far mended as to feel that.” “It must be an immense satisfaction!” He said it bitterly, and filled up his glass again: which was a large one. “As to me, the greatest desire I have, is to forget that I belong to it. It has no good in it for me--except wine like this--nor I for it. So we are not much alike in that particular. Indeed, I begin to think we are not much alike in any particular, you and I.” Confused by the emotion of the day, and feeling his being there with this Double of coarse deportment, to be like a dream, Charles Darnay was at a loss how to answer; finally, answered not at all. “Now your dinner is done,” Carton presently said, “why don’t you call a health, Mr. Darnay; why don’t you give your toast?” “What health? What toast?” “Why, it’s on the tip of your tongue. It ought to be, it must be, I’ll swear it’s there.” “Miss Manette, then!” “Miss Manette, then!” Looking his companion full in the face while he drank the toast, Carton flung his glass over his shoulder against the wall, where it shivered to pieces; then, rang the bell, and ordered in another. “That’s a fair young lady to hand to a coach in the dark, Mr. Darnay!” he said, filling his new goblet. A slight frown and a laconic “Yes,” were the answer. “That’s a fair young lady to be pitied by and wept for by! How does it feel? Is it worth being tried for one’s life, to be the object of such sympathy and compassion, Mr. Darnay?” Again Darnay answered not a word. “She was mightily pleased to have your message, when I gave it her. Not that she showed she was pleased, but I suppose she was.” The allusion served as a timely reminder to Darnay that this disagreeable companion had, of his own free will, assisted him in the strait of the day. He turned the dialogue to that point, and thanked him for it. “I neither want any thanks, nor merit any,” was the careless rejoinder. “It was nothing to do, in the first place; and I don’t know why I did it, in the second. Mr. Darnay, let me ask you a question.” “Willingly, and a small return for your good offices.” “Do you think I particularly like you?” “Really, Mr. Carton,” returned the other, oddly disconcerted, “I have not asked myself the question.” “But ask yourself the question now.” “You have acted as if you do; but I don’t think you do.” “_I_ don’t think I do,” said Carton. “I begin to have a very good opinion of your understanding.” “Nevertheless,” pursued Darnay, rising to ring the bell, “there is nothing in that, I hope, to prevent my calling the reckoning, and our parting without ill-blood on either side.” Carton rejoining, “Nothing in life!” Darnay rang. “Do you call the whole reckoning?” said Carton. On his answering in the affirmative, “Then bring me another pint of this same wine, drawer, and come and wake me at ten.” The bill being paid, Charles Darnay rose and wished him good night. Without returning the wish, Carton rose too, with something of a threat of defiance in his manner, and said, “A last word, Mr. Darnay: you think I am drunk?” “I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton.” “Think? You know I have been drinking.” “Since I must say so, I know it.” “Then you shall likewise know why. I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth, and no man on earth cares for me.” “Much to be regretted. You might have used your talents better.” “May be so, Mr. Darnay; may be not. Don’t let your sober face elate you, however; you don’t know what it may come to. Good night!” When he was left alone, this strange being took up a candle, went to a glass that hung against the wall, and surveyed himself minutely in it. “Do you particularly like the man?” he muttered, at his own image; “why should you particularly like a man who resembles you? There is nothing in you to like; you know that. Ah, confound you! What a change you have made in yourself! A good reason for taking to a man, that he shows you what you have fallen away from, and what you might have been! Change places with him, and would you have been looked at by those blue eyes as he was, and commiserated by that agitated face as he was? Come on, and have it out in plain words! You hate the fellow.” He resorted to his pint of wine for consolation, drank it all in a few minutes, and fell asleep on his arms, with his hair straggling over the table, and a long winding-sheet in the candle dripping down upon him. CHAPTER V. The Jackal Those were drinking days, and most men drank hard. So very great is the improvement Time has brought about in such habits, that a moderate statement of the quantity of wine and punch which one man would swallow in the course of a night, without any detriment to his reputation as a perfect gentleman, would seem, in these days, a ridiculous exaggeration. The learned profession of the law was certainly not behind any other learned profession in its Bacchanalian propensities; neither was Mr. Stryver, already fast shouldering his way to a large and lucrative practice, behind his compeers in this particular, any more than in the drier parts of the legal race. A favourite at the Old Bailey, and eke at the Sessions, Mr. Stryver had begun cautiously to hew away the lower staves of the ladder on which he mounted. Sessions and Old Bailey had now to summon their favourite, specially, to their longing arms; and shouldering itself towards the visage of the Lord Chief Justice in the Court of King’s Bench, the florid countenance of Mr. Stryver might be daily seen, bursting out of the bed of wigs, like a great sunflower pushing its way at the sun from among a rank garden-full of flaring companions. It had once been noted at the Bar, that while Mr. Stryver was a glib man, and an unscrupulous, and a ready, and a bold, he had not that faculty of extracting the essence from a heap of statements, which is among the most striking and necessary of the advocate’s accomplishments. But, a remarkable improvement came upon him as to this. The more business he got, the greater his power seemed to grow of getting at its pith and marrow; and however late at night he sat carousing with Sydney Carton, he always had his points at his fingers’ ends in the morning. Sydney Carton, idlest and most unpromising of men, was Stryver’s great ally. What the two drank together, between Hilary Term and Michaelmas, might have floated a king’s ship. Stryver never had a case in hand, anywhere, but Carton was there, with his hands in his pockets, staring at the ceiling of the court; they went the same Circuit, and even there they prolonged their usual orgies late into the night, and Carton was rumoured to be seen at broad day, going home stealthily and unsteadily to his lodgings, like a dissipated cat. At last, it began to get about, among such as were interested in the matter, that although Sydney Carton would never be a lion, he was an amazingly good jackal, and that he rendered suit and service to Stryver in that humble capacity. “Ten o’clock, sir,” said the man at the tavern, whom he had charged to wake him--“ten o’clock, sir.” “_What’s_ the matter?” “Ten o’clock, sir.” “What do you mean? Ten o’clock at night?” “Yes, sir. Your honour told me to call you.” “Oh! I remember. Very well, very well.” After a few dull efforts to get to sleep again, which the man dexterously combated by stirring the fire continuously for five minutes, he got up, tossed his hat on, and walked out. He turned into the Temple, and, having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King’s Bench-walk and Paper-buildings, turned into the Stryver chambers. The Stryver clerk, who never assisted at these conferences, had gone home, and the Stryver principal opened the door. He had his slippers on, and a loose bed-gown, and his throat was bare for his greater ease. He had that rather wild, strained, seared marking about the eyes, which may be observed in all free livers of his class, from the portrait of Jeffries downward, and which can be traced, under various disguises of Art, through the portraits of every Drinking Age. “You are a little late, Memory,” said Stryver. “About the usual time; it may be a quarter of an hour later.” They went into a dingy room lined with books and littered with papers, where there was a blazing fire. A kettle steamed upon the hob, and in the midst of the wreck of papers a table shone, with plenty of wine upon it, and brandy, and rum, and sugar, and lemons. “You have had your bottle, I perceive, Sydney.” “Two to-night, I think. I have been dining with the day’s client; or seeing him dine--it’s all one!” “That was a rare point, Sydney, that you brought to bear upon the identification. How did you come by it? When did it strike you?” “I thought he was rather a handsome fellow, and I thought I should have been much the same sort of fellow, if I had had any luck.” Mr. Stryver laughed till he shook his precocious paunch. “You and your luck, Sydney! Get to work, get to work.” Sullenly enough, the jackal loosened his dress, went into an adjoining room, and came back with a large jug of cold water, a basin, and a towel or two. Steeping the towels in the water, and partially wringing them out, he folded them on his head in a manner hideous to behold, sat down at the table, and said, “Now I am ready!” “Not much boiling down to be done to-night, Memory,” said Mr. Stryver, gaily, as he looked among his papers. “How much?” “Only two sets of them.” “Give me the worst first.” “There they are, Sydney. Fire away!” The lion then composed himself on his back on a sofa on one side of the drinking-table, while the jackal sat at his own paper-bestrewn table proper, on the other side of it, with the bottles and glasses ready to his hand. Both resorted to the drinking-table without stint, but each in a different way; the lion for the most part reclining with his hands in his waistband, looking at the fire, or occasionally flirting with some lighter document; the jackal, with knitted brows and intent face, so deep in his task, that his eyes did not even follow the hand he stretched out for his glass--which often groped about, for a minute or more, before it found the glass for his lips. Two or three times, the matter in hand became so knotty, that the jackal found it imperative on him to get up, and steep his towels anew. From these pilgrimages to the jug and basin, he returned with such eccentricities of damp headgear as no words can describe; which were made the more ludicrous by his anxious gravity. At length the jackal had got together a compact repast for the lion, and proceeded to offer it to him. The lion took it with care and caution, made his selections from it, and his remarks upon it, and the jackal assisted both. When the repast was fully discussed, the lion put his hands in his waistband again, and lay down to meditate. The jackal then invigorated himself with a bumper for his throttle, and a fresh application to his head, and applied himself to the collection of a second meal; this was administered to the lion in the same manner, and was not disposed of until the clocks struck three in the morning. “And now we have done, Sydney, fill a bumper of punch,” said Mr. Stryver. The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had been steaming again, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and complied. “You were very sound, Sydney, in the matter of those crown witnesses to-day. Every question told.” “I always am sound; am I not?” “I don’t gainsay it. What has roughened your temper? Put some punch to it and smooth it again.” With a deprecatory grunt, the jackal again complied. “The old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School,” said Stryver, nodding his head over him as he reviewed him in the present and the past, “the old seesaw Sydney. Up one minute and down the next; now in spirits and now in despondency!” “Ah!” returned the other, sighing: “yes! The same Sydney, with the same luck. Even then, I did exercises for other boys, and seldom did my own.” “And why not?” “God knows. It was my way, I suppose.” He sat, with his hands in his pockets and his legs stretched out before him, looking at the fire. “Carton,” said his friend, squaring himself at him with a bullying air, as if the fire-grate had been the furnace in which sustained endeavour was forged, and the one delicate thing to be done for the old Sydney Carton of old Shrewsbury School was to shoulder him into it, “your way is, and always was, a lame way. You summon no energy and purpose. Look at me.” “Oh, botheration!” returned Sydney, with a lighter and more good-humoured laugh, “don’t _you_ be moral!” “How have I done what I have done?” said Stryver; “how do I do what I do?” “Partly through paying me to help you, I suppose. But it’s not worth your while to apostrophise me, or the air, about it; what you want to do, you do. You were always in the front rank, and I was always behind.” “I had to get into the front rank; I was not born there, was I?” “I was not present at the ceremony; but my opinion is you were,” said Carton. At this, he laughed again, and they both laughed. “Before Shrewsbury, and at Shrewsbury, and ever since Shrewsbury,” pursued Carton, “you have fallen into your rank, and I have fallen into mine. Even when we were fellow-students in the Student-Quarter of Paris, picking up French, and French law, and other French crumbs that we didn’t get much good of, you were always somewhere, and I was always nowhere.” “And whose fault was that?” “Upon my soul, I am not sure that it was not yours. You were always driving and riving and shouldering and passing, to that restless degree that I had no chance for my life but in rust and repose. It’s a gloomy thing, however, to talk about one’s own past, with the day breaking. Turn me in some other direction before I go.” “Well then! Pledge me to the pretty witness,” said Stryver, holding up his glass. “Are you turned in a pleasant direction?” Apparently not, for he became gloomy again. “Pretty witness,” he muttered, looking down into his glass. “I have had enough of witnesses to-day and to-night; who’s your pretty witness?” “The picturesque doctor’s daughter, Miss Manette.” “_She_ pretty?” “Is she not?” “No.” “Why, man alive, she was the admiration of the whole Court!” “Rot the admiration of the whole Court! Who made the Old Bailey a judge of beauty? She was a golden-haired doll!” “Do you know, Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, looking at him with sharp eyes, and slowly drawing a hand across his florid face: “do you know, I rather thought, at the time, that you sympathised with the golden-haired doll, and were quick to see what happened to the golden-haired doll?” “Quick to see what happened! If a girl, doll or no doll, swoons within a yard or two of a man’s nose, he can see it without a perspective-glass. I pledge you, but I deny the beauty. And now I’ll have no more drink; I’ll get to bed.” When his host followed him out on the staircase with a candle, to light him down the stairs, the day was coldly looking in through its grimy windows. When he got out of the house, the air was cold and sad, the dull sky overcast, the river dark and dim, the whole scene like a lifeless desert. And wreaths of dust were spinning round and round before the morning blast, as if the desert-sand had risen far away, and the first spray of it in its advance had begun to overwhelm the city. Waste forces within him, and a desert all around, this man stood still on his way across a silent terrace, and saw for a moment, lying in the wilderness before him, a mirage of honourable ambition, self-denial, and perseverance. In the fair city of this vision, there were airy galleries from which the loves and graces looked upon him, gardens in which the fruits of life hung ripening, waters of Hope that sparkled in his sight. A moment, and it was gone. Climbing to a high chamber in a well of houses, he threw himself down in his clothes on a neglected bed, and its pillow was wet with wasted tears. Sadly, sadly, the sun rose; it rose upon no sadder sight than the man of good abilities and good emotions, incapable of their directed exercise, incapable of his own help and his own happiness, sensible of the blight on him, and resigning himself to let it eat him away. CHAPTER VI. Hundreds of People The quiet lodgings of Doctor Manette were in a quiet street-corner not far from Soho-square. On the afternoon of a certain fine Sunday when the waves of four months had rolled over the trial for treason, and carried it, as to the public interest and memory, far out to sea, Mr. Jarvis Lorry walked along the sunny streets from Clerkenwell where he lived, on his way to dine with the Doctor. After several relapses into business-absorption, Mr. Lorry had become the Doctor’s friend, and the quiet street-corner was the sunny part of his life. On this certain fine Sunday, Mr. Lorry walked towards Soho, early in the afternoon, for three reasons of habit. Firstly, because, on fine Sundays, he often walked out, before dinner, with the Doctor and Lucie; secondly, because, on unfavourable Sundays, he was accustomed to be with them as the family friend, talking, reading, looking out of window, and generally getting through the day; thirdly, because he happened to have his own little shrewd doubts to solve, and knew how the ways of the Doctor’s household pointed to that time as a likely time for solving them. A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived, was not to be found in London. There was no way through it, and the front windows of the Doctor’s lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista of street that had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few buildings then, north of the Oxford-road, and forest-trees flourished, and wild flowers grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields. As a consequence, country airs circulated in Soho with vigorous freedom, instead of languishing into the parish like stray paupers without a settlement; and there was many a good south wall, not far off, on which the peaches ripened in their season. The summer light struck into the corner brilliantly in the earlier part of the day; but, when the streets grew hot, the corner was in shadow, though not in shadow so remote but that you could see beyond it into a glare of brightness. It was a cool spot, staid but cheerful, a wonderful place for echoes, and a very harbour from the raging streets. There ought to have been a tranquil bark in such an anchorage, and there was. The Doctor occupied two floors of a large stiff house, where several callings purported to be pursued by day, but whereof little was audible any day, and which was shunned by all of them at night. In a building at the back, attainable by a courtyard where a plane-tree rustled its green leaves, church-organs claimed to be made, and silver to be chased, and likewise gold to be beaten by some mysterious giant who had a golden arm starting out of the wall of the front hall--as if he had beaten himself precious, and menaced a similar conversion of all visitors. Very little of these trades, or of a lonely lodger rumoured to live up-stairs, or of a dim coach-trimming maker asserted to have a counting-house below, was ever heard or seen. Occasionally, a stray workman putting his coat on, traversed the hall, or a stranger peered about there, or a distant clink was heard across the courtyard, or a thump from the golden giant. These, however, were only the exceptions required to prove the rule that the sparrows in the plane-tree behind the house, and the echoes in the corner before it, had their own way from Sunday morning unto Saturday night. Doctor Manette received such patients here as his old reputation, and its revival in the floating whispers of his story, brought him. His scientific knowledge, and his vigilance and skill in conducting ingenious experiments, brought him otherwise into moderate request, and he earned as much as he wanted. These things were within Mr. Jarvis Lorry’s knowledge, thoughts, and notice, when he rang the door-bell of the tranquil house in the corner, on the fine Sunday afternoon. “Doctor Manette at home?” Expected home. “Miss Lucie at home?” Expected home. “Miss Pross at home?” Possibly at home, but of a certainty impossible for handmaid to anticipate intentions of Miss Pross, as to admission or denial of the fact. “As I am at home myself,” said Mr. Lorry, “I’ll go upstairs.” Although the Doctor’s daughter had known nothing of the country of her birth, she appeared to have innately derived from it that ability to make much of little means, which is one of its most useful and most agreeable characteristics. Simple as the furniture was, it was set off by so many little adornments, of no value but for their taste and fancy, that its effect was delightful. The disposition of everything in the rooms, from the largest object to the least; the arrangement of colours, the elegant variety and contrast obtained by thrift in trifles, by delicate hands, clear eyes, and good sense; were at once so pleasant in themselves, and so expressive of their originator, that, as Mr. Lorry stood looking about him, the very chairs and tables seemed to ask him, with something of that peculiar expression which he knew so well by this time, whether he approved? There were three rooms on a floor, and, the doors by which they communicated being put open that the air might pass freely through them all, Mr. Lorry, smilingly observant of that fanciful resemblance which he detected all around him, walked from one to another. The first was the best room, and in it were Lucie’s birds, and flowers, and books, and desk, and work-table, and box of water-colours; the second was the Doctor’s consulting-room, used also as the dining-room; the third, changingly speckled by the rustle of the plane-tree in the yard, was the Doctor’s bedroom, and there, in a corner, stood the disused shoemaker’s bench and tray of tools, much as it had stood on the fifth floor of the dismal house by the wine-shop, in the suburb of Saint Antoine in Paris. “I wonder,” said Mr. Lorry, pausing in his looking about, “that he keeps that reminder of his sufferings about him!” “And why wonder at that?” was the abrupt inquiry that made him start. It proceeded from Miss Pross, the wild red woman, strong of hand, whose acquaintance he had first made at the Royal George Hotel at Dover, and had since improved. “I should have thought--” Mr. Lorry began. “Pooh! You’d have thought!” said Miss Pross; and Mr. Lorry left off. “How do you do?” inquired that lady then--sharply, and yet as if to express that she bore him no malice. “I am pretty well, I thank you,” answered Mr. Lorry, with meekness; “how are you?” “Nothing to boast of,” said Miss Pross. “Indeed?” “Ah! indeed!” said Miss Pross. “I am very much put out about my Ladybird.” “Indeed?” “For gracious sake say something else besides ‘indeed,’ or you’ll fidget me to death,” said Miss Pross: whose character (dissociated from stature) was shortness. “Really, then?” said Mr. Lorry, as an amendment. “Really, is bad enough,” returned Miss Pross, “but better. Yes, I am very much put out.” “May I ask the cause?” “I don’t want dozens of people who are not at all worthy of Ladybird, to come here looking after her,” said Miss Pross. “_Do_ dozens come for that purpose?” “Hundreds,” said Miss Pross. It was characteristic of this lady (as of some other people before her time and since) that whenever her original proposition was questioned, she exaggerated it. “Dear me!” said Mr. Lorry, as the safest remark he could think of. “I have lived with the darling--or the darling has lived with me, and paid me for it; which she certainly should never have done, you may take your affidavit, if I could have afforded to keep either myself or her for nothing--since she was ten years old. And it’s really very hard,” said Miss Pross. Not seeing with precision what was very hard, Mr. Lorry shook his head; using that important part of himself as a sort of fairy cloak that would fit anything. “All sorts of people who are not in the least degree worthy of the pet, are always turning up,” said Miss Pross. “When you began it--” “_I_ began it, Miss Pross?” “Didn’t you? Who brought her father to life?” “Oh! If _that_ was beginning it--” said Mr. Lorry. “It wasn’t ending it, I suppose? I say, when you began it, it was hard enough; not that I have any fault to find with Doctor Manette, except that he is not worthy of such a daughter, which is no imputation on him, for it was not to be expected that anybody should be, under any circumstances. But it really is doubly and trebly hard to have crowds and multitudes of people turning up after him (I could have forgiven him), to take Ladybird’s affections away from me.” Mr. Lorry knew Miss Pross to be very jealous, but he also knew her by this time to be, beneath the service of her eccentricity, one of those unselfish creatures--found only among women--who will, for pure love and admiration, bind themselves willing slaves, to youth when they have lost it, to beauty that they never had, to accomplishments that they were never fortunate enough to gain, to bright hopes that never shone upon their own sombre lives. He knew enough of the world to know that there is nothing in it better than the faithful service of the heart; so rendered and so free from any mercenary taint, he had such an exalted respect for it, that in the retributive arrangements made by his own mind--we all make such arrangements, more or less--he stationed Miss Pross much nearer to the lower Angels than many ladies immeasurably better got up both by Nature and Art, who had balances at Tellson’s. “There never was, nor will be, but one man worthy of Ladybird,” said Miss Pross; “and that was my brother Solomon, if he hadn’t made a mistake in life.” Here again: Mr. Lorry’s inquiries into Miss Pross’s personal history had established the fact that her brother Solomon was a heartless scoundrel who had stripped her of everything she possessed, as a stake to speculate with, and had abandoned her in her poverty for evermore, with no touch of compunction. Miss Pross’s fidelity of belief in Solomon (deducting a mere trifle for this slight mistake) was quite a serious matter with Mr. Lorry, and had its weight in his good opinion of her. “As we happen to be alone for the moment, and are both people of business,” he said, when they had got back to the drawing-room and had sat down there in friendly relations, “let me ask you--does the Doctor, in talking with Lucie, never refer to the shoemaking time, yet?” “Never.” “And yet keeps that bench and those tools beside him?” “Ah!” returned Miss Pross, shaking her head. “But I don’t say he don’t refer to it within himself.” “Do you believe that he thinks of it much?” “I do,” said Miss Pross. “Do you imagine--” Mr. Lorry had begun, when Miss Pross took him up short with: “Never imagine anything. Have no imagination at all.” “I stand corrected; do you suppose--you go so far as to suppose, sometimes?” “Now and then,” said Miss Pross. “Do you suppose,” Mr. Lorry went on, with a laughing twinkle in his bright eye, as it looked kindly at her, “that Doctor Manette has any theory of his own, preserved through all those years, relative to the cause of his being so oppressed; perhaps, even to the name of his oppressor?” “I don’t suppose anything about it but what Ladybird tells me.” “And that is--?” “That she thinks he has.” “Now don’t be angry at my asking all these questions; because I am a mere dull man of business, and you are a woman of business.” “Dull?” Miss Pross inquired, with placidity. Rather wishing his modest adjective away, Mr. Lorry replied, “No, no, no. Surely not. To return to business:--Is it not remarkable that Doctor Manette, unquestionably innocent of any crime as we are all well assured he is, should never touch upon that question? I will not say with me, though he had business relations with me many years ago, and we are now intimate; I will say with the fair daughter to whom he is so devotedly attached, and who is so devotedly attached to him? Believe me, Miss Pross, I don’t approach the topic with you, out of curiosity, but out of zealous interest.” “Well! To the best of my understanding, and bad’s the best, you’ll tell me,” said Miss Pross, softened by the tone of the apology, “he is afraid of the whole subject.” “Afraid?” “It’s plain enough, I should think, why he may be. It’s a dreadful remembrance. Besides that, his loss of himself grew out of it. Not knowing how he lost himself, or how he recovered himself, he may never feel certain of not losing himself again. That alone wouldn’t make the subject pleasant, I should think.” It was a profounder remark than Mr. Lorry had looked for. “True,” said he, “and fearful to reflect upon. Yet, a doubt lurks in my mind, Miss Pross, whether it is good for Doctor Manette to have that suppression always shut up within him. Indeed, it is this doubt and the uneasiness it sometimes causes me that has led me to our present confidence.” “Can’t be helped,” said Miss Pross, shaking her head. “Touch that string, and he instantly changes for the worse. Better leave it alone. In short, must leave it alone, like or no like. Sometimes, he gets up in the dead of the night, and will be heard, by us overhead there, walking up and down, walking up and down, in his room. Ladybird has learnt to know then that his mind is walking up and down, walking up and down, in his old prison. She hurries to him, and they go on together, walking up and down, walking up and down, until he is composed. But he never says a word of the true reason of his restlessness, to her, and she finds it best not to hint at it to him. In silence they go walking up and down together, walking up and down together, till her love and company have brought him to himself.” Notwithstanding Miss Pross’s denial of her own imagination, there was a perception of the pain of being monotonously haunted by one sad idea, in her repetition of the phrase, walking up and down, which testified to her possessing such a thing. The corner has been mentioned as a wonderful corner for echoes; it had begun to echo so resoundingly to the tread of coming feet, that it seemed as though the very mention of that weary pacing to and fro had set it going. “Here they are!” said Miss Pross, rising to break up the conference; “and now we shall have hundreds of people pretty soon!” It was such a curious corner in its acoustical properties, such a peculiar Ear of a place, that as Mr. Lorry stood at the open window, looking for the father and daughter whose steps he heard, he fancied they would never approach. Not only would the echoes die away, as though the steps had gone; but, echoes of other steps that never came would be heard in their stead, and would die away for good when they seemed close at hand. However, father and daughter did at last appear, and Miss Pross was ready at the street door to receive them. Miss Pross was a pleasant sight, albeit wild, and red, and grim, taking off her darling’s bonnet when she came up-stairs, and touching it up with the ends of her handkerchief, and blowing the dust off it, and folding her mantle ready for laying by, and smoothing her rich hair with as much pride as she could possibly have taken in her own hair if she had been the vainest and handsomest of women. Her darling was a pleasant sight too, embracing her and thanking her, and protesting against her taking so much trouble for her--which last she only dared to do playfully, or Miss Pross, sorely hurt, would have retired to her own chamber and cried. The Doctor was a pleasant sight too, looking on at them, and telling Miss Pross how she spoilt Lucie, in accents and with eyes that had as much spoiling in them as Miss Pross had, and would have had more if it were possible. Mr. Lorry was a pleasant sight too, beaming at all this in his little wig, and thanking his bachelor stars for having lighted him in his declining years to a Home. But, no Hundreds of people came to see the sights, and Mr. Lorry looked in vain for the fulfilment of Miss Pross’s prediction. Dinner-time, and still no Hundreds of people. In the arrangements of the little household, Miss Pross took charge of the lower regions, and always acquitted herself marvellously. Her dinners, of a very modest quality, were so well cooked and so well served, and so neat in their contrivances, half English and half French, that nothing could be better. Miss Pross’s friendship being of the thoroughly practical kind, she had ravaged Soho and the adjacent provinces, in search of impoverished French, who, tempted by shillings and half-crowns, would impart culinary mysteries to her. From these decayed sons and daughters of Gaul, she had acquired such wonderful arts, that the woman and girl who formed the staff of domestics regarded her as quite a Sorceress, or Cinderella’s Godmother: who would send out for a fowl, a rabbit, a vegetable or two from the garden, and change them into anything she pleased. On Sundays, Miss Pross dined at the Doctor’s table, but on other days persisted in taking her meals at unknown periods, either in the lower regions, or in her own room on the second floor--a blue chamber, to which no one but her Ladybird ever gained admittance. On this occasion, Miss Pross, responding to Ladybird’s pleasant face and pleasant efforts to please her, unbent exceedingly; so the dinner was very pleasant, too. It was an oppressive day, and, after dinner, Lucie proposed that the wine should be carried out under the plane-tree, and they should sit there in the air. As everything turned upon her, and revolved about her, they went out under the plane-tree, and she carried the wine down for the special benefit of Mr. Lorry. She had installed herself, some time before, as Mr. Lorry’s cup-bearer; and while they sat under the plane-tree, talking, she kept his glass replenished. Mysterious backs and ends of houses peeped at them as they talked, and the plane-tree whispered to them in its own way above their heads. Still, the Hundreds of people did not present themselves. Mr. Darnay presented himself while they were sitting under the plane-tree, but he was only One. Doctor Manette received him kindly, and so did Lucie. But, Miss Pross suddenly became afflicted with a twitching in the head and body, and retired into the house. She was not unfrequently the victim of this disorder, and she called it, in familiar conversation, “a fit of the jerks.” The Doctor was in his best condition, and looked specially young. The resemblance between him and Lucie was very strong at such times, and as they sat side by side, she leaning on his shoulder, and he resting his arm on the back of her chair, it was very agreeable to trace the likeness. He had been talking all day, on many subjects, and with unusual vivacity. “Pray, Doctor Manette,” said Mr. Darnay, as they sat under the plane-tree--and he said it in the natural pursuit of the topic in hand, which happened to be the old buildings of London--“have you seen much of the Tower?” “Lucie and I have been there; but only casually. We have seen enough of it, to know that it teems with interest; little more.” “_I_ have been there, as you remember,” said Darnay, with a smile, though reddening a little angrily, “in another character, and not in a character that gives facilities for seeing much of it. They told me a curious thing when I was there.” “What was that?” Lucie asked. “In making some alterations, the workmen came upon an old dungeon, which had been, for many years, built up and forgotten. Every stone of its inner wall was covered by inscriptions which had been carved by prisoners--dates, names, complaints, and prayers. Upon a corner stone in an angle of the wall, one prisoner, who seemed to have gone to execution, had cut as his last work, three letters. They were done with some very poor instrument, and hurriedly, with an unsteady hand. At first, they were read as D. I. C.; but, on being more carefully examined, the last letter was found to be G. There was no record or legend of any prisoner with those initials, and many fruitless guesses were made what the name could have been. At length, it was suggested that the letters were not initials, but the complete word, DIG. The floor was examined very carefully under the inscription, and, in the earth beneath a stone, or tile, or some fragment of paving, were found the ashes of a paper, mingled with the ashes of a small leathern case or bag. What the unknown prisoner had written will never be read, but he had written something, and hidden it away to keep it from the gaoler.” “My father,” exclaimed Lucie, “you are ill!” He had suddenly started up, with his hand to his head. His manner and his look quite terrified them all. “No, my dear, not ill. There are large drops of rain falling, and they made me start. We had better go in.” He recovered himself almost instantly. Rain was really falling in large drops, and he showed the back of his hand with rain-drops on it. But, he said not a single word in reference to the discovery that had been told of, and, as they went into the house, the business eye of Mr. Lorry either detected, or fancied it detected, on his face, as it turned towards Charles Darnay, the same singular look that had been upon it when it turned towards him in the passages of the Court House. He recovered himself so quickly, however, that Mr. Lorry had doubts of his business eye. The arm of the golden giant in the hall was not more steady than he was, when he stopped under it to remark to them that he was not yet proof against slight surprises (if he ever would be), and that the rain had startled him. Tea-time, and Miss Pross making tea, with another fit of the jerks upon her, and yet no Hundreds of people. Mr. Carton had lounged in, but he made only Two. The night was so very sultry, that although they sat with doors and windows open, they were overpowered by heat. When the tea-table was done with, they all moved to one of the windows, and looked out into the heavy twilight. Lucie sat by her father; Darnay sat beside her; Carton leaned against a window. The curtains were long and white, and some of the thunder-gusts that whirled into the corner, caught them up to the ceiling, and waved them like spectral wings. “The rain-drops are still falling, large, heavy, and few,” said Doctor Manette. “It comes slowly.” “It comes surely,” said Carton. They spoke low, as people watching and waiting mostly do; as people in a dark room, watching and waiting for Lightning, always do. There was a great hurry in the streets of people speeding away to get shelter before the storm broke; the wonderful corner for echoes resounded with the echoes of footsteps coming and going, yet not a footstep was there. “A multitude of people, and yet a solitude!” said Darnay, when they had listened for a while. “Is it not impressive, Mr. Darnay?” asked Lucie. “Sometimes, I have sat here of an evening, until I have fancied--but even the shade of a foolish fancy makes me shudder to-night, when all is so black and solemn--” “Let us shudder too. We may know what it is.” “It will seem nothing to you. Such whims are only impressive as we originate them, I think; they are not to be communicated. I have sometimes sat alone here of an evening, listening, until I have made the echoes out to be the echoes of all the footsteps that are coming by-and-bye into our lives.” “There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be so,” Sydney Carton struck in, in his moody way. The footsteps were incessant, and the hurry of them became more and more rapid. The corner echoed and re-echoed with the tread of feet; some, as it seemed, under the windows; some, as it seemed, in the room; some coming, some going, some breaking off, some stopping altogether; all in the distant streets, and not one within sight. “Are all these footsteps destined to come to all of us, Miss Manette, or are we to divide them among us?” “I don’t know, Mr. Darnay; I told you it was a foolish fancy, but you asked for it. When I have yielded myself to it, I have been alone, and then I have imagined them the footsteps of the people who are to come into my life, and my father’s.” “I take them into mine!” said Carton. “_I_ ask no questions and make no stipulations. There is a great crowd bearing down upon us, Miss Manette, and I see them--by the Lightning.” He added the last words, after there had been a vivid flash which had shown him lounging in the window. “And I hear them!” he added again, after a peal of thunder. “Here they come, fast, fierce, and furious!” It was the rush and roar of rain that he typified, and it stopped him, for no voice could be heard in it. A memorable storm of thunder and lightning broke with that sweep of water, and there was not a moment’s interval in crash, and fire, and rain, until after the moon rose at midnight. The great bell of Saint Paul’s was striking one in the cleared air, when Mr. Lorry, escorted by Jerry, high-booted and bearing a lantern, set forth on his return-passage to Clerkenwell. There were solitary patches of road on the way between Soho and Clerkenwell, and Mr. Lorry, mindful of foot-pads, always retained Jerry for this service: though it was usually performed a good two hours earlier. “What a night it has been! Almost a night, Jerry,” said Mr. Lorry, “to bring the dead out of their graves.” “I never see the night myself, master--nor yet I don’t expect to--what would do that,” answered Jerry. “Good night, Mr. Carton,” said the man of business. “Good night, Mr. Darnay. Shall we ever see such a night again, together!” Perhaps. Perhaps, see the great crowd of people with its rush and roar, bearing down upon them, too. CHAPTER VII. Monseigneur in Town Monseigneur, one of the great lords in power at the Court, held his fortnightly reception in his grand hotel in Paris. Monseigneur was in his inner room, his sanctuary of sanctuaries, the Holiest of Holiests to the crowd of worshippers in the suite of rooms without. Monseigneur was about to take his chocolate. Monseigneur could swallow a great many things with ease, and was by some few sullen minds supposed to be rather rapidly swallowing France; but, his morning’s chocolate could not so much as get into the throat of Monseigneur, without the aid of four strong men besides the Cook. Yes. It took four men, all four ablaze with gorgeous decoration, and the Chief of them unable to exist with fewer than two gold watches in his pocket, emulative of the noble and chaste fashion set by Monseigneur, to conduct the happy chocolate to Monseigneur’s lips. One lacquey carried the chocolate-pot into the sacred presence; a second, milled and frothed the chocolate with the little instrument he bore for that function; a third, presented the favoured napkin; a fourth (he of the two gold watches), poured the chocolate out. It was impossible for Monseigneur to dispense with one of these attendants on the chocolate and hold his high place under the admiring Heavens. Deep would have been the blot upon his escutcheon if his chocolate had been ignobly waited on by only three men; he must have died of two. Monseigneur had been out at a little supper last night, where the Comedy and the Grand Opera were charmingly represented. Monseigneur was out at a little supper most nights, with fascinating company. So polite and so impressible was Monseigneur, that the Comedy and the Grand Opera had far more influence with him in the tiresome articles of state affairs and state secrets, than the needs of all France. A happy circumstance for France, as the like always is for all countries similarly favoured!--always was for England (by way of example), in the regretted days of the merry Stuart who sold it. Monseigneur had one truly noble idea of general public business, which was, to let everything go on in its own way; of particular public business, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea that it must all go his way--tend to his own power and pocket. Of his pleasures, general and particular, Monseigneur had the other truly noble idea, that the world was made for them. The text of his order (altered from the original by only a pronoun, which is not much) ran: “The earth and the fulness thereof are mine, saith Monseigneur.” Yet, Monseigneur had slowly found that vulgar embarrassments crept into his affairs, both private and public; and he had, as to both classes of affairs, allied himself perforce with a Farmer-General. As to finances public, because Monseigneur could not make anything at all of them, and must consequently let them out to somebody who could; as to finances private, because Farmer-Generals were rich, and Monseigneur, after generations of great luxury and expense, was growing poor. Hence Monseigneur had taken his sister from a convent, while there was yet time to ward off the impending veil, the cheapest garment she could wear, and had bestowed her as a prize upon a very rich Farmer-General, poor in family. Which Farmer-General, carrying an appropriate cane with a golden apple on the top of it, was now among the company in the outer rooms, much prostrated before by mankind--always excepting superior mankind of the blood of Monseigneur, who, his own wife included, looked down upon him with the loftiest contempt. A sumptuous man was the Farmer-General. Thirty horses stood in his stables, twenty-four male domestics sat in his halls, six body-women waited on his wife. As one who pretended to do nothing but plunder and forage where he could, the Farmer-General--howsoever his matrimonial relations conduced to social morality--was at least the greatest reality among the personages who attended at the hotel of Monseigneur that day. For, the rooms, though a beautiful scene to look at, and adorned with every device of decoration that the taste and skill of the time could achieve, were, in truth, not a sound business; considered with any reference to the scarecrows in the rags and nightcaps elsewhere (and not so far off, either, but that the watching towers of Notre Dame, almost equidistant from the two extremes, could see them both), they would have been an exceedingly uncomfortable business--if that could have been anybody’s business, at the house of Monseigneur. Military officers destitute of military knowledge; naval officers with no idea of a ship; civil officers without a notion of affairs; brazen ecclesiastics, of the worst world worldly, with sensual eyes, loose tongues, and looser lives; all totally unfit for their several callings, all lying horribly in pretending to belong to them, but all nearly or remotely of the order of Monseigneur, and therefore foisted on all public employments from which anything was to be got; these were to be told off by the score and the score. People not immediately connected with Monseigneur or the State, yet equally unconnected with anything that was real, or with lives passed in travelling by any straight road to any true earthly end, were no less abundant. Doctors who made great fortunes out of dainty remedies for imaginary disorders that never existed, smiled upon their courtly patients in the ante-chambers of Monseigneur. Projectors who had discovered every kind of remedy for the little evils with which the State was touched, except the remedy of setting to work in earnest to root out a single sin, poured their distracting babble into any ears they could lay hold of, at the reception of Monseigneur. Unbelieving Philosophers who were remodelling the world with words, and making card-towers of Babel to scale the skies with, talked with Unbelieving Chemists who had an eye on the transmutation of metals, at this wonderful gathering accumulated by Monseigneur. Exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding, which was at that remarkable time--and has been since--to be known by its fruits of indifference to every natural subject of human interest, were in the most exemplary state of exhaustion, at the hotel of Monseigneur. Such homes had these various notabilities left behind them in the fine world of Paris, that the spies among the assembled devotees of Monseigneur--forming a goodly half of the polite company--would have found it hard to discover among the angels of that sphere one solitary wife, who, in her manners and appearance, owned to being a Mother. Indeed, except for the mere act of bringing a troublesome creature into this world--which does not go far towards the realisation of the name of mother--there was no such thing known to the fashion. Peasant women kept the unfashionable babies close, and brought them up, and charming grandmammas of sixty dressed and supped as at twenty. The leprosy of unreality disfigured every human creature in attendance upon Monseigneur. In the outermost room were half a dozen exceptional people who had had, for a few years, some vague misgiving in them that things in general were going rather wrong. As a promising way of setting them right, half of the half-dozen had become members of a fantastic sect of Convulsionists, and were even then considering within themselves whether they should foam, rage, roar, and turn cataleptic on the spot--thereby setting up a highly intelligible finger-post to the Future, for Monseigneur’s guidance. Besides these Dervishes, were other three who had rushed into another sect, which mended matters with a jargon about “the Centre of Truth:” holding that Man had got out of the Centre of Truth--which did not need much demonstration--but had not got out of the Circumference, and that he was to be kept from flying out of the Circumference, and was even to be shoved back into the Centre, by fasting and seeing of spirits. Among these, accordingly, much discoursing with spirits went on--and it did a world of good which never became manifest. But, the comfort was, that all the company at the grand hotel of Monseigneur were perfectly dressed. If the Day of Judgment had only been ascertained to be a dress day, everybody there would have been eternally correct. Such frizzling and powdering and sticking up of hair, such delicate complexions artificially preserved and mended, such gallant swords to look at, and such delicate honour to the sense of smell, would surely keep anything going, for ever and ever. The exquisite gentlemen of the finest breeding wore little pendent trinkets that chinked as they languidly moved; these golden fetters rang like precious little bells; and what with that ringing, and with the rustle of silk and brocade and fine linen, there was a flutter in the air that fanned Saint Antoine and his devouring hunger far away. Dress was the one unfailing talisman and charm used for keeping all things in their places. Everybody was dressed for a Fancy Ball that was never to leave off. From the Palace of the Tuileries, through Monseigneur and the whole Court, through the Chambers, the Tribunals of Justice, and all society (except the scarecrows), the Fancy Ball descended to the Common Executioner: who, in pursuance of the charm, was required to officiate “frizzled, powdered, in a gold-laced coat, pumps, and white silk stockings.” At the gallows and the wheel--the axe was a rarity--Monsieur Paris, as it was the episcopal mode among his brother Professors of the provinces, Monsieur Orleans, and the rest, to call him, presided in this dainty dress. And who among the company at Monseigneur’s reception in that seventeen hundred and eightieth year of our Lord, could possibly doubt, that a system rooted in a frizzled hangman, powdered, gold-laced, pumped, and white-silk stockinged, would see the very stars out! Monseigneur having eased his four men of their burdens and taken his chocolate, caused the doors of the Holiest of Holiests to be thrown open, and issued forth. Then, what submission, what cringing and fawning, what servility, what abject humiliation! As to bowing down in body and spirit, nothing in that way was left for Heaven--which may have been one among other reasons why the worshippers of Monseigneur never troubled it. Bestowing a word of promise here and a smile there, a whisper on one happy slave and a wave of the hand on another, Monseigneur affably passed through his rooms to the remote region of the Circumference of Truth. There, Monseigneur turned, and came back again, and so in due course of time got himself shut up in his sanctuary by the chocolate sprites, and was seen no more. The show being over, the flutter in the air became quite a little storm, and the precious little bells went ringing downstairs. There was soon but one person left of all the crowd, and he, with his hat under his arm and his snuff-box in his hand, slowly passed among the mirrors on his way out. “I devote you,” said this person, stopping at the last door on his way, and turning in the direction of the sanctuary, “to the Devil!” With that, he shook the snuff from his fingers as if he had shaken the dust from his feet, and quietly walked downstairs. He was a man of about sixty, handsomely dressed, haughty in manner, and with a face like a fine mask. A face of a transparent paleness; every feature in it clearly defined; one set expression on it. The nose, beautifully formed otherwise, was very slightly pinched at the top of each nostril. In those two compressions, or dints, the only little change that the face ever showed, resided. They persisted in changing colour sometimes, and they would be occasionally dilated and contracted by something like a faint pulsation; then, they gave a look of treachery, and cruelty, to the whole countenance. Examined with attention, its capacity of helping such a look was to be found in the line of the mouth, and the lines of the orbits of the eyes, being much too horizontal and thin; still, in the effect of the face made, it was a handsome face, and a remarkable one. Its owner went downstairs into the courtyard, got into his carriage, and drove away. Not many people had talked with him at the reception; he had stood in a little space apart, and Monseigneur might have been warmer in his manner. It appeared, under the circumstances, rather agreeable to him to see the common people dispersed before his horses, and often barely escaping from being run down. His man drove as if he were charging an enemy, and the furious recklessness of the man brought no check into the face, or to the lips, of the master. The complaint had sometimes made itself audible, even in that deaf city and dumb age, that, in the narrow streets without footways, the fierce patrician custom of hard driving endangered and maimed the mere vulgar in a barbarous manner. But, few cared enough for that to think of it a second time, and, in this matter, as in all others, the common wretches were left to get out of their difficulties as they could. With a wild rattle and clatter, and an inhuman abandonment of consideration not easy to be understood in these days, the carriage dashed through streets and swept round corners, with women screaming before it, and men clutching each other and clutching children out of its way. At last, swooping at a street corner by a fountain, one of its wheels came to a sickening little jolt, and there was a loud cry from a number of voices, and the horses reared and plunged. But for the latter inconvenience, the carriage probably would not have stopped; carriages were often known to drive on, and leave their wounded behind, and why not? But the frightened valet had got down in a hurry, and there were twenty hands at the horses’ bridles. “What has gone wrong?” said Monsieur, calmly looking out. A tall man in a nightcap had caught up a bundle from among the feet of the horses, and had laid it on the basement of the fountain, and was down in the mud and wet, howling over it like a wild animal. “Pardon, Monsieur the Marquis!” said a ragged and submissive man, “it is a child.” “Why does he make that abominable noise? Is it his child?” “Excuse me, Monsieur the Marquis--it is a pity--yes.” The fountain was a little removed; for the street opened, where it was, into a space some ten or twelve yards square. As the tall man suddenly got up from the ground, and came running at the carriage, Monsieur the Marquis clapped his hand for an instant on his sword-hilt. “Killed!” shrieked the man, in wild desperation, extending both arms at their length above his head, and staring at him. “Dead!” The people closed round, and looked at Monsieur the Marquis. There was nothing revealed by the many eyes that looked at him but watchfulness and eagerness; there was no visible menacing or anger. Neither did the people say anything; after the first cry, they had been silent, and they remained so. The voice of the submissive man who had spoken, was flat and tame in its extreme submission. Monsieur the Marquis ran his eyes over them all, as if they had been mere rats come out of their holes. He took out his purse. “It is extraordinary to me,” said he, “that you people cannot take care of yourselves and your children. One or the other of you is for ever in the way. How do I know what injury you have done my horses. See! Give him that.” He threw out a gold coin for the valet to pick up, and all the heads craned forward that all the eyes might look down at it as it fell. The tall man called out again with a most unearthly cry, “Dead!” He was arrested by the quick arrival of another man, for whom the rest made way. On seeing him, the miserable creature fell upon his shoulder, sobbing and crying, and pointing to the fountain, where some women were stooping over the motionless bundle, and moving gently about it. They were as silent, however, as the men. “I know all, I know all,” said the last comer. “Be a brave man, my Gaspard! It is better for the poor little plaything to die so, than to live. It has died in a moment without pain. Could it have lived an hour as happily?” “You are a philosopher, you there,” said the Marquis, smiling. “How do they call you?” “They call me Defarge.” “Of what trade?” “Monsieur the Marquis, vendor of wine.” “Pick up that, philosopher and vendor of wine,” said the Marquis, throwing him another gold coin, “and spend it as you will. The horses there; are they right?” Without deigning to look at the assemblage a second time, Monsieur the Marquis leaned back in his seat, and was just being driven away with the air of a gentleman who had accidentally broke some common thing, and had paid for it, and could afford to pay for it; when his ease was suddenly disturbed by a coin flying into his carriage, and ringing on its floor. “Hold!” said Monsieur the Marquis. “Hold the horses! Who threw that?” He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting. “You dogs!” said the Marquis, but smoothly, and with an unchanged front, except as to the spots on his nose: “I would ride over any of you very willingly, and exterminate you from the earth. If I knew which rascal threw at the carriage, and if that brigand were sufficiently near it, he should be crushed under the wheels.” So cowed was their condition, and so long and hard their experience of what such a man could do to them, within the law and beyond it, that not a voice, or a hand, or even an eye was raised. Among the men, not one. But the woman who stood knitting looked up steadily, and looked the Marquis in the face. It was not for his dignity to notice it; his contemptuous eyes passed over her, and over all the other rats; and he leaned back in his seat again, and gave the word “Go on!” He was driven on, and other carriages came whirling by in quick succession; the Minister, the State-Projector, the Farmer-General, the Doctor, the Lawyer, the Ecclesiastic, the Grand Opera, the Comedy, the whole Fancy Ball in a bright continuous flow, came whirling by. The rats had crept out of their holes to look on, and they remained looking on for hours; soldiers and police often passing between them and the spectacle, and making a barrier behind which they slunk, and through which they peeped. The father had long ago taken up his bundle and bidden himself away with it, when the women who had tended the bundle while it lay on the base of the fountain, sat there watching the running of the water and the rolling of the Fancy Ball--when the one woman who had stood conspicuous, knitting, still knitted on with the steadfastness of Fate. The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into evening, so much life in the city ran into death according to rule, time and tide waited for no man, the rats were sleeping close together in their dark holes again, the Fancy Ball was lighted up at supper, all things ran their course. CHAPTER VIII. Monseigneur in the Country A beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it, but not abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have been, patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as on the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency towards an appearance of vegetating unwillingly--a dejected disposition to give up, and wither away. Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which might have been lighter), conducted by four post-horses and two postilions, fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of Monsieur the Marquis was no impeachment of his high breeding; it was not from within; it was occasioned by an external circumstance beyond his control--the setting sun. The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriage when it gained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in crimson. “It will die out,” said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at his hands, “directly.” In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment. When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the carriage slid down hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust, the red glow departed quickly; the sun and the Marquis going down together, there was no glow left when the drag was taken off. But, there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little village at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond it, a church-tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag with a fortress on it used as a prison. Round upon all these darkening objects as the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with the air of one who was coming near home. The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too. All its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any such small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive signs of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed. Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men and women, their choice on earth was stated in the prospect--Life on the lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the little village under the mill; or captivity and Death in the dominant prison on the crag. Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his postilions’ whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up in his travelling carriage at the posting-house gate. It was hard by the fountain, and the peasants suspended their operations to look at him. He looked at them, and saw in them, without knowing it, the slow sure filing down of misery-worn face and figure, that was to make the meagreness of Frenchmen an English superstition which should survive the truth through the best part of a hundred years. Monsieur the Marquis cast his eyes over the submissive faces that drooped before him, as the like of himself had drooped before Monseigneur of the Court--only the difference was, that these faces drooped merely to suffer and not to propitiate--when a grizzled mender of the roads joined the group. “Bring me hither that fellow!” said the Marquis to the courier. The fellow was brought, cap in hand, and the other fellows closed round to look and listen, in the manner of the people at the Paris fountain. “I passed you on the road?” “Monseigneur, it is true. I had the honour of being passed on the road.” “Coming up the hill, and at the top of the hill, both?” “Monseigneur, it is true.” “What did you look at, so fixedly?” “Monseigneur, I looked at the man.” He stooped a little, and with his tattered blue cap pointed under the carriage. All his fellows stooped to look under the carriage. “What man, pig? And why look there?” “Pardon, Monseigneur; he swung by the chain of the shoe--the drag.” “Who?” demanded the traveller. “Monseigneur, the man.” “May the Devil carry away these idiots! How do you call the man? You know all the men of this part of the country. Who was he?” “Your clemency, Monseigneur! He was not of this part of the country. Of all the days of my life, I never saw him.” “Swinging by the chain? To be suffocated?” “With your gracious permission, that was the wonder of it, Monseigneur. His head hanging over--like this!” He turned himself sideways to the carriage, and leaned back, with his face thrown up to the sky, and his head hanging down; then recovered himself, fumbled with his cap, and made a bow. “What was he like?” “Monseigneur, he was whiter than the miller. All covered with dust, white as a spectre, tall as a spectre!” The picture produced an immense sensation in the little crowd; but all eyes, without comparing notes with other eyes, looked at Monsieur the Marquis. Perhaps, to observe whether he had any spectre on his conscience. “Truly, you did well,” said the Marquis, felicitously sensible that such vermin were not to ruffle him, “to see a thief accompanying my carriage, and not open that great mouth of yours. Bah! Put him aside, Monsieur Gabelle!” Monsieur Gabelle was the Postmaster, and some other taxing functionary united; he had come out with great obsequiousness to assist at this examination, and had held the examined by the drapery of his arm in an official manner. “Bah! Go aside!” said Monsieur Gabelle. “Lay hands on this stranger if he seeks to lodge in your village to-night, and be sure that his business is honest, Gabelle.” “Monseigneur, I am flattered to devote myself to your orders.” “Did he run away, fellow?--where is that Accursed?” The accursed was already under the carriage with some half-dozen particular friends, pointing out the chain with his blue cap. Some half-dozen other particular friends promptly hauled him out, and presented him breathless to Monsieur the Marquis. “Did the man run away, Dolt, when we stopped for the drag?” “Monseigneur, he precipitated himself over the hill-side, head first, as a person plunges into the river.” “See to it, Gabelle. Go on!” The half-dozen who were peering at the chain were still among the wheels, like sheep; the wheels turned so suddenly that they were lucky to save their skins and bones; they had very little else to save, or they might not have been so fortunate. The burst with which the carriage started out of the village and up the rise beyond, was soon checked by the steepness of the hill. Gradually, it subsided to a foot pace, swinging and lumbering upward among the many sweet scents of a summer night. The postilions, with a thousand gossamer gnats circling about them in lieu of the Furies, quietly mended the points to the lashes of their whips; the valet walked by the horses; the courier was audible, trotting on ahead into the dull distance. At the steepest point of the hill there was a little burial-ground, with a Cross and a new large figure of Our Saviour on it; it was a poor figure in wood, done by some inexperienced rustic carver, but he had studied the figure from the life--his own life, maybe--for it was dreadfully spare and thin. To this distressful emblem of a great distress that had long been growing worse, and was not at its worst, a woman was kneeling. She turned her head as the carriage came up to her, rose quickly, and presented herself at the carriage-door. “It is you, Monseigneur! Monseigneur, a petition.” With an exclamation of impatience, but with his unchangeable face, Monseigneur looked out. “How, then! What is it? Always petitions!” “Monseigneur. For the love of the great God! My husband, the forester.” “What of your husband, the forester? Always the same with you people. He cannot pay something?” “He has paid all, Monseigneur. He is dead.” “Well! He is quiet. Can I restore him to you?” “Alas, no, Monseigneur! But he lies yonder, under a little heap of poor grass.” “Well?” “Monseigneur, there are so many little heaps of poor grass?” “Again, well?” She looked an old woman, but was young. Her manner was one of passionate grief; by turns she clasped her veinous and knotted hands together with wild energy, and laid one of them on the carriage-door--tenderly, caressingly, as if it had been a human breast, and could be expected to feel the appealing touch. “Monseigneur, hear me! Monseigneur, hear my petition! My husband died of want; so many die of want; so many more will die of want.” “Again, well? Can I feed them?” “Monseigneur, the good God knows; but I don’t ask it. My petition is, that a morsel of stone or wood, with my husband’s name, may be placed over him to show where he lies. Otherwise, the place will be quickly forgotten, it will never be found when I am dead of the same malady, I shall be laid under some other heap of poor grass. Monseigneur, they are so many, they increase so fast, there is so much want. Monseigneur! Monseigneur!” The valet had put her away from the door, the carriage had broken into a brisk trot, the postilions had quickened the pace, she was left far behind, and Monseigneur, again escorted by the Furies, was rapidly diminishing the league or two of distance that remained between him and his chateau. The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toil-worn group at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre, as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled in little casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, and more stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having been extinguished. The shadow of a large high-roofed house, and of many over-hanging trees, was upon Monsieur the Marquis by that time; and the shadow was exchanged for the light of a flambeau, as his carriage stopped, and the great door of his chateau was opened to him. “Monsieur Charles, whom I expect; is he arrived from England?” “Monseigneur, not yet.” CHAPTER IX. The Gorgon’s Head It was a heavy mass of building, that chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, with a large stone courtyard before it, and two stone sweeps of staircase meeting in a stone terrace before the principal door. A stony business altogether, with heavy stone balustrades, and stone urns, and stone flowers, and stone faces of men, and stone heads of lions, in all directions. As if the Gorgon’s head had surveyed it, when it was finished, two centuries ago. Up the broad flight of shallow steps, Monsieur the Marquis, flambeau preceded, went from his carriage, sufficiently disturbing the darkness to elicit loud remonstrance from an owl in the roof of the great pile of stable building away among the trees. All else was so quiet, that the flambeau carried up the steps, and the other flambeau held at the great door, burnt as if they were in a close room of state, instead of being in the open night-air. Other sound than the owl’s voice there was none, save the falling of a fountain into its stone basin; for, it was one of those dark nights that hold their breath by the hour together, and then heave a long low sigh, and hold their breath again. The great door clanged behind him, and Monsieur the Marquis crossed a hall grim with certain old boar-spears, swords, and knives of the chase; grimmer with certain heavy riding-rods and riding-whips, of which many a peasant, gone to his benefactor Death, had felt the weight when his lord was angry. Avoiding the larger rooms, which were dark and made fast for the night, Monsieur the Marquis, with his flambeau-bearer going on before, went up the staircase to a door in a corridor. This thrown open, admitted him to his own private apartment of three rooms: his bed-chamber and two others. High vaulted rooms with cool uncarpeted floors, great dogs upon the hearths for the burning of wood in winter time, and all luxuries befitting the state of a marquis in a luxurious age and country. The fashion of the last Louis but one, of the line that was never to break--the fourteenth Louis--was conspicuous in their rich furniture; but, it was diversified by many objects that were illustrations of old pages in the history of France. A supper-table was laid for two, in the third of the rooms; a round room, in one of the chateau’s four extinguisher-topped towers. A small lofty room, with its window wide open, and the wooden jalousie-blinds closed, so that the dark night only showed in slight horizontal lines of black, alternating with their broad lines of stone colour. “My nephew,” said the Marquis, glancing at the supper preparation; “they said he was not arrived.” Nor was he; but, he had been expected with Monseigneur. “Ah! It is not probable he will arrive to-night; nevertheless, leave the table as it is. I shall be ready in a quarter of an hour.” In a quarter of an hour Monseigneur was ready, and sat down alone to his sumptuous and choice supper. His chair was opposite to the window, and he had taken his soup, and was raising his glass of Bordeaux to his lips, when he put it down. “What is that?” he calmly asked, looking with attention at the horizontal lines of black and stone colour. “Monseigneur? That?” “Outside the blinds. Open the blinds.” It was done. “Well?” “Monseigneur, it is nothing. The trees and the night are all that are here.” The servant who spoke, had thrown the blinds wide, had looked out into the vacant darkness, and stood with that blank behind him, looking round for instructions. “Good,” said the imperturbable master. “Close them again.” That was done too, and the Marquis went on with his supper. He was half way through it, when he again stopped with his glass in his hand, hearing the sound of wheels. It came on briskly, and came up to the front of the chateau. “Ask who is arrived.” It was the nephew of Monseigneur. He had been some few leagues behind Monseigneur, early in the afternoon. He had diminished the distance rapidly, but not so rapidly as to come up with Monseigneur on the road. He had heard of Monseigneur, at the posting-houses, as being before him. He was to be told (said Monseigneur) that supper awaited him then and there, and that he was prayed to come to it. In a little while he came. He had been known in England as Charles Darnay. Monseigneur received him in a courtly manner, but they did not shake hands. “You left Paris yesterday, sir?” he said to Monseigneur, as he took his seat at table. “Yesterday. And you?” “I come direct.” “From London?” “Yes.” “You have been a long time coming,” said the Marquis, with a smile. “On the contrary; I come direct.” “Pardon me! I mean, not a long time on the journey; a long time intending the journey.” “I have been detained by”--the nephew stopped a moment in his answer--“various business.” “Without doubt,” said the polished uncle. So long as a servant was present, no other words passed between them. When coffee had been served and they were alone together, the nephew, looking at the uncle and meeting the eyes of the face that was like a fine mask, opened a conversation. “I have come back, sir, as you anticipate, pursuing the object that took me away. It carried me into great and unexpected peril; but it is a sacred object, and if it had carried me to death I hope it would have sustained me.” “Not to death,” said the uncle; “it is not necessary to say, to death.” “I doubt, sir,” returned the nephew, “whether, if it had carried me to the utmost brink of death, you would have cared to stop me there.” The deepened marks in the nose, and the lengthening of the fine straight lines in the cruel face, looked ominous as to that; the uncle made a graceful gesture of protest, which was so clearly a slight form of good breeding that it was not reassuring. “Indeed, sir,” pursued the nephew, “for anything I know, you may have expressly worked to give a more suspicious appearance to the suspicious circumstances that surrounded me.” “No, no, no,” said the uncle, pleasantly. “But, however that may be,” resumed the nephew, glancing at him with deep distrust, “I know that your diplomacy would stop me by any means, and would know no scruple as to means.” “My friend, I told you so,” said the uncle, with a fine pulsation in the two marks. “Do me the favour to recall that I told you so, long ago.” “I recall it.” “Thank you,” said the Marquis--very sweetly indeed. His tone lingered in the air, almost like the tone of a musical instrument. “In effect, sir,” pursued the nephew, “I believe it to be at once your bad fortune, and my good fortune, that has kept me out of a prison in France here.” “I do not quite understand,” returned the uncle, sipping his coffee. “Dare I ask you to explain?” “I believe that if you were not in disgrace with the Court, and had not been overshadowed by that cloud for years past, a letter de cachet would have sent me to some fortress indefinitely.” “It is possible,” said the uncle, with great calmness. “For the honour of the family, I could even resolve to incommode you to that extent. Pray excuse me!” “I perceive that, happily for me, the Reception of the day before yesterday was, as usual, a cold one,” observed the nephew. “I would not say happily, my friend,” returned the uncle, with refined politeness; “I would not be sure of that. A good opportunity for consideration, surrounded by the advantages of solitude, might influence your destiny to far greater advantage than you influence it for yourself. But it is useless to discuss the question. I am, as you say, at a disadvantage. These little instruments of correction, these gentle aids to the power and honour of families, these slight favours that might so incommode you, are only to be obtained now by interest and importunity. They are sought by so many, and they are granted (comparatively) to so few! It used not to be so, but France in all such things is changed for the worse. Our not remote ancestors held the right of life and death over the surrounding vulgar. From this room, many such dogs have been taken out to be hanged; in the next room (my bedroom), one fellow, to our knowledge, was poniarded on the spot for professing some insolent delicacy respecting his daughter--_his_ daughter? We have lost many privileges; a new philosophy has become the mode; and the assertion of our station, in these days, might (I do not go so far as to say would, but might) cause us real inconvenience. All very bad, very bad!” The Marquis took a gentle little pinch of snuff, and shook his head; as elegantly despondent as he could becomingly be of a country still containing himself, that great means of regeneration. “We have so asserted our station, both in the old time and in the modern time also,” said the nephew, gloomily, “that I believe our name to be more detested than any name in France.” “Let us hope so,” said the uncle. “Detestation of the high is the involuntary homage of the low.” “There is not,” pursued the nephew, in his former tone, “a face I can look at, in all this country round about us, which looks at me with any deference on it but the dark deference of fear and slavery.” “A compliment,” said the Marquis, “to the grandeur of the family, merited by the manner in which the family has sustained its grandeur. Hah!” And he took another gentle little pinch of snuff, and lightly crossed his legs. But, when his nephew, leaning an elbow on the table, covered his eyes thoughtfully and dejectedly with his hand, the fine mask looked at him sideways with a stronger concentration of keenness, closeness, and dislike, than was comportable with its wearer’s assumption of indifference. “Repression is the only lasting philosophy. The dark deference of fear and slavery, my friend,” observed the Marquis, “will keep the dogs obedient to the whip, as long as this roof,” looking up to it, “shuts out the sky.” That might not be so long as the Marquis supposed. If a picture of the chateau as it was to be a very few years hence, and of fifty like it as they too were to be a very few years hence, could have been shown to him that night, he might have been at a loss to claim his own from the ghastly, fire-charred, plunder-wrecked rains. As for the roof he vaunted, he might have found _that_ shutting out the sky in a new way--to wit, for ever, from the eyes of the bodies into which its lead was fired, out of the barrels of a hundred thousand muskets. “Meanwhile,” said the Marquis, “I will preserve the honour and repose of the family, if you will not. But you must be fatigued. Shall we terminate our conference for the night?” “A moment more.” “An hour, if you please.” “Sir,” said the nephew, “we have done wrong, and are reaping the fruits of wrong.” “_We_ have done wrong?” repeated the Marquis, with an inquiring smile, and delicately pointing, first to his nephew, then to himself. “Our family; our honourable family, whose honour is of so much account to both of us, in such different ways. Even in my father’s time, we did a world of wrong, injuring every human creature who came between us and our pleasure, whatever it was. Why need I speak of my father’s time, when it is equally yours? Can I separate my father’s twin-brother, joint inheritor, and next successor, from himself?” “Death has done that!” said the Marquis. “And has left me,” answered the nephew, “bound to a system that is frightful to me, responsible for it, but powerless in it; seeking to execute the last request of my dear mother’s lips, and obey the last look of my dear mother’s eyes, which implored me to have mercy and to redress; and tortured by seeking assistance and power in vain.” “Seeking them from me, my nephew,” said the Marquis, touching him on the breast with his forefinger--they were now standing by the hearth--“you will for ever seek them in vain, be assured.” Every fine straight line in the clear whiteness of his face, was cruelly, craftily, and closely compressed, while he stood looking quietly at his nephew, with his snuff-box in his hand. Once again he touched him on the breast, as though his finger were the fine point of a small sword, with which, in delicate finesse, he ran him through the body, and said, “My friend, I will die, perpetuating the system under which I have lived.” When he had said it, he took a culminating pinch of snuff, and put his box in his pocket. “Better to be a rational creature,” he added then, after ringing a small bell on the table, “and accept your natural destiny. But you are lost, Monsieur Charles, I see.” “This property and France are lost to me,” said the nephew, sadly; “I renounce them.” “Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, but is the property? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but, is it yet?” “I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If it passed to me from you, to-morrow--” “Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable.” “--or twenty years hence--” “You do me too much honour,” said the Marquis; “still, I prefer that supposition.” “--I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin!” “Hah!” said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room. “To the eye it is fair enough, here; but seen in its integrity, under the sky, and by the daylight, it is a crumbling tower of waste, mismanagement, extortion, debt, mortgage, oppression, hunger, nakedness, and suffering.” “Hah!” said the Marquis again, in a well-satisfied manner. “If it ever becomes mine, it shall be put into some hands better qualified to free it slowly (if such a thing is possible) from the weight that drags it down, so that the miserable people who cannot leave it and who have been long wrung to the last point of endurance, may, in another generation, suffer less; but it is not for me. There is a curse on it, and on all this land.” “And you?” said the uncle. “Forgive my curiosity; do you, under your new philosophy, graciously intend to live?” “I must do, to live, what others of my countrymen, even with nobility at their backs, may have to do some day--work.” “In England, for example?” “Yes. The family honour, sir, is safe from me in this country. The family name can suffer from me in no other, for I bear it in no other.” The ringing of the bell had caused the adjoining bed-chamber to be lighted. It now shone brightly, through the door of communication. The Marquis looked that way, and listened for the retreating step of his valet. “England is very attractive to you, seeing how indifferently you have prospered there,” he observed then, turning his calm face to his nephew with a smile. “I have already said, that for my prospering there, I am sensible I may be indebted to you, sir. For the rest, it is my Refuge.” “They say, those boastful English, that it is the Refuge of many. You know a compatriot who has found a Refuge there? A Doctor?” “Yes.” “With a daughter?” “Yes.” “Yes,” said the Marquis. “You are fatigued. Good night!” As he bent his head in his most courtly manner, there was a secrecy in his smiling face, and he conveyed an air of mystery to those words, which struck the eyes and ears of his nephew forcibly. At the same time, the thin straight lines of the setting of the eyes, and the thin straight lips, and the markings in the nose, curved with a sarcasm that looked handsomely diabolic. “Yes,” repeated the Marquis. “A Doctor with a daughter. Yes. So commences the new philosophy! You are fatigued. Good night!” It would have been of as much avail to interrogate any stone face outside the chateau as to interrogate that face of his. The nephew looked at him, in vain, in passing on to the door. “Good night!” said the uncle. “I look to the pleasure of seeing you again in the morning. Good repose! Light Monsieur my nephew to his chamber there!--And burn Monsieur my nephew in his bed, if you will,” he added to himself, before he rang his little bell again, and summoned his valet to his own bedroom. The valet come and gone, Monsieur the Marquis walked to and fro in his loose chamber-robe, to prepare himself gently for sleep, that hot still night. Rustling about the room, his softly-slippered feet making no noise on the floor, he moved like a refined tiger:--looked like some enchanted marquis of the impenitently wicked sort, in story, whose periodical change into tiger form was either just going off, or just coming on. He moved from end to end of his voluptuous bedroom, looking again at the scraps of the day’s journey that came unbidden into his mind; the slow toil up the hill at sunset, the setting sun, the descent, the mill, the prison on the crag, the little village in the hollow, the peasants at the fountain, and the mender of roads with his blue cap pointing out the chain under the carriage. That fountain suggested the Paris fountain, the little bundle lying on the step, the women bending over it, and the tall man with his arms up, crying, “Dead!” “I am cool now,” said Monsieur the Marquis, “and may go to bed.” So, leaving only one light burning on the large hearth, he let his thin gauze curtains fall around him, and heard the night break its silence with a long sigh as he composed himself to sleep. The stone faces on the outer walls stared blindly at the black night for three heavy hours; for three heavy hours, the horses in the stables rattled at their racks, the dogs barked, and the owl made a noise with very little resemblance in it to the noise conventionally assigned to the owl by men-poets. But it is the obstinate custom of such creatures hardly ever to say what is set down for them. For three heavy hours, the stone faces of the chateau, lion and human, stared blindly at the night. Dead darkness lay on all the landscape, dead darkness added its own hush to the hushing dust on all the roads. The burial-place had got to the pass that its little heaps of poor grass were undistinguishable from one another; the figure on the Cross might have come down, for anything that could be seen of it. In the village, taxers and taxed were fast asleep. Dreaming, perhaps, of banquets, as the starved usually do, and of ease and rest, as the driven slave and the yoked ox may, its lean inhabitants slept soundly, and were fed and freed. The fountain in the village flowed unseen and unheard, and the fountain at the chateau dropped unseen and unheard--both melting away, like the minutes that were falling from the spring of Time--through three dark hours. Then, the grey water of both began to be ghostly in the light, and the eyes of the stone faces of the chateau were opened. Lighter and lighter, until at last the sun touched the tops of the still trees, and poured its radiance over the hill. In the glow, the water of the chateau fountain seemed to turn to blood, and the stone faces crimsoned. The carol of the birds was loud and high, and, on the weather-beaten sill of the great window of the bed-chamber of Monsieur the Marquis, one little bird sang its sweetest song with all its might. At this, the nearest stone face seemed to stare amazed, and, with open mouth and dropped under-jaw, looked awe-stricken. Now, the sun was full up, and movement began in the village. Casement windows opened, crazy doors were unbarred, and people came forth shivering--chilled, as yet, by the new sweet air. Then began the rarely lightened toil of the day among the village population. Some, to the fountain; some, to the fields; men and women here, to dig and delve; men and women there, to see to the poor live stock, and lead the bony cows out, to such pasture as could be found by the roadside. In the church and at the Cross, a kneeling figure or two; attendant on the latter prayers, the led cow, trying for a breakfast among the weeds at its foot. The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke gradually and surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives of the chase had been reddened as of old; then, had gleamed trenchant in the morning sunshine; now, doors and windows were thrown open, horses in their stables looked round over their shoulders at the light and freshness pouring in at doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at iron-grated windows, dogs pulled hard at their chains, and reared impatient to be loosed. All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, and the return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the great bell of the chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the hurried figures on the terrace; nor the booting and tramping here and there and everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away? What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, already at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with his day’s dinner (not much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow’s while to peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life, down the hill, knee-high in dust, and never stopped till he got to the fountain. All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing about in their depressed manner, and whispering low, but showing no other emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows, hastily brought in and tethered to anything that would hold them, were looking stupidly on, or lying down chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying their trouble, which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some of the people of the chateau, and some of those of the posting-house, and all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was highly fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend, and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind a servant on horseback, and the conveying away of the said Gabelle (double-laden though the horse was), at a gallop, like a new version of the German ballad of Leonora? It portended that there was one stone face too many, up at the chateau. The Gorgon had surveyed the building again in the night, and had added the one stone face wanting; the stone face for which it had waited through about two hundred years. It lay back on the pillow of Monsieur the Marquis. It was like a fine mask, suddenly startled, made angry, and petrified. Driven home into the heart of the stone figure attached to it, was a knife. Round its hilt was a frill of paper, on which was scrawled: “Drive him fast to his tomb. This, from Jacques.” CHAPTER X. Two Promises More months, to the number of twelve, had come and gone, and Mr. Charles Darnay was established in England as a higher teacher of the French language who was conversant with French literature. In this age, he would have been a Professor; in that age, he was a Tutor. He read with young men who could find any leisure and interest for the study of a living tongue spoken all over the world, and he cultivated a taste for its stores of knowledge and fancy. He could write of them, besides, in sound English, and render them into sound English. Such masters were not at that time easily found; Princes that had been, and Kings that were to be, were not yet of the Teacher class, and no ruined nobility had dropped out of Tellson’s ledgers, to turn cooks and carpenters. As a tutor, whose attainments made the student’s way unusually pleasant and profitable, and as an elegant translator who brought something to his work besides mere dictionary knowledge, young Mr. Darnay soon became known and encouraged. He was well acquainted, more-over, with the circumstances of his country, and those were of ever-growing interest. So, with great perseverance and untiring industry, he prospered. In London, he had expected neither to walk on pavements of gold, nor to lie on beds of roses; if he had had any such exalted expectation, he would not have prospered. He had expected labour, and he found it, and did it and made the best of it. In this, his prosperity consisted. A certain portion of his time was passed at Cambridge, where he read with undergraduates as a sort of tolerated smuggler who drove a contraband trade in European languages, instead of conveying Greek and Latin through the Custom-house. The rest of his time he passed in London. Now, from the days when it was always summer in Eden, to these days when it is mostly winter in fallen latitudes, the world of a man has invariably gone one way--Charles Darnay’s way--the way of the love of a woman. He had loved Lucie Manette from the hour of his danger. He had never heard a sound so sweet and dear as the sound of her compassionate voice; he had never seen a face so tenderly beautiful, as hers when it was confronted with his own on the edge of the grave that had been dug for him. But, he had not yet spoken to her on the subject; the assassination at the deserted chateau far away beyond the heaving water and the long, long, dusty roads--the solid stone chateau which had itself become the mere mist of a dream--had been done a year, and he had never yet, by so much as a single spoken word, disclosed to her the state of his heart. That he had his reasons for this, he knew full well. It was again a summer day when, lately arrived in London from his college occupation, he turned into the quiet corner in Soho, bent on seeking an opportunity of opening his mind to Doctor Manette. It was the close of the summer day, and he knew Lucie to be out with Miss Pross. He found the Doctor reading in his arm-chair at a window. The energy which had at once supported him under his old sufferings and aggravated their sharpness, had been gradually restored to him. He was now a very energetic man indeed, with great firmness of purpose, strength of resolution, and vigour of action. In his recovered energy he was sometimes a little fitful and sudden, as he had at first been in the exercise of his other recovered faculties; but, this had never been frequently observable, and had grown more and more rare. He studied much, slept little, sustained a great deal of fatigue with ease, and was equably cheerful. To him, now entered Charles Darnay, at sight of whom he laid aside his book and held out his hand. “Charles Darnay! I rejoice to see you. We have been counting on your return these three or four days past. Mr. Stryver and Sydney Carton were both here yesterday, and both made you out to be more than due.” “I am obliged to them for their interest in the matter,” he answered, a little coldly as to them, though very warmly as to the Doctor. “Miss Manette--” “Is well,” said the Doctor, as he stopped short, “and your return will delight us all. She has gone out on some household matters, but will soon be home.” “Doctor Manette, I knew she was from home. I took the opportunity of her being from home, to beg to speak to you.” There was a blank silence. “Yes?” said the Doctor, with evident constraint. “Bring your chair here, and speak on.” He complied as to the chair, but appeared to find the speaking on less easy. “I have had the happiness, Doctor Manette, of being so intimate here,” so he at length began, “for some year and a half, that I hope the topic on which I am about to touch may not--” He was stayed by the Doctor’s putting out his hand to stop him. When he had kept it so a little while, he said, drawing it back: “Is Lucie the topic?” “She is.” “It is hard for me to speak of her at any time. It is very hard for me to hear her spoken of in that tone of yours, Charles Darnay.” “It is a tone of fervent admiration, true homage, and deep love, Doctor Manette!” he said deferentially. There was another blank silence before her father rejoined: “I believe it. I do you justice; I believe it.” His constraint was so manifest, and it was so manifest, too, that it originated in an unwillingness to approach the subject, that Charles Darnay hesitated. “Shall I go on, sir?” Another blank. “Yes, go on.” “You anticipate what I would say, though you cannot know how earnestly I say it, how earnestly I feel it, without knowing my secret heart, and the hopes and fears and anxieties with which it has long been laden. Dear Doctor Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly, devotedly. If ever there were love in the world, I love her. You have loved yourself; let your old love speak for me!” The Doctor sat with his face turned away, and his eyes bent on the ground. At the last words, he stretched out his hand again, hurriedly, and cried: “Not that, sir! Let that be! I adjure you, do not recall that!” His cry was so like a cry of actual pain, that it rang in Charles Darnay’s ears long after he had ceased. He motioned with the hand he had extended, and it seemed to be an appeal to Darnay to pause. The latter so received it, and remained silent. “I ask your pardon,” said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, after some moments. “I do not doubt your loving Lucie; you may be satisfied of it.” He turned towards him in his chair, but did not look at him, or raise his eyes. His chin dropped upon his hand, and his white hair overshadowed his face: “Have you spoken to Lucie?” “No.” “Nor written?” “Never.” “It would be ungenerous to affect not to know that your self-denial is to be referred to your consideration for her father. Her father thanks you.” He offered his hand; but his eyes did not go with it. “I know,” said Darnay, respectfully, “how can I fail to know, Doctor Manette, I who have seen you together from day to day, that between you and Miss Manette there is an affection so unusual, so touching, so belonging to the circumstances in which it has been nurtured, that it can have few parallels, even in the tenderness between a father and child. I know, Doctor Manette--how can I fail to know--that, mingled with the affection and duty of a daughter who has become a woman, there is, in her heart, towards you, all the love and reliance of infancy itself. I know that, as in her childhood she had no parent, so she is now devoted to you with all the constancy and fervour of her present years and character, united to the trustfulness and attachment of the early days in which you were lost to her. I know perfectly well that if you had been restored to her from the world beyond this life, you could hardly be invested, in her sight, with a more sacred character than that in which you are always with her. I know that when she is clinging to you, the hands of baby, girl, and woman, all in one, are round your neck. I know that in loving you she sees and loves her mother at her own age, sees and loves you at my age, loves her mother broken-hearted, loves you through your dreadful trial and in your blessed restoration. I have known this, night and day, since I have known you in your home.” Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathing was a little quickened; but he repressed all other signs of agitation. “Dear Doctor Manette, always knowing this, always seeing her and you with this hallowed light about you, I have forborne, and forborne, as long as it was in the nature of man to do it. I have felt, and do even now feel, that to bring my love--even mine--between you, is to touch your history with something not quite so good as itself. But I love her. Heaven is my witness that I love her!” “I believe it,” answered her father, mournfully. “I have thought so before now. I believe it.” “But, do not believe,” said Darnay, upon whose ear the mournful voice struck with a reproachful sound, “that if my fortune were so cast as that, being one day so happy as to make her my wife, I must at any time put any separation between her and you, I could or would breathe a word of what I now say. Besides that I should know it to be hopeless, I should know it to be a baseness. If I had any such possibility, even at a remote distance of years, harboured in my thoughts, and hidden in my heart--if it ever had been there--if it ever could be there--I could not now touch this honoured hand.” He laid his own upon it as he spoke. “No, dear Doctor Manette. Like you, a voluntary exile from France; like you, driven from it by its distractions, oppressions, and miseries; like you, striving to live away from it by my own exertions, and trusting in a happier future; I look only to sharing your fortunes, sharing your life and home, and being faithful to you to the death. Not to divide with Lucie her privilege as your child, companion, and friend; but to come in aid of it, and bind her closer to you, if such a thing can be.” His touch still lingered on her father’s hand. Answering the touch for a moment, but not coldly, her father rested his hands upon the arms of his chair, and looked up for the first time since the beginning of the conference. A struggle was evidently in his face; a struggle with that occasional look which had a tendency in it to dark doubt and dread. “You speak so feelingly and so manfully, Charles Darnay, that I thank you with all my heart, and will open all my heart--or nearly so. Have you any reason to believe that Lucie loves you?” “None. As yet, none.” “Is it the immediate object of this confidence, that you may at once ascertain that, with my knowledge?” “Not even so. I might not have the hopefulness to do it for weeks; I might (mistaken or not mistaken) have that hopefulness to-morrow.” “Do you seek any guidance from me?” “I ask none, sir. But I have thought it possible that you might have it in your power, if you should deem it right, to give me some.” “Do you seek any promise from me?” “I do seek that.” “What is it?” “I well understand that, without you, I could have no hope. I well understand that, even if Miss Manette held me at this moment in her innocent heart--do not think I have the presumption to assume so much--I could retain no place in it against her love for her father.” “If that be so, do you see what, on the other hand, is involved in it?” “I understand equally well, that a word from her father in any suitor’s favour, would outweigh herself and all the world. For which reason, Doctor Manette,” said Darnay, modestly but firmly, “I would not ask that word, to save my life.” “I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, as well as out of wide division; in the former case, they are subtle and delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one respect, such a mystery to me; I can make no guess at the state of her heart.” “May I ask, sir, if you think she is--” As he hesitated, her father supplied the rest. “Is sought by any other suitor?” “It is what I meant to say.” Her father considered a little before he answered: “You have seen Mr. Carton here, yourself. Mr. Stryver is here too, occasionally. If it be at all, it can only be by one of these.” “Or both,” said Darnay. “I had not thought of both; I should not think either, likely. You want a promise from me. Tell me what it is.” “It is, that if Miss Manette should bring to you at any time, on her own part, such a confidence as I have ventured to lay before you, you will bear testimony to what I have said, and to your belief in it. I hope you may be able to think so well of me, as to urge no influence against me. I say nothing more of my stake in this; this is what I ask. The condition on which I ask it, and which you have an undoubted right to require, I will observe immediately.” “I give the promise,” said the Doctor, “without any condition. I believe your object to be, purely and truthfully, as you have stated it. I believe your intention is to perpetuate, and not to weaken, the ties between me and my other and far dearer self. If she should ever tell me that you are essential to her perfect happiness, I will give her to you. If there were--Charles Darnay, if there were--” The young man had taken his hand gratefully; their hands were joined as the Doctor spoke: “--any fancies, any reasons, any apprehensions, anything whatsoever, new or old, against the man she really loved--the direct responsibility thereof not lying on his head--they should all be obliterated for her sake. She is everything to me; more to me than suffering, more to me than wrong, more to me--Well! This is idle talk.” So strange was the way in which he faded into silence, and so strange his fixed look when he had ceased to speak, that Darnay felt his own hand turn cold in the hand that slowly released and dropped it. “You said something to me,” said Doctor Manette, breaking into a smile. “What was it you said to me?” He was at a loss how to answer, until he remembered having spoken of a condition. Relieved as his mind reverted to that, he answered: “Your confidence in me ought to be returned with full confidence on my part. My present name, though but slightly changed from my mother’s, is not, as you will remember, my own. I wish to tell you what that is, and why I am in England.” “Stop!” said the Doctor of Beauvais. “I wish it, that I may the better deserve your confidence, and have no secret from you.” “Stop!” For an instant, the Doctor even had his two hands at his ears; for another instant, even had his two hands laid on Darnay’s lips. “Tell me when I ask you, not now. If your suit should prosper, if Lucie should love you, you shall tell me on your marriage morning. Do you promise?” “Willingly. “Give me your hand. She will be home directly, and it is better she should not see us together to-night. Go! God bless you!” It was dark when Charles Darnay left him, and it was an hour later and darker when Lucie came home; she hurried into the room alone--for Miss Pross had gone straight up-stairs--and was surprised to find his reading-chair empty. “My father!” she called to him. “Father dear!” Nothing was said in answer, but she heard a low hammering sound in his bedroom. Passing lightly across the intermediate room, she looked in at his door and came running back frightened, crying to herself, with her blood all chilled, “What shall I do! What shall I do!” Her uncertainty lasted but a moment; she hurried back, and tapped at his door, and softly called to him. The noise ceased at the sound of her voice, and he presently came out to her, and they walked up and down together for a long time. She came down from her bed, to look at him in his sleep that night. He slept heavily, and his tray of shoemaking tools, and his old unfinished work, were all as usual. CHAPTER XI. A Companion Picture “Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, on that self-same night, or morning, to his jackal; “mix another bowl of punch; I have something to say to you.” Sydney had been working double tides that night, and the night before, and the night before that, and a good many nights in succession, making a grand clearance among Mr. Stryver’s papers before the setting in of the long vacation. The clearance was effected at last; the Stryver arrears were handsomely fetched up; everything was got rid of until November should come with its fogs atmospheric, and fogs legal, and bring grist to the mill again. Sydney was none the livelier and none the soberer for so much application. It had taken a deal of extra wet-towelling to pull him through the night; a correspondingly extra quantity of wine had preceded the towelling; and he was in a very damaged condition, as he now pulled his turban off and threw it into the basin in which he had steeped it at intervals for the last six hours. “Are you mixing that other bowl of punch?” said Stryver the portly, with his hands in his waistband, glancing round from the sofa where he lay on his back. “I am.” “Now, look here! I am going to tell you something that will rather surprise you, and that perhaps will make you think me not quite as shrewd as you usually do think me. I intend to marry.” “_Do_ you?” “Yes. And not for money. What do you say now?” “I don’t feel disposed to say much. Who is she?” “Guess.” “Do I know her?” “Guess.” “I am not going to guess, at five o’clock in the morning, with my brains frying and sputtering in my head. If you want me to guess, you must ask me to dinner.” “Well then, I’ll tell you,” said Stryver, coming slowly into a sitting posture. “Sydney, I rather despair of making myself intelligible to you, because you are such an insensible dog.” “And you,” returned Sydney, busy concocting the punch, “are such a sensitive and poetical spirit--” “Come!” rejoined Stryver, laughing boastfully, “though I don’t prefer any claim to being the soul of Romance (for I hope I know better), still I am a tenderer sort of fellow than _you_.” “You are a luckier, if you mean that.” “I don’t mean that. I mean I am a man of more--more--” “Say gallantry, while you are about it,” suggested Carton. “Well! I’ll say gallantry. My meaning is that I am a man,” said Stryver, inflating himself at his friend as he made the punch, “who cares more to be agreeable, who takes more pains to be agreeable, who knows better how to be agreeable, in a woman’s society, than you do.” “Go on,” said Sydney Carton. “No; but before I go on,” said Stryver, shaking his head in his bullying way, “I’ll have this out with you. You’ve been at Doctor Manette’s house as much as I have, or more than I have. Why, I have been ashamed of your moroseness there! Your manners have been of that silent and sullen and hangdog kind, that, upon my life and soul, I have been ashamed of you, Sydney!” “It should be very beneficial to a man in your practice at the bar, to be ashamed of anything,” returned Sydney; “you ought to be much obliged to me.” “You shall not get off in that way,” rejoined Stryver, shouldering the rejoinder at him; “no, Sydney, it’s my duty to tell you--and I tell you to your face to do you good--that you are a devilish ill-conditioned fellow in that sort of society. You are a disagreeable fellow.” Sydney drank a bumper of the punch he had made, and laughed. “Look at me!” said Stryver, squaring himself; “I have less need to make myself agreeable than you have, being more independent in circumstances. Why do I do it?” “I never saw you do it yet,” muttered Carton. “I do it because it’s politic; I do it on principle. And look at me! I get on.” “You don’t get on with your account of your matrimonial intentions,” answered Carton, with a careless air; “I wish you would keep to that. As to me--will you never understand that I am incorrigible?” He asked the question with some appearance of scorn. “You have no business to be incorrigible,” was his friend’s answer, delivered in no very soothing tone. “I have no business to be, at all, that I know of,” said Sydney Carton. “Who is the lady?” “Now, don’t let my announcement of the name make you uncomfortable, Sydney,” said Mr. Stryver, preparing him with ostentatious friendliness for the disclosure he was about to make, “because I know you don’t mean half you say; and if you meant it all, it would be of no importance. I make this little preface, because you once mentioned the young lady to me in slighting terms.” “I did?” “Certainly; and in these chambers.” Sydney Carton looked at his punch and looked at his complacent friend; drank his punch and looked at his complacent friend. “You made mention of the young lady as a golden-haired doll. The young lady is Miss Manette. If you had been a fellow of any sensitiveness or delicacy of feeling in that kind of way, Sydney, I might have been a little resentful of your employing such a designation; but you are not. You want that sense altogether; therefore I am no more annoyed when I think of the expression, than I should be annoyed by a man’s opinion of a picture of mine, who had no eye for pictures: or of a piece of music of mine, who had no ear for music.” Sydney Carton drank the punch at a great rate; drank it by bumpers, looking at his friend. “Now you know all about it, Syd,” said Mr. Stryver. “I don’t care about fortune: she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind to please myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. She will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a man of some distinction: it is a piece of good fortune for her, but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished?” Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, “Why should I be astonished?” “You approve?” Carton, still drinking the punch, rejoined, “Why should I not approve?” “Well!” said his friend Stryver, “you take it more easily than I fancied you would, and are less mercenary on my behalf than I thought you would be; though, to be sure, you know well enough by this time that your ancient chum is a man of a pretty strong will. Yes, Sydney, I have had enough of this style of life, with no other as a change from it; I feel that it is a pleasant thing for a man to have a home when he feels inclined to go to it (when he doesn’t, he can stay away), and I feel that Miss Manette will tell well in any station, and will always do me credit. So I have made up my mind. And now, Sydney, old boy, I want to say a word to _you_ about _your_ prospects. You are in a bad way, you know; you really are in a bad way. You don’t know the value of money, you live hard, you’ll knock up one of these days, and be ill and poor; you really ought to think about a nurse.” The prosperous patronage with which he said it, made him look twice as big as he was, and four times as offensive. “Now, let me recommend you,” pursued Stryver, “to look it in the face. I have looked it in the face, in my different way; look it in the face, you, in your different way. Marry. Provide somebody to take care of you. Never mind your having no enjoyment of women’s society, nor understanding of it, nor tact for it. Find out somebody. Find out some respectable woman with a little property--somebody in the landlady way, or lodging-letting way--and marry her, against a rainy day. That’s the kind of thing for _you_. Now think of it, Sydney.” “I’ll think of it,” said Sydney. CHAPTER XII. The Fellow of Delicacy Mr. Stryver having made up his mind to that magnanimous bestowal of good fortune on the Doctor’s daughter, resolved to make her happiness known to her before he left town for the Long Vacation. After some mental debating of the point, he came to the conclusion that it would be as well to get all the preliminaries done with, and they could then arrange at their leisure whether he should give her his hand a week or two before Michaelmas Term, or in the little Christmas vacation between it and Hilary. As to the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldly grounds--the only grounds ever worth taking into account--it was a plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that no plainer case could be. Accordingly, Mr. Stryver inaugurated the Long Vacation with a formal proposal to take Miss Manette to Vauxhall Gardens; that failing, to Ranelagh; that unaccountably failing too, it behoved him to present himself in Soho, and there declare his noble mind. Towards Soho, therefore, Mr. Stryver shouldered his way from the Temple, while the bloom of the Long Vacation’s infancy was still upon it. Anybody who had seen him projecting himself into Soho while he was yet on Saint Dunstan’s side of Temple Bar, bursting in his full-blown way along the pavement, to the jostlement of all weaker people, might have seen how safe and strong he was. His way taking him past Tellson’s, and he both banking at Tellson’s and knowing Mr. Lorry as the intimate friend of the Manettes, it entered Mr. Stryver’s mind to enter the bank, and reveal to Mr. Lorry the brightness of the Soho horizon. So, he pushed open the door with the weak rattle in its throat, stumbled down the two steps, got past the two ancient cashiers, and shouldered himself into the musty back closet where Mr. Lorry sat at great books ruled for figures, with perpendicular iron bars to his window as if that were ruled for figures too, and everything under the clouds were a sum. “Halloa!” said Mr. Stryver. “How do you do? I hope you are well!” It was Stryver’s grand peculiarity that he always seemed too big for any place, or space. He was so much too big for Tellson’s, that old clerks in distant corners looked up with looks of remonstrance, as though he squeezed them against the wall. The House itself, magnificently reading the paper quite in the far-off perspective, lowered displeased, as if the Stryver head had been butted into its responsible waistcoat. The discreet Mr. Lorry said, in a sample tone of the voice he would recommend under the circumstances, “How do you do, Mr. Stryver? How do you do, sir?” and shook hands. There was a peculiarity in his manner of shaking hands, always to be seen in any clerk at Tellson’s who shook hands with a customer when the House pervaded the air. He shook in a self-abnegating way, as one who shook for Tellson and Co. “Can I do anything for you, Mr. Stryver?” asked Mr. Lorry, in his business character. “Why, no, thank you; this is a private visit to yourself, Mr. Lorry; I have come for a private word.” “Oh indeed!” said Mr. Lorry, bending down his ear, while his eye strayed to the House afar off. “I am going,” said Mr. Stryver, leaning his arms confidentially on the desk: whereupon, although it was a large double one, there appeared to be not half desk enough for him: “I am going to make an offer of myself in marriage to your agreeable little friend, Miss Manette, Mr. Lorry.” “Oh dear me!” cried Mr. Lorry, rubbing his chin, and looking at his visitor dubiously. “Oh dear me, sir?” repeated Stryver, drawing back. “Oh dear you, sir? What may your meaning be, Mr. Lorry?” “My meaning,” answered the man of business, “is, of course, friendly and appreciative, and that it does you the greatest credit, and--in short, my meaning is everything you could desire. But--really, you know, Mr. Stryver--” Mr. Lorry paused, and shook his head at him in the oddest manner, as if he were compelled against his will to add, internally, “you know there really is so much too much of you!” “Well!” said Stryver, slapping the desk with his contentious hand, opening his eyes wider, and taking a long breath, “if I understand you, Mr. Lorry, I’ll be hanged!” Mr. Lorry adjusted his little wig at both ears as a means towards that end, and bit the feather of a pen. “D--n it all, sir!” said Stryver, staring at him, “am I not eligible?” “Oh dear yes! Yes. Oh yes, you’re eligible!” said Mr. Lorry. “If you say eligible, you are eligible.” “Am I not prosperous?” asked Stryver. “Oh! if you come to prosperous, you are prosperous,” said Mr. Lorry. “And advancing?” “If you come to advancing you know,” said Mr. Lorry, delighted to be able to make another admission, “nobody can doubt that.” “Then what on earth is your meaning, Mr. Lorry?” demanded Stryver, perceptibly crestfallen. “Well! I--Were you going there now?” asked Mr. Lorry. “Straight!” said Stryver, with a plump of his fist on the desk. “Then I think I wouldn’t, if I was you.” “Why?” said Stryver. “Now, I’ll put you in a corner,” forensically shaking a forefinger at him. “You are a man of business and bound to have a reason. State your reason. Why wouldn’t you go?” “Because,” said Mr. Lorry, “I wouldn’t go on such an object without having some cause to believe that I should succeed.” “D--n _me_!” cried Stryver, “but this beats everything.” Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and glanced at the angry Stryver. “Here’s a man of business--a man of years--a man of experience--_in_ a Bank,” said Stryver; “and having summed up three leading reasons for complete success, he says there’s no reason at all! Says it with his head on!” Mr. Stryver remarked upon the peculiarity as if it would have been infinitely less remarkable if he had said it with his head off. “When I speak of success, I speak of success with the young lady; and when I speak of causes and reasons to make success probable, I speak of causes and reasons that will tell as such with the young lady. The young lady, my good sir,” said Mr. Lorry, mildly tapping the Stryver arm, “the young lady. The young lady goes before all.” “Then you mean to tell me, Mr. Lorry,” said Stryver, squaring his elbows, “that it is your deliberate opinion that the young lady at present in question is a mincing Fool?” “Not exactly so. I mean to tell you, Mr. Stryver,” said Mr. Lorry, reddening, “that I will hear no disrespectful word of that young lady from any lips; and that if I knew any man--which I hope I do not--whose taste was so coarse, and whose temper was so overbearing, that he could not restrain himself from speaking disrespectfully of that young lady at this desk, not even Tellson’s should prevent my giving him a piece of my mind.” The necessity of being angry in a suppressed tone had put Mr. Stryver’s blood-vessels into a dangerous state when it was his turn to be angry; Mr. Lorry’s veins, methodical as their courses could usually be, were in no better state now it was his turn. “That is what I mean to tell you, sir,” said Mr. Lorry. “Pray let there be no mistake about it.” Mr. Stryver sucked the end of a ruler for a little while, and then stood hitting a tune out of his teeth with it, which probably gave him the toothache. He broke the awkward silence by saying: “This is something new to me, Mr. Lorry. You deliberately advise me not to go up to Soho and offer myself--_my_self, Stryver of the King’s Bench bar?” “Do you ask me for my advice, Mr. Stryver?” “Yes, I do.” “Very good. Then I give it, and you have repeated it correctly.” “And all I can say of it is,” laughed Stryver with a vexed laugh, “that this--ha, ha!--beats everything past, present, and to come.” “Now understand me,” pursued Mr. Lorry. “As a man of business, I am not justified in saying anything about this matter, for, as a man of business, I know nothing of it. But, as an old fellow, who has carried Miss Manette in his arms, who is the trusted friend of Miss Manette and of her father too, and who has a great affection for them both, I have spoken. The confidence is not of my seeking, recollect. Now, you think I may not be right?” “Not I!” said Stryver, whistling. “I can’t undertake to find third parties in common sense; I can only find it for myself. I suppose sense in certain quarters; you suppose mincing bread-and-butter nonsense. It’s new to me, but you are right, I dare say.” “What I suppose, Mr. Stryver, I claim to characterise for myself--And understand me, sir,” said Mr. Lorry, quickly flushing again, “I will not--not even at Tellson’s--have it characterised for me by any gentleman breathing.” “There! I beg your pardon!” said Stryver. “Granted. Thank you. Well, Mr. Stryver, I was about to say:--it might be painful to you to find yourself mistaken, it might be painful to Doctor Manette to have the task of being explicit with you, it might be very painful to Miss Manette to have the task of being explicit with you. You know the terms upon which I have the honour and happiness to stand with the family. If you please, committing you in no way, representing you in no way, I will undertake to correct my advice by the exercise of a little new observation and judgment expressly brought to bear upon it. If you should then be dissatisfied with it, you can but test its soundness for yourself; if, on the other hand, you should be satisfied with it, and it should be what it now is, it may spare all sides what is best spared. What do you say?” “How long would you keep me in town?” “Oh! It is only a question of a few hours. I could go to Soho in the evening, and come to your chambers afterwards.” “Then I say yes,” said Stryver: “I won’t go up there now, I am not so hot upon it as that comes to; I say yes, and I shall expect you to look in to-night. Good morning.” Then Mr. Stryver turned and burst out of the Bank, causing such a concussion of air on his passage through, that to stand up against it bowing behind the two counters, required the utmost remaining strength of the two ancient clerks. Those venerable and feeble persons were always seen by the public in the act of bowing, and were popularly believed, when they had bowed a customer out, still to keep on bowing in the empty office until they bowed another customer in. The barrister was keen enough to divine that the banker would not have gone so far in his expression of opinion on any less solid ground than moral certainty. Unprepared as he was for the large pill he had to swallow, he got it down. “And now,” said Mr. Stryver, shaking his forensic forefinger at the Temple in general, when it was down, “my way out of this, is, to put you all in the wrong.” It was a bit of the art of an Old Bailey tactician, in which he found great relief. “You shall not put me in the wrong, young lady,” said Mr. Stryver; “I’ll do that for you.” Accordingly, when Mr. Lorry called that night as late as ten o’clock, Mr. Stryver, among a quantity of books and papers littered out for the purpose, seemed to have nothing less on his mind than the subject of the morning. He even showed surprise when he saw Mr. Lorry, and was altogether in an absent and preoccupied state. “Well!” said that good-natured emissary, after a full half-hour of bootless attempts to bring him round to the question. “I have been to Soho.” “To Soho?” repeated Mr. Stryver, coldly. “Oh, to be sure! What am I thinking of!” “And I have no doubt,” said Mr. Lorry, “that I was right in the conversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate my advice.” “I assure you,” returned Mr. Stryver, in the friendliest way, “that I am sorry for it on your account, and sorry for it on the poor father’s account. I know this must always be a sore subject with the family; let us say no more about it.” “I don’t understand you,” said Mr. Lorry. “I dare say not,” rejoined Stryver, nodding his head in a smoothing and final way; “no matter, no matter.” “But it does matter,” Mr. Lorry urged. “No it doesn’t; I assure you it doesn’t. Having supposed that there was sense where there is no sense, and a laudable ambition where there is not a laudable ambition, I am well out of my mistake, and no harm is done. Young women have committed similar follies often before, and have repented them in poverty and obscurity often before. In an unselfish aspect, I am sorry that the thing is dropped, because it would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view; in a selfish aspect, I am glad that the thing has dropped, because it would have been a bad thing for me in a worldly point of view--it is hardly necessary to say I could have gained nothing by it. There is no harm at all done. I have not proposed to the young lady, and, between ourselves, I am by no means certain, on reflection, that I ever should have committed myself to that extent. Mr. Lorry, you cannot control the mincing vanities and giddinesses of empty-headed girls; you must not expect to do it, or you will always be disappointed. Now, pray say no more about it. I tell you, I regret it on account of others, but I am satisfied on my own account. And I am really very much obliged to you for allowing me to sound you, and for giving me your advice; you know the young lady better than I do; you were right, it never would have done.” Mr. Lorry was so taken aback, that he looked quite stupidly at Mr. Stryver shouldering him towards the door, with an appearance of showering generosity, forbearance, and goodwill, on his erring head. “Make the best of it, my dear sir,” said Stryver; “say no more about it; thank you again for allowing me to sound you; good night!” Mr. Lorry was out in the night, before he knew where he was. Mr. Stryver was lying back on his sofa, winking at his ceiling. CHAPTER XIII. The Fellow of No Delicacy If Sydney Carton ever shone anywhere, he certainly never shone in the house of Doctor Manette. He had been there often, during a whole year, and had always been the same moody and morose lounger there. When he cared to talk, he talked well; but, the cloud of caring for nothing, which overshadowed him with such a fatal darkness, was very rarely pierced by the light within him. And yet he did care something for the streets that environed that house, and for the senseless stones that made their pavements. Many a night he vaguely and unhappily wandered there, when wine had brought no transitory gladness to him; many a dreary daybreak revealed his solitary figure lingering there, and still lingering there when the first beams of the sun brought into strong relief, removed beauties of architecture in spires of churches and lofty buildings, as perhaps the quiet time brought some sense of better things, else forgotten and unattainable, into his mind. Of late, the neglected bed in the Temple Court had known him more scantily than ever; and often when he had thrown himself upon it no longer than a few minutes, he had got up again, and haunted that neighbourhood. On a day in August, when Mr. Stryver (after notifying to his jackal that “he had thought better of that marrying matter”) had carried his delicacy into Devonshire, and when the sight and scent of flowers in the City streets had some waifs of goodness in them for the worst, of health for the sickliest, and of youth for the oldest, Sydney’s feet still trod those stones. From being irresolute and purposeless, his feet became animated by an intention, and, in the working out of that intention, they took him to the Doctor’s door. He was shown up-stairs, and found Lucie at her work, alone. She had never been quite at her ease with him, and received him with some little embarrassment as he seated himself near her table. But, looking up at his face in the interchange of the first few common-places, she observed a change in it. “I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton!” “No. But the life I lead, Miss Manette, is not conducive to health. What is to be expected of, or by, such profligates?” “Is it not--forgive me; I have begun the question on my lips--a pity to live no better life?” “God knows it is a shame!” “Then why not change it?” Looking gently at him again, she was surprised and saddened to see that there were tears in his eyes. There were tears in his voice too, as he answered: “It is too late for that. I shall never be better than I am. I shall sink lower, and be worse.” He leaned an elbow on her table, and covered his eyes with his hand. The table trembled in the silence that followed. She had never seen him softened, and was much distressed. He knew her to be so, without looking at her, and said: “Pray forgive me, Miss Manette. I break down before the knowledge of what I want to say to you. Will you hear me?” “If it will do you any good, Mr. Carton, if it would make you happier, it would make me very glad!” “God bless you for your sweet compassion!” He unshaded his face after a little while, and spoke steadily. “Don’t be afraid to hear me. Don’t shrink from anything I say. I am like one who died young. All my life might have been.” “No, Mr. Carton. I am sure that the best part of it might still be; I am sure that you might be much, much worthier of yourself.” “Say of you, Miss Manette, and although I know better--although in the mystery of my own wretched heart I know better--I shall never forget it!” She was pale and trembling. He came to her relief with a fixed despair of himself which made the interview unlike any other that could have been holden. “If it had been possible, Miss Manette, that you could have returned the love of the man you see before yourself--flung away, wasted, drunken, poor creature of misuse as you know him to be--he would have been conscious this day and hour, in spite of his happiness, that he would bring you to misery, bring you to sorrow and repentance, blight you, disgrace you, pull you down with him. I know very well that you can have no tenderness for me; I ask for none; I am even thankful that it cannot be.” “Without it, can I not save you, Mr. Carton? Can I not recall you--forgive me again!--to a better course? Can I in no way repay your confidence? I know this is a confidence,” she modestly said, after a little hesitation, and in earnest tears, “I know you would say this to no one else. Can I turn it to no good account for yourself, Mr. Carton?” He shook his head. “To none. No, Miss Manette, to none. If you will hear me through a very little more, all you can ever do for me is done. I wish you to know that you have been the last dream of my soul. In my degradation I have not been so degraded but that the sight of you with your father, and of this home made such a home by you, has stirred old shadows that I thought had died out of me. Since I knew you, I have been troubled by a remorse that I thought would never reproach me again, and have heard whispers from old voices impelling me upward, that I thought were silent for ever. I have had unformed ideas of striving afresh, beginning anew, shaking off sloth and sensuality, and fighting out the abandoned fight. A dream, all a dream, that ends in nothing, and leaves the sleeper where he lay down, but I wish you to know that you inspired it.” “Will nothing of it remain? O Mr. Carton, think again! Try again!” “No, Miss Manette; all through it, I have known myself to be quite undeserving. And yet I have had the weakness, and have still the weakness, to wish you to know with what a sudden mastery you kindled me, heap of ashes that I am, into fire--a fire, however, inseparable in its nature from myself, quickening nothing, lighting nothing, doing no service, idly burning away.” “Since it is my misfortune, Mr. Carton, to have made you more unhappy than you were before you knew me--” “Don’t say that, Miss Manette, for you would have reclaimed me, if anything could. You will not be the cause of my becoming worse.” “Since the state of your mind that you describe, is, at all events, attributable to some influence of mine--this is what I mean, if I can make it plain--can I use no influence to serve you? Have I no power for good, with you, at all?” “The utmost good that I am capable of now, Miss Manette, I have come here to realise. Let me carry through the rest of my misdirected life, the remembrance that I opened my heart to you, last of all the world; and that there was something left in me at this time which you could deplore and pity.” “Which I entreated you to believe, again and again, most fervently, with all my heart, was capable of better things, Mr. Carton!” “Entreat me to believe it no more, Miss Manette. I have proved myself, and I know better. I distress you; I draw fast to an end. Will you let me believe, when I recall this day, that the last confidence of my life was reposed in your pure and innocent breast, and that it lies there alone, and will be shared by no one?” “If that will be a consolation to you, yes.” “Not even by the dearest one ever to be known to you?” “Mr. Carton,” she answered, after an agitated pause, “the secret is yours, not mine; and I promise to respect it.” “Thank you. And again, God bless you.” He put her hand to his lips, and moved towards the door. “Be under no apprehension, Miss Manette, of my ever resuming this conversation by so much as a passing word. I will never refer to it again. If I were dead, that could not be surer than it is henceforth. In the hour of my death, I shall hold sacred the one good remembrance--and shall thank and bless you for it--that my last avowal of myself was made to you, and that my name, and faults, and miseries were gently carried in your heart. May it otherwise be light and happy!” He was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so sad to think how much he had thrown away, and how much he every day kept down and perverted, that Lucie Manette wept mournfully for him as he stood looking back at her. “Be comforted!” he said, “I am not worth such feeling, Miss Manette. An hour or two hence, and the low companions and low habits that I scorn but yield to, will render me less worth such tears as those, than any wretch who creeps along the streets. Be comforted! But, within myself, I shall always be, towards you, what I am now, though outwardly I shall be what you have heretofore seen me. The last supplication but one I make to you, is, that you will believe this of me.” “I will, Mr. Carton.” “My last supplication of all, is this; and with it, I will relieve you of a visitor with whom I well know you have nothing in unison, and between whom and you there is an impassable space. It is useless to say it, I know, but it rises out of my soul. For you, and for any dear to you, I would do anything. If my career were of that better kind that there was any opportunity or capacity of sacrifice in it, I would embrace any sacrifice for you and for those dear to you. Try to hold me in your mind, at some quiet times, as ardent and sincere in this one thing. The time will come, the time will not be long in coming, when new ties will be formed about you--ties that will bind you yet more tenderly and strongly to the home you so adorn--the dearest ties that will ever grace and gladden you. O Miss Manette, when the little picture of a happy father’s face looks up in yours, when you see your own bright beauty springing up anew at your feet, think now and then that there is a man who would give his life, to keep a life you love beside you!” He said, “Farewell!” said a last “God bless you!” and left her. CHAPTER XIV. The Honest Tradesman To the eyes of Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, sitting on his stool in Fleet-street with his grisly urchin beside him, a vast number and variety of objects in movement were every day presented. Who could sit upon anything in Fleet-street during the busy hours of the day, and not be dazed and deafened by two immense processions, one ever tending westward with the sun, the other ever tending eastward from the sun, both ever tending to the plains beyond the range of red and purple where the sun goes down! With his straw in his mouth, Mr. Cruncher sat watching the two streams, like the heathen rustic who has for several centuries been on duty watching one stream--saving that Jerry had no expectation of their ever running dry. Nor would it have been an expectation of a hopeful kind, since a small part of his income was derived from the pilotage of timid women (mostly of a full habit and past the middle term of life) from Tellson’s side of the tides to the opposite shore. Brief as such companionship was in every separate instance, Mr. Cruncher never failed to become so interested in the lady as to express a strong desire to have the honour of drinking her very good health. And it was from the gifts bestowed upon him towards the execution of this benevolent purpose, that he recruited his finances, as just now observed. Time was, when a poet sat upon a stool in a public place, and mused in the sight of men. Mr. Cruncher, sitting on a stool in a public place, but not being a poet, mused as little as possible, and looked about him. It fell out that he was thus engaged in a season when crowds were few, and belated women few, and when his affairs in general were so unprosperous as to awaken a strong suspicion in his breast that Mrs. Cruncher must have been “flopping” in some pointed manner, when an unusual concourse pouring down Fleet-street westward, attracted his attention. Looking that way, Mr. Cruncher made out that some kind of funeral was coming along, and that there was popular objection to this funeral, which engendered uproar. “Young Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, turning to his offspring, “it’s a buryin’.” “Hooroar, father!” cried Young Jerry. The young gentleman uttered this exultant sound with mysterious significance. The elder gentleman took the cry so ill, that he watched his opportunity, and smote the young gentleman on the ear. “What d’ye mean? What are you hooroaring at? What do you want to conwey to your own father, you young Rip? This boy is a getting too many for _me_!” said Mr. Cruncher, surveying him. “Him and his hooroars! Don’t let me hear no more of you, or you shall feel some more of me. D’ye hear?” “I warn’t doing no harm,” Young Jerry protested, rubbing his cheek. “Drop it then,” said Mr. Cruncher; “I won’t have none of _your_ no harms. Get a top of that there seat, and look at the crowd.” His son obeyed, and the crowd approached; they were bawling and hissing round a dingy hearse and dingy mourning coach, in which mourning coach there was only one mourner, dressed in the dingy trappings that were considered essential to the dignity of the position. The position appeared by no means to please him, however, with an increasing rabble surrounding the coach, deriding him, making grimaces at him, and incessantly groaning and calling out: “Yah! Spies! Tst! Yaha! Spies!” with many compliments too numerous and forcible to repeat. Funerals had at all times a remarkable attraction for Mr. Cruncher; he always pricked up his senses, and became excited, when a funeral passed Tellson’s. Naturally, therefore, a funeral with this uncommon attendance excited him greatly, and he asked of the first man who ran against him: “What is it, brother? What’s it about?” “_I_ don’t know,” said the man. “Spies! Yaha! Tst! Spies!” He asked another man. “Who is it?” “_I_ don’t know,” returned the man, clapping his hands to his mouth nevertheless, and vociferating in a surprising heat and with the greatest ardour, “Spies! Yaha! Tst, tst! Spi--ies!” At length, a person better informed on the merits of the case, tumbled against him, and from this person he learned that the funeral was the funeral of one Roger Cly. “Was he a spy?” asked Mr. Cruncher. “Old Bailey spy,” returned his informant. “Yaha! Tst! Yah! Old Bailey Spi--i--ies!” “Why, to be sure!” exclaimed Jerry, recalling the Trial at which he had assisted. “I’ve seen him. Dead, is he?” “Dead as mutton,” returned the other, “and can’t be too dead. Have ’em out, there! Spies! Pull ’em out, there! Spies!” The idea was so acceptable in the prevalent absence of any idea, that the crowd caught it up with eagerness, and loudly repeating the suggestion to have ’em out, and to pull ’em out, mobbed the two vehicles so closely that they came to a stop. On the crowd’s opening the coach doors, the one mourner scuffled out by himself and was in their hands for a moment; but he was so alert, and made such good use of his time, that in another moment he was scouring away up a bye-street, after shedding his cloak, hat, long hatband, white pocket-handkerchief, and other symbolical tears. These, the people tore to pieces and scattered far and wide with great enjoyment, while the tradesmen hurriedly shut up their shops; for a crowd in those times stopped at nothing, and was a monster much dreaded. They had already got the length of opening the hearse to take the coffin out, when some brighter genius proposed instead, its being escorted to its destination amidst general rejoicing. Practical suggestions being much needed, this suggestion, too, was received with acclamation, and the coach was immediately filled with eight inside and a dozen out, while as many people got on the roof of the hearse as could by any exercise of ingenuity stick upon it. Among the first of these volunteers was Jerry Cruncher himself, who modestly concealed his spiky head from the observation of Tellson’s, in the further corner of the mourning coach. The officiating undertakers made some protest against these changes in the ceremonies; but, the river being alarmingly near, and several voices remarking on the efficacy of cold immersion in bringing refractory members of the profession to reason, the protest was faint and brief. The remodelled procession started, with a chimney-sweep driving the hearse--advised by the regular driver, who was perched beside him, under close inspection, for the purpose--and with a pieman, also attended by his cabinet minister, driving the mourning coach. A bear-leader, a popular street character of the time, was impressed as an additional ornament, before the cavalcade had gone far down the Strand; and his bear, who was black and very mangy, gave quite an Undertaking air to that part of the procession in which he walked. Thus, with beer-drinking, pipe-smoking, song-roaring, and infinite caricaturing of woe, the disorderly procession went its way, recruiting at every step, and all the shops shutting up before it. Its destination was the old church of Saint Pancras, far off in the fields. It got there in course of time; insisted on pouring into the burial-ground; finally, accomplished the interment of the deceased Roger Cly in its own way, and highly to its own satisfaction. The dead man disposed of, and the crowd being under the necessity of providing some other entertainment for itself, another brighter genius (or perhaps the same) conceived the humour of impeaching casual passers-by, as Old Bailey spies, and wreaking vengeance on them. Chase was given to some scores of inoffensive persons who had never been near the Old Bailey in their lives, in the realisation of this fancy, and they were roughly hustled and maltreated. The transition to the sport of window-breaking, and thence to the plundering of public-houses, was easy and natural. At last, after several hours, when sundry summer-houses had been pulled down, and some area-railings had been torn up, to arm the more belligerent spirits, a rumour got about that the Guards were coming. Before this rumour, the crowd gradually melted away, and perhaps the Guards came, and perhaps they never came, and this was the usual progress of a mob. Mr. Cruncher did not assist at the closing sports, but had remained behind in the churchyard, to confer and condole with the undertakers. The place had a soothing influence on him. He procured a pipe from a neighbouring public-house, and smoked it, looking in at the railings and maturely considering the spot. “Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, apostrophising himself in his usual way, “you see that there Cly that day, and you see with your own eyes that he was a young ’un and a straight made ’un.” Having smoked his pipe out, and ruminated a little longer, he turned himself about, that he might appear, before the hour of closing, on his station at Tellson’s. Whether his meditations on mortality had touched his liver, or whether his general health had been previously at all amiss, or whether he desired to show a little attention to an eminent man, is not so much to the purpose, as that he made a short call upon his medical adviser--a distinguished surgeon--on his way back. Young Jerry relieved his father with dutiful interest, and reported No job in his absence. The bank closed, the ancient clerks came out, the usual watch was set, and Mr. Cruncher and his son went home to tea. “Now, I tell you where it is!” said Mr. Cruncher to his wife, on entering. “If, as a honest tradesman, my wenturs goes wrong to-night, I shall make sure that you’ve been praying again me, and I shall work you for it just the same as if I seen you do it.” The dejected Mrs. Cruncher shook her head. “Why, you’re at it afore my face!” said Mr. Cruncher, with signs of angry apprehension. “I am saying nothing.” “Well, then; don’t meditate nothing. You might as well flop as meditate. You may as well go again me one way as another. Drop it altogether.” “Yes, Jerry.” “Yes, Jerry,” repeated Mr. Cruncher sitting down to tea. “Ah! It _is_ yes, Jerry. That’s about it. You may say yes, Jerry.” Mr. Cruncher had no particular meaning in these sulky corroborations, but made use of them, as people not unfrequently do, to express general ironical dissatisfaction. “You and your yes, Jerry,” said Mr. Cruncher, taking a bite out of his bread-and-butter, and seeming to help it down with a large invisible oyster out of his saucer. “Ah! I think so. I believe you.” “You are going out to-night?” asked his decent wife, when he took another bite. “Yes, I am.” “May I go with you, father?” asked his son, briskly. “No, you mayn’t. I’m a going--as your mother knows--a fishing. That’s where I’m going to. Going a fishing.” “Your fishing-rod gets rayther rusty; don’t it, father?” “Never you mind.” “Shall you bring any fish home, father?” “If I don’t, you’ll have short commons, to-morrow,” returned that gentleman, shaking his head; “that’s questions enough for you; I ain’t a going out, till you’ve been long abed.” He devoted himself during the remainder of the evening to keeping a most vigilant watch on Mrs. Cruncher, and sullenly holding her in conversation that she might be prevented from meditating any petitions to his disadvantage. With this view, he urged his son to hold her in conversation also, and led the unfortunate woman a hard life by dwelling on any causes of complaint he could bring against her, rather than he would leave her for a moment to her own reflections. The devoutest person could have rendered no greater homage to the efficacy of an honest prayer than he did in this distrust of his wife. It was as if a professed unbeliever in ghosts should be frightened by a ghost story. “And mind you!” said Mr. Cruncher. “No games to-morrow! If I, as a honest tradesman, succeed in providing a jinte of meat or two, none of your not touching of it, and sticking to bread. If I, as a honest tradesman, am able to provide a little beer, none of your declaring on water. When you go to Rome, do as Rome does. Rome will be a ugly customer to you, if you don’t. _I_’m your Rome, you know.” Then he began grumbling again: “With your flying into the face of your own wittles and drink! I don’t know how scarce you mayn’t make the wittles and drink here, by your flopping tricks and your unfeeling conduct. Look at your boy: he _is_ your’n, ain’t he? He’s as thin as a lath. Do you call yourself a mother, and not know that a mother’s first duty is to blow her boy out?” This touched Young Jerry on a tender place; who adjured his mother to perform her first duty, and, whatever else she did or neglected, above all things to lay especial stress on the discharge of that maternal function so affectingly and delicately indicated by his other parent. Thus the evening wore away with the Cruncher family, until Young Jerry was ordered to bed, and his mother, laid under similar injunctions, obeyed them. Mr. Cruncher beguiled the earlier watches of the night with solitary pipes, and did not start upon his excursion until nearly one o’clock. Towards that small and ghostly hour, he rose up from his chair, took a key out of his pocket, opened a locked cupboard, and brought forth a sack, a crowbar of convenient size, a rope and chain, and other fishing tackle of that nature. Disposing these articles about him in skilful manner, he bestowed a parting defiance on Mrs. Cruncher, extinguished the light, and went out. Young Jerry, who had only made a feint of undressing when he went to bed, was not long after his father. Under cover of the darkness he followed out of the room, followed down the stairs, followed down the court, followed out into the streets. He was in no uneasiness concerning his getting into the house again, for it was full of lodgers, and the door stood ajar all night. Impelled by a laudable ambition to study the art and mystery of his father’s honest calling, Young Jerry, keeping as close to house fronts, walls, and doorways, as his eyes were close to one another, held his honoured parent in view. The honoured parent steering Northward, had not gone far, when he was joined by another disciple of Izaak Walton, and the two trudged on together. Within half an hour from the first starting, they were beyond the winking lamps, and the more than winking watchmen, and were out upon a lonely road. Another fisherman was picked up here--and that so silently, that if Young Jerry had been superstitious, he might have supposed the second follower of the gentle craft to have, all of a sudden, split himself into two. The three went on, and Young Jerry went on, until the three stopped under a bank overhanging the road. Upon the top of the bank was a low brick wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In the shadow of bank and wall the three turned out of the road, and up a blind lane, of which the wall--there, risen to some eight or ten feet high--formed one side. Crouching down in a corner, peeping up the lane, the next object that Young Jerry saw, was the form of his honoured parent, pretty well defined against a watery and clouded moon, nimbly scaling an iron gate. He was soon over, and then the second fisherman got over, and then the third. They all dropped softly on the ground within the gate, and lay there a little--listening perhaps. Then, they moved away on their hands and knees. It was now Young Jerry’s turn to approach the gate: which he did, holding his breath. Crouching down again in a corner there, and looking in, he made out the three fishermen creeping through some rank grass! and all the gravestones in the churchyard--it was a large churchyard that they were in--looking on like ghosts in white, while the church tower itself looked on like the ghost of a monstrous giant. They did not creep far, before they stopped and stood upright. And then they began to fish. They fished with a spade, at first. Presently the honoured parent appeared to be adjusting some instrument like a great corkscrew. Whatever tools they worked with, they worked hard, until the awful striking of the church clock so terrified Young Jerry, that he made off, with his hair as stiff as his father’s. But, his long-cherished desire to know more about these matters, not only stopped him in his running away, but lured him back again. They were still fishing perseveringly, when he peeped in at the gate for the second time; but, now they seemed to have got a bite. There was a screwing and complaining sound down below, and their bent figures were strained, as if by a weight. By slow degrees the weight broke away the earth upon it, and came to the surface. Young Jerry very well knew what it would be; but, when he saw it, and saw his honoured parent about to wrench it open, he was so frightened, being new to the sight, that he made off again, and never stopped until he had run a mile or more. He would not have stopped then, for anything less necessary than breath, it being a spectral sort of race that he ran, and one highly desirable to get to the end of. He had a strong idea that the coffin he had seen was running after him; and, pictured as hopping on behind him, bolt upright, upon its narrow end, always on the point of overtaking him and hopping on at his side--perhaps taking his arm--it was a pursuer to shun. It was an inconsistent and ubiquitous fiend too, for, while it was making the whole night behind him dreadful, he darted out into the roadway to avoid dark alleys, fearful of its coming hopping out of them like a dropsical boy’s kite without tail and wings. It hid in doorways too, rubbing its horrible shoulders against doors, and drawing them up to its ears, as if it were laughing. It got into shadows on the road, and lay cunningly on its back to trip him up. All this time it was incessantly hopping on behind and gaining on him, so that when the boy got to his own door he had reason for being half dead. And even then it would not leave him, but followed him upstairs with a bump on every stair, scrambled into bed with him, and bumped down, dead and heavy, on his breast when he fell asleep. From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was awakened after daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, so Young Jerry inferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking the back of her head against the head-board of the bed. “I told you I would,” said Mr. Cruncher, “and I did.” “Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!” his wife implored. “You oppose yourself to the profit of the business,” said Jerry, “and me and my partners suffer. You was to honour and obey; why the devil don’t you?” “I try to be a good wife, Jerry,” the poor woman protested, with tears. “Is it being a good wife to oppose your husband’s business? Is it honouring your husband to dishonour his business? Is it obeying your husband to disobey him on the wital subject of his business?” “You hadn’t taken to the dreadful business then, Jerry.” “It’s enough for you,” retorted Mr. Cruncher, “to be the wife of a honest tradesman, and not to occupy your female mind with calculations when he took to his trade or when he didn’t. A honouring and obeying wife would let his trade alone altogether. Call yourself a religious woman? If you’re a religious woman, give me a irreligious one! You have no more nat’ral sense of duty than the bed of this here Thames river has of a pile, and similarly it must be knocked into you.” The altercation was conducted in a low tone of voice, and terminated in the honest tradesman’s kicking off his clay-soiled boots, and lying down at his length on the floor. After taking a timid peep at him lying on his back, with his rusty hands under his head for a pillow, his son lay down too, and fell asleep again. There was no fish for breakfast, and not much of anything else. Mr. Cruncher was out of spirits, and out of temper, and kept an iron pot-lid by him as a projectile for the correction of Mrs. Cruncher, in case he should observe any symptoms of her saying Grace. He was brushed and washed at the usual hour, and set off with his son to pursue his ostensible calling. Young Jerry, walking with the stool under his arm at his father’s side along sunny and crowded Fleet-street, was a very different Young Jerry from him of the previous night, running home through darkness and solitude from his grim pursuer. His cunning was fresh with the day, and his qualms were gone with the night--in which particulars it is not improbable that he had compeers in Fleet-street and the City of London, that fine morning. “Father,” said Young Jerry, as they walked along: taking care to keep at arm’s length and to have the stool well between them: “what’s a Resurrection-Man?” Mr. Cruncher came to a stop on the pavement before he answered, “How should I know?” “I thought you knowed everything, father,” said the artless boy. “Hem! Well,” returned Mr. Cruncher, going on again, and lifting off his hat to give his spikes free play, “he’s a tradesman.” “What’s his goods, father?” asked the brisk Young Jerry. “His goods,” said Mr. Cruncher, after turning it over in his mind, “is a branch of Scientific goods.” “Persons’ bodies, ain’t it, father?” asked the lively boy. “I believe it is something of that sort,” said Mr. Cruncher. “Oh, father, I should so like to be a Resurrection-Man when I’m quite growed up!” Mr. Cruncher was soothed, but shook his head in a dubious and moral way. “It depends upon how you dewelop your talents. Be careful to dewelop your talents, and never to say no more than you can help to nobody, and there’s no telling at the present time what you may not come to be fit for.” As Young Jerry, thus encouraged, went on a few yards in advance, to plant the stool in the shadow of the Bar, Mr. Cruncher added to himself: “Jerry, you honest tradesman, there’s hopes wot that boy will yet be a blessing to you, and a recompense to you for his mother!” CHAPTER XV. Knitting There had been earlier drinking than usual in the wine-shop of Monsieur Defarge. As early as six o’clock in the morning, sallow faces peeping through its barred windows had descried other faces within, bending over measures of wine. Monsieur Defarge sold a very thin wine at the best of times, but it would seem to have been an unusually thin wine that he sold at this time. A sour wine, moreover, or a souring, for its influence on the mood of those who drank it was to make them gloomy. No vivacious Bacchanalian flame leaped out of the pressed grape of Monsieur Defarge: but, a smouldering fire that burnt in the dark, lay hidden in the dregs of it. This had been the third morning in succession, on which there had been early drinking at the wine-shop of Monsieur Defarge. It had begun on Monday, and here was Wednesday come. There had been more of early brooding than drinking; for, many men had listened and whispered and slunk about there from the time of the opening of the door, who could not have laid a piece of money on the counter to save their souls. These were to the full as interested in the place, however, as if they could have commanded whole barrels of wine; and they glided from seat to seat, and from corner to corner, swallowing talk in lieu of drink, with greedy looks. Notwithstanding an unusual flow of company, the master of the wine-shop was not visible. He was not missed; for, nobody who crossed the threshold looked for him, nobody asked for him, nobody wondered to see only Madame Defarge in her seat, presiding over the distribution of wine, with a bowl of battered small coins before her, as much defaced and beaten out of their original impress as the small coinage of humanity from whose ragged pockets they had come. A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhaps observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, as they looked in at every place, high and low, from the king’s palace to the criminal’s gaol. Games at cards languished, players at dominoes musingly built towers with them, drinkers drew figures on the tables with spilt drops of wine, Madame Defarge herself picked out the pattern on her sleeve with her toothpick, and saw and heard something inaudible and invisible a long way off. Thus, Saint Antoine in this vinous feature of his, until midday. It was high noontide, when two dusty men passed through his streets and under his swinging lamps: of whom, one was Monsieur Defarge: the other a mender of roads in a blue cap. All adust and athirst, the two entered the wine-shop. Their arrival had lighted a kind of fire in the breast of Saint Antoine, fast spreading as they came along, which stirred and flickered in flames of faces at most doors and windows. Yet, no one had followed them, and no man spoke when they entered the wine-shop, though the eyes of every man there were turned upon them. “Good day, gentlemen!” said Monsieur Defarge. It may have been a signal for loosening the general tongue. It elicited an answering chorus of “Good day!” “It is bad weather, gentlemen,” said Defarge, shaking his head. Upon which, every man looked at his neighbour, and then all cast down their eyes and sat silent. Except one man, who got up and went out. “My wife,” said Defarge aloud, addressing Madame Defarge: “I have travelled certain leagues with this good mender of roads, called Jacques. I met him--by accident--a day and half’s journey out of Paris. He is a good child, this mender of roads, called Jacques. Give him to drink, my wife!” A second man got up and went out. Madame Defarge set wine before the mender of roads called Jacques, who doffed his blue cap to the company, and drank. In the breast of his blouse he carried some coarse dark bread; he ate of this between whiles, and sat munching and drinking near Madame Defarge’s counter. A third man got up and went out. Defarge refreshed himself with a draught of wine--but, he took less than was given to the stranger, as being himself a man to whom it was no rarity--and stood waiting until the countryman had made his breakfast. He looked at no one present, and no one now looked at him; not even Madame Defarge, who had taken up her knitting, and was at work. “Have you finished your repast, friend?” he asked, in due season. “Yes, thank you.” “Come, then! You shall see the apartment that I told you you could occupy. It will suit you to a marvel.” Out of the wine-shop into the street, out of the street into a courtyard, out of the courtyard up a steep staircase, out of the staircase into a garret--formerly the garret where a white-haired man sat on a low bench, stooping forward and very busy, making shoes. No white-haired man was there now; but, the three men were there who had gone out of the wine-shop singly. And between them and the white-haired man afar off, was the one small link, that they had once looked in at him through the chinks in the wall. Defarge closed the door carefully, and spoke in a subdued voice: “Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques Three! This is the witness encountered by appointment, by me, Jacques Four. He will tell you all. Speak, Jacques Five!” The mender of roads, blue cap in hand, wiped his swarthy forehead with it, and said, “Where shall I commence, monsieur?” “Commence,” was Monsieur Defarge’s not unreasonable reply, “at the commencement.” “I saw him then, messieurs,” began the mender of roads, “a year ago this running summer, underneath the carriage of the Marquis, hanging by the chain. Behold the manner of it. I leaving my work on the road, the sun going to bed, the carriage of the Marquis slowly ascending the hill, he hanging by the chain--like this.” Again the mender of roads went through the whole performance; in which he ought to have been perfect by that time, seeing that it had been the infallible resource and indispensable entertainment of his village during a whole year. Jacques One struck in, and asked if he had ever seen the man before? “Never,” answered the mender of roads, recovering his perpendicular. Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognised him then? “By his tall figure,” said the mender of roads, softly, and with his finger at his nose. “When Monsieur the Marquis demands that evening, ‘Say, what is he like?’ I make response, ‘Tall as a spectre.’” “You should have said, short as a dwarf,” returned Jacques Two. “But what did I know? The deed was not then accomplished, neither did he confide in me. Observe! Under those circumstances even, I do not offer my testimony. Monsieur the Marquis indicates me with his finger, standing near our little fountain, and says, ‘To me! Bring that rascal!’ My faith, messieurs, I offer nothing.” “He is right there, Jacques,” murmured Defarge, to him who had interrupted. “Go on!” “Good!” said the mender of roads, with an air of mystery. “The tall man is lost, and he is sought--how many months? Nine, ten, eleven?” “No matter, the number,” said Defarge. “He is well hidden, but at last he is unluckily found. Go on!” “I am again at work upon the hill-side, and the sun is again about to go to bed. I am collecting my tools to descend to my cottage down in the village below, where it is already dark, when I raise my eyes, and see coming over the hill six soldiers. In the midst of them is a tall man with his arms bound--tied to his sides--like this!” With the aid of his indispensable cap, he represented a man with his elbows bound fast at his hips, with cords that were knotted behind him. “I stand aside, messieurs, by my heap of stones, to see the soldiers and their prisoner pass (for it is a solitary road, that, where any spectacle is well worth looking at), and at first, as they approach, I see no more than that they are six soldiers with a tall man bound, and that they are almost black to my sight--except on the side of the sun going to bed, where they have a red edge, messieurs. Also, I see that their long shadows are on the hollow ridge on the opposite side of the road, and are on the hill above it, and are like the shadows of giants. Also, I see that they are covered with dust, and that the dust moves with them as they come, tramp, tramp! But when they advance quite near to me, I recognise the tall man, and he recognises me. Ah, but he would be well content to precipitate himself over the hill-side once again, as on the evening when he and I first encountered, close to the same spot!” He described it as if he were there, and it was evident that he saw it vividly; perhaps he had not seen much in his life. “I do not show the soldiers that I recognise the tall man; he does not show the soldiers that he recognises me; we do it, and we know it, with our eyes. ‘Come on!’ says the chief of that company, pointing to the village, ‘bring him fast to his tomb!’ and they bring him faster. I follow. His arms are swelled because of being bound so tight, his wooden shoes are large and clumsy, and he is lame. Because he is lame, and consequently slow, they drive him with their guns--like this!” He imitated the action of a man’s being impelled forward by the butt-ends of muskets. “As they descend the hill like madmen running a race, he falls. They laugh and pick him up again. His face is bleeding and covered with dust, but he cannot touch it; thereupon they laugh again. They bring him into the village; all the village runs to look; they take him past the mill, and up to the prison; all the village sees the prison gate open in the darkness of the night, and swallow him--like this!” He opened his mouth as wide as he could, and shut it with a sounding snap of his teeth. Observant of his unwillingness to mar the effect by opening it again, Defarge said, “Go on, Jacques.” “All the village,” pursued the mender of roads, on tiptoe and in a low voice, “withdraws; all the village whispers by the fountain; all the village sleeps; all the village dreams of that unhappy one, within the locks and bars of the prison on the crag, and never to come out of it, except to perish. In the morning, with my tools upon my shoulder, eating my morsel of black bread as I go, I make a circuit by the prison, on my way to my work. There I see him, high up, behind the bars of a lofty iron cage, bloody and dusty as last night, looking through. He has no hand free, to wave to me; I dare not call to him; he regards me like a dead man.” Defarge and the three glanced darkly at one another. The looks of all of them were dark, repressed, and revengeful, as they listened to the countryman’s story; the manner of all of them, while it was secret, was authoritative too. They had the air of a rough tribunal; Jacques One and Two sitting on the old pallet-bed, each with his chin resting on his hand, and his eyes intent on the road-mender; Jacques Three, equally intent, on one knee behind them, with his agitated hand always gliding over the network of fine nerves about his mouth and nose; Defarge standing between them and the narrator, whom he had stationed in the light of the window, by turns looking from him to them, and from them to him. “Go on, Jacques,” said Defarge. “He remains up there in his iron cage some days. The village looks at him by stealth, for it is afraid. But it always looks up, from a distance, at the prison on the crag; and in the evening, when the work of the day is achieved and it assembles to gossip at the fountain, all faces are turned towards the prison. Formerly, they were turned towards the posting-house; now, they are turned towards the prison. They whisper at the fountain, that although condemned to death he will not be executed; they say that petitions have been presented in Paris, showing that he was enraged and made mad by the death of his child; they say that a petition has been presented to the King himself. What do I know? It is possible. Perhaps yes, perhaps no.” “Listen then, Jacques,” Number One of that name sternly interposed. “Know that a petition was presented to the King and Queen. All here, yourself excepted, saw the King take it, in his carriage in the street, sitting beside the Queen. It is Defarge whom you see here, who, at the hazard of his life, darted out before the horses, with the petition in his hand.” “And once again listen, Jacques!” said the kneeling Number Three: his fingers ever wandering over and over those fine nerves, with a strikingly greedy air, as if he hungered for something--that was neither food nor drink; “the guard, horse and foot, surrounded the petitioner, and struck him blows. You hear?” “I hear, messieurs.” “Go on then,” said Defarge. “Again; on the other hand, they whisper at the fountain,” resumed the countryman, “that he is brought down into our country to be executed on the spot, and that he will very certainly be executed. They even whisper that because he has slain Monseigneur, and because Monseigneur was the father of his tenants--serfs--what you will--he will be executed as a parricide. One old man says at the fountain, that his right hand, armed with the knife, will be burnt off before his face; that, into wounds which will be made in his arms, his breast, and his legs, there will be poured boiling oil, melted lead, hot resin, wax, and sulphur; finally, that he will be torn limb from limb by four strong horses. That old man says, all this was actually done to a prisoner who made an attempt on the life of the late King, Louis Fifteen. But how do I know if he lies? I am not a scholar.” “Listen once again then, Jacques!” said the man with the restless hand and the craving air. “The name of that prisoner was Damiens, and it was all done in open day, in the open streets of this city of Paris; and nothing was more noticed in the vast concourse that saw it done, than the crowd of ladies of quality and fashion, who were full of eager attention to the last--to the last, Jacques, prolonged until nightfall, when he had lost two legs and an arm, and still breathed! And it was done--why, how old are you?” “Thirty-five,” said the mender of roads, who looked sixty. “It was done when you were more than ten years old; you might have seen it.” “Enough!” said Defarge, with grim impatience. “Long live the Devil! Go on.” “Well! Some whisper this, some whisper that; they speak of nothing else; even the fountain appears to fall to that tune. At length, on Sunday night when all the village is asleep, come soldiers, winding down from the prison, and their guns ring on the stones of the little street. Workmen dig, workmen hammer, soldiers laugh and sing; in the morning, by the fountain, there is raised a gallows forty feet high, poisoning the water.” The mender of roads looked _through_ rather than _at_ the low ceiling, and pointed as if he saw the gallows somewhere in the sky. “All work is stopped, all assemble there, nobody leads the cows out, the cows are there with the rest. At midday, the roll of drums. Soldiers have marched into the prison in the night, and he is in the midst of many soldiers. He is bound as before, and in his mouth there is a gag--tied so, with a tight string, making him look almost as if he laughed.” He suggested it, by creasing his face with his two thumbs, from the corners of his mouth to his ears. “On the top of the gallows is fixed the knife, blade upwards, with its point in the air. He is hanged there forty feet high--and is left hanging, poisoning the water.” They looked at one another, as he used his blue cap to wipe his face, on which the perspiration had started afresh while he recalled the spectacle. “It is frightful, messieurs. How can the women and the children draw water! Who can gossip of an evening, under that shadow! Under it, have I said? When I left the village, Monday evening as the sun was going to bed, and looked back from the hill, the shadow struck across the church, across the mill, across the prison--seemed to strike across the earth, messieurs, to where the sky rests upon it!” The hungry man gnawed one of his fingers as he looked at the other three, and his finger quivered with the craving that was on him. “That’s all, messieurs. I left at sunset (as I had been warned to do), and I walked on, that night and half next day, until I met (as I was warned I should) this comrade. With him, I came on, now riding and now walking, through the rest of yesterday and through last night. And here you see me!” After a gloomy silence, the first Jacques said, “Good! You have acted and recounted faithfully. Will you wait for us a little, outside the door?” “Very willingly,” said the mender of roads. Whom Defarge escorted to the top of the stairs, and, leaving seated there, returned. The three had risen, and their heads were together when he came back to the garret. “How say you, Jacques?” demanded Number One. “To be registered?” “To be registered, as doomed to destruction,” returned Defarge. “Magnificent!” croaked the man with the craving. “The chateau, and all the race?” inquired the first. “The chateau and all the race,” returned Defarge. “Extermination.” The hungry man repeated, in a rapturous croak, “Magnificent!” and began gnawing another finger. “Are you sure,” asked Jacques Two, of Defarge, “that no embarrassment can arise from our manner of keeping the register? Without doubt it is safe, for no one beyond ourselves can decipher it; but shall we always be able to decipher it--or, I ought to say, will she?” “Jacques,” returned Defarge, drawing himself up, “if madame my wife undertook to keep the register in her memory alone, she would not lose a word of it--not a syllable of it. Knitted, in her own stitches and her own symbols, it will always be as plain to her as the sun. Confide in Madame Defarge. It would be easier for the weakest poltroon that lives, to erase himself from existence, than to erase one letter of his name or crimes from the knitted register of Madame Defarge.” There was a murmur of confidence and approval, and then the man who hungered, asked: “Is this rustic to be sent back soon? I hope so. He is very simple; is he not a little dangerous?” “He knows nothing,” said Defarge; “at least nothing more than would easily elevate himself to a gallows of the same height. I charge myself with him; let him remain with me; I will take care of him, and set him on his road. He wishes to see the fine world--the King, the Queen, and Court; let him see them on Sunday.” “What?” exclaimed the hungry man, staring. “Is it a good sign, that he wishes to see Royalty and Nobility?” “Jacques,” said Defarge; “judiciously show a cat milk, if you wish her to thirst for it. Judiciously show a dog his natural prey, if you wish him to bring it down one day.” Nothing more was said, and the mender of roads, being found already dozing on the topmost stair, was advised to lay himself down on the pallet-bed and take some rest. He needed no persuasion, and was soon asleep. Worse quarters than Defarge’s wine-shop, could easily have been found in Paris for a provincial slave of that degree. Saving for a mysterious dread of madame by which he was constantly haunted, his life was very new and agreeable. But, madame sat all day at her counter, so expressly unconscious of him, and so particularly determined not to perceive that his being there had any connection with anything below the surface, that he shook in his wooden shoes whenever his eye lighted on her. For, he contended with himself that it was impossible to foresee what that lady might pretend next; and he felt assured that if she should take it into her brightly ornamented head to pretend that she had seen him do a murder and afterwards flay the victim, she would infallibly go through with it until the play was played out. Therefore, when Sunday came, the mender of roads was not enchanted (though he said he was) to find that madame was to accompany monsieur and himself to Versailles. It was additionally disconcerting to have madame knitting all the way there, in a public conveyance; it was additionally disconcerting yet, to have madame in the crowd in the afternoon, still with her knitting in her hands as the crowd waited to see the carriage of the King and Queen. “You work hard, madame,” said a man near her. “Yes,” answered Madame Defarge; “I have a good deal to do.” “What do you make, madame?” “Many things.” “For instance--” “For instance,” returned Madame Defarge, composedly, “shrouds.” The man moved a little further away, as soon as he could, and the mender of roads fanned himself with his blue cap: feeling it mightily close and oppressive. If he needed a King and Queen to restore him, he was fortunate in having his remedy at hand; for, soon the large-faced King and the fair-faced Queen came in their golden coach, attended by the shining Bull’s Eye of their Court, a glittering multitude of laughing ladies and fine lords; and in jewels and silks and powder and splendour and elegantly spurning figures and handsomely disdainful faces of both sexes, the mender of roads bathed himself, so much to his temporary intoxication, that he cried Long live the King, Long live the Queen, Long live everybody and everything! as if he had never heard of ubiquitous Jacques in his time. Then, there were gardens, courtyards, terraces, fountains, green banks, more King and Queen, more Bull’s Eye, more lords and ladies, more Long live they all! until he absolutely wept with sentiment. During the whole of this scene, which lasted some three hours, he had plenty of shouting and weeping and sentimental company, and throughout Defarge held him by the collar, as if to restrain him from flying at the objects of his brief devotion and tearing them to pieces. “Bravo!” said Defarge, clapping him on the back when it was over, like a patron; “you are a good boy!” The mender of roads was now coming to himself, and was mistrustful of having made a mistake in his late demonstrations; but no. “You are the fellow we want,” said Defarge, in his ear; “you make these fools believe that it will last for ever. Then, they are the more insolent, and it is the nearer ended.” “Hey!” cried the mender of roads, reflectively; “that’s true.” “These fools know nothing. While they despise your breath, and would stop it for ever and ever, in you or in a hundred like you rather than in one of their own horses or dogs, they only know what your breath tells them. Let it deceive them, then, a little longer; it cannot deceive them too much.” Madame Defarge looked superciliously at the client, and nodded in confirmation. “As to you,” said she, “you would shout and shed tears for anything, if it made a show and a noise. Say! Would you not?” “Truly, madame, I think so. For the moment.” “If you were shown a great heap of dolls, and were set upon them to pluck them to pieces and despoil them for your own advantage, you would pick out the richest and gayest. Say! Would you not?” “Truly yes, madame.” “Yes. And if you were shown a flock of birds, unable to fly, and were set upon them to strip them of their feathers for your own advantage, you would set upon the birds of the finest feathers; would you not?” “It is true, madame.” “You have seen both dolls and birds to-day,” said Madame Defarge, with a wave of her hand towards the place where they had last been apparent; “now, go home!” CHAPTER XVI. Still Knitting Madame Defarge and monsieur her husband returned amicably to the bosom of Saint Antoine, while a speck in a blue cap toiled through the darkness, and through the dust, and down the weary miles of avenue by the wayside, slowly tending towards that point of the compass where the chateau of Monsieur the Marquis, now in his grave, listened to the whispering trees. Such ample leisure had the stone faces, now, for listening to the trees and to the fountain, that the few village scarecrows who, in their quest for herbs to eat and fragments of dead stick to burn, strayed within sight of the great stone courtyard and terrace staircase, had it borne in upon their starved fancy that the expression of the faces was altered. A rumour just lived in the village--had a faint and bare existence there, as its people had--that when the knife struck home, the faces changed, from faces of pride to faces of anger and pain; also, that when that dangling figure was hauled up forty feet above the fountain, they changed again, and bore a cruel look of being avenged, which they would henceforth bear for ever. In the stone face over the great window of the bed-chamber where the murder was done, two fine dints were pointed out in the sculptured nose, which everybody recognised, and which nobody had seen of old; and on the scarce occasions when two or three ragged peasants emerged from the crowd to take a hurried peep at Monsieur the Marquis petrified, a skinny finger would not have pointed to it for a minute, before they all started away among the moss and leaves, like the more fortunate hares who could find a living there. Chateau and hut, stone face and dangling figure, the red stain on the stone floor, and the pure water in the village well--thousands of acres of land--a whole province of France--all France itself--lay under the night sky, concentrated into a faint hair-breadth line. So does a whole world, with all its greatnesses and littlenesses, lie in a twinkling star. And as mere human knowledge can split a ray of light and analyse the manner of its composition, so, sublimer intelligences may read in the feeble shining of this earth of ours, every thought and act, every vice and virtue, of every responsible creature on it. The Defarges, husband and wife, came lumbering under the starlight, in their public vehicle, to that gate of Paris whereunto their journey naturally tended. There was the usual stoppage at the barrier guardhouse, and the usual lanterns came glancing forth for the usual examination and inquiry. Monsieur Defarge alighted; knowing one or two of the soldiery there, and one of the police. The latter he was intimate with, and affectionately embraced. When Saint Antoine had again enfolded the Defarges in his dusky wings, and they, having finally alighted near the Saint’s boundaries, were picking their way on foot through the black mud and offal of his streets, Madame Defarge spoke to her husband: “Say then, my friend; what did Jacques of the police tell thee?” “Very little to-night, but all he knows. There is another spy commissioned for our quarter. There may be many more, for all that he can say, but he knows of one.” “Eh well!” said Madame Defarge, raising her eyebrows with a cool business air. “It is necessary to register him. How do they call that man?” “He is English.” “So much the better. His name?” “Barsad,” said Defarge, making it French by pronunciation. But, he had been so careful to get it accurately, that he then spelt it with perfect correctness. “Barsad,” repeated madame. “Good. Christian name?” “John.” “John Barsad,” repeated madame, after murmuring it once to herself. “Good. His appearance; is it known?” “Age, about forty years; height, about five feet nine; black hair; complexion dark; generally, rather handsome visage; eyes dark, face thin, long, and sallow; nose aquiline, but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the left cheek; expression, therefore, sinister.” “Eh my faith. It is a portrait!” said madame, laughing. “He shall be registered to-morrow.” They turned into the wine-shop, which was closed (for it was midnight), and where Madame Defarge immediately took her post at her desk, counted the small moneys that had been taken during her absence, examined the stock, went through the entries in the book, made other entries of her own, checked the serving man in every possible way, and finally dismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the contents of the bowl of money for the second time, and began knotting them up in her handkerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for safe keeping through the night. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked up and down, complacently admiring, but never interfering; in which condition, indeed, as to the business and his domestic affairs, he walked up and down through life. The night was hot, and the shop, close shut and surrounded by so foul a neighbourhood, was ill-smelling. Monsieur Defarge’s olfactory sense was by no means delicate, but the stock of wine smelt much stronger than it ever tasted, and so did the stock of rum and brandy and aniseed. He whiffed the compound of scents away, as he put down his smoked-out pipe. “You are fatigued,” said madame, raising her glance as she knotted the money. “There are only the usual odours.” “I am a little tired,” her husband acknowledged. “You are a little depressed, too,” said madame, whose quick eyes had never been so intent on the accounts, but they had had a ray or two for him. “Oh, the men, the men!” “But my dear!” began Defarge. “But my dear!” repeated madame, nodding firmly; “but my dear! You are faint of heart to-night, my dear!” “Well, then,” said Defarge, as if a thought were wrung out of his breast, “it _is_ a long time.” “It is a long time,” repeated his wife; “and when is it not a long time? Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.” “It does not take a long time to strike a man with Lightning,” said Defarge. “How long,” demanded madame, composedly, “does it take to make and store the lightning? Tell me.” Defarge raised his head thoughtfully, as if there were something in that too. “It does not take a long time,” said madame, “for an earthquake to swallow a town. Eh well! Tell me how long it takes to prepare the earthquake?” “A long time, I suppose,” said Defarge. “But when it is ready, it takes place, and grinds to pieces everything before it. In the meantime, it is always preparing, though it is not seen or heard. That is your consolation. Keep it.” She tied a knot with flashing eyes, as if it throttled a foe. “I tell thee,” said madame, extending her right hand, for emphasis, “that although it is a long time on the road, it is on the road and coming. I tell thee it never retreats, and never stops. I tell thee it is always advancing. Look around and consider the lives of all the world that we know, consider the faces of all the world that we know, consider the rage and discontent to which the Jacquerie addresses itself with more and more of certainty every hour. Can such things last? Bah! I mock you.” “My brave wife,” returned Defarge, standing before her with his head a little bent, and his hands clasped at his back, like a docile and attentive pupil before his catechist, “I do not question all this. But it has lasted a long time, and it is possible--you know well, my wife, it is possible--that it may not come, during our lives.” “Eh well! How then?” demanded madame, tying another knot, as if there were another enemy strangled. “Well!” said Defarge, with a half complaining and half apologetic shrug. “We shall not see the triumph.” “We shall have helped it,” returned madame, with her extended hand in strong action. “Nothing that we do, is done in vain. I believe, with all my soul, that we shall see the triumph. But even if not, even if I knew certainly not, show me the neck of an aristocrat and tyrant, and still I would--” Then madame, with her teeth set, tied a very terrible knot indeed. “Hold!” cried Defarge, reddening a little as if he felt charged with cowardice; “I too, my dear, will stop at nothing.” “Yes! But it is your weakness that you sometimes need to see your victim and your opportunity, to sustain you. Sustain yourself without that. When the time comes, let loose a tiger and a devil; but wait for the time with the tiger and the devil chained--not shown--yet always ready.” Madame enforced the conclusion of this piece of advice by striking her little counter with her chain of money as if she knocked its brains out, and then gathering the heavy handkerchief under her arm in a serene manner, and observing that it was time to go to bed. Next noontide saw the admirable woman in her usual place in the wine-shop, knitting away assiduously. A rose lay beside her, and if she now and then glanced at the flower, it was with no infraction of her usual preoccupied air. There were a few customers, drinking or not drinking, standing or seated, sprinkled about. The day was very hot, and heaps of flies, who were extending their inquisitive and adventurous perquisitions into all the glutinous little glasses near madame, fell dead at the bottom. Their decease made no impression on the other flies out promenading, who looked at them in the coolest manner (as if they themselves were elephants, or something as far removed), until they met the same fate. Curious to consider how heedless flies are!--perhaps they thought as much at Court that sunny summer day. A figure entering at the door threw a shadow on Madame Defarge which she felt to be a new one. She laid down her knitting, and began to pin her rose in her head-dress, before she looked at the figure. It was curious. The moment Madame Defarge took up the rose, the customers ceased talking, and began gradually to drop out of the wine-shop. “Good day, madame,” said the new-comer. “Good day, monsieur.” She said it aloud, but added to herself, as she resumed her knitting: “Hah! Good day, age about forty, height about five feet nine, black hair, generally rather handsome visage, complexion dark, eyes dark, thin, long and sallow face, aquiline nose but not straight, having a peculiar inclination towards the left cheek which imparts a sinister expression! Good day, one and all!” “Have the goodness to give me a little glass of old cognac, and a mouthful of cool fresh water, madame.” Madame complied with a polite air. “Marvellous cognac this, madame!” It was the first time it had ever been so complimented, and Madame Defarge knew enough of its antecedents to know better. She said, however, that the cognac was flattered, and took up her knitting. The visitor watched her fingers for a few moments, and took the opportunity of observing the place in general. “You knit with great skill, madame.” “I am accustomed to it.” “A pretty pattern too!” “_You_ think so?” said madame, looking at him with a smile. “Decidedly. May one ask what it is for?” “Pastime,” said madame, still looking at him with a smile while her fingers moved nimbly. “Not for use?” “That depends. I may find a use for it one day. If I do--Well,” said madame, drawing a breath and nodding her head with a stern kind of coquetry, “I’ll use it!” It was remarkable; but, the taste of Saint Antoine seemed to be decidedly opposed to a rose on the head-dress of Madame Defarge. Two men had entered separately, and had been about to order drink, when, catching sight of that novelty, they faltered, made a pretence of looking about as if for some friend who was not there, and went away. Nor, of those who had been there when this visitor entered, was there one left. They had all dropped off. The spy had kept his eyes open, but had been able to detect no sign. They had lounged away in a poverty-stricken, purposeless, accidental manner, quite natural and unimpeachable. “_John_,” thought madame, checking off her work as her fingers knitted, and her eyes looked at the stranger. “Stay long enough, and I shall knit ‘BARSAD’ before you go.” “You have a husband, madame?” “I have.” “Children?” “No children.” “Business seems bad?” “Business is very bad; the people are so poor.” “Ah, the unfortunate, miserable people! So oppressed, too--as you say.” “As _you_ say,” madame retorted, correcting him, and deftly knitting an extra something into his name that boded him no good. “Pardon me; certainly it was I who said so, but you naturally think so. Of course.” “_I_ think?” returned madame, in a high voice. “I and my husband have enough to do to keep this wine-shop open, without thinking. All we think, here, is how to live. That is the subject _we_ think of, and it gives us, from morning to night, enough to think about, without embarrassing our heads concerning others. _I_ think for others? No, no.” The spy, who was there to pick up any crumbs he could find or make, did not allow his baffled state to express itself in his sinister face; but, stood with an air of gossiping gallantry, leaning his elbow on Madame Defarge’s little counter, and occasionally sipping his cognac. “A bad business this, madame, of Gaspard’s execution. Ah! the poor Gaspard!” With a sigh of great compassion. “My faith!” returned madame, coolly and lightly, “if people use knives for such purposes, they have to pay for it. He knew beforehand what the price of his luxury was; he has paid the price.” “I believe,” said the spy, dropping his soft voice to a tone that invited confidence, and expressing an injured revolutionary susceptibility in every muscle of his wicked face: “I believe there is much compassion and anger in this neighbourhood, touching the poor fellow? Between ourselves.” “Is there?” asked madame, vacantly. “Is there not?” “--Here is my husband!” said Madame Defarge. As the keeper of the wine-shop entered at the door, the spy saluted him by touching his hat, and saying, with an engaging smile, “Good day, Jacques!” Defarge stopped short, and stared at him. “Good day, Jacques!” the spy repeated; with not quite so much confidence, or quite so easy a smile under the stare. “You deceive yourself, monsieur,” returned the keeper of the wine-shop. “You mistake me for another. That is not my name. I am Ernest Defarge.” “It is all the same,” said the spy, airily, but discomfited too: “good day!” “Good day!” answered Defarge, drily. “I was saying to madame, with whom I had the pleasure of chatting when you entered, that they tell me there is--and no wonder!--much sympathy and anger in Saint Antoine, touching the unhappy fate of poor Gaspard.” “No one has told me so,” said Defarge, shaking his head. “I know nothing of it.” Having said it, he passed behind the little counter, and stood with his hand on the back of his wife’s chair, looking over that barrier at the person to whom they were both opposed, and whom either of them would have shot with the greatest satisfaction. The spy, well used to his business, did not change his unconscious attitude, but drained his little glass of cognac, took a sip of fresh water, and asked for another glass of cognac. Madame Defarge poured it out for him, took to her knitting again, and hummed a little song over it. “You seem to know this quarter well; that is to say, better than I do?” observed Defarge. “Not at all, but I hope to know it better. I am so profoundly interested in its miserable inhabitants.” “Hah!” muttered Defarge. “The pleasure of conversing with you, Monsieur Defarge, recalls to me,” pursued the spy, “that I have the honour of cherishing some interesting associations with your name.” “Indeed!” said Defarge, with much indifference. “Yes, indeed. When Doctor Manette was released, you, his old domestic, had the charge of him, I know. He was delivered to you. You see I am informed of the circumstances?” “Such is the fact, certainly,” said Defarge. He had had it conveyed to him, in an accidental touch of his wife’s elbow as she knitted and warbled, that he would do best to answer, but always with brevity. “It was to you,” said the spy, “that his daughter came; and it was from your care that his daughter took him, accompanied by a neat brown monsieur; how is he called?--in a little wig--Lorry--of the bank of Tellson and Company--over to England.” “Such is the fact,” repeated Defarge. “Very interesting remembrances!” said the spy. “I have known Doctor Manette and his daughter, in England.” “Yes?” said Defarge. “You don’t hear much about them now?” said the spy. “No,” said Defarge. “In effect,” madame struck in, looking up from her work and her little song, “we never hear about them. We received the news of their safe arrival, and perhaps another letter, or perhaps two; but, since then, they have gradually taken their road in life--we, ours--and we have held no correspondence.” “Perfectly so, madame,” replied the spy. “She is going to be married.” “Going?” echoed madame. “She was pretty enough to have been married long ago. You English are cold, it seems to me.” “Oh! You know I am English.” “I perceive your tongue is,” returned madame; “and what the tongue is, I suppose the man is.” He did not take the identification as a compliment; but he made the best of it, and turned it off with a laugh. After sipping his cognac to the end, he added: “Yes, Miss Manette is going to be married. But not to an Englishman; to one who, like herself, is French by birth. And speaking of Gaspard (ah, poor Gaspard! It was cruel, cruel!), it is a curious thing that she is going to marry the nephew of Monsieur the Marquis, for whom Gaspard was exalted to that height of so many feet; in other words, the present Marquis. But he lives unknown in England, he is no Marquis there; he is Mr. Charles Darnay. D’Aulnais is the name of his mother’s family.” Madame Defarge knitted steadily, but the intelligence had a palpable effect upon her husband. Do what he would, behind the little counter, as to the striking of a light and the lighting of his pipe, he was troubled, and his hand was not trustworthy. The spy would have been no spy if he had failed to see it, or to record it in his mind. Having made, at least, this one hit, whatever it might prove to be worth, and no customers coming in to help him to any other, Mr. Barsad paid for what he had drunk, and took his leave: taking occasion to say, in a genteel manner, before he departed, that he looked forward to the pleasure of seeing Monsieur and Madame Defarge again. For some minutes after he had emerged into the outer presence of Saint Antoine, the husband and wife remained exactly as he had left them, lest he should come back. “Can it be true,” said Defarge, in a low voice, looking down at his wife as he stood smoking with his hand on the back of her chair: “what he has said of Ma’amselle Manette?” “As he has said it,” returned madame, lifting her eyebrows a little, “it is probably false. But it may be true.” “If it is--” Defarge began, and stopped. “If it is?” repeated his wife. “--And if it does come, while we live to see it triumph--I hope, for her sake, Destiny will keep her husband out of France.” “Her husband’s destiny,” said Madame Defarge, with her usual composure, “will take him where he is to go, and will lead him to the end that is to end him. That is all I know.” “But it is very strange--now, at least, is it not very strange”--said Defarge, rather pleading with his wife to induce her to admit it, “that, after all our sympathy for Monsieur her father, and herself, her husband’s name should be proscribed under your hand at this moment, by the side of that infernal dog’s who has just left us?” “Stranger things than that will happen when it does come,” answered madame. “I have them both here, of a certainty; and they are both here for their merits; that is enough.” She rolled up her knitting when she had said those words, and presently took the rose out of the handkerchief that was wound about her head. Either Saint Antoine had an instinctive sense that the objectionable decoration was gone, or Saint Antoine was on the watch for its disappearance; howbeit, the Saint took courage to lounge in, very shortly afterwards, and the wine-shop recovered its habitual aspect. In the evening, at which season of all others Saint Antoine turned himself inside out, and sat on door-steps and window-ledges, and came to the corners of vile streets and courts, for a breath of air, Madame Defarge with her work in her hand was accustomed to pass from place to place and from group to group: a Missionary--there were many like her--such as the world will do well never to breed again. All the women knitted. They knitted worthless things; but, the mechanical work was a mechanical substitute for eating and drinking; the hands moved for the jaws and the digestive apparatus: if the bony fingers had been still, the stomachs would have been more famine-pinched. But, as the fingers went, the eyes went, and the thoughts. And as Madame Defarge moved on from group to group, all three went quicker and fiercer among every little knot of women that she had spoken with, and left behind. Her husband smoked at his door, looking after her with admiration. “A great woman,” said he, “a strong woman, a grand woman, a frightfully grand woman!” Darkness closed around, and then came the ringing of church bells and the distant beating of the military drums in the Palace Courtyard, as the women sat knitting, knitting. Darkness encompassed them. Another darkness was closing in as surely, when the church bells, then ringing pleasantly in many an airy steeple over France, should be melted into thundering cannon; when the military drums should be beating to drown a wretched voice, that night all potent as the voice of Power and Plenty, Freedom and Life. So much was closing in about the women who sat knitting, knitting, that they their very selves were closing in around a structure yet unbuilt, where they were to sit knitting, knitting, counting dropping heads. CHAPTER XVII. One Night Never did the sun go down with a brighter glory on the quiet corner in Soho, than one memorable evening when the Doctor and his daughter sat under the plane-tree together. Never did the moon rise with a milder radiance over great London, than on that night when it found them still seated under the tree, and shone upon their faces through its leaves. Lucie was to be married to-morrow. She had reserved this last evening for her father, and they sat alone under the plane-tree. “You are happy, my dear father?” “Quite, my child.” They had said little, though they had been there a long time. When it was yet light enough to work and read, she had neither engaged herself in her usual work, nor had she read to him. She had employed herself in both ways, at his side under the tree, many and many a time; but, this time was not quite like any other, and nothing could make it so. “And I am very happy to-night, dear father. I am deeply happy in the love that Heaven has so blessed--my love for Charles, and Charles’s love for me. But, if my life were not to be still consecrated to you, or if my marriage were so arranged as that it would part us, even by the length of a few of these streets, I should be more unhappy and self-reproachful now than I can tell you. Even as it is--” Even as it was, she could not command her voice. In the sad moonlight, she clasped him by the neck, and laid her face upon his breast. In the moonlight which is always sad, as the light of the sun itself is--as the light called human life is--at its coming and its going. “Dearest dear! Can you tell me, this last time, that you feel quite, quite sure, no new affections of mine, and no new duties of mine, will ever interpose between us? _I_ know it well, but do you know it? In your own heart, do you feel quite certain?” Her father answered, with a cheerful firmness of conviction he could scarcely have assumed, “Quite sure, my darling! More than that,” he added, as he tenderly kissed her: “my future is far brighter, Lucie, seen through your marriage, than it could have been--nay, than it ever was--without it.” “If I could hope _that_, my father!--” “Believe it, love! Indeed it is so. Consider how natural and how plain it is, my dear, that it should be so. You, devoted and young, cannot fully appreciate the anxiety I have felt that your life should not be wasted--” She moved her hand towards his lips, but he took it in his, and repeated the word. “--wasted, my child--should not be wasted, struck aside from the natural order of things--for my sake. Your unselfishness cannot entirely comprehend how much my mind has gone on this; but, only ask yourself, how could my happiness be perfect, while yours was incomplete?” “If I had never seen Charles, my father, I should have been quite happy with you.” He smiled at her unconscious admission that she would have been unhappy without Charles, having seen him; and replied: “My child, you did see him, and it is Charles. If it had not been Charles, it would have been another. Or, if it had been no other, I should have been the cause, and then the dark part of my life would have cast its shadow beyond myself, and would have fallen on you.” It was the first time, except at the trial, of her ever hearing him refer to the period of his suffering. It gave her a strange and new sensation while his words were in her ears; and she remembered it long afterwards. “See!” said the Doctor of Beauvais, raising his hand towards the moon. “I have looked at her from my prison-window, when I could not bear her light. I have looked at her when it has been such torture to me to think of her shining upon what I had lost, that I have beaten my head against my prison-walls. I have looked at her, in a state so dull and lethargic, that I have thought of nothing but the number of horizontal lines I could draw across her at the full, and the number of perpendicular lines with which I could intersect them.” He added in his inward and pondering manner, as he looked at the moon, “It was twenty either way, I remember, and the twentieth was difficult to squeeze in.” The strange thrill with which she heard him go back to that time, deepened as he dwelt upon it; but, there was nothing to shock her in the manner of his reference. He only seemed to contrast his present cheerfulness and felicity with the dire endurance that was over. “I have looked at her, speculating thousands of times upon the unborn child from whom I had been rent. Whether it was alive. Whether it had been born alive, or the poor mother’s shock had killed it. Whether it was a son who would some day avenge his father. (There was a time in my imprisonment, when my desire for vengeance was unbearable.) Whether it was a son who would never know his father’s story; who might even live to weigh the possibility of his father’s having disappeared of his own will and act. Whether it was a daughter who would grow to be a woman.” She drew closer to him, and kissed his cheek and his hand. “I have pictured my daughter, to myself, as perfectly forgetful of me--rather, altogether ignorant of me, and unconscious of me. I have cast up the years of her age, year after year. I have seen her married to a man who knew nothing of my fate. I have altogether perished from the remembrance of the living, and in the next generation my place was a blank.” “My father! Even to hear that you had such thoughts of a daughter who never existed, strikes to my heart as if I had been that child.” “You, Lucie? It is out of the Consolation and restoration you have brought to me, that these remembrances arise, and pass between us and the moon on this last night.--What did I say just now?” “She knew nothing of you. She cared nothing for you.” “So! But on other moonlight nights, when the sadness and the silence have touched me in a different way--have affected me with something as like a sorrowful sense of peace, as any emotion that had pain for its foundations could--I have imagined her as coming to me in my cell, and leading me out into the freedom beyond the fortress. I have seen her image in the moonlight often, as I now see you; except that I never held her in my arms; it stood between the little grated window and the door. But, you understand that that was not the child I am speaking of?” “The figure was not; the--the--image; the fancy?” “No. That was another thing. It stood before my disturbed sense of sight, but it never moved. The phantom that my mind pursued, was another and more real child. Of her outward appearance I know no more than that she was like her mother. The other had that likeness too--as you have--but was not the same. Can you follow me, Lucie? Hardly, I think? I doubt you must have been a solitary prisoner to understand these perplexed distinctions.” His collected and calm manner could not prevent her blood from running cold, as he thus tried to anatomise his old condition. “In that more peaceful state, I have imagined her, in the moonlight, coming to me and taking me out to show me that the home of her married life was full of her loving remembrance of her lost father. My picture was in her room, and I was in her prayers. Her life was active, cheerful, useful; but my poor history pervaded it all.” “I was that child, my father, I was not half so good, but in my love that was I.” “And she showed me her children,” said the Doctor of Beauvais, “and they had heard of me, and had been taught to pity me. When they passed a prison of the State, they kept far from its frowning walls, and looked up at its bars, and spoke in whispers. She could never deliver me; I imagined that she always brought me back after showing me such things. But then, blessed with the relief of tears, I fell upon my knees, and blessed her.” “I am that child, I hope, my father. O my dear, my dear, will you bless me as fervently to-morrow?” “Lucie, I recall these old troubles in the reason that I have to-night for loving you better than words can tell, and thanking God for my great happiness. My thoughts, when they were wildest, never rose near the happiness that I have known with you, and that we have before us.” He embraced her, solemnly commended her to Heaven, and humbly thanked Heaven for having bestowed her on him. By-and-bye, they went into the house. There was no one bidden to the marriage but Mr. Lorry; there was even to be no bridesmaid but the gaunt Miss Pross. The marriage was to make no change in their place of residence; they had been able to extend it, by taking to themselves the upper rooms formerly belonging to the apocryphal invisible lodger, and they desired nothing more. Doctor Manette was very cheerful at the little supper. They were only three at table, and Miss Pross made the third. He regretted that Charles was not there; was more than half disposed to object to the loving little plot that kept him away; and drank to him affectionately. So, the time came for him to bid Lucie good night, and they separated. But, in the stillness of the third hour of the morning, Lucie came downstairs again, and stole into his room; not free from unshaped fears, beforehand. All things, however, were in their places; all was quiet; and he lay asleep, his white hair picturesque on the untroubled pillow, and his hands lying quiet on the coverlet. She put her needless candle in the shadow at a distance, crept up to his bed, and put her lips to his; then, leaned over him, and looked at him. Into his handsome face, the bitter waters of captivity had worn; but, he covered up their tracks with a determination so strong, that he held the mastery of them even in his sleep. A more remarkable face in its quiet, resolute, and guarded struggle with an unseen assailant, was not to be beheld in all the wide dominions of sleep, that night. She timidly laid her hand on his dear breast, and put up a prayer that she might ever be as true to him as her love aspired to be, and as his sorrows deserved. Then, she withdrew her hand, and kissed his lips once more, and went away. So, the sunrise came, and the shadows of the leaves of the plane-tree moved upon his face, as softly as her lips had moved in praying for him. CHAPTER XVIII. Nine Days The marriage-day was shining brightly, and they were ready outside the closed door of the Doctor’s room, where he was speaking with Charles Darnay. They were ready to go to church; the beautiful bride, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross--to whom the event, through a gradual process of reconcilement to the inevitable, would have been one of absolute bliss, but for the yet lingering consideration that her brother Solomon should have been the bridegroom. “And so,” said Mr. Lorry, who could not sufficiently admire the bride, and who had been moving round her to take in every point of her quiet, pretty dress; “and so it was for this, my sweet Lucie, that I brought you across the Channel, such a baby! Lord bless me! How little I thought what I was doing! How lightly I valued the obligation I was conferring on my friend Mr. Charles!” “You didn’t mean it,” remarked the matter-of-fact Miss Pross, “and therefore how could you know it? Nonsense!” “Really? Well; but don’t cry,” said the gentle Mr. Lorry. “I am not crying,” said Miss Pross; “_you_ are.” “I, my Pross?” (By this time, Mr. Lorry dared to be pleasant with her, on occasion.) “You were, just now; I saw you do it, and I don’t wonder at it. Such a present of plate as you have made ’em, is enough to bring tears into anybody’s eyes. There’s not a fork or a spoon in the collection,” said Miss Pross, “that I didn’t cry over, last night after the box came, till I couldn’t see it.” “I am highly gratified,” said Mr. Lorry, “though, upon my honour, I had no intention of rendering those trifling articles of remembrance invisible to any one. Dear me! This is an occasion that makes a man speculate on all he has lost. Dear, dear, dear! To think that there might have been a Mrs. Lorry, any time these fifty years almost!” “Not at all!” From Miss Pross. “You think there never might have been a Mrs. Lorry?” asked the gentleman of that name. “Pooh!” rejoined Miss Pross; “you were a bachelor in your cradle.” “Well!” observed Mr. Lorry, beamingly adjusting his little wig, “that seems probable, too.” “And you were cut out for a bachelor,” pursued Miss Pross, “before you were put in your cradle.” “Then, I think,” said Mr. Lorry, “that I was very unhandsomely dealt with, and that I ought to have had a voice in the selection of my pattern. Enough! Now, my dear Lucie,” drawing his arm soothingly round her waist, “I hear them moving in the next room, and Miss Pross and I, as two formal folks of business, are anxious not to lose the final opportunity of saying something to you that you wish to hear. You leave your good father, my dear, in hands as earnest and as loving as your own; he shall be taken every conceivable care of; during the next fortnight, while you are in Warwickshire and thereabouts, even Tellson’s shall go to the wall (comparatively speaking) before him. And when, at the fortnight’s end, he comes to join you and your beloved husband, on your other fortnight’s trip in Wales, you shall say that we have sent him to you in the best health and in the happiest frame. Now, I hear Somebody’s step coming to the door. Let me kiss my dear girl with an old-fashioned bachelor blessing, before Somebody comes to claim his own.” For a moment, he held the fair face from him to look at the well-remembered expression on the forehead, and then laid the bright golden hair against his little brown wig, with a genuine tenderness and delicacy which, if such things be old-fashioned, were as old as Adam. The door of the Doctor’s room opened, and he came out with Charles Darnay. He was so deadly pale--which had not been the case when they went in together--that no vestige of colour was to be seen in his face. But, in the composure of his manner he was unaltered, except that to the shrewd glance of Mr. Lorry it disclosed some shadowy indication that the old air of avoidance and dread had lately passed over him, like a cold wind. He gave his arm to his daughter, and took her down-stairs to the chariot which Mr. Lorry had hired in honour of the day. The rest followed in another carriage, and soon, in a neighbouring church, where no strange eyes looked on, Charles Darnay and Lucie Manette were happily married. Besides the glancing tears that shone among the smiles of the little group when it was done, some diamonds, very bright and sparkling, glanced on the bride’s hand, which were newly released from the dark obscurity of one of Mr. Lorry’s pockets. They returned home to breakfast, and all went well, and in due course the golden hair that had mingled with the poor shoemaker’s white locks in the Paris garret, were mingled with them again in the morning sunlight, on the threshold of the door at parting. It was a hard parting, though it was not for long. But her father cheered her, and said at last, gently disengaging himself from her enfolding arms, “Take her, Charles! She is yours!” And her agitated hand waved to them from a chaise window, and she was gone. The corner being out of the way of the idle and curious, and the preparations having been very simple and few, the Doctor, Mr. Lorry, and Miss Pross, were left quite alone. It was when they turned into the welcome shade of the cool old hall, that Mr. Lorry observed a great change to have come over the Doctor; as if the golden arm uplifted there, had struck him a poisoned blow. He had naturally repressed much, and some revulsion might have been expected in him when the occasion for repression was gone. But, it was the old scared lost look that troubled Mr. Lorry; and through his absent manner of clasping his head and drearily wandering away into his own room when they got up-stairs, Mr. Lorry was reminded of Defarge the wine-shop keeper, and the starlight ride. “I think,” he whispered to Miss Pross, after anxious consideration, “I think we had best not speak to him just now, or at all disturb him. I must look in at Tellson’s; so I will go there at once and come back presently. Then, we will take him a ride into the country, and dine there, and all will be well.” It was easier for Mr. Lorry to look in at Tellson’s, than to look out of Tellson’s. He was detained two hours. When he came back, he ascended the old staircase alone, having asked no question of the servant; going thus into the Doctor’s rooms, he was stopped by a low sound of knocking. “Good God!” he said, with a start. “What’s that?” Miss Pross, with a terrified face, was at his ear. “O me, O me! All is lost!” cried she, wringing her hands. “What is to be told to Ladybird? He doesn’t know me, and is making shoes!” Mr. Lorry said what he could to calm her, and went himself into the Doctor’s room. The bench was turned towards the light, as it had been when he had seen the shoemaker at his work before, and his head was bent down, and he was very busy. “Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor Manette!” The Doctor looked at him for a moment--half inquiringly, half as if he were angry at being spoken to--and bent over his work again. He had laid aside his coat and waistcoat; his shirt was open at the throat, as it used to be when he did that work; and even the old haggard, faded surface of face had come back to him. He worked hard--impatiently--as if in some sense of having been interrupted. Mr. Lorry glanced at the work in his hand, and observed that it was a shoe of the old size and shape. He took up another that was lying by him, and asked what it was. “A young lady’s walking shoe,” he muttered, without looking up. “It ought to have been finished long ago. Let it be.” “But, Doctor Manette. Look at me!” He obeyed, in the old mechanically submissive manner, without pausing in his work. “You know me, my dear friend? Think again. This is not your proper occupation. Think, dear friend!” Nothing would induce him to speak more. He looked up, for an instant at a time, when he was requested to do so; but, no persuasion would extract a word from him. He worked, and worked, and worked, in silence, and words fell on him as they would have fallen on an echoless wall, or on the air. The only ray of hope that Mr. Lorry could discover, was, that he sometimes furtively looked up without being asked. In that, there seemed a faint expression of curiosity or perplexity--as though he were trying to reconcile some doubts in his mind. Two things at once impressed themselves on Mr. Lorry, as important above all others; the first, that this must be kept secret from Lucie; the second, that it must be kept secret from all who knew him. In conjunction with Miss Pross, he took immediate steps towards the latter precaution, by giving out that the Doctor was not well, and required a few days of complete rest. In aid of the kind deception to be practised on his daughter, Miss Pross was to write, describing his having been called away professionally, and referring to an imaginary letter of two or three hurried lines in his own hand, represented to have been addressed to her by the same post. These measures, advisable to be taken in any case, Mr. Lorry took in the hope of his coming to himself. If that should happen soon, he kept another course in reserve; which was, to have a certain opinion that he thought the best, on the Doctor’s case. In the hope of his recovery, and of resort to this third course being thereby rendered practicable, Mr. Lorry resolved to watch him attentively, with as little appearance as possible of doing so. He therefore made arrangements to absent himself from Tellson’s for the first time in his life, and took his post by the window in the same room. He was not long in discovering that it was worse than useless to speak to him, since, on being pressed, he became worried. He abandoned that attempt on the first day, and resolved merely to keep himself always before him, as a silent protest against the delusion into which he had fallen, or was falling. He remained, therefore, in his seat near the window, reading and writing, and expressing in as many pleasant and natural ways as he could think of, that it was a free place. Doctor Manette took what was given him to eat and drink, and worked on, that first day, until it was too dark to see--worked on, half an hour after Mr. Lorry could not have seen, for his life, to read or write. When he put his tools aside as useless, until morning, Mr. Lorry rose and said to him: “Will you go out?” He looked down at the floor on either side of him in the old manner, looked up in the old manner, and repeated in the old low voice: “Out?” “Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?” He made no effort to say why not, and said not a word more. But, Mr. Lorry thought he saw, as he leaned forward on his bench in the dusk, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, that he was in some misty way asking himself, “Why not?” The sagacity of the man of business perceived an advantage here, and determined to hold it. Miss Pross and he divided the night into two watches, and observed him at intervals from the adjoining room. He paced up and down for a long time before he lay down; but, when he did finally lay himself down, he fell asleep. In the morning, he was up betimes, and went straight to his bench and to work. On this second day, Mr. Lorry saluted him cheerfully by his name, and spoke to him on topics that had been of late familiar to them. He returned no reply, but it was evident that he heard what was said, and that he thought about it, however confusedly. This encouraged Mr. Lorry to have Miss Pross in with her work, several times during the day; at those times, they quietly spoke of Lucie, and of her father then present, precisely in the usual manner, and as if there were nothing amiss. This was done without any demonstrative accompaniment, not long enough, or often enough to harass him; and it lightened Mr. Lorry’s friendly heart to believe that he looked up oftener, and that he appeared to be stirred by some perception of inconsistencies surrounding him. When it fell dark again, Mr. Lorry asked him as before: “Dear Doctor, will you go out?” As before, he repeated, “Out?” “Yes; for a walk with me. Why not?” This time, Mr. Lorry feigned to go out when he could extract no answer from him, and, after remaining absent for an hour, returned. In the meanwhile, the Doctor had removed to the seat in the window, and had sat there looking down at the plane-tree; but, on Mr. Lorry’s return, he slipped away to his bench. The time went very slowly on, and Mr. Lorry’s hope darkened, and his heart grew heavier again, and grew yet heavier and heavier every day. The third day came and went, the fourth, the fifth. Five days, six days, seven days, eight days, nine days. With a hope ever darkening, and with a heart always growing heavier and heavier, Mr. Lorry passed through this anxious time. The secret was well kept, and Lucie was unconscious and happy; but he could not fail to observe that the shoemaker, whose hand had been a little out at first, was growing dreadfully skilful, and that he had never been so intent on his work, and that his hands had never been so nimble and expert, as in the dusk of the ninth evening. CHAPTER XIX. An Opinion Worn out by anxious watching, Mr. Lorry fell asleep at his post. On the tenth morning of his suspense, he was startled by the shining of the sun into the room where a heavy slumber had overtaken him when it was dark night. He rubbed his eyes and roused himself; but he doubted, when he had done so, whether he was not still asleep. For, going to the door of the Doctor’s room and looking in, he perceived that the shoemaker’s bench and tools were put aside again, and that the Doctor himself sat reading at the window. He was in his usual morning dress, and his face (which Mr. Lorry could distinctly see), though still very pale, was calmly studious and attentive. Even when he had satisfied himself that he was awake, Mr. Lorry felt giddily uncertain for some few moments whether the late shoemaking might not be a disturbed dream of his own; for, did not his eyes show him his friend before him in his accustomed clothing and aspect, and employed as usual; and was there any sign within their range, that the change of which he had so strong an impression had actually happened? It was but the inquiry of his first confusion and astonishment, the answer being obvious. If the impression were not produced by a real corresponding and sufficient cause, how came he, Jarvis Lorry, there? How came he to have fallen asleep, in his clothes, on the sofa in Doctor Manette’s consulting-room, and to be debating these points outside the Doctor’s bedroom door in the early morning? Within a few minutes, Miss Pross stood whispering at his side. If he had had any particle of doubt left, her talk would of necessity have resolved it; but he was by that time clear-headed, and had none. He advised that they should let the time go by until the regular breakfast-hour, and should then meet the Doctor as if nothing unusual had occurred. If he appeared to be in his customary state of mind, Mr. Lorry would then cautiously proceed to seek direction and guidance from the opinion he had been, in his anxiety, so anxious to obtain. Miss Pross, submitting herself to his judgment, the scheme was worked out with care. Having abundance of time for his usual methodical toilette, Mr. Lorry presented himself at the breakfast-hour in his usual white linen, and with his usual neat leg. The Doctor was summoned in the usual way, and came to breakfast. So far as it was possible to comprehend him without overstepping those delicate and gradual approaches which Mr. Lorry felt to be the only safe advance, he at first supposed that his daughter’s marriage had taken place yesterday. An incidental allusion, purposely thrown out, to the day of the week, and the day of the month, set him thinking and counting, and evidently made him uneasy. In all other respects, however, he was so composedly himself, that Mr. Lorry determined to have the aid he sought. And that aid was his own. Therefore, when the breakfast was done and cleared away, and he and the Doctor were left together, Mr. Lorry said, feelingly: “My dear Manette, I am anxious to have your opinion, in confidence, on a very curious case in which I am deeply interested; that is to say, it is very curious to me; perhaps, to your better information it may be less so.” Glancing at his hands, which were discoloured by his late work, the Doctor looked troubled, and listened attentively. He had already glanced at his hands more than once. “Doctor Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, touching him affectionately on the arm, “the case is the case of a particularly dear friend of mine. Pray give your mind to it, and advise me well for his sake--and above all, for his daughter’s--his daughter’s, my dear Manette.” “If I understand,” said the Doctor, in a subdued tone, “some mental shock--?” “Yes!” “Be explicit,” said the Doctor. “Spare no detail.” Mr. Lorry saw that they understood one another, and proceeded. “My dear Manette, it is the case of an old and a prolonged shock, of great acuteness and severity to the affections, the feelings, the--the--as you express it--the mind. The mind. It is the case of a shock under which the sufferer was borne down, one cannot say for how long, because I believe he cannot calculate the time himself, and there are no other means of getting at it. It is the case of a shock from which the sufferer recovered, by a process that he cannot trace himself--as I once heard him publicly relate in a striking manner. It is the case of a shock from which he has recovered, so completely, as to be a highly intelligent man, capable of close application of mind, and great exertion of body, and of constantly making fresh additions to his stock of knowledge, which was already very large. But, unfortunately, there has been,” he paused and took a deep breath--“a slight relapse.” The Doctor, in a low voice, asked, “Of how long duration?” “Nine days and nights.” “How did it show itself? I infer,” glancing at his hands again, “in the resumption of some old pursuit connected with the shock?” “That is the fact.” “Now, did you ever see him,” asked the Doctor, distinctly and collectedly, though in the same low voice, “engaged in that pursuit originally?” “Once.” “And when the relapse fell on him, was he in most respects--or in all respects--as he was then?” “I think in all respects.” “You spoke of his daughter. Does his daughter know of the relapse?” “No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to one other who may be trusted.” The Doctor grasped his hand, and murmured, “That was very kind. That was very thoughtful!” Mr. Lorry grasped his hand in return, and neither of the two spoke for a little while. “Now, my dear Manette,” said Mr. Lorry, at length, in his most considerate and most affectionate way, “I am a mere man of business, and unfit to cope with such intricate and difficult matters. I do not possess the kind of information necessary; I do not possess the kind of intelligence; I want guiding. There is no man in this world on whom I could so rely for right guidance, as on you. Tell me, how does this relapse come about? Is there danger of another? Could a repetition of it be prevented? How should a repetition of it be treated? How does it come about at all? What can I do for my friend? No man ever can have been more desirous in his heart to serve a friend, than I am to serve mine, if I knew how. “But I don’t know how to originate, in such a case. If your sagacity, knowledge, and experience, could put me on the right track, I might be able to do so much; unenlightened and undirected, I can do so little. Pray discuss it with me; pray enable me to see it a little more clearly, and teach me how to be a little more useful.” Doctor Manette sat meditating after these earnest words were spoken, and Mr. Lorry did not press him. “I think it probable,” said the Doctor, breaking silence with an effort, “that the relapse you have described, my dear friend, was not quite unforeseen by its subject.” “Was it dreaded by him?” Mr. Lorry ventured to ask. “Very much.” He said it with an involuntary shudder. “You have no idea how such an apprehension weighs on the sufferer’s mind, and how difficult--how almost impossible--it is, for him to force himself to utter a word upon the topic that oppresses him.” “Would he,” asked Mr. Lorry, “be sensibly relieved if he could prevail upon himself to impart that secret brooding to any one, when it is on him?” “I think so. But it is, as I have told you, next to impossible. I even believe it--in some cases--to be quite impossible.” “Now,” said Mr. Lorry, gently laying his hand on the Doctor’s arm again, after a short silence on both sides, “to what would you refer this attack?” “I believe,” returned Doctor Manette, “that there had been a strong and extraordinary revival of the train of thought and remembrance that was the first cause of the malady. Some intense associations of a most distressing nature were vividly recalled, I think. It is probable that there had long been a dread lurking in his mind, that those associations would be recalled--say, under certain circumstances--say, on a particular occasion. He tried to prepare himself in vain; perhaps the effort to prepare himself made him less able to bear it.” “Would he remember what took place in the relapse?” asked Mr. Lorry, with natural hesitation. The Doctor looked desolately round the room, shook his head, and answered, in a low voice, “Not at all.” “Now, as to the future,” hinted Mr. Lorry. “As to the future,” said the Doctor, recovering firmness, “I should have great hope. As it pleased Heaven in its mercy to restore him so soon, I should have great hope. He, yielding under the pressure of a complicated something, long dreaded and long vaguely foreseen and contended against, and recovering after the cloud had burst and passed, I should hope that the worst was over.” “Well, well! That’s good comfort. I am thankful!” said Mr. Lorry. “I am thankful!” repeated the Doctor, bending his head with reverence. “There are two other points,” said Mr. Lorry, “on which I am anxious to be instructed. I may go on?” “You cannot do your friend a better service.” The Doctor gave him his hand. “To the first, then. He is of a studious habit, and unusually energetic; he applies himself with great ardour to the acquisition of professional knowledge, to the conducting of experiments, to many things. Now, does he do too much?” “I think not. It may be the character of his mind, to be always in singular need of occupation. That may be, in part, natural to it; in part, the result of affliction. The less it was occupied with healthy things, the more it would be in danger of turning in the unhealthy direction. He may have observed himself, and made the discovery.” “You are sure that he is not under too great a strain?” “I think I am quite sure of it.” “My dear Manette, if he were overworked now--” “My dear Lorry, I doubt if that could easily be. There has been a violent stress in one direction, and it needs a counterweight.” “Excuse me, as a persistent man of business. Assuming for a moment, that he _was_ overworked; it would show itself in some renewal of this disorder?” “I do not think so. I do not think,” said Doctor Manette with the firmness of self-conviction, “that anything but the one train of association would renew it. I think that, henceforth, nothing but some extraordinary jarring of that chord could renew it. After what has happened, and after his recovery, I find it difficult to imagine any such violent sounding of that string again. I trust, and I almost believe, that the circumstances likely to renew it are exhausted.” He spoke with the diffidence of a man who knew how slight a thing would overset the delicate organisation of the mind, and yet with the confidence of a man who had slowly won his assurance out of personal endurance and distress. It was not for his friend to abate that confidence. He professed himself more relieved and encouraged than he really was, and approached his second and last point. He felt it to be the most difficult of all; but, remembering his old Sunday morning conversation with Miss Pross, and remembering what he had seen in the last nine days, he knew that he must face it. “The occupation resumed under the influence of this passing affliction so happily recovered from,” said Mr. Lorry, clearing his throat, “we will call--Blacksmith’s work, Blacksmith’s work. We will say, to put a case and for the sake of illustration, that he had been used, in his bad time, to work at a little forge. We will say that he was unexpectedly found at his forge again. Is it not a pity that he should keep it by him?” The Doctor shaded his forehead with his hand, and beat his foot nervously on the ground. “He has always kept it by him,” said Mr. Lorry, with an anxious look at his friend. “Now, would it not be better that he should let it go?” Still, the Doctor, with shaded forehead, beat his foot nervously on the ground. “You do not find it easy to advise me?” said Mr. Lorry. “I quite understand it to be a nice question. And yet I think--” And there he shook his head, and stopped. “You see,” said Doctor Manette, turning to him after an uneasy pause, “it is very hard to explain, consistently, the innermost workings of this poor man’s mind. He once yearned so frightfully for that occupation, and it was so welcome when it came; no doubt it relieved his pain so much, by substituting the perplexity of the fingers for the perplexity of the brain, and by substituting, as he became more practised, the ingenuity of the hands, for the ingenuity of the mental torture; that he has never been able to bear the thought of putting it quite out of his reach. Even now, when I believe he is more hopeful of himself than he has ever been, and even speaks of himself with a kind of confidence, the idea that he might need that old employment, and not find it, gives him a sudden sense of terror, like that which one may fancy strikes to the heart of a lost child.” He looked like his illustration, as he raised his eyes to Mr. Lorry’s face. “But may not--mind! I ask for information, as a plodding man of business who only deals with such material objects as guineas, shillings, and bank-notes--may not the retention of the thing involve the retention of the idea? If the thing were gone, my dear Manette, might not the fear go with it? In short, is it not a concession to the misgiving, to keep the forge?” There was another silence. “You see, too,” said the Doctor, tremulously, “it is such an old companion.” “I would not keep it,” said Mr. Lorry, shaking his head; for he gained in firmness as he saw the Doctor disquieted. “I would recommend him to sacrifice it. I only want your authority. I am sure it does no good. Come! Give me your authority, like a dear good man. For his daughter’s sake, my dear Manette!” Very strange to see what a struggle there was within him! “In her name, then, let it be done; I sanction it. But, I would not take it away while he was present. Let it be removed when he is not there; let him miss his old companion after an absence.” Mr. Lorry readily engaged for that, and the conference was ended. They passed the day in the country, and the Doctor was quite restored. On the three following days he remained perfectly well, and on the fourteenth day he went away to join Lucie and her husband. The precaution that had been taken to account for his silence, Mr. Lorry had previously explained to him, and he had written to Lucie in accordance with it, and she had no suspicions. On the night of the day on which he left the house, Mr. Lorry went into his room with a chopper, saw, chisel, and hammer, attended by Miss Pross carrying a light. There, with closed doors, and in a mysterious and guilty manner, Mr. Lorry hacked the shoemaker’s bench to pieces, while Miss Pross held the candle as if she were assisting at a murder--for which, indeed, in her grimness, she was no unsuitable figure. The burning of the body (previously reduced to pieces convenient for the purpose) was commenced without delay in the kitchen fire; and the tools, shoes, and leather, were buried in the garden. So wicked do destruction and secrecy appear to honest minds, that Mr. Lorry and Miss Pross, while engaged in the commission of their deed and in the removal of its traces, almost felt, and almost looked, like accomplices in a horrible crime. CHAPTER XX. A Plea When the newly-married pair came home, the first person who appeared, to offer his congratulations, was Sydney Carton. They had not been at home many hours, when he presented himself. He was not improved in habits, or in looks, or in manner; but there was a certain rugged air of fidelity about him, which was new to the observation of Charles Darnay. He watched his opportunity of taking Darnay aside into a window, and of speaking to him when no one overheard. “Mr. Darnay,” said Carton, “I wish we might be friends.” “We are already friends, I hope.” “You are good enough to say so, as a fashion of speech; but, I don’t mean any fashion of speech. Indeed, when I say I wish we might be friends, I scarcely mean quite that, either.” Charles Darnay--as was natural--asked him, in all good-humour and good-fellowship, what he did mean? “Upon my life,” said Carton, smiling, “I find that easier to comprehend in my own mind, than to convey to yours. However, let me try. You remember a certain famous occasion when I was more drunk than--than usual?” “I remember a certain famous occasion when you forced me to confess that you had been drinking.” “I remember it too. The curse of those occasions is heavy upon me, for I always remember them. I hope it may be taken into account one day, when all days are at an end for me! Don’t be alarmed; I am not going to preach.” “I am not at all alarmed. Earnestness in you, is anything but alarming to me.” “Ah!” said Carton, with a careless wave of his hand, as if he waved that away. “On the drunken occasion in question (one of a large number, as you know), I was insufferable about liking you, and not liking you. I wish you would forget it.” “I forgot it long ago.” “Fashion of speech again! But, Mr. Darnay, oblivion is not so easy to me, as you represent it to be to you. I have by no means forgotten it, and a light answer does not help me to forget it.” “If it was a light answer,” returned Darnay, “I beg your forgiveness for it. I had no other object than to turn a slight thing, which, to my surprise, seems to trouble you too much, aside. I declare to you, on the faith of a gentleman, that I have long dismissed it from my mind. Good Heaven, what was there to dismiss! Have I had nothing more important to remember, in the great service you rendered me that day?” “As to the great service,” said Carton, “I am bound to avow to you, when you speak of it in that way, that it was mere professional claptrap, I don’t know that I cared what became of you, when I rendered it.--Mind! I say when I rendered it; I am speaking of the past.” “You make light of the obligation,” returned Darnay, “but I will not quarrel with _your_ light answer.” “Genuine truth, Mr. Darnay, trust me! I have gone aside from my purpose; I was speaking about our being friends. Now, you know me; you know I am incapable of all the higher and better flights of men. If you doubt it, ask Stryver, and he’ll tell you so.” “I prefer to form my own opinion, without the aid of his.” “Well! At any rate you know me as a dissolute dog, who has never done any good, and never will.” “I don’t know that you ‘never will.’” “But I do, and you must take my word for it. Well! If you could endure to have such a worthless fellow, and a fellow of such indifferent reputation, coming and going at odd times, I should ask that I might be permitted to come and go as a privileged person here; that I might be regarded as an useless (and I would add, if it were not for the resemblance I detected between you and me, an unornamental) piece of furniture, tolerated for its old service, and taken no notice of. I doubt if I should abuse the permission. It is a hundred to one if I should avail myself of it four times in a year. It would satisfy me, I dare say, to know that I had it.” “Will you try?” “That is another way of saying that I am placed on the footing I have indicated. I thank you, Darnay. I may use that freedom with your name?” “I think so, Carton, by this time.” They shook hands upon it, and Sydney turned away. Within a minute afterwards, he was, to all outward appearance, as unsubstantial as ever. When he was gone, and in the course of an evening passed with Miss Pross, the Doctor, and Mr. Lorry, Charles Darnay made some mention of this conversation in general terms, and spoke of Sydney Carton as a problem of carelessness and recklessness. He spoke of him, in short, not bitterly or meaning to bear hard upon him, but as anybody might who saw him as he showed himself. He had no idea that this could dwell in the thoughts of his fair young wife; but, when he afterwards joined her in their own rooms, he found her waiting for him with the old pretty lifting of the forehead strongly marked. “We are thoughtful to-night!” said Darnay, drawing his arm about her. “Yes, dearest Charles,” with her hands on his breast, and the inquiring and attentive expression fixed upon him; “we are rather thoughtful to-night, for we have something on our mind to-night.” “What is it, my Lucie?” “Will you promise not to press one question on me, if I beg you not to ask it?” “Will I promise? What will I not promise to my Love?” What, indeed, with his hand putting aside the golden hair from the cheek, and his other hand against the heart that beat for him! “I think, Charles, poor Mr. Carton deserves more consideration and respect than you expressed for him to-night.” “Indeed, my own? Why so?” “That is what you are not to ask me. But I think--I know--he does.” “If you know it, it is enough. What would you have me do, my Life?” “I would ask you, dearest, to be very generous with him always, and very lenient on his faults when he is not by. I would ask you to believe that he has a heart he very, very seldom reveals, and that there are deep wounds in it. My dear, I have seen it bleeding.” “It is a painful reflection to me,” said Charles Darnay, quite astounded, “that I should have done him any wrong. I never thought this of him.” “My husband, it is so. I fear he is not to be reclaimed; there is scarcely a hope that anything in his character or fortunes is reparable now. But, I am sure that he is capable of good things, gentle things, even magnanimous things.” She looked so beautiful in the purity of her faith in this lost man, that her husband could have looked at her as she was for hours. “And, O my dearest Love!” she urged, clinging nearer to him, laying her head upon his breast, and raising her eyes to his, “remember how strong we are in our happiness, and how weak he is in his misery!” The supplication touched him home. “I will always remember it, dear Heart! I will remember it as long as I live.” He bent over the golden head, and put the rosy lips to his, and folded her in his arms. If one forlorn wanderer then pacing the dark streets, could have heard her innocent disclosure, and could have seen the drops of pity kissed away by her husband from the soft blue eyes so loving of that husband, he might have cried to the night--and the words would not have parted from his lips for the first time-- “God bless her for her sweet compassion!” CHAPTER XXI. Echoing Footsteps A wonderful corner for echoes, it has been remarked, that corner where the Doctor lived. Ever busily winding the golden thread which bound her husband, and her father, and herself, and her old directress and companion, in a life of quiet bliss, Lucie sat in the still house in the tranquilly resounding corner, listening to the echoing footsteps of years. At first, there were times, though she was a perfectly happy young wife, when her work would slowly fall from her hands, and her eyes would be dimmed. For, there was something coming in the echoes, something light, afar off, and scarcely audible yet, that stirred her heart too much. Fluttering hopes and doubts--hopes, of a love as yet unknown to her: doubts, of her remaining upon earth, to enjoy that new delight--divided her breast. Among the echoes then, there would arise the sound of footsteps at her own early grave; and thoughts of the husband who would be left so desolate, and who would mourn for her so much, swelled to her eyes, and broke like waves. That time passed, and her little Lucie lay on her bosom. Then, among the advancing echoes, there was the tread of her tiny feet and the sound of her prattling words. Let greater echoes resound as they would, the young mother at the cradle side could always hear those coming. They came, and the shady house was sunny with a child’s laugh, and the Divine friend of children, to whom in her trouble she had confided hers, seemed to take her child in his arms, as He took the child of old, and made it a sacred joy to her. Ever busily winding the golden thread that bound them all together, weaving the service of her happy influence through the tissue of all their lives, and making it predominate nowhere, Lucie heard in the echoes of years none but friendly and soothing sounds. Her husband’s step was strong and prosperous among them; her father’s firm and equal. Lo, Miss Pross, in harness of string, awakening the echoes, as an unruly charger, whip-corrected, snorting and pawing the earth under the plane-tree in the garden! Even when there were sounds of sorrow among the rest, they were not harsh nor cruel. Even when golden hair, like her own, lay in a halo on a pillow round the worn face of a little boy, and he said, with a radiant smile, “Dear papa and mamma, I am very sorry to leave you both, and to leave my pretty sister; but I am called, and I must go!” those were not tears all of agony that wetted his young mother’s cheek, as the spirit departed from her embrace that had been entrusted to it. Suffer them and forbid them not. They see my Father’s face. O Father, blessed words! Thus, the rustling of an Angel’s wings got blended with the other echoes, and they were not wholly of earth, but had in them that breath of Heaven. Sighs of the winds that blew over a little garden-tomb were mingled with them also, and both were audible to Lucie, in a hushed murmur--like the breathing of a summer sea asleep upon a sandy shore--as the little Lucie, comically studious at the task of the morning, or dressing a doll at her mother’s footstool, chattered in the tongues of the Two Cities that were blended in her life. The Echoes rarely answered to the actual tread of Sydney Carton. Some half-dozen times a year, at most, he claimed his privilege of coming in uninvited, and would sit among them through the evening, as he had once done often. He never came there heated with wine. And one other thing regarding him was whispered in the echoes, which has been whispered by all true echoes for ages and ages. No man ever really loved a woman, lost her, and knew her with a blameless though an unchanged mind, when she was a wife and a mother, but her children had a strange sympathy with him--an instinctive delicacy of pity for him. What fine hidden sensibilities are touched in such a case, no echoes tell; but it is so, and it was so here. Carton was the first stranger to whom little Lucie held out her chubby arms, and he kept his place with her as she grew. The little boy had spoken of him, almost at the last. “Poor Carton! Kiss him for me!” Mr. Stryver shouldered his way through the law, like some great engine forcing itself through turbid water, and dragged his useful friend in his wake, like a boat towed astern. As the boat so favoured is usually in a rough plight, and mostly under water, so, Sydney had a swamped life of it. But, easy and strong custom, unhappily so much easier and stronger in him than any stimulating sense of desert or disgrace, made it the life he was to lead; and he no more thought of emerging from his state of lion’s jackal, than any real jackal may be supposed to think of rising to be a lion. Stryver was rich; had married a florid widow with property and three boys, who had nothing particularly shining about them but the straight hair of their dumpling heads. These three young gentlemen, Mr. Stryver, exuding patronage of the most offensive quality from every pore, had walked before him like three sheep to the quiet corner in Soho, and had offered as pupils to Lucie’s husband: delicately saying “Halloa! here are three lumps of bread-and-cheese towards your matrimonial picnic, Darnay!” The polite rejection of the three lumps of bread-and-cheese had quite bloated Mr. Stryver with indignation, which he afterwards turned to account in the training of the young gentlemen, by directing them to beware of the pride of Beggars, like that tutor-fellow. He was also in the habit of declaiming to Mrs. Stryver, over his full-bodied wine, on the arts Mrs. Darnay had once put in practice to “catch” him, and on the diamond-cut-diamond arts in himself, madam, which had rendered him “not to be caught.” Some of his King’s Bench familiars, who were occasionally parties to the full-bodied wine and the lie, excused him for the latter by saying that he had told it so often, that he believed it himself--which is surely such an incorrigible aggravation of an originally bad offence, as to justify any such offender’s being carried off to some suitably retired spot, and there hanged out of the way. These were among the echoes to which Lucie, sometimes pensive, sometimes amused and laughing, listened in the echoing corner, until her little daughter was six years old. How near to her heart the echoes of her child’s tread came, and those of her own dear father’s, always active and self-possessed, and those of her dear husband’s, need not be told. Nor, how the lightest echo of their united home, directed by herself with such a wise and elegant thrift that it was more abundant than any waste, was music to her. Nor, how there were echoes all about her, sweet in her ears, of the many times her father had told her that he found her more devoted to him married (if that could be) than single, and of the many times her husband had said to her that no cares and duties seemed to divide her love for him or her help to him, and asked her “What is the magic secret, my darling, of your being everything to all of us, as if there were only one of us, yet never seeming to be hurried, or to have too much to do?” But, there were other echoes, from a distance, that rumbled menacingly in the corner all through this space of time. And it was now, about little Lucie’s sixth birthday, that they began to have an awful sound, as of a great storm in France with a dreadful sea rising. On a night in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine, Mr. Lorry came in late, from Tellson’s, and sat himself down by Lucie and her husband in the dark window. It was a hot, wild night, and they were all three reminded of the old Sunday night when they had looked at the lightning from the same place. “I began to think,” said Mr. Lorry, pushing his brown wig back, “that I should have to pass the night at Tellson’s. We have been so full of business all day, that we have not known what to do first, or which way to turn. There is such an uneasiness in Paris, that we have actually a run of confidence upon us! Our customers over there, seem not to be able to confide their property to us fast enough. There is positively a mania among some of them for sending it to England.” “That has a bad look,” said Darnay-- “A bad look, you say, my dear Darnay? Yes, but we don’t know what reason there is in it. People are so unreasonable! Some of us at Tellson’s are getting old, and we really can’t be troubled out of the ordinary course without due occasion.” “Still,” said Darnay, “you know how gloomy and threatening the sky is.” “I know that, to be sure,” assented Mr. Lorry, trying to persuade himself that his sweet temper was soured, and that he grumbled, “but I am determined to be peevish after my long day’s botheration. Where is Manette?” “Here he is,” said the Doctor, entering the dark room at the moment. “I am quite glad you are at home; for these hurries and forebodings by which I have been surrounded all day long, have made me nervous without reason. You are not going out, I hope?” “No; I am going to play backgammon with you, if you like,” said the Doctor. “I don’t think I do like, if I may speak my mind. I am not fit to be pitted against you to-night. Is the teaboard still there, Lucie? I can’t see.” “Of course, it has been kept for you.” “Thank ye, my dear. The precious child is safe in bed?” “And sleeping soundly.” “That’s right; all safe and well! I don’t know why anything should be otherwise than safe and well here, thank God; but I have been so put out all day, and I am not as young as I was! My tea, my dear! Thank ye. Now, come and take your place in the circle, and let us sit quiet, and hear the echoes about which you have your theory.” “Not a theory; it was a fancy.” “A fancy, then, my wise pet,” said Mr. Lorry, patting her hand. “They are very numerous and very loud, though, are they not? Only hear them!” Headlong, mad, and dangerous footsteps to force their way into anybody’s life, footsteps not easily made clean again if once stained red, the footsteps raging in Saint Antoine afar off, as the little circle sat in the dark London window. Saint Antoine had been, that morning, a vast dusky mass of scarecrows heaving to and fro, with frequent gleams of light above the billowy heads, where steel blades and bayonets shone in the sun. A tremendous roar arose from the throat of Saint Antoine, and a forest of naked arms struggled in the air like shrivelled branches of trees in a winter wind: all the fingers convulsively clutching at every weapon or semblance of a weapon that was thrown up from the depths below, no matter how far off. Who gave them out, whence they last came, where they began, through what agency they crookedly quivered and jerked, scores at a time, over the heads of the crowd, like a kind of lightning, no eye in the throng could have told; but, muskets were being distributed--so were cartridges, powder, and ball, bars of iron and wood, knives, axes, pikes, every weapon that distracted ingenuity could discover or devise. People who could lay hold of nothing else, set themselves with bleeding hands to force stones and bricks out of their places in walls. Every pulse and heart in Saint Antoine was on high-fever strain and at high-fever heat. Every living creature there held life as of no account, and was demented with a passionate readiness to sacrifice it. As a whirlpool of boiling waters has a centre point, so, all this raging circled round Defarge’s wine-shop, and every human drop in the caldron had a tendency to be sucked towards the vortex where Defarge himself, already begrimed with gunpowder and sweat, issued orders, issued arms, thrust this man back, dragged this man forward, disarmed one to arm another, laboured and strove in the thickest of the uproar. “Keep near to me, Jacques Three,” cried Defarge; “and do you, Jacques One and Two, separate and put yourselves at the head of as many of these patriots as you can. Where is my wife?” “Eh, well! Here you see me!” said madame, composed as ever, but not knitting to-day. Madame’s resolute right hand was occupied with an axe, in place of the usual softer implements, and in her girdle were a pistol and a cruel knife. “Where do you go, my wife?” “I go,” said madame, “with you at present. You shall see me at the head of women, by-and-bye.” “Come, then!” cried Defarge, in a resounding voice. “Patriots and friends, we are ready! The Bastille!” With a roar that sounded as if all the breath in France had been shaped into the detested word, the living sea rose, wave on wave, depth on depth, and overflowed the city to that point. Alarm-bells ringing, drums beating, the sea raging and thundering on its new beach, the attack began. Deep ditches, double drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. Through the fire and through the smoke--in the fire and in the smoke, for the sea cast him up against a cannon, and on the instant he became a cannonier--Defarge of the wine-shop worked like a manful soldier, Two fierce hours. Deep ditch, single drawbridge, massive stone walls, eight great towers, cannon, muskets, fire and smoke. One drawbridge down! “Work, comrades all, work! Work, Jacques One, Jacques Two, Jacques One Thousand, Jacques Two Thousand, Jacques Five-and-Twenty Thousand; in the name of all the Angels or the Devils--which you prefer--work!” Thus Defarge of the wine-shop, still at his gun, which had long grown hot. “To me, women!” cried madame his wife. “What! We can kill as well as the men when the place is taken!” And to her, with a shrill thirsty cry, trooping women variously armed, but all armed alike in hunger and revenge. Cannon, muskets, fire and smoke; but, still the deep ditch, the single drawbridge, the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers. Slight displacements of the raging sea, made by the falling wounded. Flashing weapons, blazing torches, smoking waggonloads of wet straw, hard work at neighbouring barricades in all directions, shrieks, volleys, execrations, bravery without stint, boom smash and rattle, and the furious sounding of the living sea; but, still the deep ditch, and the single drawbridge, and the massive stone walls, and the eight great towers, and still Defarge of the wine-shop at his gun, grown doubly hot by the service of Four fierce hours. A white flag from within the fortress, and a parley--this dimly perceptible through the raging storm, nothing audible in it--suddenly the sea rose immeasurably wider and higher, and swept Defarge of the wine-shop over the lowered drawbridge, past the massive stone outer walls, in among the eight great towers surrendered! So resistless was the force of the ocean bearing him on, that even to draw his breath or turn his head was as impracticable as if he had been struggling in the surf at the South Sea, until he was landed in the outer courtyard of the Bastille. There, against an angle of a wall, he made a struggle to look about him. Jacques Three was nearly at his side; Madame Defarge, still heading some of her women, was visible in the inner distance, and her knife was in her hand. Everywhere was tumult, exultation, deafening and maniacal bewilderment, astounding noise, yet furious dumb-show. “The Prisoners!” “The Records!” “The secret cells!” “The instruments of torture!” “The Prisoners!” Of all these cries, and ten thousand incoherences, “The Prisoners!” was the cry most taken up by the sea that rushed in, as if there were an eternity of people, as well as of time and space. When the foremost billows rolled past, bearing the prison officers with them, and threatening them all with instant death if any secret nook remained undisclosed, Defarge laid his strong hand on the breast of one of these men--a man with a grey head, who had a lighted torch in his hand--separated him from the rest, and got him between himself and the wall. “Show me the North Tower!” said Defarge. “Quick!” “I will faithfully,” replied the man, “if you will come with me. But there is no one there.” “What is the meaning of One Hundred and Five, North Tower?” asked Defarge. “Quick!” “The meaning, monsieur?” “Does it mean a captive, or a place of captivity? Or do you mean that I shall strike you dead?” “Kill him!” croaked Jacques Three, who had come close up. “Monsieur, it is a cell.” “Show it me!” “Pass this way, then.” Jacques Three, with his usual craving on him, and evidently disappointed by the dialogue taking a turn that did not seem to promise bloodshed, held by Defarge’s arm as he held by the turnkey’s. Their three heads had been close together during this brief discourse, and it had been as much as they could do to hear one another, even then: so tremendous was the noise of the living ocean, in its irruption into the Fortress, and its inundation of the courts and passages and staircases. All around outside, too, it beat the walls with a deep, hoarse roar, from which, occasionally, some partial shouts of tumult broke and leaped into the air like spray. Through gloomy vaults where the light of day had never shone, past hideous doors of dark dens and cages, down cavernous flights of steps, and again up steep rugged ascents of stone and brick, more like dry waterfalls than staircases, Defarge, the turnkey, and Jacques Three, linked hand and arm, went with all the speed they could make. Here and there, especially at first, the inundation started on them and swept by; but when they had done descending, and were winding and climbing up a tower, they were alone. Hemmed in here by the massive thickness of walls and arches, the storm within the fortress and without was only audible to them in a dull, subdued way, as if the noise out of which they had come had almost destroyed their sense of hearing. The turnkey stopped at a low door, put a key in a clashing lock, swung the door slowly open, and said, as they all bent their heads and passed in: “One hundred and five, North Tower!” There was a small, heavily-grated, unglazed window high in the wall, with a stone screen before it, so that the sky could be only seen by stooping low and looking up. There was a small chimney, heavily barred across, a few feet within. There was a heap of old feathery wood-ashes on the hearth. There was a stool, and table, and a straw bed. There were the four blackened walls, and a rusted iron ring in one of them. “Pass that torch slowly along these walls, that I may see them,” said Defarge to the turnkey. The man obeyed, and Defarge followed the light closely with his eyes. “Stop!--Look here, Jacques!” “A. M.!” croaked Jacques Three, as he read greedily. “Alexandre Manette,” said Defarge in his ear, following the letters with his swart forefinger, deeply engrained with gunpowder. “And here he wrote ‘a poor physician.’ And it was he, without doubt, who scratched a calendar on this stone. What is that in your hand? A crowbar? Give it me!” He had still the linstock of his gun in his own hand. He made a sudden exchange of the two instruments, and turning on the worm-eaten stool and table, beat them to pieces in a few blows. “Hold the light higher!” he said, wrathfully, to the turnkey. “Look among those fragments with care, Jacques. And see! Here is my knife,” throwing it to him; “rip open that bed, and search the straw. Hold the light higher, you!” With a menacing look at the turnkey he crawled upon the hearth, and, peering up the chimney, struck and prised at its sides with the crowbar, and worked at the iron grating across it. In a few minutes, some mortar and dust came dropping down, which he averted his face to avoid; and in it, and in the old wood-ashes, and in a crevice in the chimney into which his weapon had slipped or wrought itself, he groped with a cautious touch. “Nothing in the wood, and nothing in the straw, Jacques?” “Nothing.” “Let us collect them together, in the middle of the cell. So! Light them, you!” The turnkey fired the little pile, which blazed high and hot. Stooping again to come out at the low-arched door, they left it burning, and retraced their way to the courtyard; seeming to recover their sense of hearing as they came down, until they were in the raging flood once more. They found it surging and tossing, in quest of Defarge himself. Saint Antoine was clamorous to have its wine-shop keeper foremost in the guard upon the governor who had defended the Bastille and shot the people. Otherwise, the governor would not be marched to the Hotel de Ville for judgment. Otherwise, the governor would escape, and the people’s blood (suddenly of some value, after many years of worthlessness) be unavenged. In the howling universe of passion and contention that seemed to encompass this grim old officer conspicuous in his grey coat and red decoration, there was but one quite steady figure, and that was a woman’s. “See, there is my husband!” she cried, pointing him out. “See Defarge!” She stood immovable close to the grim old officer, and remained immovable close to him; remained immovable close to him through the streets, as Defarge and the rest bore him along; remained immovable close to him when he was got near his destination, and began to be struck at from behind; remained immovable close to him when the long-gathering rain of stabs and blows fell heavy; was so close to him when he dropped dead under it, that, suddenly animated, she put her foot upon his neck, and with her cruel knife--long ready--hewed off his head. The hour was come, when Saint Antoine was to execute his horrible idea of hoisting up men for lamps to show what he could be and do. Saint Antoine’s blood was up, and the blood of tyranny and domination by the iron hand was down--down on the steps of the Hotel de Ville where the governor’s body lay--down on the sole of the shoe of Madame Defarge where she had trodden on the body to steady it for mutilation. “Lower the lamp yonder!” cried Saint Antoine, after glaring round for a new means of death; “here is one of his soldiers to be left on guard!” The swinging sentinel was posted, and the sea rushed on. The sea of black and threatening waters, and of destructive upheaving of wave against wave, whose depths were yet unfathomed and whose forces were yet unknown. The remorseless sea of turbulently swaying shapes, voices of vengeance, and faces hardened in the furnaces of suffering until the touch of pity could make no mark on them. But, in the ocean of faces where every fierce and furious expression was in vivid life, there were two groups of faces--each seven in number--so fixedly contrasting with the rest, that never did sea roll which bore more memorable wrecks with it. Seven faces of prisoners, suddenly released by the storm that had burst their tomb, were carried high overhead: all scared, all lost, all wondering and amazed, as if the Last Day were come, and those who rejoiced around them were lost spirits. Other seven faces there were, carried higher, seven dead faces, whose drooping eyelids and half-seen eyes awaited the Last Day. Impassive faces, yet with a suspended--not an abolished--expression on them; faces, rather, in a fearful pause, as having yet to raise the dropped lids of the eyes, and bear witness with the bloodless lips, “THOU DIDST IT!” Seven prisoners released, seven gory heads on pikes, the keys of the accursed fortress of the eight strong towers, some discovered letters and other memorials of prisoners of old time, long dead of broken hearts,--such, and such--like, the loudly echoing footsteps of Saint Antoine escort through the Paris streets in mid-July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-nine. Now, Heaven defeat the fancy of Lucie Darnay, and keep these feet far out of her life! For, they are headlong, mad, and dangerous; and in the years so long after the breaking of the cask at Defarge’s wine-shop door, they are not easily purified when once stained red. CHAPTER XXII. The Sea Still Rises Haggard Saint Antoine had had only one exultant week, in which to soften his modicum of hard and bitter bread to such extent as he could, with the relish of fraternal embraces and congratulations, when Madame Defarge sat at her counter, as usual, presiding over the customers. Madame Defarge wore no rose in her head, for the great brotherhood of Spies had become, even in one short week, extremely chary of trusting themselves to the saint’s mercies. The lamps across his streets had a portentously elastic swing with them. Madame Defarge, with her arms folded, sat in the morning light and heat, contemplating the wine-shop and the street. In both, there were several knots of loungers, squalid and miserable, but now with a manifest sense of power enthroned on their distress. The raggedest nightcap, awry on the wretchedest head, had this crooked significance in it: “I know how hard it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to support life in myself; but do you know how easy it has grown for me, the wearer of this, to destroy life in you?” Every lean bare arm, that had been without work before, had this work always ready for it now, that it could strike. The fingers of the knitting women were vicious, with the experience that they could tear. There was a change in the appearance of Saint Antoine; the image had been hammering into this for hundreds of years, and the last finishing blows had told mightily on the expression. Madame Defarge sat observing it, with such suppressed approval as was to be desired in the leader of the Saint Antoine women. One of her sisterhood knitted beside her. The short, rather plump wife of a starved grocer, and the mother of two children withal, this lieutenant had already earned the complimentary name of The Vengeance. “Hark!” said The Vengeance. “Listen, then! Who comes?” As if a train of powder laid from the outermost bound of Saint Antoine Quarter to the wine-shop door, had been suddenly fired, a fast-spreading murmur came rushing along. “It is Defarge,” said madame. “Silence, patriots!” Defarge came in breathless, pulled off a red cap he wore, and looked around him! “Listen, everywhere!” said madame again. “Listen to him!” Defarge stood, panting, against a background of eager eyes and open mouths, formed outside the door; all those within the wine-shop had sprung to their feet. “Say then, my husband. What is it?” “News from the other world!” “How, then?” cried madame, contemptuously. “The other world?” “Does everybody here recall old Foulon, who told the famished people that they might eat grass, and who died, and went to Hell?” “Everybody!” from all throats. “The news is of him. He is among us!” “Among us!” from the universal throat again. “And dead?” “Not dead! He feared us so much--and with reason--that he caused himself to be represented as dead, and had a grand mock-funeral. But they have found him alive, hiding in the country, and have brought him in. I have seen him but now, on his way to the Hotel de Ville, a prisoner. I have said that he had reason to fear us. Say all! _Had_ he reason?” Wretched old sinner of more than threescore years and ten, if he had never known it yet, he would have known it in his heart of hearts if he could have heard the answering cry. A moment of profound silence followed. Defarge and his wife looked steadfastly at one another. The Vengeance stooped, and the jar of a drum was heard as she moved it at her feet behind the counter. “Patriots!” said Defarge, in a determined voice, “are we ready?” Instantly Madame Defarge’s knife was in her girdle; the drum was beating in the streets, as if it and a drummer had flown together by magic; and The Vengeance, uttering terrific shrieks, and flinging her arms about her head like all the forty Furies at once, was tearing from house to house, rousing the women. The men were terrible, in the bloody-minded anger with which they looked from windows, caught up what arms they had, and came pouring down into the streets; but, the women were a sight to chill the boldest. From such household occupations as their bare poverty yielded, from their children, from their aged and their sick crouching on the bare ground famished and naked, they ran out with streaming hair, urging one another, and themselves, to madness with the wildest cries and actions. Villain Foulon taken, my sister! Old Foulon taken, my mother! Miscreant Foulon taken, my daughter! Then, a score of others ran into the midst of these, beating their breasts, tearing their hair, and screaming, Foulon alive! Foulon who told the starving people they might eat grass! Foulon who told my old father that he might eat grass, when I had no bread to give him! Foulon who told my baby it might suck grass, when these breasts were dry with want! O mother of God, this Foulon! O Heaven our suffering! Hear me, my dead baby and my withered father: I swear on my knees, on these stones, to avenge you on Foulon! Husbands, and brothers, and young men, Give us the blood of Foulon, Give us the head of Foulon, Give us the heart of Foulon, Give us the body and soul of Foulon, Rend Foulon to pieces, and dig him into the ground, that grass may grow from him! With these cries, numbers of the women, lashed into blind frenzy, whirled about, striking and tearing at their own friends until they dropped into a passionate swoon, and were only saved by the men belonging to them from being trampled under foot. Nevertheless, not a moment was lost; not a moment! This Foulon was at the Hotel de Ville, and might be loosed. Never, if Saint Antoine knew his own sufferings, insults, and wrongs! Armed men and women flocked out of the Quarter so fast, and drew even these last dregs after them with such a force of suction, that within a quarter of an hour there was not a human creature in Saint Antoine’s bosom but a few old crones and the wailing children. No. They were all by that time choking the Hall of Examination where this old man, ugly and wicked, was, and overflowing into the adjacent open space and streets. The Defarges, husband and wife, The Vengeance, and Jacques Three, were in the first press, and at no great distance from him in the Hall. “See!” cried madame, pointing with her knife. “See the old villain bound with ropes. That was well done to tie a bunch of grass upon his back. Ha, ha! That was well done. Let him eat it now!” Madame put her knife under her arm, and clapped her hands as at a play. The people immediately behind Madame Defarge, explaining the cause of her satisfaction to those behind them, and those again explaining to others, and those to others, the neighbouring streets resounded with the clapping of hands. Similarly, during two or three hours of drawl, and the winnowing of many bushels of words, Madame Defarge’s frequent expressions of impatience were taken up, with marvellous quickness, at a distance: the more readily, because certain men who had by some wonderful exercise of agility climbed up the external architecture to look in from the windows, knew Madame Defarge well, and acted as a telegraph between her and the crowd outside the building. At length the sun rose so high that it struck a kindly ray as of hope or protection, directly down upon the old prisoner’s head. The favour was too much to bear; in an instant the barrier of dust and chaff that had stood surprisingly long, went to the winds, and Saint Antoine had got him! It was known directly, to the furthest confines of the crowd. Defarge had but sprung over a railing and a table, and folded the miserable wretch in a deadly embrace--Madame Defarge had but followed and turned her hand in one of the ropes with which he was tied--The Vengeance and Jacques Three were not yet up with them, and the men at the windows had not yet swooped into the Hall, like birds of prey from their high perches--when the cry seemed to go up, all over the city, “Bring him out! Bring him to the lamp!” Down, and up, and head foremost on the steps of the building; now, on his knees; now, on his feet; now, on his back; dragged, and struck at, and stifled by the bunches of grass and straw that were thrust into his face by hundreds of hands; torn, bruised, panting, bleeding, yet always entreating and beseeching for mercy; now full of vehement agony of action, with a small clear space about him as the people drew one another back that they might see; now, a log of dead wood drawn through a forest of legs; he was hauled to the nearest street corner where one of the fatal lamps swung, and there Madame Defarge let him go--as a cat might have done to a mouse--and silently and composedly looked at him while they made ready, and while he besought her: the women passionately screeching at him all the time, and the men sternly calling out to have him killed with grass in his mouth. Once, he went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; twice, he went aloft, and the rope broke, and they caught him shrieking; then, the rope was merciful, and held him, and his head was soon upon a pike, with grass enough in the mouth for all Saint Antoine to dance at the sight of. Nor was this the end of the day’s bad work, for Saint Antoine so shouted and danced his angry blood up, that it boiled again, on hearing when the day closed in that the son-in-law of the despatched, another of the people’s enemies and insulters, was coming into Paris under a guard five hundred strong, in cavalry alone. Saint Antoine wrote his crimes on flaring sheets of paper, seized him--would have torn him out of the breast of an army to bear Foulon company--set his head and heart on pikes, and carried the three spoils of the day, in Wolf-procession through the streets. Not before dark night did the men and women come back to the children, wailing and breadless. Then, the miserable bakers’ shops were beset by long files of them, patiently waiting to buy bad bread; and while they waited with stomachs faint and empty, they beguiled the time by embracing one another on the triumphs of the day, and achieving them again in gossip. Gradually, these strings of ragged people shortened and frayed away; and then poor lights began to shine in high windows, and slender fires were made in the streets, at which neighbours cooked in common, afterwards supping at their doors. Scanty and insufficient suppers those, and innocent of meat, as of most other sauce to wretched bread. Yet, human fellowship infused some nourishment into the flinty viands, and struck some sparks of cheerfulness out of them. Fathers and mothers who had had their full share in the worst of the day, played gently with their meagre children; and lovers, with such a world around them and before them, loved and hoped. It was almost morning, when Defarge’s wine-shop parted with its last knot of customers, and Monsieur Defarge said to madame his wife, in husky tones, while fastening the door: “At last it is come, my dear!” “Eh well!” returned madame. “Almost.” Saint Antoine slept, the Defarges slept: even The Vengeance slept with her starved grocer, and the drum was at rest. The drum’s was the only voice in Saint Antoine that blood and hurry had not changed. The Vengeance, as custodian of the drum, could have wakened him up and had the same speech out of him as before the Bastille fell, or old Foulon was seized; not so with the hoarse tones of the men and women in Saint Antoine’s bosom. CHAPTER XXIII. Fire Rises There was a change on the village where the fountain fell, and where the mender of roads went forth daily to hammer out of the stones on the highway such morsels of bread as might serve for patches to hold his poor ignorant soul and his poor reduced body together. The prison on the crag was not so dominant as of yore; there were soldiers to guard it, but not many; there were officers to guard the soldiers, but not one of them knew what his men would do--beyond this: that it would probably not be what he was ordered. Far and wide lay a ruined country, yielding nothing but desolation. Every green leaf, every blade of grass and blade of grain, was as shrivelled and poor as the miserable people. Everything was bowed down, dejected, oppressed, and broken. Habitations, fences, domesticated animals, men, women, children, and the soil that bore them--all worn out. Monseigneur (often a most worthy individual gentleman) was a national blessing, gave a chivalrous tone to things, was a polite example of luxurious and shining life, and a great deal more to equal purpose; nevertheless, Monseigneur as a class had, somehow or other, brought things to this. Strange that Creation, designed expressly for Monseigneur, should be so soon wrung dry and squeezed out! There must be something short-sighted in the eternal arrangements, surely! Thus it was, however; and the last drop of blood having been extracted from the flints, and the last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, and it now turned and turned with nothing to bite, Monseigneur began to run away from a phenomenon so low and unaccountable. But, this was not the change on the village, and on many a village like it. For scores of years gone by, Monseigneur had squeezed it and wrung it, and had seldom graced it with his presence except for the pleasures of the chase--now, found in hunting the people; now, found in hunting the beasts, for whose preservation Monseigneur made edifying spaces of barbarous and barren wilderness. No. The change consisted in the appearance of strange faces of low caste, rather than in the disappearance of the high caste, chiselled, and otherwise beautified and beautifying features of Monseigneur. For, in these times, as the mender of roads worked, solitary, in the dust, not often troubling himself to reflect that dust he was and to dust he must return, being for the most part too much occupied in thinking how little he had for supper and how much more he would eat if he had it--in these times, as he raised his eyes from his lonely labour, and viewed the prospect, he would see some rough figure approaching on foot, the like of which was once a rarity in those parts, but was now a frequent presence. As it advanced, the mender of roads would discern without surprise, that it was a shaggy-haired man, of almost barbarian aspect, tall, in wooden shoes that were clumsy even to the eyes of a mender of roads, grim, rough, swart, steeped in the mud and dust of many highways, dank with the marshy moisture of many low grounds, sprinkled with the thorns and leaves and moss of many byways through woods. Such a man came upon him, like a ghost, at noon in the July weather, as he sat on his heap of stones under a bank, taking such shelter as he could get from a shower of hail. The man looked at him, looked at the village in the hollow, at the mill, and at the prison on the crag. When he had identified these objects in what benighted mind he had, he said, in a dialect that was just intelligible: “How goes it, Jacques?” “All well, Jacques.” “Touch then!” They joined hands, and the man sat down on the heap of stones. “No dinner?” “Nothing but supper now,” said the mender of roads, with a hungry face. “It is the fashion,” growled the man. “I meet no dinner anywhere.” He took out a blackened pipe, filled it, lighted it with flint and steel, pulled at it until it was in a bright glow: then, suddenly held it from him and dropped something into it from between his finger and thumb, that blazed and went out in a puff of smoke. “Touch then.” It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it this time, after observing these operations. They again joined hands. “To-night?” said the mender of roads. “To-night,” said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth. “Where?” “Here.” He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking silently at one another, with the hail driving in between them like a pigmy charge of bayonets, until the sky began to clear over the village. “Show me!” said the traveller then, moving to the brow of the hill. “See!” returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. “You go down here, and straight through the street, and past the fountain--” “To the Devil with all that!” interrupted the other, rolling his eye over the landscape. “_I_ go through no streets and past no fountains. Well?” “Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill above the village.” “Good. When do you cease to work?” “At sunset.” “Will you wake me, before departing? I have walked two nights without resting. Let me finish my pipe, and I shall sleep like a child. Will you wake me?” “Surely.” The wayfarer smoked his pipe out, put it in his breast, slipped off his great wooden shoes, and lay down on his back on the heap of stones. He was fast asleep directly. As the road-mender plied his dusty labour, and the hail-clouds, rolling away, revealed bright bars and streaks of sky which were responded to by silver gleams upon the landscape, the little man (who wore a red cap now, in place of his blue one) seemed fascinated by the figure on the heap of stones. His eyes were so often turned towards it, that he used his tools mechanically, and, one would have said, to very poor account. The bronze face, the shaggy black hair and beard, the coarse woollen red cap, the rough medley dress of home-spun stuff and hairy skins of beasts, the powerful frame attenuated by spare living, and the sullen and desperate compression of the lips in sleep, inspired the mender of roads with awe. The traveller had travelled far, and his feet were footsore, and his ankles chafed and bleeding; his great shoes, stuffed with leaves and grass, had been heavy to drag over the many long leagues, and his clothes were chafed into holes, as he himself was into sores. Stooping down beside him, the road-mender tried to get a peep at secret weapons in his breast or where not; but, in vain, for he slept with his arms crossed upon him, and set as resolutely as his lips. Fortified towns with their stockades, guard-houses, gates, trenches, and drawbridges, seemed to the mender of roads, to be so much air as against this figure. And when he lifted his eyes from it to the horizon and looked around, he saw in his small fancy similar figures, stopped by no obstacle, tending to centres all over France. The man slept on, indifferent to showers of hail and intervals of brightness, to sunshine on his face and shadow, to the paltering lumps of dull ice on his body and the diamonds into which the sun changed them, until the sun was low in the west, and the sky was glowing. Then, the mender of roads having got his tools together and all things ready to go down into the village, roused him. “Good!” said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. “Two leagues beyond the summit of the hill?” “About.” “About. Good!” The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on before him according to the set of the wind, and was soon at the fountain, squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink, and appearing even to whisper to them in his whispering to all the village. When the village had taken its poor supper, it did not creep to bed, as it usually did, but came out of doors again, and remained there. A curious contagion of whispering was upon it, and also, when it gathered together at the fountain in the dark, another curious contagion of looking expectantly at the sky in one direction only. Monsieur Gabelle, chief functionary of the place, became uneasy; went out on his house-top alone, and looked in that direction too; glanced down from behind his chimneys at the darkening faces by the fountain below, and sent word to the sacristan who kept the keys of the church, that there might be need to ring the tocsin by-and-bye. The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau, keeping its solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as though they threatened the pile of building massive and dark in the gloom. Up the two terrace flights of steps the rain ran wildly, and beat at the great door, like a swift messenger rousing those within; uneasy rushes of wind went through the hall, among the old spears and knives, and passed lamenting up the stairs, and shook the curtains of the bed where the last Marquis had slept. East, West, North, and South, through the woods, four heavy-treading, unkempt figures crushed the high grass and cracked the branches, striding on cautiously to come together in the courtyard. Four lights broke out there, and moved away in different directions, and all was black again. But, not for long. Presently, the chateau began to make itself strangely visible by some light of its own, as though it were growing luminous. Then, a flickering streak played behind the architecture of the front, picking out transparent places, and showing where balustrades, arches, and windows were. Then it soared higher, and grew broader and brighter. Soon, from a score of the great windows, flames burst forth, and the stone faces awakened, stared out of fire. A faint murmur arose about the house from the few people who were left there, and there was a saddling of a horse and riding away. There was spurring and splashing through the darkness, and bridle was drawn in the space by the village fountain, and the horse in a foam stood at Monsieur Gabelle’s door. “Help, Gabelle! Help, every one!” The tocsin rang impatiently, but other help (if that were any) there was none. The mender of roads, and two hundred and fifty particular friends, stood with folded arms at the fountain, looking at the pillar of fire in the sky. “It must be forty feet high,” said they, grimly; and never moved. The rider from the chateau, and the horse in a foam, clattered away through the village, and galloped up the stony steep, to the prison on the crag. At the gate, a group of officers were looking at the fire; removed from them, a group of soldiers. “Help, gentlemen--officers! The chateau is on fire; valuable objects may be saved from the flames by timely aid! Help, help!” The officers looked towards the soldiers who looked at the fire; gave no orders; and answered, with shrugs and biting of lips, “It must burn.” As the rider rattled down the hill again and through the street, the village was illuminating. The mender of roads, and the two hundred and fifty particular friends, inspired as one man and woman by the idea of lighting up, had darted into their houses, and were putting candles in every dull little pane of glass. The general scarcity of everything, occasioned candles to be borrowed in a rather peremptory manner of Monsieur Gabelle; and in a moment of reluctance and hesitation on that functionary’s part, the mender of roads, once so submissive to authority, had remarked that carriages were good to make bonfires with, and that post-horses would roast. The chateau was left to itself to flame and burn. In the roaring and raging of the conflagration, a red-hot wind, driving straight from the infernal regions, seemed to be blowing the edifice away. With the rising and falling of the blaze, the stone faces showed as if they were in torment. When great masses of stone and timber fell, the face with the two dints in the nose became obscured: anon struggled out of the smoke again, as if it were the face of the cruel Marquis, burning at the stake and contending with the fire. The chateau burned; the nearest trees, laid hold of by the fire, scorched and shrivelled; trees at a distance, fired by the four fierce figures, begirt the blazing edifice with a new forest of smoke. Molten lead and iron boiled in the marble basin of the fountain; the water ran dry; the extinguisher tops of the towers vanished like ice before the heat, and trickled down into four rugged wells of flame. Great rents and splits branched out in the solid walls, like crystallisation; stupefied birds wheeled about and dropped into the furnace; four fierce figures trudged away, East, West, North, and South, along the night-enshrouded roads, guided by the beacon they had lighted, towards their next destination. The illuminated village had seized hold of the tocsin, and, abolishing the lawful ringer, rang for joy. Not only that; but the village, light-headed with famine, fire, and bell-ringing, and bethinking itself that Monsieur Gabelle had to do with the collection of rent and taxes--though it was but a small instalment of taxes, and no rent at all, that Gabelle had got in those latter days--became impatient for an interview with him, and, surrounding his house, summoned him to come forth for personal conference. Whereupon, Monsieur Gabelle did heavily bar his door, and retire to hold counsel with himself. The result of that conference was, that Gabelle again withdrew himself to his housetop behind his stack of chimneys; this time resolved, if his door were broken in (he was a small Southern man of retaliative temperament), to pitch himself head foremost over the parapet, and crush a man or two below. Probably, Monsieur Gabelle passed a long night up there, with the distant chateau for fire and candle, and the beating at his door, combined with the joy-ringing, for music; not to mention his having an ill-omened lamp slung across the road before his posting-house gate, which the village showed a lively inclination to displace in his favour. A trying suspense, to be passing a whole summer night on the brink of the black ocean, ready to take that plunge into it upon which Monsieur Gabelle had resolved! But, the friendly dawn appearing at last, and the rush-candles of the village guttering out, the people happily dispersed, and Monsieur Gabelle came down bringing his life with him for that while. Within a hundred miles, and in the light of other fires, there were other functionaries less fortunate, that night and other nights, whom the rising sun found hanging across once-peaceful streets, where they had been born and bred; also, there were other villagers and townspeople less fortunate than the mender of roads and his fellows, upon whom the functionaries and soldiery turned with success, and whom they strung up in their turn. But, the fierce figures were steadily wending East, West, North, and South, be that as it would; and whosoever hung, fire burned. The altitude of the gallows that would turn to water and quench it, no functionary, by any stretch of mathematics, was able to calculate successfully. CHAPTER XXIV. Drawn to the Loadstone Rock In such risings of fire and risings of sea--the firm earth shaken by the rushes of an angry ocean which had now no ebb, but was always on the flow, higher and higher, to the terror and wonder of the beholders on the shore--three years of tempest were consumed. Three more birthdays of little Lucie had been woven by the golden thread into the peaceful tissue of the life of her home. Many a night and many a day had its inmates listened to the echoes in the corner, with hearts that failed them when they heard the thronging feet. For, the footsteps had become to their minds as the footsteps of a people, tumultuous under a red flag and with their country declared in danger, changed into wild beasts, by terrible enchantment long persisted in. Monseigneur, as a class, had dissociated himself from the phenomenon of his not being appreciated: of his being so little wanted in France, as to incur considerable danger of receiving his dismissal from it, and this life together. Like the fabled rustic who raised the Devil with infinite pains, and was so terrified at the sight of him that he could ask the Enemy no question, but immediately fled; so, Monseigneur, after boldly reading the Lord’s Prayer backwards for a great number of years, and performing many other potent spells for compelling the Evil One, no sooner beheld him in his terrors than he took to his noble heels. The shining Bull’s Eye of the Court was gone, or it would have been the mark for a hurricane of national bullets. It had never been a good eye to see with--had long had the mote in it of Lucifer’s pride, Sardanapalus’s luxury, and a mole’s blindness--but it had dropped out and was gone. The Court, from that exclusive inner circle to its outermost rotten ring of intrigue, corruption, and dissimulation, was all gone together. Royalty was gone; had been besieged in its Palace and “suspended,” when the last tidings came over. The August of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two was come, and Monseigneur was by this time scattered far and wide. As was natural, the head-quarters and great gathering-place of Monseigneur, in London, was Tellson’s Bank. Spirits are supposed to haunt the places where their bodies most resorted, and Monseigneur without a guinea haunted the spot where his guineas used to be. Moreover, it was the spot to which such French intelligence as was most to be relied upon, came quickest. Again: Tellson’s was a munificent house, and extended great liberality to old customers who had fallen from their high estate. Again: those nobles who had seen the coming storm in time, and anticipating plunder or confiscation, had made provident remittances to Tellson’s, were always to be heard of there by their needy brethren. To which it must be added that every new-comer from France reported himself and his tidings at Tellson’s, almost as a matter of course. For such variety of reasons, Tellson’s was at that time, as to French intelligence, a kind of High Exchange; and this was so well known to the public, and the inquiries made there were in consequence so numerous, that Tellson’s sometimes wrote the latest news out in a line or so and posted it in the Bank windows, for all who ran through Temple Bar to read. On a steaming, misty afternoon, Mr. Lorry sat at his desk, and Charles Darnay stood leaning on it, talking with him in a low voice. The penitential den once set apart for interviews with the House, was now the news-Exchange, and was filled to overflowing. It was within half an hour or so of the time of closing. “But, although you are the youngest man that ever lived,” said Charles Darnay, rather hesitating, “I must still suggest to you--” “I understand. That I am too old?” said Mr. Lorry. “Unsettled weather, a long journey, uncertain means of travelling, a disorganised country, a city that may not be even safe for you.” “My dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, with cheerful confidence, “you touch some of the reasons for my going: not for my staying away. It is safe enough for me; nobody will care to interfere with an old fellow of hard upon fourscore when there are so many people there much better worth interfering with. As to its being a disorganised city, if it were not a disorganised city there would be no occasion to send somebody from our House here to our House there, who knows the city and the business, of old, and is in Tellson’s confidence. As to the uncertain travelling, the long journey, and the winter weather, if I were not prepared to submit myself to a few inconveniences for the sake of Tellson’s, after all these years, who ought to be?” “I wish I were going myself,” said Charles Darnay, somewhat restlessly, and like one thinking aloud. “Indeed! You are a pretty fellow to object and advise!” exclaimed Mr. Lorry. “You wish you were going yourself? And you a Frenchman born? You are a wise counsellor.” “My dear Mr. Lorry, it is because I am a Frenchman born, that the thought (which I did not mean to utter here, however) has passed through my mind often. One cannot help thinking, having had some sympathy for the miserable people, and having abandoned something to them,” he spoke here in his former thoughtful manner, “that one might be listened to, and might have the power to persuade to some restraint. Only last night, after you had left us, when I was talking to Lucie--” “When you were talking to Lucie,” Mr. Lorry repeated. “Yes. I wonder you are not ashamed to mention the name of Lucie! Wishing you were going to France at this time of day!” “However, I am not going,” said Charles Darnay, with a smile. “It is more to the purpose that you say you are.” “And I am, in plain reality. The truth is, my dear Charles,” Mr. Lorry glanced at the distant House, and lowered his voice, “you can have no conception of the difficulty with which our business is transacted, and of the peril in which our books and papers over yonder are involved. The Lord above knows what the compromising consequences would be to numbers of people, if some of our documents were seized or destroyed; and they might be, at any time, you know, for who can say that Paris is not set afire to-day, or sacked to-morrow! Now, a judicious selection from these with the least possible delay, and the burying of them, or otherwise getting of them out of harm’s way, is within the power (without loss of precious time) of scarcely any one but myself, if any one. And shall I hang back, when Tellson’s knows this and says this--Tellson’s, whose bread I have eaten these sixty years--because I am a little stiff about the joints? Why, I am a boy, sir, to half a dozen old codgers here!” “How I admire the gallantry of your youthful spirit, Mr. Lorry.” “Tut! Nonsense, sir!--And, my dear Charles,” said Mr. Lorry, glancing at the House again, “you are to remember, that getting things out of Paris at this present time, no matter what things, is next to an impossibility. Papers and precious matters were this very day brought to us here (I speak in strict confidence; it is not business-like to whisper it, even to you), by the strangest bearers you can imagine, every one of whom had his head hanging on by a single hair as he passed the Barriers. At another time, our parcels would come and go, as easily as in business-like Old England; but now, everything is stopped.” “And do you really go to-night?” “I really go to-night, for the case has become too pressing to admit of delay.” “And do you take no one with you?” “All sorts of people have been proposed to me, but I will have nothing to say to any of them. I intend to take Jerry. Jerry has been my bodyguard on Sunday nights for a long time past and I am used to him. Nobody will suspect Jerry of being anything but an English bull-dog, or of having any design in his head but to fly at anybody who touches his master.” “I must say again that I heartily admire your gallantry and youthfulness.” “I must say again, nonsense, nonsense! When I have executed this little commission, I shall, perhaps, accept Tellson’s proposal to retire and live at my ease. Time enough, then, to think about growing old.” This dialogue had taken place at Mr. Lorry’s usual desk, with Monseigneur swarming within a yard or two of it, boastful of what he would do to avenge himself on the rascal-people before long. It was too much the way of Monseigneur under his reverses as a refugee, and it was much too much the way of native British orthodoxy, to talk of this terrible Revolution as if it were the only harvest ever known under the skies that had not been sown--as if nothing had ever been done, or omitted to be done, that had led to it--as if observers of the wretched millions in France, and of the misused and perverted resources that should have made them prosperous, had not seen it inevitably coming, years before, and had not in plain words recorded what they saw. Such vapouring, combined with the extravagant plots of Monseigneur for the restoration of a state of things that had utterly exhausted itself, and worn out Heaven and earth as well as itself, was hard to be endured without some remonstrance by any sane man who knew the truth. And it was such vapouring all about his ears, like a troublesome confusion of blood in his own head, added to a latent uneasiness in his mind, which had already made Charles Darnay restless, and which still kept him so. Among the talkers, was Stryver, of the King’s Bench Bar, far on his way to state promotion, and, therefore, loud on the theme: broaching to Monseigneur, his devices for blowing the people up and exterminating them from the face of the earth, and doing without them: and for accomplishing many similar objects akin in their nature to the abolition of eagles by sprinkling salt on the tails of the race. Him, Darnay heard with a particular feeling of objection; and Darnay stood divided between going away that he might hear no more, and remaining to interpose his word, when the thing that was to be, went on to shape itself out. The House approached Mr. Lorry, and laying a soiled and unopened letter before him, asked if he had yet discovered any traces of the person to whom it was addressed? The House laid the letter down so close to Darnay that he saw the direction--the more quickly because it was his own right name. The address, turned into English, ran: “Very pressing. To Monsieur heretofore the Marquis St. Evrémonde, of France. Confided to the cares of Messrs. Tellson and Co., Bankers, London, England.” On the marriage morning, Doctor Manette had made it his one urgent and express request to Charles Darnay, that the secret of this name should be--unless he, the Doctor, dissolved the obligation--kept inviolate between them. Nobody else knew it to be his name; his own wife had no suspicion of the fact; Mr. Lorry could have none. “No,” said Mr. Lorry, in reply to the House; “I have referred it, I think, to everybody now here, and no one can tell me where this gentleman is to be found.” The hands of the clock verging upon the hour of closing the Bank, there was a general set of the current of talkers past Mr. Lorry’s desk. He held the letter out inquiringly; and Monseigneur looked at it, in the person of this plotting and indignant refugee; and Monseigneur looked at it in the person of that plotting and indignant refugee; and This, That, and The Other, all had something disparaging to say, in French or in English, concerning the Marquis who was not to be found. “Nephew, I believe--but in any case degenerate successor--of the polished Marquis who was murdered,” said one. “Happy to say, I never knew him.” “A craven who abandoned his post,” said another--this Monseigneur had been got out of Paris, legs uppermost and half suffocated, in a load of hay--“some years ago.” “Infected with the new doctrines,” said a third, eyeing the direction through his glass in passing; “set himself in opposition to the last Marquis, abandoned the estates when he inherited them, and left them to the ruffian herd. They will recompense him now, I hope, as he deserves.” “Hey?” cried the blatant Stryver. “Did he though? Is that the sort of fellow? Let us look at his infamous name. D--n the fellow!” Darnay, unable to restrain himself any longer, touched Mr. Stryver on the shoulder, and said: “I know the fellow.” “Do you, by Jupiter?” said Stryver. “I am sorry for it.” “Why?” “Why, Mr. Darnay? D’ye hear what he did? Don’t ask, why, in these times.” “But I do ask why?” “Then I tell you again, Mr. Darnay, I am sorry for it. I am sorry to hear you putting any such extraordinary questions. Here is a fellow, who, infected by the most pestilent and blasphemous code of devilry that ever was known, abandoned his property to the vilest scum of the earth that ever did murder by wholesale, and you ask me why I am sorry that a man who instructs youth knows him? Well, but I’ll answer you. I am sorry because I believe there is contamination in such a scoundrel. That’s why.” Mindful of the secret, Darnay with great difficulty checked himself, and said: “You may not understand the gentleman.” “I understand how to put _you_ in a corner, Mr. Darnay,” said Bully Stryver, “and I’ll do it. If this fellow is a gentleman, I _don’t_ understand him. You may tell him so, with my compliments. You may also tell him, from me, that after abandoning his worldly goods and position to this butcherly mob, I wonder he is not at the head of them. But, no, gentlemen,” said Stryver, looking all round, and snapping his fingers, “I know something of human nature, and I tell you that you’ll never find a fellow like this fellow, trusting himself to the mercies of such precious _protégés_. No, gentlemen; he’ll always show ’em a clean pair of heels very early in the scuffle, and sneak away.” With those words, and a final snap of his fingers, Mr. Stryver shouldered himself into Fleet-street, amidst the general approbation of his hearers. Mr. Lorry and Charles Darnay were left alone at the desk, in the general departure from the Bank. “Will you take charge of the letter?” said Mr. Lorry. “You know where to deliver it?” “I do.” “Will you undertake to explain, that we suppose it to have been addressed here, on the chance of our knowing where to forward it, and that it has been here some time?” “I will do so. Do you start for Paris from here?” “From here, at eight.” “I will come back, to see you off.” Very ill at ease with himself, and with Stryver and most other men, Darnay made the best of his way into the quiet of the Temple, opened the letter, and read it. These were its contents: “Prison of the Abbaye, Paris. “June 21, 1792. “MONSIEUR HERETOFORE THE MARQUIS. “After having long been in danger of my life at the hands of the village, I have been seized, with great violence and indignity, and brought a long journey on foot to Paris. On the road I have suffered a great deal. Nor is that all; my house has been destroyed--razed to the ground. “The crime for which I am imprisoned, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, and for which I shall be summoned before the tribunal, and shall lose my life (without your so generous help), is, they tell me, treason against the majesty of the people, in that I have acted against them for an emigrant. It is in vain I represent that I have acted for them, and not against, according to your commands. It is in vain I represent that, before the sequestration of emigrant property, I had remitted the imposts they had ceased to pay; that I had collected no rent; that I had had recourse to no process. The only response is, that I have acted for an emigrant, and where is that emigrant? “Ah! most gracious Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, where is that emigrant? I cry in my sleep where is he? I demand of Heaven, will he not come to deliver me? No answer. Ah Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I send my desolate cry across the sea, hoping it may perhaps reach your ears through the great bank of Tilson known at Paris! “For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name, I supplicate you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, to succour and release me. My fault is, that I have been true to you. Oh Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, I pray you be you true to me! “From this prison here of horror, whence I every hour tend nearer and nearer to destruction, I send you, Monsieur heretofore the Marquis, the assurance of my dolorous and unhappy service. “Your afflicted, “Gabelle.” The latent uneasiness in Darnay’s mind was roused to vigourous life by this letter. The peril of an old servant and a good one, whose only crime was fidelity to himself and his family, stared him so reproachfully in the face, that, as he walked to and fro in the Temple considering what to do, he almost hid his face from the passersby. He knew very well, that in his horror of the deed which had culminated the bad deeds and bad reputation of the old family house, in his resentful suspicions of his uncle, and in the aversion with which his conscience regarded the crumbling fabric that he was supposed to uphold, he had acted imperfectly. He knew very well, that in his love for Lucie, his renunciation of his social place, though by no means new to his own mind, had been hurried and incomplete. He knew that he ought to have systematically worked it out and supervised it, and that he had meant to do it, and that it had never been done. The happiness of his own chosen English home, the necessity of being always actively employed, the swift changes and troubles of the time which had followed on one another so fast, that the events of this week annihilated the immature plans of last week, and the events of the week following made all new again; he knew very well, that to the force of these circumstances he had yielded:--not without disquiet, but still without continuous and accumulating resistance. That he had watched the times for a time of action, and that they had shifted and struggled until the time had gone by, and the nobility were trooping from France by every highway and byway, and their property was in course of confiscation and destruction, and their very names were blotting out, was as well known to himself as it could be to any new authority in France that might impeach him for it. But, he had oppressed no man, he had imprisoned no man; he was so far from having harshly exacted payment of his dues, that he had relinquished them of his own will, thrown himself on a world with no favour in it, won his own private place there, and earned his own bread. Monsieur Gabelle had held the impoverished and involved estate on written instructions, to spare the people, to give them what little there was to give--such fuel as the heavy creditors would let them have in the winter, and such produce as could be saved from the same grip in the summer--and no doubt he had put the fact in plea and proof, for his own safety, so that it could not but appear now. This favoured the desperate resolution Charles Darnay had begun to make, that he would go to Paris. Yes. Like the mariner in the old story, the winds and streams had driven him within the influence of the Loadstone Rock, and it was drawing him to itself, and he must go. Everything that arose before his mind drifted him on, faster and faster, more and more steadily, to the terrible attraction. His latent uneasiness had been, that bad aims were being worked out in his own unhappy land by bad instruments, and that he who could not fail to know that he was better than they, was not there, trying to do something to stay bloodshed, and assert the claims of mercy and humanity. With this uneasiness half stifled, and half reproaching him, he had been brought to the pointed comparison of himself with the brave old gentleman in whom duty was so strong; upon that comparison (injurious to himself) had instantly followed the sneers of Monseigneur, which had stung him bitterly, and those of Stryver, which above all were coarse and galling, for old reasons. Upon those, had followed Gabelle’s letter: the appeal of an innocent prisoner, in danger of death, to his justice, honour, and good name. His resolution was made. He must go to Paris. Yes. The Loadstone Rock was drawing him, and he must sail on, until he struck. He knew of no rock; he saw hardly any danger. The intention with which he had done what he had done, even although he had left it incomplete, presented it before him in an aspect that would be gratefully acknowledged in France on his presenting himself to assert it. Then, that glorious vision of doing good, which is so often the sanguine mirage of so many good minds, arose before him, and he even saw himself in the illusion with some influence to guide this raging Revolution that was running so fearfully wild. As he walked to and fro with his resolution made, he considered that neither Lucie nor her father must know of it until he was gone. Lucie should be spared the pain of separation; and her father, always reluctant to turn his thoughts towards the dangerous ground of old, should come to the knowledge of the step, as a step taken, and not in the balance of suspense and doubt. How much of the incompleteness of his situation was referable to her father, through the painful anxiety to avoid reviving old associations of France in his mind, he did not discuss with himself. But, that circumstance too, had had its influence in his course. He walked to and fro, with thoughts very busy, until it was time to return to Tellson’s and take leave of Mr. Lorry. As soon as he arrived in Paris he would present himself to this old friend, but he must say nothing of his intention now. A carriage with post-horses was ready at the Bank door, and Jerry was booted and equipped. “I have delivered that letter,” said Charles Darnay to Mr. Lorry. “I would not consent to your being charged with any written answer, but perhaps you will take a verbal one?” “That I will, and readily,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it is not dangerous.” “Not at all. Though it is to a prisoner in the Abbaye.” “What is his name?” said Mr. Lorry, with his open pocket-book in his hand. “Gabelle.” “Gabelle. And what is the message to the unfortunate Gabelle in prison?” “Simply, ‘that he has received the letter, and will come.’” “Any time mentioned?” “He will start upon his journey to-morrow night.” “Any person mentioned?” “No.” He helped Mr. Lorry to wrap himself in a number of coats and cloaks, and went out with him from the warm atmosphere of the old Bank, into the misty air of Fleet-street. “My love to Lucie, and to little Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry at parting, “and take precious care of them till I come back.” Charles Darnay shook his head and doubtfully smiled, as the carriage rolled away. That night--it was the fourteenth of August--he sat up late, and wrote two fervent letters; one was to Lucie, explaining the strong obligation he was under to go to Paris, and showing her, at length, the reasons that he had, for feeling confident that he could become involved in no personal danger there; the other was to the Doctor, confiding Lucie and their dear child to his care, and dwelling on the same topics with the strongest assurances. To both, he wrote that he would despatch letters in proof of his safety, immediately after his arrival. It was a hard day, that day of being among them, with the first reservation of their joint lives on his mind. It was a hard matter to preserve the innocent deceit of which they were profoundly unsuspicious. But, an affectionate glance at his wife, so happy and busy, made him resolute not to tell her what impended (he had been half moved to do it, so strange it was to him to act in anything without her quiet aid), and the day passed quickly. Early in the evening he embraced her, and her scarcely less dear namesake, pretending that he would return by-and-bye (an imaginary engagement took him out, and he had secreted a valise of clothes ready), and so he emerged into the heavy mist of the heavy streets, with a heavier heart. The unseen force was drawing him fast to itself, now, and all the tides and winds were setting straight and strong towards it. He left his two letters with a trusty porter, to be delivered half an hour before midnight, and no sooner; took horse for Dover; and began his journey. “For the love of Heaven, of justice, of generosity, of the honour of your noble name!” was the poor prisoner’s cry with which he strengthened his sinking heart, as he left all that was dear on earth behind him, and floated away for the Loadstone Rock. The end of the second book. Book the Third--the Track of a Storm CHAPTER I. In Secret The traveller fared slowly on his way, who fared towards Paris from England in the autumn of the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two. More than enough of bad roads, bad equipages, and bad horses, he would have encountered to delay him, though the fallen and unfortunate King of France had been upon his throne in all his glory; but, the changed times were fraught with other obstacles than these. Every town-gate and village taxing-house had its band of citizen-patriots, with their national muskets in a most explosive state of readiness, who stopped all comers and goers, cross-questioned them, inspected their papers, looked for their names in lists of their own, turned them back, or sent them on, or stopped them and laid them in hold, as their capricious judgment or fancy deemed best for the dawning Republic One and Indivisible, of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death. A very few French leagues of his journey were accomplished, when Charles Darnay began to perceive that for him along these country roads there was no hope of return until he should have been declared a good citizen at Paris. Whatever might befall now, he must on to his journey’s end. Not a mean village closed upon him, not a common barrier dropped across the road behind him, but he knew it to be another iron door in the series that was barred between him and England. The universal watchfulness so encompassed him, that if he had been taken in a net, or were being forwarded to his destination in a cage, he could not have felt his freedom more completely gone. This universal watchfulness not only stopped him on the highway twenty times in a stage, but retarded his progress twenty times in a day, by riding after him and taking him back, riding before him and stopping him by anticipation, riding with him and keeping him in charge. He had been days upon his journey in France alone, when he went to bed tired out, in a little town on the high road, still a long way from Paris. Nothing but the production of the afflicted Gabelle’s letter from his prison of the Abbaye would have got him on so far. His difficulty at the guard-house in this small place had been such, that he felt his journey to have come to a crisis. And he was, therefore, as little surprised as a man could be, to find himself awakened at the small inn to which he had been remitted until morning, in the middle of the night. Awakened by a timid local functionary and three armed patriots in rough red caps and with pipes in their mouths, who sat down on the bed. “Emigrant,” said the functionary, “I am going to send you on to Paris, under an escort.” “Citizen, I desire nothing more than to get to Paris, though I could dispense with the escort.” “Silence!” growled a red-cap, striking at the coverlet with the butt-end of his musket. “Peace, aristocrat!” “It is as the good patriot says,” observed the timid functionary. “You are an aristocrat, and must have an escort--and must pay for it.” “I have no choice,” said Charles Darnay. “Choice! Listen to him!” cried the same scowling red-cap. “As if it was not a favour to be protected from the lamp-iron!” “It is always as the good patriot says,” observed the functionary. “Rise and dress yourself, emigrant.” Darnay complied, and was taken back to the guard-house, where other patriots in rough red caps were smoking, drinking, and sleeping, by a watch-fire. Here he paid a heavy price for his escort, and hence he started with it on the wet, wet roads at three o’clock in the morning. The escort were two mounted patriots in red caps and tri-coloured cockades, armed with national muskets and sabres, who rode one on either side of him. The escorted governed his own horse, but a loose line was attached to his bridle, the end of which one of the patriots kept girded round his wrist. In this state they set forth with the sharp rain driving in their faces: clattering at a heavy dragoon trot over the uneven town pavement, and out upon the mire-deep roads. In this state they traversed without change, except of horses and pace, all the mire-deep leagues that lay between them and the capital. They travelled in the night, halting an hour or two after daybreak, and lying by until the twilight fell. The escort were so wretchedly clothed, that they twisted straw round their bare legs, and thatched their ragged shoulders to keep the wet off. Apart from the personal discomfort of being so attended, and apart from such considerations of present danger as arose from one of the patriots being chronically drunk, and carrying his musket very recklessly, Charles Darnay did not allow the restraint that was laid upon him to awaken any serious fears in his breast; for, he reasoned with himself that it could have no reference to the merits of an individual case that was not yet stated, and of representations, confirmable by the prisoner in the Abbaye, that were not yet made. But when they came to the town of Beauvais--which they did at eventide, when the streets were filled with people--he could not conceal from himself that the aspect of affairs was very alarming. An ominous crowd gathered to see him dismount of the posting-yard, and many voices called out loudly, “Down with the emigrant!” He stopped in the act of swinging himself out of his saddle, and, resuming it as his safest place, said: “Emigrant, my friends! Do you not see me here, in France, of my own will?” “You are a cursed emigrant,” cried a farrier, making at him in a furious manner through the press, hammer in hand; “and you are a cursed aristocrat!” The postmaster interposed himself between this man and the rider’s bridle (at which he was evidently making), and soothingly said, “Let him be; let him be! He will be judged at Paris.” “Judged!” repeated the farrier, swinging his hammer. “Ay! and condemned as a traitor.” At this the crowd roared approval. Checking the postmaster, who was for turning his horse’s head to the yard (the drunken patriot sat composedly in his saddle looking on, with the line round his wrist), Darnay said, as soon as he could make his voice heard: “Friends, you deceive yourselves, or you are deceived. I am not a traitor.” “He lies!” cried the smith. “He is a traitor since the decree. His life is forfeit to the people. His cursed life is not his own!” At the instant when Darnay saw a rush in the eyes of the crowd, which another instant would have brought upon him, the postmaster turned his horse into the yard, the escort rode in close upon his horse’s flanks, and the postmaster shut and barred the crazy double gates. The farrier struck a blow upon them with his hammer, and the crowd groaned; but, no more was done. “What is this decree that the smith spoke of?” Darnay asked the postmaster, when he had thanked him, and stood beside him in the yard. “Truly, a decree for selling the property of emigrants.” “When passed?” “On the fourteenth.” “The day I left England!” “Everybody says it is but one of several, and that there will be others--if there are not already--banishing all emigrants, and condemning all to death who return. That is what he meant when he said your life was not your own.” “But there are no such decrees yet?” “What do I know!” said the postmaster, shrugging his shoulders; “there may be, or there will be. It is all the same. What would you have?” They rested on some straw in a loft until the middle of the night, and then rode forward again when all the town was asleep. Among the many wild changes observable on familiar things which made this wild ride unreal, not the least was the seeming rarity of sleep. After long and lonely spurring over dreary roads, they would come to a cluster of poor cottages, not steeped in darkness, but all glittering with lights, and would find the people, in a ghostly manner in the dead of the night, circling hand in hand round a shrivelled tree of Liberty, or all drawn up together singing a Liberty song. Happily, however, there was sleep in Beauvais that night to help them out of it and they passed on once more into solitude and loneliness: jingling through the untimely cold and wet, among impoverished fields that had yielded no fruits of the earth that year, diversified by the blackened remains of burnt houses, and by the sudden emergence from ambuscade, and sharp reining up across their way, of patriot patrols on the watch on all the roads. Daylight at last found them before the wall of Paris. The barrier was closed and strongly guarded when they rode up to it. “Where are the papers of this prisoner?” demanded a resolute-looking man in authority, who was summoned out by the guard. Naturally struck by the disagreeable word, Charles Darnay requested the speaker to take notice that he was a free traveller and French citizen, in charge of an escort which the disturbed state of the country had imposed upon him, and which he had paid for. “Where,” repeated the same personage, without taking any heed of him whatever, “are the papers of this prisoner?” The drunken patriot had them in his cap, and produced them. Casting his eyes over Gabelle’s letter, the same personage in authority showed some disorder and surprise, and looked at Darnay with a close attention. He left escort and escorted without saying a word, however, and went into the guard-room; meanwhile, they sat upon their horses outside the gate. Looking about him while in this state of suspense, Charles Darnay observed that the gate was held by a mixed guard of soldiers and patriots, the latter far outnumbering the former; and that while ingress into the city for peasants’ carts bringing in supplies, and for similar traffic and traffickers, was easy enough, egress, even for the homeliest people, was very difficult. A numerous medley of men and women, not to mention beasts and vehicles of various sorts, was waiting to issue forth; but, the previous identification was so strict, that they filtered through the barrier very slowly. Some of these people knew their turn for examination to be so far off, that they lay down on the ground to sleep or smoke, while others talked together, or loitered about. The red cap and tri-colour cockade were universal, both among men and women. When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of these things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in authority, who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he delivered to the escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the escorted, and requested him to dismount. He did so, and the two patriots, leading his tired horse, turned and rode away without entering the city. He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of common wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots, asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were standing and lying about. The light in the guard-house, half derived from the waning oil-lamps of the night, and half from the overcast day, was in a correspondingly uncertain condition. Some registers were lying open on a desk, and an officer of a coarse, dark aspect, presided over these. “Citizen Defarge,” said he to Darnay’s conductor, as he took a slip of paper to write on. “Is this the emigrant Evrémonde?” “This is the man.” “Your age, Evrémonde?” “Thirty-seven.” “Married, Evrémonde?” “Yes.” “Where married?” “In England.” “Without doubt. Where is your wife, Evrémonde?” “In England.” “Without doubt. You are consigned, Evrémonde, to the prison of La Force.” “Just Heaven!” exclaimed Darnay. “Under what law, and for what offence?” The officer looked up from his slip of paper for a moment. “We have new laws, Evrémonde, and new offences, since you were here.” He said it with a hard smile, and went on writing. “I entreat you to observe that I have come here voluntarily, in response to that written appeal of a fellow-countryman which lies before you. I demand no more than the opportunity to do so without delay. Is not that my right?” “Emigrants have no rights, Evrémonde,” was the stolid reply. The officer wrote until he had finished, read over to himself what he had written, sanded it, and handed it to Defarge, with the words “In secret.” Defarge motioned with the paper to the prisoner that he must accompany him. The prisoner obeyed, and a guard of two armed patriots attended them. “Is it you,” said Defarge, in a low voice, as they went down the guardhouse steps and turned into Paris, “who married the daughter of Doctor Manette, once a prisoner in the Bastille that is no more?” “Yes,” replied Darnay, looking at him with surprise. “My name is Defarge, and I keep a wine-shop in the Quarter Saint Antoine. Possibly you have heard of me.” “My wife came to your house to reclaim her father? Yes!” The word “wife” seemed to serve as a gloomy reminder to Defarge, to say with sudden impatience, “In the name of that sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine, why did you come to France?” “You heard me say why, a minute ago. Do you not believe it is the truth?” “A bad truth for you,” said Defarge, speaking with knitted brows, and looking straight before him. “Indeed I am lost here. All here is so unprecedented, so changed, so sudden and unfair, that I am absolutely lost. Will you render me a little help?” “None.” Defarge spoke, always looking straight before him. “Will you answer me a single question?” “Perhaps. According to its nature. You can say what it is.” “In this prison that I am going to so unjustly, shall I have some free communication with the world outside?” “You will see.” “I am not to be buried there, prejudged, and without any means of presenting my case?” “You will see. But, what then? Other people have been similarly buried in worse prisons, before now.” “But never by me, Citizen Defarge.” Defarge glanced darkly at him for answer, and walked on in a steady and set silence. The deeper he sank into this silence, the fainter hope there was--or so Darnay thought--of his softening in any slight degree. He, therefore, made haste to say: “It is of the utmost importance to me (you know, Citizen, even better than I, of how much importance), that I should be able to communicate to Mr. Lorry of Tellson’s Bank, an English gentleman who is now in Paris, the simple fact, without comment, that I have been thrown into the prison of La Force. Will you cause that to be done for me?” “I will do,” Defarge doggedly rejoined, “nothing for you. My duty is to my country and the People. I am the sworn servant of both, against you. I will do nothing for you.” Charles Darnay felt it hopeless to entreat him further, and his pride was touched besides. As they walked on in silence, he could not but see how used the people were to the spectacle of prisoners passing along the streets. The very children scarcely noticed him. A few passers turned their heads, and a few shook their fingers at him as an aristocrat; otherwise, that a man in good clothes should be going to prison, was no more remarkable than that a labourer in working clothes should be going to work. In one narrow, dark, and dirty street through which they passed, an excited orator, mounted on a stool, was addressing an excited audience on the crimes against the people, of the king and the royal family. The few words that he caught from this man’s lips, first made it known to Charles Darnay that the king was in prison, and that the foreign ambassadors had one and all left Paris. On the road (except at Beauvais) he had heard absolutely nothing. The escort and the universal watchfulness had completely isolated him. That he had fallen among far greater dangers than those which had developed themselves when he left England, he of course knew now. That perils had thickened about him fast, and might thicken faster and faster yet, he of course knew now. He could not but admit to himself that he might not have made this journey, if he could have foreseen the events of a few days. And yet his misgivings were not so dark as, imagined by the light of this later time, they would appear. Troubled as the future was, it was the unknown future, and in its obscurity there was ignorant hope. The horrible massacre, days and nights long, which, within a few rounds of the clock, was to set a great mark of blood upon the blessed garnering time of harvest, was as far out of his knowledge as if it had been a hundred thousand years away. The “sharp female newly-born, and called La Guillotine,” was hardly known to him, or to the generality of people, by name. The frightful deeds that were to be soon done, were probably unimagined at that time in the brains of the doers. How could they have a place in the shadowy conceptions of a gentle mind? Of unjust treatment in detention and hardship, and in cruel separation from his wife and child, he foreshadowed the likelihood, or the certainty; but, beyond this, he dreaded nothing distinctly. With this on his mind, which was enough to carry into a dreary prison courtyard, he arrived at the prison of La Force. A man with a bloated face opened the strong wicket, to whom Defarge presented “The Emigrant Evrémonde.” “What the Devil! How many more of them!” exclaimed the man with the bloated face. Defarge took his receipt without noticing the exclamation, and withdrew, with his two fellow-patriots. “What the Devil, I say again!” exclaimed the gaoler, left with his wife. “How many more!” The gaoler’s wife, being provided with no answer to the question, merely replied, “One must have patience, my dear!” Three turnkeys who entered responsive to a bell she rang, echoed the sentiment, and one added, “For the love of Liberty;” which sounded in that place like an inappropriate conclusion. The prison of La Force was a gloomy prison, dark and filthy, and with a horrible smell of foul sleep in it. Extraordinary how soon the noisome flavour of imprisoned sleep, becomes manifest in all such places that are ill cared for! “In secret, too,” grumbled the gaoler, looking at the written paper. “As if I was not already full to bursting!” He stuck the paper on a file, in an ill-humour, and Charles Darnay awaited his further pleasure for half an hour: sometimes, pacing to and fro in the strong arched room: sometimes, resting on a stone seat: in either case detained to be imprinted on the memory of the chief and his subordinates. “Come!” said the chief, at length taking up his keys, “come with me, emigrant.” Through the dismal prison twilight, his new charge accompanied him by corridor and staircase, many doors clanging and locking behind them, until they came into a large, low, vaulted chamber, crowded with prisoners of both sexes. The women were seated at a long table, reading and writing, knitting, sewing, and embroidering; the men were for the most part standing behind their chairs, or lingering up and down the room. In the instinctive association of prisoners with shameful crime and disgrace, the new-comer recoiled from this company. But the crowning unreality of his long unreal ride, was, their all at once rising to receive him, with every refinement of manner known to the time, and with all the engaging graces and courtesies of life. So strangely clouded were these refinements by the prison manners and gloom, so spectral did they become in the inappropriate squalor and misery through which they were seen, that Charles Darnay seemed to stand in a company of the dead. Ghosts all! The ghost of beauty, the ghost of stateliness, the ghost of elegance, the ghost of pride, the ghost of frivolity, the ghost of wit, the ghost of youth, the ghost of age, all waiting their dismissal from the desolate shore, all turning on him eyes that were changed by the death they had died in coming there. It struck him motionless. The gaoler standing at his side, and the other gaolers moving about, who would have been well enough as to appearance in the ordinary exercise of their functions, looked so extravagantly coarse contrasted with sorrowing mothers and blooming daughters who were there--with the apparitions of the coquette, the young beauty, and the mature woman delicately bred--that the inversion of all experience and likelihood which the scene of shadows presented, was heightened to its utmost. Surely, ghosts all. Surely, the long unreal ride some progress of disease that had brought him to these gloomy shades! “In the name of the assembled companions in misfortune,” said a gentleman of courtly appearance and address, coming forward, “I have the honour of giving you welcome to La Force, and of condoling with you on the calamity that has brought you among us. May it soon terminate happily! It would be an impertinence elsewhere, but it is not so here, to ask your name and condition?” Charles Darnay roused himself, and gave the required information, in words as suitable as he could find. “But I hope,” said the gentleman, following the chief gaoler with his eyes, who moved across the room, “that you are not in secret?” “I do not understand the meaning of the term, but I have heard them say so.” “Ah, what a pity! We so much regret it! But take courage; several members of our society have been in secret, at first, and it has lasted but a short time.” Then he added, raising his voice, “I grieve to inform the society--in secret.” There was a murmur of commiseration as Charles Darnay crossed the room to a grated door where the gaoler awaited him, and many voices--among which, the soft and compassionate voices of women were conspicuous--gave him good wishes and encouragement. He turned at the grated door, to render the thanks of his heart; it closed under the gaoler’s hand; and the apparitions vanished from his sight forever. The wicket opened on a stone staircase, leading upward. When they had ascended forty steps (the prisoner of half an hour already counted them), the gaoler opened a low black door, and they passed into a solitary cell. It struck cold and damp, but was not dark. “Yours,” said the gaoler. “Why am I confined alone?” “How do I know!” “I can buy pen, ink, and paper?” “Such are not my orders. You will be visited, and can ask then. At present, you may buy your food, and nothing more.” There were in the cell, a chair, a table, and a straw mattress. As the gaoler made a general inspection of these objects, and of the four walls, before going out, a wandering fancy wandered through the mind of the prisoner leaning against the wall opposite to him, that this gaoler was so unwholesomely bloated, both in face and person, as to look like a man who had been drowned and filled with water. When the gaoler was gone, he thought in the same wandering way, “Now am I left, as if I were dead.” Stopping then, to look down at the mattress, he turned from it with a sick feeling, and thought, “And here in these crawling creatures is the first condition of the body after death.” “Five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half, five paces by four and a half.” The prisoner walked to and fro in his cell, counting its measurement, and the roar of the city arose like muffled drums with a wild swell of voices added to them. “He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes.” The prisoner counted the measurement again, and paced faster, to draw his mind with him from that latter repetition. “The ghosts that vanished when the wicket closed. There was one among them, the appearance of a lady dressed in black, who was leaning in the embrasure of a window, and she had a light shining upon her golden hair, and she looked like * * * * Let us ride on again, for God’s sake, through the illuminated villages with the people all awake! * * * * He made shoes, he made shoes, he made shoes. * * * * Five paces by four and a half.” With such scraps tossing and rolling upward from the depths of his mind, the prisoner walked faster and faster, obstinately counting and counting; and the roar of the city changed to this extent--that it still rolled in like muffled drums, but with the wail of voices that he knew, in the swell that rose above them. CHAPTER II. The Grindstone Tellson’s Bank, established in the Saint Germain Quarter of Paris, was in a wing of a large house, approached by a courtyard and shut off from the street by a high wall and a strong gate. The house belonged to a great nobleman who had lived in it until he made a flight from the troubles, in his own cook’s dress, and got across the borders. A mere beast of the chase flying from hunters, he was still in his metempsychosis no other than the same Monseigneur, the preparation of whose chocolate for whose lips had once occupied three strong men besides the cook in question. Monseigneur gone, and the three strong men absolving themselves from the sin of having drawn his high wages, by being more than ready and willing to cut his throat on the altar of the dawning Republic one and indivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, Monseigneur’s house had been first sequestrated, and then confiscated. For, all things moved so fast, and decree followed decree with that fierce precipitation, that now upon the third night of the autumn month of September, patriot emissaries of the law were in possession of Monseigneur’s house, and had marked it with the tri-colour, and were drinking brandy in its state apartments. A place of business in London like Tellson’s place of business in Paris, would soon have driven the House out of its mind and into the Gazette. For, what would staid British responsibility and respectability have said to orange-trees in boxes in a Bank courtyard, and even to a Cupid over the counter? Yet such things were. Tellson’s had whitewashed the Cupid, but he was still to be seen on the ceiling, in the coolest linen, aiming (as he very often does) at money from morning to night. Bankruptcy must inevitably have come of this young Pagan, in Lombard-street, London, and also of a curtained alcove in the rear of the immortal boy, and also of a looking-glass let into the wall, and also of clerks not at all old, who danced in public on the slightest provocation. Yet, a French Tellson’s could get on with these things exceedingly well, and, as long as the times held together, no man had taken fright at them, and drawn out his money. What money would be drawn out of Tellson’s henceforth, and what would lie there, lost and forgotten; what plate and jewels would tarnish in Tellson’s hiding-places, while the depositors rusted in prisons, and when they should have violently perished; how many accounts with Tellson’s never to be balanced in this world, must be carried over into the next; no man could have said, that night, any more than Mr. Jarvis Lorry could, though he thought heavily of these questions. He sat by a newly-lighted wood fire (the blighted and unfruitful year was prematurely cold), and on his honest and courageous face there was a deeper shade than the pendent lamp could throw, or any object in the room distortedly reflect--a shade of horror. He occupied rooms in the Bank, in his fidelity to the House of which he had grown to be a part, like strong root-ivy. It chanced that they derived a kind of security from the patriotic occupation of the main building, but the true-hearted old gentleman never calculated about that. All such circumstances were indifferent to him, so that he did his duty. On the opposite side of the courtyard, under a colonnade, was extensive standing--for carriages--where, indeed, some carriages of Monseigneur yet stood. Against two of the pillars were fastened two great flaring flambeaux, and in the light of these, standing out in the open air, was a large grindstone: a roughly mounted thing which appeared to have hurriedly been brought there from some neighbouring smithy, or other workshop. Rising and looking out of window at these harmless objects, Mr. Lorry shivered, and retired to his seat by the fire. He had opened, not only the glass window, but the lattice blind outside it, and he had closed both again, and he shivered through his frame. From the streets beyond the high wall and the strong gate, there came the usual night hum of the city, with now and then an indescribable ring in it, weird and unearthly, as if some unwonted sounds of a terrible nature were going up to Heaven. “Thank God,” said Mr. Lorry, clasping his hands, “that no one near and dear to me is in this dreadful town to-night. May He have mercy on all who are in danger!” Soon afterwards, the bell at the great gate sounded, and he thought, “They have come back!” and sat listening. But, there was no loud irruption into the courtyard, as he had expected, and he heard the gate clash again, and all was quiet. The nervousness and dread that were upon him inspired that vague uneasiness respecting the Bank, which a great change would naturally awaken, with such feelings roused. It was well guarded, and he got up to go among the trusty people who were watching it, when his door suddenly opened, and two figures rushed in, at sight of which he fell back in amazement. Lucie and her father! Lucie with her arms stretched out to him, and with that old look of earnestness so concentrated and intensified, that it seemed as though it had been stamped upon her face expressly to give force and power to it in this one passage of her life. “What is this?” cried Mr. Lorry, breathless and confused. “What is the matter? Lucie! Manette! What has happened? What has brought you here? What is it?” With the look fixed upon him, in her paleness and wildness, she panted out in his arms, imploringly, “O my dear friend! My husband!” “Your husband, Lucie?” “Charles.” “What of Charles?” “Here. “Here, in Paris?” “Has been here some days--three or four--I don’t know how many--I can’t collect my thoughts. An errand of generosity brought him here unknown to us; he was stopped at the barrier, and sent to prison.” The old man uttered an irrepressible cry. Almost at the same moment, the bell of the great gate rang again, and a loud noise of feet and voices came pouring into the courtyard. “What is that noise?” said the Doctor, turning towards the window. “Don’t look!” cried Mr. Lorry. “Don’t look out! Manette, for your life, don’t touch the blind!” The Doctor turned, with his hand upon the fastening of the window, and said, with a cool, bold smile: “My dear friend, I have a charmed life in this city. I have been a Bastille prisoner. There is no patriot in Paris--in Paris? In France--who, knowing me to have been a prisoner in the Bastille, would touch me, except to overwhelm me with embraces, or carry me in triumph. My old pain has given me a power that has brought us through the barrier, and gained us news of Charles there, and brought us here. I knew it would be so; I knew I could help Charles out of all danger; I told Lucie so.--What is that noise?” His hand was again upon the window. “Don’t look!” cried Mr. Lorry, absolutely desperate. “No, Lucie, my dear, nor you!” He got his arm round her, and held her. “Don’t be so terrified, my love. I solemnly swear to you that I know of no harm having happened to Charles; that I had no suspicion even of his being in this fatal place. What prison is he in?” “La Force!” “La Force! Lucie, my child, if ever you were brave and serviceable in your life--and you were always both--you will compose yourself now, to do exactly as I bid you; for more depends upon it than you can think, or I can say. There is no help for you in any action on your part to-night; you cannot possibly stir out. I say this, because what I must bid you to do for Charles’s sake, is the hardest thing to do of all. You must instantly be obedient, still, and quiet. You must let me put you in a room at the back here. You must leave your father and me alone for two minutes, and as there are Life and Death in the world you must not delay.” “I will be submissive to you. I see in your face that you know I can do nothing else than this. I know you are true.” The old man kissed her, and hurried her into his room, and turned the key; then, came hurrying back to the Doctor, and opened the window and partly opened the blind, and put his hand upon the Doctor’s arm, and looked out with him into the courtyard. Looked out upon a throng of men and women: not enough in number, or near enough, to fill the courtyard: not more than forty or fifty in all. The people in possession of the house had let them in at the gate, and they had rushed in to work at the grindstone; it had evidently been set up there for their purpose, as in a convenient and retired spot. But, such awful workers, and such awful work! The grindstone had a double handle, and, turning at it madly were two men, whose faces, as their long hair flapped back when the whirlings of the grindstone brought their faces up, were more horrible and cruel than the visages of the wildest savages in their most barbarous disguise. False eyebrows and false moustaches were stuck upon them, and their hideous countenances were all bloody and sweaty, and all awry with howling, and all staring and glaring with beastly excitement and want of sleep. As these ruffians turned and turned, their matted locks now flung forward over their eyes, now flung backward over their necks, some women held wine to their mouths that they might drink; and what with dropping blood, and what with dropping wine, and what with the stream of sparks struck out of the stone, all their wicked atmosphere seemed gore and fire. The eye could not detect one creature in the group free from the smear of blood. Shouldering one another to get next at the sharpening-stone, were men stripped to the waist, with the stain all over their limbs and bodies; men in all sorts of rags, with the stain upon those rags; men devilishly set off with spoils of women’s lace and silk and ribbon, with the stain dyeing those trifles through and through. Hatchets, knives, bayonets, swords, all brought to be sharpened, were all red with it. Some of the hacked swords were tied to the wrists of those who carried them, with strips of linen and fragments of dress: ligatures various in kind, but all deep of the one colour. And as the frantic wielders of these weapons snatched them from the stream of sparks and tore away into the streets, the same red hue was red in their frenzied eyes;--eyes which any unbrutalised beholder would have given twenty years of life, to petrify with a well-directed gun. All this was seen in a moment, as the vision of a drowning man, or of any human creature at any very great pass, could see a world if it were there. They drew back from the window, and the Doctor looked for explanation in his friend’s ashy face. “They are,” Mr. Lorry whispered the words, glancing fearfully round at the locked room, “murdering the prisoners. If you are sure of what you say; if you really have the power you think you have--as I believe you have--make yourself known to these devils, and get taken to La Force. It may be too late, I don’t know, but let it not be a minute later!” Doctor Manette pressed his hand, hastened bareheaded out of the room, and was in the courtyard when Mr. Lorry regained the blind. His streaming white hair, his remarkable face, and the impetuous confidence of his manner, as he put the weapons aside like water, carried him in an instant to the heart of the concourse at the stone. For a few moments there was a pause, and a hurry, and a murmur, and the unintelligible sound of his voice; and then Mr. Lorry saw him, surrounded by all, and in the midst of a line of twenty men long, all linked shoulder to shoulder, and hand to shoulder, hurried out with cries of--“Live the Bastille prisoner! Help for the Bastille prisoner’s kindred in La Force! Room for the Bastille prisoner in front there! Save the prisoner Evrémonde at La Force!” and a thousand answering shouts. He closed the lattice again with a fluttering heart, closed the window and the curtain, hastened to Lucie, and told her that her father was assisted by the people, and gone in search of her husband. He found her child and Miss Pross with her; but, it never occurred to him to be surprised by their appearance until a long time afterwards, when he sat watching them in such quiet as the night knew. Lucie had, by that time, fallen into a stupor on the floor at his feet, clinging to his hand. Miss Pross had laid the child down on his own bed, and her head had gradually fallen on the pillow beside her pretty charge. O the long, long night, with the moans of the poor wife! And O the long, long night, with no return of her father and no tidings! Twice more in the darkness the bell at the great gate sounded, and the irruption was repeated, and the grindstone whirled and spluttered. “What is it?” cried Lucie, affrighted. “Hush! The soldiers’ swords are sharpened there,” said Mr. Lorry. “The place is national property now, and used as a kind of armoury, my love.” Twice more in all; but, the last spell of work was feeble and fitful. Soon afterwards the day began to dawn, and he softly detached himself from the clasping hand, and cautiously looked out again. A man, so besmeared that he might have been a sorely wounded soldier creeping back to consciousness on a field of slain, was rising from the pavement by the side of the grindstone, and looking about him with a vacant air. Shortly, this worn-out murderer descried in the imperfect light one of the carriages of Monseigneur, and, staggering to that gorgeous vehicle, climbed in at the door, and shut himself up to take his rest on its dainty cushions. The great grindstone, Earth, had turned when Mr. Lorry looked out again, and the sun was red on the courtyard. But, the lesser grindstone stood alone there in the calm morning air, with a red upon it that the sun had never given, and would never take away. CHAPTER III. The Shadow One of the first considerations which arose in the business mind of Mr. Lorry when business hours came round, was this:--that he had no right to imperil Tellson’s by sheltering the wife of an emigrant prisoner under the Bank roof. His own possessions, safety, life, he would have hazarded for Lucie and her child, without a moment’s demur; but the great trust he held was not his own, and as to that business charge he was a strict man of business. At first, his mind reverted to Defarge, and he thought of finding out the wine-shop again and taking counsel with its master in reference to the safest dwelling-place in the distracted state of the city. But, the same consideration that suggested him, repudiated him; he lived in the most violent Quarter, and doubtless was influential there, and deep in its dangerous workings. Noon coming, and the Doctor not returning, and every minute’s delay tending to compromise Tellson’s, Mr. Lorry advised with Lucie. She said that her father had spoken of hiring a lodging for a short term, in that Quarter, near the Banking-house. As there was no business objection to this, and as he foresaw that even if it were all well with Charles, and he were to be released, he could not hope to leave the city, Mr. Lorry went out in quest of such a lodging, and found a suitable one, high up in a removed by-street where the closed blinds in all the other windows of a high melancholy square of buildings marked deserted homes. To this lodging he at once removed Lucie and her child, and Miss Pross: giving them what comfort he could, and much more than he had himself. He left Jerry with them, as a figure to fill a doorway that would bear considerable knocking on the head, and returned to his own occupations. A disturbed and doleful mind he brought to bear upon them, and slowly and heavily the day lagged on with him. It wore itself out, and wore him out with it, until the Bank closed. He was again alone in his room of the previous night, considering what to do next, when he heard a foot upon the stair. In a few moments, a man stood in his presence, who, with a keenly observant look at him, addressed him by his name. “Your servant,” said Mr. Lorry. “Do you know me?” He was a strongly made man with dark curling hair, from forty-five to fifty years of age. For answer he repeated, without any change of emphasis, the words: “Do you know me?” “I have seen you somewhere.” “Perhaps at my wine-shop?” Much interested and agitated, Mr. Lorry said: “You come from Doctor Manette?” “Yes. I come from Doctor Manette.” “And what says he? What does he send me?” Defarge gave into his anxious hand, an open scrap of paper. It bore the words in the Doctor’s writing: “Charles is safe, but I cannot safely leave this place yet. I have obtained the favour that the bearer has a short note from Charles to his wife. Let the bearer see his wife.” It was dated from La Force, within an hour. “Will you accompany me,” said Mr. Lorry, joyfully relieved after reading this note aloud, “to where his wife resides?” “Yes,” returned Defarge. Scarcely noticing as yet, in what a curiously reserved and mechanical way Defarge spoke, Mr. Lorry put on his hat and they went down into the courtyard. There, they found two women; one, knitting. “Madame Defarge, surely!” said Mr. Lorry, who had left her in exactly the same attitude some seventeen years ago. “It is she,” observed her husband. “Does Madame go with us?” inquired Mr. Lorry, seeing that she moved as they moved. “Yes. That she may be able to recognise the faces and know the persons. It is for their safety.” Beginning to be struck by Defarge’s manner, Mr. Lorry looked dubiously at him, and led the way. Both the women followed; the second woman being The Vengeance. They passed through the intervening streets as quickly as they might, ascended the staircase of the new domicile, were admitted by Jerry, and found Lucie weeping, alone. She was thrown into a transport by the tidings Mr. Lorry gave her of her husband, and clasped the hand that delivered his note--little thinking what it had been doing near him in the night, and might, but for a chance, have done to him. “DEAREST,--Take courage. I am well, and your father has influence around me. You cannot answer this. Kiss our child for me.” That was all the writing. It was so much, however, to her who received it, that she turned from Defarge to his wife, and kissed one of the hands that knitted. It was a passionate, loving, thankful, womanly action, but the hand made no response--dropped cold and heavy, and took to its knitting again. There was something in its touch that gave Lucie a check. She stopped in the act of putting the note in her bosom, and, with her hands yet at her neck, looked terrified at Madame Defarge. Madame Defarge met the lifted eyebrows and forehead with a cold, impassive stare. “My dear,” said Mr. Lorry, striking in to explain; “there are frequent risings in the streets; and, although it is not likely they will ever trouble you, Madame Defarge wishes to see those whom she has the power to protect at such times, to the end that she may know them--that she may identify them. I believe,” said Mr. Lorry, rather halting in his reassuring words, as the stony manner of all the three impressed itself upon him more and more, “I state the case, Citizen Defarge?” Defarge looked gloomily at his wife, and gave no other answer than a gruff sound of acquiescence. “You had better, Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry, doing all he could to propitiate, by tone and manner, “have the dear child here, and our good Pross. Our good Pross, Defarge, is an English lady, and knows no French.” The lady in question, whose rooted conviction that she was more than a match for any foreigner, was not to be shaken by distress and, danger, appeared with folded arms, and observed in English to The Vengeance, whom her eyes first encountered, “Well, I am sure, Boldface! I hope _you_ are pretty well!” She also bestowed a British cough on Madame Defarge; but, neither of the two took much heed of her. “Is that his child?” said Madame Defarge, stopping in her work for the first time, and pointing her knitting-needle at little Lucie as if it were the finger of Fate. “Yes, madame,” answered Mr. Lorry; “this is our poor prisoner’s darling daughter, and only child.” The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed to fall so threatening and dark on the child, that her mother instinctively kneeled on the ground beside her, and held her to her breast. The shadow attendant on Madame Defarge and her party seemed then to fall, threatening and dark, on both the mother and the child. “It is enough, my husband,” said Madame Defarge. “I have seen them. We may go.” But, the suppressed manner had enough of menace in it--not visible and presented, but indistinct and withheld--to alarm Lucie into saying, as she laid her appealing hand on Madame Defarge’s dress: “You will be good to my poor husband. You will do him no harm. You will help me to see him if you can?” “Your husband is not my business here,” returned Madame Defarge, looking down at her with perfect composure. “It is the daughter of your father who is my business here.” “For my sake, then, be merciful to my husband. For my child’s sake! She will put her hands together and pray you to be merciful. We are more afraid of you than of these others.” Madame Defarge received it as a compliment, and looked at her husband. Defarge, who had been uneasily biting his thumb-nail and looking at her, collected his face into a sterner expression. “What is it that your husband says in that little letter?” asked Madame Defarge, with a lowering smile. “Influence; he says something touching influence?” “That my father,” said Lucie, hurriedly taking the paper from her breast, but with her alarmed eyes on her questioner and not on it, “has much influence around him.” “Surely it will release him!” said Madame Defarge. “Let it do so.” “As a wife and mother,” cried Lucie, most earnestly, “I implore you to have pity on me and not to exercise any power that you possess, against my innocent husband, but to use it in his behalf. O sister-woman, think of me. As a wife and mother!” Madame Defarge looked, coldly as ever, at the suppliant, and said, turning to her friend The Vengeance: “The wives and mothers we have been used to see, since we were as little as this child, and much less, have not been greatly considered? We have known _their_ husbands and fathers laid in prison and kept from them, often enough? All our lives, we have seen our sister-women suffer, in themselves and in their children, poverty, nakedness, hunger, thirst, sickness, misery, oppression and neglect of all kinds?” “We have seen nothing else,” returned The Vengeance. “We have borne this a long time,” said Madame Defarge, turning her eyes again upon Lucie. “Judge you! Is it likely that the trouble of one wife and mother would be much to us now?” She resumed her knitting and went out. The Vengeance followed. Defarge went last, and closed the door. “Courage, my dear Lucie,” said Mr. Lorry, as he raised her. “Courage, courage! So far all goes well with us--much, much better than it has of late gone with many poor souls. Cheer up, and have a thankful heart.” “I am not thankless, I hope, but that dreadful woman seems to throw a shadow on me and on all my hopes.” “Tut, tut!” said Mr. Lorry; “what is this despondency in the brave little breast? A shadow indeed! No substance in it, Lucie.” But the shadow of the manner of these Defarges was dark upon himself, for all that, and in his secret mind it troubled him greatly. CHAPTER IV. Calm in Storm Doctor Manette did not return until the morning of the fourth day of his absence. So much of what had happened in that dreadful time as could be kept from the knowledge of Lucie was so well concealed from her, that not until long afterwards, when France and she were far apart, did she know that eleven hundred defenceless prisoners of both sexes and all ages had been killed by the populace; that four days and nights had been darkened by this deed of horror; and that the air around her had been tainted by the slain. She only knew that there had been an attack upon the prisons, that all political prisoners had been in danger, and that some had been dragged out by the crowd and murdered. To Mr. Lorry, the Doctor communicated under an injunction of secrecy on which he had no need to dwell, that the crowd had taken him through a scene of carnage to the prison of La Force. That, in the prison he had found a self-appointed Tribunal sitting, before which the prisoners were brought singly, and by which they were rapidly ordered to be put forth to be massacred, or to be released, or (in a few cases) to be sent back to their cells. That, presented by his conductors to this Tribunal, he had announced himself by name and profession as having been for eighteen years a secret and unaccused prisoner in the Bastille; that, one of the body so sitting in judgment had risen and identified him, and that this man was Defarge. That, hereupon he had ascertained, through the registers on the table, that his son-in-law was among the living prisoners, and had pleaded hard to the Tribunal--of whom some members were asleep and some awake, some dirty with murder and some clean, some sober and some not--for his life and liberty. That, in the first frantic greetings lavished on himself as a notable sufferer under the overthrown system, it had been accorded to him to have Charles Darnay brought before the lawless Court, and examined. That, he seemed on the point of being at once released, when the tide in his favour met with some unexplained check (not intelligible to the Doctor), which led to a few words of secret conference. That, the man sitting as President had then informed Doctor Manette that the prisoner must remain in custody, but should, for his sake, be held inviolate in safe custody. That, immediately, on a signal, the prisoner was removed to the interior of the prison again; but, that he, the Doctor, had then so strongly pleaded for permission to remain and assure himself that his son-in-law was, through no malice or mischance, delivered to the concourse whose murderous yells outside the gate had often drowned the proceedings, that he had obtained the permission, and had remained in that Hall of Blood until the danger was over. The sights he had seen there, with brief snatches of food and sleep by intervals, shall remain untold. The mad joy over the prisoners who were saved, had astounded him scarcely less than the mad ferocity against those who were cut to pieces. One prisoner there was, he said, who had been discharged into the street free, but at whom a mistaken savage had thrust a pike as he passed out. Being besought to go to him and dress the wound, the Doctor had passed out at the same gate, and had found him in the arms of a company of Samaritans, who were seated on the bodies of their victims. With an inconsistency as monstrous as anything in this awful nightmare, they had helped the healer, and tended the wounded man with the gentlest solicitude--had made a litter for him and escorted him carefully from the spot--had then caught up their weapons and plunged anew into a butchery so dreadful, that the Doctor had covered his eyes with his hands, and swooned away in the midst of it. As Mr. Lorry received these confidences, and as he watched the face of his friend now sixty-two years of age, a misgiving arose within him that such dread experiences would revive the old danger. But, he had never seen his friend in his present aspect: he had never at all known him in his present character. For the first time the Doctor felt, now, that his suffering was strength and power. For the first time he felt that in that sharp fire, he had slowly forged the iron which could break the prison door of his daughter’s husband, and deliver him. “It all tended to a good end, my friend; it was not mere waste and ruin. As my beloved child was helpful in restoring me to myself, I will be helpful now in restoring the dearest part of herself to her; by the aid of Heaven I will do it!” Thus, Doctor Manette. And when Jarvis Lorry saw the kindled eyes, the resolute face, the calm strong look and bearing of the man whose life always seemed to him to have been stopped, like a clock, for so many years, and then set going again with an energy which had lain dormant during the cessation of its usefulness, he believed. Greater things than the Doctor had at that time to contend with, would have yielded before his persevering purpose. While he kept himself in his place, as a physician, whose business was with all degrees of mankind, bond and free, rich and poor, bad and good, he used his personal influence so wisely, that he was soon the inspecting physician of three prisons, and among them of La Force. He could now assure Lucie that her husband was no longer confined alone, but was mixed with the general body of prisoners; he saw her husband weekly, and brought sweet messages to her, straight from his lips; sometimes her husband himself sent a letter to her (though never by the Doctor’s hand), but she was not permitted to write to him: for, among the many wild suspicions of plots in the prisons, the wildest of all pointed at emigrants who were known to have made friends or permanent connections abroad. This new life of the Doctor’s was an anxious life, no doubt; still, the sagacious Mr. Lorry saw that there was a new sustaining pride in it. Nothing unbecoming tinged the pride; it was a natural and worthy one; but he observed it as a curiosity. The Doctor knew, that up to that time, his imprisonment had been associated in the minds of his daughter and his friend, with his personal affliction, deprivation, and weakness. Now that this was changed, and he knew himself to be invested through that old trial with forces to which they both looked for Charles’s ultimate safety and deliverance, he became so far exalted by the change, that he took the lead and direction, and required them as the weak, to trust to him as the strong. The preceding relative positions of himself and Lucie were reversed, yet only as the liveliest gratitude and affection could reverse them, for he could have had no pride but in rendering some service to her who had rendered so much to him. “All curious to see,” thought Mr. Lorry, in his amiably shrewd way, “but all natural and right; so, take the lead, my dear friend, and keep it; it couldn’t be in better hands.” But, though the Doctor tried hard, and never ceased trying, to get Charles Darnay set at liberty, or at least to get him brought to trial, the public current of the time set too strong and fast for him. The new era began; the king was tried, doomed, and beheaded; the Republic of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, declared for victory or death against the world in arms; the black flag waved night and day from the great towers of Notre Dame; three hundred thousand men, summoned to rise against the tyrants of the earth, rose from all the varying soils of France, as if the dragon’s teeth had been sown broadcast, and had yielded fruit equally on hill and plain, on rock, in gravel, and alluvial mud, under the bright sky of the South and under the clouds of the North, in fell and forest, in the vineyards and the olive-grounds and among the cropped grass and the stubble of the corn, along the fruitful banks of the broad rivers, and in the sand of the sea-shore. What private solicitude could rear itself against the deluge of the Year One of Liberty--the deluge rising from below, not falling from above, and with the windows of Heaven shut, not opened! There was no pause, no pity, no peace, no interval of relenting rest, no measurement of time. Though days and nights circled as regularly as when time was young, and the evening and morning were the first day, other count of time there was none. Hold of it was lost in the raging fever of a nation, as it is in the fever of one patient. Now, breaking the unnatural silence of a whole city, the executioner showed the people the head of the king--and now, it seemed almost in the same breath, the head of his fair wife which had had eight weary months of imprisoned widowhood and misery, to turn it grey. And yet, observing the strange law of contradiction which obtains in all such cases, the time was long, while it flamed by so fast. A revolutionary tribunal in the capital, and forty or fifty thousand revolutionary committees all over the land; a law of the Suspected, which struck away all security for liberty or life, and delivered over any good and innocent person to any bad and guilty one; prisons gorged with people who had committed no offence, and could obtain no hearing; these things became the established order and nature of appointed things, and seemed to be ancient usage before they were many weeks old. Above all, one hideous figure grew as familiar as if it had been before the general gaze from the foundations of the world--the figure of the sharp female called La Guillotine. It was the popular theme for jests; it was the best cure for headache, it infallibly prevented the hair from turning grey, it imparted a peculiar delicacy to the complexion, it was the National Razor which shaved close: who kissed La Guillotine, looked through the little window and sneezed into the sack. It was the sign of the regeneration of the human race. It superseded the Cross. Models of it were worn on breasts from which the Cross was discarded, and it was bowed down to and believed in where the Cross was denied. It sheared off heads so many, that it, and the ground it most polluted, were a rotten red. It was taken to pieces, like a toy-puzzle for a young Devil, and was put together again when the occasion wanted it. It hushed the eloquent, struck down the powerful, abolished the beautiful and good. Twenty-two friends of high public mark, twenty-one living and one dead, it had lopped the heads off, in one morning, in as many minutes. The name of the strong man of Old Scripture had descended to the chief functionary who worked it; but, so armed, he was stronger than his namesake, and blinder, and tore away the gates of God’s own Temple every day. Among these terrors, and the brood belonging to them, the Doctor walked with a steady head: confident in his power, cautiously persistent in his end, never doubting that he would save Lucie’s husband at last. Yet the current of the time swept by, so strong and deep, and carried the time away so fiercely, that Charles had lain in prison one year and three months when the Doctor was thus steady and confident. So much more wicked and distracted had the Revolution grown in that December month, that the rivers of the South were encumbered with the bodies of the violently drowned by night, and prisoners were shot in lines and squares under the southern wintry sun. Still, the Doctor walked among the terrors with a steady head. No man better known than he, in Paris at that day; no man in a stranger situation. Silent, humane, indispensable in hospital and prison, using his art equally among assassins and victims, he was a man apart. In the exercise of his skill, the appearance and the story of the Bastille Captive removed him from all other men. He was not suspected or brought in question, any more than if he had indeed been recalled to life some eighteen years before, or were a Spirit moving among mortals. CHAPTER V. The Wood-Sawyer One year and three months. During all that time Lucie was never sure, from hour to hour, but that the Guillotine would strike off her husband’s head next day. Every day, through the stony streets, the tumbrils now jolted heavily, filled with Condemned. Lovely girls; bright women, brown-haired, black-haired, and grey; youths; stalwart men and old; gentle born and peasant born; all red wine for La Guillotine, all daily brought into light from the dark cellars of the loathsome prisons, and carried to her through the streets to slake her devouring thirst. Liberty, equality, fraternity, or death;--the last, much the easiest to bestow, O Guillotine! If the suddenness of her calamity, and the whirling wheels of the time, had stunned the Doctor’s daughter into awaiting the result in idle despair, it would but have been with her as it was with many. But, from the hour when she had taken the white head to her fresh young bosom in the garret of Saint Antoine, she had been true to her duties. She was truest to them in the season of trial, as all the quietly loyal and good will always be. As soon as they were established in their new residence, and her father had entered on the routine of his avocations, she arranged the little household as exactly as if her husband had been there. Everything had its appointed place and its appointed time. Little Lucie she taught, as regularly, as if they had all been united in their English home. The slight devices with which she cheated herself into the show of a belief that they would soon be reunited--the little preparations for his speedy return, the setting aside of his chair and his books--these, and the solemn prayer at night for one dear prisoner especially, among the many unhappy souls in prison and the shadow of death--were almost the only outspoken reliefs of her heavy mind. She did not greatly alter in appearance. The plain dark dresses, akin to mourning dresses, which she and her child wore, were as neat and as well attended to as the brighter clothes of happy days. She lost her colour, and the old and intent expression was a constant, not an occasional, thing; otherwise, she remained very pretty and comely. Sometimes, at night on kissing her father, she would burst into the grief she had repressed all day, and would say that her sole reliance, under Heaven, was on him. He always resolutely answered: “Nothing can happen to him without my knowledge, and I know that I can save him, Lucie.” They had not made the round of their changed life many weeks, when her father said to her, on coming home one evening: “My dear, there is an upper window in the prison, to which Charles can sometimes gain access at three in the afternoon. When he can get to it--which depends on many uncertainties and incidents--he might see you in the street, he thinks, if you stood in a certain place that I can show you. But you will not be able to see him, my poor child, and even if you could, it would be unsafe for you to make a sign of recognition.” “O show me the place, my father, and I will go there every day.” From that time, in all weathers, she waited there two hours. As the clock struck two, she was there, and at four she turned resignedly away. When it was not too wet or inclement for her child to be with her, they went together; at other times she was alone; but, she never missed a single day. It was the dark and dirty corner of a small winding street. The hovel of a cutter of wood into lengths for burning, was the only house at that end; all else was wall. On the third day of her being there, he noticed her. “Good day, citizeness.” “Good day, citizen.” This mode of address was now prescribed by decree. It had been established voluntarily some time ago, among the more thorough patriots; but, was now law for everybody. “Walking here again, citizeness?” “You see me, citizen!” The wood-sawyer, who was a little man with a redundancy of gesture (he had once been a mender of roads), cast a glance at the prison, pointed at the prison, and putting his ten fingers before his face to represent bars, peeped through them jocosely. “But it’s not my business,” said he. And went on sawing his wood. Next day he was looking out for her, and accosted her the moment she appeared. “What? Walking here again, citizeness?” “Yes, citizen.” “Ah! A child too! Your mother, is it not, my little citizeness?” “Do I say yes, mamma?” whispered little Lucie, drawing close to her. “Yes, dearest.” “Yes, citizen.” “Ah! But it’s not my business. My work is my business. See my saw! I call it my Little Guillotine. La, la, la; La, la, la! And off his head comes!” The billet fell as he spoke, and he threw it into a basket. “I call myself the Samson of the firewood guillotine. See here again! Loo, loo, loo; Loo, loo, loo! And off _her_ head comes! Now, a child. Tickle, tickle; Pickle, pickle! And off _its_ head comes. All the family!” Lucie shuddered as he threw two more billets into his basket, but it was impossible to be there while the wood-sawyer was at work, and not be in his sight. Thenceforth, to secure his good will, she always spoke to him first, and often gave him drink-money, which he readily received. He was an inquisitive fellow, and sometimes when she had quite forgotten him in gazing at the prison roof and grates, and in lifting her heart up to her husband, she would come to herself to find him looking at her, with his knee on his bench and his saw stopped in its work. “But it’s not my business!” he would generally say at those times, and would briskly fall to his sawing again. In all weathers, in the snow and frost of winter, in the bitter winds of spring, in the hot sunshine of summer, in the rains of autumn, and again in the snow and frost of winter, Lucie passed two hours of every day at this place; and every day on leaving it, she kissed the prison wall. Her husband saw her (so she learned from her father) it might be once in five or six times: it might be twice or thrice running: it might be, not for a week or a fortnight together. It was enough that he could and did see her when the chances served, and on that possibility she would have waited out the day, seven days a week. These occupations brought her round to the December month, wherein her father walked among the terrors with a steady head. On a lightly-snowing afternoon she arrived at the usual corner. It was a day of some wild rejoicing, and a festival. She had seen the houses, as she came along, decorated with little pikes, and with little red caps stuck upon them; also, with tricoloured ribbons; also, with the standard inscription (tricoloured letters were the favourite), Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death! The miserable shop of the wood-sawyer was so small, that its whole surface furnished very indifferent space for this legend. He had got somebody to scrawl it up for him, however, who had squeezed Death in with most inappropriate difficulty. On his house-top, he displayed pike and cap, as a good citizen must, and in a window he had stationed his saw inscribed as his “Little Sainte Guillotine”--for the great sharp female was by that time popularly canonised. His shop was shut and he was not there, which was a relief to Lucie, and left her quite alone. But, he was not far off, for presently she heard a troubled movement and a shouting coming along, which filled her with fear. A moment afterwards, and a throng of people came pouring round the corner by the prison wall, in the midst of whom was the wood-sawyer hand in hand with The Vengeance. There could not be fewer than five hundred people, and they were dancing like five thousand demons. There was no other music than their own singing. They danced to the popular Revolution song, keeping a ferocious time that was like a gnashing of teeth in unison. Men and women danced together, women danced together, men danced together, as hazard had brought them together. At first, they were a mere storm of coarse red caps and coarse woollen rags; but, as they filled the place, and stopped to dance about Lucie, some ghastly apparition of a dance-figure gone raving mad arose among them. They advanced, retreated, struck at one another’s hands, clutched at one another’s heads, spun round alone, caught one another and spun round in pairs, until many of them dropped. While those were down, the rest linked hand in hand, and all spun round together: then the ring broke, and in separate rings of two and four they turned and turned until they all stopped at once, began again, struck, clutched, and tore, and then reversed the spin, and all spun round another way. Suddenly they stopped again, paused, struck out the time afresh, formed into lines the width of the public way, and, with their heads low down and their hands high up, swooped screaming off. No fight could have been half so terrible as this dance. It was so emphatically a fallen sport--a something, once innocent, delivered over to all devilry--a healthy pastime changed into a means of angering the blood, bewildering the senses, and steeling the heart. Such grace as was visible in it, made it the uglier, showing how warped and perverted all things good by nature were become. The maidenly bosom bared to this, the pretty almost-child’s head thus distracted, the delicate foot mincing in this slough of blood and dirt, were types of the disjointed time. This was the Carmagnole. As it passed, leaving Lucie frightened and bewildered in the doorway of the wood-sawyer’s house, the feathery snow fell as quietly and lay as white and soft, as if it had never been. “O my father!” for he stood before her when she lifted up the eyes she had momentarily darkened with her hand; “such a cruel, bad sight.” “I know, my dear, I know. I have seen it many times. Don’t be frightened! Not one of them would harm you.” “I am not frightened for myself, my father. But when I think of my husband, and the mercies of these people--” “We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left him climbing to the window, and I came to tell you. There is no one here to see. You may kiss your hand towards that highest shelving roof.” “I do so, father, and I send him my Soul with it!” “You cannot see him, my poor dear?” “No, father,” said Lucie, yearning and weeping as she kissed her hand, “no.” A footstep in the snow. Madame Defarge. “I salute you, citizeness,” from the Doctor. “I salute you, citizen.” This in passing. Nothing more. Madame Defarge gone, like a shadow over the white road. “Give me your arm, my love. Pass from here with an air of cheerfulness and courage, for his sake. That was well done;” they had left the spot; “it shall not be in vain. Charles is summoned for to-morrow.” “For to-morrow!” “There is no time to lose. I am well prepared, but there are precautions to be taken, that could not be taken until he was actually summoned before the Tribunal. He has not received the notice yet, but I know that he will presently be summoned for to-morrow, and removed to the Conciergerie; I have timely information. You are not afraid?” She could scarcely answer, “I trust in you.” “Do so, implicitly. Your suspense is nearly ended, my darling; he shall be restored to you within a few hours; I have encompassed him with every protection. I must see Lorry.” He stopped. There was a heavy lumbering of wheels within hearing. They both knew too well what it meant. One. Two. Three. Three tumbrils faring away with their dread loads over the hushing snow. “I must see Lorry,” the Doctor repeated, turning her another way. The staunch old gentleman was still in his trust; had never left it. He and his books were in frequent requisition as to property confiscated and made national. What he could save for the owners, he saved. No better man living to hold fast by what Tellson’s had in keeping, and to hold his peace. A murky red and yellow sky, and a rising mist from the Seine, denoted the approach of darkness. It was almost dark when they arrived at the Bank. The stately residence of Monseigneur was altogether blighted and deserted. Above a heap of dust and ashes in the court, ran the letters: National Property. Republic One and Indivisible. Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death! Who could that be with Mr. Lorry--the owner of the riding-coat upon the chair--who must not be seen? From whom newly arrived, did he come out, agitated and surprised, to take his favourite in his arms? To whom did he appear to repeat her faltering words, when, raising his voice and turning his head towards the door of the room from which he had issued, he said: “Removed to the Conciergerie, and summoned for to-morrow?” CHAPTER VI. Triumph The dread tribunal of five Judges, Public Prosecutor, and determined Jury, sat every day. Their lists went forth every evening, and were read out by the gaolers of the various prisons to their prisoners. The standard gaoler-joke was, “Come out and listen to the Evening Paper, you inside there!” “Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay!” So at last began the Evening Paper at La Force. When a name was called, its owner stepped apart into a spot reserved for those who were announced as being thus fatally recorded. Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay, had reason to know the usage; he had seen hundreds pass away so. His bloated gaoler, who wore spectacles to read with, glanced over them to assure himself that he had taken his place, and went through the list, making a similar short pause at each name. There were twenty-three names, but only twenty were responded to; for one of the prisoners so summoned had died in gaol and been forgotten, and two had already been guillotined and forgotten. The list was read, in the vaulted chamber where Darnay had seen the associated prisoners on the night of his arrival. Every one of those had perished in the massacre; every human creature he had since cared for and parted with, had died on the scaffold. There were hurried words of farewell and kindness, but the parting was soon over. It was the incident of every day, and the society of La Force were engaged in the preparation of some games of forfeits and a little concert, for that evening. They crowded to the grates and shed tears there; but, twenty places in the projected entertainments had to be refilled, and the time was, at best, short to the lock-up hour, when the common rooms and corridors would be delivered over to the great dogs who kept watch there through the night. The prisoners were far from insensible or unfeeling; their ways arose out of the condition of the time. Similarly, though with a subtle difference, a species of fervour or intoxication, known, without doubt, to have led some persons to brave the guillotine unnecessarily, and to die by it, was not mere boastfulness, but a wild infection of the wildly shaken public mind. In seasons of pestilence, some of us will have a secret attraction to the disease--a terrible passing inclination to die of it. And all of us have like wonders hidden in our breasts, only needing circumstances to evoke them. The passage to the Conciergerie was short and dark; the night in its vermin-haunted cells was long and cold. Next day, fifteen prisoners were put to the bar before Charles Darnay’s name was called. All the fifteen were condemned, and the trials of the whole occupied an hour and a half. “Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay,” was at length arraigned. His judges sat upon the Bench in feathered hats; but the rough red cap and tricoloured cockade was the head-dress otherwise prevailing. Looking at the Jury and the turbulent audience, he might have thought that the usual order of things was reversed, and that the felons were trying the honest men. The lowest, cruelest, and worst populace of a city, never without its quantity of low, cruel, and bad, were the directing spirits of the scene: noisily commenting, applauding, disapproving, anticipating, and precipitating the result, without a check. Of the men, the greater part were armed in various ways; of the women, some wore knives, some daggers, some ate and drank as they looked on, many knitted. Among these last, was one, with a spare piece of knitting under her arm as she worked. She was in a front row, by the side of a man whom he had never seen since his arrival at the Barrier, but whom he directly remembered as Defarge. He noticed that she once or twice whispered in his ear, and that she seemed to be his wife; but, what he most noticed in the two figures was, that although they were posted as close to himself as they could be, they never looked towards him. They seemed to be waiting for something with a dogged determination, and they looked at the Jury, but at nothing else. Under the President sat Doctor Manette, in his usual quiet dress. As well as the prisoner could see, he and Mr. Lorry were the only men there, unconnected with the Tribunal, who wore their usual clothes, and had not assumed the coarse garb of the Carmagnole. Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay, was accused by the public prosecutor as an emigrant, whose life was forfeit to the Republic, under the decree which banished all emigrants on pain of Death. It was nothing that the decree bore date since his return to France. There he was, and there was the decree; he had been taken in France, and his head was demanded. “Take off his head!” cried the audience. “An enemy to the Republic!” The President rang his bell to silence those cries, and asked the prisoner whether it was not true that he had lived many years in England? Undoubtedly it was. Was he not an emigrant then? What did he call himself? Not an emigrant, he hoped, within the sense and spirit of the law. Why not? the President desired to know. Because he had voluntarily relinquished a title that was distasteful to him, and a station that was distasteful to him, and had left his country--he submitted before the word emigrant in the present acceptation by the Tribunal was in use--to live by his own industry in England, rather than on the industry of the overladen people of France. What proof had he of this? He handed in the names of two witnesses; Theophile Gabelle, and Alexandre Manette. But he had married in England? the President reminded him. True, but not an English woman. A citizeness of France? Yes. By birth. Her name and family? “Lucie Manette, only daughter of Doctor Manette, the good physician who sits there.” This answer had a happy effect upon the audience. Cries in exaltation of the well-known good physician rent the hall. So capriciously were the people moved, that tears immediately rolled down several ferocious countenances which had been glaring at the prisoner a moment before, as if with impatience to pluck him out into the streets and kill him. On these few steps of his dangerous way, Charles Darnay had set his foot according to Doctor Manette’s reiterated instructions. The same cautious counsel directed every step that lay before him, and had prepared every inch of his road. The President asked, why had he returned to France when he did, and not sooner? He had not returned sooner, he replied, simply because he had no means of living in France, save those he had resigned; whereas, in England, he lived by giving instruction in the French language and literature. He had returned when he did, on the pressing and written entreaty of a French citizen, who represented that his life was endangered by his absence. He had come back, to save a citizen’s life, and to bear his testimony, at whatever personal hazard, to the truth. Was that criminal in the eyes of the Republic? The populace cried enthusiastically, “No!” and the President rang his bell to quiet them. Which it did not, for they continued to cry “No!” until they left off, of their own will. The President required the name of that citizen. The accused explained that the citizen was his first witness. He also referred with confidence to the citizen’s letter, which had been taken from him at the Barrier, but which he did not doubt would be found among the papers then before the President. The Doctor had taken care that it should be there--had assured him that it would be there--and at this stage of the proceedings it was produced and read. Citizen Gabelle was called to confirm it, and did so. Citizen Gabelle hinted, with infinite delicacy and politeness, that in the pressure of business imposed on the Tribunal by the multitude of enemies of the Republic with which it had to deal, he had been slightly overlooked in his prison of the Abbaye--in fact, had rather passed out of the Tribunal’s patriotic remembrance--until three days ago; when he had been summoned before it, and had been set at liberty on the Jury’s declaring themselves satisfied that the accusation against him was answered, as to himself, by the surrender of the citizen Evrémonde, called Darnay. Doctor Manette was next questioned. His high personal popularity, and the clearness of his answers, made a great impression; but, as he proceeded, as he showed that the Accused was his first friend on his release from his long imprisonment; that, the accused had remained in England, always faithful and devoted to his daughter and himself in their exile; that, so far from being in favour with the Aristocrat government there, he had actually been tried for his life by it, as the foe of England and friend of the United States--as he brought these circumstances into view, with the greatest discretion and with the straightforward force of truth and earnestness, the Jury and the populace became one. At last, when he appealed by name to Monsieur Lorry, an English gentleman then and there present, who, like himself, had been a witness on that English trial and could corroborate his account of it, the Jury declared that they had heard enough, and that they were ready with their votes if the President were content to receive them. At every vote (the Jurymen voted aloud and individually), the populace set up a shout of applause. All the voices were in the prisoner’s favour, and the President declared him free. Then, began one of those extraordinary scenes with which the populace sometimes gratified their fickleness, or their better impulses towards generosity and mercy, or which they regarded as some set-off against their swollen account of cruel rage. No man can decide now to which of these motives such extraordinary scenes were referable; it is probable, to a blending of all the three, with the second predominating. No sooner was the acquittal pronounced, than tears were shed as freely as blood at another time, and such fraternal embraces were bestowed upon the prisoner by as many of both sexes as could rush at him, that after his long and unwholesome confinement he was in danger of fainting from exhaustion; none the less because he knew very well, that the very same people, carried by another current, would have rushed at him with the very same intensity, to rend him to pieces and strew him over the streets. His removal, to make way for other accused persons who were to be tried, rescued him from these caresses for the moment. Five were to be tried together, next, as enemies of the Republic, forasmuch as they had not assisted it by word or deed. So quick was the Tribunal to compensate itself and the nation for a chance lost, that these five came down to him before he left the place, condemned to die within twenty-four hours. The first of them told him so, with the customary prison sign of Death--a raised finger--and they all added in words, “Long live the Republic!” The five had had, it is true, no audience to lengthen their proceedings, for when he and Doctor Manette emerged from the gate, there was a great crowd about it, in which there seemed to be every face he had seen in Court--except two, for which he looked in vain. On his coming out, the concourse made at him anew, weeping, embracing, and shouting, all by turns and all together, until the very tide of the river on the bank of which the mad scene was acted, seemed to run mad, like the people on the shore. They put him into a great chair they had among them, and which they had taken either out of the Court itself, or one of its rooms or passages. Over the chair they had thrown a red flag, and to the back of it they had bound a pike with a red cap on its top. In this car of triumph, not even the Doctor’s entreaties could prevent his being carried to his home on men’s shoulders, with a confused sea of red caps heaving about him, and casting up to sight from the stormy deep such wrecks of faces, that he more than once misdoubted his mind being in confusion, and that he was in the tumbril on his way to the Guillotine. In wild dreamlike procession, embracing whom they met and pointing him out, they carried him on. Reddening the snowy streets with the prevailing Republican colour, in winding and tramping through them, as they had reddened them below the snow with a deeper dye, they carried him thus into the courtyard of the building where he lived. Her father had gone on before, to prepare her, and when her husband stood upon his feet, she dropped insensible in his arms. As he held her to his heart and turned her beautiful head between his face and the brawling crowd, so that his tears and her lips might come together unseen, a few of the people fell to dancing. Instantly, all the rest fell to dancing, and the courtyard overflowed with the Carmagnole. Then, they elevated into the vacant chair a young woman from the crowd to be carried as the Goddess of Liberty, and then swelling and overflowing out into the adjacent streets, and along the river’s bank, and over the bridge, the Carmagnole absorbed them every one and whirled them away. After grasping the Doctor’s hand, as he stood victorious and proud before him; after grasping the hand of Mr. Lorry, who came panting in breathless from his struggle against the waterspout of the Carmagnole; after kissing little Lucie, who was lifted up to clasp her arms round his neck; and after embracing the ever zealous and faithful Pross who lifted her; he took his wife in his arms, and carried her up to their rooms. “Lucie! My own! I am safe.” “O dearest Charles, let me thank God for this on my knees as I have prayed to Him.” They all reverently bowed their heads and hearts. When she was again in his arms, he said to her: “And now speak to your father, dearest. No other man in all this France could have done what he has done for me.” She laid her head upon her father’s breast, as she had laid his poor head on her own breast, long, long ago. He was happy in the return he had made her, he was recompensed for his suffering, he was proud of his strength. “You must not be weak, my darling,” he remonstrated; “don’t tremble so. I have saved him.” CHAPTER VII. A Knock at the Door “I have saved him.” It was not another of the dreams in which he had often come back; he was really here. And yet his wife trembled, and a vague but heavy fear was upon her. All the air round was so thick and dark, the people were so passionately revengeful and fitful, the innocent were so constantly put to death on vague suspicion and black malice, it was so impossible to forget that many as blameless as her husband and as dear to others as he was to her, every day shared the fate from which he had been clutched, that her heart could not be as lightened of its load as she felt it ought to be. The shadows of the wintry afternoon were beginning to fall, and even now the dreadful carts were rolling through the streets. Her mind pursued them, looking for him among the Condemned; and then she clung closer to his real presence and trembled more. Her father, cheering her, showed a compassionate superiority to this woman’s weakness, which was wonderful to see. No garret, no shoemaking, no One Hundred and Five, North Tower, now! He had accomplished the task he had set himself, his promise was redeemed, he had saved Charles. Let them all lean upon him. Their housekeeping was of a very frugal kind: not only because that was the safest way of life, involving the least offence to the people, but because they were not rich, and Charles, throughout his imprisonment, had had to pay heavily for his bad food, and for his guard, and towards the living of the poorer prisoners. Partly on this account, and partly to avoid a domestic spy, they kept no servant; the citizen and citizeness who acted as porters at the courtyard gate, rendered them occasional service; and Jerry (almost wholly transferred to them by Mr. Lorry) had become their daily retainer, and had his bed there every night. It was an ordinance of the Republic One and Indivisible of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death, that on the door or doorpost of every house, the name of every inmate must be legibly inscribed in letters of a certain size, at a certain convenient height from the ground. Mr. Jerry Cruncher’s name, therefore, duly embellished the doorpost down below; and, as the afternoon shadows deepened, the owner of that name himself appeared, from overlooking a painter whom Doctor Manette had employed to add to the list the name of Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay. In the universal fear and distrust that darkened the time, all the usual harmless ways of life were changed. In the Doctor’s little household, as in very many others, the articles of daily consumption that were wanted were purchased every evening, in small quantities and at various small shops. To avoid attracting notice, and to give as little occasion as possible for talk and envy, was the general desire. For some months past, Miss Pross and Mr. Cruncher had discharged the office of purveyors; the former carrying the money; the latter, the basket. Every afternoon at about the time when the public lamps were lighted, they fared forth on this duty, and made and brought home such purchases as were needful. Although Miss Pross, through her long association with a French family, might have known as much of their language as of her own, if she had had a mind, she had no mind in that direction; consequently she knew no more of that “nonsense” (as she was pleased to call it) than Mr. Cruncher did. So her manner of marketing was to plump a noun-substantive at the head of a shopkeeper without any introduction in the nature of an article, and, if it happened not to be the name of the thing she wanted, to look round for that thing, lay hold of it, and hold on by it until the bargain was concluded. She always made a bargain for it, by holding up, as a statement of its just price, one finger less than the merchant held up, whatever his number might be. “Now, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, whose eyes were red with felicity; “if you are ready, I am.” Jerry hoarsely professed himself at Miss Pross’s service. He had worn all his rust off long ago, but nothing would file his spiky head down. “There’s all manner of things wanted,” said Miss Pross, “and we shall have a precious time of it. We want wine, among the rest. Nice toasts these Redheads will be drinking, wherever we buy it.” “It will be much the same to your knowledge, miss, I should think,” retorted Jerry, “whether they drink your health or the Old Un’s.” “Who’s he?” said Miss Pross. Mr. Cruncher, with some diffidence, explained himself as meaning “Old Nick’s.” “Ha!” said Miss Pross, “it doesn’t need an interpreter to explain the meaning of these creatures. They have but one, and it’s Midnight Murder, and Mischief.” “Hush, dear! Pray, pray, be cautious!” cried Lucie. “Yes, yes, yes, I’ll be cautious,” said Miss Pross; “but I may say among ourselves, that I do hope there will be no oniony and tobaccoey smotherings in the form of embracings all round, going on in the streets. Now, Ladybird, never you stir from that fire till I come back! Take care of the dear husband you have recovered, and don’t move your pretty head from his shoulder as you have it now, till you see me again! May I ask a question, Doctor Manette, before I go?” “I think you may take that liberty,” the Doctor answered, smiling. “For gracious sake, don’t talk about Liberty; we have quite enough of that,” said Miss Pross. “Hush, dear! Again?” Lucie remonstrated. “Well, my sweet,” said Miss Pross, nodding her head emphatically, “the short and the long of it is, that I am a subject of His Most Gracious Majesty King George the Third;” Miss Pross curtseyed at the name; “and as such, my maxim is, Confound their politics, Frustrate their knavish tricks, On him our hopes we fix, God save the King!” Mr. Cruncher, in an access of loyalty, growlingly repeated the words after Miss Pross, like somebody at church. “I am glad you have so much of the Englishman in you, though I wish you had never taken that cold in your voice,” said Miss Pross, approvingly. “But the question, Doctor Manette. Is there”--it was the good creature’s way to affect to make light of anything that was a great anxiety with them all, and to come at it in this chance manner--“is there any prospect yet, of our getting out of this place?” “I fear not yet. It would be dangerous for Charles yet.” “Heigh-ho-hum!” said Miss Pross, cheerfully repressing a sigh as she glanced at her darling’s golden hair in the light of the fire, “then we must have patience and wait: that’s all. We must hold up our heads and fight low, as my brother Solomon used to say. Now, Mr. Cruncher!--Don’t you move, Ladybird!” They went out, leaving Lucie, and her husband, her father, and the child, by a bright fire. Mr. Lorry was expected back presently from the Banking House. Miss Pross had lighted the lamp, but had put it aside in a corner, that they might enjoy the fire-light undisturbed. Little Lucie sat by her grandfather with her hands clasped through his arm: and he, in a tone not rising much above a whisper, began to tell her a story of a great and powerful Fairy who had opened a prison-wall and let out a captive who had once done the Fairy a service. All was subdued and quiet, and Lucie was more at ease than she had been. “What is that?” she cried, all at once. “My dear!” said her father, stopping in his story, and laying his hand on hers, “command yourself. What a disordered state you are in! The least thing--nothing--startles you! _You_, your father’s daughter!” “I thought, my father,” said Lucie, excusing herself, with a pale face and in a faltering voice, “that I heard strange feet upon the stairs.” “My love, the staircase is as still as Death.” As he said the word, a blow was struck upon the door. “Oh father, father. What can this be! Hide Charles. Save him!” “My child,” said the Doctor, rising, and laying his hand upon her shoulder, “I _have_ saved him. What weakness is this, my dear! Let me go to the door.” He took the lamp in his hand, crossed the two intervening outer rooms, and opened it. A rude clattering of feet over the floor, and four rough men in red caps, armed with sabres and pistols, entered the room. “The Citizen Evrémonde, called Darnay,” said the first. “Who seeks him?” answered Darnay. “I seek him. We seek him. I know you, Evrémonde; I saw you before the Tribunal to-day. You are again the prisoner of the Republic.” The four surrounded him, where he stood with his wife and child clinging to him. “Tell me how and why am I again a prisoner?” “It is enough that you return straight to the Conciergerie, and will know to-morrow. You are summoned for to-morrow.” Doctor Manette, whom this visitation had so turned into stone, that he stood with the lamp in his hand, as if he were a statue made to hold it, moved after these words were spoken, put the lamp down, and confronting the speaker, and taking him, not ungently, by the loose front of his red woollen shirt, said: “You know him, you have said. Do you know me?” “Yes, I know you, Citizen Doctor.” “We all know you, Citizen Doctor,” said the other three. He looked abstractedly from one to another, and said, in a lower voice, after a pause: “Will you answer his question to me then? How does this happen?” “Citizen Doctor,” said the first, reluctantly, “he has been denounced to the Section of Saint Antoine. This citizen,” pointing out the second who had entered, “is from Saint Antoine.” The citizen here indicated nodded his head, and added: “He is accused by Saint Antoine.” “Of what?” asked the Doctor. “Citizen Doctor,” said the first, with his former reluctance, “ask no more. If the Republic demands sacrifices from you, without doubt you as a good patriot will be happy to make them. The Republic goes before all. The People is supreme. Evrémonde, we are pressed.” “One word,” the Doctor entreated. “Will you tell me who denounced him?” “It is against rule,” answered the first; “but you can ask Him of Saint Antoine here.” The Doctor turned his eyes upon that man. Who moved uneasily on his feet, rubbed his beard a little, and at length said: “Well! Truly it is against rule. But he is denounced--and gravely--by the Citizen and Citizeness Defarge. And by one other.” “What other?” “Do _you_ ask, Citizen Doctor?” “Yes.” “Then,” said he of Saint Antoine, with a strange look, “you will be answered to-morrow. Now, I am dumb!” CHAPTER VIII. A Hand at Cards Happily unconscious of the new calamity at home, Miss Pross threaded her way along the narrow streets and crossed the river by the bridge of the Pont-Neuf, reckoning in her mind the number of indispensable purchases she had to make. Mr. Cruncher, with the basket, walked at her side. They both looked to the right and to the left into most of the shops they passed, had a wary eye for all gregarious assemblages of people, and turned out of their road to avoid any very excited group of talkers. It was a raw evening, and the misty river, blurred to the eye with blazing lights and to the ear with harsh noises, showed where the barges were stationed in which the smiths worked, making guns for the Army of the Republic. Woe to the man who played tricks with _that_ Army, or got undeserved promotion in it! Better for him that his beard had never grown, for the National Razor shaved him close. Having purchased a few small articles of grocery, and a measure of oil for the lamp, Miss Pross bethought herself of the wine they wanted. After peeping into several wine-shops, she stopped at the sign of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, not far from the National Palace, once (and twice) the Tuileries, where the aspect of things rather took her fancy. It had a quieter look than any other place of the same description they had passed, and, though red with patriotic caps, was not so red as the rest. Sounding Mr. Cruncher, and finding him of her opinion, Miss Pross resorted to the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, attended by her cavalier. Slightly observant of the smoky lights; of the people, pipe in mouth, playing with limp cards and yellow dominoes; of the one bare-breasted, bare-armed, soot-begrimed workman reading a journal aloud, and of the others listening to him; of the weapons worn, or laid aside to be resumed; of the two or three customers fallen forward asleep, who in the popular high-shouldered shaggy black spencer looked, in that attitude, like slumbering bears or dogs; the two outlandish customers approached the counter, and showed what they wanted. As their wine was measuring out, a man parted from another man in a corner, and rose to depart. In going, he had to face Miss Pross. No sooner did he face her, than Miss Pross uttered a scream, and clapped her hands. In a moment, the whole company were on their feet. That somebody was assassinated by somebody vindicating a difference of opinion was the likeliest occurrence. Everybody looked to see somebody fall, but only saw a man and a woman standing staring at each other; the man with all the outward aspect of a Frenchman and a thorough Republican; the woman, evidently English. What was said in this disappointing anti-climax, by the disciples of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, except that it was something very voluble and loud, would have been as so much Hebrew or Chaldean to Miss Pross and her protector, though they had been all ears. But, they had no ears for anything in their surprise. For, it must be recorded, that not only was Miss Pross lost in amazement and agitation, but, Mr. Cruncher--though it seemed on his own separate and individual account--was in a state of the greatest wonder. “What is the matter?” said the man who had caused Miss Pross to scream; speaking in a vexed, abrupt voice (though in a low tone), and in English. “Oh, Solomon, dear Solomon!” cried Miss Pross, clapping her hands again. “After not setting eyes upon you or hearing of you for so long a time, do I find you here!” “Don’t call me Solomon. Do you want to be the death of me?” asked the man, in a furtive, frightened way. “Brother, brother!” cried Miss Pross, bursting into tears. “Have I ever been so hard with you that you ask me such a cruel question?” “Then hold your meddlesome tongue,” said Solomon, “and come out, if you want to speak to me. Pay for your wine, and come out. Who’s this man?” Miss Pross, shaking her loving and dejected head at her by no means affectionate brother, said through her tears, “Mr. Cruncher.” “Let him come out too,” said Solomon. “Does he think me a ghost?” Apparently, Mr. Cruncher did, to judge from his looks. He said not a word, however, and Miss Pross, exploring the depths of her reticule through her tears with great difficulty paid for her wine. As she did so, Solomon turned to the followers of the Good Republican Brutus of Antiquity, and offered a few words of explanation in the French language, which caused them all to relapse into their former places and pursuits. “Now,” said Solomon, stopping at the dark street corner, “what do you want?” “How dreadfully unkind in a brother nothing has ever turned my love away from!” cried Miss Pross, “to give me such a greeting, and show me no affection.” “There. Confound it! There,” said Solomon, making a dab at Miss Pross’s lips with his own. “Now are you content?” Miss Pross only shook her head and wept in silence. “If you expect me to be surprised,” said her brother Solomon, “I am not surprised; I knew you were here; I know of most people who are here. If you really don’t want to endanger my existence--which I half believe you do--go your ways as soon as possible, and let me go mine. I am busy. I am an official.” “My English brother Solomon,” mourned Miss Pross, casting up her tear-fraught eyes, “that had the makings in him of one of the best and greatest of men in his native country, an official among foreigners, and such foreigners! I would almost sooner have seen the dear boy lying in his--” “I said so!” cried her brother, interrupting. “I knew it. You want to be the death of me. I shall be rendered Suspected, by my own sister. Just as I am getting on!” “The gracious and merciful Heavens forbid!” cried Miss Pross. “Far rather would I never see you again, dear Solomon, though I have ever loved you truly, and ever shall. Say but one affectionate word to me, and tell me there is nothing angry or estranged between us, and I will detain you no longer.” Good Miss Pross! As if the estrangement between them had come of any culpability of hers. As if Mr. Lorry had not known it for a fact, years ago, in the quiet corner in Soho, that this precious brother had spent her money and left her! He was saying the affectionate word, however, with a far more grudging condescension and patronage than he could have shown if their relative merits and positions had been reversed (which is invariably the case, all the world over), when Mr. Cruncher, touching him on the shoulder, hoarsely and unexpectedly interposed with the following singular question: “I say! Might I ask the favour? As to whether your name is John Solomon, or Solomon John?” The official turned towards him with sudden distrust. He had not previously uttered a word. “Come!” said Mr. Cruncher. “Speak out, you know.” (Which, by the way, was more than he could do himself.) “John Solomon, or Solomon John? She calls you Solomon, and she must know, being your sister. And _I_ know you’re John, you know. Which of the two goes first? And regarding that name of Pross, likewise. That warn’t your name over the water.” “What do you mean?” “Well, I don’t know all I mean, for I can’t call to mind what your name was, over the water.” “No?” “No. But I’ll swear it was a name of two syllables.” “Indeed?” “Yes. T’other one’s was one syllable. I know you. You was a spy--witness at the Bailey. What, in the name of the Father of Lies, own father to yourself, was you called at that time?” “Barsad,” said another voice, striking in. “That’s the name for a thousand pound!” cried Jerry. The speaker who struck in, was Sydney Carton. He had his hands behind him under the skirts of his riding-coat, and he stood at Mr. Cruncher’s elbow as negligently as he might have stood at the Old Bailey itself. “Don’t be alarmed, my dear Miss Pross. I arrived at Mr. Lorry’s, to his surprise, yesterday evening; we agreed that I would not present myself elsewhere until all was well, or unless I could be useful; I present myself here, to beg a little talk with your brother. I wish you had a better employed brother than Mr. Barsad. I wish for your sake Mr. Barsad was not a Sheep of the Prisons.” Sheep was a cant word of the time for a spy, under the gaolers. The spy, who was pale, turned paler, and asked him how he dared-- “I’ll tell you,” said Sydney. “I lighted on you, Mr. Barsad, coming out of the prison of the Conciergerie while I was contemplating the walls, an hour or more ago. You have a face to be remembered, and I remember faces well. Made curious by seeing you in that connection, and having a reason, to which you are no stranger, for associating you with the misfortunes of a friend now very unfortunate, I walked in your direction. I walked into the wine-shop here, close after you, and sat near you. I had no difficulty in deducing from your unreserved conversation, and the rumour openly going about among your admirers, the nature of your calling. And gradually, what I had done at random, seemed to shape itself into a purpose, Mr. Barsad.” “What purpose?” the spy asked. “It would be troublesome, and might be dangerous, to explain in the street. Could you favour me, in confidence, with some minutes of your company--at the office of Tellson’s Bank, for instance?” “Under a threat?” “Oh! Did I say that?” “Then, why should I go there?” “Really, Mr. Barsad, I can’t say, if you can’t.” “Do you mean that you won’t say, sir?” the spy irresolutely asked. “You apprehend me very clearly, Mr. Barsad. I won’t.” Carton’s negligent recklessness of manner came powerfully in aid of his quickness and skill, in such a business as he had in his secret mind, and with such a man as he had to do with. His practised eye saw it, and made the most of it. “Now, I told you so,” said the spy, casting a reproachful look at his sister; “if any trouble comes of this, it’s your doing.” “Come, come, Mr. Barsad!” exclaimed Sydney. “Don’t be ungrateful. But for my great respect for your sister, I might not have led up so pleasantly to a little proposal that I wish to make for our mutual satisfaction. Do you go with me to the Bank?” “I’ll hear what you have got to say. Yes, I’ll go with you.” “I propose that we first conduct your sister safely to the corner of her own street. Let me take your arm, Miss Pross. This is not a good city, at this time, for you to be out in, unprotected; and as your escort knows Mr. Barsad, I will invite him to Mr. Lorry’s with us. Are we ready? Come then!” Miss Pross recalled soon afterwards, and to the end of her life remembered, that as she pressed her hands on Sydney’s arm and looked up in his face, imploring him to do no hurt to Solomon, there was a braced purpose in the arm and a kind of inspiration in the eyes, which not only contradicted his light manner, but changed and raised the man. She was too much occupied then with fears for the brother who so little deserved her affection, and with Sydney’s friendly reassurances, adequately to heed what she observed. They left her at the corner of the street, and Carton led the way to Mr. Lorry’s, which was within a few minutes’ walk. John Barsad, or Solomon Pross, walked at his side. Mr. Lorry had just finished his dinner, and was sitting before a cheery little log or two of fire--perhaps looking into their blaze for the picture of that younger elderly gentleman from Tellson’s, who had looked into the red coals at the Royal George at Dover, now a good many years ago. He turned his head as they entered, and showed the surprise with which he saw a stranger. “Miss Pross’s brother, sir,” said Sydney. “Mr. Barsad.” “Barsad?” repeated the old gentleman, “Barsad? I have an association with the name--and with the face.” “I told you you had a remarkable face, Mr. Barsad,” observed Carton, coolly. “Pray sit down.” As he took a chair himself, he supplied the link that Mr. Lorry wanted, by saying to him with a frown, “Witness at that trial.” Mr. Lorry immediately remembered, and regarded his new visitor with an undisguised look of abhorrence. “Mr. Barsad has been recognised by Miss Pross as the affectionate brother you have heard of,” said Sydney, “and has acknowledged the relationship. I pass to worse news. Darnay has been arrested again.” Struck with consternation, the old gentleman exclaimed, “What do you tell me! I left him safe and free within these two hours, and am about to return to him!” “Arrested for all that. When was it done, Mr. Barsad?” “Just now, if at all.” “Mr. Barsad is the best authority possible, sir,” said Sydney, “and I have it from Mr. Barsad’s communication to a friend and brother Sheep over a bottle of wine, that the arrest has taken place. He left the messengers at the gate, and saw them admitted by the porter. There is no earthly doubt that he is retaken.” Mr. Lorry’s business eye read in the speaker’s face that it was loss of time to dwell upon the point. Confused, but sensible that something might depend on his presence of mind, he commanded himself, and was silently attentive. “Now, I trust,” said Sydney to him, “that the name and influence of Doctor Manette may stand him in as good stead to-morrow--you said he would be before the Tribunal again to-morrow, Mr. Barsad?--” “Yes; I believe so.” “--In as good stead to-morrow as to-day. But it may not be so. I own to you, I am shaken, Mr. Lorry, by Doctor Manette’s not having had the power to prevent this arrest.” “He may not have known of it beforehand,” said Mr. Lorry. “But that very circumstance would be alarming, when we remember how identified he is with his son-in-law.” “That’s true,” Mr. Lorry acknowledged, with his troubled hand at his chin, and his troubled eyes on Carton. “In short,” said Sydney, “this is a desperate time, when desperate games are played for desperate stakes. Let the Doctor play the winning game; I will play the losing one. No man’s life here is worth purchase. Any one carried home by the people to-day, may be condemned tomorrow. Now, the stake I have resolved to play for, in case of the worst, is a friend in the Conciergerie. And the friend I purpose to myself to win, is Mr. Barsad.” “You need have good cards, sir,” said the spy. “I’ll run them over. I’ll see what I hold,--Mr. Lorry, you know what a brute I am; I wish you’d give me a little brandy.” It was put before him, and he drank off a glassful--drank off another glassful--pushed the bottle thoughtfully away. “Mr. Barsad,” he went on, in the tone of one who really was looking over a hand at cards: “Sheep of the prisons, emissary of Republican committees, now turnkey, now prisoner, always spy and secret informer, so much the more valuable here for being English that an Englishman is less open to suspicion of subornation in those characters than a Frenchman, represents himself to his employers under a false name. That’s a very good card. Mr. Barsad, now in the employ of the republican French government, was formerly in the employ of the aristocratic English government, the enemy of France and freedom. That’s an excellent card. Inference clear as day in this region of suspicion, that Mr. Barsad, still in the pay of the aristocratic English government, is the spy of Pitt, the treacherous foe of the Republic crouching in its bosom, the English traitor and agent of all mischief so much spoken of and so difficult to find. That’s a card not to be beaten. Have you followed my hand, Mr. Barsad?” “Not to understand your play,” returned the spy, somewhat uneasily. “I play my Ace, Denunciation of Mr. Barsad to the nearest Section Committee. Look over your hand, Mr. Barsad, and see what you have. Don’t hurry.” He drew the bottle near, poured out another glassful of brandy, and drank it off. He saw that the spy was fearful of his drinking himself into a fit state for the immediate denunciation of him. Seeing it, he poured out and drank another glassful. “Look over your hand carefully, Mr. Barsad. Take time.” It was a poorer hand than he suspected. Mr. Barsad saw losing cards in it that Sydney Carton knew nothing of. Thrown out of his honourable employment in England, through too much unsuccessful hard swearing there--not because he was not wanted there; our English reasons for vaunting our superiority to secrecy and spies are of very modern date--he knew that he had crossed the Channel, and accepted service in France: first, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among his own countrymen there: gradually, as a tempter and an eavesdropper among the natives. He knew that under the overthrown government he had been a spy upon Saint Antoine and Defarge’s wine-shop; had received from the watchful police such heads of information concerning Doctor Manette’s imprisonment, release, and history, as should serve him for an introduction to familiar conversation with the Defarges; and tried them on Madame Defarge, and had broken down with them signally. He always remembered with fear and trembling, that that terrible woman had knitted when he talked with her, and had looked ominously at him as her fingers moved. He had since seen her, in the Section of Saint Antoine, over and over again produce her knitted registers, and denounce people whose lives the guillotine then surely swallowed up. He knew, as every one employed as he was did, that he was never safe; that flight was impossible; that he was tied fast under the shadow of the axe; and that in spite of his utmost tergiversation and treachery in furtherance of the reigning terror, a word might bring it down upon him. Once denounced, and on such grave grounds as had just now been suggested to his mind, he foresaw that the dreadful woman of whose unrelenting character he had seen many proofs, would produce against him that fatal register, and would quash his last chance of life. Besides that all secret men are men soon terrified, here were surely cards enough of one black suit, to justify the holder in growing rather livid as he turned them over. “You scarcely seem to like your hand,” said Sydney, with the greatest composure. “Do you play?” “I think, sir,” said the spy, in the meanest manner, as he turned to Mr. Lorry, “I may appeal to a gentleman of your years and benevolence, to put it to this other gentleman, so much your junior, whether he can under any circumstances reconcile it to his station to play that Ace of which he has spoken. I admit that _I_ am a spy, and that it is considered a discreditable station--though it must be filled by somebody; but this gentleman is no spy, and why should he so demean himself as to make himself one?” “I play my Ace, Mr. Barsad,” said Carton, taking the answer on himself, and looking at his watch, “without any scruple, in a very few minutes.” “I should have hoped, gentlemen both,” said the spy, always striving to hook Mr. Lorry into the discussion, “that your respect for my sister--” “I could not better testify my respect for your sister than by finally relieving her of her brother,” said Sydney Carton. “You think not, sir?” “I have thoroughly made up my mind about it.” The smooth manner of the spy, curiously in dissonance with his ostentatiously rough dress, and probably with his usual demeanour, received such a check from the inscrutability of Carton,--who was a mystery to wiser and honester men than he,--that it faltered here and failed him. While he was at a loss, Carton said, resuming his former air of contemplating cards: “And indeed, now I think again, I have a strong impression that I have another good card here, not yet enumerated. That friend and fellow-Sheep, who spoke of himself as pasturing in the country prisons; who was he?” “French. You don’t know him,” said the spy, quickly. “French, eh?” repeated Carton, musing, and not appearing to notice him at all, though he echoed his word. “Well; he may be.” “Is, I assure you,” said the spy; “though it’s not important.” “Though it’s not important,” repeated Carton, in the same mechanical way--“though it’s not important--No, it’s not important. No. Yet I know the face.” “I think not. I am sure not. It can’t be,” said the spy. “It-can’t-be,” muttered Sydney Carton, retrospectively, and idling his glass (which fortunately was a small one) again. “Can’t-be. Spoke good French. Yet like a foreigner, I thought?” “Provincial,” said the spy. “No. Foreign!” cried Carton, striking his open hand on the table, as a light broke clearly on his mind. “Cly! Disguised, but the same man. We had that man before us at the Old Bailey.” “Now, there you are hasty, sir,” said Barsad, with a smile that gave his aquiline nose an extra inclination to one side; “there you really give me an advantage over you. Cly (who I will unreservedly admit, at this distance of time, was a partner of mine) has been dead several years. I attended him in his last illness. He was buried in London, at the church of Saint Pancras-in-the-Fields. His unpopularity with the blackguard multitude at the moment prevented my following his remains, but I helped to lay him in his coffin.” Here, Mr. Lorry became aware, from where he sat, of a most remarkable goblin shadow on the wall. Tracing it to its source, he discovered it to be caused by a sudden extraordinary rising and stiffening of all the risen and stiff hair on Mr. Cruncher’s head. “Let us be reasonable,” said the spy, “and let us be fair. To show you how mistaken you are, and what an unfounded assumption yours is, I will lay before you a certificate of Cly’s burial, which I happened to have carried in my pocket-book,” with a hurried hand he produced and opened it, “ever since. There it is. Oh, look at it, look at it! You may take it in your hand; it’s no forgery.” Here, Mr. Lorry perceived the reflection on the wall to elongate, and Mr. Cruncher rose and stepped forward. His hair could not have been more violently on end, if it had been that moment dressed by the Cow with the crumpled horn in the house that Jack built. Unseen by the spy, Mr. Cruncher stood at his side, and touched him on the shoulder like a ghostly bailiff. “That there Roger Cly, master,” said Mr. Cruncher, with a taciturn and iron-bound visage. “So _you_ put him in his coffin?” “I did.” “Who took him out of it?” Barsad leaned back in his chair, and stammered, “What do you mean?” “I mean,” said Mr. Cruncher, “that he warn’t never in it. No! Not he! I’ll have my head took off, if he was ever in it.” The spy looked round at the two gentlemen; they both looked in unspeakable astonishment at Jerry. “I tell you,” said Jerry, “that you buried paving-stones and earth in that there coffin. Don’t go and tell me that you buried Cly. It was a take in. Me and two more knows it.” “How do you know it?” “What’s that to you? Ecod!” growled Mr. Cruncher, “it’s you I have got a old grudge again, is it, with your shameful impositions upon tradesmen! I’d catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea.” Sydney Carton, who, with Mr. Lorry, had been lost in amazement at this turn of the business, here requested Mr. Cruncher to moderate and explain himself. “At another time, sir,” he returned, evasively, “the present time is ill-conwenient for explainin’. What I stand to, is, that he knows well wot that there Cly was never in that there coffin. Let him say he was, in so much as a word of one syllable, and I’ll either catch hold of his throat and choke him for half a guinea;” Mr. Cruncher dwelt upon this as quite a liberal offer; “or I’ll out and announce him.” “Humph! I see one thing,” said Carton. “I hold another card, Mr. Barsad. Impossible, here in raging Paris, with Suspicion filling the air, for you to outlive denunciation, when you are in communication with another aristocratic spy of the same antecedents as yourself, who, moreover, has the mystery about him of having feigned death and come to life again! A plot in the prisons, of the foreigner against the Republic. A strong card--a certain Guillotine card! Do you play?” “No!” returned the spy. “I throw up. I confess that we were so unpopular with the outrageous mob, that I only got away from England at the risk of being ducked to death, and that Cly was so ferreted up and down, that he never would have got away at all but for that sham. Though how this man knows it was a sham, is a wonder of wonders to me.” “Never you trouble your head about this man,” retorted the contentious Mr. Cruncher; “you’ll have trouble enough with giving your attention to that gentleman. And look here! Once more!”--Mr. Cruncher could not be restrained from making rather an ostentatious parade of his liberality--“I’d catch hold of your throat and choke you for half a guinea.” The Sheep of the prisons turned from him to Sydney Carton, and said, with more decision, “It has come to a point. I go on duty soon, and can’t overstay my time. You told me you had a proposal; what is it? Now, it is of no use asking too much of me. Ask me to do anything in my office, putting my head in great extra danger, and I had better trust my life to the chances of a refusal than the chances of consent. In short, I should make that choice. You talk of desperation. We are all desperate here. Remember! I may denounce you if I think proper, and I can swear my way through stone walls, and so can others. Now, what do you want with me?” “Not very much. You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?” “I tell you once for all, there is no such thing as an escape possible,” said the spy, firmly. “Why need you tell me what I have not asked? You are a turnkey at the Conciergerie?” “I am sometimes.” “You can be when you choose?” “I can pass in and out when I choose.” Sydney Carton filled another glass with brandy, poured it slowly out upon the hearth, and watched it as it dropped. It being all spent, he said, rising: “So far, we have spoken before these two, because it was as well that the merits of the cards should not rest solely between you and me. Come into the dark room here, and let us have one final word alone.” CHAPTER IX. The Game Made While Sydney Carton and the Sheep of the prisons were in the adjoining dark room, speaking so low that not a sound was heard, Mr. Lorry looked at Jerry in considerable doubt and mistrust. That honest tradesman’s manner of receiving the look, did not inspire confidence; he changed the leg on which he rested, as often as if he had fifty of those limbs, and were trying them all; he examined his finger-nails with a very questionable closeness of attention; and whenever Mr. Lorry’s eye caught his, he was taken with that peculiar kind of short cough requiring the hollow of a hand before it, which is seldom, if ever, known to be an infirmity attendant on perfect openness of character. “Jerry,” said Mr. Lorry. “Come here.” Mr. Cruncher came forward sideways, with one of his shoulders in advance of him. “What have you been, besides a messenger?” After some cogitation, accompanied with an intent look at his patron, Mr. Cruncher conceived the luminous idea of replying, “Agicultooral character.” “My mind misgives me much,” said Mr. Lorry, angrily shaking a forefinger at him, “that you have used the respectable and great house of Tellson’s as a blind, and that you have had an unlawful occupation of an infamous description. If you have, don’t expect me to befriend you when you get back to England. If you have, don’t expect me to keep your secret. Tellson’s shall not be imposed upon.” “I hope, sir,” pleaded the abashed Mr. Cruncher, “that a gentleman like yourself wot I’ve had the honour of odd jobbing till I’m grey at it, would think twice about harming of me, even if it wos so--I don’t say it is, but even if it wos. And which it is to be took into account that if it wos, it wouldn’t, even then, be all o’ one side. There’d be two sides to it. There might be medical doctors at the present hour, a picking up their guineas where a honest tradesman don’t pick up his fardens--fardens! no, nor yet his half fardens--half fardens! no, nor yet his quarter--a banking away like smoke at Tellson’s, and a cocking their medical eyes at that tradesman on the sly, a going in and going out to their own carriages--ah! equally like smoke, if not more so. Well, that ’ud be imposing, too, on Tellson’s. For you cannot sarse the goose and not the gander. And here’s Mrs. Cruncher, or leastways wos in the Old England times, and would be to-morrow, if cause given, a floppin’ again the business to that degree as is ruinating--stark ruinating! Whereas them medical doctors’ wives don’t flop--catch ’em at it! Or, if they flop, their floppings goes in favour of more patients, and how can you rightly have one without t’other? Then, wot with undertakers, and wot with parish clerks, and wot with sextons, and wot with private watchmen (all awaricious and all in it), a man wouldn’t get much by it, even if it wos so. And wot little a man did get, would never prosper with him, Mr. Lorry. He’d never have no good of it; he’d want all along to be out of the line, if he, could see his way out, being once in--even if it wos so.” “Ugh!” cried Mr. Lorry, rather relenting, nevertheless, “I am shocked at the sight of you.” “Now, what I would humbly offer to you, sir,” pursued Mr. Cruncher, “even if it wos so, which I don’t say it is--” “Don’t prevaricate,” said Mr. Lorry. “No, I will _not_, sir,” returned Mr. Crunches as if nothing were further from his thoughts or practice--“which I don’t say it is--wot I would humbly offer to you, sir, would be this. Upon that there stool, at that there Bar, sets that there boy of mine, brought up and growed up to be a man, wot will errand you, message you, general-light-job you, till your heels is where your head is, if such should be your wishes. If it wos so, which I still don’t say it is (for I will not prewaricate to you, sir), let that there boy keep his father’s place, and take care of his mother; don’t blow upon that boy’s father--do not do it, sir--and let that father go into the line of the reg’lar diggin’, and make amends for what he would have undug--if it wos so--by diggin’ of ’em in with a will, and with conwictions respectin’ the futur’ keepin’ of ’em safe. That, Mr. Lorry,” said Mr. Cruncher, wiping his forehead with his arm, as an announcement that he had arrived at the peroration of his discourse, “is wot I would respectfully offer to you, sir. A man don’t see all this here a goin’ on dreadful round him, in the way of Subjects without heads, dear me, plentiful enough fur to bring the price down to porterage and hardly that, without havin’ his serious thoughts of things. And these here would be mine, if it wos so, entreatin’ of you fur to bear in mind that wot I said just now, I up and said in the good cause when I might have kep’ it back.” “That at least is true,” said Mr. Lorry. “Say no more now. It may be that I shall yet stand your friend, if you deserve it, and repent in action--not in words. I want no more words.” Mr. Cruncher knuckled his forehead, as Sydney Carton and the spy returned from the dark room. “Adieu, Mr. Barsad,” said the former; “our arrangement thus made, you have nothing to fear from me.” He sat down in a chair on the hearth, over against Mr. Lorry. When they were alone, Mr. Lorry asked him what he had done? “Not much. If it should go ill with the prisoner, I have ensured access to him, once.” Mr. Lorry’s countenance fell. “It is all I could do,” said Carton. “To propose too much, would be to put this man’s head under the axe, and, as he himself said, nothing worse could happen to him if he were denounced. It was obviously the weakness of the position. There is no help for it.” “But access to him,” said Mr. Lorry, “if it should go ill before the Tribunal, will not save him.” “I never said it would.” Mr. Lorry’s eyes gradually sought the fire; his sympathy with his darling, and the heavy disappointment of his second arrest, gradually weakened them; he was an old man now, overborne with anxiety of late, and his tears fell. “You are a good man and a true friend,” said Carton, in an altered voice. “Forgive me if I notice that you are affected. I could not see my father weep, and sit by, careless. And I could not respect your sorrow more, if you were my father. You are free from that misfortune, however.” Though he said the last words, with a slip into his usual manner, there was a true feeling and respect both in his tone and in his touch, that Mr. Lorry, who had never seen the better side of him, was wholly unprepared for. He gave him his hand, and Carton gently pressed it. “To return to poor Darnay,” said Carton. “Don’t tell Her of this interview, or this arrangement. It would not enable Her to go to see him. She might think it was contrived, in case of the worse, to convey to him the means of anticipating the sentence.” Mr. Lorry had not thought of that, and he looked quickly at Carton to see if it were in his mind. It seemed to be; he returned the look, and evidently understood it. “She might think a thousand things,” Carton said, “and any of them would only add to her trouble. Don’t speak of me to her. As I said to you when I first came, I had better not see her. I can put my hand out, to do any little helpful work for her that my hand can find to do, without that. You are going to her, I hope? She must be very desolate to-night.” “I am going now, directly.” “I am glad of that. She has such a strong attachment to you and reliance on you. How does she look?” “Anxious and unhappy, but very beautiful.” “Ah!” It was a long, grieving sound, like a sigh--almost like a sob. It attracted Mr. Lorry’s eyes to Carton’s face, which was turned to the fire. A light, or a shade (the old gentleman could not have said which), passed from it as swiftly as a change will sweep over a hill-side on a wild bright day, and he lifted his foot to put back one of the little flaming logs, which was tumbling forward. He wore the white riding-coat and top-boots, then in vogue, and the light of the fire touching their light surfaces made him look very pale, with his long brown hair, all untrimmed, hanging loose about him. His indifference to fire was sufficiently remarkable to elicit a word of remonstrance from Mr. Lorry; his boot was still upon the hot embers of the flaming log, when it had broken under the weight of his foot. “I forgot it,” he said. Mr. Lorry’s eyes were again attracted to his face. Taking note of the wasted air which clouded the naturally handsome features, and having the expression of prisoners’ faces fresh in his mind, he was strongly reminded of that expression. “And your duties here have drawn to an end, sir?” said Carton, turning to him. “Yes. As I was telling you last night when Lucie came in so unexpectedly, I have at length done all that I can do here. I hoped to have left them in perfect safety, and then to have quitted Paris. I have my Leave to Pass. I was ready to go.” They were both silent. “Yours is a long life to look back upon, sir?” said Carton, wistfully. “I am in my seventy-eighth year.” “You have been useful all your life; steadily and constantly occupied; trusted, respected, and looked up to?” “I have been a man of business, ever since I have been a man. Indeed, I may say that I was a man of business when a boy.” “See what a place you fill at seventy-eight. How many people will miss you when you leave it empty!” “A solitary old bachelor,” answered Mr. Lorry, shaking his head. “There is nobody to weep for me.” “How can you say that? Wouldn’t She weep for you? Wouldn’t her child?” “Yes, yes, thank God. I didn’t quite mean what I said.” “It _is_ a thing to thank God for; is it not?” “Surely, surely.” “If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, ‘I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!’ your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not?” “You say truly, Mr. Carton; I think they would be.” Sydney turned his eyes again upon the fire, and, after a silence of a few moments, said: “I should like to ask you:--Does your childhood seem far off? Do the days when you sat at your mother’s knee, seem days of very long ago?” Responding to his softened manner, Mr. Lorry answered: “Twenty years back, yes; at this time of my life, no. For, as I draw closer and closer to the end, I travel in the circle, nearer and nearer to the beginning. It seems to be one of the kind smoothings and preparings of the way. My heart is touched now, by many remembrances that had long fallen asleep, of my pretty young mother (and I so old!), and by many associations of the days when what we call the World was not so real with me, and my faults were not confirmed in me.” “I understand the feeling!” exclaimed Carton, with a bright flush. “And you are the better for it?” “I hope so.” Carton terminated the conversation here, by rising to help him on with his outer coat; “But you,” said Mr. Lorry, reverting to the theme, “you are young.” “Yes,” said Carton. “I am not old, but my young way was never the way to age. Enough of me.” “And of me, I am sure,” said Mr. Lorry. “Are you going out?” “I’ll walk with you to her gate. You know my vagabond and restless habits. If I should prowl about the streets a long time, don’t be uneasy; I shall reappear in the morning. You go to the Court to-morrow?” “Yes, unhappily.” “I shall be there, but only as one of the crowd. My Spy will find a place for me. Take my arm, sir.” Mr. Lorry did so, and they went down-stairs and out in the streets. A few minutes brought them to Mr. Lorry’s destination. Carton left him there; but lingered at a little distance, and turned back to the gate again when it was shut, and touched it. He had heard of her going to the prison every day. “She came out here,” he said, looking about him, “turned this way, must have trod on these stones often. Let me follow in her steps.” It was ten o’clock at night when he stood before the prison of La Force, where she had stood hundreds of times. A little wood-sawyer, having closed his shop, was smoking his pipe at his shop-door. “Good night, citizen,” said Sydney Carton, pausing in going by; for, the man eyed him inquisitively. “Good night, citizen.” “How goes the Republic?” “You mean the Guillotine. Not ill. Sixty-three to-day. We shall mount to a hundred soon. Samson and his men complain sometimes, of being exhausted. Ha, ha, ha! He is so droll, that Samson. Such a Barber!” “Do you often go to see him--” “Shave? Always. Every day. What a barber! You have seen him at work?” “Never.” “Go and see him when he has a good batch. Figure this to yourself, citizen; he shaved the sixty-three to-day, in less than two pipes! Less than two pipes. Word of honour!” As the grinning little man held out the pipe he was smoking, to explain how he timed the executioner, Carton was so sensible of a rising desire to strike the life out of him, that he turned away. “But you are not English,” said the wood-sawyer, “though you wear English dress?” “Yes,” said Carton, pausing again, and answering over his shoulder. “You speak like a Frenchman.” “I am an old student here.” “Aha, a perfect Frenchman! Good night, Englishman.” “Good night, citizen.” “But go and see that droll dog,” the little man persisted, calling after him. “And take a pipe with you!” Sydney had not gone far out of sight, when he stopped in the middle of the street under a glimmering lamp, and wrote with his pencil on a scrap of paper. Then, traversing with the decided step of one who remembered the way well, several dark and dirty streets--much dirtier than usual, for the best public thoroughfares remained uncleansed in those times of terror--he stopped at a chemist’s shop, which the owner was closing with his own hands. A small, dim, crooked shop, kept in a tortuous, up-hill thoroughfare, by a small, dim, crooked man. Giving this citizen, too, good night, as he confronted him at his counter, he laid the scrap of paper before him. “Whew!” the chemist whistled softly, as he read it. “Hi! hi! hi!” Sydney Carton took no heed, and the chemist said: “For you, citizen?” “For me.” “You will be careful to keep them separate, citizen? You know the consequences of mixing them?” “Perfectly.” Certain small packets were made and given to him. He put them, one by one, in the breast of his inner coat, counted out the money for them, and deliberately left the shop. “There is nothing more to do,” said he, glancing upward at the moon, “until to-morrow. I can’t sleep.” It was not a reckless manner, the manner in which he said these words aloud under the fast-sailing clouds, nor was it more expressive of negligence than defiance. It was the settled manner of a tired man, who had wandered and struggled and got lost, but who at length struck into his road and saw its end. Long ago, when he had been famous among his earliest competitors as a youth of great promise, he had followed his father to the grave. His mother had died, years before. These solemn words, which had been read at his father’s grave, arose in his mind as he went down the dark streets, among the heavy shadows, with the moon and the clouds sailing on high above him. “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” In a city dominated by the axe, alone at night, with natural sorrow rising in him for the sixty-three who had been that day put to death, and for to-morrow’s victims then awaiting their doom in the prisons, and still of to-morrow’s and to-morrow’s, the chain of association that brought the words home, like a rusty old ship’s anchor from the deep, might have been easily found. He did not seek it, but repeated them and went on. With a solemn interest in the lighted windows where the people were going to rest, forgetful through a few calm hours of the horrors surrounding them; in the towers of the churches, where no prayers were said, for the popular revulsion had even travelled that length of self-destruction from years of priestly impostors, plunderers, and profligates; in the distant burial-places, reserved, as they wrote upon the gates, for Eternal Sleep; in the abounding gaols; and in the streets along which the sixties rolled to a death which had become so common and material, that no sorrowful story of a haunting Spirit ever arose among the people out of all the working of the Guillotine; with a solemn interest in the whole life and death of the city settling down to its short nightly pause in fury; Sydney Carton crossed the Seine again for the lighter streets. Few coaches were abroad, for riders in coaches were liable to be suspected, and gentility hid its head in red nightcaps, and put on heavy shoes, and trudged. But, the theatres were all well filled, and the people poured cheerfully out as he passed, and went chatting home. At one of the theatre doors, there was a little girl with a mother, looking for a way across the street through the mud. He carried the child over, and before the timid arm was loosed from his neck asked her for a kiss. “I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.” Now, that the streets were quiet, and the night wore on, the words were in the echoes of his feet, and were in the air. Perfectly calm and steady, he sometimes repeated them to himself as he walked; but, he heard them always. The night wore out, and, as he stood upon the bridge listening to the water as it splashed the river-walls of the Island of Paris, where the picturesque confusion of houses and cathedral shone bright in the light of the moon, the day came coldly, looking like a dead face out of the sky. Then, the night, with the moon and the stars, turned pale and died, and for a little while it seemed as if Creation were delivered over to Death’s dominion. But, the glorious sun, rising, seemed to strike those words, that burden of the night, straight and warm to his heart in its long bright rays. And looking along them, with reverently shaded eyes, a bridge of light appeared to span the air between him and the sun, while the river sparkled under it. The strong tide, so swift, so deep, and certain, was like a congenial friend, in the morning stillness. He walked by the stream, far from the houses, and in the light and warmth of the sun fell asleep on the bank. When he awoke and was afoot again, he lingered there yet a little longer, watching an eddy that turned and turned purposeless, until the stream absorbed it, and carried it on to the sea.--“Like me.” A trading-boat, with a sail of the softened colour of a dead leaf, then glided into his view, floated by him, and died away. As its silent track in the water disappeared, the prayer that had broken up out of his heart for a merciful consideration of all his poor blindnesses and errors, ended in the words, “I am the resurrection and the life.” Mr. Lorry was already out when he got back, and it was easy to surmise where the good old man was gone. Sydney Carton drank nothing but a little coffee, ate some bread, and, having washed and changed to refresh himself, went out to the place of trial. The court was all astir and a-buzz, when the black sheep--whom many fell away from in dread--pressed him into an obscure corner among the crowd. Mr. Lorry was there, and Doctor Manette was there. She was there, sitting beside her father. When her husband was brought in, she turned a look upon him, so sustaining, so encouraging, so full of admiring love and pitying tenderness, yet so courageous for his sake, that it called the healthy blood into his face, brightened his glance, and animated his heart. If there had been any eyes to notice the influence of her look, on Sydney Carton, it would have been seen to be the same influence exactly. Before that unjust Tribunal, there was little or no order of procedure, ensuring to any accused person any reasonable hearing. There could have been no such Revolution, if all laws, forms, and ceremonies, had not first been so monstrously abused, that the suicidal vengeance of the Revolution was to scatter them all to the winds. Every eye was turned to the jury. The same determined patriots and good republicans as yesterday and the day before, and to-morrow and the day after. Eager and prominent among them, one man with a craving face, and his fingers perpetually hovering about his lips, whose appearance gave great satisfaction to the spectators. A life-thirsting, cannibal-looking, bloody-minded juryman, the Jacques Three of St. Antoine. The whole jury, as a jury of dogs empannelled to try the deer. Every eye then turned to the five judges and the public prosecutor. No favourable leaning in that quarter to-day. A fell, uncompromising, murderous business-meaning there. Every eye then sought some other eye in the crowd, and gleamed at it approvingly; and heads nodded at one another, before bending forward with a strained attention. Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay. Released yesterday. Reaccused and retaken yesterday. Indictment delivered to him last night. Suspected and Denounced enemy of the Republic, Aristocrat, one of a family of tyrants, one of a race proscribed, for that they had used their abolished privileges to the infamous oppression of the people. Charles Evrémonde, called Darnay, in right of such proscription, absolutely Dead in Law. To this effect, in as few or fewer words, the Public Prosecutor. The President asked, was the Accused openly denounced or secretly? “Openly, President.” “By whom?” “Three voices. Ernest Defarge, wine-vendor of St. Antoine.” “Good.” “Thérèse Defarge, his wife.” “Good.” “Alexandre Manette, physician.” A great uproar took place in the court, and in the midst of it, Doctor Manette was seen, pale and trembling, standing where he had been seated. “President, I indignantly protest to you that this is a forgery and a fraud. You know the accused to be the husband of my daughter. My daughter, and those dear to her, are far dearer to me than my life. Who and where is the false conspirator who says that I denounce the husband of my child!” “Citizen Manette, be tranquil. To fail in submission to the authority of the Tribunal would be to put yourself out of Law. As to what is dearer to you than life, nothing can be so dear to a good citizen as the Republic.” Loud acclamations hailed this rebuke. The President rang his bell, and with warmth resumed. “If the Republic should demand of you the sacrifice of your child herself, you would have no duty but to sacrifice her. Listen to what is to follow. In the meanwhile, be silent!” Frantic acclamations were again raised. Doctor Manette sat down, with his eyes looking around, and his lips trembling; his daughter drew closer to him. The craving man on the jury rubbed his hands together, and restored the usual hand to his mouth. Defarge was produced, when the court was quiet enough to admit of his being heard, and rapidly expounded the story of the imprisonment, and of his having been a mere boy in the Doctor’s service, and of the release, and of the state of the prisoner when released and delivered to him. This short examination followed, for the court was quick with its work. “You did good service at the taking of the Bastille, citizen?” “I believe so.” Here, an excited woman screeched from the crowd: “You were one of the best patriots there. Why not say so? You were a cannonier that day there, and you were among the first to enter the accursed fortress when it fell. Patriots, I speak the truth!” It was The Vengeance who, amidst the warm commendations of the audience, thus assisted the proceedings. The President rang his bell; but, The Vengeance, warming with encouragement, shrieked, “I defy that bell!” wherein she was likewise much commended. “Inform the Tribunal of what you did that day within the Bastille, citizen.” “I knew,” said Defarge, looking down at his wife, who stood at the bottom of the steps on which he was raised, looking steadily up at him; “I knew that this prisoner, of whom I speak, had been confined in a cell known as One Hundred and Five, North Tower. I knew it from himself. He knew himself by no other name than One Hundred and Five, North Tower, when he made shoes under my care. As I serve my gun that day, I resolve, when the place shall fall, to examine that cell. It falls. I mount to the cell, with a fellow-citizen who is one of the Jury, directed by a gaoler. I examine it, very closely. In a hole in the chimney, where a stone has been worked out and replaced, I find a written paper. This is that written paper. I have made it my business to examine some specimens of the writing of Doctor Manette. This is the writing of Doctor Manette. I confide this paper, in the writing of Doctor Manette, to the hands of the President.” “Let it be read.” In a dead silence and stillness--the prisoner under trial looking lovingly at his wife, his wife only looking from him to look with solicitude at her father, Doctor Manette keeping his eyes fixed on the reader, Madame Defarge never taking hers from the prisoner, Defarge never taking his from his feasting wife, and all the other eyes there intent upon the Doctor, who saw none of them--the paper was read, as follows. CHAPTER X. The Substance of the Shadow “I, Alexandre Manette, unfortunate physician, native of Beauvais, and afterwards resident in Paris, write this melancholy paper in my doleful cell in the Bastille, during the last month of the year, 1767. I write it at stolen intervals, under every difficulty. I design to secrete it in the wall of the chimney, where I have slowly and laboriously made a place of concealment for it. Some pitying hand may find it there, when I and my sorrows are dust. “These words are formed by the rusty iron point with which I write with difficulty in scrapings of soot and charcoal from the chimney, mixed with blood, in the last month of the tenth year of my captivity. Hope has quite departed from my breast. I know from terrible warnings I have noted in myself that my reason will not long remain unimpaired, but I solemnly declare that I am at this time in the possession of my right mind--that my memory is exact and circumstantial--and that I write the truth as I shall answer for these my last recorded words, whether they be ever read by men or not, at the Eternal Judgment-seat. “One cloudy moonlight night, in the third week of December (I think the twenty-second of the month) in the year 1757, I was walking on a retired part of the quay by the Seine for the refreshment of the frosty air, at an hour’s distance from my place of residence in the Street of the School of Medicine, when a carriage came along behind me, driven very fast. As I stood aside to let that carriage pass, apprehensive that it might otherwise run me down, a head was put out at the window, and a voice called to the driver to stop. “The carriage stopped as soon as the driver could rein in his horses, and the same voice called to me by my name. I answered. The carriage was then so far in advance of me that two gentlemen had time to open the door and alight before I came up with it. “I observed that they were both wrapped in cloaks, and appeared to conceal themselves. As they stood side by side near the carriage door, I also observed that they both looked of about my own age, or rather younger, and that they were greatly alike, in stature, manner, voice, and (as far as I could see) face too. “‘You are Doctor Manette?’ said one. “I am.” “‘Doctor Manette, formerly of Beauvais,’ said the other; ‘the young physician, originally an expert surgeon, who within the last year or two has made a rising reputation in Paris?’ “‘Gentlemen,’ I returned, ‘I am that Doctor Manette of whom you speak so graciously.’ “‘We have been to your residence,’ said the first, ‘and not being so fortunate as to find you there, and being informed that you were probably walking in this direction, we followed, in the hope of overtaking you. Will you please to enter the carriage?’ “The manner of both was imperious, and they both moved, as these words were spoken, so as to place me between themselves and the carriage door. They were armed. I was not. “‘Gentlemen,’ said I, ‘pardon me; but I usually inquire who does me the honour to seek my assistance, and what is the nature of the case to which I am summoned.’ “The reply to this was made by him who had spoken second. ‘Doctor, your clients are people of condition. As to the nature of the case, our confidence in your skill assures us that you will ascertain it for yourself better than we can describe it. Enough. Will you please to enter the carriage?’ “I could do nothing but comply, and I entered it in silence. They both entered after me--the last springing in, after putting up the steps. The carriage turned about, and drove on at its former speed. “I repeat this conversation exactly as it occurred. I have no doubt that it is, word for word, the same. I describe everything exactly as it took place, constraining my mind not to wander from the task. Where I make the broken marks that follow here, I leave off for the time, and put my paper in its hiding-place. ***** “The carriage left the streets behind, passed the North Barrier, and emerged upon the country road. At two-thirds of a league from the Barrier--I did not estimate the distance at that time, but afterwards when I traversed it--it struck out of the main avenue, and presently stopped at a solitary house, We all three alighted, and walked, by a damp soft footpath in a garden where a neglected fountain had overflowed, to the door of the house. It was not opened immediately, in answer to the ringing of the bell, and one of my two conductors struck the man who opened it, with his heavy riding glove, across the face. “There was nothing in this action to attract my particular attention, for I had seen common people struck more commonly than dogs. But, the other of the two, being angry likewise, struck the man in like manner with his arm; the look and bearing of the brothers were then so exactly alike, that I then first perceived them to be twin brothers. “From the time of our alighting at the outer gate (which we found locked, and which one of the brothers had opened to admit us, and had relocked), I had heard cries proceeding from an upper chamber. I was conducted to this chamber straight, the cries growing louder as we ascended the stairs, and I found a patient in a high fever of the brain, lying on a bed. “The patient was a woman of great beauty, and young; assuredly not much past twenty. Her hair was torn and ragged, and her arms were bound to her sides with sashes and handkerchiefs. I noticed that these bonds were all portions of a gentleman’s dress. On one of them, which was a fringed scarf for a dress of ceremony, I saw the armorial bearings of a Noble, and the letter E. “I saw this, within the first minute of my contemplation of the patient; for, in her restless strivings she had turned over on her face on the edge of the bed, had drawn the end of the scarf into her mouth, and was in danger of suffocation. My first act was to put out my hand to relieve her breathing; and in moving the scarf aside, the embroidery in the corner caught my sight. “I turned her gently over, placed my hands upon her breast to calm her and keep her down, and looked into her face. Her eyes were dilated and wild, and she constantly uttered piercing shrieks, and repeated the words, ‘My husband, my father, and my brother!’ and then counted up to twelve, and said, ‘Hush!’ For an instant, and no more, she would pause to listen, and then the piercing shrieks would begin again, and she would repeat the cry, ‘My husband, my father, and my brother!’ and would count up to twelve, and say, ‘Hush!’ There was no variation in the order, or the manner. There was no cessation, but the regular moment’s pause, in the utterance of these sounds. “‘How long,’ I asked, ‘has this lasted?’ “To distinguish the brothers, I will call them the elder and the younger; by the elder, I mean him who exercised the most authority. It was the elder who replied, ‘Since about this hour last night.’ “‘She has a husband, a father, and a brother?’ “‘A brother.’ “‘I do not address her brother?’ “He answered with great contempt, ‘No.’ “‘She has some recent association with the number twelve?’ “The younger brother impatiently rejoined, ‘With twelve o’clock?’ “‘See, gentlemen,’ said I, still keeping my hands upon her breast, ‘how useless I am, as you have brought me! If I had known what I was coming to see, I could have come provided. As it is, time must be lost. There are no medicines to be obtained in this lonely place.’ “The elder brother looked to the younger, who said haughtily, ‘There is a case of medicines here;’ and brought it from a closet, and put it on the table. ***** “I opened some of the bottles, smelt them, and put the stoppers to my lips. If I had wanted to use anything save narcotic medicines that were poisons in themselves, I would not have administered any of those. “‘Do you doubt them?’ asked the younger brother. “‘You see, monsieur, I am going to use them,’ I replied, and said no more. “I made the patient swallow, with great difficulty, and after many efforts, the dose that I desired to give. As I intended to repeat it after a while, and as it was necessary to watch its influence, I then sat down by the side of the bed. There was a timid and suppressed woman in attendance (wife of the man down-stairs), who had retreated into a corner. The house was damp and decayed, indifferently furnished--evidently, recently occupied and temporarily used. Some thick old hangings had been nailed up before the windows, to deaden the sound of the shrieks. They continued to be uttered in their regular succession, with the cry, ‘My husband, my father, and my brother!’ the counting up to twelve, and ‘Hush!’ The frenzy was so violent, that I had not unfastened the bandages restraining the arms; but, I had looked to them, to see that they were not painful. The only spark of encouragement in the case, was, that my hand upon the sufferer’s breast had this much soothing influence, that for minutes at a time it tranquillised the figure. It had no effect upon the cries; no pendulum could be more regular. “For the reason that my hand had this effect (I assume), I had sat by the side of the bed for half an hour, with the two brothers looking on, before the elder said: “‘There is another patient.’ “I was startled, and asked, ‘Is it a pressing case?’ “‘You had better see,’ he carelessly answered; and took up a light. ***** “The other patient lay in a back room across a second staircase, which was a species of loft over a stable. There was a low plastered ceiling to a part of it; the rest was open, to the ridge of the tiled roof, and there were beams across. Hay and straw were stored in that portion of the place, fagots for firing, and a heap of apples in sand. I had to pass through that part, to get at the other. My memory is circumstantial and unshaken. I try it with these details, and I see them all, in this my cell in the Bastille, near the close of the tenth year of my captivity, as I saw them all that night. “On some hay on the ground, with a cushion thrown under his head, lay a handsome peasant boy--a boy of not more than seventeen at the most. He lay on his back, with his teeth set, his right hand clenched on his breast, and his glaring eyes looking straight upward. I could not see where his wound was, as I kneeled on one knee over him; but, I could see that he was dying of a wound from a sharp point. “‘I am a doctor, my poor fellow,’ said I. ‘Let me examine it.’ “‘I do not want it examined,’ he answered; ‘let it be.’ “It was under his hand, and I soothed him to let me move his hand away. The wound was a sword-thrust, received from twenty to twenty-four hours before, but no skill could have saved him if it had been looked to without delay. He was then dying fast. As I turned my eyes to the elder brother, I saw him looking down at this handsome boy whose life was ebbing out, as if he were a wounded bird, or hare, or rabbit; not at all as if he were a fellow-creature. “‘How has this been done, monsieur?’ said I. “‘A crazed young common dog! A serf! Forced my brother to draw upon him, and has fallen by my brother’s sword--like a gentleman.’ “There was no touch of pity, sorrow, or kindred humanity, in this answer. The speaker seemed to acknowledge that it was inconvenient to have that different order of creature dying there, and that it would have been better if he had died in the usual obscure routine of his vermin kind. He was quite incapable of any compassionate feeling about the boy, or about his fate. “The boy’s eyes had slowly moved to him as he had spoken, and they now slowly moved to me. “‘Doctor, they are very proud, these Nobles; but we common dogs are proud too, sometimes. They plunder us, outrage us, beat us, kill us; but we have a little pride left, sometimes. She--have you seen her, Doctor?’ “The shrieks and the cries were audible there, though subdued by the distance. He referred to them, as if she were lying in our presence. “I said, ‘I have seen her.’ “‘She is my sister, Doctor. They have had their shameful rights, these Nobles, in the modesty and virtue of our sisters, many years, but we have had good girls among us. I know it, and have heard my father say so. She was a good girl. She was betrothed to a good young man, too: a tenant of his. We were all tenants of his--that man’s who stands there. The other is his brother, the worst of a bad race.’ “It was with the greatest difficulty that the boy gathered bodily force to speak; but, his spirit spoke with a dreadful emphasis. “‘We were so robbed by that man who stands there, as all we common dogs are by those superior Beings--taxed by him without mercy, obliged to work for him without pay, obliged to grind our corn at his mill, obliged to feed scores of his tame birds on our wretched crops, and forbidden for our lives to keep a single tame bird of our own, pillaged and plundered to that degree that when we chanced to have a bit of meat, we ate it in fear, with the door barred and the shutters closed, that his people should not see it and take it from us--I say, we were so robbed, and hunted, and were made so poor, that our father told us it was a dreadful thing to bring a child into the world, and that what we should most pray for, was, that our women might be barren and our miserable race die out!’ “I had never before seen the sense of being oppressed, bursting forth like a fire. I had supposed that it must be latent in the people somewhere; but, I had never seen it break out, until I saw it in the dying boy. “‘Nevertheless, Doctor, my sister married. He was ailing at that time, poor fellow, and she married her lover, that she might tend and comfort him in our cottage--our dog-hut, as that man would call it. She had not been married many weeks, when that man’s brother saw her and admired her, and asked that man to lend her to him--for what are husbands among us! He was willing enough, but my sister was good and virtuous, and hated his brother with a hatred as strong as mine. What did the two then, to persuade her husband to use his influence with her, to make her willing?’ “The boy’s eyes, which had been fixed on mine, slowly turned to the looker-on, and I saw in the two faces that all he said was true. The two opposing kinds of pride confronting one another, I can see, even in this Bastille; the gentleman’s, all negligent indifference; the peasant’s, all trodden-down sentiment, and passionate revenge. “‘You know, Doctor, that it is among the Rights of these Nobles to harness us common dogs to carts, and drive us. They so harnessed him and drove him. You know that it is among their Rights to keep us in their grounds all night, quieting the frogs, in order that their noble sleep may not be disturbed. They kept him out in the unwholesome mists at night, and ordered him back into his harness in the day. But he was not persuaded. No! Taken out of harness one day at noon, to feed--if he could find food--he sobbed twelve times, once for every stroke of the bell, and died on her bosom.’ “Nothing human could have held life in the boy but his determination to tell all his wrong. He forced back the gathering shadows of death, as he forced his clenched right hand to remain clenched, and to cover his wound. “‘Then, with that man’s permission and even with his aid, his brother took her away; in spite of what I know she must have told his brother--and what that is, will not be long unknown to you, Doctor, if it is now--his brother took her away--for his pleasure and diversion, for a little while. I saw her pass me on the road. When I took the tidings home, our father’s heart burst; he never spoke one of the words that filled it. I took my young sister (for I have another) to a place beyond the reach of this man, and where, at least, she will never be _his_ vassal. Then, I tracked the brother here, and last night climbed in--a common dog, but sword in hand.--Where is the loft window? It was somewhere here?’ “The room was darkening to his sight; the world was narrowing around him. I glanced about me, and saw that the hay and straw were trampled over the floor, as if there had been a struggle. “‘She heard me, and ran in. I told her not to come near us till he was dead. He came in and first tossed me some pieces of money; then struck at me with a whip. But I, though a common dog, so struck at him as to make him draw. Let him break into as many pieces as he will, the sword that he stained with my common blood; he drew to defend himself--thrust at me with all his skill for his life.’ “My glance had fallen, but a few moments before, on the fragments of a broken sword, lying among the hay. That weapon was a gentleman’s. In another place, lay an old sword that seemed to have been a soldier’s. “‘Now, lift me up, Doctor; lift me up. Where is he?’ “‘He is not here,’ I said, supporting the boy, and thinking that he referred to the brother. “‘He! Proud as these nobles are, he is afraid to see me. Where is the man who was here? Turn my face to him.’ “I did so, raising the boy’s head against my knee. But, invested for the moment with extraordinary power, he raised himself completely: obliging me to rise too, or I could not have still supported him. “‘Marquis,’ said the boy, turned to him with his eyes opened wide, and his right hand raised, ‘in the days when all these things are to be answered for, I summon you and yours, to the last of your bad race, to answer for them. I mark this cross of blood upon you, as a sign that I do it. In the days when all these things are to be answered for, I summon your brother, the worst of the bad race, to answer for them separately. I mark this cross of blood upon him, as a sign that I do it.’ “Twice, he put his hand to the wound in his breast, and with his forefinger drew a cross in the air. He stood for an instant with the finger yet raised, and as it dropped, he dropped with it, and I laid him down dead. ***** “When I returned to the bedside of the young woman, I found her raving in precisely the same order of continuity. I knew that this might last for many hours, and that it would probably end in the silence of the grave. “I repeated the medicines I had given her, and I sat at the side of the bed until the night was far advanced. She never abated the piercing quality of her shrieks, never stumbled in the distinctness or the order of her words. They were always ‘My husband, my father, and my brother! One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. Hush!’ “This lasted twenty-six hours from the time when I first saw her. I had come and gone twice, and was again sitting by her, when she began to falter. I did what little could be done to assist that opportunity, and by-and-bye she sank into a lethargy, and lay like the dead. “It was as if the wind and rain had lulled at last, after a long and fearful storm. I released her arms, and called the woman to assist me to compose her figure and the dress she had torn. It was then that I knew her condition to be that of one in whom the first expectations of being a mother have arisen; and it was then that I lost the little hope I had had of her. “‘Is she dead?’ asked the Marquis, whom I will still describe as the elder brother, coming booted into the room from his horse. “‘Not dead,’ said I; ‘but like to die.’ “‘What strength there is in these common bodies!’ he said, looking down at her with some curiosity. “‘There is prodigious strength,’ I answered him, ‘in sorrow and despair.’ “He first laughed at my words, and then frowned at them. He moved a chair with his foot near to mine, ordered the woman away, and said in a subdued voice, “‘Doctor, finding my brother in this difficulty with these hinds, I recommended that your aid should be invited. Your reputation is high, and, as a young man with your fortune to make, you are probably mindful of your interest. The things that you see here, are things to be seen, and not spoken of.’ “I listened to the patient’s breathing, and avoided answering. “‘Do you honour me with your attention, Doctor?’ “‘Monsieur,’ said I, ‘in my profession, the communications of patients are always received in confidence.’ I was guarded in my answer, for I was troubled in my mind with what I had heard and seen. “Her breathing was so difficult to trace, that I carefully tried the pulse and the heart. There was life, and no more. Looking round as I resumed my seat, I found both the brothers intent upon me. ***** “I write with so much difficulty, the cold is so severe, I am so fearful of being detected and consigned to an underground cell and total darkness, that I must abridge this narrative. There is no confusion or failure in my memory; it can recall, and could detail, every word that was ever spoken between me and those brothers. “She lingered for a week. Towards the last, I could understand some few syllables that she said to me, by placing my ear close to her lips. She asked me where she was, and I told her; who I was, and I told her. It was in vain that I asked her for her family name. She faintly shook her head upon the pillow, and kept her secret, as the boy had done. “I had no opportunity of asking her any question, until I had told the brothers she was sinking fast, and could not live another day. Until then, though no one was ever presented to her consciousness save the woman and myself, one or other of them had always jealously sat behind the curtain at the head of the bed when I was there. But when it came to that, they seemed careless what communication I might hold with her; as if--the thought passed through my mind--I were dying too. “I always observed that their pride bitterly resented the younger brother’s (as I call him) having crossed swords with a peasant, and that peasant a boy. The only consideration that appeared to affect the mind of either of them was the consideration that this was highly degrading to the family, and was ridiculous. As often as I caught the younger brother’s eyes, their expression reminded me that he disliked me deeply, for knowing what I knew from the boy. He was smoother and more polite to me than the elder; but I saw this. I also saw that I was an incumbrance in the mind of the elder, too. “My patient died, two hours before midnight--at a time, by my watch, answering almost to the minute when I had first seen her. I was alone with her, when her forlorn young head drooped gently on one side, and all her earthly wrongs and sorrows ended. “The brothers were waiting in a room down-stairs, impatient to ride away. I had heard them, alone at the bedside, striking their boots with their riding-whips, and loitering up and down. “‘At last she is dead?’ said the elder, when I went in. “‘She is dead,’ said I. “‘I congratulate you, my brother,’ were his words as he turned round. “He had before offered me money, which I had postponed taking. He now gave me a rouleau of gold. I took it from his hand, but laid it on the table. I had considered the question, and had resolved to accept nothing. “‘Pray excuse me,’ said I. ‘Under the circumstances, no.’ “They exchanged looks, but bent their heads to me as I bent mine to them, and we parted without another word on either side. ***** “I am weary, weary, weary--worn down by misery. I cannot read what I have written with this gaunt hand. “Early in the morning, the rouleau of gold was left at my door in a little box, with my name on the outside. From the first, I had anxiously considered what I ought to do. I decided, that day, to write privately to the Minister, stating the nature of the two cases to which I had been summoned, and the place to which I had gone: in effect, stating all the circumstances. I knew what Court influence was, and what the immunities of the Nobles were, and I expected that the matter would never be heard of; but, I wished to relieve my own mind. I had kept the matter a profound secret, even from my wife; and this, too, I resolved to state in my letter. I had no apprehension whatever of my real danger; but I was conscious that there might be danger for others, if others were compromised by possessing the knowledge that I possessed. “I was much engaged that day, and could not complete my letter that night. I rose long before my usual time next morning to finish it. It was the last day of the year. The letter was lying before me just completed, when I was told that a lady waited, who wished to see me. ***** “I am growing more and more unequal to the task I have set myself. It is so cold, so dark, my senses are so benumbed, and the gloom upon me is so dreadful. “The lady was young, engaging, and handsome, but not marked for long life. She was in great agitation. She presented herself to me as the wife of the Marquis St. Evrémonde. I connected the title by which the boy had addressed the elder brother, with the initial letter embroidered on the scarf, and had no difficulty in arriving at the conclusion that I had seen that nobleman very lately. “My memory is still accurate, but I cannot write the words of our conversation. I suspect that I am watched more closely than I was, and I know not at what times I may be watched. She had in part suspected, and in part discovered, the main facts of the cruel story, of her husband’s share in it, and my being resorted to. She did not know that the girl was dead. Her hope had been, she said in great distress, to show her, in secret, a woman’s sympathy. Her hope had been to avert the wrath of Heaven from a House that had long been hateful to the suffering many. “She had reasons for believing that there was a young sister living, and her greatest desire was, to help that sister. I could tell her nothing but that there was such a sister; beyond that, I knew nothing. Her inducement to come to me, relying on my confidence, had been the hope that I could tell her the name and place of abode. Whereas, to this wretched hour I am ignorant of both. ***** “These scraps of paper fail me. One was taken from me, with a warning, yesterday. I must finish my record to-day. “She was a good, compassionate lady, and not happy in her marriage. How could she be! The brother distrusted and disliked her, and his influence was all opposed to her; she stood in dread of him, and in dread of her husband too. When I handed her down to the door, there was a child, a pretty boy from two to three years old, in her carriage. “‘For his sake, Doctor,’ she said, pointing to him in tears, ‘I would do all I can to make what poor amends I can. He will never prosper in his inheritance otherwise. I have a presentiment that if no other innocent atonement is made for this, it will one day be required of him. What I have left to call my own--it is little beyond the worth of a few jewels--I will make it the first charge of his life to bestow, with the compassion and lamenting of his dead mother, on this injured family, if the sister can be discovered.’ “She kissed the boy, and said, caressing him, ‘It is for thine own dear sake. Thou wilt be faithful, little Charles?’ The child answered her bravely, ‘Yes!’ I kissed her hand, and she took him in her arms, and went away caressing him. I never saw her more. “As she had mentioned her husband’s name in the faith that I knew it, I added no mention of it to my letter. I sealed my letter, and, not trusting it out of my own hands, delivered it myself that day. “That night, the last night of the year, towards nine o’clock, a man in a black dress rang at my gate, demanded to see me, and softly followed my servant, Ernest Defarge, a youth, up-stairs. When my servant came into the room where I sat with my wife--O my wife, beloved of my heart! My fair young English wife!--we saw the man, who was supposed to be at the gate, standing silent behind him. “An urgent case in the Rue St. Honore, he said. It would not detain me, he had a coach in waiting. “It brought me here, it brought me to my grave. When I was clear of the house, a black muffler was drawn tightly over my mouth from behind, and my arms were pinioned. The two brothers crossed the road from a dark corner, and identified me with a single gesture. The Marquis took from his pocket the letter I had written, showed it me, burnt it in the light of a lantern that was held, and extinguished the ashes with his foot. Not a word was spoken. I was brought here, I was brought to my living grave. “If it had pleased _God_ to put it in the hard heart of either of the brothers, in all these frightful years, to grant me any tidings of my dearest wife--so much as to let me know by a word whether alive or dead--I might have thought that He had not quite abandoned them. But, now I believe that the mark of the red cross is fatal to them, and that they have no part in His mercies. And them and their descendants, to the last of their race, I, Alexandre Manette, unhappy prisoner, do this last night of the year 1767, in my unbearable agony, denounce to the times when all these things shall be answered for. I denounce them to Heaven and to earth.” A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document was done. A sound of craving and eagerness that had nothing articulate in it but blood. The narrative called up the most revengeful passions of the time, and there was not a head in the nation but must have dropped before it. Little need, in presence of that tribunal and that auditory, to show how the Defarges had not made the paper public, with the other captured Bastille memorials borne in procession, and had kept it, biding their time. Little need to show that this detested family name had long been anathematised by Saint Antoine, and was wrought into the fatal register. The man never trod ground whose virtues and services would have sustained him in that place that day, against such denunciation. And all the worse for the doomed man, that the denouncer was a well-known citizen, his own attached friend, the father of his wife. One of the frenzied aspirations of the populace was, for imitations of the questionable public virtues of antiquity, and for sacrifices and self-immolations on the people’s altar. Therefore when the President said (else had his own head quivered on his shoulders), that the good physician of the Republic would deserve better still of the Republic by rooting out an obnoxious family of Aristocrats, and would doubtless feel a sacred glow and joy in making his daughter a widow and her child an orphan, there was wild excitement, patriotic fervour, not a touch of human sympathy. “Much influence around him, has that Doctor?” murmured Madame Defarge, smiling to The Vengeance. “Save him now, my Doctor, save him!” At every juryman’s vote, there was a roar. Another and another. Roar and roar. Unanimously voted. At heart and by descent an Aristocrat, an enemy of the Republic, a notorious oppressor of the People. Back to the Conciergerie, and Death within four-and-twenty hours! CHAPTER XI. Dusk The wretched wife of the innocent man thus doomed to die, fell under the sentence, as if she had been mortally stricken. But, she uttered no sound; and so strong was the voice within her, representing that it was she of all the world who must uphold him in his misery and not augment it, that it quickly raised her, even from that shock. The Judges having to take part in a public demonstration out of doors, the Tribunal adjourned. The quick noise and movement of the court’s emptying itself by many passages had not ceased, when Lucie stood stretching out her arms towards her husband, with nothing in her face but love and consolation. “If I might touch him! If I might embrace him once! O, good citizens, if you would have so much compassion for us!” There was but a gaoler left, along with two of the four men who had taken him last night, and Barsad. The people had all poured out to the show in the streets. Barsad proposed to the rest, “Let her embrace him then; it is but a moment.” It was silently acquiesced in, and they passed her over the seats in the hall to a raised place, where he, by leaning over the dock, could fold her in his arms. “Farewell, dear darling of my soul. My parting blessing on my love. We shall meet again, where the weary are at rest!” They were her husband’s words, as he held her to his bosom. “I can bear it, dear Charles. I am supported from above: don’t suffer for me. A parting blessing for our child.” “I send it to her by you. I kiss her by you. I say farewell to her by you.” “My husband. No! A moment!” He was tearing himself apart from her. “We shall not be separated long. I feel that this will break my heart by-and-bye; but I will do my duty while I can, and when I leave her, God will raise up friends for her, as He did for me.” Her father had followed her, and would have fallen on his knees to both of them, but that Darnay put out a hand and seized him, crying: “No, no! What have you done, what have you done, that you should kneel to us! We know now, what a struggle you made of old. We know, now what you underwent when you suspected my descent, and when you knew it. We know now, the natural antipathy you strove against, and conquered, for her dear sake. We thank you with all our hearts, and all our love and duty. Heaven be with you!” Her father’s only answer was to draw his hands through his white hair, and wring them with a shriek of anguish. “It could not be otherwise,” said the prisoner. “All things have worked together as they have fallen out. It was the always-vain endeavour to discharge my poor mother’s trust that first brought my fatal presence near you. Good could never come of such evil, a happier end was not in nature to so unhappy a beginning. Be comforted, and forgive me. Heaven bless you!” As he was drawn away, his wife released him, and stood looking after him with her hands touching one another in the attitude of prayer, and with a radiant look upon her face, in which there was even a comforting smile. As he went out at the prisoners’ door, she turned, laid her head lovingly on her father’s breast, tried to speak to him, and fell at his feet. Then, issuing from the obscure corner from which he had never moved, Sydney Carton came and took her up. Only her father and Mr. Lorry were with her. His arm trembled as it raised her, and supported her head. Yet, there was an air about him that was not all of pity--that had a flush of pride in it. “Shall I take her to a coach? I shall never feel her weight.” He carried her lightly to the door, and laid her tenderly down in a coach. Her father and their old friend got into it, and he took his seat beside the driver. When they arrived at the gateway where he had paused in the dark not many hours before, to picture to himself on which of the rough stones of the street her feet had trodden, he lifted her again, and carried her up the staircase to their rooms. There, he laid her down on a couch, where her child and Miss Pross wept over her. “Don’t recall her to herself,” he said, softly, to the latter, “she is better so. Don’t revive her to consciousness, while she only faints.” “Oh, Carton, Carton, dear Carton!” cried little Lucie, springing up and throwing her arms passionately round him, in a burst of grief. “Now that you have come, I think you will do something to help mamma, something to save papa! O, look at her, dear Carton! Can you, of all the people who love her, bear to see her so?” He bent over the child, and laid her blooming cheek against his face. He put her gently from him, and looked at her unconscious mother. “Before I go,” he said, and paused--“I may kiss her?” It was remembered afterwards that when he bent down and touched her face with his lips, he murmured some words. The child, who was nearest to him, told them afterwards, and told her grandchildren when she was a handsome old lady, that she heard him say, “A life you love.” When he had gone out into the next room, he turned suddenly on Mr. Lorry and her father, who were following, and said to the latter: “You had great influence but yesterday, Doctor Manette; let it at least be tried. These judges, and all the men in power, are very friendly to you, and very recognisant of your services; are they not?” “Nothing connected with Charles was concealed from me. I had the strongest assurances that I should save him; and I did.” He returned the answer in great trouble, and very slowly. “Try them again. The hours between this and to-morrow afternoon are few and short, but try.” “I intend to try. I will not rest a moment.” “That’s well. I have known such energy as yours do great things before now--though never,” he added, with a smile and a sigh together, “such great things as this. But try! Of little worth as life is when we misuse it, it is worth that effort. It would cost nothing to lay down if it were not.” “I will go,” said Doctor Manette, “to the Prosecutor and the President straight, and I will go to others whom it is better not to name. I will write too, and--But stay! There is a Celebration in the streets, and no one will be accessible until dark.” “That’s true. Well! It is a forlorn hope at the best, and not much the forlorner for being delayed till dark. I should like to know how you speed; though, mind! I expect nothing! When are you likely to have seen these dread powers, Doctor Manette?” “Immediately after dark, I should hope. Within an hour or two from this.” “It will be dark soon after four. Let us stretch the hour or two. If I go to Mr. Lorry’s at nine, shall I hear what you have done, either from our friend or from yourself?” “Yes.” “May you prosper!” Mr. Lorry followed Sydney to the outer door, and, touching him on the shoulder as he was going away, caused him to turn. “I have no hope,” said Mr. Lorry, in a low and sorrowful whisper. “Nor have I.” “If any one of these men, or all of these men, were disposed to spare him--which is a large supposition; for what is his life, or any man’s to them!--I doubt if they durst spare him after the demonstration in the court.” “And so do I. I heard the fall of the axe in that sound.” Mr. Lorry leaned his arm upon the door-post, and bowed his face upon it. “Don’t despond,” said Carton, very gently; “don’t grieve. I encouraged Doctor Manette in this idea, because I felt that it might one day be consolatory to her. Otherwise, she might think ‘his life was wantonly thrown away or wasted,’ and that might trouble her.” “Yes, yes, yes,” returned Mr. Lorry, drying his eyes, “you are right. But he will perish; there is no real hope.” “Yes. He will perish: there is no real hope,” echoed Carton. And walked with a settled step, down-stairs. CHAPTER XII. Darkness Sydney Carton paused in the street, not quite decided where to go. “At Tellson’s banking-house at nine,” he said, with a musing face. “Shall I do well, in the mean time, to show myself? I think so. It is best that these people should know there is such a man as I here; it is a sound precaution, and may be a necessary preparation. But care, care, care! Let me think it out!” Checking his steps which had begun to tend towards an object, he took a turn or two in the already darkening street, and traced the thought in his mind to its possible consequences. His first impression was confirmed. “It is best,” he said, finally resolved, “that these people should know there is such a man as I here.” And he turned his face towards Saint Antoine. Defarge had described himself, that day, as the keeper of a wine-shop in the Saint Antoine suburb. It was not difficult for one who knew the city well, to find his house without asking any question. Having ascertained its situation, Carton came out of those closer streets again, and dined at a place of refreshment and fell sound asleep after dinner. For the first time in many years, he had no strong drink. Since last night he had taken nothing but a little light thin wine, and last night he had dropped the brandy slowly down on Mr. Lorry’s hearth like a man who had done with it. It was as late as seven o’clock when he awoke refreshed, and went out into the streets again. As he passed along towards Saint Antoine, he stopped at a shop-window where there was a mirror, and slightly altered the disordered arrangement of his loose cravat, and his coat-collar, and his wild hair. This done, he went on direct to Defarge’s, and went in. There happened to be no customer in the shop but Jacques Three, of the restless fingers and the croaking voice. This man, whom he had seen upon the Jury, stood drinking at the little counter, in conversation with the Defarges, man and wife. The Vengeance assisted in the conversation, like a regular member of the establishment. As Carton walked in, took his seat and asked (in very indifferent French) for a small measure of wine, Madame Defarge cast a careless glance at him, and then a keener, and then a keener, and then advanced to him herself, and asked him what it was he had ordered. He repeated what he had already said. “English?” asked Madame Defarge, inquisitively raising her dark eyebrows. After looking at her, as if the sound of even a single French word were slow to express itself to him, he answered, in his former strong foreign accent. “Yes, madame, yes. I am English!” Madame Defarge returned to her counter to get the wine, and, as he took up a Jacobin journal and feigned to pore over it puzzling out its meaning, he heard her say, “I swear to you, like Evrémonde!” Defarge brought him the wine, and gave him Good Evening. “How?” “Good evening.” “Oh! Good evening, citizen,” filling his glass. “Ah! and good wine. I drink to the Republic.” Defarge went back to the counter, and said, “Certainly, a little like.” Madame sternly retorted, “I tell you a good deal like.” Jacques Three pacifically remarked, “He is so much in your mind, see you, madame.” The amiable Vengeance added, with a laugh, “Yes, my faith! And you are looking forward with so much pleasure to seeing him once more to-morrow!” Carton followed the lines and words of his paper, with a slow forefinger, and with a studious and absorbed face. They were all leaning their arms on the counter close together, speaking low. After a silence of a few moments, during which they all looked towards him without disturbing his outward attention from the Jacobin editor, they resumed their conversation. “It is true what madame says,” observed Jacques Three. “Why stop? There is great force in that. Why stop?” “Well, well,” reasoned Defarge, “but one must stop somewhere. After all, the question is still where?” “At extermination,” said madame. “Magnificent!” croaked Jacques Three. The Vengeance, also, highly approved. “Extermination is good doctrine, my wife,” said Defarge, rather troubled; “in general, I say nothing against it. But this Doctor has suffered much; you have seen him to-day; you have observed his face when the paper was read.” “I have observed his face!” repeated madame, contemptuously and angrily. “Yes. I have observed his face. I have observed his face to be not the face of a true friend of the Republic. Let him take care of his face!” “And you have observed, my wife,” said Defarge, in a deprecatory manner, “the anguish of his daughter, which must be a dreadful anguish to him!” “I have observed his daughter,” repeated madame; “yes, I have observed his daughter, more times than one. I have observed her to-day, and I have observed her other days. I have observed her in the court, and I have observed her in the street by the prison. Let me but lift my finger--!” She seemed to raise it (the listener’s eyes were always on his paper), and to let it fall with a rattle on the ledge before her, as if the axe had dropped. “The citizeness is superb!” croaked the Juryman. “She is an Angel!” said The Vengeance, and embraced her. “As to thee,” pursued madame, implacably, addressing her husband, “if it depended on thee--which, happily, it does not--thou wouldst rescue this man even now.” “No!” protested Defarge. “Not if to lift this glass would do it! But I would leave the matter there. I say, stop there.” “See you then, Jacques,” said Madame Defarge, wrathfully; “and see you, too, my little Vengeance; see you both! Listen! For other crimes as tyrants and oppressors, I have this race a long time on my register, doomed to destruction and extermination. Ask my husband, is that so.” “It is so,” assented Defarge, without being asked. “In the beginning of the great days, when the Bastille falls, he finds this paper of to-day, and he brings it home, and in the middle of the night when this place is clear and shut, we read it, here on this spot, by the light of this lamp. Ask him, is that so.” “It is so,” assented Defarge. “That night, I tell him, when the paper is read through, and the lamp is burnt out, and the day is gleaming in above those shutters and between those iron bars, that I have now a secret to communicate. Ask him, is that so.” “It is so,” assented Defarge again. “I communicate to him that secret. I smite this bosom with these two hands as I smite it now, and I tell him, ‘Defarge, I was brought up among the fishermen of the sea-shore, and that peasant family so injured by the two Evrémonde brothers, as that Bastille paper describes, is my family. Defarge, that sister of the mortally wounded boy upon the ground was my sister, that husband was my sister’s husband, that unborn child was their child, that brother was my brother, that father was my father, those dead are my dead, and that summons to answer for those things descends to me!’ Ask him, is that so.” “It is so,” assented Defarge once more. “Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop,” returned madame; “but don’t tell me.” Both her hearers derived a horrible enjoyment from the deadly nature of her wrath--the listener could feel how white she was, without seeing her--and both highly commended it. Defarge, a weak minority, interposed a few words for the memory of the compassionate wife of the Marquis; but only elicited from his own wife a repetition of her last reply. “Tell the Wind and the Fire where to stop; not me!” Customers entered, and the group was broken up. The English customer paid for what he had had, perplexedly counted his change, and asked, as a stranger, to be directed towards the National Palace. Madame Defarge took him to the door, and put her arm on his, in pointing out the road. The English customer was not without his reflections then, that it might be a good deed to seize that arm, lift it, and strike under it sharp and deep. But, he went his way, and was soon swallowed up in the shadow of the prison wall. At the appointed hour, he emerged from it to present himself in Mr. Lorry’s room again, where he found the old gentleman walking to and fro in restless anxiety. He said he had been with Lucie until just now, and had only left her for a few minutes, to come and keep his appointment. Her father had not been seen, since he quitted the banking-house towards four o’clock. She had some faint hopes that his mediation might save Charles, but they were very slight. He had been more than five hours gone: where could he be? Mr. Lorry waited until ten; but, Doctor Manette not returning, and he being unwilling to leave Lucie any longer, it was arranged that he should go back to her, and come to the banking-house again at midnight. In the meanwhile, Carton would wait alone by the fire for the Doctor. He waited and waited, and the clock struck twelve; but Doctor Manette did not come back. Mr. Lorry returned, and found no tidings of him, and brought none. Where could he be? They were discussing this question, and were almost building up some weak structure of hope on his prolonged absence, when they heard him on the stairs. The instant he entered the room, it was plain that all was lost. Whether he had really been to any one, or whether he had been all that time traversing the streets, was never known. As he stood staring at them, they asked him no question, for his face told them everything. “I cannot find it,” said he, “and I must have it. Where is it?” His head and throat were bare, and, as he spoke with a helpless look straying all around, he took his coat off, and let it drop on the floor. “Where is my bench? I have been looking everywhere for my bench, and I can’t find it. What have they done with my work? Time presses: I must finish those shoes.” They looked at one another, and their hearts died within them. “Come, come!” said he, in a whimpering miserable way; “let me get to work. Give me my work.” Receiving no answer, he tore his hair, and beat his feet upon the ground, like a distracted child. “Don’t torture a poor forlorn wretch,” he implored them, with a dreadful cry; “but give me my work! What is to become of us, if those shoes are not done to-night?” Lost, utterly lost! It was so clearly beyond hope to reason with him, or try to restore him, that--as if by agreement--they each put a hand upon his shoulder, and soothed him to sit down before the fire, with a promise that he should have his work presently. He sank into the chair, and brooded over the embers, and shed tears. As if all that had happened since the garret time were a momentary fancy, or a dream, Mr. Lorry saw him shrink into the exact figure that Defarge had had in keeping. Affected, and impressed with terror as they both were, by this spectacle of ruin, it was not a time to yield to such emotions. His lonely daughter, bereft of her final hope and reliance, appealed to them both too strongly. Again, as if by agreement, they looked at one another with one meaning in their faces. Carton was the first to speak: “The last chance is gone: it was not much. Yes; he had better be taken to her. But, before you go, will you, for a moment, steadily attend to me? Don’t ask me why I make the stipulations I am going to make, and exact the promise I am going to exact; I have a reason--a good one.” “I do not doubt it,” answered Mr. Lorry. “Say on.” The figure in the chair between them, was all the time monotonously rocking itself to and fro, and moaning. They spoke in such a tone as they would have used if they had been watching by a sick-bed in the night. Carton stooped to pick up the coat, which lay almost entangling his feet. As he did so, a small case in which the Doctor was accustomed to carry the lists of his day’s duties, fell lightly on the floor. Carton took it up, and there was a folded paper in it. “We should look at this!” he said. Mr. Lorry nodded his consent. He opened it, and exclaimed, “Thank _God!_” “What is it?” asked Mr. Lorry, eagerly. “A moment! Let me speak of it in its place. First,” he put his hand in his coat, and took another paper from it, “that is the certificate which enables me to pass out of this city. Look at it. You see--Sydney Carton, an Englishman?” Mr. Lorry held it open in his hand, gazing in his earnest face. “Keep it for me until to-morrow. I shall see him to-morrow, you remember, and I had better not take it into the prison.” “Why not?” “I don’t know; I prefer not to do so. Now, take this paper that Doctor Manette has carried about him. It is a similar certificate, enabling him and his daughter and her child, at any time, to pass the barrier and the frontier! You see?” “Yes!” “Perhaps he obtained it as his last and utmost precaution against evil, yesterday. When is it dated? But no matter; don’t stay to look; put it up carefully with mine and your own. Now, observe! I never doubted until within this hour or two, that he had, or could have such a paper. It is good, until recalled. But it may be soon recalled, and, I have reason to think, will be.” “They are not in danger?” “They are in great danger. They are in danger of denunciation by Madame Defarge. I know it from her own lips. I have overheard words of that woman’s, to-night, which have presented their danger to me in strong colours. I have lost no time, and since then, I have seen the spy. He confirms me. He knows that a wood-sawyer, living by the prison wall, is under the control of the Defarges, and has been rehearsed by Madame Defarge as to his having seen Her”--he never mentioned Lucie’s name--“making signs and signals to prisoners. It is easy to foresee that the pretence will be the common one, a prison plot, and that it will involve her life--and perhaps her child’s--and perhaps her father’s--for both have been seen with her at that place. Don’t look so horrified. You will save them all.” “Heaven grant I may, Carton! But how?” “I am going to tell you how. It will depend on you, and it could depend on no better man. This new denunciation will certainly not take place until after to-morrow; probably not until two or three days afterwards; more probably a week afterwards. You know it is a capital crime, to mourn for, or sympathise with, a victim of the Guillotine. She and her father would unquestionably be guilty of this crime, and this woman (the inveteracy of whose pursuit cannot be described) would wait to add that strength to her case, and make herself doubly sure. You follow me?” “So attentively, and with so much confidence in what you say, that for the moment I lose sight,” touching the back of the Doctor’s chair, “even of this distress.” “You have money, and can buy the means of travelling to the seacoast as quickly as the journey can be made. Your preparations have been completed for some days, to return to England. Early to-morrow have your horses ready, so that they may be in starting trim at two o’clock in the afternoon.” “It shall be done!” His manner was so fervent and inspiring, that Mr. Lorry caught the flame, and was as quick as youth. “You are a noble heart. Did I say we could depend upon no better man? Tell her, to-night, what you know of her danger as involving her child and her father. Dwell upon that, for she would lay her own fair head beside her husband’s cheerfully.” He faltered for an instant; then went on as before. “For the sake of her child and her father, press upon her the necessity of leaving Paris, with them and you, at that hour. Tell her that it was her husband’s last arrangement. Tell her that more depends upon it than she dare believe, or hope. You think that her father, even in this sad state, will submit himself to her; do you not?” “I am sure of it.” “I thought so. Quietly and steadily have all these arrangements made in the courtyard here, even to the taking of your own seat in the carriage. The moment I come to you, take me in, and drive away.” “I understand that I wait for you under all circumstances?” “You have my certificate in your hand with the rest, you know, and will reserve my place. Wait for nothing but to have my place occupied, and then for England!” “Why, then,” said Mr. Lorry, grasping his eager but so firm and steady hand, “it does not all depend on one old man, but I shall have a young and ardent man at my side.” “By the help of Heaven you shall! Promise me solemnly that nothing will influence you to alter the course on which we now stand pledged to one another.” “Nothing, Carton.” “Remember these words to-morrow: change the course, or delay in it--for any reason--and no life can possibly be saved, and many lives must inevitably be sacrificed.” “I will remember them. I hope to do my part faithfully.” “And I hope to do mine. Now, good bye!” Though he said it with a grave smile of earnestness, and though he even put the old man’s hand to his lips, he did not part from him then. He helped him so far to arouse the rocking figure before the dying embers, as to get a cloak and hat put upon it, and to tempt it forth to find where the bench and work were hidden that it still moaningly besought to have. He walked on the other side of it and protected it to the courtyard of the house where the afflicted heart--so happy in the memorable time when he had revealed his own desolate heart to it--outwatched the awful night. He entered the courtyard and remained there for a few moments alone, looking up at the light in the window of her room. Before he went away, he breathed a blessing towards it, and a Farewell. CHAPTER XIII. Fifty-two In the black prison of the Conciergerie, the doomed of the day awaited their fate. They were in number as the weeks of the year. Fifty-two were to roll that afternoon on the life-tide of the city to the boundless everlasting sea. Before their cells were quit of them, new occupants were appointed; before their blood ran into the blood spilled yesterday, the blood that was to mingle with theirs to-morrow was already set apart. Two score and twelve were told off. From the farmer-general of seventy, whose riches could not buy his life, to the seamstress of twenty, whose poverty and obscurity could not save her. Physical diseases, engendered in the vices and neglects of men, will seize on victims of all degrees; and the frightful moral disorder, born of unspeakable suffering, intolerable oppression, and heartless indifference, smote equally without distinction. Charles Darnay, alone in a cell, had sustained himself with no flattering delusion since he came to it from the Tribunal. In every line of the narrative he had heard, he had heard his condemnation. He had fully comprehended that no personal influence could possibly save him, that he was virtually sentenced by the millions, and that units could avail him nothing. Nevertheless, it was not easy, with the face of his beloved wife fresh before him, to compose his mind to what it must bear. His hold on life was strong, and it was very, very hard, to loosen; by gradual efforts and degrees unclosed a little here, it clenched the tighter there; and when he brought his strength to bear on that hand and it yielded, this was closed again. There was a hurry, too, in all his thoughts, a turbulent and heated working of his heart, that contended against resignation. If, for a moment, he did feel resigned, then his wife and child who had to live after him, seemed to protest and to make it a selfish thing. But, all this was at first. Before long, the consideration that there was no disgrace in the fate he must meet, and that numbers went the same road wrongfully, and trod it firmly every day, sprang up to stimulate him. Next followed the thought that much of the future peace of mind enjoyable by the dear ones, depended on his quiet fortitude. So, by degrees he calmed into the better state, when he could raise his thoughts much higher, and draw comfort down. Before it had set in dark on the night of his condemnation, he had travelled thus far on his last way. Being allowed to purchase the means of writing, and a light, he sat down to write until such time as the prison lamps should be extinguished. He wrote a long letter to Lucie, showing her that he had known nothing of her father’s imprisonment, until he had heard of it from herself, and that he had been as ignorant as she of his father’s and uncle’s responsibility for that misery, until the paper had been read. He had already explained to her that his concealment from herself of the name he had relinquished, was the one condition--fully intelligible now--that her father had attached to their betrothal, and was the one promise he had still exacted on the morning of their marriage. He entreated her, for her father’s sake, never to seek to know whether her father had become oblivious of the existence of the paper, or had had it recalled to him (for the moment, or for good), by the story of the Tower, on that old Sunday under the dear old plane-tree in the garden. If he had preserved any definite remembrance of it, there could be no doubt that he had supposed it destroyed with the Bastille, when he had found no mention of it among the relics of prisoners which the populace had discovered there, and which had been described to all the world. He besought her--though he added that he knew it was needless--to console her father, by impressing him through every tender means she could think of, with the truth that he had done nothing for which he could justly reproach himself, but had uniformly forgotten himself for their joint sakes. Next to her preservation of his own last grateful love and blessing, and her overcoming of her sorrow, to devote herself to their dear child, he adjured her, as they would meet in Heaven, to comfort her father. To her father himself, he wrote in the same strain; but, he told her father that he expressly confided his wife and child to his care. And he told him this, very strongly, with the hope of rousing him from any despondency or dangerous retrospect towards which he foresaw he might be tending. To Mr. Lorry, he commended them all, and explained his worldly affairs. That done, with many added sentences of grateful friendship and warm attachment, all was done. He never thought of Carton. His mind was so full of the others, that he never once thought of him. He had time to finish these letters before the lights were put out. When he lay down on his straw bed, he thought he had done with this world. But, it beckoned him back in his sleep, and showed itself in shining forms. Free and happy, back in the old house in Soho (though it had nothing in it like the real house), unaccountably released and light of heart, he was with Lucie again, and she told him it was all a dream, and he had never gone away. A pause of forgetfulness, and then he had even suffered, and had come back to her, dead and at peace, and yet there was no difference in him. Another pause of oblivion, and he awoke in the sombre morning, unconscious where he was or what had happened, until it flashed upon his mind, “this is the day of my death!” Thus, had he come through the hours, to the day when the fifty-two heads were to fall. And now, while he was composed, and hoped that he could meet the end with quiet heroism, a new action began in his waking thoughts, which was very difficult to master. He had never seen the instrument that was to terminate his life. How high it was from the ground, how many steps it had, where he would be stood, how he would be touched, whether the touching hands would be dyed red, which way his face would be turned, whether he would be the first, or might be the last: these and many similar questions, in nowise directed by his will, obtruded themselves over and over again, countless times. Neither were they connected with fear: he was conscious of no fear. Rather, they originated in a strange besetting desire to know what to do when the time came; a desire gigantically disproportionate to the few swift moments to which it referred; a wondering that was more like the wondering of some other spirit within his, than his own. The hours went on as he walked to and fro, and the clocks struck the numbers he would never hear again. Nine gone for ever, ten gone for ever, eleven gone for ever, twelve coming on to pass away. After a hard contest with that eccentric action of thought which had last perplexed him, he had got the better of it. He walked up and down, softly repeating their names to himself. The worst of the strife was over. He could walk up and down, free from distracting fancies, praying for himself and for them. Twelve gone for ever. He had been apprised that the final hour was Three, and he knew he would be summoned some time earlier, inasmuch as the tumbrils jolted heavily and slowly through the streets. Therefore, he resolved to keep Two before his mind, as the hour, and so to strengthen himself in the interval that he might be able, after that time, to strengthen others. Walking regularly to and fro with his arms folded on his breast, a very different man from the prisoner, who had walked to and fro at La Force, he heard One struck away from him, without surprise. The hour had measured like most other hours. Devoutly thankful to Heaven for his recovered self-possession, he thought, “There is but another now,” and turned to walk again. Footsteps in the stone passage outside the door. He stopped. The key was put in the lock, and turned. Before the door was opened, or as it opened, a man said in a low voice, in English: “He has never seen me here; I have kept out of his way. Go you in alone; I wait near. Lose no time!” The door was quickly opened and closed, and there stood before him face to face, quiet, intent upon him, with the light of a smile on his features, and a cautionary finger on his lip, Sydney Carton. There was something so bright and remarkable in his look, that, for the first moment, the prisoner misdoubted him to be an apparition of his own imagining. But, he spoke, and it was his voice; he took the prisoner’s hand, and it was his real grasp. “Of all the people upon earth, you least expected to see me?” he said. “I could not believe it to be you. I can scarcely believe it now. You are not”--the apprehension came suddenly into his mind--“a prisoner?” “No. I am accidentally possessed of a power over one of the keepers here, and in virtue of it I stand before you. I come from her--your wife, dear Darnay.” The prisoner wrung his hand. “I bring you a request from her.” “What is it?” “A most earnest, pressing, and emphatic entreaty, addressed to you in the most pathetic tones of the voice so dear to you, that you well remember.” The prisoner turned his face partly aside. “You have no time to ask me why I bring it, or what it means; I have no time to tell you. You must comply with it--take off those boots you wear, and draw on these of mine.” There was a chair against the wall of the cell, behind the prisoner. Carton, pressing forward, had already, with the speed of lightning, got him down into it, and stood over him, barefoot. “Draw on these boots of mine. Put your hands to them; put your will to them. Quick!” “Carton, there is no escaping from this place; it never can be done. You will only die with me. It is madness.” “It would be madness if I asked you to escape; but do I? When I ask you to pass out at that door, tell me it is madness and remain here. Change that cravat for this of mine, that coat for this of mine. While you do it, let me take this ribbon from your hair, and shake out your hair like this of mine!” With wonderful quickness, and with a strength both of will and action, that appeared quite supernatural, he forced all these changes upon him. The prisoner was like a young child in his hands. “Carton! Dear Carton! It is madness. It cannot be accomplished, it never can be done, it has been attempted, and has always failed. I implore you not to add your death to the bitterness of mine.” “Do I ask you, my dear Darnay, to pass the door? When I ask that, refuse. There are pen and ink and paper on this table. Is your hand steady enough to write?” “It was when you came in.” “Steady it again, and write what I shall dictate. Quick, friend, quick!” Pressing his hand to his bewildered head, Darnay sat down at the table. Carton, with his right hand in his breast, stood close beside him. “Write exactly as I speak.” “To whom do I address it?” “To no one.” Carton still had his hand in his breast. “Do I date it?” “No.” The prisoner looked up, at each question. Carton, standing over him with his hand in his breast, looked down. “‘If you remember,’” said Carton, dictating, “‘the words that passed between us, long ago, you will readily comprehend this when you see it. You do remember them, I know. It is not in your nature to forget them.’” He was drawing his hand from his breast; the prisoner chancing to look up in his hurried wonder as he wrote, the hand stopped, closing upon something. “Have you written ‘forget them’?” Carton asked. “I have. Is that a weapon in your hand?” “No; I am not armed.” “What is it in your hand?” “You shall know directly. Write on; there are but a few words more.” He dictated again. “‘I am thankful that the time has come, when I can prove them. That I do so is no subject for regret or grief.’” As he said these words with his eyes fixed on the writer, his hand slowly and softly moved down close to the writer’s face. The pen dropped from Darnay’s fingers on the table, and he looked about him vacantly. “What vapour is that?” he asked. “Vapour?” “Something that crossed me?” “I am conscious of nothing; there can be nothing here. Take up the pen and finish. Hurry, hurry!” As if his memory were impaired, or his faculties disordered, the prisoner made an effort to rally his attention. As he looked at Carton with clouded eyes and with an altered manner of breathing, Carton--his hand again in his breast--looked steadily at him. “Hurry, hurry!” The prisoner bent over the paper, once more. “‘If it had been otherwise;’” Carton’s hand was again watchfully and softly stealing down; “‘I never should have used the longer opportunity. If it had been otherwise;’” the hand was at the prisoner’s face; “‘I should but have had so much the more to answer for. If it had been otherwise--’” Carton looked at the pen and saw it was trailing off into unintelligible signs. Carton’s hand moved back to his breast no more. The prisoner sprang up with a reproachful look, but Carton’s hand was close and firm at his nostrils, and Carton’s left arm caught him round the waist. For a few seconds he faintly struggled with the man who had come to lay down his life for him; but, within a minute or so, he was stretched insensible on the ground. Quickly, but with hands as true to the purpose as his heart was, Carton dressed himself in the clothes the prisoner had laid aside, combed back his hair, and tied it with the ribbon the prisoner had worn. Then, he softly called, “Enter there! Come in!” and the Spy presented himself. “You see?” said Carton, looking up, as he kneeled on one knee beside the insensible figure, putting the paper in the breast: “is your hazard very great?” “Mr. Carton,” the Spy answered, with a timid snap of his fingers, “my hazard is not _that_, in the thick of business here, if you are true to the whole of your bargain.” “Don’t fear me. I will be true to the death.” “You must be, Mr. Carton, if the tale of fifty-two is to be right. Being made right by you in that dress, I shall have no fear.” “Have no fear! I shall soon be out of the way of harming you, and the rest will soon be far from here, please God! Now, get assistance and take me to the coach.” “You?” said the Spy nervously. “Him, man, with whom I have exchanged. You go out at the gate by which you brought me in?” “Of course.” “I was weak and faint when you brought me in, and I am fainter now you take me out. The parting interview has overpowered me. Such a thing has happened here, often, and too often. Your life is in your own hands. Quick! Call assistance!” “You swear not to betray me?” said the trembling Spy, as he paused for a last moment. “Man, man!” returned Carton, stamping his foot; “have I sworn by no solemn vow already, to go through with this, that you waste the precious moments now? Take him yourself to the courtyard you know of, place him yourself in the carriage, show him yourself to Mr. Lorry, tell him yourself to give him no restorative but air, and to remember my words of last night, and his promise of last night, and drive away!” The Spy withdrew, and Carton seated himself at the table, resting his forehead on his hands. The Spy returned immediately, with two men. “How, then?” said one of them, contemplating the fallen figure. “So afflicted to find that his friend has drawn a prize in the lottery of Sainte Guillotine?” “A good patriot,” said the other, “could hardly have been more afflicted if the Aristocrat had drawn a blank.” They raised the unconscious figure, placed it on a litter they had brought to the door, and bent to carry it away. “The time is short, Evrémonde,” said the Spy, in a warning voice. “I know it well,” answered Carton. “Be careful of my friend, I entreat you, and leave me.” “Come, then, my children,” said Barsad. “Lift him, and come away!” The door closed, and Carton was left alone. Straining his powers of listening to the utmost, he listened for any sound that might denote suspicion or alarm. There was none. Keys turned, doors clashed, footsteps passed along distant passages: no cry was raised, or hurry made, that seemed unusual. Breathing more freely in a little while, he sat down at the table, and listened again until the clock struck Two. Sounds that he was not afraid of, for he divined their meaning, then began to be audible. Several doors were opened in succession, and finally his own. A gaoler, with a list in his hand, looked in, merely saying, “Follow me, Evrémonde!” and he followed into a large dark room, at a distance. It was a dark winter day, and what with the shadows within, and what with the shadows without, he could but dimly discern the others who were brought there to have their arms bound. Some were standing; some seated. Some were lamenting, and in restless motion; but, these were few. The great majority were silent and still, looking fixedly at the ground. As he stood by the wall in a dim corner, while some of the fifty-two were brought in after him, one man stopped in passing, to embrace him, as having a knowledge of him. It thrilled him with a great dread of discovery; but the man went on. A very few moments after that, a young woman, with a slight girlish form, a sweet spare face in which there was no vestige of colour, and large widely opened patient eyes, rose from the seat where he had observed her sitting, and came to speak to him. “Citizen Evrémonde,” she said, touching him with her cold hand. “I am a poor little seamstress, who was with you in La Force.” He murmured for answer: “True. I forget what you were accused of?” “Plots. Though the just Heaven knows that I am innocent of any. Is it likely? Who would think of plotting with a poor little weak creature like me?” The forlorn smile with which she said it, so touched him, that tears started from his eyes. “I am not afraid to die, Citizen Evrémonde, but I have done nothing. I am not unwilling to die, if the Republic which is to do so much good to us poor, will profit by my death; but I do not know how that can be, Citizen Evrémonde. Such a poor weak little creature!” As the last thing on earth that his heart was to warm and soften to, it warmed and softened to this pitiable girl. “I heard you were released, Citizen Evrémonde. I hoped it was true?” “It was. But, I was again taken and condemned.” “If I may ride with you, Citizen Evrémonde, will you let me hold your hand? I am not afraid, but I am little and weak, and it will give me more courage.” As the patient eyes were lifted to his face, he saw a sudden doubt in them, and then astonishment. He pressed the work-worn, hunger-worn young fingers, and touched his lips. “Are you dying for him?” she whispered. “And his wife and child. Hush! Yes.” “O you will let me hold your brave hand, stranger?” “Hush! Yes, my poor sister; to the last.” ***** The same shadows that are falling on the prison, are falling, in that same hour of the early afternoon, on the Barrier with the crowd about it, when a coach going out of Paris drives up to be examined. “Who goes here? Whom have we within? Papers!” The papers are handed out, and read. “Alexandre Manette. Physician. French. Which is he?” This is he; this helpless, inarticulately murmuring, wandering old man pointed out. “Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right mind? The Revolution-fever will have been too much for him?” Greatly too much for him. “Hah! Many suffer with it. Lucie. His daughter. French. Which is she?” This is she. “Apparently it must be. Lucie, the wife of Evrémonde; is it not?” It is. “Hah! Evrémonde has an assignation elsewhere. Lucie, her child. English. This is she?” She and no other. “Kiss me, child of Evrémonde. Now, thou hast kissed a good Republican; something new in thy family; remember it! Sydney Carton. Advocate. English. Which is he?” He lies here, in this corner of the carriage. He, too, is pointed out. “Apparently the English advocate is in a swoon?” It is hoped he will recover in the fresher air. It is represented that he is not in strong health, and has separated sadly from a friend who is under the displeasure of the Republic. “Is that all? It is not a great deal, that! Many are under the displeasure of the Republic, and must look out at the little window. Jarvis Lorry. Banker. English. Which is he?” “I am he. Necessarily, being the last.” It is Jarvis Lorry who has replied to all the previous questions. It is Jarvis Lorry who has alighted and stands with his hand on the coach door, replying to a group of officials. They leisurely walk round the carriage and leisurely mount the box, to look at what little luggage it carries on the roof; the country-people hanging about, press nearer to the coach doors and greedily stare in; a little child, carried by its mother, has its short arm held out for it, that it may touch the wife of an aristocrat who has gone to the Guillotine. “Behold your papers, Jarvis Lorry, countersigned.” “One can depart, citizen?” “One can depart. Forward, my postilions! A good journey!” “I salute you, citizens.--And the first danger passed!” These are again the words of Jarvis Lorry, as he clasps his hands, and looks upward. There is terror in the carriage, there is weeping, there is the heavy breathing of the insensible traveller. “Are we not going too slowly? Can they not be induced to go faster?” asks Lucie, clinging to the old man. “It would seem like flight, my darling. I must not urge them too much; it would rouse suspicion.” “Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued!” “The road is clear, my dearest. So far, we are not pursued.” Houses in twos and threes pass by us, solitary farms, ruinous buildings, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, open country, avenues of leafless trees. The hard uneven pavement is under us, the soft deep mud is on either side. Sometimes, we strike into the skirting mud, to avoid the stones that clatter us and shake us; sometimes, we stick in ruts and sloughs there. The agony of our impatience is then so great, that in our wild alarm and hurry we are for getting out and running--hiding--doing anything but stopping. Out of the open country, in again among ruinous buildings, solitary farms, dye-works, tanneries, and the like, cottages in twos and threes, avenues of leafless trees. Have these men deceived us, and taken us back by another road? Is not this the same place twice over? Thank Heaven, no. A village. Look back, look back, and see if we are pursued! Hush! the posting-house. Leisurely, our four horses are taken out; leisurely, the coach stands in the little street, bereft of horses, and with no likelihood upon it of ever moving again; leisurely, the new horses come into visible existence, one by one; leisurely, the new postilions follow, sucking and plaiting the lashes of their whips; leisurely, the old postilions count their money, make wrong additions, and arrive at dissatisfied results. All the time, our overfraught hearts are beating at a rate that would far outstrip the fastest gallop of the fastest horses ever foaled. At length the new postilions are in their saddles, and the old are left behind. We are through the village, up the hill, and down the hill, and on the low watery grounds. Suddenly, the postilions exchange speech with animated gesticulation, and the horses are pulled up, almost on their haunches. We are pursued? “Ho! Within the carriage there. Speak then!” “What is it?” asks Mr. Lorry, looking out at window. “How many did they say?” “I do not understand you.” “--At the last post. How many to the Guillotine to-day?” “Fifty-two.” “I said so! A brave number! My fellow-citizen here would have it forty-two; ten more heads are worth having. The Guillotine goes handsomely. I love it. Hi forward. Whoop!” The night comes on dark. He moves more; he is beginning to revive, and to speak intelligibly; he thinks they are still together; he asks him, by his name, what he has in his hand. O pity us, kind Heaven, and help us! Look out, look out, and see if we are pursued. The wind is rushing after us, and the clouds are flying after us, and the moon is plunging after us, and the whole wild night is in pursuit of us; but, so far, we are pursued by nothing else. CHAPTER XIV. The Knitting Done In that same juncture of time when the Fifty-Two awaited their fate Madame Defarge held darkly ominous council with The Vengeance and Jacques Three of the Revolutionary Jury. Not in the wine-shop did Madame Defarge confer with these ministers, but in the shed of the wood-sawyer, erst a mender of roads. The sawyer himself did not participate in the conference, but abided at a little distance, like an outer satellite who was not to speak until required, or to offer an opinion until invited. “But our Defarge,” said Jacques Three, “is undoubtedly a good Republican? Eh?” “There is no better,” the voluble Vengeance protested in her shrill notes, “in France.” “Peace, little Vengeance,” said Madame Defarge, laying her hand with a slight frown on her lieutenant’s lips, “hear me speak. My husband, fellow-citizen, is a good Republican and a bold man; he has deserved well of the Republic, and possesses its confidence. But my husband has his weaknesses, and he is so weak as to relent towards this Doctor.” “It is a great pity,” croaked Jacques Three, dubiously shaking his head, with his cruel fingers at his hungry mouth; “it is not quite like a good citizen; it is a thing to regret.” “See you,” said madame, “I care nothing for this Doctor, I. He may wear his head or lose it, for any interest I have in him; it is all one to me. But, the Evrémonde people are to be exterminated, and the wife and child must follow the husband and father.” “She has a fine head for it,” croaked Jacques Three. “I have seen blue eyes and golden hair there, and they looked charming when Samson held them up.” Ogre that he was, he spoke like an epicure. Madame Defarge cast down her eyes, and reflected a little. “The child also,” observed Jacques Three, with a meditative enjoyment of his words, “has golden hair and blue eyes. And we seldom have a child there. It is a pretty sight!” “In a word,” said Madame Defarge, coming out of her short abstraction, “I cannot trust my husband in this matter. Not only do I feel, since last night, that I dare not confide to him the details of my projects; but also I feel that if I delay, there is danger of his giving warning, and then they might escape.” “That must never be,” croaked Jacques Three; “no one must escape. We have not half enough as it is. We ought to have six score a day.” “In a word,” Madame Defarge went on, “my husband has not my reason for pursuing this family to annihilation, and I have not his reason for regarding this Doctor with any sensibility. I must act for myself, therefore. Come hither, little citizen.” The wood-sawyer, who held her in the respect, and himself in the submission, of mortal fear, advanced with his hand to his red cap. “Touching those signals, little citizen,” said Madame Defarge, sternly, “that she made to the prisoners; you are ready to bear witness to them this very day?” “Ay, ay, why not!” cried the sawyer. “Every day, in all weathers, from two to four, always signalling, sometimes with the little one, sometimes without. I know what I know. I have seen with my eyes.” He made all manner of gestures while he spoke, as if in incidental imitation of some few of the great diversity of signals that he had never seen. “Clearly plots,” said Jacques Three. “Transparently!” “There is no doubt of the Jury?” inquired Madame Defarge, letting her eyes turn to him with a gloomy smile. “Rely upon the patriotic Jury, dear citizeness. I answer for my fellow-Jurymen.” “Now, let me see,” said Madame Defarge, pondering again. “Yet once more! Can I spare this Doctor to my husband? I have no feeling either way. Can I spare him?” “He would count as one head,” observed Jacques Three, in a low voice. “We really have not heads enough; it would be a pity, I think.” “He was signalling with her when I saw her,” argued Madame Defarge; “I cannot speak of one without the other; and I must not be silent, and trust the case wholly to him, this little citizen here. For, I am not a bad witness.” The Vengeance and Jacques Three vied with each other in their fervent protestations that she was the most admirable and marvellous of witnesses. The little citizen, not to be outdone, declared her to be a celestial witness. “He must take his chance,” said Madame Defarge. “No, I cannot spare him! You are engaged at three o’clock; you are going to see the batch of to-day executed.--You?” The question was addressed to the wood-sawyer, who hurriedly replied in the affirmative: seizing the occasion to add that he was the most ardent of Republicans, and that he would be in effect the most desolate of Republicans, if anything prevented him from enjoying the pleasure of smoking his afternoon pipe in the contemplation of the droll national barber. He was so very demonstrative herein, that he might have been suspected (perhaps was, by the dark eyes that looked contemptuously at him out of Madame Defarge’s head) of having his small individual fears for his own personal safety, every hour in the day. “I,” said madame, “am equally engaged at the same place. After it is over--say at eight to-night--come you to me, in Saint Antoine, and we will give information against these people at my Section.” The wood-sawyer said he would be proud and flattered to attend the citizeness. The citizeness looking at him, he became embarrassed, evaded her glance as a small dog would have done, retreated among his wood, and hid his confusion over the handle of his saw. Madame Defarge beckoned the Juryman and The Vengeance a little nearer to the door, and there expounded her further views to them thus: “She will now be at home, awaiting the moment of his death. She will be mourning and grieving. She will be in a state of mind to impeach the justice of the Republic. She will be full of sympathy with its enemies. I will go to her.” “What an admirable woman; what an adorable woman!” exclaimed Jacques Three, rapturously. “Ah, my cherished!” cried The Vengeance; and embraced her. “Take you my knitting,” said Madame Defarge, placing it in her lieutenant’s hands, “and have it ready for me in my usual seat. Keep me my usual chair. Go you there, straight, for there will probably be a greater concourse than usual, to-day.” “I willingly obey the orders of my Chief,” said The Vengeance with alacrity, and kissing her cheek. “You will not be late?” “I shall be there before the commencement.” “And before the tumbrils arrive. Be sure you are there, my soul,” said The Vengeance, calling after her, for she had already turned into the street, “before the tumbrils arrive!” Madame Defarge slightly waved her hand, to imply that she heard, and might be relied upon to arrive in good time, and so went through the mud, and round the corner of the prison wall. The Vengeance and the Juryman, looking after her as she walked away, were highly appreciative of her fine figure, and her superb moral endowments. There were many women at that time, upon whom the time laid a dreadfully disfiguring hand; but, there was not one among them more to be dreaded than this ruthless woman, now taking her way along the streets. Of a strong and fearless character, of shrewd sense and readiness, of great determination, of that kind of beauty which not only seems to impart to its possessor firmness and animosity, but to strike into others an instinctive recognition of those qualities; the troubled time would have heaved her up, under any circumstances. But, imbued from her childhood with a brooding sense of wrong, and an inveterate hatred of a class, opportunity had developed her into a tigress. She was absolutely without pity. If she had ever had the virtue in her, it had quite gone out of her. It was nothing to her, that an innocent man was to die for the sins of his forefathers; she saw, not him, but them. It was nothing to her, that his wife was to be made a widow and his daughter an orphan; that was insufficient punishment, because they were her natural enemies and her prey, and as such had no right to live. To appeal to her, was made hopeless by her having no sense of pity, even for herself. If she had been laid low in the streets, in any of the many encounters in which she had been engaged, she would not have pitied herself; nor, if she had been ordered to the axe to-morrow, would she have gone to it with any softer feeling than a fierce desire to change places with the man who sent her there. Such a heart Madame Defarge carried under her rough robe. Carelessly worn, it was a becoming robe enough, in a certain weird way, and her dark hair looked rich under her coarse red cap. Lying hidden in her bosom, was a loaded pistol. Lying hidden at her waist, was a sharpened dagger. Thus accoutred, and walking with the confident tread of such a character, and with the supple freedom of a woman who had habitually walked in her girlhood, bare-foot and bare-legged, on the brown sea-sand, Madame Defarge took her way along the streets. Now, when the journey of the travelling coach, at that very moment waiting for the completion of its load, had been planned out last night, the difficulty of taking Miss Pross in it had much engaged Mr. Lorry’s attention. It was not merely desirable to avoid overloading the coach, but it was of the highest importance that the time occupied in examining it and its passengers, should be reduced to the utmost; since their escape might depend on the saving of only a few seconds here and there. Finally, he had proposed, after anxious consideration, that Miss Pross and Jerry, who were at liberty to leave the city, should leave it at three o’clock in the lightest-wheeled conveyance known to that period. Unencumbered with luggage, they would soon overtake the coach, and, passing it and preceding it on the road, would order its horses in advance, and greatly facilitate its progress during the precious hours of the night, when delay was the most to be dreaded. Seeing in this arrangement the hope of rendering real service in that pressing emergency, Miss Pross hailed it with joy. She and Jerry had beheld the coach start, had known who it was that Solomon brought, had passed some ten minutes in tortures of suspense, and were now concluding their arrangements to follow the coach, even as Madame Defarge, taking her way through the streets, now drew nearer and nearer to the else-deserted lodging in which they held their consultation. “Now what do you think, Mr. Cruncher,” said Miss Pross, whose agitation was so great that she could hardly speak, or stand, or move, or live: “what do you think of our not starting from this courtyard? Another carriage having already gone from here to-day, it might awaken suspicion.” “My opinion, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “is as you’re right. Likewise wot I’ll stand by you, right or wrong.” “I am so distracted with fear and hope for our precious creatures,” said Miss Pross, wildly crying, “that I am incapable of forming any plan. Are _you_ capable of forming any plan, my dear good Mr. Cruncher?” “Respectin’ a future spear o’ life, miss,” returned Mr. Cruncher, “I hope so. Respectin’ any present use o’ this here blessed old head o’ mine, I think not. Would you do me the favour, miss, to take notice o’ two promises and wows wot it is my wishes fur to record in this here crisis?” “Oh, for gracious sake!” cried Miss Pross, still wildly crying, “record them at once, and get them out of the way, like an excellent man.” “First,” said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke with an ashy and solemn visage, “them poor things well out o’ this, never no more will I do it, never no more!” “I am quite sure, Mr. Cruncher,” returned Miss Pross, “that you never will do it again, whatever it is, and I beg you not to think it necessary to mention more particularly what it is.” “No, miss,” returned Jerry, “it shall not be named to you. Second: them poor things well out o’ this, and never no more will I interfere with Mrs. Cruncher’s flopping, never no more!” “Whatever housekeeping arrangement that may be,” said Miss Pross, striving to dry her eyes and compose herself, “I have no doubt it is best that Mrs. Cruncher should have it entirely under her own superintendence.--O my poor darlings!” “I go so far as to say, miss, moreover,” proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with a most alarming tendency to hold forth as from a pulpit--“and let my words be took down and took to Mrs. Cruncher through yourself--that wot my opinions respectin’ flopping has undergone a change, and that wot I only hope with all my heart as Mrs. Cruncher may be a flopping at the present time.” “There, there, there! I hope she is, my dear man,” cried the distracted Miss Pross, “and I hope she finds it answering her expectations.” “Forbid it,” proceeded Mr. Cruncher, with additional solemnity, additional slowness, and additional tendency to hold forth and hold out, “as anything wot I have ever said or done should be wisited on my earnest wishes for them poor creeturs now! Forbid it as we shouldn’t all flop (if it was anyways conwenient) to get ’em out o’ this here dismal risk! Forbid it, miss! Wot I say, for-_bid_ it!” This was Mr. Cruncher’s conclusion after a protracted but vain endeavour to find a better one. And still Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came nearer and nearer. “If we ever get back to our native land,” said Miss Pross, “you may rely upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as I may be able to remember and understand of what you have so impressively said; and at all events you may be sure that I shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in earnest at this dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My esteemed Mr. Cruncher, let us think!” Still, Madame Defarge, pursuing her way along the streets, came nearer and nearer. “If you were to go before,” said Miss Pross, “and stop the vehicle and horses from coming here, and were to wait somewhere for me; wouldn’t that be best?” Mr. Cruncher thought it might be best. “Where could you wait for me?” asked Miss Pross. Mr. Cruncher was so bewildered that he could think of no locality but Temple Bar. Alas! Temple Bar was hundreds of miles away, and Madame Defarge was drawing very near indeed. “By the cathedral door,” said Miss Pross. “Would it be much out of the way, to take me in, near the great cathedral door between the two towers?” “No, miss,” answered Mr. Cruncher. “Then, like the best of men,” said Miss Pross, “go to the posting-house straight, and make that change.” “I am doubtful,” said Mr. Cruncher, hesitating and shaking his head, “about leaving of you, you see. We don’t know what may happen.” “Heaven knows we don’t,” returned Miss Pross, “but have no fear for me. Take me in at the cathedral, at Three o’Clock, or as near it as you can, and I am sure it will be better than our going from here. I feel certain of it. There! Bless you, Mr. Cruncher! Think-not of me, but of the lives that may depend on both of us!” This exordium, and Miss Pross’s two hands in quite agonised entreaty clasping his, decided Mr. Cruncher. With an encouraging nod or two, he immediately went out to alter the arrangements, and left her by herself to follow as she had proposed. The having originated a precaution which was already in course of execution, was a great relief to Miss Pross. The necessity of composing her appearance so that it should attract no special notice in the streets, was another relief. She looked at her watch, and it was twenty minutes past two. She had no time to lose, but must get ready at once. Afraid, in her extreme perturbation, of the loneliness of the deserted rooms, and of half-imagined faces peeping from behind every open door in them, Miss Pross got a basin of cold water and began laving her eyes, which were swollen and red. Haunted by her feverish apprehensions, she could not bear to have her sight obscured for a minute at a time by the dripping water, but constantly paused and looked round to see that there was no one watching her. In one of those pauses she recoiled and cried out, for she saw a figure standing in the room. The basin fell to the ground broken, and the water flowed to the feet of Madame Defarge. By strange stern ways, and through much staining blood, those feet had come to meet that water. Madame Defarge looked coldly at her, and said, “The wife of Evrémonde; where is she?” It flashed upon Miss Pross’s mind that the doors were all standing open, and would suggest the flight. Her first act was to shut them. There were four in the room, and she shut them all. She then placed herself before the door of the chamber which Lucie had occupied. Madame Defarge’s dark eyes followed her through this rapid movement, and rested on her when it was finished. Miss Pross had nothing beautiful about her; years had not tamed the wildness, or softened the grimness, of her appearance; but, she too was a determined woman in her different way, and she measured Madame Defarge with her eyes, every inch. “You might, from your appearance, be the wife of Lucifer,” said Miss Pross, in her breathing. “Nevertheless, you shall not get the better of me. I am an Englishwoman.” Madame Defarge looked at her scornfully, but still with something of Miss Pross’s own perception that they two were at bay. She saw a tight, hard, wiry woman before her, as Mr. Lorry had seen in the same figure a woman with a strong hand, in the years gone by. She knew full well that Miss Pross was the family’s devoted friend; Miss Pross knew full well that Madame Defarge was the family’s malevolent enemy. “On my way yonder,” said Madame Defarge, with a slight movement of her hand towards the fatal spot, “where they reserve my chair and my knitting for me, I am come to make my compliments to her in passing. I wish to see her.” “I know that your intentions are evil,” said Miss Pross, “and you may depend upon it, I’ll hold my own against them.” Each spoke in her own language; neither understood the other’s words; both were very watchful, and intent to deduce from look and manner, what the unintelligible words meant. “It will do her no good to keep herself concealed from me at this moment,” said Madame Defarge. “Good patriots will know what that means. Let me see her. Go tell her that I wish to see her. Do you hear?” “If those eyes of yours were bed-winches,” returned Miss Pross, “and I was an English four-poster, they shouldn’t loose a splinter of me. No, you wicked foreign woman; I am your match.” Madame Defarge was not likely to follow these idiomatic remarks in detail; but, she so far understood them as to perceive that she was set at naught. “Woman imbecile and pig-like!” said Madame Defarge, frowning. “I take no answer from you. I demand to see her. Either tell her that I demand to see her, or stand out of the way of the door and let me go to her!” This, with an angry explanatory wave of her right arm. “I little thought,” said Miss Pross, “that I should ever want to understand your nonsensical language; but I would give all I have, except the clothes I wear, to know whether you suspect the truth, or any part of it.” Neither of them for a single moment released the other’s eyes. Madame Defarge had not moved from the spot where she stood when Miss Pross first became aware of her; but, she now advanced one step. “I am a Briton,” said Miss Pross, “I am desperate. I don’t care an English Twopence for myself. I know that the longer I keep you here, the greater hope there is for my Ladybird. I’ll not leave a handful of that dark hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me!” Thus Miss Pross, with a shake of her head and a flash of her eyes between every rapid sentence, and every rapid sentence a whole breath. Thus Miss Pross, who had never struck a blow in her life. But, her courage was of that emotional nature that it brought the irrepressible tears into her eyes. This was a courage that Madame Defarge so little comprehended as to mistake for weakness. “Ha, ha!” she laughed, “you poor wretch! What are you worth! I address myself to that Doctor.” Then she raised her voice and called out, “Citizen Doctor! Wife of Evrémonde! Child of Evrémonde! Any person but this miserable fool, answer the Citizeness Defarge!” Perhaps the following silence, perhaps some latent disclosure in the expression of Miss Pross’s face, perhaps a sudden misgiving apart from either suggestion, whispered to Madame Defarge that they were gone. Three of the doors she opened swiftly, and looked in. “Those rooms are all in disorder, there has been hurried packing, there are odds and ends upon the ground. There is no one in that room behind you! Let me look.” “Never!” said Miss Pross, who understood the request as perfectly as Madame Defarge understood the answer. “If they are not in that room, they are gone, and can be pursued and brought back,” said Madame Defarge to herself. “As long as you don’t know whether they are in that room or not, you are uncertain what to do,” said Miss Pross to herself; “and you shall not know that, if I can prevent your knowing it; and know that, or not know that, you shall not leave here while I can hold you.” “I have been in the streets from the first, nothing has stopped me, I will tear you to pieces, but I will have you from that door,” said Madame Defarge. “We are alone at the top of a high house in a solitary courtyard, we are not likely to be heard, and I pray for bodily strength to keep you here, while every minute you are here is worth a hundred thousand guineas to my darling,” said Miss Pross. Madame Defarge made at the door. Miss Pross, on the instinct of the moment, seized her round the waist in both her arms, and held her tight. It was in vain for Madame Defarge to struggle and to strike; Miss Pross, with the vigorous tenacity of love, always so much stronger than hate, clasped her tight, and even lifted her from the floor in the struggle that they had. The two hands of Madame Defarge buffeted and tore her face; but, Miss Pross, with her head down, held her round the waist, and clung to her with more than the hold of a drowning woman. Soon, Madame Defarge’s hands ceased to strike, and felt at her encircled waist. “It is under my arm,” said Miss Pross, in smothered tones, “you shall not draw it. I am stronger than you, I bless Heaven for it. I hold you till one or other of us faints or dies!” Madame Defarge’s hands were at her bosom. Miss Pross looked up, saw what it was, struck at it, struck out a flash and a crash, and stood alone--blinded with smoke. All this was in a second. As the smoke cleared, leaving an awful stillness, it passed out on the air, like the soul of the furious woman whose body lay lifeless on the ground. In the first fright and horror of her situation, Miss Pross passed the body as far from it as she could, and ran down the stairs to call for fruitless help. Happily, she bethought herself of the consequences of what she did, in time to check herself and go back. It was dreadful to go in at the door again; but, she did go in, and even went near it, to get the bonnet and other things that she must wear. These she put on, out on the staircase, first shutting and locking the door and taking away the key. She then sat down on the stairs a few moments to breathe and to cry, and then got up and hurried away. By good fortune she had a veil on her bonnet, or she could hardly have gone along the streets without being stopped. By good fortune, too, she was naturally so peculiar in appearance as not to show disfigurement like any other woman. She needed both advantages, for the marks of gripping fingers were deep in her face, and her hair was torn, and her dress (hastily composed with unsteady hands) was clutched and dragged a hundred ways. In crossing the bridge, she dropped the door key in the river. Arriving at the cathedral some few minutes before her escort, and waiting there, she thought, what if the key were already taken in a net, what if it were identified, what if the door were opened and the remains discovered, what if she were stopped at the gate, sent to prison, and charged with murder! In the midst of these fluttering thoughts, the escort appeared, took her in, and took her away. “Is there any noise in the streets?” she asked him. “The usual noises,” Mr. Cruncher replied; and looked surprised by the question and by her aspect. “I don’t hear you,” said Miss Pross. “What do you say?” It was in vain for Mr. Cruncher to repeat what he said; Miss Pross could not hear him. “So I’ll nod my head,” thought Mr. Cruncher, amazed, “at all events she’ll see that.” And she did. “Is there any noise in the streets now?” asked Miss Pross again, presently. Again Mr. Cruncher nodded his head. “I don’t hear it.” “Gone deaf in an hour?” said Mr. Cruncher, ruminating, with his mind much disturbed; “wot’s come to her?” “I feel,” said Miss Pross, “as if there had been a flash and a crash, and that crash was the last thing I should ever hear in this life.” “Blest if she ain’t in a queer condition!” said Mr. Cruncher, more and more disturbed. “Wot can she have been a takin’, to keep her courage up? Hark! There’s the roll of them dreadful carts! You can hear that, miss?” “I can hear,” said Miss Pross, seeing that he spoke to her, “nothing. O, my good man, there was first a great crash, and then a great stillness, and that stillness seems to be fixed and unchangeable, never to be broken any more as long as my life lasts.” “If she don’t hear the roll of those dreadful carts, now very nigh their journey’s end,” said Mr. Cruncher, glancing over his shoulder, “it’s my opinion that indeed she never will hear anything else in this world.” And indeed she never did. CHAPTER XV. The Footsteps Die Out For Ever Along the Paris streets, the death-carts rumble, hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day’s wine to La Guillotine. All the devouring and insatiate Monsters imagined since imagination could record itself, are fused in the one realisation, Guillotine. And yet there is not in France, with its rich variety of soil and climate, a blade, a leaf, a root, a sprig, a peppercorn, which will grow to maturity under conditions more certain than those that have produced this horror. Crush humanity out of shape once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself into the same tortured forms. Sow the same seed of rapacious license and oppression over again, and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind. Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father’s house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. “If thou be changed into this shape by the will of God,” say the seers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, “then remain so! But, if thou wear this form through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!” Changeless and hopeless, the tumbrils roll along. As the sombre wheels of the six carts go round, they seem to plough up a long crooked furrow among the populace in the streets. Ridges of faces are thrown to this side and to that, and the ploughs go steadily onward. So used are the regular inhabitants of the houses to the spectacle, that in many windows there are no people, and in some the occupation of the hands is not so much as suspended, while the eyes survey the faces in the tumbrils. Here and there, the inmate has visitors to see the sight; then he points his finger, with something of the complacency of a curator or authorised exponent, to this cart and to this, and seems to tell who sat here yesterday, and who there the day before. Of the riders in the tumbrils, some observe these things, and all things on their last roadside, with an impassive stare; others, with a lingering interest in the ways of life and men. Some, seated with drooping heads, are sunk in silent despair; again, there are some so heedful of their looks that they cast upon the multitude such glances as they have seen in theatres, and in pictures. Several close their eyes, and think, or try to get their straying thoughts together. Only one, and he a miserable creature, of a crazed aspect, is so shattered and made drunk by horror, that he sings, and tries to dance. Not one of the whole number appeals by look or gesture, to the pity of the people. There is a guard of sundry horsemen riding abreast of the tumbrils, and faces are often turned up to some of them, and they are asked some question. It would seem to be always the same question, for, it is always followed by a press of people towards the third cart. The horsemen abreast of that cart, frequently point out one man in it with their swords. The leading curiosity is, to know which is he; he stands at the back of the tumbril with his head bent down, to converse with a mere girl who sits on the side of the cart, and holds his hand. He has no curiosity or care for the scene about him, and always speaks to the girl. Here and there in the long street of St. Honore, cries are raised against him. If they move him at all, it is only to a quiet smile, as he shakes his hair a little more loosely about his face. He cannot easily touch his face, his arms being bound. On the steps of a church, awaiting the coming-up of the tumbrils, stands the Spy and prison-sheep. He looks into the first of them: not there. He looks into the second: not there. He already asks himself, “Has he sacrificed me?” when his face clears, as he looks into the third. “Which is Evrémonde?” says a man behind him. “That. At the back there.” “With his hand in the girl’s?” “Yes.” The man cries, “Down, Evrémonde! To the Guillotine all aristocrats! Down, Evrémonde!” “Hush, hush!” the Spy entreats him, timidly. “And why not, citizen?” “He is going to pay the forfeit: it will be paid in five minutes more. Let him be at peace.” But the man continuing to exclaim, “Down, Evrémonde!” the face of Evrémonde is for a moment turned towards him. Evrémonde then sees the Spy, and looks attentively at him, and goes his way. The clocks are on the stroke of three, and the furrow ploughed among the populace is turning round, to come on into the place of execution, and end. The ridges thrown to this side and to that, now crumble in and close behind the last plough as it passes on, for all are following to the Guillotine. In front of it, seated in chairs, as in a garden of public diversion, are a number of women, busily knitting. On one of the fore-most chairs, stands The Vengeance, looking about for her friend. “Thérèse!” she cries, in her shrill tones. “Who has seen her? Thérèse Defarge!” “She never missed before,” says a knitting-woman of the sisterhood. “No; nor will she miss now,” cries The Vengeance, petulantly. “Thérèse.” “Louder,” the woman recommends. Ay! Louder, Vengeance, much louder, and still she will scarcely hear thee. Louder yet, Vengeance, with a little oath or so added, and yet it will hardly bring her. Send other women up and down to seek her, lingering somewhere; and yet, although the messengers have done dread deeds, it is questionable whether of their own wills they will go far enough to find her! “Bad Fortune!” cries The Vengeance, stamping her foot in the chair, “and here are the tumbrils! And Evrémonde will be despatched in a wink, and she not here! See her knitting in my hand, and her empty chair ready for her. I cry with vexation and disappointment!” As The Vengeance descends from her elevation to do it, the tumbrils begin to discharge their loads. The ministers of Sainte Guillotine are robed and ready. Crash!--A head is held up, and the knitting-women who scarcely lifted their eyes to look at it a moment ago when it could think and speak, count One. The second tumbril empties and moves on; the third comes up. Crash!--And the knitting-women, never faltering or pausing in their Work, count Two. The supposed Evrémonde descends, and the seamstress is lifted out next after him. He has not relinquished her patient hand in getting out, but still holds it as he promised. He gently places her with her back to the crashing engine that constantly whirrs up and falls, and she looks into his face and thanks him. “But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed, for I am naturally a poor little thing, faint of heart; nor should I have been able to raise my thoughts to Him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here to-day. I think you were sent to me by Heaven.” “Or you to me,” says Sydney Carton. “Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object.” “I mind nothing while I hold your hand. I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid.” “They will be rapid. Fear not!” The two stand in the fast-thinning throng of victims, but they speak as if they were alone. Eye to eye, voice to voice, hand to hand, heart to heart, these two children of the Universal Mother, else so wide apart and differing, have come together on the dark highway, to repair home together, and to rest in her bosom. “Brave and generous friend, will you let me ask you one last question? I am very ignorant, and it troubles me--just a little.” “Tell me what it is.” “I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very dearly. She is five years younger than I, and she lives in a farmer’s house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate--for I cannot write--and if I could, how should I tell her! It is better as it is.” “Yes, yes: better as it is.” “What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind strong face which gives me so much support, is this:--If the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time: she may even live to be old.” “What then, my gentle sister?” “Do you think:” the uncomplaining eyes in which there is so much endurance, fill with tears, and the lips part a little more and tremble: “that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land where I trust both you and I will be mercifully sheltered?” “It cannot be, my child; there is no Time there, and no trouble there.” “You comfort me so much! I am so ignorant. Am I to kiss you now? Is the moment come?” “Yes.” She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him--is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-Two. “I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-Three. ***** They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefullest man’s face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic. One of the most remarkable sufferers by the same axe--a woman--had asked at the foot of the same scaffold, not long before, to be allowed to write down the thoughts that were inspiring her. If he had given any utterance to his, and they were prophetic, they would have been these: “I see Barsad, and Cly, Defarge, The Vengeance, the Juryman, the Judge, long ranks of the new oppressors who have risen on the destruction of the old, perishing by this retributive instrument, before it shall cease out of its present use. I see a beautiful city and a brilliant people rising from this abyss, and, in their struggles to be truly free, in their triumphs and defeats, through long years to come, I see the evil of this time and of the previous time of which this is the natural birth, gradually making expiation for itself and wearing out. “I see the lives for which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England which I shall see no more. I see Her with a child upon her bosom, who bears my name. I see her father, aged and bent, but otherwise restored, and faithful to all men in his healing office, and at peace. I see the good old man, so long their friend, in ten years’ time enriching them with all he has, and passing tranquilly to his reward. “I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other’s soul, than I was in the souls of both. “I see that child who lay upon her bosom and who bore my name, a man winning his way up in that path of life which once was mine. I see him winning it so well, that my name is made illustrious there by the light of his. I see the blots I threw upon it, faded away. I see him, fore-most of just judges and honoured men, bringing a boy of my name, with a forehead that I know and golden hair, to this place--then fair to look upon, with not a trace of this day’s disfigurement--and I hear him tell the child my story, with a tender and a faltering voice. “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A TALE OF TWO CITIES *** ***** This file should be named 98-0.txt or 98-0.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: https://www.gutenberg.org/9/98/ Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Crime and Punishment Author: Fyodor Dostoevsky Translator: Constance Garnett Release Date: March, 2001 [eBook #2554] [Most recently updated: August 6, 2021] Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 Produced by: John Bickers, Dagny and David Widger *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRIME AND PUNISHMENT *** CRIME AND PUNISHMENT By Fyodor Dostoevsky Translated By Constance Garnett TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE A few words about Dostoevsky himself may help the English reader to understand his work. Dostoevsky was the son of a doctor. His parents were very hard-working and deeply religious people, but so poor that they lived with their five children in only two rooms. The father and mother spent their evenings in reading aloud to their children, generally from books of a serious character. Though always sickly and delicate Dostoevsky came out third in the final examination of the Petersburg school of Engineering. There he had already begun his first work, “Poor Folk.” This story was published by the poet Nekrassov in his review and was received with acclamations. The shy, unknown youth found himself instantly something of a celebrity. A brilliant and successful career seemed to open before him, but those hopes were soon dashed. In 1849 he was arrested. Though neither by temperament nor conviction a revolutionist, Dostoevsky was one of a little group of young men who met together to read Fourier and Proudhon. He was accused of “taking part in conversations against the censorship, of reading a letter from Byelinsky to Gogol, and of knowing of the intention to set up a printing press.” Under Nicholas I. (that “stern and just man,” as Maurice Baring calls him) this was enough, and he was condemned to death. After eight months’ imprisonment he was with twenty-one others taken out to the Semyonovsky Square to be shot. Writing to his brother Mihail, Dostoevsky says: “They snapped words over our heads, and they made us put on the white shirts worn by persons condemned to death. Thereupon we were bound in threes to stakes, to suffer execution. Being the third in the row, I concluded I had only a few minutes of life before me. I thought of you and your dear ones and I contrived to kiss Plestcheiev and Dourov, who were next to me, and to bid them farewell. Suddenly the troops beat a tattoo, we were unbound, brought back upon the scaffold, and informed that his Majesty had spared us our lives.” The sentence was commuted to hard labour. One of the prisoners, Grigoryev, went mad as soon as he was untied, and never regained his sanity. The intense suffering of this experience left a lasting stamp on Dostoevsky’s mind. Though his religious temper led him in the end to accept every suffering with resignation and to regard it as a blessing in his own case, he constantly recurs to the subject in his writings. He describes the awful agony of the condemned man and insists on the cruelty of inflicting such torture. Then followed four years of penal servitude, spent in the company of common criminals in Siberia, where he began the “Dead House,” and some years of service in a disciplinary battalion. He had shown signs of some obscure nervous disease before his arrest and this now developed into violent attacks of epilepsy, from which he suffered for the rest of his life. The fits occurred three or four times a year and were more frequent in periods of great strain. In 1859 he was allowed to return to Russia. He started a journal--“Vremya,” which was forbidden by the Censorship through a misunderstanding. In 1864 he lost his first wife and his brother Mihail. He was in terrible poverty, yet he took upon himself the payment of his brother’s debts. He started another journal--“The Epoch,” which within a few months was also prohibited. He was weighed down by debt, his brother’s family was dependent on him, he was forced to write at heart-breaking speed, and is said never to have corrected his work. The later years of his life were much softened by the tenderness and devotion of his second wife. In June 1880 he made his famous speech at the unveiling of the monument to Pushkin in Moscow and he was received with extraordinary demonstrations of love and honour. A few months later Dostoevsky died. He was followed to the grave by a vast multitude of mourners, who “gave the hapless man the funeral of a king.” He is still probably the most widely read writer in Russia. In the words of a Russian critic, who seeks to explain the feeling inspired by Dostoevsky: “He was one of ourselves, a man of our blood and our bone, but one who has suffered and has seen so much more deeply than we have his insight impresses us as wisdom... that wisdom of the heart which we seek that we may learn from it how to live. All his other gifts came to him from nature, this he won for himself and through it he became great.” CRIME AND PUNISHMENT PART I CHAPTER I On an exceptionally hot evening early in July a young man came out of the garret in which he lodged in S. Place and walked slowly, as though in hesitation, towards K. bridge. He had successfully avoided meeting his landlady on the staircase. His garret was under the roof of a high, five-storied house and was more like a cupboard than a room. The landlady who provided him with garret, dinners, and attendance, lived on the floor below, and every time he went out he was obliged to pass her kitchen, the door of which invariably stood open. And each time he passed, the young man had a sick, frightened feeling, which made him scowl and feel ashamed. He was hopelessly in debt to his landlady, and was afraid of meeting her. This was not because he was cowardly and abject, quite the contrary; but for some time past he had been in an overstrained irritable condition, verging on hypochondria. He had become so completely absorbed in himself, and isolated from his fellows that he dreaded meeting, not only his landlady, but anyone at all. He was crushed by poverty, but the anxieties of his position had of late ceased to weigh upon him. He had given up attending to matters of practical importance; he had lost all desire to do so. Nothing that any landlady could do had a real terror for him. But to be stopped on the stairs, to be forced to listen to her trivial, irrelevant gossip, to pestering demands for payment, threats and complaints, and to rack his brains for excuses, to prevaricate, to lie--no, rather than that, he would creep down the stairs like a cat and slip out unseen. This evening, however, on coming out into the street, he became acutely aware of his fears. “I want to attempt a thing _like that_ and am frightened by these trifles,” he thought, with an odd smile. “Hm... yes, all is in a man’s hands and he lets it all slip from cowardice, that’s an axiom. It would be interesting to know what it is men are most afraid of. Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what they fear most.... But I am talking too much. It’s because I chatter that I do nothing. Or perhaps it is that I chatter because I do nothing. I’ve learned to chatter this last month, lying for days together in my den thinking... of Jack the Giant-killer. Why am I going there now? Am I capable of _that_? Is _that_ serious? It is not serious at all. It’s simply a fantasy to amuse myself; a plaything! Yes, maybe it is a plaything.” The heat in the street was terrible: and the airlessness, the bustle and the plaster, scaffolding, bricks, and dust all about him, and that special Petersburg stench, so familiar to all who are unable to get out of town in summer--all worked painfully upon the young man’s already overwrought nerves. The insufferable stench from the pot-houses, which are particularly numerous in that part of the town, and the drunken men whom he met continually, although it was a working day, completed the revolting misery of the picture. An expression of the profoundest disgust gleamed for a moment in the young man’s refined face. He was, by the way, exceptionally handsome, above the average in height, slim, well-built, with beautiful dark eyes and dark brown hair. Soon he sank into deep thought, or more accurately speaking into a complete blankness of mind; he walked along not observing what was about him and not caring to observe it. From time to time, he would mutter something, from the habit of talking to himself, to which he had just confessed. At these moments he would become conscious that his ideas were sometimes in a tangle and that he was very weak; for two days he had scarcely tasted food. He was so badly dressed that even a man accustomed to shabbiness would have been ashamed to be seen in the street in such rags. In that quarter of the town, however, scarcely any shortcoming in dress would have created surprise. Owing to the proximity of the Hay Market, the number of establishments of bad character, the preponderance of the trading and working class population crowded in these streets and alleys in the heart of Petersburg, types so various were to be seen in the streets that no figure, however queer, would have caused surprise. But there was such accumulated bitterness and contempt in the young man’s heart, that, in spite of all the fastidiousness of youth, he minded his rags least of all in the street. It was a different matter when he met with acquaintances or with former fellow students, whom, indeed, he disliked meeting at any time. And yet when a drunken man who, for some unknown reason, was being taken somewhere in a huge waggon dragged by a heavy dray horse, suddenly shouted at him as he drove past: “Hey there, German hatter” bawling at the top of his voice and pointing at him--the young man stopped suddenly and clutched tremulously at his hat. It was a tall round hat from Zimmerman’s, but completely worn out, rusty with age, all torn and bespattered, brimless and bent on one side in a most unseemly fashion. Not shame, however, but quite another feeling akin to terror had overtaken him. “I knew it,” he muttered in confusion, “I thought so! That’s the worst of all! Why, a stupid thing like this, the most trivial detail might spoil the whole plan. Yes, my hat is too noticeable.... It looks absurd and that makes it noticeable.... With my rags I ought to wear a cap, any sort of old pancake, but not this grotesque thing. Nobody wears such a hat, it would be noticed a mile off, it would be remembered.... What matters is that people would remember it, and that would give them a clue. For this business one should be as little conspicuous as possible.... Trifles, trifles are what matter! Why, it’s just such trifles that always ruin everything....” He had not far to go; he knew indeed how many steps it was from the gate of his lodging house: exactly seven hundred and thirty. He had counted them once when he had been lost in dreams. At the time he had put no faith in those dreams and was only tantalising himself by their hideous but daring recklessness. Now, a month later, he had begun to look upon them differently, and, in spite of the monologues in which he jeered at his own impotence and indecision, he had involuntarily come to regard this “hideous” dream as an exploit to be attempted, although he still did not realise this himself. He was positively going now for a “rehearsal” of his project, and at every step his excitement grew more and more violent. With a sinking heart and a nervous tremor, he went up to a huge house which on one side looked on to the canal, and on the other into the street. This house was let out in tiny tenements and was inhabited by working people of all kinds--tailors, locksmiths, cooks, Germans of sorts, girls picking up a living as best they could, petty clerks, etc. There was a continual coming and going through the two gates and in the two courtyards of the house. Three or four door-keepers were employed on the building. The young man was very glad to meet none of them, and at once slipped unnoticed through the door on the right, and up the staircase. It was a back staircase, dark and narrow, but he was familiar with it already, and knew his way, and he liked all these surroundings: in such darkness even the most inquisitive eyes were not to be dreaded. “If I am so scared now, what would it be if it somehow came to pass that I were really going to do it?” he could not help asking himself as he reached the fourth storey. There his progress was barred by some porters who were engaged in moving furniture out of a flat. He knew that the flat had been occupied by a German clerk in the civil service, and his family. This German was moving out then, and so the fourth floor on this staircase would be untenanted except by the old woman. “That’s a good thing anyway,” he thought to himself, as he rang the bell of the old woman’s flat. The bell gave a faint tinkle as though it were made of tin and not of copper. The little flats in such houses always have bells that ring like that. He had forgotten the note of that bell, and now its peculiar tinkle seemed to remind him of something and to bring it clearly before him.... He started, his nerves were terribly overstrained by now. In a little while, the door was opened a tiny crack: the old woman eyed her visitor with evident distrust through the crack, and nothing could be seen but her little eyes, glittering in the darkness. But, seeing a number of people on the landing, she grew bolder, and opened the door wide. The young man stepped into the dark entry, which was partitioned off from the tiny kitchen. The old woman stood facing him in silence and looking inquiringly at him. She was a diminutive, withered up old woman of sixty, with sharp malignant eyes and a sharp little nose. Her colourless, somewhat grizzled hair was thickly smeared with oil, and she wore no kerchief over it. Round her thin long neck, which looked like a hen’s leg, was knotted some sort of flannel rag, and, in spite of the heat, there hung flapping on her shoulders, a mangy fur cape, yellow with age. The old woman coughed and groaned at every instant. The young man must have looked at her with a rather peculiar expression, for a gleam of mistrust came into her eyes again. “Raskolnikov, a student, I came here a month ago,” the young man made haste to mutter, with a half bow, remembering that he ought to be more polite. “I remember, my good sir, I remember quite well your coming here,” the old woman said distinctly, still keeping her inquiring eyes on his face. “And here... I am again on the same errand,” Raskolnikov continued, a little disconcerted and surprised at the old woman’s mistrust. “Perhaps she is always like that though, only I did not notice it the other time,” he thought with an uneasy feeling. The old woman paused, as though hesitating; then stepped on one side, and pointing to the door of the room, she said, letting her visitor pass in front of her: “Step in, my good sir.” The little room into which the young man walked, with yellow paper on the walls, geraniums and muslin curtains in the windows, was brightly lighted up at that moment by the setting sun. “So the sun will shine like this _then_ too!” flashed as it were by chance through Raskolnikov’s mind, and with a rapid glance he scanned everything in the room, trying as far as possible to notice and remember its arrangement. But there was nothing special in the room. The furniture, all very old and of yellow wood, consisted of a sofa with a huge bent wooden back, an oval table in front of the sofa, a dressing-table with a looking-glass fixed on it between the windows, chairs along the walls and two or three half-penny prints in yellow frames, representing German damsels with birds in their hands--that was all. In the corner a light was burning before a small ikon. Everything was very clean; the floor and the furniture were brightly polished; everything shone. “Lizaveta’s work,” thought the young man. There was not a speck of dust to be seen in the whole flat. “It’s in the houses of spiteful old widows that one finds such cleanliness,” Raskolnikov thought again, and he stole a curious glance at the cotton curtain over the door leading into another tiny room, in which stood the old woman’s bed and chest of drawers and into which he had never looked before. These two rooms made up the whole flat. “What do you want?” the old woman said severely, coming into the room and, as before, standing in front of him so as to look him straight in the face. “I’ve brought something to pawn here,” and he drew out of his pocket an old-fashioned flat silver watch, on the back of which was engraved a globe; the chain was of steel. “But the time is up for your last pledge. The month was up the day before yesterday.” “I will bring you the interest for another month; wait a little.” “But that’s for me to do as I please, my good sir, to wait or to sell your pledge at once.” “How much will you give me for the watch, Alyona Ivanovna?” “You come with such trifles, my good sir, it’s scarcely worth anything. I gave you two roubles last time for your ring and one could buy it quite new at a jeweler’s for a rouble and a half.” “Give me four roubles for it, I shall redeem it, it was my father’s. I shall be getting some money soon.” “A rouble and a half, and interest in advance, if you like!” “A rouble and a half!” cried the young man. “Please yourself”--and the old woman handed him back the watch. The young man took it, and was so angry that he was on the point of going away; but checked himself at once, remembering that there was nowhere else he could go, and that he had had another object also in coming. “Hand it over,” he said roughly. The old woman fumbled in her pocket for her keys, and disappeared behind the curtain into the other room. The young man, left standing alone in the middle of the room, listened inquisitively, thinking. He could hear her unlocking the chest of drawers. “It must be the top drawer,” he reflected. “So she carries the keys in a pocket on the right. All in one bunch on a steel ring.... And there’s one key there, three times as big as all the others, with deep notches; that can’t be the key of the chest of drawers... then there must be some other chest or strong-box... that’s worth knowing. Strong-boxes always have keys like that... but how degrading it all is.” The old woman came back. “Here, sir: as we say ten copecks the rouble a month, so I must take fifteen copecks from a rouble and a half for the month in advance. But for the two roubles I lent you before, you owe me now twenty copecks on the same reckoning in advance. That makes thirty-five copecks altogether. So I must give you a rouble and fifteen copecks for the watch. Here it is.” “What! only a rouble and fifteen copecks now!” “Just so.” The young man did not dispute it and took the money. He looked at the old woman, and was in no hurry to get away, as though there was still something he wanted to say or to do, but he did not himself quite know what. “I may be bringing you something else in a day or two, Alyona Ivanovna--a valuable thing--silver--a cigarette-box, as soon as I get it back from a friend...” he broke off in confusion. “Well, we will talk about it then, sir.” “Good-bye--are you always at home alone, your sister is not here with you?” He asked her as casually as possible as he went out into the passage. “What business is she of yours, my good sir?” “Oh, nothing particular, I simply asked. You are too quick.... Good-day, Alyona Ivanovna.” Raskolnikov went out in complete confusion. This confusion became more and more intense. As he went down the stairs, he even stopped short, two or three times, as though suddenly struck by some thought. When he was in the street he cried out, “Oh, God, how loathsome it all is! and can I, can I possibly.... No, it’s nonsense, it’s rubbish!” he added resolutely. “And how could such an atrocious thing come into my head? What filthy things my heart is capable of. Yes, filthy above all, disgusting, loathsome, loathsome!--and for a whole month I’ve been....” But no words, no exclamations, could express his agitation. The feeling of intense repulsion, which had begun to oppress and torture his heart while he was on his way to the old woman, had by now reached such a pitch and had taken such a definite form that he did not know what to do with himself to escape from his wretchedness. He walked along the pavement like a drunken man, regardless of the passers-by, and jostling against them, and only came to his senses when he was in the next street. Looking round, he noticed that he was standing close to a tavern which was entered by steps leading from the pavement to the basement. At that instant two drunken men came out at the door, and abusing and supporting one another, they mounted the steps. Without stopping to think, Raskolnikov went down the steps at once. Till that moment he had never been into a tavern, but now he felt giddy and was tormented by a burning thirst. He longed for a drink of cold beer, and attributed his sudden weakness to the want of food. He sat down at a sticky little table in a dark and dirty corner; ordered some beer, and eagerly drank off the first glassful. At once he felt easier; and his thoughts became clear. “All that’s nonsense,” he said hopefully, “and there is nothing in it all to worry about! It’s simply physical derangement. Just a glass of beer, a piece of dry bread--and in one moment the brain is stronger, the mind is clearer and the will is firm! Phew, how utterly petty it all is!” But in spite of this scornful reflection, he was by now looking cheerful as though he were suddenly set free from a terrible burden: and he gazed round in a friendly way at the people in the room. But even at that moment he had a dim foreboding that this happier frame of mind was also not normal. There were few people at the time in the tavern. Besides the two drunken men he had met on the steps, a group consisting of about five men and a girl with a concertina had gone out at the same time. Their departure left the room quiet and rather empty. The persons still in the tavern were a man who appeared to be an artisan, drunk, but not extremely so, sitting before a pot of beer, and his companion, a huge, stout man with a grey beard, in a short full-skirted coat. He was very drunk: and had dropped asleep on the bench; every now and then, he began as though in his sleep, cracking his fingers, with his arms wide apart and the upper part of his body bounding about on the bench, while he hummed some meaningless refrain, trying to recall some such lines as these: “His wife a year he fondly loved His wife a--a year he--fondly loved.” Or suddenly waking up again: “Walking along the crowded row He met the one he used to know.” But no one shared his enjoyment: his silent companion looked with positive hostility and mistrust at all these manifestations. There was another man in the room who looked somewhat like a retired government clerk. He was sitting apart, now and then sipping from his pot and looking round at the company. He, too, appeared to be in some agitation. CHAPTER II Raskolnikov was not used to crowds, and, as we said before, he avoided society of every sort, more especially of late. But now all at once he felt a desire to be with other people. Something new seemed to be taking place within him, and with it he felt a sort of thirst for company. He was so weary after a whole month of concentrated wretchedness and gloomy excitement that he longed to rest, if only for a moment, in some other world, whatever it might be; and, in spite of the filthiness of the surroundings, he was glad now to stay in the tavern. The master of the establishment was in another room, but he frequently came down some steps into the main room, his jaunty, tarred boots with red turn-over tops coming into view each time before the rest of his person. He wore a full coat and a horribly greasy black satin waistcoat, with no cravat, and his whole face seemed smeared with oil like an iron lock. At the counter stood a boy of about fourteen, and there was another boy somewhat younger who handed whatever was wanted. On the counter lay some sliced cucumber, some pieces of dried black bread, and some fish, chopped up small, all smelling very bad. It was insufferably close, and so heavy with the fumes of spirits that five minutes in such an atmosphere might well make a man drunk. There are chance meetings with strangers that interest us from the first moment, before a word is spoken. Such was the impression made on Raskolnikov by the person sitting a little distance from him, who looked like a retired clerk. The young man often recalled this impression afterwards, and even ascribed it to presentiment. He looked repeatedly at the clerk, partly no doubt because the latter was staring persistently at him, obviously anxious to enter into conversation. At the other persons in the room, including the tavern-keeper, the clerk looked as though he were used to their company, and weary of it, showing a shade of condescending contempt for them as persons of station and culture inferior to his own, with whom it would be useless for him to converse. He was a man over fifty, bald and grizzled, of medium height, and stoutly built. His face, bloated from continual drinking, was of a yellow, even greenish, tinge, with swollen eyelids out of which keen reddish eyes gleamed like little chinks. But there was something very strange in him; there was a light in his eyes as though of intense feeling--perhaps there were even thought and intelligence, but at the same time there was a gleam of something like madness. He was wearing an old and hopelessly ragged black dress coat, with all its buttons missing except one, and that one he had buttoned, evidently clinging to this last trace of respectability. A crumpled shirt front, covered with spots and stains, protruded from his canvas waistcoat. Like a clerk, he wore no beard, nor moustache, but had been so long unshaven that his chin looked like a stiff greyish brush. And there was something respectable and like an official about his manner too. But he was restless; he ruffled up his hair and from time to time let his head drop into his hands dejectedly resting his ragged elbows on the stained and sticky table. At last he looked straight at Raskolnikov, and said loudly and resolutely: “May I venture, honoured sir, to engage you in polite conversation? Forasmuch as, though your exterior would not command respect, my experience admonishes me that you are a man of education and not accustomed to drinking. I have always respected education when in conjunction with genuine sentiments, and I am besides a titular counsellor in rank. Marmeladov--such is my name; titular counsellor. I make bold to inquire--have you been in the service?” “No, I am studying,” answered the young man, somewhat surprised at the grandiloquent style of the speaker and also at being so directly addressed. In spite of the momentary desire he had just been feeling for company of any sort, on being actually spoken to he felt immediately his habitual irritable and uneasy aversion for any stranger who approached or attempted to approach him. “A student then, or formerly a student,” cried the clerk. “Just what I thought! I’m a man of experience, immense experience, sir,” and he tapped his forehead with his fingers in self-approval. “You’ve been a student or have attended some learned institution!... But allow me....” He got up, staggered, took up his jug and glass, and sat down beside the young man, facing him a little sideways. He was drunk, but spoke fluently and boldly, only occasionally losing the thread of his sentences and drawling his words. He pounced upon Raskolnikov as greedily as though he too had not spoken to a soul for a month. “Honoured sir,” he began almost with solemnity, “poverty is not a vice, that’s a true saying. Yet I know too that drunkenness is not a virtue, and that that’s even truer. But beggary, honoured sir, beggary is a vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but in beggary--never--no one. For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom, so as to make it as humiliating as possible; and quite right, too, forasmuch as in beggary I am ready to be the first to humiliate myself. Hence the pot-house! Honoured sir, a month ago Mr. Lebeziatnikov gave my wife a beating, and my wife is a very different matter from me! Do you understand? Allow me to ask you another question out of simple curiosity: have you ever spent a night on a hay barge, on the Neva?” “No, I have not happened to,” answered Raskolnikov. “What do you mean?” “Well, I’ve just come from one and it’s the fifth night I’ve slept so....” He filled his glass, emptied it and paused. Bits of hay were in fact clinging to his clothes and sticking to his hair. It seemed quite probable that he had not undressed or washed for the last five days. His hands, particularly, were filthy. They were fat and red, with black nails. His conversation seemed to excite a general though languid interest. The boys at the counter fell to sniggering. The innkeeper came down from the upper room, apparently on purpose to listen to the “funny fellow” and sat down at a little distance, yawning lazily, but with dignity. Evidently Marmeladov was a familiar figure here, and he had most likely acquired his weakness for high-flown speeches from the habit of frequently entering into conversation with strangers of all sorts in the tavern. This habit develops into a necessity in some drunkards, and especially in those who are looked after sharply and kept in order at home. Hence in the company of other drinkers they try to justify themselves and even if possible obtain consideration. “Funny fellow!” pronounced the innkeeper. “And why don’t you work, why aren’t you at your duty, if you are in the service?” “Why am I not at my duty, honoured sir,” Marmeladov went on, addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov, as though it had been he who put that question to him. “Why am I not at my duty? Does not my heart ache to think what a useless worm I am? A month ago when Mr. Lebeziatnikov beat my wife with his own hands, and I lay drunk, didn’t I suffer? Excuse me, young man, has it ever happened to you... hm... well, to petition hopelessly for a loan?” “Yes, it has. But what do you mean by hopelessly?” “Hopelessly in the fullest sense, when you know beforehand that you will get nothing by it. You know, for instance, beforehand with positive certainty that this man, this most reputable and exemplary citizen, will on no consideration give you money; and indeed I ask you why should he? For he knows of course that I shan’t pay it back. From compassion? But Mr. Lebeziatnikov who keeps up with modern ideas explained the other day that compassion is forbidden nowadays by science itself, and that that’s what is done now in England, where there is political economy. Why, I ask you, should he give it to me? And yet though I know beforehand that he won’t, I set off to him and...” “Why do you go?” put in Raskolnikov. “Well, when one has no one, nowhere else one can go! For every man must have somewhere to go. Since there are times when one absolutely must go somewhere! When my own daughter first went out with a yellow ticket, then I had to go... (for my daughter has a yellow passport),” he added in parenthesis, looking with a certain uneasiness at the young man. “No matter, sir, no matter!” he went on hurriedly and with apparent composure when both the boys at the counter guffawed and even the innkeeper smiled--“No matter, I am not confounded by the wagging of their heads; for everyone knows everything about it already, and all that is secret is made open. And I accept it all, not with contempt, but with humility. So be it! So be it! ‘Behold the man!’ Excuse me, young man, can you.... No, to put it more strongly and more distinctly; not _can_ you but _dare_ you, looking upon me, assert that I am not a pig?” The young man did not answer a word. “Well,” the orator began again stolidly and with even increased dignity, after waiting for the laughter in the room to subside. “Well, so be it, I am a pig, but she is a lady! I have the semblance of a beast, but Katerina Ivanovna, my spouse, is a person of education and an officer’s daughter. Granted, granted, I am a scoundrel, but she is a woman of a noble heart, full of sentiments, refined by education. And yet... oh, if only she felt for me! Honoured sir, honoured sir, you know every man ought to have at least one place where people feel for him! But Katerina Ivanovna, though she is magnanimous, she is unjust.... And yet, although I realise that when she pulls my hair she only does it out of pity--for I repeat without being ashamed, she pulls my hair, young man,” he declared with redoubled dignity, hearing the sniggering again--“but, my God, if she would but once.... But no, no! It’s all in vain and it’s no use talking! No use talking! For more than once, my wish did come true and more than once she has felt for me but... such is my fate and I am a beast by nature!” “Rather!” assented the innkeeper yawning. Marmeladov struck his fist resolutely on the table. “Such is my fate! Do you know, sir, do you know, I have sold her very stockings for drink? Not her shoes--that would be more or less in the order of things, but her stockings, her stockings I have sold for drink! Her mohair shawl I sold for drink, a present to her long ago, her own property, not mine; and we live in a cold room and she caught cold this winter and has begun coughing and spitting blood too. We have three little children and Katerina Ivanovna is at work from morning till night; she is scrubbing and cleaning and washing the children, for she’s been used to cleanliness from a child. But her chest is weak and she has a tendency to consumption and I feel it! Do you suppose I don’t feel it? And the more I drink the more I feel it. That’s why I drink too. I try to find sympathy and feeling in drink.... I drink so that I may suffer twice as much!” And as though in despair he laid his head down on the table. “Young man,” he went on, raising his head again, “in your face I seem to read some trouble of mind. When you came in I read it, and that was why I addressed you at once. For in unfolding to you the story of my life, I do not wish to make myself a laughing-stock before these idle listeners, who indeed know all about it already, but I am looking for a man of feeling and education. Know then that my wife was educated in a high-class school for the daughters of noblemen, and on leaving she danced the shawl dance before the governor and other personages for which she was presented with a gold medal and a certificate of merit. The medal... well, the medal of course was sold--long ago, hm... but the certificate of merit is in her trunk still and not long ago she showed it to our landlady. And although she is most continually on bad terms with the landlady, yet she wanted to tell someone or other of her past honours and of the happy days that are gone. I don’t condemn her for it, I don’t blame her, for the one thing left her is recollection of the past, and all the rest is dust and ashes. Yes, yes, she is a lady of spirit, proud and determined. She scrubs the floors herself and has nothing but black bread to eat, but won’t allow herself to be treated with disrespect. That’s why she would not overlook Mr. Lebeziatnikov’s rudeness to her, and so when he gave her a beating for it, she took to her bed more from the hurt to her feelings than from the blows. She was a widow when I married her, with three children, one smaller than the other. She married her first husband, an infantry officer, for love, and ran away with him from her father’s house. She was exceedingly fond of her husband; but he gave way to cards, got into trouble and with that he died. He used to beat her at the end: and although she paid him back, of which I have authentic documentary evidence, to this day she speaks of him with tears and she throws him up to me; and I am glad, I am glad that, though only in imagination, she should think of herself as having once been happy.... And she was left at his death with three children in a wild and remote district where I happened to be at the time; and she was left in such hopeless poverty that, although I have seen many ups and downs of all sort, I don’t feel equal to describing it even. Her relations had all thrown her off. And she was proud, too, excessively proud.... And then, honoured sir, and then, I, being at the time a widower, with a daughter of fourteen left me by my first wife, offered her my hand, for I could not bear the sight of such suffering. You can judge the extremity of her calamities, that she, a woman of education and culture and distinguished family, should have consented to be my wife. But she did! Weeping and sobbing and wringing her hands, she married me! For she had nowhere to turn! Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn? No, that you don’t understand yet.... And for a whole year, I performed my duties conscientiously and faithfully, and did not touch this” (he tapped the jug with his finger), “for I have feelings. But even so, I could not please her; and then I lost my place too, and that through no fault of mine but through changes in the office; and then I did touch it!... It will be a year and a half ago soon since we found ourselves at last after many wanderings and numerous calamities in this magnificent capital, adorned with innumerable monuments. Here I obtained a situation.... I obtained it and I lost it again. Do you understand? This time it was through my own fault I lost it: for my weakness had come out.... We have now part of a room at Amalia Fyodorovna Lippevechsel’s; and what we live upon and what we pay our rent with, I could not say. There are a lot of people living there besides ourselves. Dirt and disorder, a perfect Bedlam... hm... yes... And meanwhile my daughter by my first wife has grown up; and what my daughter has had to put up with from her step-mother whilst she was growing up, I won’t speak of. For, though Katerina Ivanovna is full of generous feelings, she is a spirited lady, irritable and short-tempered.... Yes. But it’s no use going over that! Sonia, as you may well fancy, has had no education. I did make an effort four years ago to give her a course of geography and universal history, but as I was not very well up in those subjects myself and we had no suitable books, and what books we had... hm, anyway we have not even those now, so all our instruction came to an end. We stopped at Cyrus of Persia. Since she has attained years of maturity, she has read other books of romantic tendency and of late she had read with great interest a book she got through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, Lewes’ Physiology--do you know it?--and even recounted extracts from it to us: and that’s the whole of her education. And now may I venture to address you, honoured sir, on my own account with a private question. Do you suppose that a respectable poor girl can earn much by honest work? Not fifteen farthings a day can she earn, if she is respectable and has no special talent and that without putting her work down for an instant! And what’s more, Ivan Ivanitch Klopstock the civil counsellor--have you heard of him?--has not to this day paid her for the half-dozen linen shirts she made him and drove her roughly away, stamping and reviling her, on the pretext that the shirt collars were not made like the pattern and were put in askew. And there are the little ones hungry.... And Katerina Ivanovna walking up and down and wringing her hands, her cheeks flushed red, as they always are in that disease: ‘Here you live with us,’ says she, ‘you eat and drink and are kept warm and you do nothing to help.’ And much she gets to eat and drink when there is not a crust for the little ones for three days! I was lying at the time... well, what of it! I was lying drunk and I heard my Sonia speaking (she is a gentle creature with a soft little voice... fair hair and such a pale, thin little face). She said: ‘Katerina Ivanovna, am I really to do a thing like that?’ And Darya Frantsovna, a woman of evil character and very well known to the police, had two or three times tried to get at her through the landlady. ‘And why not?’ said Katerina Ivanovna with a jeer, ‘you are something mighty precious to be so careful of!’ But don’t blame her, don’t blame her, honoured sir, don’t blame her! She was not herself when she spoke, but driven to distraction by her illness and the crying of the hungry children; and it was said more to wound her than anything else.... For that’s Katerina Ivanovna’s character, and when children cry, even from hunger, she falls to beating them at once. At six o’clock I saw Sonia get up, put on her kerchief and her cape, and go out of the room and about nine o’clock she came back. She walked straight up to Katerina Ivanovna and she laid thirty roubles on the table before her in silence. She did not utter a word, she did not even look at her, she simply picked up our big green _drap de dames_ shawl (we have a shawl, made of _drap de dames_), put it over her head and face and lay down on the bed with her face to the wall; only her little shoulders and her body kept shuddering.... And I went on lying there, just as before.... And then I saw, young man, I saw Katerina Ivanovna, in the same silence go up to Sonia’s little bed; she was on her knees all the evening kissing Sonia’s feet, and would not get up, and then they both fell asleep in each other’s arms... together, together... yes... and I... lay drunk.” Marmeladov stopped short, as though his voice had failed him. Then he hurriedly filled his glass, drank, and cleared his throat. “Since then, sir,” he went on after a brief pause--“Since then, owing to an unfortunate occurrence and through information given by evil-intentioned persons--in all which Darya Frantsovna took a leading part on the pretext that she had been treated with want of respect--since then my daughter Sofya Semyonovna has been forced to take a yellow ticket, and owing to that she is unable to go on living with us. For our landlady, Amalia Fyodorovna would not hear of it (though she had backed up Darya Frantsovna before) and Mr. Lebeziatnikov too... hm.... All the trouble between him and Katerina Ivanovna was on Sonia’s account. At first he was for making up to Sonia himself and then all of a sudden he stood on his dignity: ‘how,’ said he, ‘can a highly educated man like me live in the same rooms with a girl like that?’ And Katerina Ivanovna would not let it pass, she stood up for her... and so that’s how it happened. And Sonia comes to us now, mostly after dark; she comforts Katerina Ivanovna and gives her all she can.... She has a room at the Kapernaumovs’ the tailors, she lodges with them; Kapernaumov is a lame man with a cleft palate and all of his numerous family have cleft palates too. And his wife, too, has a cleft palate. They all live in one room, but Sonia has her own, partitioned off.... Hm... yes... very poor people and all with cleft palates... yes. Then I got up in the morning, and put on my rags, lifted up my hands to heaven and set off to his excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch. His excellency Ivan Afanasyvitch, do you know him? No? Well, then, it’s a man of God you don’t know. He is wax... wax before the face of the Lord; even as wax melteth!... His eyes were dim when he heard my story. ‘Marmeladov, once already you have deceived my expectations... I’ll take you once more on my own responsibility’--that’s what he said, ‘remember,’ he said, ‘and now you can go.’ I kissed the dust at his feet--in thought only, for in reality he would not have allowed me to do it, being a statesman and a man of modern political and enlightened ideas. I returned home, and when I announced that I’d been taken back into the service and should receive a salary, heavens, what a to-do there was!...” Marmeladov stopped again in violent excitement. At that moment a whole party of revellers already drunk came in from the street, and the sounds of a hired concertina and the cracked piping voice of a child of seven singing “The Hamlet” were heard in the entry. The room was filled with noise. The tavern-keeper and the boys were busy with the new-comers. Marmeladov paying no attention to the new arrivals continued his story. He appeared by now to be extremely weak, but as he became more and more drunk, he became more and more talkative. The recollection of his recent success in getting the situation seemed to revive him, and was positively reflected in a sort of radiance on his face. Raskolnikov listened attentively. “That was five weeks ago, sir. Yes.... As soon as Katerina Ivanovna and Sonia heard of it, mercy on us, it was as though I stepped into the kingdom of Heaven. It used to be: you can lie like a beast, nothing but abuse. Now they were walking on tiptoe, hushing the children. ‘Semyon Zaharovitch is tired with his work at the office, he is resting, shh!’ They made me coffee before I went to work and boiled cream for me! They began to get real cream for me, do you hear that? And how they managed to get together the money for a decent outfit--eleven roubles, fifty copecks, I can’t guess. Boots, cotton shirt-fronts--most magnificent, a uniform, they got up all in splendid style, for eleven roubles and a half. The first morning I came back from the office I found Katerina Ivanovna had cooked two courses for dinner--soup and salt meat with horse radish--which we had never dreamed of till then. She had not any dresses... none at all, but she got herself up as though she were going on a visit; and not that she’d anything to do it with, she smartened herself up with nothing at all, she’d done her hair nicely, put on a clean collar of some sort, cuffs, and there she was, quite a different person, she was younger and better looking. Sonia, my little darling, had only helped with money ‘for the time,’ she said, ‘it won’t do for me to come and see you too often. After dark maybe when no one can see.’ Do you hear, do you hear? I lay down for a nap after dinner and what do you think: though Katerina Ivanovna had quarrelled to the last degree with our landlady Amalia Fyodorovna only a week before, she could not resist then asking her in to coffee. For two hours they were sitting, whispering together. ‘Semyon Zaharovitch is in the service again, now, and receiving a salary,’ says she, ‘and he went himself to his excellency and his excellency himself came out to him, made all the others wait and led Semyon Zaharovitch by the hand before everybody into his study.’ Do you hear, do you hear? ‘To be sure,’ says he, ‘Semyon Zaharovitch, remembering your past services,’ says he, ‘and in spite of your propensity to that foolish weakness, since you promise now and since moreover we’ve got on badly without you,’ (do you hear, do you hear;) ‘and so,’ says he, ‘I rely now on your word as a gentleman.’ And all that, let me tell you, she has simply made up for herself, and not simply out of wantonness, for the sake of bragging; no, she believes it all herself, she amuses herself with her own fancies, upon my word she does! And I don’t blame her for it, no, I don’t blame her!... Six days ago when I brought her my first earnings in full--twenty-three roubles forty copecks altogether--she called me her poppet: ‘poppet,’ said she, ‘my little poppet.’ And when we were by ourselves, you understand? You would not think me a beauty, you would not think much of me as a husband, would you?... Well, she pinched my cheek, ‘my little poppet,’ said she.” Marmeladov broke off, tried to smile, but suddenly his chin began to twitch. He controlled himself however. The tavern, the degraded appearance of the man, the five nights in the hay barge, and the pot of spirits, and yet this poignant love for his wife and children bewildered his listener. Raskolnikov listened intently but with a sick sensation. He felt vexed that he had come here. “Honoured sir, honoured sir,” cried Marmeladov recovering himself--“Oh, sir, perhaps all this seems a laughing matter to you, as it does to others, and perhaps I am only worrying you with the stupidity of all the trivial details of my home life, but it is not a laughing matter to me. For I can feel it all.... And the whole of that heavenly day of my life and the whole of that evening I passed in fleeting dreams of how I would arrange it all, and how I would dress all the children, and how I should give her rest, and how I should rescue my own daughter from dishonour and restore her to the bosom of her family.... And a great deal more.... Quite excusable, sir. Well, then, sir” (Marmeladov suddenly gave a sort of start, raised his head and gazed intently at his listener) “well, on the very next day after all those dreams, that is to say, exactly five days ago, in the evening, by a cunning trick, like a thief in the night, I stole from Katerina Ivanovna the key of her box, took out what was left of my earnings, how much it was I have forgotten, and now look at me, all of you! It’s the fifth day since I left home, and they are looking for me there and it’s the end of my employment, and my uniform is lying in a tavern on the Egyptian bridge. I exchanged it for the garments I have on... and it’s the end of everything!” Marmeladov struck his forehead with his fist, clenched his teeth, closed his eyes and leaned heavily with his elbow on the table. But a minute later his face suddenly changed and with a certain assumed slyness and affectation of bravado, he glanced at Raskolnikov, laughed and said: “This morning I went to see Sonia, I went to ask her for a pick-me-up! He-he-he!” “You don’t say she gave it to you?” cried one of the new-comers; he shouted the words and went off into a guffaw. “This very quart was bought with her money,” Marmeladov declared, addressing himself exclusively to Raskolnikov. “Thirty copecks she gave me with her own hands, her last, all she had, as I saw.... She said nothing, she only looked at me without a word.... Not on earth, but up yonder... they grieve over men, they weep, but they don’t blame them, they don’t blame them! But it hurts more, it hurts more when they don’t blame! Thirty copecks yes! And maybe she needs them now, eh? What do you think, my dear sir? For now she’s got to keep up her appearance. It costs money, that smartness, that special smartness, you know? Do you understand? And there’s pomatum, too, you see, she must have things; petticoats, starched ones, shoes, too, real jaunty ones to show off her foot when she has to step over a puddle. Do you understand, sir, do you understand what all that smartness means? And here I, her own father, here I took thirty copecks of that money for a drink! And I am drinking it! And I have already drunk it! Come, who will have pity on a man like me, eh? Are you sorry for me, sir, or not? Tell me, sir, are you sorry or not? He-he-he!” He would have filled his glass, but there was no drink left. The pot was empty. “What are you to be pitied for?” shouted the tavern-keeper who was again near them. Shouts of laughter and even oaths followed. The laughter and the oaths came from those who were listening and also from those who had heard nothing but were simply looking at the figure of the discharged government clerk. “To be pitied! Why am I to be pitied?” Marmeladov suddenly declaimed, standing up with his arm outstretched, as though he had been only waiting for that question. “Why am I to be pitied, you say? Yes! there’s nothing to pity me for! I ought to be crucified, crucified on a cross, not pitied! Crucify me, oh judge, crucify me but pity me! And then I will go of myself to be crucified, for it’s not merry-making I seek but tears and tribulation!... Do you suppose, you that sell, that this pint of yours has been sweet to me? It was tribulation I sought at the bottom of it, tears and tribulation, and have found it, and I have tasted it; but He will pity us Who has had pity on all men, Who has understood all men and all things, He is the One, He too is the judge. He will come in that day and He will ask: ‘Where is the daughter who gave herself for her cross, consumptive step-mother and for the little children of another? Where is the daughter who had pity upon the filthy drunkard, her earthly father, undismayed by his beastliness?’ And He will say, ‘Come to me! I have already forgiven thee once.... I have forgiven thee once.... Thy sins which are many are forgiven thee for thou hast loved much....’ And he will forgive my Sonia, He will forgive, I know it... I felt it in my heart when I was with her just now! And He will judge and will forgive all, the good and the evil, the wise and the meek.... And when He has done with all of them, then He will summon us. ‘You too come forth,’ He will say, ‘Come forth ye drunkards, come forth, ye weak ones, come forth, ye children of shame!’ And we shall all come forth, without shame and shall stand before him. And He will say unto us, ‘Ye are swine, made in the Image of the Beast and with his mark; but come ye also!’ And the wise ones and those of understanding will say, ‘Oh Lord, why dost Thou receive these men?’ And He will say, ‘This is why I receive them, oh ye wise, this is why I receive them, oh ye of understanding, that not one of them believed himself to be worthy of this.’ And He will hold out His hands to us and we shall fall down before him... and we shall weep... and we shall understand all things! Then we shall understand all!... and all will understand, Katerina Ivanovna even... she will understand.... Lord, Thy kingdom come!” And he sank down on the bench exhausted, and helpless, looking at no one, apparently oblivious of his surroundings and plunged in deep thought. His words had created a certain impression; there was a moment of silence; but soon laughter and oaths were heard again. “That’s his notion!” “Talked himself silly!” “A fine clerk he is!” And so on, and so on. “Let us go, sir,” said Marmeladov all at once, raising his head and addressing Raskolnikov--“come along with me... Kozel’s house, looking into the yard. I’m going to Katerina Ivanovna--time I did.” Raskolnikov had for some time been wanting to go and he had meant to help him. Marmeladov was much unsteadier on his legs than in his speech and leaned heavily on the young man. They had two or three hundred paces to go. The drunken man was more and more overcome by dismay and confusion as they drew nearer the house. “It’s not Katerina Ivanovna I am afraid of now,” he muttered in agitation--“and that she will begin pulling my hair. What does my hair matter! Bother my hair! That’s what I say! Indeed it will be better if she does begin pulling it, that’s not what I am afraid of... it’s her eyes I am afraid of... yes, her eyes... the red on her cheeks, too, frightens me... and her breathing too.... Have you noticed how people in that disease breathe... when they are excited? I am frightened of the children’s crying, too.... For if Sonia has not taken them food... I don’t know what’s happened! I don’t know! But blows I am not afraid of.... Know, sir, that such blows are not a pain to me, but even an enjoyment. In fact I can’t get on without it.... It’s better so. Let her strike me, it relieves her heart... it’s better so... There is the house. The house of Kozel, the cabinet-maker... a German, well-to-do. Lead the way!” They went in from the yard and up to the fourth storey. The staircase got darker and darker as they went up. It was nearly eleven o’clock and although in summer in Petersburg there is no real night, yet it was quite dark at the top of the stairs. A grimy little door at the very top of the stairs stood ajar. A very poor-looking room about ten paces long was lighted up by a candle-end; the whole of it was visible from the entrance. It was all in disorder, littered up with rags of all sorts, especially children’s garments. Across the furthest corner was stretched a ragged sheet. Behind it probably was the bed. There was nothing in the room except two chairs and a sofa covered with American leather, full of holes, before which stood an old deal kitchen-table, unpainted and uncovered. At the edge of the table stood a smoldering tallow-candle in an iron candlestick. It appeared that the family had a room to themselves, not part of a room, but their room was practically a passage. The door leading to the other rooms, or rather cupboards, into which Amalia Lippevechsel’s flat was divided stood half open, and there was shouting, uproar and laughter within. People seemed to be playing cards and drinking tea there. Words of the most unceremonious kind flew out from time to time. Raskolnikov recognised Katerina Ivanovna at once. She was a rather tall, slim and graceful woman, terribly emaciated, with magnificent dark brown hair and with a hectic flush in her cheeks. She was pacing up and down in her little room, pressing her hands against her chest; her lips were parched and her breathing came in nervous broken gasps. Her eyes glittered as in fever and looked about with a harsh immovable stare. And that consumptive and excited face with the last flickering light of the candle-end playing upon it made a sickening impression. She seemed to Raskolnikov about thirty years old and was certainly a strange wife for Marmeladov.... She had not heard them and did not notice them coming in. She seemed to be lost in thought, hearing and seeing nothing. The room was close, but she had not opened the window; a stench rose from the staircase, but the door on to the stairs was not closed. From the inner rooms clouds of tobacco smoke floated in, she kept coughing, but did not close the door. The youngest child, a girl of six, was asleep, sitting curled up on the floor with her head on the sofa. A boy a year older stood crying and shaking in the corner, probably he had just had a beating. Beside him stood a girl of nine years old, tall and thin, wearing a thin and ragged chemise with an ancient cashmere pelisse flung over her bare shoulders, long outgrown and barely reaching her knees. Her arm, as thin as a stick, was round her brother’s neck. She was trying to comfort him, whispering something to him, and doing all she could to keep him from whimpering again. At the same time her large dark eyes, which looked larger still from the thinness of her frightened face, were watching her mother with alarm. Marmeladov did not enter the door, but dropped on his knees in the very doorway, pushing Raskolnikov in front of him. The woman seeing a stranger stopped indifferently facing him, coming to herself for a moment and apparently wondering what he had come for. But evidently she decided that he was going into the next room, as he had to pass through hers to get there. Taking no further notice of him, she walked towards the outer door to close it and uttered a sudden scream on seeing her husband on his knees in the doorway. “Ah!” she cried out in a frenzy, “he has come back! The criminal! the monster!... And where is the money? What’s in your pocket, show me! And your clothes are all different! Where are your clothes? Where is the money! Speak!” And she fell to searching him. Marmeladov submissively and obediently held up both arms to facilitate the search. Not a farthing was there. “Where is the money?” she cried--“Mercy on us, can he have drunk it all? There were twelve silver roubles left in the chest!” and in a fury she seized him by the hair and dragged him into the room. Marmeladov seconded her efforts by meekly crawling along on his knees. “And this is a consolation to me! This does not hurt me, but is a positive con-so-la-tion, ho-nou-red sir,” he called out, shaken to and fro by his hair and even once striking the ground with his forehead. The child asleep on the floor woke up, and began to cry. The boy in the corner losing all control began trembling and screaming and rushed to his sister in violent terror, almost in a fit. The eldest girl was shaking like a leaf. “He’s drunk it! he’s drunk it all,” the poor woman screamed in despair--“and his clothes are gone! And they are hungry, hungry!”--and wringing her hands she pointed to the children. “Oh, accursed life! And you, are you not ashamed?”--she pounced all at once upon Raskolnikov--“from the tavern! Have you been drinking with him? You have been drinking with him, too! Go away!” The young man was hastening away without uttering a word. The inner door was thrown wide open and inquisitive faces were peering in at it. Coarse laughing faces with pipes and cigarettes and heads wearing caps thrust themselves in at the doorway. Further in could be seen figures in dressing gowns flung open, in costumes of unseemly scantiness, some of them with cards in their hands. They were particularly diverted, when Marmeladov, dragged about by his hair, shouted that it was a consolation to him. They even began to come into the room; at last a sinister shrill outcry was heard: this came from Amalia Lippevechsel herself pushing her way amongst them and trying to restore order after her own fashion and for the hundredth time to frighten the poor woman by ordering her with coarse abuse to clear out of the room next day. As he went out, Raskolnikov had time to put his hand into his pocket, to snatch up the coppers he had received in exchange for his rouble in the tavern and to lay them unnoticed on the window. Afterwards on the stairs, he changed his mind and would have gone back. “What a stupid thing I’ve done,” he thought to himself, “they have Sonia and I want it myself.” But reflecting that it would be impossible to take it back now and that in any case he would not have taken it, he dismissed it with a wave of his hand and went back to his lodging. “Sonia wants pomatum too,” he said as he walked along the street, and he laughed malignantly--“such smartness costs money.... Hm! And maybe Sonia herself will be bankrupt to-day, for there is always a risk, hunting big game... digging for gold... then they would all be without a crust to-morrow except for my money. Hurrah for Sonia! What a mine they’ve dug there! And they’re making the most of it! Yes, they are making the most of it! They’ve wept over it and grown used to it. Man grows used to everything, the scoundrel!” He sank into thought. “And what if I am wrong,” he cried suddenly after a moment’s thought. “What if man is not really a scoundrel, man in general, I mean, the whole race of mankind--then all the rest is prejudice, simply artificial terrors and there are no barriers and it’s all as it should be.” CHAPTER III He waked up late next day after a broken sleep. But his sleep had not refreshed him; he waked up bilious, irritable, ill-tempered, and looked with hatred at his room. It was a tiny cupboard of a room about six paces in length. It had a poverty-stricken appearance with its dusty yellow paper peeling off the walls, and it was so low-pitched that a man of more than average height was ill at ease in it and felt every moment that he would knock his head against the ceiling. The furniture was in keeping with the room: there were three old chairs, rather rickety; a painted table in the corner on which lay a few manuscripts and books; the dust that lay thick upon them showed that they had been long untouched. A big clumsy sofa occupied almost the whole of one wall and half the floor space of the room; it was once covered with chintz, but was now in rags and served Raskolnikov as a bed. Often he went to sleep on it, as he was, without undressing, without sheets, wrapped in his old student’s overcoat, with his head on one little pillow, under which he heaped up all the linen he had, clean and dirty, by way of a bolster. A little table stood in front of the sofa. It would have been difficult to sink to a lower ebb of disorder, but to Raskolnikov in his present state of mind this was positively agreeable. He had got completely away from everyone, like a tortoise in its shell, and even the sight of a servant girl who had to wait upon him and looked sometimes into his room made him writhe with nervous irritation. He was in the condition that overtakes some monomaniacs entirely concentrated upon one thing. His landlady had for the last fortnight given up sending him in meals, and he had not yet thought of expostulating with her, though he went without his dinner. Nastasya, the cook and only servant, was rather pleased at the lodger’s mood and had entirely given up sweeping and doing his room, only once a week or so she would stray into his room with a broom. She waked him up that day. “Get up, why are you asleep?” she called to him. “It’s past nine, I have brought you some tea; will you have a cup? I should think you’re fairly starving?” Raskolnikov opened his eyes, started and recognised Nastasya. “From the landlady, eh?” he asked, slowly and with a sickly face sitting up on the sofa. “From the landlady, indeed!” She set before him her own cracked teapot full of weak and stale tea and laid two yellow lumps of sugar by the side of it. “Here, Nastasya, take it please,” he said, fumbling in his pocket (for he had slept in his clothes) and taking out a handful of coppers--“run and buy me a loaf. And get me a little sausage, the cheapest, at the pork-butcher’s.” “The loaf I’ll fetch you this very minute, but wouldn’t you rather have some cabbage soup instead of sausage? It’s capital soup, yesterday’s. I saved it for you yesterday, but you came in late. It’s fine soup.” When the soup had been brought, and he had begun upon it, Nastasya sat down beside him on the sofa and began chatting. She was a country peasant-woman and a very talkative one. “Praskovya Pavlovna means to complain to the police about you,” she said. He scowled. “To the police? What does she want?” “You don’t pay her money and you won’t turn out of the room. That’s what she wants, to be sure.” “The devil, that’s the last straw,” he muttered, grinding his teeth, “no, that would not suit me... just now. She is a fool,” he added aloud. “I’ll go and talk to her to-day.” “Fool she is and no mistake, just as I am. But why, if you are so clever, do you lie here like a sack and have nothing to show for it? One time you used to go out, you say, to teach children. But why is it you do nothing now?” “I am doing...” Raskolnikov began sullenly and reluctantly. “What are you doing?” “Work...” “What sort of work?” “I am thinking,” he answered seriously after a pause. Nastasya was overcome with a fit of laughter. She was given to laughter and when anything amused her, she laughed inaudibly, quivering and shaking all over till she felt ill. “And have you made much money by your thinking?” she managed to articulate at last. “One can’t go out to give lessons without boots. And I’m sick of it.” “Don’t quarrel with your bread and butter.” “They pay so little for lessons. What’s the use of a few coppers?” he answered, reluctantly, as though replying to his own thought. “And you want to get a fortune all at once?” He looked at her strangely. “Yes, I want a fortune,” he answered firmly, after a brief pause. “Don’t be in such a hurry, you quite frighten me! Shall I get you the loaf or not?” “As you please.” “Ah, I forgot! A letter came for you yesterday when you were out.” “A letter? for me! from whom?” “I can’t say. I gave three copecks of my own to the postman for it. Will you pay me back?” “Then bring it to me, for God’s sake, bring it,” cried Raskolnikov greatly excited--“good God!” A minute later the letter was brought him. That was it: from his mother, from the province of R----. He turned pale when he took it. It was a long while since he had received a letter, but another feeling also suddenly stabbed his heart. “Nastasya, leave me alone, for goodness’ sake; here are your three copecks, but for goodness’ sake, make haste and go!” The letter was quivering in his hand; he did not want to open it in her presence; he wanted to be left _alone_ with this letter. When Nastasya had gone out, he lifted it quickly to his lips and kissed it; then he gazed intently at the address, the small, sloping handwriting, so dear and familiar, of the mother who had once taught him to read and write. He delayed; he seemed almost afraid of something. At last he opened it; it was a thick heavy letter, weighing over two ounces, two large sheets of note paper were covered with very small handwriting. “My dear Rodya,” wrote his mother--“it’s two months since I last had a talk with you by letter which has distressed me and even kept me awake at night, thinking. But I am sure you will not blame me for my inevitable silence. You know how I love you; you are all we have to look to, Dounia and I, you are our all, our one hope, our one stay. What a grief it was to me when I heard that you had given up the university some months ago, for want of means to keep yourself and that you had lost your lessons and your other work! How could I help you out of my hundred and twenty roubles a year pension? The fifteen roubles I sent you four months ago I borrowed, as you know, on security of my pension, from Vassily Ivanovitch Vahrushin a merchant of this town. He is a kind-hearted man and was a friend of your father’s too. But having given him the right to receive the pension, I had to wait till the debt was paid off and that is only just done, so that I’ve been unable to send you anything all this time. But now, thank God, I believe I shall be able to send you something more and in fact we may congratulate ourselves on our good fortune now, of which I hasten to inform you. In the first place, would you have guessed, dear Rodya, that your sister has been living with me for the last six weeks and we shall not be separated in the future. Thank God, her sufferings are over, but I will tell you everything in order, so that you may know just how everything has happened and all that we have hitherto concealed from you. When you wrote to me two months ago that you had heard that Dounia had a great deal to put up with in the Svidrigaïlovs’ house, when you wrote that and asked me to tell you all about it--what could I write in answer to you? If I had written the whole truth to you, I dare say you would have thrown up everything and have come to us, even if you had to walk all the way, for I know your character and your feelings, and you would not let your sister be insulted. I was in despair myself, but what could I do? And, besides, I did not know the whole truth myself then. What made it all so difficult was that Dounia received a hundred roubles in advance when she took the place as governess in their family, on condition of part of her salary being deducted every month, and so it was impossible to throw up the situation without repaying the debt. This sum (now I can explain it all to you, my precious Rodya) she took chiefly in order to send you sixty roubles, which you needed so terribly then and which you received from us last year. We deceived you then, writing that this money came from Dounia’s savings, but that was not so, and now I tell you all about it, because, thank God, things have suddenly changed for the better, and that you may know how Dounia loves you and what a heart she has. At first indeed Mr. Svidrigaïlov treated her very rudely and used to make disrespectful and jeering remarks at table.... But I don’t want to go into all those painful details, so as not to worry you for nothing when it is now all over. In short, in spite of the kind and generous behaviour of Marfa Petrovna, Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s wife, and all the rest of the household, Dounia had a very hard time, especially when Mr. Svidrigaïlov, relapsing into his old regimental habits, was under the influence of Bacchus. And how do you think it was all explained later on? Would you believe that the crazy fellow had conceived a passion for Dounia from the beginning, but had concealed it under a show of rudeness and contempt. Possibly he was ashamed and horrified himself at his own flighty hopes, considering his years and his being the father of a family; and that made him angry with Dounia. And possibly, too, he hoped by his rude and sneering behaviour to hide the truth from others. But at last he lost all control and had the face to make Dounia an open and shameful proposal, promising her all sorts of inducements and offering, besides, to throw up everything and take her to another estate of his, or even abroad. You can imagine all she went through! To leave her situation at once was impossible not only on account of the money debt, but also to spare the feelings of Marfa Petrovna, whose suspicions would have been aroused: and then Dounia would have been the cause of a rupture in the family. And it would have meant a terrible scandal for Dounia too; that would have been inevitable. There were various other reasons owing to which Dounia could not hope to escape from that awful house for another six weeks. You know Dounia, of course; you know how clever she is and what a strong will she has. Dounia can endure a great deal and even in the most difficult cases she has the fortitude to maintain her firmness. She did not even write to me about everything for fear of upsetting me, although we were constantly in communication. It all ended very unexpectedly. Marfa Petrovna accidentally overheard her husband imploring Dounia in the garden, and, putting quite a wrong interpretation on the position, threw the blame upon her, believing her to be the cause of it all. An awful scene took place between them on the spot in the garden; Marfa Petrovna went so far as to strike Dounia, refused to hear anything and was shouting at her for a whole hour and then gave orders that Dounia should be packed off at once to me in a plain peasant’s cart, into which they flung all her things, her linen and her clothes, all pell-mell, without folding it up and packing it. And a heavy shower of rain came on, too, and Dounia, insulted and put to shame, had to drive with a peasant in an open cart all the seventeen versts into town. Only think now what answer could I have sent to the letter I received from you two months ago and what could I have written? I was in despair; I dared not write to you the truth because you would have been very unhappy, mortified and indignant, and yet what could you do? You could only perhaps ruin yourself, and, besides, Dounia would not allow it; and fill up my letter with trifles when my heart was so full of sorrow, I could not. For a whole month the town was full of gossip about this scandal, and it came to such a pass that Dounia and I dared not even go to church on account of the contemptuous looks, whispers, and even remarks made aloud about us. All our acquaintances avoided us, nobody even bowed to us in the street, and I learnt that some shopmen and clerks were intending to insult us in a shameful way, smearing the gates of our house with pitch, so that the landlord began to tell us we must leave. All this was set going by Marfa Petrovna who managed to slander Dounia and throw dirt at her in every family. She knows everyone in the neighbourhood, and that month she was continually coming into the town, and as she is rather talkative and fond of gossiping about her family affairs and particularly of complaining to all and each of her husband--which is not at all right--so in a short time she had spread her story not only in the town, but over the whole surrounding district. It made me ill, but Dounia bore it better than I did, and if only you could have seen how she endured it all and tried to comfort me and cheer me up! She is an angel! But by God’s mercy, our sufferings were cut short: Mr. Svidrigaïlov returned to his senses and repented and, probably feeling sorry for Dounia, he laid before Marfa Petrovna a complete and unmistakable proof of Dounia’s innocence, in the form of a letter Dounia had been forced to write and give to him, before Marfa Petrovna came upon them in the garden. This letter, which remained in Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s hands after her departure, she had written to refuse personal explanations and secret interviews, for which he was entreating her. In that letter she reproached him with great heat and indignation for the baseness of his behaviour in regard to Marfa Petrovna, reminding him that he was the father and head of a family and telling him how infamous it was of him to torment and make unhappy a defenceless girl, unhappy enough already. Indeed, dear Rodya, the letter was so nobly and touchingly written that I sobbed when I read it and to this day I cannot read it without tears. Moreover, the evidence of the servants, too, cleared Dounia’s reputation; they had seen and known a great deal more than Mr. Svidrigaïlov had himself supposed--as indeed is always the case with servants. Marfa Petrovna was completely taken aback, and ‘again crushed’ as she said herself to us, but she was completely convinced of Dounia’s innocence. The very next day, being Sunday, she went straight to the Cathedral, knelt down and prayed with tears to Our Lady to give her strength to bear this new trial and to do her duty. Then she came straight from the Cathedral to us, told us the whole story, wept bitterly and, fully penitent, she embraced Dounia and besought her to forgive her. The same morning without any delay, she went round to all the houses in the town and everywhere, shedding tears, she asserted in the most flattering terms Dounia’s innocence and the nobility of her feelings and her behavior. What was more, she showed and read to everyone the letter in Dounia’s own handwriting to Mr. Svidrigaïlov and even allowed them to take copies of it--which I must say I think was superfluous. In this way she was busy for several days in driving about the whole town, because some people had taken offence through precedence having been given to others. And therefore they had to take turns, so that in every house she was expected before she arrived, and everyone knew that on such and such a day Marfa Petrovna would be reading the letter in such and such a place and people assembled for every reading of it, even many who had heard it several times already both in their own houses and in other people’s. In my opinion a great deal, a very great deal of all this was unnecessary; but that’s Marfa Petrovna’s character. Anyway she succeeded in completely re-establishing Dounia’s reputation and the whole ignominy of this affair rested as an indelible disgrace upon her husband, as the only person to blame, so that I really began to feel sorry for him; it was really treating the crazy fellow too harshly. Dounia was at once asked to give lessons in several families, but she refused. All of a sudden everyone began to treat her with marked respect and all this did much to bring about the event by which, one may say, our whole fortunes are now transformed. You must know, dear Rodya, that Dounia has a suitor and that she has already consented to marry him. I hasten to tell you all about the matter, and though it has been arranged without asking your consent, I think you will not be aggrieved with me or with your sister on that account, for you will see that we could not wait and put off our decision till we heard from you. And you could not have judged all the facts without being on the spot. This was how it happened. He is already of the rank of a counsellor, Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, and is distantly related to Marfa Petrovna, who has been very active in bringing the match about. It began with his expressing through her his desire to make our acquaintance. He was properly received, drank coffee with us and the very next day he sent us a letter in which he very courteously made an offer and begged for a speedy and decided answer. He is a very busy man and is in a great hurry to get to Petersburg, so that every moment is precious to him. At first, of course, we were greatly surprised, as it had all happened so quickly and unexpectedly. We thought and talked it over the whole day. He is a well-to-do man, to be depended upon, he has two posts in the government and has already made his fortune. It is true that he is forty-five years old, but he is of a fairly prepossessing appearance and might still be thought attractive by women, and he is altogether a very respectable and presentable man, only he seems a little morose and somewhat conceited. But possibly that may only be the impression he makes at first sight. And beware, dear Rodya, when he comes to Petersburg, as he shortly will do, beware of judging him too hastily and severely, as your way is, if there is anything you do not like in him at first sight. I give you this warning, although I feel sure that he will make a favourable impression upon you. Moreover, in order to understand any man one must be deliberate and careful to avoid forming prejudices and mistaken ideas, which are very difficult to correct and get over afterwards. And Pyotr Petrovitch, judging by many indications, is a thoroughly estimable man. At his first visit, indeed, he told us that he was a practical man, but still he shares, as he expressed it, many of the convictions ‘of our most rising generation’ and he is an opponent of all prejudices. He said a good deal more, for he seems a little conceited and likes to be listened to, but this is scarcely a vice. I, of course, understood very little of it, but Dounia explained to me that, though he is not a man of great education, he is clever and seems to be good-natured. You know your sister’s character, Rodya. She is a resolute, sensible, patient and generous girl, but she has a passionate heart, as I know very well. Of course, there is no great love either on his side, or on hers, but Dounia is a clever girl and has the heart of an angel, and will make it her duty to make her husband happy who on his side will make her happiness his care. Of that we have no good reason to doubt, though it must be admitted the matter has been arranged in great haste. Besides he is a man of great prudence and he will see, to be sure, of himself, that his own happiness will be the more secure, the happier Dounia is with him. And as for some defects of character, for some habits and even certain differences of opinion--which indeed are inevitable even in the happiest marriages--Dounia has said that, as regards all that, she relies on herself, that there is nothing to be uneasy about, and that she is ready to put up with a great deal, if only their future relationship can be an honourable and straightforward one. He struck me, for instance, at first, as rather abrupt, but that may well come from his being an outspoken man, and that is no doubt how it is. For instance, at his second visit, after he had received Dounia’s consent, in the course of conversation, he declared that before making Dounia’s acquaintance, he had made up his mind to marry a girl of good reputation, without dowry and, above all, one who had experienced poverty, because, as he explained, a man ought not to be indebted to his wife, but that it is better for a wife to look upon her husband as her benefactor. I must add that he expressed it more nicely and politely than I have done, for I have forgotten his actual phrases and only remember the meaning. And, besides, it was obviously not said of design, but slipped out in the heat of conversation, so that he tried afterwards to correct himself and smooth it over, but all the same it did strike me as somewhat rude, and I said so afterwards to Dounia. But Dounia was vexed, and answered that ‘words are not deeds,’ and that, of course, is perfectly true. Dounia did not sleep all night before she made up her mind, and, thinking that I was asleep, she got out of bed and was walking up and down the room all night; at last she knelt down before the ikon and prayed long and fervently and in the morning she told me that she had decided. “I have mentioned already that Pyotr Petrovitch is just setting off for Petersburg, where he has a great deal of business, and he wants to open a legal bureau. He has been occupied for many years in conducting civil and commercial litigation, and only the other day he won an important case. He has to be in Petersburg because he has an important case before the Senate. So, Rodya dear, he may be of the greatest use to you, in every way indeed, and Dounia and I have agreed that from this very day you could definitely enter upon your career and might consider that your future is marked out and assured for you. Oh, if only this comes to pass! This would be such a benefit that we could only look upon it as a providential blessing. Dounia is dreaming of nothing else. We have even ventured already to drop a few words on the subject to Pyotr Petrovitch. He was cautious in his answer, and said that, of course, as he could not get on without a secretary, it would be better to be paying a salary to a relation than to a stranger, if only the former were fitted for the duties (as though there could be doubt of your being fitted!) but then he expressed doubts whether your studies at the university would leave you time for work at his office. The matter dropped for the time, but Dounia is thinking of nothing else now. She has been in a sort of fever for the last few days, and has already made a regular plan for your becoming in the end an associate and even a partner in Pyotr Petrovitch’s business, which might well be, seeing that you are a student of law. I am in complete agreement with her, Rodya, and share all her plans and hopes, and think there is every probability of realising them. And in spite of Pyotr Petrovitch’s evasiveness, very natural at present (since he does not know you), Dounia is firmly persuaded that she will gain everything by her good influence over her future husband; this she is reckoning upon. Of course we are careful not to talk of any of these more remote plans to Pyotr Petrovitch, especially of your becoming his partner. He is a practical man and might take this very coldly, it might all seem to him simply a day-dream. Nor has either Dounia or I breathed a word to him of the great hopes we have of his helping us to pay for your university studies; we have not spoken of it in the first place, because it will come to pass of itself, later on, and he will no doubt without wasting words offer to do it of himself, (as though he could refuse Dounia that) the more readily since you may by your own efforts become his right hand in the office, and receive this assistance not as a charity, but as a salary earned by your own work. Dounia wants to arrange it all like this and I quite agree with her. And we have not spoken of our plans for another reason, that is, because I particularly wanted you to feel on an equal footing when you first meet him. When Dounia spoke to him with enthusiasm about you, he answered that one could never judge of a man without seeing him close, for oneself, and that he looked forward to forming his own opinion when he makes your acquaintance. Do you know, my precious Rodya, I think that perhaps for some reasons (nothing to do with Pyotr Petrovitch though, simply for my own personal, perhaps old-womanish, fancies) I should do better to go on living by myself, apart, than with them, after the wedding. I am convinced that he will be generous and delicate enough to invite me and to urge me to remain with my daughter for the future, and if he has said nothing about it hitherto, it is simply because it has been taken for granted; but I shall refuse. I have noticed more than once in my life that husbands don’t quite get on with their mothers-in-law, and I don’t want to be the least bit in anyone’s way, and for my own sake, too, would rather be quite independent, so long as I have a crust of bread of my own, and such children as you and Dounia. If possible, I would settle somewhere near you, for the most joyful piece of news, dear Rodya, I have kept for the end of my letter: know then, my dear boy, that we may, perhaps, be all together in a very short time and may embrace one another again after a separation of almost three years! It is settled _for certain_ that Dounia and I are to set off for Petersburg, exactly when I don’t know, but very, very soon, possibly in a week. It all depends on Pyotr Petrovitch who will let us know when he has had time to look round him in Petersburg. To suit his own arrangements he is anxious to have the ceremony as soon as possible, even before the fast of Our Lady, if it could be managed, or if that is too soon to be ready, immediately after. Oh, with what happiness I shall press you to my heart! Dounia is all excitement at the joyful thought of seeing you, she said one day in joke that she would be ready to marry Pyotr Petrovitch for that alone. She is an angel! She is not writing anything to you now, and has only told me to write that she has so much, so much to tell you that she is not going to take up her pen now, for a few lines would tell you nothing, and it would only mean upsetting herself; she bids me send you her love and innumerable kisses. But although we shall be meeting so soon, perhaps I shall send you as much money as I can in a day or two. Now that everyone has heard that Dounia is to marry Pyotr Petrovitch, my credit has suddenly improved and I know that Afanasy Ivanovitch will trust me now even to seventy-five roubles on the security of my pension, so that perhaps I shall be able to send you twenty-five or even thirty roubles. I would send you more, but I am uneasy about our travelling expenses; for though Pyotr Petrovitch has been so kind as to undertake part of the expenses of the journey, that is to say, he has taken upon himself the conveyance of our bags and big trunk (which will be conveyed through some acquaintances of his), we must reckon upon some expense on our arrival in Petersburg, where we can’t be left without a halfpenny, at least for the first few days. But we have calculated it all, Dounia and I, to the last penny, and we see that the journey will not cost very much. It is only ninety versts from us to the railway and we have come to an agreement with a driver we know, so as to be in readiness; and from there Dounia and I can travel quite comfortably third class. So that I may very likely be able to send to you not twenty-five, but thirty roubles. But enough; I have covered two sheets already and there is no space left for more; our whole history, but so many events have happened! And now, my precious Rodya, I embrace you and send you a mother’s blessing till we meet. Love Dounia your sister, Rodya; love her as she loves you and understand that she loves you beyond everything, more than herself. She is an angel and you, Rodya, you are everything to us--our one hope, our one consolation. If only you are happy, we shall be happy. Do you still say your prayers, Rodya, and believe in the mercy of our Creator and our Redeemer? I am afraid in my heart that you may have been visited by the new spirit of infidelity that is abroad to-day; If it is so, I pray for you. Remember, dear boy, how in your childhood, when your father was living, you used to lisp your prayers at my knee, and how happy we all were in those days. Good-bye, till we meet then--I embrace you warmly, warmly, with many kisses. “Yours till death, “PULCHERIA RASKOLNIKOV.” Almost from the first, while he read the letter, Raskolnikov’s face was wet with tears; but when he finished it, his face was pale and distorted and a bitter, wrathful and malignant smile was on his lips. He laid his head down on his threadbare dirty pillow and pondered, pondered a long time. His heart was beating violently, and his brain was in a turmoil. At last he felt cramped and stifled in the little yellow room that was like a cupboard or a box. His eyes and his mind craved for space. He took up his hat and went out, this time without dread of meeting anyone; he had forgotten his dread. He turned in the direction of the Vassilyevsky Ostrov, walking along Vassilyevsky Prospect, as though hastening on some business, but he walked, as his habit was, without noticing his way, muttering and even speaking aloud to himself, to the astonishment of the passers-by. Many of them took him to be drunk. CHAPTER IV His mother’s letter had been a torture to him, but as regards the chief fact in it, he had felt not one moment’s hesitation, even whilst he was reading the letter. The essential question was settled, and irrevocably settled, in his mind: “Never such a marriage while I am alive and Mr. Luzhin be damned!” “The thing is perfectly clear,” he muttered to himself, with a malignant smile anticipating the triumph of his decision. “No, mother, no, Dounia, you won’t deceive me! and then they apologise for not asking my advice and for taking the decision without me! I dare say! They imagine it is arranged now and can’t be broken off; but we will see whether it can or not! A magnificent excuse: ‘Pyotr Petrovitch is such a busy man that even his wedding has to be in post-haste, almost by express.’ No, Dounia, I see it all and I know what you want to say to me; and I know too what you were thinking about, when you walked up and down all night, and what your prayers were like before the Holy Mother of Kazan who stands in mother’s bedroom. Bitter is the ascent to Golgotha.... Hm... so it is finally settled; you have determined to marry a sensible business man, Avdotya Romanovna, one who has a fortune (has _already_ made his fortune, that is so much more solid and impressive), a man who holds two government posts and who shares the ideas of our most rising generation, as mother writes, and who _seems_ to be kind, as Dounia herself observes. That _seems_ beats everything! And that very Dounia for that very ‘_seems_’ is marrying him! Splendid! splendid! “... But I should like to know why mother has written to me about ‘our most rising generation’? Simply as a descriptive touch, or with the idea of prepossessing me in favour of Mr. Luzhin? Oh, the cunning of them! I should like to know one thing more: how far they were open with one another that day and night and all this time since? Was it all put into _words_, or did both understand that they had the same thing at heart and in their minds, so that there was no need to speak of it aloud, and better not to speak of it. Most likely it was partly like that, from mother’s letter it’s evident: he struck her as rude _a little_, and mother in her simplicity took her observations to Dounia. And she was sure to be vexed and ‘answered her angrily.’ I should think so! Who would not be angered when it was quite clear without any naïve questions and when it was understood that it was useless to discuss it. And why does she write to me, ‘love Dounia, Rodya, and she loves you more than herself’? Has she a secret conscience-prick at sacrificing her daughter to her son? ‘You are our one comfort, you are everything to us.’ Oh, mother!” His bitterness grew more and more intense, and if he had happened to meet Mr. Luzhin at the moment, he might have murdered him. “Hm... yes, that’s true,” he continued, pursuing the whirling ideas that chased each other in his brain, “it is true that ‘it needs time and care to get to know a man,’ but there is no mistake about Mr. Luzhin. The chief thing is he is ‘a man of business and _seems_ kind,’ that was something, wasn’t it, to send the bags and big box for them! A kind man, no doubt after that! But his _bride_ and her mother are to drive in a peasant’s cart covered with sacking (I know, I have been driven in it). No matter! It is only ninety versts and then they can ‘travel very comfortably, third class,’ for a thousand versts! Quite right, too. One must cut one’s coat according to one’s cloth, but what about you, Mr. Luzhin? She is your bride.... And you must be aware that her mother has to raise money on her pension for the journey. To be sure it’s a matter of business, a partnership for mutual benefit, with equal shares and expenses;--food and drink provided, but pay for your tobacco. The business man has got the better of them, too. The luggage will cost less than their fares and very likely go for nothing. How is it that they don’t both see all that, or is it that they don’t want to see? And they are pleased, pleased! And to think that this is only the first blossoming, and that the real fruits are to come! But what really matters is not the stinginess, is not the meanness, but the _tone_ of the whole thing. For that will be the tone after marriage, it’s a foretaste of it. And mother too, why should she be so lavish? What will she have by the time she gets to Petersburg? Three silver roubles or two ‘paper ones’ as _she_ says.... that old woman... hm. What does she expect to live upon in Petersburg afterwards? She has her reasons already for guessing that she _could not_ live with Dounia after the marriage, even for the first few months. The good man has no doubt let slip something on that subject also, though mother would deny it: ‘I shall refuse,’ says she. On whom is she reckoning then? Is she counting on what is left of her hundred and twenty roubles of pension when Afanasy Ivanovitch’s debt is paid? She knits woollen shawls and embroiders cuffs, ruining her old eyes. And all her shawls don’t add more than twenty roubles a year to her hundred and twenty, I know that. So she is building all her hopes all the time on Mr. Luzhin’s generosity; ‘he will offer it of himself, he will press it on me.’ You may wait a long time for that! That’s how it always is with these Schilleresque noble hearts; till the last moment every goose is a swan with them, till the last moment, they hope for the best and will see nothing wrong, and although they have an inkling of the other side of the picture, yet they won’t face the truth till they are forced to; the very thought of it makes them shiver; they thrust the truth away with both hands, until the man they deck out in false colours puts a fool’s cap on them with his own hands. I should like to know whether Mr. Luzhin has any orders of merit; I bet he has the Anna in his buttonhole and that he puts it on when he goes to dine with contractors or merchants. He will be sure to have it for his wedding, too! Enough of him, confound him! “Well,... mother I don’t wonder at, it’s like her, God bless her, but how could Dounia? Dounia darling, as though I did not know you! You were nearly twenty when I saw you last: I understood you then. Mother writes that ‘Dounia can put up with a great deal.’ I know that very well. I knew that two years and a half ago, and for the last two and a half years I have been thinking about it, thinking of just that, that ‘Dounia can put up with a great deal.’ If she could put up with Mr. Svidrigaïlov and all the rest of it, she certainly can put up with a great deal. And now mother and she have taken it into their heads that she can put up with Mr. Luzhin, who propounds the theory of the superiority of wives raised from destitution and owing everything to their husband’s bounty--who propounds it, too, almost at the first interview. Granted that he ‘let it slip,’ though he is a sensible man, (yet maybe it was not a slip at all, but he meant to make himself clear as soon as possible) but Dounia, Dounia? She understands the man, of course, but she will have to live with the man. Why! she’d live on black bread and water, she would not sell her soul, she would not barter her moral freedom for comfort; she would not barter it for all Schleswig-Holstein, much less Mr. Luzhin’s money. No, Dounia was not that sort when I knew her and... she is still the same, of course! Yes, there’s no denying, the Svidrigaïlovs are a bitter pill! It’s a bitter thing to spend one’s life a governess in the provinces for two hundred roubles, but I know she would rather be a nigger on a plantation or a Lett with a German master than degrade her soul, and her moral dignity, by binding herself for ever to a man whom she does not respect and with whom she has nothing in common--for her own advantage. And if Mr. Luzhin had been of unalloyed gold, or one huge diamond, she would never have consented to become his legal concubine. Why is she consenting then? What’s the point of it? What’s the answer? It’s clear enough: for herself, for her comfort, to save her life she would not sell herself, but for someone else she is doing it! For one she loves, for one she adores, she will sell herself! That’s what it all amounts to; for her brother, for her mother, she will sell herself! She will sell everything! In such cases, ‘we overcome our moral feeling if necessary,’ freedom, peace, conscience even, all, all are brought into the market. Let my life go, if only my dear ones may be happy! More than that, we become casuists, we learn to be Jesuitical and for a time maybe we can soothe ourselves, we can persuade ourselves that it is one’s duty for a good object. That’s just like us, it’s as clear as daylight. It’s clear that Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov is the central figure in the business, and no one else. Oh, yes, she can ensure his happiness, keep him in the university, make him a partner in the office, make his whole future secure; perhaps he may even be a rich man later on, prosperous, respected, and may even end his life a famous man! But my mother? It’s all Rodya, precious Rodya, her first born! For such a son who would not sacrifice such a daughter! Oh, loving, over-partial hearts! Why, for his sake we would not shrink even from Sonia’s fate. Sonia, Sonia Marmeladov, the eternal victim so long as the world lasts. Have you taken the measure of your sacrifice, both of you? Is it right? Can you bear it? Is it any use? Is there sense in it? And let me tell you, Dounia, Sonia’s life is no worse than life with Mr. Luzhin. ‘There can be no question of love,’ mother writes. And what if there can be no respect either, if on the contrary there is aversion, contempt, repulsion, what then? So you will have to ‘keep up your appearance,’ too. Is not that so? Do you understand what that smartness means? Do you understand that the Luzhin smartness is just the same thing as Sonia’s and may be worse, viler, baser, because in your case, Dounia, it’s a bargain for luxuries, after all, but with Sonia it’s simply a question of starvation. It has to be paid for, it has to be paid for, Dounia, this smartness. And what if it’s more than you can bear afterwards, if you regret it? The bitterness, the misery, the curses, the tears hidden from all the world, for you are not a Marfa Petrovna. And how will your mother feel then? Even now she is uneasy, she is worried, but then, when she sees it all clearly? And I? Yes, indeed, what have you taken me for? I won’t have your sacrifice, Dounia, I won’t have it, mother! It shall not be, so long as I am alive, it shall not, it shall not! I won’t accept it!” He suddenly paused in his reflection and stood still. “It shall not be? But what are you going to do to prevent it? You’ll forbid it? And what right have you? What can you promise them on your side to give you such a right? Your whole life, your whole future, you will devote to them _when you have finished your studies and obtained a post_? Yes, we have heard all that before, and that’s all _words_, but now? Now something must be done, now, do you understand that? And what are you doing now? You are living upon them. They borrow on their hundred roubles pension. They borrow from the Svidrigaïlovs. How are you going to save them from Svidrigaïlovs, from Afanasy Ivanovitch Vahrushin, oh, future millionaire Zeus who would arrange their lives for them? In another ten years? In another ten years, mother will be blind with knitting shawls, maybe with weeping too. She will be worn to a shadow with fasting; and my sister? Imagine for a moment what may have become of your sister in ten years? What may happen to her during those ten years? Can you fancy?” So he tortured himself, fretting himself with such questions, and finding a kind of enjoyment in it. And yet all these questions were not new ones suddenly confronting him, they were old familiar aches. It was long since they had first begun to grip and rend his heart. Long, long ago his present anguish had its first beginnings; it had waxed and gathered strength, it had matured and concentrated, until it had taken the form of a fearful, frenzied and fantastic question, which tortured his heart and mind, clamouring insistently for an answer. Now his mother’s letter had burst on him like a thunderclap. It was clear that he must not now suffer passively, worrying himself over unsolved questions, but that he must do something, do it at once, and do it quickly. Anyway he must decide on something, or else... “Or throw up life altogether!” he cried suddenly, in a frenzy--“accept one’s lot humbly as it is, once for all and stifle everything in oneself, giving up all claim to activity, life and love!” “Do you understand, sir, do you understand what it means when you have absolutely nowhere to turn?” Marmeladov’s question came suddenly into his mind, “for every man must have somewhere to turn....” He gave a sudden start; another thought, that he had had yesterday, slipped back into his mind. But he did not start at the thought recurring to him, for he knew, he had _felt beforehand_, that it must come back, he was expecting it; besides it was not only yesterday’s thought. The difference was that a month ago, yesterday even, the thought was a mere dream: but now... now it appeared not a dream at all, it had taken a new menacing and quite unfamiliar shape, and he suddenly became aware of this himself.... He felt a hammering in his head, and there was a darkness before his eyes. He looked round hurriedly, he was searching for something. He wanted to sit down and was looking for a seat; he was walking along the K---- Boulevard. There was a seat about a hundred paces in front of him. He walked towards it as fast he could; but on the way he met with a little adventure which absorbed all his attention. Looking for the seat, he had noticed a woman walking some twenty paces in front of him, but at first he took no more notice of her than of other objects that crossed his path. It had happened to him many times going home not to notice the road by which he was going, and he was accustomed to walk like that. But there was at first sight something so strange about the woman in front of him, that gradually his attention was riveted upon her, at first reluctantly and, as it were, resentfully, and then more and more intently. He felt a sudden desire to find out what it was that was so strange about the woman. In the first place, she appeared to be a girl quite young, and she was walking in the great heat bareheaded and with no parasol or gloves, waving her arms about in an absurd way. She had on a dress of some light silky material, but put on strangely awry, not properly hooked up, and torn open at the top of the skirt, close to the waist: a great piece was rent and hanging loose. A little kerchief was flung about her bare throat, but lay slanting on one side. The girl was walking unsteadily, too, stumbling and staggering from side to side. She drew Raskolnikov’s whole attention at last. He overtook the girl at the seat, but, on reaching it, she dropped down on it, in the corner; she let her head sink on the back of the seat and closed her eyes, apparently in extreme exhaustion. Looking at her closely, he saw at once that she was completely drunk. It was a strange and shocking sight. He could hardly believe that he was not mistaken. He saw before him the face of a quite young, fair-haired girl--sixteen, perhaps not more than fifteen, years old, pretty little face, but flushed and heavy looking and, as it were, swollen. The girl seemed hardly to know what she was doing; she crossed one leg over the other, lifting it indecorously, and showed every sign of being unconscious that she was in the street. Raskolnikov did not sit down, but he felt unwilling to leave her, and stood facing her in perplexity. This boulevard was never much frequented; and now, at two o’clock, in the stifling heat, it was quite deserted. And yet on the further side of the boulevard, about fifteen paces away, a gentleman was standing on the edge of the pavement. He, too, would apparently have liked to approach the girl with some object of his own. He, too, had probably seen her in the distance and had followed her, but found Raskolnikov in his way. He looked angrily at him, though he tried to escape his notice, and stood impatiently biding his time, till the unwelcome man in rags should have moved away. His intentions were unmistakable. The gentleman was a plump, thickly-set man, about thirty, fashionably dressed, with a high colour, red lips and moustaches. Raskolnikov felt furious; he had a sudden longing to insult this fat dandy in some way. He left the girl for a moment and walked towards the gentleman. “Hey! You Svidrigaïlov! What do you want here?” he shouted, clenching his fists and laughing, spluttering with rage. “What do you mean?” the gentleman asked sternly, scowling in haughty astonishment. “Get away, that’s what I mean.” “How dare you, you low fellow!” He raised his cane. Raskolnikov rushed at him with his fists, without reflecting that the stout gentleman was a match for two men like himself. But at that instant someone seized him from behind, and a police constable stood between them. “That’s enough, gentlemen, no fighting, please, in a public place. What do you want? Who are you?” he asked Raskolnikov sternly, noticing his rags. Raskolnikov looked at him intently. He had a straight-forward, sensible, soldierly face, with grey moustaches and whiskers. “You are just the man I want,” Raskolnikov cried, catching at his arm. “I am a student, Raskolnikov.... You may as well know that too,” he added, addressing the gentleman, “come along, I have something to show you.” And taking the policeman by the hand he drew him towards the seat. “Look here, hopelessly drunk, and she has just come down the boulevard. There is no telling who and what she is, she does not look like a professional. It’s more likely she has been given drink and deceived somewhere... for the first time... you understand? and they’ve put her out into the street like that. Look at the way her dress is torn, and the way it has been put on: she has been dressed by somebody, she has not dressed herself, and dressed by unpractised hands, by a man’s hands; that’s evident. And now look there: I don’t know that dandy with whom I was going to fight, I see him for the first time, but he, too, has seen her on the road, just now, drunk, not knowing what she is doing, and now he is very eager to get hold of her, to get her away somewhere while she is in this state... that’s certain, believe me, I am not wrong. I saw him myself watching her and following her, but I prevented him, and he is just waiting for me to go away. Now he has walked away a little, and is standing still, pretending to make a cigarette.... Think how can we keep her out of his hands, and how are we to get her home?” The policeman saw it all in a flash. The stout gentleman was easy to understand, he turned to consider the girl. The policeman bent over to examine her more closely, and his face worked with genuine compassion. “Ah, what a pity!” he said, shaking his head--“why, she is quite a child! She has been deceived, you can see that at once. Listen, lady,” he began addressing her, “where do you live?” The girl opened her weary and sleepy-looking eyes, gazed blankly at the speaker and waved her hand. “Here,” said Raskolnikov feeling in his pocket and finding twenty copecks, “here, call a cab and tell him to drive her to her address. The only thing is to find out her address!” “Missy, missy!” the policeman began again, taking the money. “I’ll fetch you a cab and take you home myself. Where shall I take you, eh? Where do you live?” “Go away! They won’t let me alone,” the girl muttered, and once more waved her hand. “Ach, ach, how shocking! It’s shameful, missy, it’s a shame!” He shook his head again, shocked, sympathetic and indignant. “It’s a difficult job,” the policeman said to Raskolnikov, and as he did so, he looked him up and down in a rapid glance. He, too, must have seemed a strange figure to him: dressed in rags and handing him money! “Did you meet her far from here?” he asked him. “I tell you she was walking in front of me, staggering, just here, in the boulevard. She only just reached the seat and sank down on it.” “Ah, the shameful things that are done in the world nowadays, God have mercy on us! An innocent creature like that, drunk already! She has been deceived, that’s a sure thing. See how her dress has been torn too.... Ah, the vice one sees nowadays! And as likely as not she belongs to gentlefolk too, poor ones maybe.... There are many like that nowadays. She looks refined, too, as though she were a lady,” and he bent over her once more. Perhaps he had daughters growing up like that, “looking like ladies and refined” with pretensions to gentility and smartness.... “The chief thing is,” Raskolnikov persisted, “to keep her out of this scoundrel’s hands! Why should he outrage her! It’s as clear as day what he is after; ah, the brute, he is not moving off!” Raskolnikov spoke aloud and pointed to him. The gentleman heard him, and seemed about to fly into a rage again, but thought better of it, and confined himself to a contemptuous look. He then walked slowly another ten paces away and again halted. “Keep her out of his hands we can,” said the constable thoughtfully, “if only she’d tell us where to take her, but as it is.... Missy, hey, missy!” he bent over her once more. She opened her eyes fully all of a sudden, looked at him intently, as though realising something, got up from the seat and walked away in the direction from which she had come. “Oh shameful wretches, they won’t let me alone!” she said, waving her hand again. She walked quickly, though staggering as before. The dandy followed her, but along another avenue, keeping his eye on her. “Don’t be anxious, I won’t let him have her,” the policeman said resolutely, and he set off after them. “Ah, the vice one sees nowadays!” he repeated aloud, sighing. At that moment something seemed to sting Raskolnikov; in an instant a complete revulsion of feeling came over him. “Hey, here!” he shouted after the policeman. The latter turned round. “Let them be! What is it to do with you? Let her go! Let him amuse himself.” He pointed at the dandy, “What is it to do with you?” The policeman was bewildered, and stared at him open-eyed. Raskolnikov laughed. “Well!” ejaculated the policeman, with a gesture of contempt, and he walked after the dandy and the girl, probably taking Raskolnikov for a madman or something even worse. “He has carried off my twenty copecks,” Raskolnikov murmured angrily when he was left alone. “Well, let him take as much from the other fellow to allow him to have the girl and so let it end. And why did I want to interfere? Is it for me to help? Have I any right to help? Let them devour each other alive--what is it to me? How did I dare to give him twenty copecks? Were they mine?” In spite of those strange words he felt very wretched. He sat down on the deserted seat. His thoughts strayed aimlessly.... He found it hard to fix his mind on anything at that moment. He longed to forget himself altogether, to forget everything, and then to wake up and begin life anew.... “Poor girl!” he said, looking at the empty corner where she had sat--“She will come to herself and weep, and then her mother will find out.... She will give her a beating, a horrible, shameful beating and then maybe, turn her out of doors.... And even if she does not, the Darya Frantsovnas will get wind of it, and the girl will soon be slipping out on the sly here and there. Then there will be the hospital directly (that’s always the luck of those girls with respectable mothers, who go wrong on the sly) and then... again the hospital... drink... the taverns... and more hospital, in two or three years--a wreck, and her life over at eighteen or nineteen.... Have not I seen cases like that? And how have they been brought to it? Why, they’ve all come to it like that. Ugh! But what does it matter? That’s as it should be, they tell us. A certain percentage, they tell us, must every year go... that way... to the devil, I suppose, so that the rest may remain chaste, and not be interfered with. A percentage! What splendid words they have; they are so scientific, so consolatory.... Once you’ve said ‘percentage’ there’s nothing more to worry about. If we had any other word... maybe we might feel more uneasy.... But what if Dounia were one of the percentage! Of another one if not that one? “But where am I going?” he thought suddenly. “Strange, I came out for something. As soon as I had read the letter I came out.... I was going to Vassilyevsky Ostrov, to Razumihin. That’s what it was... now I remember. What for, though? And what put the idea of going to Razumihin into my head just now? That’s curious.” He wondered at himself. Razumihin was one of his old comrades at the university. It was remarkable that Raskolnikov had hardly any friends at the university; he kept aloof from everyone, went to see no one, and did not welcome anyone who came to see him, and indeed everyone soon gave him up. He took no part in the students’ gatherings, amusements or conversations. He worked with great intensity without sparing himself, and he was respected for this, but no one liked him. He was very poor, and there was a sort of haughty pride and reserve about him, as though he were keeping something to himself. He seemed to some of his comrades to look down upon them all as children, as though he were superior in development, knowledge and convictions, as though their beliefs and interests were beneath him. With Razumihin he had got on, or, at least, he was more unreserved and communicative with him. Indeed it was impossible to be on any other terms with Razumihin. He was an exceptionally good-humoured and candid youth, good-natured to the point of simplicity, though both depth and dignity lay concealed under that simplicity. The better of his comrades understood this, and all were fond of him. He was extremely intelligent, though he was certainly rather a simpleton at times. He was of striking appearance--tall, thin, blackhaired and always badly shaved. He was sometimes uproarious and was reputed to be of great physical strength. One night, when out in a festive company, he had with one blow laid a gigantic policeman on his back. There was no limit to his drinking powers, but he could abstain from drink altogether; he sometimes went too far in his pranks; but he could do without pranks altogether. Another thing striking about Razumihin, no failure distressed him, and it seemed as though no unfavourable circumstances could crush him. He could lodge anywhere, and bear the extremes of cold and hunger. He was very poor, and kept himself entirely on what he could earn by work of one sort or another. He knew of no end of resources by which to earn money. He spent one whole winter without lighting his stove, and used to declare that he liked it better, because one slept more soundly in the cold. For the present he, too, had been obliged to give up the university, but it was only for a time, and he was working with all his might to save enough to return to his studies again. Raskolnikov had not been to see him for the last four months, and Razumihin did not even know his address. About two months before, they had met in the street, but Raskolnikov had turned away and even crossed to the other side that he might not be observed. And though Razumihin noticed him, he passed him by, as he did not want to annoy him. CHAPTER V “Of course, I’ve been meaning lately to go to Razumihin’s to ask for work, to ask him to get me lessons or something...” Raskolnikov thought, “but what help can he be to me now? Suppose he gets me lessons, suppose he shares his last farthing with me, if he has any farthings, so that I could get some boots and make myself tidy enough to give lessons... hm... Well and what then? What shall I do with the few coppers I earn? That’s not what I want now. It’s really absurd for me to go to Razumihin....” The question why he was now going to Razumihin agitated him even more than he was himself aware; he kept uneasily seeking for some sinister significance in this apparently ordinary action. “Could I have expected to set it all straight and to find a way out by means of Razumihin alone?” he asked himself in perplexity. He pondered and rubbed his forehead, and, strange to say, after long musing, suddenly, as if it were spontaneously and by chance, a fantastic thought came into his head. “Hm... to Razumihin’s,” he said all at once, calmly, as though he had reached a final determination. “I shall go to Razumihin’s of course, but... not now. I shall go to him... on the next day after It, when It will be over and everything will begin afresh....” And suddenly he realised what he was thinking. “After It,” he shouted, jumping up from the seat, “but is It really going to happen? Is it possible it really will happen?” He left the seat, and went off almost at a run; he meant to turn back, homewards, but the thought of going home suddenly filled him with intense loathing; in that hole, in that awful little cupboard of his, all _this_ had for a month past been growing up in him; and he walked on at random. His nervous shudder had passed into a fever that made him feel shivering; in spite of the heat he felt cold. With a kind of effort he began almost unconsciously, from some inner craving, to stare at all the objects before him, as though looking for something to distract his attention; but he did not succeed, and kept dropping every moment into brooding. When with a start he lifted his head again and looked round, he forgot at once what he had just been thinking about and even where he was going. In this way he walked right across Vassilyevsky Ostrov, came out on to the Lesser Neva, crossed the bridge and turned towards the islands. The greenness and freshness were at first restful to his weary eyes after the dust of the town and the huge houses that hemmed him in and weighed upon him. Here there were no taverns, no stifling closeness, no stench. But soon these new pleasant sensations passed into morbid irritability. Sometimes he stood still before a brightly painted summer villa standing among green foliage, he gazed through the fence, he saw in the distance smartly dressed women on the verandahs and balconies, and children running in the gardens. The flowers especially caught his attention; he gazed at them longer than at anything. He was met, too, by luxurious carriages and by men and women on horseback; he watched them with curious eyes and forgot about them before they had vanished from his sight. Once he stood still and counted his money; he found he had thirty copecks. “Twenty to the policeman, three to Nastasya for the letter, so I must have given forty-seven or fifty to the Marmeladovs yesterday,” he thought, reckoning it up for some unknown reason, but he soon forgot with what object he had taken the money out of his pocket. He recalled it on passing an eating-house or tavern, and felt that he was hungry.... Going into the tavern he drank a glass of vodka and ate a pie of some sort. He finished eating it as he walked away. It was a long while since he had taken vodka and it had an effect upon him at once, though he only drank a wineglassful. His legs felt suddenly heavy and a great drowsiness came upon him. He turned homewards, but reaching Petrovsky Ostrov he stopped completely exhausted, turned off the road into the bushes, sank down upon the grass and instantly fell asleep. In a morbid condition of the brain, dreams often have a singular actuality, vividness, and extraordinary semblance of reality. At times monstrous images are created, but the setting and the whole picture are so truth-like and filled with details so delicate, so unexpectedly, but so artistically consistent, that the dreamer, were he an artist like Pushkin or Turgenev even, could never have invented them in the waking state. Such sick dreams always remain long in the memory and make a powerful impression on the overwrought and deranged nervous system. Raskolnikov had a fearful dream. He dreamt he was back in his childhood in the little town of his birth. He was a child about seven years old, walking into the country with his father on the evening of a holiday. It was a grey and heavy day, the country was exactly as he remembered it; indeed he recalled it far more vividly in his dream than he had done in memory. The little town stood on a level flat as bare as the hand, not even a willow near it; only in the far distance, a copse lay, a dark blur on the very edge of the horizon. A few paces beyond the last market garden stood a tavern, a big tavern, which had always aroused in him a feeling of aversion, even of fear, when he walked by it with his father. There was always a crowd there, always shouting, laughter and abuse, hideous hoarse singing and often fighting. Drunken and horrible-looking figures were hanging about the tavern. He used to cling close to his father, trembling all over when he met them. Near the tavern the road became a dusty track, the dust of which was always black. It was a winding road, and about a hundred paces further on, it turned to the right to the graveyard. In the middle of the graveyard stood a stone church with a green cupola where he used to go to mass two or three times a year with his father and mother, when a service was held in memory of his grandmother, who had long been dead, and whom he had never seen. On these occasions they used to take on a white dish tied up in a table napkin a special sort of rice pudding with raisins stuck in it in the shape of a cross. He loved that church, the old-fashioned, unadorned ikons and the old priest with the shaking head. Near his grandmother’s grave, which was marked by a stone, was the little grave of his younger brother who had died at six months old. He did not remember him at all, but he had been told about his little brother, and whenever he visited the graveyard he used religiously and reverently to cross himself and to bow down and kiss the little grave. And now he dreamt that he was walking with his father past the tavern on the way to the graveyard; he was holding his father’s hand and looking with dread at the tavern. A peculiar circumstance attracted his attention: there seemed to be some kind of festivity going on, there were crowds of gaily dressed townspeople, peasant women, their husbands, and riff-raff of all sorts, all singing and all more or less drunk. Near the entrance of the tavern stood a cart, but a strange cart. It was one of those big carts usually drawn by heavy cart-horses and laden with casks of wine or other heavy goods. He always liked looking at those great cart-horses, with their long manes, thick legs, and slow even pace, drawing along a perfect mountain with no appearance of effort, as though it were easier going with a load than without it. But now, strange to say, in the shafts of such a cart he saw a thin little sorrel beast, one of those peasants’ nags which he had often seen straining their utmost under a heavy load of wood or hay, especially when the wheels were stuck in the mud or in a rut. And the peasants would beat them so cruelly, sometimes even about the nose and eyes, and he felt so sorry, so sorry for them that he almost cried, and his mother always used to take him away from the window. All of a sudden there was a great uproar of shouting, singing and the balalaïka, and from the tavern a number of big and very drunken peasants came out, wearing red and blue shirts and coats thrown over their shoulders. “Get in, get in!” shouted one of them, a young thick-necked peasant with a fleshy face red as a carrot. “I’ll take you all, get in!” But at once there was an outbreak of laughter and exclamations in the crowd. “Take us all with a beast like that!” “Why, Mikolka, are you crazy to put a nag like that in such a cart?” “And this mare is twenty if she is a day, mates!” “Get in, I’ll take you all,” Mikolka shouted again, leaping first into the cart, seizing the reins and standing straight up in front. “The bay has gone with Matvey,” he shouted from the cart--“and this brute, mates, is just breaking my heart, I feel as if I could kill her. She’s just eating her head off. Get in, I tell you! I’ll make her gallop! She’ll gallop!” and he picked up the whip, preparing himself with relish to flog the little mare. “Get in! Come along!” The crowd laughed. “D’you hear, she’ll gallop!” “Gallop indeed! She has not had a gallop in her for the last ten years!” “She’ll jog along!” “Don’t you mind her, mates, bring a whip each of you, get ready!” “All right! Give it to her!” They all clambered into Mikolka’s cart, laughing and making jokes. Six men got in and there was still room for more. They hauled in a fat, rosy-cheeked woman. She was dressed in red cotton, in a pointed, beaded headdress and thick leather shoes; she was cracking nuts and laughing. The crowd round them was laughing too and indeed, how could they help laughing? That wretched nag was to drag all the cartload of them at a gallop! Two young fellows in the cart were just getting whips ready to help Mikolka. With the cry of “now,” the mare tugged with all her might, but far from galloping, could scarcely move forward; she struggled with her legs, gasping and shrinking from the blows of the three whips which were showered upon her like hail. The laughter in the cart and in the crowd was redoubled, but Mikolka flew into a rage and furiously thrashed the mare, as though he supposed she really could gallop. “Let me get in, too, mates,” shouted a young man in the crowd whose appetite was aroused. “Get in, all get in,” cried Mikolka, “she will draw you all. I’ll beat her to death!” And he thrashed and thrashed at the mare, beside himself with fury. “Father, father,” he cried, “father, what are they doing? Father, they are beating the poor horse!” “Come along, come along!” said his father. “They are drunken and foolish, they are in fun; come away, don’t look!” and he tried to draw him away, but he tore himself away from his hand, and, beside himself with horror, ran to the horse. The poor beast was in a bad way. She was gasping, standing still, then tugging again and almost falling. “Beat her to death,” cried Mikolka, “it’s come to that. I’ll do for her!” “What are you about, are you a Christian, you devil?” shouted an old man in the crowd. “Did anyone ever see the like? A wretched nag like that pulling such a cartload,” said another. “You’ll kill her,” shouted the third. “Don’t meddle! It’s my property, I’ll do what I choose. Get in, more of you! Get in, all of you! I will have her go at a gallop!...” All at once laughter broke into a roar and covered everything: the mare, roused by the shower of blows, began feebly kicking. Even the old man could not help smiling. To think of a wretched little beast like that trying to kick! Two lads in the crowd snatched up whips and ran to the mare to beat her about the ribs. One ran each side. “Hit her in the face, in the eyes, in the eyes,” cried Mikolka. “Give us a song, mates,” shouted someone in the cart and everyone in the cart joined in a riotous song, jingling a tambourine and whistling. The woman went on cracking nuts and laughing. ... He ran beside the mare, ran in front of her, saw her being whipped across the eyes, right in the eyes! He was crying, he felt choking, his tears were streaming. One of the men gave him a cut with the whip across the face, he did not feel it. Wringing his hands and screaming, he rushed up to the grey-headed old man with the grey beard, who was shaking his head in disapproval. One woman seized him by the hand and would have taken him away, but he tore himself from her and ran back to the mare. She was almost at the last gasp, but began kicking once more. “I’ll teach you to kick,” Mikolka shouted ferociously. He threw down the whip, bent forward and picked up from the bottom of the cart a long, thick shaft, he took hold of one end with both hands and with an effort brandished it over the mare. “He’ll crush her,” was shouted round him. “He’ll kill her!” “It’s my property,” shouted Mikolka and brought the shaft down with a swinging blow. There was a sound of a heavy thud. “Thrash her, thrash her! Why have you stopped?” shouted voices in the crowd. And Mikolka swung the shaft a second time and it fell a second time on the spine of the luckless mare. She sank back on her haunches, but lurched forward and tugged forward with all her force, tugged first on one side and then on the other, trying to move the cart. But the six whips were attacking her in all directions, and the shaft was raised again and fell upon her a third time, then a fourth, with heavy measured blows. Mikolka was in a fury that he could not kill her at one blow. “She’s a tough one,” was shouted in the crowd. “She’ll fall in a minute, mates, there will soon be an end of her,” said an admiring spectator in the crowd. “Fetch an axe to her! Finish her off,” shouted a third. “I’ll show you! Stand off,” Mikolka screamed frantically; he threw down the shaft, stooped down in the cart and picked up an iron crowbar. “Look out,” he shouted, and with all his might he dealt a stunning blow at the poor mare. The blow fell; the mare staggered, sank back, tried to pull, but the bar fell again with a swinging blow on her back and she fell on the ground like a log. “Finish her off,” shouted Mikolka and he leapt beside himself, out of the cart. Several young men, also flushed with drink, seized anything they could come across--whips, sticks, poles, and ran to the dying mare. Mikolka stood on one side and began dealing random blows with the crowbar. The mare stretched out her head, drew a long breath and died. “You butchered her,” someone shouted in the crowd. “Why wouldn’t she gallop then?” “My property!” shouted Mikolka, with bloodshot eyes, brandishing the bar in his hands. He stood as though regretting that he had nothing more to beat. “No mistake about it, you are not a Christian,” many voices were shouting in the crowd. But the poor boy, beside himself, made his way, screaming, through the crowd to the sorrel nag, put his arms round her bleeding dead head and kissed it, kissed the eyes and kissed the lips.... Then he jumped up and flew in a frenzy with his little fists out at Mikolka. At that instant his father, who had been running after him, snatched him up and carried him out of the crowd. “Come along, come! Let us go home,” he said to him. “Father! Why did they... kill... the poor horse!” he sobbed, but his voice broke and the words came in shrieks from his panting chest. “They are drunk.... They are brutal... it’s not our business!” said his father. He put his arms round his father but he felt choked, choked. He tried to draw a breath, to cry out--and woke up. He waked up, gasping for breath, his hair soaked with perspiration, and stood up in terror. “Thank God, that was only a dream,” he said, sitting down under a tree and drawing deep breaths. “But what is it? Is it some fever coming on? Such a hideous dream!” He felt utterly broken: darkness and confusion were in his soul. He rested his elbows on his knees and leaned his head on his hands. “Good God!” he cried, “can it be, can it be, that I shall really take an axe, that I shall strike her on the head, split her skull open... that I shall tread in the sticky warm blood, break the lock, steal and tremble; hide, all spattered in the blood... with the axe.... Good God, can it be?” He was shaking like a leaf as he said this. “But why am I going on like this?” he continued, sitting up again, as it were in profound amazement. “I knew that I could never bring myself to it, so what have I been torturing myself for till now? Yesterday, yesterday, when I went to make that... _experiment_, yesterday I realised completely that I could never bear to do it.... Why am I going over it again, then? Why am I hesitating? As I came down the stairs yesterday, I said myself that it was base, loathsome, vile, vile... the very thought of it made me feel sick and filled me with horror. “No, I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Granted, granted that there is no flaw in all that reasoning, that all that I have concluded this last month is clear as day, true as arithmetic.... My God! Anyway I couldn’t bring myself to it! I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t do it! Why, why then am I still...?” He rose to his feet, looked round in wonder as though surprised at finding himself in this place, and went towards the bridge. He was pale, his eyes glowed, he was exhausted in every limb, but he seemed suddenly to breathe more easily. He felt he had cast off that fearful burden that had so long been weighing upon him, and all at once there was a sense of relief and peace in his soul. “Lord,” he prayed, “show me my path--I renounce that accursed... dream of mine.” Crossing the bridge, he gazed quietly and calmly at the Neva, at the glowing red sun setting in the glowing sky. In spite of his weakness he was not conscious of fatigue. It was as though an abscess that had been forming for a month past in his heart had suddenly broken. Freedom, freedom! He was free from that spell, that sorcery, that obsession! Later on, when he recalled that time and all that happened to him during those days, minute by minute, point by point, he was superstitiously impressed by one circumstance, which, though in itself not very exceptional, always seemed to him afterwards the predestined turning-point of his fate. He could never understand and explain to himself why, when he was tired and worn out, when it would have been more convenient for him to go home by the shortest and most direct way, he had returned by the Hay Market where he had no need to go. It was obviously and quite unnecessarily out of his way, though not much so. It is true that it happened to him dozens of times to return home without noticing what streets he passed through. But why, he was always asking himself, why had such an important, such a decisive and at the same time such an absolutely chance meeting happened in the Hay Market (where he had moreover no reason to go) at the very hour, the very minute of his life when he was just in the very mood and in the very circumstances in which that meeting was able to exert the gravest and most decisive influence on his whole destiny? As though it had been lying in wait for him on purpose! It was about nine o’clock when he crossed the Hay Market. At the tables and the barrows, at the booths and the shops, all the market people were closing their establishments or clearing away and packing up their wares and, like their customers, were going home. Rag pickers and costermongers of all kinds were crowding round the taverns in the dirty and stinking courtyards of the Hay Market. Raskolnikov particularly liked this place and the neighbouring alleys, when he wandered aimlessly in the streets. Here his rags did not attract contemptuous attention, and one could walk about in any attire without scandalising people. At the corner of an alley a huckster and his wife had two tables set out with tapes, thread, cotton handkerchiefs, etc. They, too, had got up to go home, but were lingering in conversation with a friend, who had just come up to them. This friend was Lizaveta Ivanovna, or, as everyone called her, Lizaveta, the younger sister of the old pawnbroker, Alyona Ivanovna, whom Raskolnikov had visited the previous day to pawn his watch and make his _experiment_.... He already knew all about Lizaveta and she knew him a little too. She was a single woman of about thirty-five, tall, clumsy, timid, submissive and almost idiotic. She was a complete slave and went in fear and trembling of her sister, who made her work day and night, and even beat her. She was standing with a bundle before the huckster and his wife, listening earnestly and doubtfully. They were talking of something with special warmth. The moment Raskolnikov caught sight of her, he was overcome by a strange sensation as it were of intense astonishment, though there was nothing astonishing about this meeting. “You could make up your mind for yourself, Lizaveta Ivanovna,” the huckster was saying aloud. “Come round to-morrow about seven. They will be here too.” “To-morrow?” said Lizaveta slowly and thoughtfully, as though unable to make up her mind. “Upon my word, what a fright you are in of Alyona Ivanovna,” gabbled the huckster’s wife, a lively little woman. “I look at you, you are like some little babe. And she is not your own sister either--nothing but a step-sister and what a hand she keeps over you!” “But this time don’t say a word to Alyona Ivanovna,” her husband interrupted; “that’s my advice, but come round to us without asking. It will be worth your while. Later on your sister herself may have a notion.” “Am I to come?” “About seven o’clock to-morrow. And they will be here. You will be able to decide for yourself.” “And we’ll have a cup of tea,” added his wife. “All right, I’ll come,” said Lizaveta, still pondering, and she began slowly moving away. Raskolnikov had just passed and heard no more. He passed softly, unnoticed, trying not to miss a word. His first amazement was followed by a thrill of horror, like a shiver running down his spine. He had learnt, he had suddenly quite unexpectedly learnt, that the next day at seven o’clock Lizaveta, the old woman’s sister and only companion, would be away from home and that therefore at seven o’clock precisely the old woman _would be left alone_. He was only a few steps from his lodging. He went in like a man condemned to death. He thought of nothing and was incapable of thinking; but he felt suddenly in his whole being that he had no more freedom of thought, no will, and that everything was suddenly and irrevocably decided. Certainly, if he had to wait whole years for a suitable opportunity, he could not reckon on a more certain step towards the success of the plan than that which had just presented itself. In any case, it would have been difficult to find out beforehand and with certainty, with greater exactness and less risk, and without dangerous inquiries and investigations, that next day at a certain time an old woman, on whose life an attempt was contemplated, would be at home and entirely alone. CHAPTER VI Later on Raskolnikov happened to find out why the huckster and his wife had invited Lizaveta. It was a very ordinary matter and there was nothing exceptional about it. A family who had come to the town and been reduced to poverty were selling their household goods and clothes, all women’s things. As the things would have fetched little in the market, they were looking for a dealer. This was Lizaveta’s business. She undertook such jobs and was frequently employed, as she was very honest and always fixed a fair price and stuck to it. She spoke as a rule little and, as we have said already, she was very submissive and timid. But Raskolnikov had become superstitious of late. The traces of superstition remained in him long after, and were almost ineradicable. And in all this he was always afterwards disposed to see something strange and mysterious, as it were, the presence of some peculiar influences and coincidences. In the previous winter a student he knew called Pokorev, who had left for Harkov, had chanced in conversation to give him the address of Alyona Ivanovna, the old pawnbroker, in case he might want to pawn anything. For a long while he did not go to her, for he had lessons and managed to get along somehow. Six weeks ago he had remembered the address; he had two articles that could be pawned: his father’s old silver watch and a little gold ring with three red stones, a present from his sister at parting. He decided to take the ring. When he found the old woman he had felt an insurmountable repulsion for her at the first glance, though he knew nothing special about her. He got two roubles from her and went into a miserable little tavern on his way home. He asked for tea, sat down and sank into deep thought. A strange idea was pecking at his brain like a chicken in the egg, and very, very much absorbed him. Almost beside him at the next table there was sitting a student, whom he did not know and had never seen, and with him a young officer. They had played a game of billiards and began drinking tea. All at once he heard the student mention to the officer the pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna and give him her address. This of itself seemed strange to Raskolnikov; he had just come from her and here at once he heard her name. Of course it was a chance, but he could not shake off a very extraordinary impression, and here someone seemed to be speaking expressly for him; the student began telling his friend various details about Alyona Ivanovna. “She is first-rate,” he said. “You can always get money from her. She is as rich as a Jew, she can give you five thousand roubles at a time and she is not above taking a pledge for a rouble. Lots of our fellows have had dealings with her. But she is an awful old harpy....” And he began describing how spiteful and uncertain she was, how if you were only a day late with your interest the pledge was lost; how she gave a quarter of the value of an article and took five and even seven percent a month on it and so on. The student chattered on, saying that she had a sister Lizaveta, whom the wretched little creature was continually beating, and kept in complete bondage like a small child, though Lizaveta was at least six feet high. “There’s a phenomenon for you,” cried the student and he laughed. They began talking about Lizaveta. The student spoke about her with a peculiar relish and was continually laughing and the officer listened with great interest and asked him to send Lizaveta to do some mending for him. Raskolnikov did not miss a word and learned everything about her. Lizaveta was younger than the old woman and was her half-sister, being the child of a different mother. She was thirty-five. She worked day and night for her sister, and besides doing the cooking and the washing, she did sewing and worked as a charwoman and gave her sister all she earned. She did not dare to accept an order or job of any kind without her sister’s permission. The old woman had already made her will, and Lizaveta knew of it, and by this will she would not get a farthing; nothing but the movables, chairs and so on; all the money was left to a monastery in the province of N----, that prayers might be said for her in perpetuity. Lizaveta was of lower rank than her sister, unmarried and awfully uncouth in appearance, remarkably tall with long feet that looked as if they were bent outwards. She always wore battered goatskin shoes, and was clean in her person. What the student expressed most surprise and amusement about was the fact that Lizaveta was continually with child. “But you say she is hideous?” observed the officer. “Yes, she is so dark-skinned and looks like a soldier dressed up, but you know she is not at all hideous. She has such a good-natured face and eyes. Strikingly so. And the proof of it is that lots of people are attracted by her. She is such a soft, gentle creature, ready to put up with anything, always willing, willing to do anything. And her smile is really very sweet.” “You seem to find her attractive yourself,” laughed the officer. “From her queerness. No, I’ll tell you what. I could kill that damned old woman and make off with her money, I assure you, without the faintest conscience-prick,” the student added with warmth. The officer laughed again while Raskolnikov shuddered. How strange it was! “Listen, I want to ask you a serious question,” the student said hotly. “I was joking of course, but look here; on one side we have a stupid, senseless, worthless, spiteful, ailing, horrid old woman, not simply useless but doing actual mischief, who has not an idea what she is living for herself, and who will die in a day or two in any case. You understand? You understand?” “Yes, yes, I understand,” answered the officer, watching his excited companion attentively. “Well, listen then. On the other side, fresh young lives thrown away for want of help and by thousands, on every side! A hundred thousand good deeds could be done and helped, on that old woman’s money which will be buried in a monastery! Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the right path; dozens of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock hospitals--and all with her money. Kill her, take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands would be saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a hundred lives in exchange--it’s simple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman in the balance of existence! No more than the life of a louse, of a black-beetle, less in fact because the old woman is doing harm. She is wearing out the lives of others; the other day she bit Lizaveta’s finger out of spite; it almost had to be amputated.” “Of course she does not deserve to live,” remarked the officer, “but there it is, it’s nature.” “Oh, well, brother, but we have to correct and direct nature, and, but for that, we should drown in an ocean of prejudice. But for that, there would never have been a single great man. They talk of duty, conscience--I don’t want to say anything against duty and conscience;--but the point is, what do we mean by them? Stay, I have another question to ask you. Listen!” “No, you stay, I’ll ask you a question. Listen!” “Well?” “You are talking and speechifying away, but tell me, would you kill the old woman _yourself_?” “Of course not! I was only arguing the justice of it.... It’s nothing to do with me....” “But I think, if you would not do it yourself, there’s no justice about it.... Let us have another game.” Raskolnikov was violently agitated. Of course, it was all ordinary youthful talk and thought, such as he had often heard before in different forms and on different themes. But why had he happened to hear such a discussion and such ideas at the very moment when his own brain was just conceiving... _the very same ideas_? And why, just at the moment when he had brought away the embryo of his idea from the old woman had he dropped at once upon a conversation about her? This coincidence always seemed strange to him. This trivial talk in a tavern had an immense influence on him in his later action; as though there had really been in it something preordained, some guiding hint.... ***** On returning from the Hay Market he flung himself on the sofa and sat for a whole hour without stirring. Meanwhile it got dark; he had no candle and, indeed, it did not occur to him to light up. He could never recollect whether he had been thinking about anything at that time. At last he was conscious of his former fever and shivering, and he realised with relief that he could lie down on the sofa. Soon heavy, leaden sleep came over him, as it were crushing him. He slept an extraordinarily long time and without dreaming. Nastasya, coming into his room at ten o’clock the next morning, had difficulty in rousing him. She brought him in tea and bread. The tea was again the second brew and again in her own tea-pot. “My goodness, how he sleeps!” she cried indignantly. “And he is always asleep.” He got up with an effort. His head ached, he stood up, took a turn in his garret and sank back on the sofa again. “Going to sleep again,” cried Nastasya. “Are you ill, eh?” He made no reply. “Do you want some tea?” “Afterwards,” he said with an effort, closing his eyes again and turning to the wall. Nastasya stood over him. “Perhaps he really is ill,” she said, turned and went out. She came in again at two o’clock with soup. He was lying as before. The tea stood untouched. Nastasya felt positively offended and began wrathfully rousing him. “Why are you lying like a log?” she shouted, looking at him with repulsion. He got up, and sat down again, but said nothing and stared at the floor. “Are you ill or not?” asked Nastasya and again received no answer. “You’d better go out and get a breath of air,” she said after a pause. “Will you eat it or not?” “Afterwards,” he said weakly. “You can go.” And he motioned her out. She remained a little longer, looked at him with compassion and went out. A few minutes afterwards, he raised his eyes and looked for a long while at the tea and the soup. Then he took the bread, took up a spoon and began to eat. He ate a little, three or four spoonfuls, without appetite, as it were mechanically. His head ached less. After his meal he stretched himself on the sofa again, but now he could not sleep; he lay without stirring, with his face in the pillow. He was haunted by day-dreams and such strange day-dreams; in one, that kept recurring, he fancied that he was in Africa, in Egypt, in some sort of oasis. The caravan was resting, the camels were peacefully lying down; the palms stood all around in a complete circle; all the party were at dinner. But he was drinking water from a spring which flowed gurgling close by. And it was so cool, it was wonderful, wonderful, blue, cold water running among the parti-coloured stones and over the clean sand which glistened here and there like gold.... Suddenly he heard a clock strike. He started, roused himself, raised his head, looked out of the window, and seeing how late it was, suddenly jumped up wide awake as though someone had pulled him off the sofa. He crept on tiptoe to the door, stealthily opened it and began listening on the staircase. His heart beat terribly. But all was quiet on the stairs as if everyone was asleep.... It seemed to him strange and monstrous that he could have slept in such forgetfulness from the previous day and had done nothing, had prepared nothing yet.... And meanwhile perhaps it had struck six. And his drowsiness and stupefaction were followed by an extraordinary, feverish, as it were distracted haste. But the preparations to be made were few. He concentrated all his energies on thinking of everything and forgetting nothing; and his heart kept beating and thumping so that he could hardly breathe. First he had to make a noose and sew it into his overcoat--a work of a moment. He rummaged under his pillow and picked out amongst the linen stuffed away under it, a worn out, old unwashed shirt. From its rags he tore a long strip, a couple of inches wide and about sixteen inches long. He folded this strip in two, took off his wide, strong summer overcoat of some stout cotton material (his only outer garment) and began sewing the two ends of the rag on the inside, under the left armhole. His hands shook as he sewed, but he did it successfully so that nothing showed outside when he put the coat on again. The needle and thread he had got ready long before and they lay on his table in a piece of paper. As for the noose, it was a very ingenious device of his own; the noose was intended for the axe. It was impossible for him to carry the axe through the street in his hands. And if hidden under his coat he would still have had to support it with his hand, which would have been noticeable. Now he had only to put the head of the axe in the noose, and it would hang quietly under his arm on the inside. Putting his hand in his coat pocket, he could hold the end of the handle all the way, so that it did not swing; and as the coat was very full, a regular sack in fact, it could not be seen from outside that he was holding something with the hand that was in the pocket. This noose, too, he had designed a fortnight before. When he had finished with this, he thrust his hand into a little opening between his sofa and the floor, fumbled in the left corner and drew out the _pledge_, which he had got ready long before and hidden there. This pledge was, however, only a smoothly planed piece of wood the size and thickness of a silver cigarette case. He picked up this piece of wood in one of his wanderings in a courtyard where there was some sort of a workshop. Afterwards he had added to the wood a thin smooth piece of iron, which he had also picked up at the same time in the street. Putting the iron which was a little the smaller on the piece of wood, he fastened them very firmly, crossing and re-crossing the thread round them; then wrapped them carefully and daintily in clean white paper and tied up the parcel so that it would be very difficult to untie it. This was in order to divert the attention of the old woman for a time, while she was trying to undo the knot, and so to gain a moment. The iron strip was added to give weight, so that the woman might not guess the first minute that the “thing” was made of wood. All this had been stored by him beforehand under the sofa. He had only just got the pledge out when he heard someone suddenly about in the yard. “It struck six long ago.” “Long ago! My God!” He rushed to the door, listened, caught up his hat and began to descend his thirteen steps cautiously, noiselessly, like a cat. He had still the most important thing to do--to steal the axe from the kitchen. That the deed must be done with an axe he had decided long ago. He had also a pocket pruning-knife, but he could not rely on the knife and still less on his own strength, and so resolved finally on the axe. We may note in passing, one peculiarity in regard to all the final resolutions taken by him in the matter; they had one strange characteristic: the more final they were, the more hideous and the more absurd they at once became in his eyes. In spite of all his agonising inward struggle, he never for a single instant all that time could believe in the carrying out of his plans. And, indeed, if it had ever happened that everything to the least point could have been considered and finally settled, and no uncertainty of any kind had remained, he would, it seems, have renounced it all as something absurd, monstrous and impossible. But a whole mass of unsettled points and uncertainties remained. As for getting the axe, that trifling business cost him no anxiety, for nothing could be easier. Nastasya was continually out of the house, especially in the evenings; she would run in to the neighbours or to a shop, and always left the door ajar. It was the one thing the landlady was always scolding her about. And so, when the time came, he would only have to go quietly into the kitchen and to take the axe, and an hour later (when everything was over) go in and put it back again. But these were doubtful points. Supposing he returned an hour later to put it back, and Nastasya had come back and was on the spot. He would of course have to go by and wait till she went out again. But supposing she were in the meantime to miss the axe, look for it, make an outcry--that would mean suspicion or at least grounds for suspicion. But those were all trifles which he had not even begun to consider, and indeed he had no time. He was thinking of the chief point, and put off trifling details, until _he could believe in it all_. But that seemed utterly unattainable. So it seemed to himself at least. He could not imagine, for instance, that he would sometime leave off thinking, get up and simply go there.... Even his late experiment (i.e. his visit with the object of a final survey of the place) was simply an attempt at an experiment, far from being the real thing, as though one should say “come, let us go and try it--why dream about it!”--and at once he had broken down and had run away cursing, in a frenzy with himself. Meanwhile it would seem, as regards the moral question, that his analysis was complete; his casuistry had become keen as a razor, and he could not find rational objections in himself. But in the last resort he simply ceased to believe in himself, and doggedly, slavishly sought arguments in all directions, fumbling for them, as though someone were forcing and drawing him to it. At first--long before indeed--he had been much occupied with one question; why almost all crimes are so badly concealed and so easily detected, and why almost all criminals leave such obvious traces? He had come gradually to many different and curious conclusions, and in his opinion the chief reason lay not so much in the material impossibility of concealing the crime, as in the criminal himself. Almost every criminal is subject to a failure of will and reasoning power by a childish and phenomenal heedlessness, at the very instant when prudence and caution are most essential. It was his conviction that this eclipse of reason and failure of will power attacked a man like a disease, developed gradually and reached its highest point just before the perpetration of the crime, continued with equal violence at the moment of the crime and for longer or shorter time after, according to the individual case, and then passed off like any other disease. The question whether the disease gives rise to the crime, or whether the crime from its own peculiar nature is always accompanied by something of the nature of disease, he did not yet feel able to decide. When he reached these conclusions, he decided that in his own case there could not be such a morbid reaction, that his reason and will would remain unimpaired at the time of carrying out his design, for the simple reason that his design was “not a crime....” We will omit all the process by means of which he arrived at this last conclusion; we have run too far ahead already.... We may add only that the practical, purely material difficulties of the affair occupied a secondary position in his mind. “One has but to keep all one’s will-power and reason to deal with them, and they will all be overcome at the time when once one has familiarised oneself with the minutest details of the business....” But this preparation had never been begun. His final decisions were what he came to trust least, and when the hour struck, it all came to pass quite differently, as it were accidentally and unexpectedly. One trifling circumstance upset his calculations, before he had even left the staircase. When he reached the landlady’s kitchen, the door of which was open as usual, he glanced cautiously in to see whether, in Nastasya’s absence, the landlady herself was there, or if not, whether the door to her own room was closed, so that she might not peep out when he went in for the axe. But what was his amazement when he suddenly saw that Nastasya was not only at home in the kitchen, but was occupied there, taking linen out of a basket and hanging it on a line. Seeing him, she left off hanging the clothes, turned to him and stared at him all the time he was passing. He turned away his eyes, and walked past as though he noticed nothing. But it was the end of everything; he had not the axe! He was overwhelmed. “What made me think,” he reflected, as he went under the gateway, “what made me think that she would be sure not to be at home at that moment! Why, why, why did I assume this so certainly?” He was crushed and even humiliated. He could have laughed at himself in his anger.... A dull animal rage boiled within him. He stood hesitating in the gateway. To go into the street, to go a walk for appearance’ sake was revolting; to go back to his room, even more revolting. “And what a chance I have lost for ever!” he muttered, standing aimlessly in the gateway, just opposite the porter’s little dark room, which was also open. Suddenly he started. From the porter’s room, two paces away from him, something shining under the bench to the right caught his eye.... He looked about him--nobody. He approached the room on tiptoe, went down two steps into it and in a faint voice called the porter. “Yes, not at home! Somewhere near though, in the yard, for the door is wide open.” He dashed to the axe (it was an axe) and pulled it out from under the bench, where it lay between two chunks of wood; at once, before going out, he made it fast in the noose, he thrust both hands into his pockets and went out of the room; no one had noticed him! “When reason fails, the devil helps!” he thought with a strange grin. This chance raised his spirits extraordinarily. He walked along quietly and sedately, without hurry, to avoid awakening suspicion. He scarcely looked at the passers-by, tried to escape looking at their faces at all, and to be as little noticeable as possible. Suddenly he thought of his hat. “Good heavens! I had the money the day before yesterday and did not get a cap to wear instead!” A curse rose from the bottom of his soul. Glancing out of the corner of his eye into a shop, he saw by a clock on the wall that it was ten minutes past seven. He had to make haste and at the same time to go someway round, so as to approach the house from the other side.... When he had happened to imagine all this beforehand, he had sometimes thought that he would be very much afraid. But he was not very much afraid now, was not afraid at all, indeed. His mind was even occupied by irrelevant matters, but by nothing for long. As he passed the Yusupov garden, he was deeply absorbed in considering the building of great fountains, and of their refreshing effect on the atmosphere in all the squares. By degrees he passed to the conviction that if the summer garden were extended to the field of Mars, and perhaps joined to the garden of the Mihailovsky Palace, it would be a splendid thing and a great benefit to the town. Then he was interested by the question why in all great towns men are not simply driven by necessity, but in some peculiar way inclined to live in those parts of the town where there are no gardens nor fountains; where there is most dirt and smell and all sorts of nastiness. Then his own walks through the Hay Market came back to his mind, and for a moment he waked up to reality. “What nonsense!” he thought, “better think of nothing at all!” “So probably men led to execution clutch mentally at every object that meets them on the way,” flashed through his mind, but simply flashed, like lightning; he made haste to dismiss this thought.... And by now he was near; here was the house, here was the gate. Suddenly a clock somewhere struck once. “What! can it be half-past seven? Impossible, it must be fast!” Luckily for him, everything went well again at the gates. At that very moment, as though expressly for his benefit, a huge waggon of hay had just driven in at the gate, completely screening him as he passed under the gateway, and the waggon had scarcely had time to drive through into the yard, before he had slipped in a flash to the right. On the other side of the waggon he could hear shouting and quarrelling; but no one noticed him and no one met him. Many windows looking into that huge quadrangular yard were open at that moment, but he did not raise his head--he had not the strength to. The staircase leading to the old woman’s room was close by, just on the right of the gateway. He was already on the stairs.... Drawing a breath, pressing his hand against his throbbing heart, and once more feeling for the axe and setting it straight, he began softly and cautiously ascending the stairs, listening every minute. But the stairs, too, were quite deserted; all the doors were shut; he met no one. One flat indeed on the first floor was wide open and painters were at work in it, but they did not glance at him. He stood still, thought a minute and went on. “Of course it would be better if they had not been here, but... it’s two storeys above them.” And there was the fourth storey, here was the door, here was the flat opposite, the empty one. The flat underneath the old woman’s was apparently empty also; the visiting card nailed on the door had been torn off--they had gone away!... He was out of breath. For one instant the thought floated through his mind “Shall I go back?” But he made no answer and began listening at the old woman’s door, a dead silence. Then he listened again on the staircase, listened long and intently... then looked about him for the last time, pulled himself together, drew himself up, and once more tried the axe in the noose. “Am I very pale?” he wondered. “Am I not evidently agitated? She is mistrustful.... Had I better wait a little longer... till my heart leaves off thumping?” But his heart did not leave off. On the contrary, as though to spite him, it throbbed more and more violently. He could stand it no longer, he slowly put out his hand to the bell and rang. Half a minute later he rang again, more loudly. No answer. To go on ringing was useless and out of place. The old woman was, of course, at home, but she was suspicious and alone. He had some knowledge of her habits... and once more he put his ear to the door. Either his senses were peculiarly keen (which it is difficult to suppose), or the sound was really very distinct. Anyway, he suddenly heard something like the cautious touch of a hand on the lock and the rustle of a skirt at the very door. Someone was standing stealthily close to the lock and just as he was doing on the outside was secretly listening within, and seemed to have her ear to the door.... He moved a little on purpose and muttered something aloud that he might not have the appearance of hiding, then rang a third time, but quietly, soberly, and without impatience, Recalling it afterwards, that moment stood out in his mind vividly, distinctly, for ever; he could not make out how he had had such cunning, for his mind was as it were clouded at moments and he was almost unconscious of his body.... An instant later he heard the latch unfastened. CHAPTER VII The door was as before opened a tiny crack, and again two sharp and suspicious eyes stared at him out of the darkness. Then Raskolnikov lost his head and nearly made a great mistake. Fearing the old woman would be frightened by their being alone, and not hoping that the sight of him would disarm her suspicions, he took hold of the door and drew it towards him to prevent the old woman from attempting to shut it again. Seeing this she did not pull the door back, but she did not let go the handle so that he almost dragged her out with it on to the stairs. Seeing that she was standing in the doorway not allowing him to pass, he advanced straight upon her. She stepped back in alarm, tried to say something, but seemed unable to speak and stared with open eyes at him. “Good evening, Alyona Ivanovna,” he began, trying to speak easily, but his voice would not obey him, it broke and shook. “I have come... I have brought something... but we’d better come in... to the light....” And leaving her, he passed straight into the room uninvited. The old woman ran after him; her tongue was unloosed. “Good heavens! What it is? Who is it? What do you want?” “Why, Alyona Ivanovna, you know me... Raskolnikov... here, I brought you the pledge I promised the other day...” And he held out the pledge. The old woman glanced for a moment at the pledge, but at once stared in the eyes of her uninvited visitor. She looked intently, maliciously and mistrustfully. A minute passed; he even fancied something like a sneer in her eyes, as though she had already guessed everything. He felt that he was losing his head, that he was almost frightened, so frightened that if she were to look like that and not say a word for another half minute, he thought he would have run away from her. “Why do you look at me as though you did not know me?” he said suddenly, also with malice. “Take it if you like, if not I’ll go elsewhere, I am in a hurry.” He had not even thought of saying this, but it was suddenly said of itself. The old woman recovered herself, and her visitor’s resolute tone evidently restored her confidence. “But why, my good sir, all of a minute.... What is it?” she asked, looking at the pledge. “The silver cigarette case; I spoke of it last time, you know.” She held out her hand. “But how pale you are, to be sure... and your hands are trembling too? Have you been bathing, or what?” “Fever,” he answered abruptly. “You can’t help getting pale... if you’ve nothing to eat,” he added, with difficulty articulating the words. His strength was failing him again. But his answer sounded like the truth; the old woman took the pledge. “What is it?” she asked once more, scanning Raskolnikov intently, and weighing the pledge in her hand. “A thing... cigarette case.... Silver.... Look at it.” “It does not seem somehow like silver.... How he has wrapped it up!” Trying to untie the string and turning to the window, to the light (all her windows were shut, in spite of the stifling heat), she left him altogether for some seconds and stood with her back to him. He unbuttoned his coat and freed the axe from the noose, but did not yet take it out altogether, simply holding it in his right hand under the coat. His hands were fearfully weak, he felt them every moment growing more numb and more wooden. He was afraid he would let the axe slip and fall.... A sudden giddiness came over him. “But what has he tied it up like this for?” the old woman cried with vexation and moved towards him. He had not a minute more to lose. He pulled the axe quite out, swung it with both arms, scarcely conscious of himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought the blunt side down on her head. He seemed not to use his own strength in this. But as soon as he had once brought the axe down, his strength returned to him. The old woman was as always bareheaded. Her thin, light hair, streaked with grey, thickly smeared with grease, was plaited in a rat’s tail and fastened by a broken horn comb which stood out on the nape of her neck. As she was so short, the blow fell on the very top of her skull. She cried out, but very faintly, and suddenly sank all of a heap on the floor, raising her hands to her head. In one hand she still held “the pledge.” Then he dealt her another and another blow with the blunt side and on the same spot. The blood gushed as from an overturned glass, the body fell back. He stepped back, let it fall, and at once bent over her face; she was dead. Her eyes seemed to be starting out of their sockets, the brow and the whole face were drawn and contorted convulsively. He laid the axe on the ground near the dead body and felt at once in her pocket (trying to avoid the streaming body)--the same right-hand pocket from which she had taken the key on his last visit. He was in full possession of his faculties, free from confusion or giddiness, but his hands were still trembling. He remembered afterwards that he had been particularly collected and careful, trying all the time not to get smeared with blood.... He pulled out the keys at once, they were all, as before, in one bunch on a steel ring. He ran at once into the bedroom with them. It was a very small room with a whole shrine of holy images. Against the other wall stood a big bed, very clean and covered with a silk patchwork wadded quilt. Against a third wall was a chest of drawers. Strange to say, so soon as he began to fit the keys into the chest, so soon as he heard their jingling, a convulsive shudder passed over him. He suddenly felt tempted again to give it all up and go away. But that was only for an instant; it was too late to go back. He positively smiled at himself, when suddenly another terrifying idea occurred to his mind. He suddenly fancied that the old woman might be still alive and might recover her senses. Leaving the keys in the chest, he ran back to the body, snatched up the axe and lifted it once more over the old woman, but did not bring it down. There was no doubt that she was dead. Bending down and examining her again more closely, he saw clearly that the skull was broken and even battered in on one side. He was about to feel it with his finger, but drew back his hand and indeed it was evident without that. Meanwhile there was a perfect pool of blood. All at once he noticed a string on her neck; he tugged at it, but the string was strong and did not snap and besides, it was soaked with blood. He tried to pull it out from the front of the dress, but something held it and prevented its coming. In his impatience he raised the axe again to cut the string from above on the body, but did not dare, and with difficulty, smearing his hand and the axe in the blood, after two minutes’ hurried effort, he cut the string and took it off without touching the body with the axe; he was not mistaken--it was a purse. On the string were two crosses, one of Cyprus wood and one of copper, and an image in silver filigree, and with them a small greasy chamois leather purse with a steel rim and ring. The purse was stuffed very full; Raskolnikov thrust it in his pocket without looking at it, flung the crosses on the old woman’s body and rushed back into the bedroom, this time taking the axe with him. He was in terrible haste, he snatched the keys, and began trying them again. But he was unsuccessful. They would not fit in the locks. It was not so much that his hands were shaking, but that he kept making mistakes; though he saw for instance that a key was not the right one and would not fit, still he tried to put it in. Suddenly he remembered and realised that the big key with the deep notches, which was hanging there with the small keys could not possibly belong to the chest of drawers (on his last visit this had struck him), but to some strong box, and that everything perhaps was hidden in that box. He left the chest of drawers, and at once felt under the bedstead, knowing that old women usually keep boxes under their beds. And so it was; there was a good-sized box under the bed, at least a yard in length, with an arched lid covered with red leather and studded with steel nails. The notched key fitted at once and unlocked it. At the top, under a white sheet, was a coat of red brocade lined with hareskin; under it was a silk dress, then a shawl and it seemed as though there was nothing below but clothes. The first thing he did was to wipe his blood-stained hands on the red brocade. “It’s red, and on red blood will be less noticeable,” the thought passed through his mind; then he suddenly came to himself. “Good God, am I going out of my senses?” he thought with terror. But no sooner did he touch the clothes than a gold watch slipped from under the fur coat. He made haste to turn them all over. There turned out to be various articles made of gold among the clothes--probably all pledges, unredeemed or waiting to be redeemed--bracelets, chains, ear-rings, pins and such things. Some were in cases, others simply wrapped in newspaper, carefully and exactly folded, and tied round with tape. Without any delay, he began filling up the pockets of his trousers and overcoat without examining or undoing the parcels and cases; but he had not time to take many.... He suddenly heard steps in the room where the old woman lay. He stopped short and was still as death. But all was quiet, so it must have been his fancy. All at once he heard distinctly a faint cry, as though someone had uttered a low broken moan. Then again dead silence for a minute or two. He sat squatting on his heels by the box and waited holding his breath. Suddenly he jumped up, seized the axe and ran out of the bedroom. In the middle of the room stood Lizaveta with a big bundle in her arms. She was gazing in stupefaction at her murdered sister, white as a sheet and seeming not to have the strength to cry out. Seeing him run out of the bedroom, she began faintly quivering all over, like a leaf, a shudder ran down her face; she lifted her hand, opened her mouth, but still did not scream. She began slowly backing away from him into the corner, staring intently, persistently at him, but still uttered no sound, as though she could not get breath to scream. He rushed at her with the axe; her mouth twitched piteously, as one sees babies’ mouths, when they begin to be frightened, stare intently at what frightens them and are on the point of screaming. And this hapless Lizaveta was so simple and had been so thoroughly crushed and scared that she did not even raise a hand to guard her face, though that was the most necessary and natural action at the moment, for the axe was raised over her face. She only put up her empty left hand, but not to her face, slowly holding it out before her as though motioning him away. The axe fell with the sharp edge just on the skull and split at one blow all the top of the head. She fell heavily at once. Raskolnikov completely lost his head, snatching up her bundle, dropped it again and ran into the entry. Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the place as fast as possible. And if at that moment he had been capable of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realise all the difficulties of his position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many obstacles and, perhaps, crimes he had still to overcome or to commit, to get out of that place and to make his way home, it is very possible that he would have flung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and not from fear, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had done. The feeling of loathing especially surged up within him and grew stronger every minute. He would not now have gone to the box or even into the room for anything in the world. But a sort of blankness, even dreaminess, had begun by degrees to take possession of him; at moments he forgot himself, or rather, forgot what was of importance, and caught at trifles. Glancing, however, into the kitchen and seeing a bucket half full of water on a bench, he bethought him of washing his hands and the axe. His hands were sticky with blood. He dropped the axe with the blade in the water, snatched a piece of soap that lay in a broken saucer on the window, and began washing his hands in the bucket. When they were clean, he took out the axe, washed the blade and spent a long time, about three minutes, washing the wood where there were spots of blood rubbing them with soap. Then he wiped it all with some linen that was hanging to dry on a line in the kitchen and then he was a long while attentively examining the axe at the window. There was no trace left on it, only the wood was still damp. He carefully hung the axe in the noose under his coat. Then as far as was possible, in the dim light in the kitchen, he looked over his overcoat, his trousers and his boots. At the first glance there seemed to be nothing but stains on the boots. He wetted the rag and rubbed the boots. But he knew he was not looking thoroughly, that there might be something quite noticeable that he was overlooking. He stood in the middle of the room, lost in thought. Dark agonising ideas rose in his mind--the idea that he was mad and that at that moment he was incapable of reasoning, of protecting himself, that he ought perhaps to be doing something utterly different from what he was now doing. “Good God!” he muttered “I must fly, fly,” and he rushed into the entry. But here a shock of terror awaited him such as he had never known before. He stood and gazed and could not believe his eyes: the door, the outer door from the stairs, at which he had not long before waited and rung, was standing unfastened and at least six inches open. No lock, no bolt, all the time, all that time! The old woman had not shut it after him perhaps as a precaution. But, good God! Why, he had seen Lizaveta afterwards! And how could he, how could he have failed to reflect that she must have come in somehow! She could not have come through the wall! He dashed to the door and fastened the latch. “But no, the wrong thing again! I must get away, get away....” He unfastened the latch, opened the door and began listening on the staircase. He listened a long time. Somewhere far away, it might be in the gateway, two voices were loudly and shrilly shouting, quarrelling and scolding. “What are they about?” He waited patiently. At last all was still, as though suddenly cut off; they had separated. He was meaning to go out, but suddenly, on the floor below, a door was noisily opened and someone began going downstairs humming a tune. “How is it they all make such a noise?” flashed through his mind. Once more he closed the door and waited. At last all was still, not a soul stirring. He was just taking a step towards the stairs when he heard fresh footsteps. The steps sounded very far off, at the very bottom of the stairs, but he remembered quite clearly and distinctly that from the first sound he began for some reason to suspect that this was someone coming _there_, to the fourth floor, to the old woman. Why? Were the sounds somehow peculiar, significant? The steps were heavy, even and unhurried. Now _he_ had passed the first floor, now he was mounting higher, it was growing more and more distinct! He could hear his heavy breathing. And now the third storey had been reached. Coming here! And it seemed to him all at once that he was turned to stone, that it was like a dream in which one is being pursued, nearly caught and will be killed, and is rooted to the spot and cannot even move one’s arms. At last when the unknown was mounting to the fourth floor, he suddenly started, and succeeded in slipping neatly and quickly back into the flat and closing the door behind him. Then he took the hook and softly, noiselessly, fixed it in the catch. Instinct helped him. When he had done this, he crouched holding his breath, by the door. The unknown visitor was by now also at the door. They were now standing opposite one another, as he had just before been standing with the old woman, when the door divided them and he was listening. The visitor panted several times. “He must be a big, fat man,” thought Raskolnikov, squeezing the axe in his hand. It seemed like a dream indeed. The visitor took hold of the bell and rang it loudly. As soon as the tin bell tinkled, Raskolnikov seemed to be aware of something moving in the room. For some seconds he listened quite seriously. The unknown rang again, waited and suddenly tugged violently and impatiently at the handle of the door. Raskolnikov gazed in horror at the hook shaking in its fastening, and in blank terror expected every minute that the fastening would be pulled out. It certainly did seem possible, so violently was he shaking it. He was tempted to hold the fastening, but _he_ might be aware of it. A giddiness came over him again. “I shall fall down!” flashed through his mind, but the unknown began to speak and he recovered himself at once. “What’s up? Are they asleep or murdered? D-damn them!” he bawled in a thick voice, “Hey, Alyona Ivanovna, old witch! Lizaveta Ivanovna, hey, my beauty! open the door! Oh, damn them! Are they asleep or what?” And again, enraged, he tugged with all his might a dozen times at the bell. He must certainly be a man of authority and an intimate acquaintance. At this moment light hurried steps were heard not far off, on the stairs. Someone else was approaching. Raskolnikov had not heard them at first. “You don’t say there’s no one at home,” the new-comer cried in a cheerful, ringing voice, addressing the first visitor, who still went on pulling the bell. “Good evening, Koch.” “From his voice he must be quite young,” thought Raskolnikov. “Who the devil can tell? I’ve almost broken the lock,” answered Koch. “But how do you come to know me?” “Why! The day before yesterday I beat you three times running at billiards at Gambrinus’.” “Oh!” “So they are not at home? That’s queer. It’s awfully stupid though. Where could the old woman have gone? I’ve come on business.” “Yes; and I have business with her, too.” “Well, what can we do? Go back, I suppose, Aie--aie! And I was hoping to get some money!” cried the young man. “We must give it up, of course, but what did she fix this time for? The old witch fixed the time for me to come herself. It’s out of my way. And where the devil she can have got to, I can’t make out. She sits here from year’s end to year’s end, the old hag; her legs are bad and yet here all of a sudden she is out for a walk!” “Hadn’t we better ask the porter?” “What?” “Where she’s gone and when she’ll be back.” “Hm.... Damn it all!... We might ask.... But you know she never does go anywhere.” And he once more tugged at the door-handle. “Damn it all. There’s nothing to be done, we must go!” “Stay!” cried the young man suddenly. “Do you see how the door shakes if you pull it?” “Well?” “That shows it’s not locked, but fastened with the hook! Do you hear how the hook clanks?” “Well?” “Why, don’t you see? That proves that one of them is at home. If they were all out, they would have locked the door from the outside with the key and not with the hook from inside. There, do you hear how the hook is clanking? To fasten the hook on the inside they must be at home, don’t you see. So there they are sitting inside and don’t open the door!” “Well! And so they must be!” cried Koch, astonished. “What are they about in there?” And he began furiously shaking the door. “Stay!” cried the young man again. “Don’t pull at it! There must be something wrong.... Here, you’ve been ringing and pulling at the door and still they don’t open! So either they’ve both fainted or...” “What?” “I tell you what. Let’s go fetch the porter, let him wake them up.” “All right.” Both were going down. “Stay. You stop here while I run down for the porter.” “What for?” “Well, you’d better.” “All right.” “I’m studying the law you see! It’s evident, e-vi-dent there’s something wrong here!” the young man cried hotly, and he ran downstairs. Koch remained. Once more he softly touched the bell which gave one tinkle, then gently, as though reflecting and looking about him, began touching the door-handle pulling it and letting it go to make sure once more that it was only fastened by the hook. Then puffing and panting he bent down and began looking at the keyhole: but the key was in the lock on the inside and so nothing could be seen. Raskolnikov stood keeping tight hold of the axe. He was in a sort of delirium. He was even making ready to fight when they should come in. While they were knocking and talking together, the idea several times occurred to him to end it all at once and shout to them through the door. Now and then he was tempted to swear at them, to jeer at them, while they could not open the door! “Only make haste!” was the thought that flashed through his mind. “But what the devil is he about?...” Time was passing, one minute, and another--no one came. Koch began to be restless. “What the devil?” he cried suddenly and in impatience deserting his sentry duty, he, too, went down, hurrying and thumping with his heavy boots on the stairs. The steps died away. “Good heavens! What am I to do?” Raskolnikov unfastened the hook, opened the door--there was no sound. Abruptly, without any thought at all, he went out, closing the door as thoroughly as he could, and went downstairs. He had gone down three flights when he suddenly heard a loud voice below--where could he go! There was nowhere to hide. He was just going back to the flat. “Hey there! Catch the brute!” Somebody dashed out of a flat below, shouting, and rather fell than ran down the stairs, bawling at the top of his voice. “Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Mitka! Blast him!” The shout ended in a shriek; the last sounds came from the yard; all was still. But at the same instant several men talking loud and fast began noisily mounting the stairs. There were three or four of them. He distinguished the ringing voice of the young man. “Hey!” Filled with despair he went straight to meet them, feeling “come what must!” If they stopped him--all was lost; if they let him pass--all was lost too; they would remember him. They were approaching; they were only a flight from him--and suddenly deliverance! A few steps from him on the right, there was an empty flat with the door wide open, the flat on the second floor where the painters had been at work, and which, as though for his benefit, they had just left. It was they, no doubt, who had just run down, shouting. The floor had only just been painted, in the middle of the room stood a pail and a broken pot with paint and brushes. In one instant he had whisked in at the open door and hidden behind the wall and only in the nick of time; they had already reached the landing. Then they turned and went on up to the fourth floor, talking loudly. He waited, went out on tiptoe and ran down the stairs. No one was on the stairs, nor in the gateway. He passed quickly through the gateway and turned to the left in the street. He knew, he knew perfectly well that at that moment they were at the flat, that they were greatly astonished at finding it unlocked, as the door had just been fastened, that by now they were looking at the bodies, that before another minute had passed they would guess and completely realise that the murderer had just been there, and had succeeded in hiding somewhere, slipping by them and escaping. They would guess most likely that he had been in the empty flat, while they were going upstairs. And meanwhile he dared not quicken his pace much, though the next turning was still nearly a hundred yards away. “Should he slip through some gateway and wait somewhere in an unknown street? No, hopeless! Should he fling away the axe? Should he take a cab? Hopeless, hopeless!” At last he reached the turning. He turned down it more dead than alive. Here he was half way to safety, and he understood it; it was less risky because there was a great crowd of people, and he was lost in it like a grain of sand. But all he had suffered had so weakened him that he could scarcely move. Perspiration ran down him in drops, his neck was all wet. “My word, he has been going it!” someone shouted at him when he came out on the canal bank. He was only dimly conscious of himself now, and the farther he went the worse it was. He remembered however, that on coming out on to the canal bank, he was alarmed at finding few people there and so being more conspicuous, and he had thought of turning back. Though he was almost falling from fatigue, he went a long way round so as to get home from quite a different direction. He was not fully conscious when he passed through the gateway of his house! He was already on the staircase before he recollected the axe. And yet he had a very grave problem before him, to put it back and to escape observation as far as possible in doing so. He was of course incapable of reflecting that it might perhaps be far better not to restore the axe at all, but to drop it later on in somebody’s yard. But it all happened fortunately, the door of the porter’s room was closed but not locked, so that it seemed most likely that the porter was at home. But he had so completely lost all power of reflection that he walked straight to the door and opened it. If the porter had asked him, “What do you want?” he would perhaps have simply handed him the axe. But again the porter was not at home, and he succeeded in putting the axe back under the bench, and even covering it with the chunk of wood as before. He met no one, not a soul, afterwards on the way to his room; the landlady’s door was shut. When he was in his room, he flung himself on the sofa just as he was--he did not sleep, but sank into blank forgetfulness. If anyone had come into his room then, he would have jumped up at once and screamed. Scraps and shreds of thoughts were simply swarming in his brain, but he could not catch at one, he could not rest on one, in spite of all his efforts.... PART II CHAPTER I So he lay a very long while. Now and then he seemed to wake up, and at such moments he noticed that it was far into the night, but it did not occur to him to get up. At last he noticed that it was beginning to get light. He was lying on his back, still dazed from his recent oblivion. Fearful, despairing cries rose shrilly from the street, sounds which he heard every night, indeed, under his window after two o’clock. They woke him up now. “Ah! the drunken men are coming out of the taverns,” he thought, “it’s past two o’clock,” and at once he leaped up, as though someone had pulled him from the sofa. “What! Past two o’clock!” He sat down on the sofa--and instantly recollected everything! All at once, in one flash, he recollected everything. For the first moment he thought he was going mad. A dreadful chill came over him; but the chill was from the fever that had begun long before in his sleep. Now he was suddenly taken with violent shivering, so that his teeth chattered and all his limbs were shaking. He opened the door and began listening--everything in the house was asleep. With amazement he gazed at himself and everything in the room around him, wondering how he could have come in the night before without fastening the door, and have flung himself on the sofa without undressing, without even taking his hat off. It had fallen off and was lying on the floor near his pillow. “If anyone had come in, what would he have thought? That I’m drunk but...” He rushed to the window. There was light enough, and he began hurriedly looking himself all over from head to foot, all his clothes; were there no traces? But there was no doing it like that; shivering with cold, he began taking off everything and looking over again. He turned everything over to the last threads and rags, and mistrusting himself, went through his search three times. But there seemed to be nothing, no trace, except in one place, where some thick drops of congealed blood were clinging to the frayed edge of his trousers. He picked up a big claspknife and cut off the frayed threads. There seemed to be nothing more. Suddenly he remembered that the purse and the things he had taken out of the old woman’s box were still in his pockets! He had not thought till then of taking them out and hiding them! He had not even thought of them while he was examining his clothes! What next? Instantly he rushed to take them out and fling them on the table. When he had pulled out everything, and turned the pocket inside out to be sure there was nothing left, he carried the whole heap to the corner. The paper had come off the bottom of the wall and hung there in tatters. He began stuffing all the things into the hole under the paper: “They’re in! All out of sight, and the purse too!” he thought gleefully, getting up and gazing blankly at the hole which bulged out more than ever. Suddenly he shuddered all over with horror; “My God!” he whispered in despair: “what’s the matter with me? Is that hidden? Is that the way to hide things?” He had not reckoned on having trinkets to hide. He had only thought of money, and so had not prepared a hiding-place. “But now, now, what am I glad of?” he thought, “Is that hiding things? My reason’s deserting me--simply!” He sat down on the sofa in exhaustion and was at once shaken by another unbearable fit of shivering. Mechanically he drew from a chair beside him his old student’s winter coat, which was still warm though almost in rags, covered himself up with it and once more sank into drowsiness and delirium. He lost consciousness. Not more than five minutes had passed when he jumped up a second time, and at once pounced in a frenzy on his clothes again. “How could I go to sleep again with nothing done? Yes, yes; I have not taken the loop off the armhole! I forgot it, forgot a thing like that! Such a piece of evidence!” He pulled off the noose, hurriedly cut it to pieces and threw the bits among his linen under the pillow. “Pieces of torn linen couldn’t rouse suspicion, whatever happened; I think not, I think not, any way!” he repeated, standing in the middle of the room, and with painful concentration he fell to gazing about him again, at the floor and everywhere, trying to make sure he had not forgotten anything. The conviction that all his faculties, even memory, and the simplest power of reflection were failing him, began to be an insufferable torture. “Surely it isn’t beginning already! Surely it isn’t my punishment coming upon me? It is!” The frayed rags he had cut off his trousers were actually lying on the floor in the middle of the room, where anyone coming in would see them! “What is the matter with me!” he cried again, like one distraught. Then a strange idea entered his head; that, perhaps, all his clothes were covered with blood, that, perhaps, there were a great many stains, but that he did not see them, did not notice them because his perceptions were failing, were going to pieces... his reason was clouded.... Suddenly he remembered that there had been blood on the purse too. “Ah! Then there must be blood on the pocket too, for I put the wet purse in my pocket!” In a flash he had turned the pocket inside out and, yes!--there were traces, stains on the lining of the pocket! “So my reason has not quite deserted me, so I still have some sense and memory, since I guessed it of myself,” he thought triumphantly, with a deep sigh of relief; “it’s simply the weakness of fever, a moment’s delirium,” and he tore the whole lining out of the left pocket of his trousers. At that instant the sunlight fell on his left boot; on the sock which poked out from the boot, he fancied there were traces! He flung off his boots; “traces indeed! The tip of the sock was soaked with blood;” he must have unwarily stepped into that pool.... “But what am I to do with this now? Where am I to put the sock and rags and pocket?” He gathered them all up in his hands and stood in the middle of the room. “In the stove? But they would ransack the stove first of all. Burn them? But what can I burn them with? There are no matches even. No, better go out and throw it all away somewhere. Yes, better throw it away,” he repeated, sitting down on the sofa again, “and at once, this minute, without lingering...” But his head sank on the pillow instead. Again the unbearable icy shivering came over him; again he drew his coat over him. And for a long while, for some hours, he was haunted by the impulse to “go off somewhere at once, this moment, and fling it all away, so that it may be out of sight and done with, at once, at once!” Several times he tried to rise from the sofa, but could not. He was thoroughly waked up at last by a violent knocking at his door. “Open, do, are you dead or alive? He keeps sleeping here!” shouted Nastasya, banging with her fist on the door. “For whole days together he’s snoring here like a dog! A dog he is too. Open I tell you. It’s past ten.” “Maybe he’s not at home,” said a man’s voice. “Ha! that’s the porter’s voice.... What does he want?” He jumped up and sat on the sofa. The beating of his heart was a positive pain. “Then who can have latched the door?” retorted Nastasya. “He’s taken to bolting himself in! As if he were worth stealing! Open, you stupid, wake up!” “What do they want? Why the porter? All’s discovered. Resist or open? Come what may!...” He half rose, stooped forward and unlatched the door. His room was so small that he could undo the latch without leaving the bed. Yes; the porter and Nastasya were standing there. Nastasya stared at him in a strange way. He glanced with a defiant and desperate air at the porter, who without a word held out a grey folded paper sealed with bottle-wax. “A notice from the office,” he announced, as he gave him the paper. “From what office?” “A summons to the police office, of course. You know which office.” “To the police?... What for?...” “How can I tell? You’re sent for, so you go.” The man looked at him attentively, looked round the room and turned to go away. “He’s downright ill!” observed Nastasya, not taking her eyes off him. The porter turned his head for a moment. “He’s been in a fever since yesterday,” she added. Raskolnikov made no response and held the paper in his hands, without opening it. “Don’t you get up then,” Nastasya went on compassionately, seeing that he was letting his feet down from the sofa. “You’re ill, and so don’t go; there’s no such hurry. What have you got there?” He looked; in his right hand he held the shreds he had cut from his trousers, the sock, and the rags of the pocket. So he had been asleep with them in his hand. Afterwards reflecting upon it, he remembered that half waking up in his fever, he had grasped all this tightly in his hand and so fallen asleep again. “Look at the rags he’s collected and sleeps with them, as though he has got hold of a treasure...” And Nastasya went off into her hysterical giggle. Instantly he thrust them all under his great coat and fixed his eyes intently upon her. Far as he was from being capable of rational reflection at that moment, he felt that no one would behave like that with a person who was going to be arrested. “But... the police?” “You’d better have some tea! Yes? I’ll bring it, there’s some left.” “No... I’m going; I’ll go at once,” he muttered, getting on to his feet. “Why, you’ll never get downstairs!” “Yes, I’ll go.” “As you please.” She followed the porter out. At once he rushed to the light to examine the sock and the rags. “There are stains, but not very noticeable; all covered with dirt, and rubbed and already discoloured. No one who had no suspicion could distinguish anything. Nastasya from a distance could not have noticed, thank God!” Then with a tremor he broke the seal of the notice and began reading; he was a long while reading, before he understood. It was an ordinary summons from the district police-station to appear that day at half-past nine at the office of the district superintendent. “But when has such a thing happened? I never have anything to do with the police! And why just to-day?” he thought in agonising bewilderment. “Good God, only get it over soon!” He was flinging himself on his knees to pray, but broke into laughter--not at the idea of prayer, but at himself. He began, hurriedly dressing. “If I’m lost, I am lost, I don’t care! Shall I put the sock on?” he suddenly wondered, “it will get dustier still and the traces will be gone.” But no sooner had he put it on than he pulled it off again in loathing and horror. He pulled it off, but reflecting that he had no other socks, he picked it up and put it on again--and again he laughed. “That’s all conventional, that’s all relative, merely a way of looking at it,” he thought in a flash, but only on the top surface of his mind, while he was shuddering all over, “there, I’ve got it on! I have finished by getting it on!” But his laughter was quickly followed by despair. “No, it’s too much for me...” he thought. His legs shook. “From fear,” he muttered. His head swam and ached with fever. “It’s a trick! They want to decoy me there and confound me over everything,” he mused, as he went out on to the stairs--“the worst of it is I’m almost light-headed... I may blurt out something stupid...” On the stairs he remembered that he was leaving all the things just as they were in the hole in the wall, “and very likely, it’s on purpose to search when I’m out,” he thought, and stopped short. But he was possessed by such despair, such cynicism of misery, if one may so call it, that with a wave of his hand he went on. “Only to get it over!” In the street the heat was insufferable again; not a drop of rain had fallen all those days. Again dust, bricks and mortar, again the stench from the shops and pot-houses, again the drunken men, the Finnish pedlars and half-broken-down cabs. The sun shone straight in his eyes, so that it hurt him to look out of them, and he felt his head going round--as a man in a fever is apt to feel when he comes out into the street on a bright sunny day. When he reached the turning into _the_ street, in an agony of trepidation he looked down it... at _the_ house... and at once averted his eyes. “If they question me, perhaps I’ll simply tell,” he thought, as he drew near the police-station. The police-station was about a quarter of a mile off. It had lately been moved to new rooms on the fourth floor of a new house. He had been once for a moment in the old office but long ago. Turning in at the gateway, he saw on the right a flight of stairs which a peasant was mounting with a book in his hand. “A house-porter, no doubt; so then, the office is here,” and he began ascending the stairs on the chance. He did not want to ask questions of anyone. “I’ll go in, fall on my knees, and confess everything...” he thought, as he reached the fourth floor. The staircase was steep, narrow and all sloppy with dirty water. The kitchens of the flats opened on to the stairs and stood open almost the whole day. So there was a fearful smell and heat. The staircase was crowded with porters going up and down with their books under their arms, policemen, and persons of all sorts and both sexes. The door of the office, too, stood wide open. Peasants stood waiting within. There, too, the heat was stifling and there was a sickening smell of fresh paint and stale oil from the newly decorated rooms. After waiting a little, he decided to move forward into the next room. All the rooms were small and low-pitched. A fearful impatience drew him on and on. No one paid attention to him. In the second room some clerks sat writing, dressed hardly better than he was, and rather a queer-looking set. He went up to one of them. “What is it?” He showed the notice he had received. “You are a student?” the man asked, glancing at the notice. “Yes, formerly a student.” The clerk looked at him, but without the slightest interest. He was a particularly unkempt person with the look of a fixed idea in his eye. “There would be no getting anything out of him, because he has no interest in anything,” thought Raskolnikov. “Go in there to the head clerk,” said the clerk, pointing towards the furthest room. He went into that room--the fourth in order; it was a small room and packed full of people, rather better dressed than in the outer rooms. Among them were two ladies. One, poorly dressed in mourning, sat at the table opposite the chief clerk, writing something at his dictation. The other, a very stout, buxom woman with a purplish-red, blotchy face, excessively smartly dressed with a brooch on her bosom as big as a saucer, was standing on one side, apparently waiting for something. Raskolnikov thrust his notice upon the head clerk. The latter glanced at it, said: “Wait a minute,” and went on attending to the lady in mourning. He breathed more freely. “It can’t be that!” By degrees he began to regain confidence, he kept urging himself to have courage and be calm. “Some foolishness, some trifling carelessness, and I may betray myself! Hm... it’s a pity there’s no air here,” he added, “it’s stifling.... It makes one’s head dizzier than ever... and one’s mind too...” He was conscious of a terrible inner turmoil. He was afraid of losing his self-control; he tried to catch at something and fix his mind on it, something quite irrelevant, but he could not succeed in this at all. Yet the head clerk greatly interested him, he kept hoping to see through him and guess something from his face. He was a very young man, about two and twenty, with a dark mobile face that looked older than his years. He was fashionably dressed and foppish, with his hair parted in the middle, well combed and pomaded, and wore a number of rings on his well-scrubbed fingers and a gold chain on his waistcoat. He said a couple of words in French to a foreigner who was in the room, and said them fairly correctly. “Luise Ivanovna, you can sit down,” he said casually to the gaily-dressed, purple-faced lady, who was still standing as though not venturing to sit down, though there was a chair beside her. “Ich danke,” said the latter, and softly, with a rustle of silk she sank into the chair. Her light blue dress trimmed with white lace floated about the table like an air-balloon and filled almost half the room. She smelt of scent. But she was obviously embarrassed at filling half the room and smelling so strongly of scent; and though her smile was impudent as well as cringing, it betrayed evident uneasiness. The lady in mourning had done at last, and got up. All at once, with some noise, an officer walked in very jauntily, with a peculiar swing of his shoulders at each step. He tossed his cockaded cap on the table and sat down in an easy-chair. The small lady positively skipped from her seat on seeing him, and fell to curtsying in a sort of ecstasy; but the officer took not the smallest notice of her, and she did not venture to sit down again in his presence. He was the assistant superintendent. He had a reddish moustache that stood out horizontally on each side of his face, and extremely small features, expressive of nothing much except a certain insolence. He looked askance and rather indignantly at Raskolnikov; he was so very badly dressed, and in spite of his humiliating position, his bearing was by no means in keeping with his clothes. Raskolnikov had unwarily fixed a very long and direct look on him, so that he felt positively affronted. “What do you want?” he shouted, apparently astonished that such a ragged fellow was not annihilated by the majesty of his glance. “I was summoned... by a notice...” Raskolnikov faltered. “For the recovery of money due, from _the student_,” the head clerk interfered hurriedly, tearing himself from his papers. “Here!” and he flung Raskolnikov a document and pointed out the place. “Read that!” “Money? What money?” thought Raskolnikov, “but... then... it’s certainly not _that_.” And he trembled with joy. He felt sudden intense indescribable relief. A load was lifted from his back. “And pray, what time were you directed to appear, sir?” shouted the assistant superintendent, seeming for some unknown reason more and more aggrieved. “You are told to come at nine, and now it’s twelve!” “The notice was only brought me a quarter of an hour ago,” Raskolnikov answered loudly over his shoulder. To his own surprise he, too, grew suddenly angry and found a certain pleasure in it. “And it’s enough that I have come here ill with fever.” “Kindly refrain from shouting!” “I’m not shouting, I’m speaking very quietly, it’s you who are shouting at me. I’m a student, and allow no one to shout at me.” The assistant superintendent was so furious that for the first minute he could only splutter inarticulately. He leaped up from his seat. “Be silent! You are in a government office. Don’t be impudent, sir!” “You’re in a government office, too,” cried Raskolnikov, “and you’re smoking a cigarette as well as shouting, so you are showing disrespect to all of us.” He felt an indescribable satisfaction at having said this. The head clerk looked at him with a smile. The angry assistant superintendent was obviously disconcerted. “That’s not your business!” he shouted at last with unnatural loudness. “Kindly make the declaration demanded of you. Show him. Alexandr Grigorievitch. There is a complaint against you! You don’t pay your debts! You’re a fine bird!” But Raskolnikov was not listening now; he had eagerly clutched at the paper, in haste to find an explanation. He read it once, and a second time, and still did not understand. “What is this?” he asked the head clerk. “It is for the recovery of money on an I O U, a writ. You must either pay it, with all expenses, costs and so on, or give a written declaration when you can pay it, and at the same time an undertaking not to leave the capital without payment, and nor to sell or conceal your property. The creditor is at liberty to sell your property, and proceed against you according to the law.” “But I... am not in debt to anyone!” “That’s not our business. Here, an I O U for a hundred and fifteen roubles, legally attested, and due for payment, has been brought us for recovery, given by you to the widow of the assessor Zarnitsyn, nine months ago, and paid over by the widow Zarnitsyn to one Mr. Tchebarov. We therefore summon you, hereupon.” “But she is my landlady!” “And what if she is your landlady?” The head clerk looked at him with a condescending smile of compassion, and at the same time with a certain triumph, as at a novice under fire for the first time--as though he would say: “Well, how do you feel now?” But what did he care now for an I O U, for a writ of recovery! Was that worth worrying about now, was it worth attention even! He stood, he read, he listened, he answered, he even asked questions himself, but all mechanically. The triumphant sense of security, of deliverance from overwhelming danger, that was what filled his whole soul that moment without thought for the future, without analysis, without suppositions or surmises, without doubts and without questioning. It was an instant of full, direct, purely instinctive joy. But at that very moment something like a thunderstorm took place in the office. The assistant superintendent, still shaken by Raskolnikov’s disrespect, still fuming and obviously anxious to keep up his wounded dignity, pounced on the unfortunate smart lady, who had been gazing at him ever since he came in with an exceedingly silly smile. “You shameful hussy!” he shouted suddenly at the top of his voice. (The lady in mourning had left the office.) “What was going on at your house last night? Eh! A disgrace again, you’re a scandal to the whole street. Fighting and drinking again. Do you want the house of correction? Why, I have warned you ten times over that I would not let you off the eleventh! And here you are again, again, you... you...!” The paper fell out of Raskolnikov’s hands, and he looked wildly at the smart lady who was so unceremoniously treated. But he soon saw what it meant, and at once began to find positive amusement in the scandal. He listened with pleasure, so that he longed to laugh and laugh... all his nerves were on edge. “Ilya Petrovitch!” the head clerk was beginning anxiously, but stopped short, for he knew from experience that the enraged assistant could not be stopped except by force. As for the smart lady, at first she positively trembled before the storm. But, strange to say, the more numerous and violent the terms of abuse became, the more amiable she looked, and the more seductive the smiles she lavished on the terrible assistant. She moved uneasily, and curtsied incessantly, waiting impatiently for a chance of putting in her word: and at last she found it. “There was no sort of noise or fighting in my house, Mr. Captain,” she pattered all at once, like peas dropping, speaking Russian confidently, though with a strong German accent, “and no sort of scandal, and his honour came drunk, and it’s the whole truth I am telling, Mr. Captain, and I am not to blame.... Mine is an honourable house, Mr. Captain, and honourable behaviour, Mr. Captain, and I always, always dislike any scandal myself. But he came quite tipsy, and asked for three bottles again, and then he lifted up one leg, and began playing the pianoforte with one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, and he _ganz_ broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I said so. And he took up a bottle and began hitting everyone with it. And then I called the porter, and Karl came, and he took Karl and hit him in the eye; and he hit Henriette in the eye, too, and gave me five slaps on the cheek. And it was so ungentlemanly in an honourable house, Mr. Captain, and I screamed. And he opened the window over the canal, and stood in the window, squealing like a little pig; it was a disgrace. The idea of squealing like a little pig at the window into the street! Fie upon him! And Karl pulled him away from the window by his coat, and it is true, Mr. Captain, he tore _sein rock_. And then he shouted that _man muss_ pay him fifteen roubles damages. And I did pay him, Mr. Captain, five roubles for _sein rock_. And he is an ungentlemanly visitor and caused all the scandal. ‘I will show you up,’ he said, ‘for I can write to all the papers about you.’” “Then he was an author?” “Yes, Mr. Captain, and what an ungentlemanly visitor in an honourable house....” “Now then! Enough! I have told you already...” “Ilya Petrovitch!” the head clerk repeated significantly. The assistant glanced rapidly at him; the head clerk slightly shook his head. “... So I tell you this, most respectable Luise Ivanovna, and I tell it you for the last time,” the assistant went on. “If there is a scandal in your honourable house once again, I will put you yourself in the lock-up, as it is called in polite society. Do you hear? So a literary man, an author took five roubles for his coat-tail in an ‘honourable house’? A nice set, these authors!” And he cast a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. “There was a scandal the other day in a restaurant, too. An author had eaten his dinner and would not pay; ‘I’ll write a satire on you,’ says he. And there was another of them on a steamer last week used the most disgraceful language to the respectable family of a civil councillor, his wife and daughter. And there was one of them turned out of a confectioner’s shop the other day. They are like that, authors, literary men, students, town-criers.... Pfoo! You get along! I shall look in upon you myself one day. Then you had better be careful! Do you hear?” With hurried deference, Luise Ivanovna fell to curtsying in all directions, and so curtsied herself to the door. But at the door, she stumbled backwards against a good-looking officer with a fresh, open face and splendid thick fair whiskers. This was the superintendent of the district himself, Nikodim Fomitch. Luise Ivanovna made haste to curtsy almost to the ground, and with mincing little steps, she fluttered out of the office. “Again thunder and lightning--a hurricane!” said Nikodim Fomitch to Ilya Petrovitch in a civil and friendly tone. “You are aroused again, you are fuming again! I heard it on the stairs!” “Well, what then!” Ilya Petrovitch drawled with gentlemanly nonchalance; and he walked with some papers to another table, with a jaunty swing of his shoulders at each step. “Here, if you will kindly look: an author, or a student, has been one at least, does not pay his debts, has given an I O U, won’t clear out of his room, and complaints are constantly being lodged against him, and here he has been pleased to make a protest against my smoking in his presence! He behaves like a cad himself, and just look at him, please. Here’s the gentleman, and very attractive he is!” “Poverty is not a vice, my friend, but we know you go off like powder, you can’t bear a slight, I daresay you took offence at something and went too far yourself,” continued Nikodim Fomitch, turning affably to Raskolnikov. “But you were wrong there; he is a capital fellow, I assure you, but explosive, explosive! He gets hot, fires up, boils over, and no stopping him! And then it’s all over! And at the bottom he’s a heart of gold! His nickname in the regiment was the Explosive Lieutenant....” “And what a regiment it was, too,” cried Ilya Petrovitch, much gratified at this agreeable banter, though still sulky. Raskolnikov had a sudden desire to say something exceptionally pleasant to them all. “Excuse me, Captain,” he began easily, suddenly addressing Nikodim Fomitch, “will you enter into my position?... I am ready to ask pardon, if I have been ill-mannered. I am a poor student, sick and shattered (shattered was the word he used) by poverty. I am not studying, because I cannot keep myself now, but I shall get money.... I have a mother and sister in the province of X. They will send it to me, and I will pay. My landlady is a good-hearted woman, but she is so exasperated at my having lost my lessons, and not paying her for the last four months, that she does not even send up my dinner... and I don’t understand this I O U at all. She is asking me to pay her on this I O U. How am I to pay her? Judge for yourselves!...” “But that is not our business, you know,” the head clerk was observing. “Yes, yes. I perfectly agree with you. But allow me to explain...” Raskolnikov put in again, still addressing Nikodim Fomitch, but trying his best to address Ilya Petrovitch also, though the latter persistently appeared to be rummaging among his papers and to be contemptuously oblivious of him. “Allow me to explain that I have been living with her for nearly three years and at first... at first... for why should I not confess it, at the very beginning I promised to marry her daughter, it was a verbal promise, freely given... she was a girl... indeed, I liked her, though I was not in love with her... a youthful affair in fact... that is, I mean to say, that my landlady gave me credit freely in those days, and I led a life of... I was very heedless...” “Nobody asks you for these personal details, sir, we’ve no time to waste,” Ilya Petrovitch interposed roughly and with a note of triumph; but Raskolnikov stopped him hotly, though he suddenly found it exceedingly difficult to speak. “But excuse me, excuse me. It is for me to explain... how it all happened... In my turn... though I agree with you... it is unnecessary. But a year ago, the girl died of typhus. I remained lodging there as before, and when my landlady moved into her present quarters, she said to me... and in a friendly way... that she had complete trust in me, but still, would I not give her an I O U for one hundred and fifteen roubles, all the debt I owed her. She said if only I gave her that, she would trust me again, as much as I liked, and that she would never, never--those were her own words--make use of that I O U till I could pay of myself... and now, when I have lost my lessons and have nothing to eat, she takes action against me. What am I to say to that?” “All these affecting details are no business of ours.” Ilya Petrovitch interrupted rudely. “You must give a written undertaking but as for your love affairs and all these tragic events, we have nothing to do with that.” “Come now... you are harsh,” muttered Nikodim Fomitch, sitting down at the table and also beginning to write. He looked a little ashamed. “Write!” said the head clerk to Raskolnikov. “Write what?” the latter asked, gruffly. “I will dictate to you.” Raskolnikov fancied that the head clerk treated him more casually and contemptuously after his speech, but strange to say he suddenly felt completely indifferent to anyone’s opinion, and this revulsion took place in a flash, in one instant. If he had cared to think a little, he would have been amazed indeed that he could have talked to them like that a minute before, forcing his feelings upon them. And where had those feelings come from? Now if the whole room had been filled, not with police officers, but with those nearest and dearest to him, he would not have found one human word for them, so empty was his heart. A gloomy sensation of agonising, everlasting solitude and remoteness, took conscious form in his soul. It was not the meanness of his sentimental effusions before Ilya Petrovitch, nor the meanness of the latter’s triumph over him that had caused this sudden revulsion in his heart. Oh, what had he to do now with his own baseness, with all these petty vanities, officers, German women, debts, police-offices? If he had been sentenced to be burnt at that moment, he would not have stirred, would hardly have heard the sentence to the end. Something was happening to him entirely new, sudden and unknown. It was not that he understood, but he felt clearly with all the intensity of sensation that he could never more appeal to these people in the police-office with sentimental effusions like his recent outburst, or with anything whatever; and that if they had been his own brothers and sisters and not police-officers, it would have been utterly out of the question to appeal to them in any circumstance of life. He had never experienced such a strange and awful sensation. And what was most agonising--it was more a sensation than a conception or idea, a direct sensation, the most agonising of all the sensations he had known in his life. The head clerk began dictating to him the usual form of declaration, that he could not pay, that he undertook to do so at a future date, that he would not leave the town, nor sell his property, and so on. “But you can’t write, you can hardly hold the pen,” observed the head clerk, looking with curiosity at Raskolnikov. “Are you ill?” “Yes, I am giddy. Go on!” “That’s all. Sign it.” The head clerk took the paper, and turned to attend to others. Raskolnikov gave back the pen; but instead of getting up and going away, he put his elbows on the table and pressed his head in his hands. He felt as if a nail were being driven into his skull. A strange idea suddenly occurred to him, to get up at once, to go up to Nikodim Fomitch, and tell him everything that had happened yesterday, and then to go with him to his lodgings and to show him the things in the hole in the corner. The impulse was so strong that he got up from his seat to carry it out. “Hadn’t I better think a minute?” flashed through his mind. “No, better cast off the burden without thinking.” But all at once he stood still, rooted to the spot. Nikodim Fomitch was talking eagerly with Ilya Petrovitch, and the words reached him: “It’s impossible, they’ll both be released. To begin with, the whole story contradicts itself. Why should they have called the porter, if it had been their doing? To inform against themselves? Or as a blind? No, that would be too cunning! Besides, Pestryakov, the student, was seen at the gate by both the porters and a woman as he went in. He was walking with three friends, who left him only at the gate, and he asked the porters to direct him, in the presence of the friends. Now, would he have asked his way if he had been going with such an object? As for Koch, he spent half an hour at the silversmith’s below, before he went up to the old woman and he left him at exactly a quarter to eight. Now just consider...” “But excuse me, how do you explain this contradiction? They state themselves that they knocked and the door was locked; yet three minutes later when they went up with the porter, it turned out the door was unfastened.” “That’s just it; the murderer must have been there and bolted himself in; and they’d have caught him for a certainty if Koch had not been an ass and gone to look for the porter too. _He_ must have seized the interval to get downstairs and slip by them somehow. Koch keeps crossing himself and saying: ‘If I had been there, he would have jumped out and killed me with his axe.’ He is going to have a thanksgiving service--ha, ha!” “And no one saw the murderer?” “They might well not see him; the house is a regular Noah’s Ark,” said the head clerk, who was listening. “It’s clear, quite clear,” Nikodim Fomitch repeated warmly. “No, it is anything but clear,” Ilya Petrovitch maintained. Raskolnikov picked up his hat and walked towards the door, but he did not reach it.... When he recovered consciousness, he found himself sitting in a chair, supported by someone on the right side, while someone else was standing on the left, holding a yellowish glass filled with yellow water, and Nikodim Fomitch standing before him, looking intently at him. He got up from the chair. “What’s this? Are you ill?” Nikodim Fomitch asked, rather sharply. “He could hardly hold his pen when he was signing,” said the head clerk, settling back in his place, and taking up his work again. “Have you been ill long?” cried Ilya Petrovitch from his place, where he, too, was looking through papers. He had, of course, come to look at the sick man when he fainted, but retired at once when he recovered. “Since yesterday,” muttered Raskolnikov in reply. “Did you go out yesterday?” “Yes.” “Though you were ill?” “Yes.” “At what time?” “About seven.” “And where did you go, may I ask?” “Along the street.” “Short and clear.” Raskolnikov, white as a handkerchief, had answered sharply, jerkily, without dropping his black feverish eyes before Ilya Petrovitch’s stare. “He can scarcely stand upright. And you...” Nikodim Fomitch was beginning. “No matter,” Ilya Petrovitch pronounced rather peculiarly. Nikodim Fomitch would have made some further protest, but glancing at the head clerk who was looking very hard at him, he did not speak. There was a sudden silence. It was strange. “Very well, then,” concluded Ilya Petrovitch, “we will not detain you.” Raskolnikov went out. He caught the sound of eager conversation on his departure, and above the rest rose the questioning voice of Nikodim Fomitch. In the street, his faintness passed off completely. “A search--there will be a search at once,” he repeated to himself, hurrying home. “The brutes! they suspect.” His former terror mastered him completely again. CHAPTER II “And what if there has been a search already? What if I find them in my room?” But here was his room. Nothing and no one in it. No one had peeped in. Even Nastasya had not touched it. But heavens! how could he have left all those things in the hole? He rushed to the corner, slipped his hand under the paper, pulled the things out and lined his pockets with them. There were eight articles in all: two little boxes with ear-rings or something of the sort, he hardly looked to see; then four small leather cases. There was a chain, too, merely wrapped in newspaper and something else in newspaper, that looked like a decoration.... He put them all in the different pockets of his overcoat, and the remaining pocket of his trousers, trying to conceal them as much as possible. He took the purse, too. Then he went out of his room, leaving the door open. He walked quickly and resolutely, and though he felt shattered, he had his senses about him. He was afraid of pursuit, he was afraid that in another half-hour, another quarter of an hour perhaps, instructions would be issued for his pursuit, and so at all costs, he must hide all traces before then. He must clear everything up while he still had some strength, some reasoning power left him.... Where was he to go? That had long been settled: “Fling them into the canal, and all traces hidden in the water, the thing would be at an end.” So he had decided in the night of his delirium when several times he had had the impulse to get up and go away, to make haste, and get rid of it all. But to get rid of it, turned out to be a very difficult task. He wandered along the bank of the Ekaterininsky Canal for half an hour or more and looked several times at the steps running down to the water, but he could not think of carrying out his plan; either rafts stood at the steps’ edge, and women were washing clothes on them, or boats were moored there, and people were swarming everywhere. Moreover he could be seen and noticed from the banks on all sides; it would look suspicious for a man to go down on purpose, stop, and throw something into the water. And what if the boxes were to float instead of sinking? And of course they would. Even as it was, everyone he met seemed to stare and look round, as if they had nothing to do but to watch him. “Why is it, or can it be my fancy?” he thought. At last the thought struck him that it might be better to go to the Neva. There were not so many people there, he would be less observed, and it would be more convenient in every way, above all it was further off. He wondered how he could have been wandering for a good half-hour, worried and anxious in this dangerous past without thinking of it before. And that half-hour he had lost over an irrational plan, simply because he had thought of it in delirium! He had become extremely absent and forgetful and he was aware of it. He certainly must make haste. He walked towards the Neva along V---- Prospect, but on the way another idea struck him. “Why to the Neva? Would it not be better to go somewhere far off, to the Islands again, and there hide the things in some solitary place, in a wood or under a bush, and mark the spot perhaps?” And though he felt incapable of clear judgment, the idea seemed to him a sound one. But he was not destined to go there. For coming out of V---- Prospect towards the square, he saw on the left a passage leading between two blank walls to a courtyard. On the right hand, the blank unwhitewashed wall of a four-storied house stretched far into the court; on the left, a wooden hoarding ran parallel with it for twenty paces into the court, and then turned sharply to the left. Here was a deserted fenced-off place where rubbish of different sorts was lying. At the end of the court, the corner of a low, smutty, stone shed, apparently part of some workshop, peeped from behind the hoarding. It was probably a carriage builder’s or carpenter’s shed; the whole place from the entrance was black with coal dust. Here would be the place to throw it, he thought. Not seeing anyone in the yard, he slipped in, and at once saw near the gate a sink, such as is often put in yards where there are many workmen or cab-drivers; and on the hoarding above had been scribbled in chalk the time-honoured witticism, “Standing here strictly forbidden.” This was all the better, for there would be nothing suspicious about his going in. “Here I could throw it all in a heap and get away!” Looking round once more, with his hand already in his pocket, he noticed against the outer wall, between the entrance and the sink, a big unhewn stone, weighing perhaps sixty pounds. The other side of the wall was a street. He could hear passers-by, always numerous in that part, but he could not be seen from the entrance, unless someone came in from the street, which might well happen indeed, so there was need of haste. He bent down over the stone, seized the top of it firmly in both hands, and using all his strength turned it over. Under the stone was a small hollow in the ground, and he immediately emptied his pocket into it. The purse lay at the top, and yet the hollow was not filled up. Then he seized the stone again and with one twist turned it back, so that it was in the same position again, though it stood a very little higher. But he scraped the earth about it and pressed it at the edges with his foot. Nothing could be noticed. Then he went out, and turned into the square. Again an intense, almost unbearable joy overwhelmed him for an instant, as it had in the police-office. “I have buried my tracks! And who, who can think of looking under that stone? It has been lying there most likely ever since the house was built, and will lie as many years more. And if it were found, who would think of me? It is all over! No clue!” And he laughed. Yes, he remembered that he began laughing a thin, nervous noiseless laugh, and went on laughing all the time he was crossing the square. But when he reached the K---- Boulevard where two days before he had come upon that girl, his laughter suddenly ceased. Other ideas crept into his mind. He felt all at once that it would be loathsome to pass that seat on which after the girl was gone, he had sat and pondered, and that it would be hateful, too, to meet that whiskered policeman to whom he had given the twenty copecks: “Damn him!” He walked, looking about him angrily and distractedly. All his ideas now seemed to be circling round some single point, and he felt that there really was such a point, and that now, now, he was left facing that point--and for the first time, indeed, during the last two months. “Damn it all!” he thought suddenly, in a fit of ungovernable fury. “If it has begun, then it has begun. Hang the new life! Good Lord, how stupid it is!... And what lies I told to-day! How despicably I fawned upon that wretched Ilya Petrovitch! But that is all folly! What do I care for them all, and my fawning upon them! It is not that at all! It is not that at all!” Suddenly he stopped; a new utterly unexpected and exceedingly simple question perplexed and bitterly confounded him. “If it all has really been done deliberately and not idiotically, if I really had a certain and definite object, how is it I did not even glance into the purse and don’t know what I had there, for which I have undergone these agonies, and have deliberately undertaken this base, filthy degrading business? And here I wanted at once to throw into the water the purse together with all the things which I had not seen either... how’s that?” Yes, that was so, that was all so. Yet he had known it all before, and it was not a new question for him, even when it was decided in the night without hesitation and consideration, as though so it must be, as though it could not possibly be otherwise.... Yes, he had known it all, and understood it all; it surely had all been settled even yesterday at the moment when he was bending over the box and pulling the jewel-cases out of it.... Yes, so it was. “It is because I am very ill,” he decided grimly at last, “I have been worrying and fretting myself, and I don’t know what I am doing.... Yesterday and the day before yesterday and all this time I have been worrying myself.... I shall get well and I shall not worry.... But what if I don’t get well at all? Good God, how sick I am of it all!” He walked on without resting. He had a terrible longing for some distraction, but he did not know what to do, what to attempt. A new overwhelming sensation was gaining more and more mastery over him every moment; this was an immeasurable, almost physical, repulsion for everything surrounding him, an obstinate, malignant feeling of hatred. All who met him were loathsome to him--he loathed their faces, their movements, their gestures. If anyone had addressed him, he felt that he might have spat at him or bitten him.... He stopped suddenly, on coming out on the bank of the Little Neva, near the bridge to Vassilyevsky Ostrov. “Why, he lives here, in that house,” he thought, “why, I have not come to Razumihin of my own accord! Here it’s the same thing over again.... Very interesting to know, though; have I come on purpose or have I simply walked here by chance? Never mind, I said the day before yesterday that I would go and see him the day _after_; well, and so I will! Besides I really cannot go further now.” He went up to Razumihin’s room on the fifth floor. The latter was at home in his garret, busily writing at the moment, and he opened the door himself. It was four months since they had seen each other. Razumihin was sitting in a ragged dressing-gown, with slippers on his bare feet, unkempt, unshaven and unwashed. His face showed surprise. “Is it you?” he cried. He looked his comrade up and down; then after a brief pause, he whistled. “As hard up as all that! Why, brother, you’ve cut me out!” he added, looking at Raskolnikov’s rags. “Come sit down, you are tired, I’ll be bound.” And when he had sunk down on the American leather sofa, which was in even worse condition than his own, Razumihin saw at once that his visitor was ill. “Why, you are seriously ill, do you know that?” He began feeling his pulse. Raskolnikov pulled away his hand. “Never mind,” he said, “I have come for this: I have no lessons.... I wanted,... but I don’t really want lessons....” “But I say! You are delirious, you know!” Razumihin observed, watching him carefully. “No, I am not.” Raskolnikov got up from the sofa. As he had mounted the stairs to Razumihin’s, he had not realised that he would be meeting his friend face to face. Now, in a flash, he knew, that what he was least of all disposed for at that moment was to be face to face with anyone in the wide world. His spleen rose within him. He almost choked with rage at himself as soon as he crossed Razumihin’s threshold. “Good-bye,” he said abruptly, and walked to the door. “Stop, stop! You queer fish.” “I don’t want to,” said the other, again pulling away his hand. “Then why the devil have you come? Are you mad, or what? Why, this is... almost insulting! I won’t let you go like that.” “Well, then, I came to you because I know no one but you who could help... to begin... because you are kinder than anyone--cleverer, I mean, and can judge... and now I see that I want nothing. Do you hear? Nothing at all... no one’s services... no one’s sympathy. I am by myself... alone. Come, that’s enough. Leave me alone.” “Stay a minute, you sweep! You are a perfect madman. As you like for all I care. I have no lessons, do you see, and I don’t care about that, but there’s a bookseller, Heruvimov--and he takes the place of a lesson. I would not exchange him for five lessons. He’s doing publishing of a kind, and issuing natural science manuals and what a circulation they have! The very titles are worth the money! You always maintained that I was a fool, but by Jove, my boy, there are greater fools than I am! Now he is setting up for being advanced, not that he has an inkling of anything, but, of course, I encourage him. Here are two signatures of the German text--in my opinion, the crudest charlatanism; it discusses the question, ‘Is woman a human being?’ And, of course, triumphantly proves that she is. Heruvimov is going to bring out this work as a contribution to the woman question; I am translating it; he will expand these two and a half signatures into six, we shall make up a gorgeous title half a page long and bring it out at half a rouble. It will do! He pays me six roubles the signature, it works out to about fifteen roubles for the job, and I’ve had six already in advance. When we have finished this, we are going to begin a translation about whales, and then some of the dullest scandals out of the second part of _Les Confessions_ we have marked for translation; somebody has told Heruvimov, that Rousseau was a kind of Radishchev. You may be sure I don’t contradict him, hang him! Well, would you like to do the second signature of ‘_Is woman a human being?_’ If you would, take the German and pens and paper--all those are provided, and take three roubles; for as I have had six roubles in advance on the whole thing, three roubles come to you for your share. And when you have finished the signature there will be another three roubles for you. And please don’t think I am doing you a service; quite the contrary, as soon as you came in, I saw how you could help me; to begin with, I am weak in spelling, and secondly, I am sometimes utterly adrift in German, so that I make it up as I go along for the most part. The only comfort is, that it’s bound to be a change for the better. Though who can tell, maybe it’s sometimes for the worse. Will you take it?” Raskolnikov took the German sheets in silence, took the three roubles and without a word went out. Razumihin gazed after him in astonishment. But when Raskolnikov was in the next street, he turned back, mounted the stairs to Razumihin’s again and laying on the table the German article and the three roubles, went out again, still without uttering a word. “Are you raving, or what?” Razumihin shouted, roused to fury at last. “What farce is this? You’ll drive me crazy too... what did you come to see me for, damn you?” “I don’t want... translation,” muttered Raskolnikov from the stairs. “Then what the devil do you want?” shouted Razumihin from above. Raskolnikov continued descending the staircase in silence. “Hey, there! Where are you living?” No answer. “Well, confound you then!” But Raskolnikov was already stepping into the street. On the Nikolaevsky Bridge he was roused to full consciousness again by an unpleasant incident. A coachman, after shouting at him two or three times, gave him a violent lash on the back with his whip, for having almost fallen under his horses’ hoofs. The lash so infuriated him that he dashed away to the railing (for some unknown reason he had been walking in the very middle of the bridge in the traffic). He angrily clenched and ground his teeth. He heard laughter, of course. “Serves him right!” “A pickpocket I dare say.” “Pretending to be drunk, for sure, and getting under the wheels on purpose; and you have to answer for him.” “It’s a regular profession, that’s what it is.” But while he stood at the railing, still looking angry and bewildered after the retreating carriage, and rubbing his back, he suddenly felt someone thrust money into his hand. He looked. It was an elderly woman in a kerchief and goatskin shoes, with a girl, probably her daughter, wearing a hat, and carrying a green parasol. “Take it, my good man, in Christ’s name.” He took it and they passed on. It was a piece of twenty copecks. From his dress and appearance they might well have taken him for a beggar asking alms in the streets, and the gift of the twenty copecks he doubtless owed to the blow, which made them feel sorry for him. He closed his hand on the twenty copecks, walked on for ten paces, and turned facing the Neva, looking towards the palace. The sky was without a cloud and the water was almost bright blue, which is so rare in the Neva. The cupola of the cathedral, which is seen at its best from the bridge about twenty paces from the chapel, glittered in the sunlight, and in the pure air every ornament on it could be clearly distinguished. The pain from the lash went off, and Raskolnikov forgot about it; one uneasy and not quite definite idea occupied him now completely. He stood still, and gazed long and intently into the distance; this spot was especially familiar to him. When he was attending the university, he had hundreds of times--generally on his way home--stood still on this spot, gazed at this truly magnificent spectacle and almost always marvelled at a vague and mysterious emotion it roused in him. It left him strangely cold; this gorgeous picture was for him blank and lifeless. He wondered every time at his sombre and enigmatic impression and, mistrusting himself, put off finding the explanation of it. He vividly recalled those old doubts and perplexities, and it seemed to him that it was no mere chance that he recalled them now. It struck him as strange and grotesque, that he should have stopped at the same spot as before, as though he actually imagined he could think the same thoughts, be interested in the same theories and pictures that had interested him... so short a time ago. He felt it almost amusing, and yet it wrung his heart. Deep down, hidden far away out of sight all that seemed to him now--all his old past, his old thoughts, his old problems and theories, his old impressions and that picture and himself and all, all.... He felt as though he were flying upwards, and everything were vanishing from his sight. Making an unconscious movement with his hand, he suddenly became aware of the piece of money in his fist. He opened his hand, stared at the coin, and with a sweep of his arm flung it into the water; then he turned and went home. It seemed to him, he had cut himself off from everyone and from everything at that moment. Evening was coming on when he reached home, so that he must have been walking about six hours. How and where he came back he did not remember. Undressing, and quivering like an overdriven horse, he lay down on the sofa, drew his greatcoat over him, and at once sank into oblivion.... It was dusk when he was waked up by a fearful scream. Good God, what a scream! Such unnatural sounds, such howling, wailing, grinding, tears, blows and curses he had never heard. He could never have imagined such brutality, such frenzy. In terror he sat up in bed, almost swooning with agony. But the fighting, wailing and cursing grew louder and louder. And then to his intense amazement he caught the voice of his landlady. She was howling, shrieking and wailing, rapidly, hurriedly, incoherently, so that he could not make out what she was talking about; she was beseeching, no doubt, not to be beaten, for she was being mercilessly beaten on the stairs. The voice of her assailant was so horrible from spite and rage that it was almost a croak; but he, too, was saying something, and just as quickly and indistinctly, hurrying and spluttering. All at once Raskolnikov trembled; he recognised the voice--it was the voice of Ilya Petrovitch. Ilya Petrovitch here and beating the landlady! He is kicking her, banging her head against the steps--that’s clear, that can be told from the sounds, from the cries and the thuds. How is it, is the world topsy-turvy? He could hear people running in crowds from all the storeys and all the staircases; he heard voices, exclamations, knocking, doors banging. “But why, why, and how could it be?” he repeated, thinking seriously that he had gone mad. But no, he heard too distinctly! And they would come to him then next, “for no doubt... it’s all about that... about yesterday.... Good God!” He would have fastened his door with the latch, but he could not lift his hand... besides, it would be useless. Terror gripped his heart like ice, tortured him and numbed him.... But at last all this uproar, after continuing about ten minutes, began gradually to subside. The landlady was moaning and groaning; Ilya Petrovitch was still uttering threats and curses.... But at last he, too, seemed to be silent, and now he could not be heard. “Can he have gone away? Good Lord!” Yes, and now the landlady is going too, still weeping and moaning... and then her door slammed.... Now the crowd was going from the stairs to their rooms, exclaiming, disputing, calling to one another, raising their voices to a shout, dropping them to a whisper. There must have been numbers of them--almost all the inmates of the block. “But, good God, how could it be! And why, why had he come here!” Raskolnikov sank worn out on the sofa, but could not close his eyes. He lay for half an hour in such anguish, such an intolerable sensation of infinite terror as he had never experienced before. Suddenly a bright light flashed into his room. Nastasya came in with a candle and a plate of soup. Looking at him carefully and ascertaining that he was not asleep, she set the candle on the table and began to lay out what she had brought--bread, salt, a plate, a spoon. “You’ve eaten nothing since yesterday, I warrant. You’ve been trudging about all day, and you’re shaking with fever.” “Nastasya... what were they beating the landlady for?” She looked intently at him. “Who beat the landlady?” “Just now... half an hour ago, Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant superintendent, on the stairs.... Why was he ill-treating her like that, and... why was he here?” Nastasya scrutinised him, silent and frowning, and her scrutiny lasted a long time. He felt uneasy, even frightened at her searching eyes. “Nastasya, why don’t you speak?” he said timidly at last in a weak voice. “It’s the blood,” she answered at last softly, as though speaking to herself. “Blood? What blood?” he muttered, growing white and turning towards the wall. Nastasya still looked at him without speaking. “Nobody has been beating the landlady,” she declared at last in a firm, resolute voice. He gazed at her, hardly able to breathe. “I heard it myself.... I was not asleep... I was sitting up,” he said still more timidly. “I listened a long while. The assistant superintendent came.... Everyone ran out on to the stairs from all the flats.” “No one has been here. That’s the blood crying in your ears. When there’s no outlet for it and it gets clotted, you begin fancying things.... Will you eat something?” He made no answer. Nastasya still stood over him, watching him. “Give me something to drink... Nastasya.” She went downstairs and returned with a white earthenware jug of water. He remembered only swallowing one sip of the cold water and spilling some on his neck. Then followed forgetfulness. CHAPTER III He was not completely unconscious, however, all the time he was ill; he was in a feverish state, sometimes delirious, sometimes half conscious. He remembered a great deal afterwards. Sometimes it seemed as though there were a number of people round him; they wanted to take him away somewhere, there was a great deal of squabbling and discussing about him. Then he would be alone in the room; they had all gone away afraid of him, and only now and then opened the door a crack to look at him; they threatened him, plotted something together, laughed, and mocked at him. He remembered Nastasya often at his bedside; he distinguished another person, too, whom he seemed to know very well, though he could not remember who he was, and this fretted him, even made him cry. Sometimes he fancied he had been lying there a month; at other times it all seemed part of the same day. But of _that_--of _that_ he had no recollection, and yet every minute he felt that he had forgotten something he ought to remember. He worried and tormented himself trying to remember, moaned, flew into a rage, or sank into awful, intolerable terror. Then he struggled to get up, would have run away, but someone always prevented him by force, and he sank back into impotence and forgetfulness. At last he returned to complete consciousness. It happened at ten o’clock in the morning. On fine days the sun shone into the room at that hour, throwing a streak of light on the right wall and the corner near the door. Nastasya was standing beside him with another person, a complete stranger, who was looking at him very inquisitively. He was a young man with a beard, wearing a full, short-waisted coat, and looked like a messenger. The landlady was peeping in at the half-opened door. Raskolnikov sat up. “Who is this, Nastasya?” he asked, pointing to the young man. “I say, he’s himself again!” she said. “He is himself,” echoed the man. Concluding that he had returned to his senses, the landlady closed the door and disappeared. She was always shy and dreaded conversations or discussions. She was a woman of forty, not at all bad-looking, fat and buxom, with black eyes and eyebrows, good-natured from fatness and laziness, and absurdly bashful. “Who... are you?” he went on, addressing the man. But at that moment the door was flung open, and, stooping a little, as he was so tall, Razumihin came in. “What a cabin it is!” he cried. “I am always knocking my head. You call this a lodging! So you are conscious, brother? I’ve just heard the news from Pashenka.” “He has just come to,” said Nastasya. “Just come to,” echoed the man again, with a smile. “And who are you?” Razumihin asked, suddenly addressing him. “My name is Vrazumihin, at your service; not Razumihin, as I am always called, but Vrazumihin, a student and gentleman; and he is my friend. And who are you?” “I am the messenger from our office, from the merchant Shelopaev, and I’ve come on business.” “Please sit down.” Razumihin seated himself on the other side of the table. “It’s a good thing you’ve come to, brother,” he went on to Raskolnikov. “For the last four days you have scarcely eaten or drunk anything. We had to give you tea in spoonfuls. I brought Zossimov to see you twice. You remember Zossimov? He examined you carefully and said at once it was nothing serious--something seemed to have gone to your head. Some nervous nonsense, the result of bad feeding, he says you have not had enough beer and radish, but it’s nothing much, it will pass and you will be all right. Zossimov is a first-rate fellow! He is making quite a name. Come, I won’t keep you,” he said, addressing the man again. “Will you explain what you want? You must know, Rodya, this is the second time they have sent from the office; but it was another man last time, and I talked to him. Who was it came before?” “That was the day before yesterday, I venture to say, if you please, sir. That was Alexey Semyonovitch; he is in our office, too.” “He was more intelligent than you, don’t you think so?” “Yes, indeed, sir, he is of more weight than I am.” “Quite so; go on.” “At your mamma’s request, through Afanasy Ivanovitch Vahrushin, of whom I presume you have heard more than once, a remittance is sent to you from our office,” the man began, addressing Raskolnikov. “If you are in an intelligible condition, I’ve thirty-five roubles to remit to you, as Semyon Semyonovitch has received from Afanasy Ivanovitch at your mamma’s request instructions to that effect, as on previous occasions. Do you know him, sir?” “Yes, I remember... Vahrushin,” Raskolnikov said dreamily. “You hear, he knows Vahrushin,” cried Razumihin. “He is in ‘an intelligible condition’! And I see you are an intelligent man too. Well, it’s always pleasant to hear words of wisdom.” “That’s the gentleman, Vahrushin, Afanasy Ivanovitch. And at the request of your mamma, who has sent you a remittance once before in the same manner through him, he did not refuse this time also, and sent instructions to Semyon Semyonovitch some days since to hand you thirty-five roubles in the hope of better to come.” “That ‘hoping for better to come’ is the best thing you’ve said, though ‘your mamma’ is not bad either. Come then, what do you say? Is he fully conscious, eh?” “That’s all right. If only he can sign this little paper.” “He can scrawl his name. Have you got the book?” “Yes, here’s the book.” “Give it to me. Here, Rodya, sit up. I’ll hold you. Take the pen and scribble ‘Raskolnikov’ for him. For just now, brother, money is sweeter to us than treacle.” “I don’t want it,” said Raskolnikov, pushing away the pen. “Not want it?” “I won’t sign it.” “How the devil can you do without signing it?” “I don’t want... the money.” “Don’t want the money! Come, brother, that’s nonsense, I bear witness. Don’t trouble, please, it’s only that he is on his travels again. But that’s pretty common with him at all times though.... You are a man of judgment and we will take him in hand, that is, more simply, take his hand and he will sign it. Here.” “But I can come another time.” “No, no. Why should we trouble you? You are a man of judgment.... Now, Rodya, don’t keep your visitor, you see he is waiting,” and he made ready to hold Raskolnikov’s hand in earnest. “Stop, I’ll do it alone,” said the latter, taking the pen and signing his name. The messenger took out the money and went away. “Bravo! And now, brother, are you hungry?” “Yes,” answered Raskolnikov. “Is there any soup?” “Some of yesterday’s,” answered Nastasya, who was still standing there. “With potatoes and rice in it?” “Yes.” “I know it by heart. Bring soup and give us some tea.” “Very well.” Raskolnikov looked at all this with profound astonishment and a dull, unreasoning terror. He made up his mind to keep quiet and see what would happen. “I believe I am not wandering. I believe it’s reality,” he thought. In a couple of minutes Nastasya returned with the soup, and announced that the tea would be ready directly. With the soup she brought two spoons, two plates, salt, pepper, mustard for the beef, and so on. The table was set as it had not been for a long time. The cloth was clean. “It would not be amiss, Nastasya, if Praskovya Pavlovna were to send us up a couple of bottles of beer. We could empty them.” “Well, you are a cool hand,” muttered Nastasya, and she departed to carry out his orders. Raskolnikov still gazed wildly with strained attention. Meanwhile Razumihin sat down on the sofa beside him, as clumsily as a bear put his left arm round Raskolnikov’s head, although he was able to sit up, and with his right hand gave him a spoonful of soup, blowing on it that it might not burn him. But the soup was only just warm. Raskolnikov swallowed one spoonful greedily, then a second, then a third. But after giving him a few more spoonfuls of soup, Razumihin suddenly stopped, and said that he must ask Zossimov whether he ought to have more. Nastasya came in with two bottles of beer. “And will you have tea?” “Yes.” “Cut along, Nastasya, and bring some tea, for tea we may venture on without the faculty. But here is the beer!” He moved back to his chair, pulled the soup and meat in front of him, and began eating as though he had not touched food for three days. “I must tell you, Rodya, I dine like this here every day now,” he mumbled with his mouth full of beef, “and it’s all Pashenka, your dear little landlady, who sees to that; she loves to do anything for me. I don’t ask for it, but, of course, I don’t object. And here’s Nastasya with the tea. She is a quick girl. Nastasya, my dear, won’t you have some beer?” “Get along with your nonsense!” “A cup of tea, then?” “A cup of tea, maybe.” “Pour it out. Stay, I’ll pour it out myself. Sit down.” He poured out two cups, left his dinner, and sat on the sofa again. As before, he put his left arm round the sick man’s head, raised him up and gave him tea in spoonfuls, again blowing each spoonful steadily and earnestly, as though this process was the principal and most effective means towards his friend’s recovery. Raskolnikov said nothing and made no resistance, though he felt quite strong enough to sit up on the sofa without support and could not merely have held a cup or a spoon, but even perhaps could have walked about. But from some queer, almost animal, cunning he conceived the idea of hiding his strength and lying low for a time, pretending if necessary not to be yet in full possession of his faculties, and meanwhile listening to find out what was going on. Yet he could not overcome his sense of repugnance. After sipping a dozen spoonfuls of tea, he suddenly released his head, pushed the spoon away capriciously, and sank back on the pillow. There were actually real pillows under his head now, down pillows in clean cases, he observed that, too, and took note of it. “Pashenka must give us some raspberry jam to-day to make him some raspberry tea,” said Razumihin, going back to his chair and attacking his soup and beer again. “And where is she to get raspberries for you?” asked Nastasya, balancing a saucer on her five outspread fingers and sipping tea through a lump of sugar. “She’ll get it at the shop, my dear. You see, Rodya, all sorts of things have been happening while you have been laid up. When you decamped in that rascally way without leaving your address, I felt so angry that I resolved to find you out and punish you. I set to work that very day. How I ran about making inquiries for you! This lodging of yours I had forgotten, though I never remembered it, indeed, because I did not know it; and as for your old lodgings, I could only remember it was at the Five Corners, Harlamov’s house. I kept trying to find that Harlamov’s house, and afterwards it turned out that it was not Harlamov’s, but Buch’s. How one muddles up sound sometimes! So I lost my temper, and I went on the chance to the address bureau next day, and only fancy, in two minutes they looked you up! Your name is down there.” “My name!” “I should think so; and yet a General Kobelev they could not find while I was there. Well, it’s a long story. But as soon as I did land on this place, I soon got to know all your affairs--all, all, brother, I know everything; Nastasya here will tell you. I made the acquaintance of Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, and the house-porter and Mr. Zametov, Alexandr Grigorievitch, the head clerk in the police office, and, last, but not least, of Pashenka; Nastasya here knows....” “He’s got round her,” Nastasya murmured, smiling slyly. “Why don’t you put the sugar in your tea, Nastasya Nikiforovna?” “You are a one!” Nastasya cried suddenly, going off into a giggle. “I am not Nikiforovna, but Petrovna,” she added suddenly, recovering from her mirth. “I’ll make a note of it. Well, brother, to make a long story short, I was going in for a regular explosion here to uproot all malignant influences in the locality, but Pashenka won the day. I had not expected, brother, to find her so... prepossessing. Eh, what do you think?” Raskolnikov did not speak, but he still kept his eyes fixed upon him, full of alarm. “And all that could be wished, indeed, in every respect,” Razumihin went on, not at all embarrassed by his silence. “Ah, the sly dog!” Nastasya shrieked again. This conversation afforded her unspeakable delight. “It’s a pity, brother, that you did not set to work in the right way at first. You ought to have approached her differently. She is, so to speak, a most unaccountable character. But we will talk about her character later.... How could you let things come to such a pass that she gave up sending you your dinner? And that I O U? You must have been mad to sign an I O U. And that promise of marriage when her daughter, Natalya Yegorovna, was alive?... I know all about it! But I see that’s a delicate matter and I am an ass; forgive me. But, talking of foolishness, do you know Praskovya Pavlovna is not nearly so foolish as you would think at first sight?” “No,” mumbled Raskolnikov, looking away, but feeling that it was better to keep up the conversation. “She isn’t, is she?” cried Razumihin, delighted to get an answer out of him. “But she is not very clever either, eh? She is essentially, essentially an unaccountable character! I am sometimes quite at a loss, I assure you.... She must be forty; she says she is thirty-six, and of course she has every right to say so. But I swear I judge her intellectually, simply from the metaphysical point of view; there is a sort of symbolism sprung up between us, a sort of algebra or what not! I don’t understand it! Well, that’s all nonsense. Only, seeing that you are not a student now and have lost your lessons and your clothes, and that through the young lady’s death she has no need to treat you as a relation, she suddenly took fright; and as you hid in your den and dropped all your old relations with her, she planned to get rid of you. And she’s been cherishing that design a long time, but was sorry to lose the I O U, for you assured her yourself that your mother would pay.” “It was base of me to say that.... My mother herself is almost a beggar... and I told a lie to keep my lodging... and be fed,” Raskolnikov said loudly and distinctly. “Yes, you did very sensibly. But the worst of it is that at that point Mr. Tchebarov turns up, a business man. Pashenka would never have thought of doing anything on her own account, she is too retiring; but the business man is by no means retiring, and first thing he puts the question, ‘Is there any hope of realising the I O U?’ Answer: there is, because he has a mother who would save her Rodya with her hundred and twenty-five roubles pension, if she has to starve herself; and a sister, too, who would go into bondage for his sake. That’s what he was building upon.... Why do you start? I know all the ins and outs of your affairs now, my dear boy--it’s not for nothing that you were so open with Pashenka when you were her prospective son-in-law, and I say all this as a friend.... But I tell you what it is; an honest and sensitive man is open; and a business man ‘listens and goes on eating’ you up. Well, then she gave the I O U by way of payment to this Tchebarov, and without hesitation he made a formal demand for payment. When I heard of all this I wanted to blow him up, too, to clear my conscience, but by that time harmony reigned between me and Pashenka, and I insisted on stopping the whole affair, engaging that you would pay. I went security for you, brother. Do you understand? We called Tchebarov, flung him ten roubles and got the I O U back from him, and here I have the honour of presenting it to you. She trusts your word now. Here, take it, you see I have torn it.” Razumihin put the note on the table. Raskolnikov looked at him and turned to the wall without uttering a word. Even Razumihin felt a twinge. “I see, brother,” he said a moment later, “that I have been playing the fool again. I thought I should amuse you with my chatter, and I believe I have only made you cross.” “Was it you I did not recognise when I was delirious?” Raskolnikov asked, after a moment’s pause without turning his head. “Yes, and you flew into a rage about it, especially when I brought Zametov one day.” “Zametov? The head clerk? What for?” Raskolnikov turned round quickly and fixed his eyes on Razumihin. “What’s the matter with you?... What are you upset about? He wanted to make your acquaintance because I talked to him a lot about you.... How could I have found out so much except from him? He is a capital fellow, brother, first-rate... in his own way, of course. Now we are friends--see each other almost every day. I have moved into this part, you know. I have only just moved. I’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna once or twice.... Do you remember Luise, Luise Ivanovna? “Did I say anything in delirium?” “I should think so! You were beside yourself.” “What did I rave about?” “What next? What did you rave about? What people do rave about.... Well, brother, now I must not lose time. To work.” He got up from the table and took up his cap. “What did I rave about?” “How he keeps on! Are you afraid of having let out some secret? Don’t worry yourself; you said nothing about a countess. But you said a lot about a bulldog, and about ear-rings and chains, and about Krestovsky Island, and some porter, and Nikodim Fomitch and Ilya Petrovitch, the assistant superintendent. And another thing that was of special interest to you was your own sock. You whined, ‘Give me my sock.’ Zametov hunted all about your room for your socks, and with his own scented, ring-bedecked fingers he gave you the rag. And only then were you comforted, and for the next twenty-four hours you held the wretched thing in your hand; we could not get it from you. It is most likely somewhere under your quilt at this moment. And then you asked so piteously for fringe for your trousers. We tried to find out what sort of fringe, but we could not make it out. Now to business! Here are thirty-five roubles; I take ten of them, and shall give you an account of them in an hour or two. I will let Zossimov know at the same time, though he ought to have been here long ago, for it is nearly twelve. And you, Nastasya, look in pretty often while I am away, to see whether he wants a drink or anything else. And I will tell Pashenka what is wanted myself. Good-bye!” “He calls her Pashenka! Ah, he’s a deep one!” said Nastasya as he went out; then she opened the door and stood listening, but could not resist running downstairs after him. She was very eager to hear what he would say to the landlady. She was evidently quite fascinated by Razumihin. No sooner had she left the room than the sick man flung off the bedclothes and leapt out of bed like a madman. With burning, twitching impatience he had waited for them to be gone so that he might set to work. But to what work? Now, as though to spite him, it eluded him. “Good God, only tell me one thing: do they know of it yet or not? What if they know it and are only pretending, mocking me while I am laid up, and then they will come in and tell me that it’s been discovered long ago and that they have only... What am I to do now? That’s what I’ve forgotten, as though on purpose; forgotten it all at once, I remembered a minute ago.” He stood in the middle of the room and gazed in miserable bewilderment about him; he walked to the door, opened it, listened; but that was not what he wanted. Suddenly, as though recalling something, he rushed to the corner where there was a hole under the paper, began examining it, put his hand into the hole, fumbled--but that was not it. He went to the stove, opened it and began rummaging in the ashes; the frayed edges of his trousers and the rags cut off his pocket were lying there just as he had thrown them. No one had looked, then! Then he remembered the sock about which Razumihin had just been telling him. Yes, there it lay on the sofa under the quilt, but it was so covered with dust and grime that Zametov could not have seen anything on it. “Bah, Zametov! The police office! And why am I sent for to the police office? Where’s the notice? Bah! I am mixing it up; that was then. I looked at my sock then, too, but now... now I have been ill. But what did Zametov come for? Why did Razumihin bring him?” he muttered, helplessly sitting on the sofa again. “What does it mean? Am I still in delirium, or is it real? I believe it is real.... Ah, I remember; I must escape! Make haste to escape. Yes, I must, I must escape! Yes... but where? And where are my clothes? I’ve no boots. They’ve taken them away! They’ve hidden them! I understand! Ah, here is my coat--they passed that over! And here is money on the table, thank God! And here’s the I O U... I’ll take the money and go and take another lodging. They won’t find me!... Yes, but the address bureau? They’ll find me, Razumihin will find me. Better escape altogether... far away... to America, and let them do their worst! And take the I O U... it would be of use there.... What else shall I take? They think I am ill! They don’t know that I can walk, ha-ha-ha! I could see by their eyes that they know all about it! If only I could get downstairs! And what if they have set a watch there--policemen! What’s this tea? Ah, and here is beer left, half a bottle, cold!” He snatched up the bottle, which still contained a glassful of beer, and gulped it down with relish, as though quenching a flame in his breast. But in another minute the beer had gone to his head, and a faint and even pleasant shiver ran down his spine. He lay down and pulled the quilt over him. His sick and incoherent thoughts grew more and more disconnected, and soon a light, pleasant drowsiness came upon him. With a sense of comfort he nestled his head into the pillow, wrapped more closely about him the soft, wadded quilt which had replaced the old, ragged greatcoat, sighed softly and sank into a deep, sound, refreshing sleep. He woke up, hearing someone come in. He opened his eyes and saw Razumihin standing in the doorway, uncertain whether to come in or not. Raskolnikov sat up quickly on the sofa and gazed at him, as though trying to recall something. “Ah, you are not asleep! Here I am! Nastasya, bring in the parcel!” Razumihin shouted down the stairs. “You shall have the account directly.” “What time is it?” asked Raskolnikov, looking round uneasily. “Yes, you had a fine sleep, brother, it’s almost evening, it will be six o’clock directly. You have slept more than six hours.” “Good heavens! Have I?” “And why not? It will do you good. What’s the hurry? A tryst, is it? We’ve all time before us. I’ve been waiting for the last three hours for you; I’ve been up twice and found you asleep. I’ve called on Zossimov twice; not at home, only fancy! But no matter, he will turn up. And I’ve been out on my own business, too. You know I’ve been moving to-day, moving with my uncle. I have an uncle living with me now. But that’s no matter, to business. Give me the parcel, Nastasya. We will open it directly. And how do you feel now, brother?” “I am quite well, I am not ill. Razumihin, have you been here long?” “I tell you I’ve been waiting for the last three hours.” “No, before.” “How do you mean?” “How long have you been coming here?” “Why I told you all about it this morning. Don’t you remember?” Raskolnikov pondered. The morning seemed like a dream to him. He could not remember alone, and looked inquiringly at Razumihin. “Hm!” said the latter, “he has forgotten. I fancied then that you were not quite yourself. Now you are better for your sleep.... You really look much better. First-rate! Well, to business. Look here, my dear boy.” He began untying the bundle, which evidently interested him. “Believe me, brother, this is something specially near my heart. For we must make a man of you. Let’s begin from the top. Do you see this cap?” he said, taking out of the bundle a fairly good though cheap and ordinary cap. “Let me try it on.” “Presently, afterwards,” said Raskolnikov, waving it off pettishly. “Come, Rodya, my boy, don’t oppose it, afterwards will be too late; and I shan’t sleep all night, for I bought it by guess, without measure. Just right!” he cried triumphantly, fitting it on, “just your size! A proper head-covering is the first thing in dress and a recommendation in its own way. Tolstyakov, a friend of mine, is always obliged to take off his pudding basin when he goes into any public place where other people wear their hats or caps. People think he does it from slavish politeness, but it’s simply because he is ashamed of his bird’s nest; he is such a boastful fellow! Look, Nastasya, here are two specimens of headgear: this Palmerston”--he took from the corner Raskolnikov’s old, battered hat, which for some unknown reason, he called a Palmerston--“or this jewel! Guess the price, Rodya, what do you suppose I paid for it, Nastasya!” he said, turning to her, seeing that Raskolnikov did not speak. “Twenty copecks, no more, I dare say,” answered Nastasya. “Twenty copecks, silly!” he cried, offended. “Why, nowadays you would cost more than that--eighty copecks! And that only because it has been worn. And it’s bought on condition that when’s it’s worn out, they will give you another next year. Yes, on my word! Well, now let us pass to the United States of America, as they called them at school. I assure you I am proud of these breeches,” and he exhibited to Raskolnikov a pair of light, summer trousers of grey woollen material. “No holes, no spots, and quite respectable, although a little worn; and a waistcoat to match, quite in the fashion. And its being worn really is an improvement, it’s softer, smoother.... You see, Rodya, to my thinking, the great thing for getting on in the world is always to keep to the seasons; if you don’t insist on having asparagus in January, you keep your money in your purse; and it’s the same with this purchase. It’s summer now, so I’ve been buying summer things--warmer materials will be wanted for autumn, so you will have to throw these away in any case... especially as they will be done for by then from their own lack of coherence if not your higher standard of luxury. Come, price them! What do you say? Two roubles twenty-five copecks! And remember the condition: if you wear these out, you will have another suit for nothing! They only do business on that system at Fedyaev’s; if you’ve bought a thing once, you are satisfied for life, for you will never go there again of your own free will. Now for the boots. What do you say? You see that they are a bit worn, but they’ll last a couple of months, for it’s foreign work and foreign leather; the secretary of the English Embassy sold them last week--he had only worn them six days, but he was very short of cash. Price--a rouble and a half. A bargain?” “But perhaps they won’t fit,” observed Nastasya. “Not fit? Just look!” and he pulled out of his pocket Raskolnikov’s old, broken boot, stiffly coated with dry mud. “I did not go empty-handed--they took the size from this monster. We all did our best. And as to your linen, your landlady has seen to that. Here, to begin with are three shirts, hempen but with a fashionable front.... Well now then, eighty copecks the cap, two roubles twenty-five copecks the suit--together three roubles five copecks--a rouble and a half for the boots--for, you see, they are very good--and that makes four roubles fifty-five copecks; five roubles for the underclothes--they were bought in the lot--which makes exactly nine roubles fifty-five copecks. Forty-five copecks change in coppers. Will you take it? And so, Rodya, you are set up with a complete new rig-out, for your overcoat will serve, and even has a style of its own. That comes from getting one’s clothes from Sharmer’s! As for your socks and other things, I leave them to you; we’ve twenty-five roubles left. And as for Pashenka and paying for your lodging, don’t you worry. I tell you she’ll trust you for anything. And now, brother, let me change your linen, for I daresay you will throw off your illness with your shirt.” “Let me be! I don’t want to!” Raskolnikov waved him off. He had listened with disgust to Razumihin’s efforts to be playful about his purchases. “Come, brother, don’t tell me I’ve been trudging around for nothing,” Razumihin insisted. “Nastasya, don’t be bashful, but help me--that’s it,” and in spite of Raskolnikov’s resistance he changed his linen. The latter sank back on the pillows and for a minute or two said nothing. “It will be long before I get rid of them,” he thought. “What money was all that bought with?” he asked at last, gazing at the wall. “Money? Why, your own, what the messenger brought from Vahrushin, your mother sent it. Have you forgotten that, too?” “I remember now,” said Raskolnikov after a long, sullen silence. Razumihin looked at him, frowning and uneasy. The door opened and a tall, stout man whose appearance seemed familiar to Raskolnikov came in. CHAPTER IV Zossimov was a tall, fat man with a puffy, colourless, clean-shaven face and straight flaxen hair. He wore spectacles, and a big gold ring on his fat finger. He was twenty-seven. He had on a light grey fashionable loose coat, light summer trousers, and everything about him loose, fashionable and spick and span; his linen was irreproachable, his watch-chain was massive. In manner he was slow and, as it were, nonchalant, and at the same time studiously free and easy; he made efforts to conceal his self-importance, but it was apparent at every instant. All his acquaintances found him tedious, but said he was clever at his work. “I’ve been to you twice to-day, brother. You see, he’s come to himself,” cried Razumihin. “I see, I see; and how do we feel now, eh?” said Zossimov to Raskolnikov, watching him carefully and, sitting down at the foot of the sofa, he settled himself as comfortably as he could. “He is still depressed,” Razumihin went on. “We’ve just changed his linen and he almost cried.” “That’s very natural; you might have put it off if he did not wish it.... His pulse is first-rate. Is your head still aching, eh?” “I am well, I am perfectly well!” Raskolnikov declared positively and irritably. He raised himself on the sofa and looked at them with glittering eyes, but sank back on to the pillow at once and turned to the wall. Zossimov watched him intently. “Very good.... Going on all right,” he said lazily. “Has he eaten anything?” They told him, and asked what he might have. “He may have anything... soup, tea... mushrooms and cucumbers, of course, you must not give him; he’d better not have meat either, and... but no need to tell you that!” Razumihin and he looked at each other. “No more medicine or anything. I’ll look at him again to-morrow. Perhaps, to-day even... but never mind...” “To-morrow evening I shall take him for a walk,” said Razumihin. “We are going to the Yusupov garden and then to the Palais de Cristal.” “I would not disturb him to-morrow at all, but I don’t know... a little, maybe... but we’ll see.” “Ach, what a nuisance! I’ve got a house-warming party to-night; it’s only a step from here. Couldn’t he come? He could lie on the sofa. You are coming?” Razumihin said to Zossimov. “Don’t forget, you promised.” “All right, only rather later. What are you going to do?” “Oh, nothing--tea, vodka, herrings. There will be a pie... just our friends.” “And who?” “All neighbours here, almost all new friends, except my old uncle, and he is new too--he only arrived in Petersburg yesterday to see to some business of his. We meet once in five years.” “What is he?” “He’s been stagnating all his life as a district postmaster; gets a little pension. He is sixty-five--not worth talking about.... But I am fond of him. Porfiry Petrovitch, the head of the Investigation Department here... But you know him.” “Is he a relation of yours, too?” “A very distant one. But why are you scowling? Because you quarrelled once, won’t you come then?” “I don’t care a damn for him.” “So much the better. Well, there will be some students, a teacher, a government clerk, a musician, an officer and Zametov.” “Do tell me, please, what you or he”--Zossimov nodded at Raskolnikov--“can have in common with this Zametov?” “Oh, you particular gentleman! Principles! You are worked by principles, as it were by springs; you won’t venture to turn round on your own account. If a man is a nice fellow, that’s the only principle I go upon. Zametov is a delightful person.” “Though he does take bribes.” “Well, he does! and what of it? I don’t care if he does take bribes,” Razumihin cried with unnatural irritability. “I don’t praise him for taking bribes. I only say he is a nice man in his own way! But if one looks at men in all ways--are there many good ones left? Why, I am sure I shouldn’t be worth a baked onion myself... perhaps with you thrown in.” “That’s too little; I’d give two for you.” “And I wouldn’t give more than one for you. No more of your jokes! Zametov is no more than a boy. I can pull his hair and one must draw him not repel him. You’ll never improve a man by repelling him, especially a boy. One has to be twice as careful with a boy. Oh, you progressive dullards! You don’t understand. You harm yourselves running another man down.... But if you want to know, we really have something in common.” “I should like to know what.” “Why, it’s all about a house-painter.... We are getting him out of a mess! Though indeed there’s nothing to fear now. The matter is absolutely self-evident. We only put on steam.” “A painter?” “Why, haven’t I told you about it? I only told you the beginning then about the murder of the old pawnbroker-woman. Well, the painter is mixed up in it...” “Oh, I heard about that murder before and was rather interested in it... partly... for one reason.... I read about it in the papers, too....” “Lizaveta was murdered, too,” Nastasya blurted out, suddenly addressing Raskolnikov. She remained in the room all the time, standing by the door listening. “Lizaveta,” murmured Raskolnikov hardly audibly. “Lizaveta, who sold old clothes. Didn’t you know her? She used to come here. She mended a shirt for you, too.” Raskolnikov turned to the wall where in the dirty, yellow paper he picked out one clumsy, white flower with brown lines on it and began examining how many petals there were in it, how many scallops in the petals and how many lines on them. He felt his arms and legs as lifeless as though they had been cut off. He did not attempt to move, but stared obstinately at the flower. “But what about the painter?” Zossimov interrupted Nastasya’s chatter with marked displeasure. She sighed and was silent. “Why, he was accused of the murder,” Razumihin went on hotly. “Was there evidence against him then?” “Evidence, indeed! Evidence that was no evidence, and that’s what we have to prove. It was just as they pitched on those fellows, Koch and Pestryakov, at first. Foo! how stupidly it’s all done, it makes one sick, though it’s not one’s business! Pestryakov may be coming to-night.... By the way, Rodya, you’ve heard about the business already; it happened before you were ill, the day before you fainted at the police office while they were talking about it.” Zossimov looked curiously at Raskolnikov. He did not stir. “But I say, Razumihin, I wonder at you. What a busybody you are!” Zossimov observed. “Maybe I am, but we will get him off anyway,” shouted Razumihin, bringing his fist down on the table. “What’s the most offensive is not their lying--one can always forgive lying--lying is a delightful thing, for it leads to truth--what is offensive is that they lie and worship their own lying.... I respect Porfiry, but... What threw them out at first? The door was locked, and when they came back with the porter it was open. So it followed that Koch and Pestryakov were the murderers--that was their logic!” “But don’t excite yourself; they simply detained them, they could not help that.... And, by the way, I’ve met that man Koch. He used to buy unredeemed pledges from the old woman? Eh?” “Yes, he is a swindler. He buys up bad debts, too. He makes a profession of it. But enough of him! Do you know what makes me angry? It’s their sickening rotten, petrified routine.... And this case might be the means of introducing a new method. One can show from the psychological data alone how to get on the track of the real man. ‘We have facts,’ they say. But facts are not everything--at least half the business lies in how you interpret them!” “Can you interpret them, then?” “Anyway, one can’t hold one’s tongue when one has a feeling, a tangible feeling, that one might be a help if only.... Eh! Do you know the details of the case?” “I am waiting to hear about the painter.” “Oh, yes! Well, here’s the story. Early on the third day after the murder, when they were still dandling Koch and Pestryakov--though they accounted for every step they took and it was as plain as a pikestaff--an unexpected fact turned up. A peasant called Dushkin, who keeps a dram-shop facing the house, brought to the police office a jeweller’s case containing some gold ear-rings, and told a long rigamarole. ‘The day before yesterday, just after eight o’clock’--mark the day and the hour!--‘a journeyman house-painter, Nikolay, who had been in to see me already that day, brought me this box of gold ear-rings and stones, and asked me to give him two roubles for them. When I asked him where he got them, he said that he picked them up in the street. I did not ask him anything more.’ I am telling you Dushkin’s story. ‘I gave him a note’--a rouble that is--‘for I thought if he did not pawn it with me he would with another. It would all come to the same thing--he’d spend it on drink, so the thing had better be with me. The further you hide it the quicker you will find it, and if anything turns up, if I hear any rumours, I’ll take it to the police.’ Of course, that’s all taradiddle; he lies like a horse, for I know this Dushkin, he is a pawnbroker and a receiver of stolen goods, and he did not cheat Nikolay out of a thirty-rouble trinket in order to give it to the police. He was simply afraid. But no matter, to return to Dushkin’s story. ‘I’ve known this peasant, Nikolay Dementyev, from a child; he comes from the same province and district of Zaraïsk, we are both Ryazan men. And though Nikolay is not a drunkard, he drinks, and I knew he had a job in that house, painting work with Dmitri, who comes from the same village, too. As soon as he got the rouble he changed it, had a couple of glasses, took his change and went out. But I did not see Dmitri with him then. And the next day I heard that someone had murdered Alyona Ivanovna and her sister, Lizaveta Ivanovna, with an axe. I knew them, and I felt suspicious about the ear-rings at once, for I knew the murdered woman lent money on pledges. I went to the house, and began to make careful inquiries without saying a word to anyone. First of all I asked, “Is Nikolay here?” Dmitri told me that Nikolay had gone off on the spree; he had come home at daybreak drunk, stayed in the house about ten minutes, and went out again. Dmitri didn’t see him again and is finishing the job alone. And their job is on the same staircase as the murder, on the second floor. When I heard all that I did not say a word to anyone’--that’s Dushkin’s tale--‘but I found out what I could about the murder, and went home feeling as suspicious as ever. And at eight o’clock this morning’--that was the third day, you understand--‘I saw Nikolay coming in, not sober, though not to say very drunk--he could understand what was said to him. He sat down on the bench and did not speak. There was only one stranger in the bar and a man I knew asleep on a bench and our two boys. “Have you seen Dmitri?” said I. “No, I haven’t,” said he. “And you’ve not been here either?” “Not since the day before yesterday,” said he. “And where did you sleep last night?” “In Peski, with the Kolomensky men.” “And where did you get those ear-rings?” I asked. “I found them in the street,” and the way he said it was a bit queer; he did not look at me. “Did you hear what happened that very evening, at that very hour, on that same staircase?” said I. “No,” said he, “I had not heard,” and all the while he was listening, his eyes were staring out of his head and he turned as white as chalk. I told him all about it and he took his hat and began getting up. I wanted to keep him. “Wait a bit, Nikolay,” said I, “won’t you have a drink?” And I signed to the boy to hold the door, and I came out from behind the bar; but he darted out and down the street to the turning at a run. I have not seen him since. Then my doubts were at an end--it was his doing, as clear as could be....’” “I should think so,” said Zossimov. “Wait! Hear the end. Of course they sought high and low for Nikolay; they detained Dushkin and searched his house; Dmitri, too, was arrested; the Kolomensky men also were turned inside out. And the day before yesterday they arrested Nikolay in a tavern at the end of the town. He had gone there, taken the silver cross off his neck and asked for a dram for it. They gave it to him. A few minutes afterwards the woman went to the cowshed, and through a crack in the wall she saw in the stable adjoining he had made a noose of his sash from the beam, stood on a block of wood, and was trying to put his neck in the noose. The woman screeched her hardest; people ran in. ‘So that’s what you are up to!’ ‘Take me,’ he says, ‘to such-and-such a police officer; I’ll confess everything.’ Well, they took him to that police station--that is here--with a suitable escort. So they asked him this and that, how old he is, ‘twenty-two,’ and so on. At the question, ‘When you were working with Dmitri, didn’t you see anyone on the staircase at such-and-such a time?’--answer: ‘To be sure folks may have gone up and down, but I did not notice them.’ ‘And didn’t you hear anything, any noise, and so on?’ ‘We heard nothing special.’ ‘And did you hear, Nikolay, that on the same day Widow So-and-so and her sister were murdered and robbed?’ ‘I never knew a thing about it. The first I heard of it was from Afanasy Pavlovitch the day before yesterday.’ ‘And where did you find the ear-rings?’ ‘I found them on the pavement.’ ‘Why didn’t you go to work with Dmitri the other day?’ ‘Because I was drinking.’ ‘And where were you drinking?’ ‘Oh, in such-and-such a place.’ ‘Why did you run away from Dushkin’s?’ ‘Because I was awfully frightened.’ ‘What were you frightened of?’ ‘That I should be accused.’ ‘How could you be frightened, if you felt free from guilt?’ Now, Zossimov, you may not believe me, that question was put literally in those words. I know it for a fact, it was repeated to me exactly! What do you say to that?” “Well, anyway, there’s the evidence.” “I am not talking of the evidence now, I am talking about that question, of their own idea of themselves. Well, so they squeezed and squeezed him and he confessed: ‘I did not find it in the street, but in the flat where I was painting with Dmitri.’ ‘And how was that?’ ‘Why, Dmitri and I were painting there all day, and we were just getting ready to go, and Dmitri took a brush and painted my face, and he ran off and I after him. I ran after him, shouting my hardest, and at the bottom of the stairs I ran right against the porter and some gentlemen--and how many gentlemen were there I don’t remember. And the porter swore at me, and the other porter swore, too, and the porter’s wife came out, and swore at us, too; and a gentleman came into the entry with a lady, and he swore at us, too, for Dmitri and I lay right across the way. I got hold of Dmitri’s hair and knocked him down and began beating him. And Dmitri, too, caught me by the hair and began beating me. But we did it all not for temper but in a friendly way, for sport. And then Dmitri escaped and ran into the street, and I ran after him; but I did not catch him, and went back to the flat alone; I had to clear up my things. I began putting them together, expecting Dmitri to come, and there in the passage, in the corner by the door, I stepped on the box. I saw it lying there wrapped up in paper. I took off the paper, saw some little hooks, undid them, and in the box were the ear-rings....’” “Behind the door? Lying behind the door? Behind the door?” Raskolnikov cried suddenly, staring with a blank look of terror at Razumihin, and he slowly sat up on the sofa, leaning on his hand. “Yes... why? What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” Razumihin, too, got up from his seat. “Nothing,” Raskolnikov answered faintly, turning to the wall. All were silent for a while. “He must have waked from a dream,” Razumihin said at last, looking inquiringly at Zossimov. The latter slightly shook his head. “Well, go on,” said Zossimov. “What next?” “What next? As soon as he saw the ear-rings, forgetting Dmitri and everything, he took up his cap and ran to Dushkin and, as we know, got a rouble from him. He told a lie saying he found them in the street, and went off drinking. He keeps repeating his old story about the murder: ‘I know nothing of it, never heard of it till the day before yesterday.’ ‘And why didn’t you come to the police till now?’ ‘I was frightened.’ ‘And why did you try to hang yourself?’ ‘From anxiety.’ ‘What anxiety?’ ‘That I should be accused of it.’ Well, that’s the whole story. And now what do you suppose they deduced from that?” “Why, there’s no supposing. There’s a clue, such as it is, a fact. You wouldn’t have your painter set free?” “Now they’ve simply taken him for the murderer. They haven’t a shadow of doubt.” “That’s nonsense. You are excited. But what about the ear-rings? You must admit that, if on the very same day and hour ear-rings from the old woman’s box have come into Nikolay’s hands, they must have come there somehow. That’s a good deal in such a case.” “How did they get there? How did they get there?” cried Razumihin. “How can you, a doctor, whose duty it is to study man and who has more opportunity than anyone else for studying human nature--how can you fail to see the character of the man in the whole story? Don’t you see at once that the answers he has given in the examination are the holy truth? They came into his hand precisely as he has told us--he stepped on the box and picked it up.” “The holy truth! But didn’t he own himself that he told a lie at first?” “Listen to me, listen attentively. The porter and Koch and Pestryakov and the other porter and the wife of the first porter and the woman who was sitting in the porter’s lodge and the man Kryukov, who had just got out of a cab at that minute and went in at the entry with a lady on his arm, that is eight or ten witnesses, agree that Nikolay had Dmitri on the ground, was lying on him beating him, while Dmitri hung on to his hair, beating him, too. They lay right across the way, blocking the thoroughfare. They were sworn at on all sides while they ‘like children’ (the very words of the witnesses) were falling over one another, squealing, fighting and laughing with the funniest faces, and, chasing one another like children, they ran into the street. Now take careful note. The bodies upstairs were warm, you understand, warm when they found them! If they, or Nikolay alone, had murdered them and broken open the boxes, or simply taken part in the robbery, allow me to ask you one question: do their state of mind, their squeals and giggles and childish scuffling at the gate fit in with axes, bloodshed, fiendish cunning, robbery? They’d just killed them, not five or ten minutes before, for the bodies were still warm, and at once, leaving the flat open, knowing that people would go there at once, flinging away their booty, they rolled about like children, laughing and attracting general attention. And there are a dozen witnesses to swear to that!” “Of course it is strange! It’s impossible, indeed, but...” “No, brother, no _buts_. And if the ear-rings being found in Nikolay’s hands at the very day and hour of the murder constitutes an important piece of circumstantial evidence against him--although the explanation given by him accounts for it, and therefore it does not tell seriously against him--one must take into consideration the facts which prove him innocent, especially as they are facts that _cannot be denied_. And do you suppose, from the character of our legal system, that they will accept, or that they are in a position to accept, this fact--resting simply on a psychological impossibility--as irrefutable and conclusively breaking down the circumstantial evidence for the prosecution? No, they won’t accept it, they certainly won’t, because they found the jewel-case and the man tried to hang himself, ‘which he could not have done if he hadn’t felt guilty.’ That’s the point, that’s what excites me, you must understand!” “Oh, I see you are excited! Wait a bit. I forgot to ask you; what proof is there that the box came from the old woman?” “That’s been proved,” said Razumihin with apparent reluctance, frowning. “Koch recognised the jewel-case and gave the name of the owner, who proved conclusively that it was his.” “That’s bad. Now another point. Did anyone see Nikolay at the time that Koch and Pestryakov were going upstairs at first, and is there no evidence about that?” “Nobody did see him,” Razumihin answered with vexation. “That’s the worst of it. Even Koch and Pestryakov did not notice them on their way upstairs, though, indeed, their evidence could not have been worth much. They said they saw the flat was open, and that there must be work going on in it, but they took no special notice and could not remember whether there actually were men at work in it.” “Hm!... So the only evidence for the defence is that they were beating one another and laughing. That constitutes a strong presumption, but... How do you explain the facts yourself?” “How do I explain them? What is there to explain? It’s clear. At any rate, the direction in which explanation is to be sought is clear, and the jewel-case points to it. The real murderer dropped those ear-rings. The murderer was upstairs, locked in, when Koch and Pestryakov knocked at the door. Koch, like an ass, did not stay at the door; so the murderer popped out and ran down, too; for he had no other way of escape. He hid from Koch, Pestryakov and the porter in the flat when Nikolay and Dmitri had just run out of it. He stopped there while the porter and others were going upstairs, waited till they were out of hearing, and then went calmly downstairs at the very minute when Dmitri and Nikolay ran out into the street and there was no one in the entry; possibly he was seen, but not noticed. There are lots of people going in and out. He must have dropped the ear-rings out of his pocket when he stood behind the door, and did not notice he dropped them, because he had other things to think of. The jewel-case is a conclusive proof that he did stand there.... That’s how I explain it.” “Too clever! No, my boy, you’re too clever. That beats everything.” “But, why, why?” “Why, because everything fits too well... it’s too melodramatic.” “A-ach!” Razumihin was exclaiming, but at that moment the door opened and a personage came in who was a stranger to all present. CHAPTER V This was a gentleman no longer young, of a stiff and portly appearance, and a cautious and sour countenance. He began by stopping short in the doorway, staring about him with offensive and undisguised astonishment, as though asking himself what sort of place he had come to. Mistrustfully and with an affectation of being alarmed and almost affronted, he scanned Raskolnikov’s low and narrow “cabin.” With the same amazement he stared at Raskolnikov, who lay undressed, dishevelled, unwashed, on his miserable dirty sofa, looking fixedly at him. Then with the same deliberation he scrutinised the uncouth, unkempt figure and unshaven face of Razumihin, who looked him boldly and inquiringly in the face without rising from his seat. A constrained silence lasted for a couple of minutes, and then, as might be expected, some scene-shifting took place. Reflecting, probably from certain fairly unmistakable signs, that he would get nothing in this “cabin” by attempting to overawe them, the gentleman softened somewhat, and civilly, though with some severity, emphasising every syllable of his question, addressed Zossimov: “Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, a student, or formerly a student?” Zossimov made a slight movement, and would have answered, had not Razumihin anticipated him. “Here he is lying on the sofa! What do you want?” This familiar “what do you want” seemed to cut the ground from the feet of the pompous gentleman. He was turning to Razumihin, but checked himself in time and turned to Zossimov again. “This is Raskolnikov,” mumbled Zossimov, nodding towards him. Then he gave a prolonged yawn, opening his mouth as wide as possible. Then he lazily put his hand into his waistcoat-pocket, pulled out a huge gold watch in a round hunter’s case, opened it, looked at it and as slowly and lazily proceeded to put it back. Raskolnikov himself lay without speaking, on his back, gazing persistently, though without understanding, at the stranger. Now that his face was turned away from the strange flower on the paper, it was extremely pale and wore a look of anguish, as though he had just undergone an agonising operation or just been taken from the rack. But the new-comer gradually began to arouse his attention, then his wonder, then suspicion and even alarm. When Zossimov said “This is Raskolnikov” he jumped up quickly, sat on the sofa and with an almost defiant, but weak and breaking, voice articulated: “Yes, I am Raskolnikov! What do you want?” The visitor scrutinised him and pronounced impressively: “Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin. I believe I have reason to hope that my name is not wholly unknown to you?” But Raskolnikov, who had expected something quite different, gazed blankly and dreamily at him, making no reply, as though he heard the name of Pyotr Petrovitch for the first time. “Is it possible that you can up to the present have received no information?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted. In reply Raskolnikov sank languidly back on the pillow, put his hands behind his head and gazed at the ceiling. A look of dismay came into Luzhin’s face. Zossimov and Razumihin stared at him more inquisitively than ever, and at last he showed unmistakable signs of embarrassment. “I had presumed and calculated,” he faltered, “that a letter posted more than ten days, if not a fortnight ago...” “I say, why are you standing in the doorway?” Razumihin interrupted suddenly. “If you’ve something to say, sit down. Nastasya and you are so crowded. Nastasya, make room. Here’s a chair, thread your way in!” He moved his chair back from the table, made a little space between the table and his knees, and waited in a rather cramped position for the visitor to “thread his way in.” The minute was so chosen that it was impossible to refuse, and the visitor squeezed his way through, hurrying and stumbling. Reaching the chair, he sat down, looking suspiciously at Razumihin. “No need to be nervous,” the latter blurted out. “Rodya has been ill for the last five days and delirious for three, but now he is recovering and has got an appetite. This is his doctor, who has just had a look at him. I am a comrade of Rodya’s, like him, formerly a student, and now I am nursing him; so don’t you take any notice of us, but go on with your business.” “Thank you. But shall I not disturb the invalid by my presence and conversation?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked of Zossimov. “N-no,” mumbled Zossimov; “you may amuse him.” He yawned again. “He has been conscious a long time, since the morning,” went on Razumihin, whose familiarity seemed so much like unaffected good-nature that Pyotr Petrovitch began to be more cheerful, partly, perhaps, because this shabby and impudent person had introduced himself as a student. “Your mamma,” began Luzhin. “Hm!” Razumihin cleared his throat loudly. Luzhin looked at him inquiringly. “That’s all right, go on.” Luzhin shrugged his shoulders. “Your mamma had commenced a letter to you while I was sojourning in her neighbourhood. On my arrival here I purposely allowed a few days to elapse before coming to see you, in order that I might be fully assured that you were in full possession of the tidings; but now, to my astonishment...” “I know, I know!” Raskolnikov cried suddenly with impatient vexation. “So you are the _fiancé_? I know, and that’s enough!” There was no doubt about Pyotr Petrovitch’s being offended this time, but he said nothing. He made a violent effort to understand what it all meant. There was a moment’s silence. Meanwhile Raskolnikov, who had turned a little towards him when he answered, began suddenly staring at him again with marked curiosity, as though he had not had a good look at him yet, or as though something new had struck him; he rose from his pillow on purpose to stare at him. There certainly was something peculiar in Pyotr Petrovitch’s whole appearance, something which seemed to justify the title of “fiancé” so unceremoniously applied to him. In the first place, it was evident, far too much so indeed, that Pyotr Petrovitch had made eager use of his few days in the capital to get himself up and rig himself out in expectation of his betrothed--a perfectly innocent and permissible proceeding, indeed. Even his own, perhaps too complacent, consciousness of the agreeable improvement in his appearance might have been forgiven in such circumstances, seeing that Pyotr Petrovitch had taken up the rôle of fiancé. All his clothes were fresh from the tailor’s and were all right, except for being too new and too distinctly appropriate. Even the stylish new round hat had the same significance. Pyotr Petrovitch treated it too respectfully and held it too carefully in his hands. The exquisite pair of lavender gloves, real Louvain, told the same tale, if only from the fact of his not wearing them, but carrying them in his hand for show. Light and youthful colours predominated in Pyotr Petrovitch’s attire. He wore a charming summer jacket of a fawn shade, light thin trousers, a waistcoat of the same, new and fine linen, a cravat of the lightest cambric with pink stripes on it, and the best of it was, this all suited Pyotr Petrovitch. His very fresh and even handsome face looked younger than his forty-five years at all times. His dark, mutton-chop whiskers made an agreeable setting on both sides, growing thickly upon his shining, clean-shaven chin. Even his hair, touched here and there with grey, though it had been combed and curled at a hairdresser’s, did not give him a stupid appearance, as curled hair usually does, by inevitably suggesting a German on his wedding-day. If there really was something unpleasing and repulsive in his rather good-looking and imposing countenance, it was due to quite other causes. After scanning Mr. Luzhin unceremoniously, Raskolnikov smiled malignantly, sank back on the pillow and stared at the ceiling as before. But Mr. Luzhin hardened his heart and seemed to determine to take no notice of their oddities. “I feel the greatest regret at finding you in this situation,” he began, again breaking the silence with an effort. “If I had been aware of your illness I should have come earlier. But you know what business is. I have, too, a very important legal affair in the Senate, not to mention other preoccupations which you may well conjecture. I am expecting your mamma and sister any minute.” Raskolnikov made a movement and seemed about to speak; his face showed some excitement. Pyotr Petrovitch paused, waited, but as nothing followed, he went on: “... Any minute. I have found a lodging for them on their arrival.” “Where?” asked Raskolnikov weakly. “Very near here, in Bakaleyev’s house.” “That’s in Voskresensky,” put in Razumihin. “There are two storeys of rooms, let by a merchant called Yushin; I’ve been there.” “Yes, rooms...” “A disgusting place--filthy, stinking and, what’s more, of doubtful character. Things have happened there, and there are all sorts of queer people living there. And I went there about a scandalous business. It’s cheap, though...” “I could not, of course, find out so much about it, for I am a stranger in Petersburg myself,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied huffily. “However, the two rooms are exceedingly clean, and as it is for so short a time... I have already taken a permanent, that is, our future flat,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov, “and I am having it done up. And meanwhile I am myself cramped for room in a lodging with my friend Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, in the flat of Madame Lippevechsel; it was he who told me of Bakaleyev’s house, too...” “Lebeziatnikov?” said Raskolnikov slowly, as if recalling something. “Yes, Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, a clerk in the Ministry. Do you know him?” “Yes... no,” Raskolnikov answered. “Excuse me, I fancied so from your inquiry. I was once his guardian.... A very nice young man and advanced. I like to meet young people: one learns new things from them.” Luzhin looked round hopefully at them all. “How do you mean?” asked Razumihin. “In the most serious and essential matters,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied, as though delighted at the question. “You see, it’s ten years since I visited Petersburg. All the novelties, reforms, ideas have reached us in the provinces, but to see it all more clearly one must be in Petersburg. And it’s my notion that you observe and learn most by watching the younger generation. And I confess I am delighted...” “At what?” “Your question is a wide one. I may be mistaken, but I fancy I find clearer views, more, so to say, criticism, more practicality...” “That’s true,” Zossimov let drop. “Nonsense! There’s no practicality.” Razumihin flew at him. “Practicality is a difficult thing to find; it does not drop down from heaven. And for the last two hundred years we have been divorced from all practical life. Ideas, if you like, are fermenting,” he said to Pyotr Petrovitch, “and desire for good exists, though it’s in a childish form, and honesty you may find, although there are crowds of brigands. Anyway, there’s no practicality. Practicality goes well shod.” “I don’t agree with you,” Pyotr Petrovitch replied, with evident enjoyment. “Of course, people do get carried away and make mistakes, but one must have indulgence; those mistakes are merely evidence of enthusiasm for the cause and of abnormal external environment. If little has been done, the time has been but short; of means I will not speak. It’s my personal view, if you care to know, that something has been accomplished already. New valuable ideas, new valuable works are circulating in the place of our old dreamy and romantic authors. Literature is taking a maturer form, many injurious prejudices have been rooted up and turned into ridicule.... In a word, we have cut ourselves off irrevocably from the past, and that, to my thinking, is a great thing...” “He’s learnt it by heart to show off!” Raskolnikov pronounced suddenly. “What?” asked Pyotr Petrovitch, not catching his words; but he received no reply. “That’s all true,” Zossimov hastened to interpose. “Isn’t it so?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, glancing affably at Zossimov. “You must admit,” he went on, addressing Razumihin with a shade of triumph and superciliousness--he almost added “young man”--“that there is an advance, or, as they say now, progress in the name of science and economic truth...” “A commonplace.” “No, not a commonplace! Hitherto, for instance, if I were told, ‘love thy neighbour,’ what came of it?” Pyotr Petrovitch went on, perhaps with excessive haste. “It came to my tearing my coat in half to share with my neighbour and we both were left half naked. As a Russian proverb has it, ‘Catch several hares and you won’t catch one.’ Science now tells us, love yourself before all men, for everything in the world rests on self-interest. You love yourself and manage your own affairs properly and your coat remains whole. Economic truth adds that the better private affairs are organised in society--the more whole coats, so to say--the firmer are its foundations and the better is the common welfare organised too. Therefore, in acquiring wealth solely and exclusively for myself, I am acquiring, so to speak, for all, and helping to bring to pass my neighbour’s getting a little more than a torn coat; and that not from private, personal liberality, but as a consequence of the general advance. The idea is simple, but unhappily it has been a long time reaching us, being hindered by idealism and sentimentality. And yet it would seem to want very little wit to perceive it...” “Excuse me, I’ve very little wit myself,” Razumihin cut in sharply, “and so let us drop it. I began this discussion with an object, but I’ve grown so sick during the last three years of this chattering to amuse oneself, of this incessant flow of commonplaces, always the same, that, by Jove, I blush even when other people talk like that. You are in a hurry, no doubt, to exhibit your acquirements; and I don’t blame you, that’s quite pardonable. I only wanted to find out what sort of man you are, for so many unscrupulous people have got hold of the progressive cause of late and have so distorted in their own interests everything they touched, that the whole cause has been dragged in the mire. That’s enough!” “Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, affronted, and speaking with excessive dignity. “Do you mean to suggest so unceremoniously that I too...” “Oh, my dear sir... how could I?... Come, that’s enough,” Razumihin concluded, and he turned abruptly to Zossimov to continue their previous conversation. Pyotr Petrovitch had the good sense to accept the disavowal. He made up his mind to take leave in another minute or two. “I trust our acquaintance,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov, “may, upon your recovery and in view of the circumstances of which you are aware, become closer... Above all, I hope for your return to health...” Raskolnikov did not even turn his head. Pyotr Petrovitch began getting up from his chair. “One of her customers must have killed her,” Zossimov declared positively. “Not a doubt of it,” replied Razumihin. “Porfiry doesn’t give his opinion, but is examining all who have left pledges with her there.” “Examining them?” Raskolnikov asked aloud. “Yes. What then?” “Nothing.” “How does he get hold of them?” asked Zossimov. “Koch has given the names of some of them, other names are on the wrappers of the pledges and some have come forward of themselves.” “It must have been a cunning and practised ruffian! The boldness of it! The coolness!” “That’s just what it wasn’t!” interposed Razumihin. “That’s what throws you all off the scent. But I maintain that he is not cunning, not practised, and probably this was his first crime! The supposition that it was a calculated crime and a cunning criminal doesn’t work. Suppose him to have been inexperienced, and it’s clear that it was only a chance that saved him--and chance may do anything. Why, he did not foresee obstacles, perhaps! And how did he set to work? He took jewels worth ten or twenty roubles, stuffing his pockets with them, ransacked the old woman’s trunks, her rags--and they found fifteen hundred roubles, besides notes, in a box in the top drawer of the chest! He did not know how to rob; he could only murder. It was his first crime, I assure you, his first crime; he lost his head. And he got off more by luck than good counsel!” “You are talking of the murder of the old pawnbroker, I believe?” Pyotr Petrovitch put in, addressing Zossimov. He was standing, hat and gloves in hand, but before departing he felt disposed to throw off a few more intellectual phrases. He was evidently anxious to make a favourable impression and his vanity overcame his prudence. “Yes. You’ve heard of it?” “Oh, yes, being in the neighbourhood.” “Do you know the details?” “I can’t say that; but another circumstance interests me in the case--the whole question, so to say. Not to speak of the fact that crime has been greatly on the increase among the lower classes during the last five years, not to speak of the cases of robbery and arson everywhere, what strikes me as the strangest thing is that in the higher classes, too, crime is increasing proportionately. In one place one hears of a student’s robbing the mail on the high road; in another place people of good social position forge false banknotes; in Moscow of late a whole gang has been captured who used to forge lottery tickets, and one of the ringleaders was a lecturer in universal history; then our secretary abroad was murdered from some obscure motive of gain.... And if this old woman, the pawnbroker, has been murdered by someone of a higher class in society--for peasants don’t pawn gold trinkets--how are we to explain this demoralisation of the civilised part of our society?” “There are many economic changes,” put in Zossimov. “How are we to explain it?” Razumihin caught him up. “It might be explained by our inveterate impracticality.” “How do you mean?” “What answer had your lecturer in Moscow to make to the question why he was forging notes? ‘Everybody is getting rich one way or another, so I want to make haste to get rich too.’ I don’t remember the exact words, but the upshot was that he wants money for nothing, without waiting or working! We’ve grown used to having everything ready-made, to walking on crutches, to having our food chewed for us. Then the great hour struck,[*] and every man showed himself in his true colours.” [*] The emancipation of the serfs in 1861 is meant. --TRANSLATOR’S NOTE. “But morality? And so to speak, principles...” “But why do you worry about it?” Raskolnikov interposed suddenly. “It’s in accordance with your theory!” “In accordance with my theory?” “Why, carry out logically the theory you were advocating just now, and it follows that people may be killed...” “Upon my word!” cried Luzhin. “No, that’s not so,” put in Zossimov. Raskolnikov lay with a white face and twitching upper lip, breathing painfully. “There’s a measure in all things,” Luzhin went on superciliously. “Economic ideas are not an incitement to murder, and one has but to suppose...” “And is it true,” Raskolnikov interposed once more suddenly, again in a voice quivering with fury and delight in insulting him, “is it true that you told your _fiancée_... within an hour of her acceptance, that what pleased you most... was that she was a beggar... because it was better to raise a wife from poverty, so that you may have complete control over her, and reproach her with your being her benefactor?” “Upon my word,” Luzhin cried wrathfully and irritably, crimson with confusion, “to distort my words in this way! Excuse me, allow me to assure you that the report which has reached you, or rather, let me say, has been conveyed to you, has no foundation in truth, and I... suspect who... in a word... this arrow... in a word, your mamma... She seemed to me in other things, with all her excellent qualities, of a somewhat high-flown and romantic way of thinking.... But I was a thousand miles from supposing that she would misunderstand and misrepresent things in so fanciful a way.... And indeed... indeed...” “I tell you what,” cried Raskolnikov, raising himself on his pillow and fixing his piercing, glittering eyes upon him, “I tell you what.” “What?” Luzhin stood still, waiting with a defiant and offended face. Silence lasted for some seconds. “Why, if ever again... you dare to mention a single word... about my mother... I shall send you flying downstairs!” “What’s the matter with you?” cried Razumihin. “So that’s how it is?” Luzhin turned pale and bit his lip. “Let me tell you, sir,” he began deliberately, doing his utmost to restrain himself but breathing hard, “at the first moment I saw you you were ill-disposed to me, but I remained here on purpose to find out more. I could forgive a great deal in a sick man and a connection, but you... never after this...” “I am not ill,” cried Raskolnikov. “So much the worse...” “Go to hell!” But Luzhin was already leaving without finishing his speech, squeezing between the table and the chair; Razumihin got up this time to let him pass. Without glancing at anyone, and not even nodding to Zossimov, who had for some time been making signs to him to let the sick man alone, he went out, lifting his hat to the level of his shoulders to avoid crushing it as he stooped to go out of the door. And even the curve of his spine was expressive of the horrible insult he had received. “How could you--how could you!” Razumihin said, shaking his head in perplexity. “Let me alone--let me alone all of you!” Raskolnikov cried in a frenzy. “Will you ever leave off tormenting me? I am not afraid of you! I am not afraid of anyone, anyone now! Get away from me! I want to be alone, alone, alone!” “Come along,” said Zossimov, nodding to Razumihin. “But we can’t leave him like this!” “Come along,” Zossimov repeated insistently, and he went out. Razumihin thought a minute and ran to overtake him. “It might be worse not to obey him,” said Zossimov on the stairs. “He mustn’t be irritated.” “What’s the matter with him?” “If only he could get some favourable shock, that’s what would do it! At first he was better.... You know he has got something on his mind! Some fixed idea weighing on him.... I am very much afraid so; he must have!” “Perhaps it’s that gentleman, Pyotr Petrovitch. From his conversation I gather he is going to marry his sister, and that he had received a letter about it just before his illness....” “Yes, confound the man! he may have upset the case altogether. But have you noticed, he takes no interest in anything, he does not respond to anything except one point on which he seems excited--that’s the murder?” “Yes, yes,” Razumihin agreed, “I noticed that, too. He is interested, frightened. It gave him a shock on the day he was ill in the police office; he fainted.” “Tell me more about that this evening and I’ll tell you something afterwards. He interests me very much! In half an hour I’ll go and see him again.... There’ll be no inflammation though.” “Thanks! And I’ll wait with Pashenka meantime and will keep watch on him through Nastasya....” Raskolnikov, left alone, looked with impatience and misery at Nastasya, but she still lingered. “Won’t you have some tea now?” she asked. “Later! I am sleepy! Leave me.” He turned abruptly to the wall; Nastasya went out. CHAPTER VI But as soon as she went out, he got up, latched the door, undid the parcel which Razumihin had brought in that evening and had tied up again and began dressing. Strange to say, he seemed immediately to have become perfectly calm; not a trace of his recent delirium nor of the panic fear that had haunted him of late. It was the first moment of a strange sudden calm. His movements were precise and definite; a firm purpose was evident in them. “To-day, to-day,” he muttered to himself. He understood that he was still weak, but his intense spiritual concentration gave him strength and self-confidence. He hoped, moreover, that he would not fall down in the street. When he had dressed in entirely new clothes, he looked at the money lying on the table, and after a moment’s thought put it in his pocket. It was twenty-five roubles. He took also all the copper change from the ten roubles spent by Razumihin on the clothes. Then he softly unlatched the door, went out, slipped downstairs and glanced in at the open kitchen door. Nastasya was standing with her back to him, blowing up the landlady’s samovar. She heard nothing. Who would have dreamed of his going out, indeed? A minute later he was in the street. It was nearly eight o’clock, the sun was setting. It was as stifling as before, but he eagerly drank in the stinking, dusty town air. His head felt rather dizzy; a sort of savage energy gleamed suddenly in his feverish eyes and his wasted, pale and yellow face. He did not know and did not think where he was going, he had one thought only: “that all _this_ must be ended to-day, once for all, immediately; that he would not return home without it, because he _would not go on living like that_.” How, with what to make an end? He had not an idea about it, he did not even want to think of it. He drove away thought; thought tortured him. All he knew, all he felt was that everything must be changed “one way or another,” he repeated with desperate and immovable self-confidence and determination. From old habit he took his usual walk in the direction of the Hay Market. A dark-haired young man with a barrel organ was standing in the road in front of a little general shop and was grinding out a very sentimental song. He was accompanying a girl of fifteen, who stood on the pavement in front of him. She was dressed up in a crinoline, a mantle and a straw hat with a flame-coloured feather in it, all very old and shabby. In a strong and rather agreeable voice, cracked and coarsened by street singing, she sang in hope of getting a copper from the shop. Raskolnikov joined two or three listeners, took out a five copeck piece and put it in the girl’s hand. She broke off abruptly on a sentimental high note, shouted sharply to the organ grinder “Come on,” and both moved on to the next shop. “Do you like street music?” said Raskolnikov, addressing a middle-aged man standing idly by him. The man looked at him, startled and wondering. “I love to hear singing to a street organ,” said Raskolnikov, and his manner seemed strangely out of keeping with the subject--“I like it on cold, dark, damp autumn evenings--they must be damp--when all the passers-by have pale green, sickly faces, or better still when wet snow is falling straight down, when there’s no wind--you know what I mean?--and the street lamps shine through it...” “I don’t know.... Excuse me...” muttered the stranger, frightened by the question and Raskolnikov’s strange manner, and he crossed over to the other side of the street. Raskolnikov walked straight on and came out at the corner of the Hay Market, where the huckster and his wife had talked with Lizaveta; but they were not there now. Recognising the place, he stopped, looked round and addressed a young fellow in a red shirt who stood gaping before a corn chandler’s shop. “Isn’t there a man who keeps a booth with his wife at this corner?” “All sorts of people keep booths here,” answered the young man, glancing superciliously at Raskolnikov. “What’s his name?” “What he was christened.” “Aren’t you a Zaraïsky man, too? Which province?” The young man looked at Raskolnikov again. “It’s not a province, your excellency, but a district. Graciously forgive me, your excellency!” “Is that a tavern at the top there?” “Yes, it’s an eating-house and there’s a billiard-room and you’ll find princesses there too.... La-la!” Raskolnikov crossed the square. In that corner there was a dense crowd of peasants. He pushed his way into the thickest part of it, looking at the faces. He felt an unaccountable inclination to enter into conversation with people. But the peasants took no notice of him; they were all shouting in groups together. He stood and thought a little and took a turning to the right in the direction of V. He had often crossed that little street which turns at an angle, leading from the market-place to Sadovy Street. Of late he had often felt drawn to wander about this district, when he felt depressed, that he might feel more so. Now he walked along, thinking of nothing. At that point there is a great block of buildings, entirely let out in dram shops and eating-houses; women were continually running in and out, bare-headed and in their indoor clothes. Here and there they gathered in groups, on the pavement, especially about the entrances to various festive establishments in the lower storeys. From one of these a loud din, sounds of singing, the tinkling of a guitar and shouts of merriment, floated into the street. A crowd of women were thronging round the door; some were sitting on the steps, others on the pavement, others were standing talking. A drunken soldier, smoking a cigarette, was walking near them in the road, swearing; he seemed to be trying to find his way somewhere, but had forgotten where. One beggar was quarrelling with another, and a man dead drunk was lying right across the road. Raskolnikov joined the throng of women, who were talking in husky voices. They were bare-headed and wore cotton dresses and goatskin shoes. There were women of forty and some not more than seventeen; almost all had blackened eyes. He felt strangely attracted by the singing and all the noise and uproar in the saloon below.... someone could be heard within dancing frantically, marking time with his heels to the sounds of the guitar and of a thin falsetto voice singing a jaunty air. He listened intently, gloomily and dreamily, bending down at the entrance and peeping inquisitively in from the pavement. “Oh, my handsome soldier Don’t beat me for nothing,” trilled the thin voice of the singer. Raskolnikov felt a great desire to make out what he was singing, as though everything depended on that. “Shall I go in?” he thought. “They are laughing. From drink. Shall I get drunk?” “Won’t you come in?” one of the women asked him. Her voice was still musical and less thick than the others, she was young and not repulsive--the only one of the group. “Why, she’s pretty,” he said, drawing himself up and looking at her. She smiled, much pleased at the compliment. “You’re very nice looking yourself,” she said. “Isn’t he thin though!” observed another woman in a deep bass. “Have you just come out of a hospital?” “They’re all generals’ daughters, it seems, but they have all snub noses,” interposed a tipsy peasant with a sly smile on his face, wearing a loose coat. “See how jolly they are.” “Go along with you!” “I’ll go, sweetie!” And he darted down into the saloon below. Raskolnikov moved on. “I say, sir,” the girl shouted after him. “What is it?” She hesitated. “I’ll always be pleased to spend an hour with you, kind gentleman, but now I feel shy. Give me six copecks for a drink, there’s a nice young man!” Raskolnikov gave her what came first--fifteen copecks. “Ah, what a good-natured gentleman!” “What’s your name?” “Ask for Duclida.” “Well, that’s too much,” one of the women observed, shaking her head at Duclida. “I don’t know how you can ask like that. I believe I should drop with shame....” Raskolnikov looked curiously at the speaker. She was a pock-marked wench of thirty, covered with bruises, with her upper lip swollen. She made her criticism quietly and earnestly. “Where is it,” thought Raskolnikov. “Where is it I’ve read that someone condemned to death says or thinks, an hour before his death, that if he had to live on some high rock, on such a narrow ledge that he’d only room to stand, and the ocean, everlasting darkness, everlasting solitude, everlasting tempest around him, if he had to remain standing on a square yard of space all his life, a thousand years, eternity, it were better to live so than to die at once! Only to live, to live and live! Life, whatever it may be!... How true it is! Good God, how true! Man is a vile creature!... And vile is he who calls him vile for that,” he added a moment later. He went into another street. “Bah, the Palais de Cristal! Razumihin was just talking of the Palais de Cristal. But what on earth was it I wanted? Yes, the newspapers.... Zossimov said he’d read it in the papers. Have you the papers?” he asked, going into a very spacious and positively clean restaurant, consisting of several rooms, which were, however, rather empty. Two or three people were drinking tea, and in a room further away were sitting four men drinking champagne. Raskolnikov fancied that Zametov was one of them, but he could not be sure at that distance. “What if it is?” he thought. “Will you have vodka?” asked the waiter. “Give me some tea and bring me the papers, the old ones for the last five days, and I’ll give you something.” “Yes, sir, here’s to-day’s. No vodka?” The old newspapers and the tea were brought. Raskolnikov sat down and began to look through them. “Oh, damn... these are the items of intelligence. An accident on a staircase, spontaneous combustion of a shopkeeper from alcohol, a fire in Peski... a fire in the Petersburg quarter... another fire in the Petersburg quarter... and another fire in the Petersburg quarter.... Ah, here it is!” He found at last what he was seeking and began to read it. The lines danced before his eyes, but he read it all and began eagerly seeking later additions in the following numbers. His hands shook with nervous impatience as he turned the sheets. Suddenly someone sat down beside him at his table. He looked up, it was the head clerk Zametov, looking just the same, with the rings on his fingers and the watch-chain, with the curly, black hair, parted and pomaded, with the smart waistcoat, rather shabby coat and doubtful linen. He was in a good humour, at least he was smiling very gaily and good-humouredly. His dark face was rather flushed from the champagne he had drunk. “What, you here?” he began in surprise, speaking as though he’d known him all his life. “Why, Razumihin told me only yesterday you were unconscious. How strange! And do you know I’ve been to see you?” Raskolnikov knew he would come up to him. He laid aside the papers and turned to Zametov. There was a smile on his lips, and a new shade of irritable impatience was apparent in that smile. “I know you have,” he answered. “I’ve heard it. You looked for my sock.... And you know Razumihin has lost his heart to you? He says you’ve been with him to Luise Ivanovna’s--you know, the woman you tried to befriend, for whom you winked to the Explosive Lieutenant and he would not understand. Do you remember? How could he fail to understand--it was quite clear, wasn’t it?” “What a hot head he is!” “The explosive one?” “No, your friend Razumihin.” “You must have a jolly life, Mr. Zametov; entrance free to the most agreeable places. Who’s been pouring champagne into you just now?” “We’ve just been... having a drink together.... You talk about pouring it into me!” “By way of a fee! You profit by everything!” Raskolnikov laughed, “it’s all right, my dear boy,” he added, slapping Zametov on the shoulder. “I am not speaking from temper, but in a friendly way, for sport, as that workman of yours said when he was scuffling with Dmitri, in the case of the old woman....” “How do you know about it?” “Perhaps I know more about it than you do.” “How strange you are.... I am sure you are still very unwell. You oughtn’t to have come out.” “Oh, do I seem strange to you?” “Yes. What are you doing, reading the papers?” “Yes.” “There’s a lot about the fires.” “No, I am not reading about the fires.” Here he looked mysteriously at Zametov; his lips were twisted again in a mocking smile. “No, I am not reading about the fires,” he went on, winking at Zametov. “But confess now, my dear fellow, you’re awfully anxious to know what I am reading about?” “I am not in the least. Mayn’t I ask a question? Why do you keep on...?” “Listen, you are a man of culture and education?” “I was in the sixth class at the gymnasium,” said Zametov with some dignity. “Sixth class! Ah, my cock-sparrow! With your parting and your rings--you are a gentleman of fortune. Foo! what a charming boy!” Here Raskolnikov broke into a nervous laugh right in Zametov’s face. The latter drew back, more amazed than offended. “Foo! how strange you are!” Zametov repeated very seriously. “I can’t help thinking you are still delirious.” “I am delirious? You are fibbing, my cock-sparrow! So I am strange? You find me curious, do you?” “Yes, curious.” “Shall I tell you what I was reading about, what I was looking for? See what a lot of papers I’ve made them bring me. Suspicious, eh?” “Well, what is it?” “You prick up your ears?” “How do you mean--‘prick up my ears’?” “I’ll explain that afterwards, but now, my boy, I declare to you... no, better ‘I confess’... No, that’s not right either; ‘I make a deposition and you take it.’ I depose that I was reading, that I was looking and searching....” he screwed up his eyes and paused. “I was searching--and came here on purpose to do it--for news of the murder of the old pawnbroker woman,” he articulated at last, almost in a whisper, bringing his face exceedingly close to the face of Zametov. Zametov looked at him steadily, without moving or drawing his face away. What struck Zametov afterwards as the strangest part of it all was that silence followed for exactly a minute, and that they gazed at one another all the while. “What if you have been reading about it?” he cried at last, perplexed and impatient. “That’s no business of mine! What of it?” “The same old woman,” Raskolnikov went on in the same whisper, not heeding Zametov’s explanation, “about whom you were talking in the police-office, you remember, when I fainted. Well, do you understand now?” “What do you mean? Understand... what?” Zametov brought out, almost alarmed. Raskolnikov’s set and earnest face was suddenly transformed, and he suddenly went off into the same nervous laugh as before, as though utterly unable to restrain himself. And in one flash he recalled with extraordinary vividness of sensation a moment in the recent past, that moment when he stood with the axe behind the door, while the latch trembled and the men outside swore and shook it, and he had a sudden desire to shout at them, to swear at them, to put out his tongue at them, to mock them, to laugh, and laugh, and laugh! “You are either mad, or...” began Zametov, and he broke off, as though stunned by the idea that had suddenly flashed into his mind. “Or? Or what? What? Come, tell me!” “Nothing,” said Zametov, getting angry, “it’s all nonsense!” Both were silent. After his sudden fit of laughter Raskolnikov became suddenly thoughtful and melancholy. He put his elbow on the table and leaned his head on his hand. He seemed to have completely forgotten Zametov. The silence lasted for some time. “Why don’t you drink your tea? It’s getting cold,” said Zametov. “What! Tea? Oh, yes....” Raskolnikov sipped the glass, put a morsel of bread in his mouth and, suddenly looking at Zametov, seemed to remember everything and pulled himself together. At the same moment his face resumed its original mocking expression. He went on drinking tea. “There have been a great many of these crimes lately,” said Zametov. “Only the other day I read in the _Moscow News_ that a whole gang of false coiners had been caught in Moscow. It was a regular society. They used to forge tickets!” “Oh, but it was a long time ago! I read about it a month ago,” Raskolnikov answered calmly. “So you consider them criminals?” he added, smiling. “Of course they are criminals.” “They? They are children, simpletons, not criminals! Why, half a hundred people meeting for such an object--what an idea! Three would be too many, and then they want to have more faith in one another than in themselves! One has only to blab in his cups and it all collapses. Simpletons! They engaged untrustworthy people to change the notes--what a thing to trust to a casual stranger! Well, let us suppose that these simpletons succeed and each makes a million, and what follows for the rest of their lives? Each is dependent on the others for the rest of his life! Better hang oneself at once! And they did not know how to change the notes either; the man who changed the notes took five thousand roubles, and his hands trembled. He counted the first four thousand, but did not count the fifth thousand--he was in such a hurry to get the money into his pocket and run away. Of course he roused suspicion. And the whole thing came to a crash through one fool! Is it possible?” “That his hands trembled?” observed Zametov, “yes, that’s quite possible. That, I feel quite sure, is possible. Sometimes one can’t stand things.” “Can’t stand that?” “Why, could you stand it then? No, I couldn’t. For the sake of a hundred roubles to face such a terrible experience? To go with false notes into a bank where it’s their business to spot that sort of thing! No, I should not have the face to do it. Would you?” Raskolnikov had an intense desire again “to put his tongue out.” Shivers kept running down his spine. “I should do it quite differently,” Raskolnikov began. “This is how I would change the notes: I’d count the first thousand three or four times backwards and forwards, looking at every note and then I’d set to the second thousand; I’d count that half-way through and then hold some fifty-rouble note to the light, then turn it, then hold it to the light again--to see whether it was a good one. ‘I am afraid,’ I would say, ‘a relation of mine lost twenty-five roubles the other day through a false note,’ and then I’d tell them the whole story. And after I began counting the third, ‘No, excuse me,’ I would say, ‘I fancy I made a mistake in the seventh hundred in that second thousand, I am not sure.’ And so I would give up the third thousand and go back to the second and so on to the end. And when I had finished, I’d pick out one from the fifth and one from the second thousand and take them again to the light and ask again, ‘Change them, please,’ and put the clerk into such a stew that he would not know how to get rid of me. When I’d finished and had gone out, I’d come back, ‘No, excuse me,’ and ask for some explanation. That’s how I’d do it.” “Foo! what terrible things you say!” said Zametov, laughing. “But all that is only talk. I dare say when it came to deeds you’d make a slip. I believe that even a practised, desperate man cannot always reckon on himself, much less you and I. To take an example near home--that old woman murdered in our district. The murderer seems to have been a desperate fellow, he risked everything in open daylight, was saved by a miracle--but his hands shook, too. He did not succeed in robbing the place, he couldn’t stand it. That was clear from the...” Raskolnikov seemed offended. “Clear? Why don’t you catch him then?” he cried, maliciously gibing at Zametov. “Well, they will catch him.” “Who? You? Do you suppose you could catch him? You’ve a tough job! A great point for you is whether a man is spending money or not. If he had no money and suddenly begins spending, he must be the man. So that any child can mislead you.” “The fact is they always do that, though,” answered Zametov. “A man will commit a clever murder at the risk of his life and then at once he goes drinking in a tavern. They are caught spending money, they are not all as cunning as you are. You wouldn’t go to a tavern, of course?” Raskolnikov frowned and looked steadily at Zametov. “You seem to enjoy the subject and would like to know how I should behave in that case, too?” he asked with displeasure. “I should like to,” Zametov answered firmly and seriously. Somewhat too much earnestness began to appear in his words and looks. “Very much?” “Very much!” “All right then. This is how I should behave,” Raskolnikov began, again bringing his face close to Zametov’s, again staring at him and speaking in a whisper, so that the latter positively shuddered. “This is what I should have done. I should have taken the money and jewels, I should have walked out of there and have gone straight to some deserted place with fences round it and scarcely anyone to be seen, some kitchen garden or place of that sort. I should have looked out beforehand some stone weighing a hundredweight or more which had been lying in the corner from the time the house was built. I would lift that stone--there would sure to be a hollow under it, and I would put the jewels and money in that hole. Then I’d roll the stone back so that it would look as before, would press it down with my foot and walk away. And for a year or two, three maybe, I would not touch it. And, well, they could search! There’d be no trace.” “You are a madman,” said Zametov, and for some reason he too spoke in a whisper, and moved away from Raskolnikov, whose eyes were glittering. He had turned fearfully pale and his upper lip was twitching and quivering. He bent down as close as possible to Zametov, and his lips began to move without uttering a word. This lasted for half a minute; he knew what he was doing, but could not restrain himself. The terrible word trembled on his lips, like the latch on that door; in another moment it will break out, in another moment he will let it go, he will speak out. “And what if it was I who murdered the old woman and Lizaveta?” he said suddenly and--realised what he had done. Zametov looked wildly at him and turned white as the tablecloth. His face wore a contorted smile. “But is it possible?” he brought out faintly. Raskolnikov looked wrathfully at him. “Own up that you believed it, yes, you did?” “Not a bit of it, I believe it less than ever now,” Zametov cried hastily. “I’ve caught my cock-sparrow! So you did believe it before, if now you believe less than ever?” “Not at all,” cried Zametov, obviously embarrassed. “Have you been frightening me so as to lead up to this?” “You don’t believe it then? What were you talking about behind my back when I went out of the police-office? And why did the explosive lieutenant question me after I fainted? Hey, there,” he shouted to the waiter, getting up and taking his cap, “how much?” “Thirty copecks,” the latter replied, running up. “And there is twenty copecks for vodka. See what a lot of money!” he held out his shaking hand to Zametov with notes in it. “Red notes and blue, twenty-five roubles. Where did I get them? And where did my new clothes come from? You know I had not a copeck. You’ve cross-examined my landlady, I’ll be bound.... Well, that’s enough! _Assez causé!_ Till we meet again!” He went out, trembling all over from a sort of wild hysterical sensation, in which there was an element of insufferable rapture. Yet he was gloomy and terribly tired. His face was twisted as after a fit. His fatigue increased rapidly. Any shock, any irritating sensation stimulated and revived his energies at once, but his strength failed as quickly when the stimulus was removed. Zametov, left alone, sat for a long time in the same place, plunged in thought. Raskolnikov had unwittingly worked a revolution in his brain on a certain point and had made up his mind for him conclusively. “Ilya Petrovitch is a blockhead,” he decided. Raskolnikov had hardly opened the door of the restaurant when he stumbled against Razumihin on the steps. They did not see each other till they almost knocked against each other. For a moment they stood looking each other up and down. Razumihin was greatly astounded, then anger, real anger gleamed fiercely in his eyes. “So here you are!” he shouted at the top of his voice--“you ran away from your bed! And here I’ve been looking for you under the sofa! We went up to the garret. I almost beat Nastasya on your account. And here he is after all. Rodya! What is the meaning of it? Tell me the whole truth! Confess! Do you hear?” “It means that I’m sick to death of you all and I want to be alone,” Raskolnikov answered calmly. “Alone? When you are not able to walk, when your face is as white as a sheet and you are gasping for breath! Idiot!... What have you been doing in the Palais de Cristal? Own up at once!” “Let me go!” said Raskolnikov and tried to pass him. This was too much for Razumihin; he gripped him firmly by the shoulder. “Let you go? You dare tell me to let you go? Do you know what I’ll do with you directly? I’ll pick you up, tie you up in a bundle, carry you home under my arm and lock you up!” “Listen, Razumihin,” Raskolnikov began quietly, apparently calm--“can’t you see that I don’t want your benevolence? A strange desire you have to shower benefits on a man who... curses them, who feels them a burden in fact! Why did you seek me out at the beginning of my illness? Maybe I was very glad to die. Didn’t I tell you plainly enough to-day that you were torturing me, that I was... sick of you! You seem to want to torture people! I assure you that all that is seriously hindering my recovery, because it’s continually irritating me. You saw Zossimov went away just now to avoid irritating me. You leave me alone too, for goodness’ sake! What right have you, indeed, to keep me by force? Don’t you see that I am in possession of all my faculties now? How, how can I persuade you not to persecute me with your kindness? I may be ungrateful, I may be mean, only let me be, for God’s sake, let me be! Let me be, let me be!” He began calmly, gloating beforehand over the venomous phrases he was about to utter, but finished, panting for breath, in a frenzy, as he had been with Luzhin. Razumihin stood a moment, thought and let his hand drop. “Well, go to hell then,” he said gently and thoughtfully. “Stay,” he roared, as Raskolnikov was about to move. “Listen to me. Let me tell you, that you are all a set of babbling, posing idiots! If you’ve any little trouble you brood over it like a hen over an egg. And you are plagiarists even in that! There isn’t a sign of independent life in you! You are made of spermaceti ointment and you’ve lymph in your veins instead of blood. I don’t believe in anyone of you! In any circumstances the first thing for all of you is to be unlike a human being! Stop!” he cried with redoubled fury, noticing that Raskolnikov was again making a movement--“hear me out! You know I’m having a house-warming this evening, I dare say they’ve arrived by now, but I left my uncle there--I just ran in--to receive the guests. And if you weren’t a fool, a common fool, a perfect fool, if you were an original instead of a translation... you see, Rodya, I recognise you’re a clever fellow, but you’re a fool!--and if you weren’t a fool you’d come round to me this evening instead of wearing out your boots in the street! Since you have gone out, there’s no help for it! I’d give you a snug easy chair, my landlady has one... a cup of tea, company.... Or you could lie on the sofa--any way you would be with us.... Zossimov will be there too. Will you come?” “No.” “R-rubbish!” Razumihin shouted, out of patience. “How do you know? You can’t answer for yourself! You don’t know anything about it.... Thousands of times I’ve fought tooth and nail with people and run back to them afterwards.... One feels ashamed and goes back to a man! So remember, Potchinkov’s house on the third storey....” “Why, Mr. Razumihin, I do believe you’d let anybody beat you from sheer benevolence.” “Beat? Whom? Me? I’d twist his nose off at the mere idea! Potchinkov’s house, 47, Babushkin’s flat....” “I shall not come, Razumihin.” Raskolnikov turned and walked away. “I bet you will,” Razumihin shouted after him. “I refuse to know you if you don’t! Stay, hey, is Zametov in there?” “Yes.” “Did you see him?” “Yes.” “Talked to him?” “Yes.” “What about? Confound you, don’t tell me then. Potchinkov’s house, 47, Babushkin’s flat, remember!” Raskolnikov walked on and turned the corner into Sadovy Street. Razumihin looked after him thoughtfully. Then with a wave of his hand he went into the house but stopped short of the stairs. “Confound it,” he went on almost aloud. “He talked sensibly but yet... I am a fool! As if madmen didn’t talk sensibly! And this was just what Zossimov seemed afraid of.” He struck his finger on his forehead. “What if... how could I let him go off alone? He may drown himself.... Ach, what a blunder! I can’t.” And he ran back to overtake Raskolnikov, but there was no trace of him. With a curse he returned with rapid steps to the Palais de Cristal to question Zametov. Raskolnikov walked straight to X---- Bridge, stood in the middle, and leaning both elbows on the rail stared into the distance. On parting with Razumihin, he felt so much weaker that he could scarcely reach this place. He longed to sit or lie down somewhere in the street. Bending over the water, he gazed mechanically at the last pink flush of the sunset, at the row of houses growing dark in the gathering twilight, at one distant attic window on the left bank, flashing as though on fire in the last rays of the setting sun, at the darkening water of the canal, and the water seemed to catch his attention. At last red circles flashed before his eyes, the houses seemed moving, the passers-by, the canal banks, the carriages, all danced before his eyes. Suddenly he started, saved again perhaps from swooning by an uncanny and hideous sight. He became aware of someone standing on the right side of him; he looked and saw a tall woman with a kerchief on her head, with a long, yellow, wasted face and red sunken eyes. She was looking straight at him, but obviously she saw nothing and recognised no one. Suddenly she leaned her right hand on the parapet, lifted her right leg over the railing, then her left and threw herself into the canal. The filthy water parted and swallowed up its victim for a moment, but an instant later the drowning woman floated to the surface, moving slowly with the current, her head and legs in the water, her skirt inflated like a balloon over her back. “A woman drowning! A woman drowning!” shouted dozens of voices; people ran up, both banks were thronged with spectators, on the bridge people crowded about Raskolnikov, pressing up behind him. “Mercy on it! it’s our Afrosinya!” a woman cried tearfully close by. “Mercy! save her! kind people, pull her out!” “A boat, a boat” was shouted in the crowd. But there was no need of a boat; a policeman ran down the steps to the canal, threw off his great coat and his boots and rushed into the water. It was easy to reach her: she floated within a couple of yards from the steps, he caught hold of her clothes with his right hand and with his left seized a pole which a comrade held out to him; the drowning woman was pulled out at once. They laid her on the granite pavement of the embankment. She soon recovered consciousness, raised her head, sat up and began sneezing and coughing, stupidly wiping her wet dress with her hands. She said nothing. “She’s drunk herself out of her senses,” the same woman’s voice wailed at her side. “Out of her senses. The other day she tried to hang herself, we cut her down. I ran out to the shop just now, left my little girl to look after her--and here she’s in trouble again! A neighbour, gentleman, a neighbour, we live close by, the second house from the end, see yonder....” The crowd broke up. The police still remained round the woman, someone mentioned the police station.... Raskolnikov looked on with a strange sensation of indifference and apathy. He felt disgusted. “No, that’s loathsome... water... it’s not good enough,” he muttered to himself. “Nothing will come of it,” he added, “no use to wait. What about the police office...? And why isn’t Zametov at the police office? The police office is open till ten o’clock....” He turned his back to the railing and looked about him. “Very well then!” he said resolutely; he moved from the bridge and walked in the direction of the police office. His heart felt hollow and empty. He did not want to think. Even his depression had passed, there was not a trace now of the energy with which he had set out “to make an end of it all.” Complete apathy had succeeded to it. “Well, it’s a way out of it,” he thought, walking slowly and listlessly along the canal bank. “Anyway I’ll make an end, for I want to.... But is it a way out? What does it matter! There’ll be the square yard of space--ha! But what an end! Is it really the end? Shall I tell them or not? Ah... damn! How tired I am! If I could find somewhere to sit or lie down soon! What I am most ashamed of is its being so stupid. But I don’t care about that either! What idiotic ideas come into one’s head.” To reach the police office he had to go straight forward and take the second turning to the left. It was only a few paces away. But at the first turning he stopped and, after a minute’s thought, turned into a side street and went two streets out of his way, possibly without any object, or possibly to delay a minute and gain time. He walked, looking at the ground; suddenly someone seemed to whisper in his ear; he lifted his head and saw that he was standing at the very gate of _the_ house. He had not passed it, he had not been near it since _that_ evening. An overwhelming, unaccountable prompting drew him on. He went into the house, passed through the gateway, then into the first entrance on the right, and began mounting the familiar staircase to the fourth storey. The narrow, steep staircase was very dark. He stopped at each landing and looked round him with curiosity; on the first landing the framework of the window had been taken out. “That wasn’t so then,” he thought. Here was the flat on the second storey where Nikolay and Dmitri had been working. “It’s shut up and the door newly painted. So it’s to let.” Then the third storey and the fourth. “Here!” He was perplexed to find the door of the flat wide open. There were men there, he could hear voices; he had not expected that. After brief hesitation he mounted the last stairs and went into the flat. It, too, was being done up; there were workmen in it. This seemed to amaze him; he somehow fancied that he would find everything as he left it, even perhaps the corpses in the same places on the floor. And now, bare walls, no furniture; it seemed strange. He walked to the window and sat down on the window-sill. There were two workmen, both young fellows, but one much younger than the other. They were papering the walls with a new white paper covered with lilac flowers, instead of the old, dirty, yellow one. Raskolnikov for some reason felt horribly annoyed by this. He looked at the new paper with dislike, as though he felt sorry to have it all so changed. The workmen had obviously stayed beyond their time and now they were hurriedly rolling up their paper and getting ready to go home. They took no notice of Raskolnikov’s coming in; they were talking. Raskolnikov folded his arms and listened. “She comes to me in the morning,” said the elder to the younger, “very early, all dressed up. ‘Why are you preening and prinking?’ says I. ‘I am ready to do anything to please you, Tit Vassilitch!’ That’s a way of going on! And she dressed up like a regular fashion book!” “And what is a fashion book?” the younger one asked. He obviously regarded the other as an authority. “A fashion book is a lot of pictures, coloured, and they come to the tailors here every Saturday, by post from abroad, to show folks how to dress, the male sex as well as the female. They’re pictures. The gentlemen are generally wearing fur coats and for the ladies’ fluffles, they’re beyond anything you can fancy.” “There’s nothing you can’t find in Petersburg,” the younger cried enthusiastically, “except father and mother, there’s everything!” “Except them, there’s everything to be found, my boy,” the elder declared sententiously. Raskolnikov got up and walked into the other room where the strong box, the bed, and the chest of drawers had been; the room seemed to him very tiny without furniture in it. The paper was the same; the paper in the corner showed where the case of ikons had stood. He looked at it and went to the window. The elder workman looked at him askance. “What do you want?” he asked suddenly. Instead of answering Raskolnikov went into the passage and pulled the bell. The same bell, the same cracked note. He rang it a second and a third time; he listened and remembered. The hideous and agonisingly fearful sensation he had felt then began to come back more and more vividly. He shuddered at every ring and it gave him more and more satisfaction. “Well, what do you want? Who are you?” the workman shouted, going out to him. Raskolnikov went inside again. “I want to take a flat,” he said. “I am looking round.” “It’s not the time to look at rooms at night! and you ought to come up with the porter.” “The floors have been washed, will they be painted?” Raskolnikov went on. “Is there no blood?” “What blood?” “Why, the old woman and her sister were murdered here. There was a perfect pool there.” “But who are you?” the workman cried, uneasy. “Who am I?” “Yes.” “You want to know? Come to the police station, I’ll tell you.” The workmen looked at him in amazement. “It’s time for us to go, we are late. Come along, Alyoshka. We must lock up,” said the elder workman. “Very well, come along,” said Raskolnikov indifferently, and going out first, he went slowly downstairs. “Hey, porter,” he cried in the gateway. At the entrance several people were standing, staring at the passers-by; the two porters, a peasant woman, a man in a long coat and a few others. Raskolnikov went straight up to them. “What do you want?” asked one of the porters. “Have you been to the police office?” “I’ve just been there. What do you want?” “Is it open?” “Of course.” “Is the assistant there?” “He was there for a time. What do you want?” Raskolnikov made no reply, but stood beside them lost in thought. “He’s been to look at the flat,” said the elder workman, coming forward. “Which flat?” “Where we are at work. ‘Why have you washed away the blood?’ says he. ‘There has been a murder here,’ says he, ‘and I’ve come to take it.’ And he began ringing at the bell, all but broke it. ‘Come to the police station,’ says he. ‘I’ll tell you everything there.’ He wouldn’t leave us.” The porter looked at Raskolnikov, frowning and perplexed. “Who are you?” he shouted as impressively as he could. “I am Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov, formerly a student, I live in Shil’s house, not far from here, flat Number 14, ask the porter, he knows me.” Raskolnikov said all this in a lazy, dreamy voice, not turning round, but looking intently into the darkening street. “Why have you been to the flat?” “To look at it.” “What is there to look at?” “Take him straight to the police station,” the man in the long coat jerked in abruptly. Raskolnikov looked intently at him over his shoulder and said in the same slow, lazy tones: “Come along.” “Yes, take him,” the man went on more confidently. “Why was he going into _that_, what’s in his mind, eh?” “He’s not drunk, but God knows what’s the matter with him,” muttered the workman. “But what do you want?” the porter shouted again, beginning to get angry in earnest--“Why are you hanging about?” “You funk the police station then?” said Raskolnikov jeeringly. “How funk it? Why are you hanging about?” “He’s a rogue!” shouted the peasant woman. “Why waste time talking to him?” cried the other porter, a huge peasant in a full open coat and with keys on his belt. “Get along! He is a rogue and no mistake. Get along!” And seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder he flung him into the street. He lurched forward, but recovered his footing, looked at the spectators in silence and walked away. “Strange man!” observed the workman. “There are strange folks about nowadays,” said the woman. “You should have taken him to the police station all the same,” said the man in the long coat. “Better have nothing to do with him,” decided the big porter. “A regular rogue! Just what he wants, you may be sure, but once take him up, you won’t get rid of him.... We know the sort!” “Shall I go there or not?” thought Raskolnikov, standing in the middle of the thoroughfare at the cross-roads, and he looked about him, as though expecting from someone a decisive word. But no sound came, all was dead and silent like the stones on which he walked, dead to him, to him alone.... All at once at the end of the street, two hundred yards away, in the gathering dusk he saw a crowd and heard talk and shouts. In the middle of the crowd stood a carriage.... A light gleamed in the middle of the street. “What is it?” Raskolnikov turned to the right and went up to the crowd. He seemed to clutch at everything and smiled coldly when he recognised it, for he had fully made up his mind to go to the police station and knew that it would all soon be over. CHAPTER VII An elegant carriage stood in the middle of the road with a pair of spirited grey horses; there was no one in it, and the coachman had got off his box and stood by; the horses were being held by the bridle.... A mass of people had gathered round, the police standing in front. One of them held a lighted lantern which he was turning on something lying close to the wheels. Everyone was talking, shouting, exclaiming; the coachman seemed at a loss and kept repeating: “What a misfortune! Good Lord, what a misfortune!” Raskolnikov pushed his way in as far as he could, and succeeded at last in seeing the object of the commotion and interest. On the ground a man who had been run over lay apparently unconscious, and covered with blood; he was very badly dressed, but not like a workman. Blood was flowing from his head and face; his face was crushed, mutilated and disfigured. He was evidently badly injured. “Merciful heaven!” wailed the coachman, “what more could I do? If I’d been driving fast or had not shouted to him, but I was going quietly, not in a hurry. Everyone could see I was going along just like everybody else. A drunken man can’t walk straight, we all know.... I saw him crossing the street, staggering and almost falling. I shouted again and a second and a third time, then I held the horses in, but he fell straight under their feet! Either he did it on purpose or he was very tipsy.... The horses are young and ready to take fright... they started, he screamed... that made them worse. That’s how it happened!” “That’s just how it was,” a voice in the crowd confirmed. “He shouted, that’s true, he shouted three times,” another voice declared. “Three times it was, we all heard it,” shouted a third. But the coachman was not very much distressed and frightened. It was evident that the carriage belonged to a rich and important person who was awaiting it somewhere; the police, of course, were in no little anxiety to avoid upsetting his arrangements. All they had to do was to take the injured man to the police station and the hospital. No one knew his name. Meanwhile Raskolnikov had squeezed in and stooped closer over him. The lantern suddenly lighted up the unfortunate man’s face. He recognised him. “I know him! I know him!” he shouted, pushing to the front. “It’s a government clerk retired from the service, Marmeladov. He lives close by in Kozel’s house.... Make haste for a doctor! I will pay, see?” He pulled money out of his pocket and showed it to the policeman. He was in violent agitation. The police were glad that they had found out who the man was. Raskolnikov gave his own name and address, and, as earnestly as if it had been his father, he besought the police to carry the unconscious Marmeladov to his lodging at once. “Just here, three houses away,” he said eagerly, “the house belongs to Kozel, a rich German. He was going home, no doubt drunk. I know him, he is a drunkard. He has a family there, a wife, children, he has one daughter.... It will take time to take him to the hospital, and there is sure to be a doctor in the house. I’ll pay, I’ll pay! At least he will be looked after at home... they will help him at once. But he’ll die before you get him to the hospital.” He managed to slip something unseen into the policeman’s hand. But the thing was straightforward and legitimate, and in any case help was closer here. They raised the injured man; people volunteered to help. Kozel’s house was thirty yards away. Raskolnikov walked behind, carefully holding Marmeladov’s head and showing the way. “This way, this way! We must take him upstairs head foremost. Turn round! I’ll pay, I’ll make it worth your while,” he muttered. Katerina Ivanovna had just begun, as she always did at every free moment, walking to and fro in her little room from window to stove and back again, with her arms folded across her chest, talking to herself and coughing. Of late she had begun to talk more than ever to her eldest girl, Polenka, a child of ten, who, though there was much she did not understand, understood very well that her mother needed her, and so always watched her with her big clever eyes and strove her utmost to appear to understand. This time Polenka was undressing her little brother, who had been unwell all day and was going to bed. The boy was waiting for her to take off his shirt, which had to be washed at night. He was sitting straight and motionless on a chair, with a silent, serious face, with his legs stretched out straight before him--heels together and toes turned out. He was listening to what his mother was saying to his sister, sitting perfectly still with pouting lips and wide-open eyes, just as all good little boys have to sit when they are undressed to go to bed. A little girl, still younger, dressed literally in rags, stood at the screen, waiting for her turn. The door on to the stairs was open to relieve them a little from the clouds of tobacco smoke which floated in from the other rooms and brought on long terrible fits of coughing in the poor, consumptive woman. Katerina Ivanovna seemed to have grown even thinner during that week and the hectic flush on her face was brighter than ever. “You wouldn’t believe, you can’t imagine, Polenka,” she said, walking about the room, “what a happy luxurious life we had in my papa’s house and how this drunkard has brought me, and will bring you all, to ruin! Papa was a civil colonel and only a step from being a governor; so that everyone who came to see him said, ‘We look upon you, Ivan Mihailovitch, as our governor!’ When I... when...” she coughed violently, “oh, cursed life,” she cried, clearing her throat and pressing her hands to her breast, “when I... when at the last ball... at the marshal’s... Princess Bezzemelny saw me--who gave me the blessing when your father and I were married, Polenka--she asked at once ‘Isn’t that the pretty girl who danced the shawl dance at the breaking-up?’ (You must mend that tear, you must take your needle and darn it as I showed you, or to-morrow--cough, cough, cough--he will make the hole bigger,” she articulated with effort.) “Prince Schegolskoy, a kammerjunker, had just come from Petersburg then... he danced the mazurka with me and wanted to make me an offer next day; but I thanked him in flattering expressions and told him that my heart had long been another’s. That other was your father, Polya; papa was fearfully angry.... Is the water ready? Give me the shirt, and the stockings! Lida,” said she to the youngest one, “you must manage without your chemise to-night... and lay your stockings out with it... I’ll wash them together.... How is it that drunken vagabond doesn’t come in? He has worn his shirt till it looks like a dish-clout, he has torn it to rags! I’d do it all together, so as not to have to work two nights running! Oh, dear! (Cough, cough, cough, cough!) Again! What’s this?” she cried, noticing a crowd in the passage and the men, who were pushing into her room, carrying a burden. “What is it? What are they bringing? Mercy on us!” “Where are we to put him?” asked the policeman, looking round when Marmeladov, unconscious and covered with blood, had been carried in. “On the sofa! Put him straight on the sofa, with his head this way,” Raskolnikov showed him. “Run over in the road! Drunk!” someone shouted in the passage. Katerina Ivanovna stood, turning white and gasping for breath. The children were terrified. Little Lida screamed, rushed to Polenka and clutched at her, trembling all over. Having laid Marmeladov down, Raskolnikov flew to Katerina Ivanovna. “For God’s sake be calm, don’t be frightened!” he said, speaking quickly, “he was crossing the road and was run over by a carriage, don’t be frightened, he will come to, I told them bring him here... I’ve been here already, you remember? He will come to; I’ll pay!” “He’s done it this time!” Katerina Ivanovna cried despairingly and she rushed to her husband. Raskolnikov noticed at once that she was not one of those women who swoon easily. She instantly placed under the luckless man’s head a pillow, which no one had thought of and began undressing and examining him. She kept her head, forgetting herself, biting her trembling lips and stifling the screams which were ready to break from her. Raskolnikov meanwhile induced someone to run for a doctor. There was a doctor, it appeared, next door but one. “I’ve sent for a doctor,” he kept assuring Katerina Ivanovna, “don’t be uneasy, I’ll pay. Haven’t you water?... and give me a napkin or a towel, anything, as quick as you can.... He is injured, but not killed, believe me.... We shall see what the doctor says!” Katerina Ivanovna ran to the window; there, on a broken chair in the corner, a large earthenware basin full of water had been stood, in readiness for washing her children’s and husband’s linen that night. This washing was done by Katerina Ivanovna at night at least twice a week, if not oftener. For the family had come to such a pass that they were practically without change of linen, and Katerina Ivanovna could not endure uncleanliness and, rather than see dirt in the house, she preferred to wear herself out at night, working beyond her strength when the rest were asleep, so as to get the wet linen hung on a line and dry by the morning. She took up the basin of water at Raskolnikov’s request, but almost fell down with her burden. But the latter had already succeeded in finding a towel, wetted it and began washing the blood off Marmeladov’s face. Katerina Ivanovna stood by, breathing painfully and pressing her hands to her breast. She was in need of attention herself. Raskolnikov began to realise that he might have made a mistake in having the injured man brought here. The policeman, too, stood in hesitation. “Polenka,” cried Katerina Ivanovna, “run to Sonia, make haste. If you don’t find her at home, leave word that her father has been run over and that she is to come here at once... when she comes in. Run, Polenka! there, put on the shawl.” “Run your fastest!” cried the little boy on the chair suddenly, after which he relapsed into the same dumb rigidity, with round eyes, his heels thrust forward and his toes spread out. Meanwhile the room had become so full of people that you couldn’t have dropped a pin. The policemen left, all except one, who remained for a time, trying to drive out the people who came in from the stairs. Almost all Madame Lippevechsel’s lodgers had streamed in from the inner rooms of the flat; at first they were squeezed together in the doorway, but afterwards they overflowed into the room. Katerina Ivanovna flew into a fury. “You might let him die in peace, at least,” she shouted at the crowd, “is it a spectacle for you to gape at? With cigarettes! (Cough, cough, cough!) You might as well keep your hats on.... And there is one in his hat!... Get away! You should respect the dead, at least!” Her cough choked her--but her reproaches were not without result. They evidently stood in some awe of Katerina Ivanovna. The lodgers, one after another, squeezed back into the doorway with that strange inner feeling of satisfaction which may be observed in the presence of a sudden accident, even in those nearest and dearest to the victim, from which no living man is exempt, even in spite of the sincerest sympathy and compassion. Voices outside were heard, however, speaking of the hospital and saying that they’d no business to make a disturbance here. “No business to die!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, and she was rushing to the door to vent her wrath upon them, but in the doorway came face to face with Madame Lippevechsel who had only just heard of the accident and ran in to restore order. She was a particularly quarrelsome and irresponsible German. “Ah, my God!” she cried, clasping her hands, “your husband drunken horses have trampled! To the hospital with him! I am the landlady!” “Amalia Ludwigovna, I beg you to recollect what you are saying,” Katerina Ivanovna began haughtily (she always took a haughty tone with the landlady that she might “remember her place” and even now could not deny herself this satisfaction). “Amalia Ludwigovna...” “I have you once before told that you to call me Amalia Ludwigovna may not dare; I am Amalia Ivanovna.” “You are not Amalia Ivanovna, but Amalia Ludwigovna, and as I am not one of your despicable flatterers like Mr. Lebeziatnikov, who’s laughing behind the door at this moment (a laugh and a cry of ‘they are at it again’ was in fact audible at the door) so I shall always call you Amalia Ludwigovna, though I fail to understand why you dislike that name. You can see for yourself what has happened to Semyon Zaharovitch; he is dying. I beg you to close that door at once and to admit no one. Let him at least die in peace! Or I warn you the Governor-General, himself, shall be informed of your conduct to-morrow. The prince knew me as a girl; he remembers Semyon Zaharovitch well and has often been a benefactor to him. Everyone knows that Semyon Zaharovitch had many friends and protectors, whom he abandoned himself from an honourable pride, knowing his unhappy weakness, but now (she pointed to Raskolnikov) a generous young man has come to our assistance, who has wealth and connections and whom Semyon Zaharovitch has known from a child. You may rest assured, Amalia Ludwigovna...” All this was uttered with extreme rapidity, getting quicker and quicker, but a cough suddenly cut short Katerina Ivanovna’s eloquence. At that instant the dying man recovered consciousness and uttered a groan; she ran to him. The injured man opened his eyes and without recognition or understanding gazed at Raskolnikov who was bending over him. He drew deep, slow, painful breaths; blood oozed at the corners of his mouth and drops of perspiration came out on his forehead. Not recognising Raskolnikov, he began looking round uneasily. Katerina Ivanovna looked at him with a sad but stern face, and tears trickled from her eyes. “My God! His whole chest is crushed! How he is bleeding,” she said in despair. “We must take off his clothes. Turn a little, Semyon Zaharovitch, if you can,” she cried to him. Marmeladov recognised her. “A priest,” he articulated huskily. Katerina Ivanovna walked to the window, laid her head against the window frame and exclaimed in despair: “Oh, cursed life!” “A priest,” the dying man said again after a moment’s silence. “They’ve gone for him,” Katerina Ivanovna shouted to him, he obeyed her shout and was silent. With sad and timid eyes he looked for her; she returned and stood by his pillow. He seemed a little easier but not for long. Soon his eyes rested on little Lida, his favourite, who was shaking in the corner, as though she were in a fit, and staring at him with her wondering childish eyes. “A-ah,” he signed towards her uneasily. He wanted to say something. “What now?” cried Katerina Ivanovna. “Barefoot, barefoot!” he muttered, indicating with frenzied eyes the child’s bare feet. “Be silent,” Katerina Ivanovna cried irritably, “you know why she is barefooted.” “Thank God, the doctor,” exclaimed Raskolnikov, relieved. The doctor came in, a precise little old man, a German, looking about him mistrustfully; he went up to the sick man, took his pulse, carefully felt his head and with the help of Katerina Ivanovna he unbuttoned the blood-stained shirt, and bared the injured man’s chest. It was gashed, crushed and fractured, several ribs on the right side were broken. On the left side, just over the heart, was a large, sinister-looking yellowish-black bruise--a cruel kick from the horse’s hoof. The doctor frowned. The policeman told him that he was caught in the wheel and turned round with it for thirty yards on the road. “It’s wonderful that he has recovered consciousness,” the doctor whispered softly to Raskolnikov. “What do you think of him?” he asked. “He will die immediately.” “Is there really no hope?” “Not the faintest! He is at the last gasp.... His head is badly injured, too... Hm... I could bleed him if you like, but... it would be useless. He is bound to die within the next five or ten minutes.” “Better bleed him then.” “If you like.... But I warn you it will be perfectly useless.” At that moment other steps were heard; the crowd in the passage parted, and the priest, a little, grey old man, appeared in the doorway bearing the sacrament. A policeman had gone for him at the time of the accident. The doctor changed places with him, exchanging glances with him. Raskolnikov begged the doctor to remain a little while. He shrugged his shoulders and remained. All stepped back. The confession was soon over. The dying man probably understood little; he could only utter indistinct broken sounds. Katerina Ivanovna took little Lida, lifted the boy from the chair, knelt down in the corner by the stove and made the children kneel in front of her. The little girl was still trembling; but the boy, kneeling on his little bare knees, lifted his hand rhythmically, crossing himself with precision and bowed down, touching the floor with his forehead, which seemed to afford him especial satisfaction. Katerina Ivanovna bit her lips and held back her tears; she prayed, too, now and then pulling straight the boy’s shirt, and managed to cover the girl’s bare shoulders with a kerchief, which she took from the chest without rising from her knees or ceasing to pray. Meanwhile the door from the inner rooms was opened inquisitively again. In the passage the crowd of spectators from all the flats on the staircase grew denser and denser, but they did not venture beyond the threshold. A single candle-end lighted up the scene. At that moment Polenka forced her way through the crowd at the door. She came in panting from running so fast, took off her kerchief, looked for her mother, went up to her and said, “She’s coming, I met her in the street.” Her mother made her kneel beside her. Timidly and noiselessly a young girl made her way through the crowd, and strange was her appearance in that room, in the midst of want, rags, death and despair. She, too, was in rags, her attire was all of the cheapest, but decked out in gutter finery of a special stamp, unmistakably betraying its shameful purpose. Sonia stopped short in the doorway and looked about her bewildered, unconscious of everything. She forgot her fourth-hand, gaudy silk dress, so unseemly here with its ridiculous long train, and her immense crinoline that filled up the whole doorway, and her light-coloured shoes, and the parasol she brought with her, though it was no use at night, and the absurd round straw hat with its flaring flame-coloured feather. Under this rakishly-tilted hat was a pale, frightened little face with lips parted and eyes staring in terror. Sonia was a small thin girl of eighteen with fair hair, rather pretty, with wonderful blue eyes. She looked intently at the bed and the priest; she too was out of breath with running. At last whispers, some words in the crowd probably, reached her. She looked down and took a step forward into the room, still keeping close to the door. The service was over. Katerina Ivanovna went up to her husband again. The priest stepped back and turned to say a few words of admonition and consolation to Katerina Ivanovna on leaving. “What am I to do with these?” she interrupted sharply and irritably, pointing to the little ones. “God is merciful; look to the Most High for succour,” the priest began. “Ach! He is merciful, but not to us.” “That’s a sin, a sin, madam,” observed the priest, shaking his head. “And isn’t that a sin?” cried Katerina Ivanovna, pointing to the dying man. “Perhaps those who have involuntarily caused the accident will agree to compensate you, at least for the loss of his earnings.” “You don’t understand!” cried Katerina Ivanovna angrily waving her hand. “And why should they compensate me? Why, he was drunk and threw himself under the horses! What earnings? He brought us in nothing but misery. He drank everything away, the drunkard! He robbed us to get drink, he wasted their lives and mine for drink! And thank God he’s dying! One less to keep!” “You must forgive in the hour of death, that’s a sin, madam, such feelings are a great sin.” Katerina Ivanovna was busy with the dying man; she was giving him water, wiping the blood and sweat from his head, setting his pillow straight, and had only turned now and then for a moment to address the priest. Now she flew at him almost in a frenzy. “Ah, father! That’s words and only words! Forgive! If he’d not been run over, he’d have come home to-day drunk and his only shirt dirty and in rags and he’d have fallen asleep like a log, and I should have been sousing and rinsing till daybreak, washing his rags and the children’s and then drying them by the window and as soon as it was daylight I should have been darning them. That’s how I spend my nights!... What’s the use of talking of forgiveness! I have forgiven as it is!” A terrible hollow cough interrupted her words. She put her handkerchief to her lips and showed it to the priest, pressing her other hand to her aching chest. The handkerchief was covered with blood. The priest bowed his head and said nothing. Marmeladov was in the last agony; he did not take his eyes off the face of Katerina Ivanovna, who was bending over him again. He kept trying to say something to her; he began moving his tongue with difficulty and articulating indistinctly, but Katerina Ivanovna, understanding that he wanted to ask her forgiveness, called peremptorily to him: “Be silent! No need! I know what you want to say!” And the sick man was silent, but at the same instant his wandering eyes strayed to the doorway and he saw Sonia. Till then he had not noticed her: she was standing in the shadow in a corner. “Who’s that? Who’s that?” he said suddenly in a thick gasping voice, in agitation, turning his eyes in horror towards the door where his daughter was standing, and trying to sit up. “Lie down! Lie do-own!” cried Katerina Ivanovna. With unnatural strength he had succeeded in propping himself on his elbow. He looked wildly and fixedly for some time on his daughter, as though not recognising her. He had never seen her before in such attire. Suddenly he recognised her, crushed and ashamed in her humiliation and gaudy finery, meekly awaiting her turn to say good-bye to her dying father. His face showed intense suffering. “Sonia! Daughter! Forgive!” he cried, and he tried to hold out his hand to her, but losing his balance, he fell off the sofa, face downwards on the floor. They rushed to pick him up, they put him on the sofa; but he was dying. Sonia with a faint cry ran up, embraced him and remained so without moving. He died in her arms. “He’s got what he wanted,” Katerina Ivanovna cried, seeing her husband’s dead body. “Well, what’s to be done now? How am I to bury him! What can I give them to-morrow to eat?” Raskolnikov went up to Katerina Ivanovna. “Katerina Ivanovna,” he began, “last week your husband told me all his life and circumstances.... Believe me, he spoke of you with passionate reverence. From that evening, when I learnt how devoted he was to you all and how he loved and respected you especially, Katerina Ivanovna, in spite of his unfortunate weakness, from that evening we became friends.... Allow me now... to do something... to repay my debt to my dead friend. Here are twenty roubles, I think--and if that can be of any assistance to you, then... I... in short, I will come again, I will be sure to come again... I shall, perhaps, come again to-morrow.... Good-bye!” And he went quickly out of the room, squeezing his way through the crowd to the stairs. But in the crowd he suddenly jostled against Nikodim Fomitch, who had heard of the accident and had come to give instructions in person. They had not met since the scene at the police station, but Nikodim Fomitch knew him instantly. “Ah, is that you?” he asked him. “He’s dead,” answered Raskolnikov. “The doctor and the priest have been, all as it should have been. Don’t worry the poor woman too much, she is in consumption as it is. Try and cheer her up, if possible... you are a kind-hearted man, I know...” he added with a smile, looking straight in his face. “But you are spattered with blood,” observed Nikodim Fomitch, noticing in the lamplight some fresh stains on Raskolnikov’s waistcoat. “Yes... I’m covered with blood,” Raskolnikov said with a peculiar air; then he smiled, nodded and went downstairs. He walked down slowly and deliberately, feverish but not conscious of it, entirely absorbed in a new overwhelming sensation of life and strength that surged up suddenly within him. This sensation might be compared to that of a man condemned to death who has suddenly been pardoned. Halfway down the staircase he was overtaken by the priest on his way home; Raskolnikov let him pass, exchanging a silent greeting with him. He was just descending the last steps when he heard rapid footsteps behind him. Someone overtook him; it was Polenka. She was running after him, calling “Wait! wait!” He turned round. She was at the bottom of the staircase and stopped short a step above him. A dim light came in from the yard. Raskolnikov could distinguish the child’s thin but pretty little face, looking at him with a bright childish smile. She had run after him with a message which she was evidently glad to give. “Tell me, what is your name?... and where do you live?” she said hurriedly in a breathless voice. He laid both hands on her shoulders and looked at her with a sort of rapture. It was such a joy to him to look at her, he could not have said why. “Who sent you?” “Sister Sonia sent me,” answered the girl, smiling still more brightly. “I knew it was sister Sonia sent you.” “Mamma sent me, too... when sister Sonia was sending me, mamma came up, too, and said ‘Run fast, Polenka.’” “Do you love sister Sonia?” “I love her more than anyone,” Polenka answered with a peculiar earnestness, and her smile became graver. “And will you love me?” By way of answer he saw the little girl’s face approaching him, her full lips naïvely held out to kiss him. Suddenly her arms as thin as sticks held him tightly, her head rested on his shoulder and the little girl wept softly, pressing her face against him. “I am sorry for father,” she said a moment later, raising her tear-stained face and brushing away the tears with her hands. “It’s nothing but misfortunes now,” she added suddenly with that peculiarly sedate air which children try hard to assume when they want to speak like grown-up people. “Did your father love you?” “He loved Lida most,” she went on very seriously without a smile, exactly like grown-up people, “he loved her because she is little and because she is ill, too. And he always used to bring her presents. But he taught us to read and me grammar and scripture, too,” she added with dignity. “And mother never used to say anything, but we knew that she liked it and father knew it, too. And mother wants to teach me French, for it’s time my education began.” “And do you know your prayers?” “Of course, we do! We knew them long ago. I say my prayers to myself as I am a big girl now, but Kolya and Lida say them aloud with mother. First they repeat the ‘Ave Maria’ and then another prayer: ‘Lord, forgive and bless sister Sonia,’ and then another, ‘Lord, forgive and bless our second father.’ For our elder father is dead and this is another one, but we do pray for the other as well.” “Polenka, my name is Rodion. Pray sometimes for me, too. ‘And Thy servant Rodion,’ nothing more.” “I’ll pray for you all the rest of my life,” the little girl declared hotly, and suddenly smiling again she rushed at him and hugged him warmly once more. Raskolnikov told her his name and address and promised to be sure to come next day. The child went away quite enchanted with him. It was past ten when he came out into the street. In five minutes he was standing on the bridge at the spot where the woman had jumped in. “Enough,” he pronounced resolutely and triumphantly. “I’ve done with fancies, imaginary terrors and phantoms! Life is real! haven’t I lived just now? My life has not yet died with that old woman! The Kingdom of Heaven to her--and now enough, madam, leave me in peace! Now for the reign of reason and light... and of will, and of strength... and now we will see! We will try our strength!” he added defiantly, as though challenging some power of darkness. “And I was ready to consent to live in a square of space! “I am very weak at this moment, but... I believe my illness is all over. I knew it would be over when I went out. By the way, Potchinkov’s house is only a few steps away. I certainly must go to Razumihin even if it were not close by... let him win his bet! Let us give him some satisfaction, too--no matter! Strength, strength is what one wants, you can get nothing without it, and strength must be won by strength--that’s what they don’t know,” he added proudly and self-confidently and he walked with flagging footsteps from the bridge. Pride and self-confidence grew continually stronger in him; he was becoming a different man every moment. What was it had happened to work this revolution in him? He did not know himself; like a man catching at a straw, he suddenly felt that he, too, ‘could live, that there was still life for him, that his life had not died with the old woman.’ Perhaps he was in too great a hurry with his conclusions, but he did not think of that. “But I did ask her to remember ‘Thy servant Rodion’ in her prayers,” the idea struck him. “Well, that was... in case of emergency,” he added and laughed himself at his boyish sally. He was in the best of spirits. He easily found Razumihin; the new lodger was already known at Potchinkov’s and the porter at once showed him the way. Half-way upstairs he could hear the noise and animated conversation of a big gathering of people. The door was wide open on the stairs; he could hear exclamations and discussion. Razumihin’s room was fairly large; the company consisted of fifteen people. Raskolnikov stopped in the entry, where two of the landlady’s servants were busy behind a screen with two samovars, bottles, plates and dishes of pie and savouries, brought up from the landlady’s kitchen. Raskolnikov sent in for Razumihin. He ran out delighted. At the first glance it was apparent that he had had a great deal to drink and, though no amount of liquor made Razumihin quite drunk, this time he was perceptibly affected by it. “Listen,” Raskolnikov hastened to say, “I’ve only just come to tell you you’ve won your bet and that no one really knows what may not happen to him. I can’t come in; I am so weak that I shall fall down directly. And so good evening and good-bye! Come and see me to-morrow.” “Do you know what? I’ll see you home. If you say you’re weak yourself, you must...” “And your visitors? Who is the curly-headed one who has just peeped out?” “He? Goodness only knows! Some friend of uncle’s, I expect, or perhaps he has come without being invited... I’ll leave uncle with them, he is an invaluable person, pity I can’t introduce you to him now. But confound them all now! They won’t notice me, and I need a little fresh air, for you’ve come just in the nick of time--another two minutes and I should have come to blows! They are talking such a lot of wild stuff... you simply can’t imagine what men will say! Though why shouldn’t you imagine? Don’t we talk nonsense ourselves? And let them... that’s the way to learn not to!... Wait a minute, I’ll fetch Zossimov.” Zossimov pounced upon Raskolnikov almost greedily; he showed a special interest in him; soon his face brightened. “You must go to bed at once,” he pronounced, examining the patient as far as he could, “and take something for the night. Will you take it? I got it ready some time ago... a powder.” “Two, if you like,” answered Raskolnikov. The powder was taken at once. “It’s a good thing you are taking him home,” observed Zossimov to Razumihin--“we shall see how he is to-morrow, to-day he’s not at all amiss--a considerable change since the afternoon. Live and learn...” “Do you know what Zossimov whispered to me when we were coming out?” Razumihin blurted out, as soon as they were in the street. “I won’t tell you everything, brother, because they are such fools. Zossimov told me to talk freely to you on the way and get you to talk freely to me, and afterwards I am to tell him about it, for he’s got a notion in his head that you are... mad or close on it. Only fancy! In the first place, you’ve three times the brains he has; in the second, if you are not mad, you needn’t care a hang that he has got such a wild idea; and thirdly, that piece of beef whose specialty is surgery has gone mad on mental diseases, and what’s brought him to this conclusion about you was your conversation to-day with Zametov.” “Zametov told you all about it?” “Yes, and he did well. Now I understand what it all means and so does Zametov.... Well, the fact is, Rodya... the point is... I am a little drunk now.... But that’s... no matter... the point is that this idea... you understand? was just being hatched in their brains... you understand? That is, no one ventured to say it aloud, because the idea is too absurd and especially since the arrest of that painter, that bubble’s burst and gone for ever. But why are they such fools? I gave Zametov a bit of a thrashing at the time--that’s between ourselves, brother; please don’t let out a hint that you know of it; I’ve noticed he is a ticklish subject; it was at Luise Ivanovna’s. But to-day, to-day it’s all cleared up. That Ilya Petrovitch is at the bottom of it! He took advantage of your fainting at the police station, but he is ashamed of it himself now; I know that...” Raskolnikov listened greedily. Razumihin was drunk enough to talk too freely. “I fainted then because it was so close and the smell of paint,” said Raskolnikov. “No need to explain that! And it wasn’t the paint only: the fever had been coming on for a month; Zossimov testifies to that! But how crushed that boy is now, you wouldn’t believe! ‘I am not worth his little finger,’ he says. Yours, he means. He has good feelings at times, brother. But the lesson, the lesson you gave him to-day in the Palais de Cristal, that was too good for anything! You frightened him at first, you know, he nearly went into convulsions! You almost convinced him again of the truth of all that hideous nonsense, and then you suddenly--put out your tongue at him: ‘There now, what do you make of it?’ It was perfect! He is crushed, annihilated now! It was masterly, by Jove, it’s what they deserve! Ah, that I wasn’t there! He was hoping to see you awfully. Porfiry, too, wants to make your acquaintance...” “Ah!... he too... but why did they put me down as mad?” “Oh, not mad. I must have said too much, brother.... What struck him, you see, was that only that subject seemed to interest you; now it’s clear why it did interest you; knowing all the circumstances... and how that irritated you and worked in with your illness... I am a little drunk, brother, only, confound him, he has some idea of his own... I tell you, he’s mad on mental diseases. But don’t you mind him...” For half a minute both were silent. “Listen, Razumihin,” began Raskolnikov, “I want to tell you plainly: I’ve just been at a death-bed, a clerk who died... I gave them all my money... and besides I’ve just been kissed by someone who, if I had killed anyone, would just the same... in fact I saw someone else there... with a flame-coloured feather... but I am talking nonsense; I am very weak, support me... we shall be at the stairs directly...” “What’s the matter? What’s the matter with you?” Razumihin asked anxiously. “I am a little giddy, but that’s not the point, I am so sad, so sad... like a woman. Look, what’s that? Look, look!” “What is it?” “Don’t you see? A light in my room, you see? Through the crack...” They were already at the foot of the last flight of stairs, at the level of the landlady’s door, and they could, as a fact, see from below that there was a light in Raskolnikov’s garret. “Queer! Nastasya, perhaps,” observed Razumihin. “She is never in my room at this time and she must be in bed long ago, but... I don’t care! Good-bye!” “What do you mean? I am coming with you, we’ll come in together!” “I know we are going in together, but I want to shake hands here and say good-bye to you here. So give me your hand, good-bye!” “What’s the matter with you, Rodya?” “Nothing... come along... you shall be witness.” They began mounting the stairs, and the idea struck Razumihin that perhaps Zossimov might be right after all. “Ah, I’ve upset him with my chatter!” he muttered to himself. When they reached the door they heard voices in the room. “What is it?” cried Razumihin. Raskolnikov was the first to open the door; he flung it wide and stood still in the doorway, dumbfoundered. His mother and sister were sitting on his sofa and had been waiting an hour and a half for him. Why had he never expected, never thought of them, though the news that they had started, were on their way and would arrive immediately, had been repeated to him only that day? They had spent that hour and a half plying Nastasya with questions. She was standing before them and had told them everything by now. They were beside themselves with alarm when they heard of his “running away” to-day, ill and, as they understood from her story, delirious! “Good Heavens, what had become of him?” Both had been weeping, both had been in anguish for that hour and a half. A cry of joy, of ecstasy, greeted Raskolnikov’s entrance. Both rushed to him. But he stood like one dead; a sudden intolerable sensation struck him like a thunderbolt. He did not lift his arms to embrace them, he could not. His mother and sister clasped him in their arms, kissed him, laughed and cried. He took a step, tottered and fell to the ground, fainting. Anxiety, cries of horror, moans... Razumihin who was standing in the doorway flew into the room, seized the sick man in his strong arms and in a moment had him on the sofa. “It’s nothing, nothing!” he cried to the mother and sister--“it’s only a faint, a mere trifle! Only just now the doctor said he was much better, that he is perfectly well! Water! See, he is coming to himself, he is all right again!” And seizing Dounia by the arm so that he almost dislocated it, he made her bend down to see that “he is all right again.” The mother and sister looked on him with emotion and gratitude, as their Providence. They had heard already from Nastasya all that had been done for their Rodya during his illness, by this “very competent young man,” as Pulcheria Alexandrovna Raskolnikov called him that evening in conversation with Dounia. PART III CHAPTER I Raskolnikov got up, and sat down on the sofa. He waved his hand weakly to Razumihin to cut short the flow of warm and incoherent consolations he was addressing to his mother and sister, took them both by the hand and for a minute or two gazed from one to the other without speaking. His mother was alarmed by his expression. It revealed an emotion agonisingly poignant, and at the same time something immovable, almost insane. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry. Avdotya Romanovna was pale; her hand trembled in her brother’s. “Go home... with him,” he said in a broken voice, pointing to Razumihin, “good-bye till to-morrow; to-morrow everything... Is it long since you arrived?” “This evening, Rodya,” answered Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “the train was awfully late. But, Rodya, nothing would induce me to leave you now! I will spend the night here, near you...” “Don’t torture me!” he said with a gesture of irritation. “I will stay with him,” cried Razumihin, “I won’t leave him for a moment. Bother all my visitors! Let them rage to their hearts’ content! My uncle is presiding there.” “How, how can I thank you!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna was beginning, once more pressing Razumihin’s hands, but Raskolnikov interrupted her again. “I can’t have it! I can’t have it!” he repeated irritably, “don’t worry me! Enough, go away... I can’t stand it!” “Come, mamma, come out of the room at least for a minute,” Dounia whispered in dismay; “we are distressing him, that’s evident.” “Mayn’t I look at him after three years?” wept Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “Stay,” he stopped them again, “you keep interrupting me, and my ideas get muddled.... Have you seen Luzhin?” “No, Rodya, but he knows already of our arrival. We have heard, Rodya, that Pyotr Petrovitch was so kind as to visit you today,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna added somewhat timidly. “Yes... he was so kind... Dounia, I promised Luzhin I’d throw him downstairs and told him to go to hell....” “Rodya, what are you saying! Surely, you don’t mean to tell us...” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began in alarm, but she stopped, looking at Dounia. Avdotya Romanovna was looking attentively at her brother, waiting for what would come next. Both of them had heard of the quarrel from Nastasya, so far as she had succeeded in understanding and reporting it, and were in painful perplexity and suspense. “Dounia,” Raskolnikov continued with an effort, “I don’t want that marriage, so at the first opportunity to-morrow you must refuse Luzhin, so that we may never hear his name again.” “Good Heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “Brother, think what you are saying!” Avdotya Romanovna began impetuously, but immediately checked herself. “You are not fit to talk now, perhaps; you are tired,” she added gently. “You think I am delirious? No... You are marrying Luzhin for _my_ sake. But I won’t accept the sacrifice. And so write a letter before to-morrow, to refuse him... Let me read it in the morning and that will be the end of it!” “That I can’t do!” the girl cried, offended, “what right have you...” “Dounia, you are hasty, too, be quiet, to-morrow... Don’t you see...” the mother interposed in dismay. “Better come away!” “He is raving,” Razumihin cried tipsily, “or how would he dare! To-morrow all this nonsense will be over... to-day he certainly did drive him away. That was so. And Luzhin got angry, too.... He made speeches here, wanted to show off his learning and he went out crest-fallen....” “Then it’s true?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “Good-bye till to-morrow, brother,” said Dounia compassionately--“let us go, mother... Good-bye, Rodya.” “Do you hear, sister,” he repeated after them, making a last effort, “I am not delirious; this marriage is--an infamy. Let me act like a scoundrel, but you mustn’t... one is enough... and though I am a scoundrel, I wouldn’t own such a sister. It’s me or Luzhin! Go now....” “But you’re out of your mind! Despot!” roared Razumihin; but Raskolnikov did not and perhaps could not answer. He lay down on the sofa, and turned to the wall, utterly exhausted. Avdotya Romanovna looked with interest at Razumihin; her black eyes flashed; Razumihin positively started at her glance. Pulcheria Alexandrovna stood overwhelmed. “Nothing would induce me to go,” she whispered in despair to Razumihin. “I will stay somewhere here... escort Dounia home.” “You’ll spoil everything,” Razumihin answered in the same whisper, losing patience--“come out on to the stairs, anyway. Nastasya, show a light! I assure you,” he went on in a half whisper on the stairs--“that he was almost beating the doctor and me this afternoon! Do you understand? The doctor himself! Even he gave way and left him, so as not to irritate him. I remained downstairs on guard, but he dressed at once and slipped off. And he will slip off again if you irritate him, at this time of night, and will do himself some mischief....” “What are you saying?” “And Avdotya Romanovna can’t possibly be left in those lodgings without you. Just think where you are staying! That blackguard Pyotr Petrovitch couldn’t find you better lodgings... But you know I’ve had a little to drink, and that’s what makes me... swear; don’t mind it....” “But I’ll go to the landlady here,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna insisted, “I’ll beseech her to find some corner for Dounia and me for the night. I can’t leave him like that, I cannot!” This conversation took place on the landing just before the landlady’s door. Nastasya lighted them from a step below. Razumihin was in extraordinary excitement. Half an hour earlier, while he was bringing Raskolnikov home, he had indeed talked too freely, but he was aware of it himself, and his head was clear in spite of the vast quantities he had imbibed. Now he was in a state bordering on ecstasy, and all that he had drunk seemed to fly to his head with redoubled effect. He stood with the two ladies, seizing both by their hands, persuading them, and giving them reasons with astonishing plainness of speech, and at almost every word he uttered, probably to emphasise his arguments, he squeezed their hands painfully as in a vise. He stared at Avdotya Romanovna without the least regard for good manners. They sometimes pulled their hands out of his huge bony paws, but far from noticing what was the matter, he drew them all the closer to him. If they’d told him to jump head foremost from the staircase, he would have done it without thought or hesitation in their service. Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna felt that the young man was really too eccentric and pinched her hand too much, in her anxiety over her Rodya she looked on his presence as providential, and was unwilling to notice all his peculiarities. But though Avdotya Romanovna shared her anxiety, and was not of timorous disposition, she could not see the glowing light in his eyes without wonder and almost alarm. It was only the unbounded confidence inspired by Nastasya’s account of her brother’s queer friend, which prevented her from trying to run away from him, and to persuade her mother to do the same. She realised, too, that even running away was perhaps impossible now. Ten minutes later, however, she was considerably reassured; it was characteristic of Razumihin that he showed his true nature at once, whatever mood he might be in, so that people quickly saw the sort of man they had to deal with. “You can’t go to the landlady, that’s perfect nonsense!” he cried. “If you stay, though you are his mother, you’ll drive him to a frenzy, and then goodness knows what will happen! Listen, I’ll tell you what I’ll do: Nastasya will stay with him now, and I’ll conduct you both home, you can’t be in the streets alone; Petersburg is an awful place in that way.... But no matter! Then I’ll run straight back here and a quarter of an hour later, on my word of honour, I’ll bring you news how he is, whether he is asleep, and all that. Then, listen! Then I’ll run home in a twinkling--I’ve a lot of friends there, all drunk--I’ll fetch Zossimov--that’s the doctor who is looking after him, he is there, too, but he is not drunk; he is not drunk, he is never drunk! I’ll drag him to Rodya, and then to you, so that you’ll get two reports in the hour--from the doctor, you understand, from the doctor himself, that’s a very different thing from my account of him! If there’s anything wrong, I swear I’ll bring you here myself, but, if it’s all right, you go to bed. And I’ll spend the night here, in the passage, he won’t hear me, and I’ll tell Zossimov to sleep at the landlady’s, to be at hand. Which is better for him: you or the doctor? So come home then! But the landlady is out of the question; it’s all right for me, but it’s out of the question for you: she wouldn’t take you, for she’s... for she’s a fool... She’d be jealous on my account of Avdotya Romanovna and of you, too, if you want to know... of Avdotya Romanovna certainly. She is an absolutely, absolutely unaccountable character! But I am a fool, too!... No matter! Come along! Do you trust me? Come, do you trust me or not?” “Let us go, mother,” said Avdotya Romanovna, “he will certainly do what he has promised. He has saved Rodya already, and if the doctor really will consent to spend the night here, what could be better?” “You see, you... you... understand me, because you are an angel!” Razumihin cried in ecstasy, “let us go! Nastasya! Fly upstairs and sit with him with a light; I’ll come in a quarter of an hour.” Though Pulcheria Alexandrovna was not perfectly convinced, she made no further resistance. Razumihin gave an arm to each and drew them down the stairs. He still made her uneasy, as though he was competent and good-natured, was he capable of carrying out his promise? He seemed in such a condition.... “Ah, I see you think I am in such a condition!” Razumihin broke in upon her thoughts, guessing them, as he strolled along the pavement with huge steps, so that the two ladies could hardly keep up with him, a fact he did not observe, however. “Nonsense! That is... I am drunk like a fool, but that’s not it; I am not drunk from wine. It’s seeing you has turned my head... But don’t mind me! Don’t take any notice: I am talking nonsense, I am not worthy of you.... I am utterly unworthy of you! The minute I’ve taken you home, I’ll pour a couple of pailfuls of water over my head in the gutter here, and then I shall be all right.... If only you knew how I love you both! Don’t laugh, and don’t be angry! You may be angry with anyone, but not with me! I am his friend, and therefore I am your friend, too, I want to be... I had a presentiment... Last year there was a moment... though it wasn’t a presentiment really, for you seem to have fallen from heaven. And I expect I shan’t sleep all night... Zossimov was afraid a little time ago that he would go mad... that’s why he mustn’t be irritated.” “What do you say?” cried the mother. “Did the doctor really say that?” asked Avdotya Romanovna, alarmed. “Yes, but it’s not so, not a bit of it. He gave him some medicine, a powder, I saw it, and then your coming here.... Ah! It would have been better if you had come to-morrow. It’s a good thing we went away. And in an hour Zossimov himself will report to you about everything. He is not drunk! And I shan’t be drunk.... And what made me get so tight? Because they got me into an argument, damn them! I’ve sworn never to argue! They talk such trash! I almost came to blows! I’ve left my uncle to preside. Would you believe, they insist on complete absence of individualism and that’s just what they relish! Not to be themselves, to be as unlike themselves as they can. That’s what they regard as the highest point of progress. If only their nonsense were their own, but as it is...” “Listen!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna interrupted timidly, but it only added fuel to the flames. “What do you think?” shouted Razumihin, louder than ever, “you think I am attacking them for talking nonsense? Not a bit! I like them to talk nonsense. That’s man’s one privilege over all creation. Through error you come to the truth! I am a man because I err! You never reach any truth without making fourteen mistakes and very likely a hundred and fourteen. And a fine thing, too, in its way; but we can’t even make mistakes on our own account! Talk nonsense, but talk your own nonsense, and I’ll kiss you for it. To go wrong in one’s own way is better than to go right in someone else’s. In the first case you are a man, in the second you’re no better than a bird. Truth won’t escape you, but life can be cramped. There have been examples. And what are we doing now? In science, development, thought, invention, ideals, aims, liberalism, judgment, experience and everything, everything, everything, we are still in the preparatory class at school. We prefer to live on other people’s ideas, it’s what we are used to! Am I right, am I right?” cried Razumihin, pressing and shaking the two ladies’ hands. “Oh, mercy, I do not know,” cried poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “Yes, yes... though I don’t agree with you in everything,” added Avdotya Romanovna earnestly and at once uttered a cry, for he squeezed her hand so painfully. “Yes, you say yes... well after that you... you...” he cried in a transport, “you are a fount of goodness, purity, sense... and perfection. Give me your hand... you give me yours, too! I want to kiss your hands here at once, on my knees...” and he fell on his knees on the pavement, fortunately at that time deserted. “Leave off, I entreat you, what are you doing?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried, greatly distressed. “Get up, get up!” said Dounia laughing, though she, too, was upset. “Not for anything till you let me kiss your hands! That’s it! Enough! I get up and we’ll go on! I am a luckless fool, I am unworthy of you and drunk... and I am ashamed.... I am not worthy to love you, but to do homage to you is the duty of every man who is not a perfect beast! And I’ve done homage.... Here are your lodgings, and for that alone Rodya was right in driving your Pyotr Petrovitch away.... How dare he! how dare he put you in such lodgings! It’s a scandal! Do you know the sort of people they take in here? And you his betrothed! You are his betrothed? Yes? Well, then, I’ll tell you, your _fiancé_ is a scoundrel.” “Excuse me, Mr. Razumihin, you are forgetting...” Pulcheria Alexandrovna was beginning. “Yes, yes, you are right, I did forget myself, I am ashamed of it,” Razumihin made haste to apologise. “But... but you can’t be angry with me for speaking so! For I speak sincerely and not because... hm, hm! That would be disgraceful; in fact not because I’m in... hm! Well, anyway, I won’t say why, I daren’t.... But we all saw to-day when he came in that that man is not of our sort. Not because he had his hair curled at the barber’s, not because he was in such a hurry to show his wit, but because he is a spy, a speculator, because he is a skin-flint and a buffoon. That’s evident. Do you think him clever? No, he is a fool, a fool. And is he a match for you? Good heavens! Do you see, ladies?” he stopped suddenly on the way upstairs to their rooms, “though all my friends there are drunk, yet they are all honest, and though we do talk a lot of trash, and I do, too, yet we shall talk our way to the truth at last, for we are on the right path, while Pyotr Petrovitch... is not on the right path. Though I’ve been calling them all sorts of names just now, I do respect them all... though I don’t respect Zametov, I like him, for he is a puppy, and that bullock Zossimov, because he is an honest man and knows his work. But enough, it’s all said and forgiven. Is it forgiven? Well, then, let’s go on. I know this corridor, I’ve been here, there was a scandal here at Number 3.... Where are you here? Which number? eight? Well, lock yourselves in for the night, then. Don’t let anybody in. In a quarter of an hour I’ll come back with news, and half an hour later I’ll bring Zossimov, you’ll see! Good-bye, I’ll run.” “Good heavens, Dounia, what is going to happen?” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, addressing her daughter with anxiety and dismay. “Don’t worry yourself, mother,” said Dounia, taking off her hat and cape. “God has sent this gentleman to our aid, though he has come from a drinking party. We can depend on him, I assure you. And all that he has done for Rodya....” “Ah. Dounia, goodness knows whether he will come! How could I bring myself to leave Rodya?... And how different, how different I had fancied our meeting! How sullen he was, as though not pleased to see us....” Tears came into her eyes. “No, it’s not that, mother. You didn’t see, you were crying all the time. He is quite unhinged by serious illness--that’s the reason.” “Ah, that illness! What will happen, what will happen? And how he talked to you, Dounia!” said the mother, looking timidly at her daughter, trying to read her thoughts and, already half consoled by Dounia’s standing up for her brother, which meant that she had already forgiven him. “I am sure he will think better of it to-morrow,” she added, probing her further. “And I am sure that he will say the same to-morrow... about that,” Avdotya Romanovna said finally. And, of course, there was no going beyond that, for this was a point which Pulcheria Alexandrovna was afraid to discuss. Dounia went up and kissed her mother. The latter warmly embraced her without speaking. Then she sat down to wait anxiously for Razumihin’s return, timidly watching her daughter who walked up and down the room with her arms folded, lost in thought. This walking up and down when she was thinking was a habit of Avdotya Romanovna’s and the mother was always afraid to break in on her daughter’s mood at such moments. Razumihin, of course, was ridiculous in his sudden drunken infatuation for Avdotya Romanovna. Yet apart from his eccentric condition, many people would have thought it justified if they had seen Avdotya Romanovna, especially at that moment when she was walking to and fro with folded arms, pensive and melancholy. Avdotya Romanovna was remarkably good-looking; she was tall, strikingly well-proportioned, strong and self-reliant--the latter quality was apparent in every gesture, though it did not in the least detract from the grace and softness of her movements. In face she resembled her brother, but she might be described as really beautiful. Her hair was dark brown, a little lighter than her brother’s; there was a proud light in her almost black eyes and yet at times a look of extraordinary kindness. She was pale, but it was a healthy pallor; her face was radiant with freshness and vigour. Her mouth was rather small; the full red lower lip projected a little as did her chin; it was the only irregularity in her beautiful face, but it gave it a peculiarly individual and almost haughty expression. Her face was always more serious and thoughtful than gay; but how well smiles, how well youthful, lighthearted, irresponsible, laughter suited her face! It was natural enough that a warm, open, simple-hearted, honest giant like Razumihin, who had never seen anyone like her and was not quite sober at the time, should lose his head immediately. Besides, as chance would have it, he saw Dounia for the first time transfigured by her love for her brother and her joy at meeting him. Afterwards he saw her lower lip quiver with indignation at her brother’s insolent, cruel and ungrateful words--and his fate was sealed. He had spoken the truth, moreover, when he blurted out in his drunken talk on the stairs that Praskovya Pavlovna, Raskolnikov’s eccentric landlady, would be jealous of Pulcheria Alexandrovna as well as of Avdotya Romanovna on his account. Although Pulcheria Alexandrovna was forty-three, her face still retained traces of her former beauty; she looked much younger than her age, indeed, which is almost always the case with women who retain serenity of spirit, sensitiveness and pure sincere warmth of heart to old age. We may add in parenthesis that to preserve all this is the only means of retaining beauty to old age. Her hair had begun to grow grey and thin, there had long been little crow’s foot wrinkles round her eyes, her cheeks were hollow and sunken from anxiety and grief, and yet it was a handsome face. She was Dounia over again, twenty years older, but without the projecting underlip. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was emotional, but not sentimental, timid and yielding, but only to a certain point. She could give way and accept a great deal even of what was contrary to her convictions, but there was a certain barrier fixed by honesty, principle and the deepest convictions which nothing would induce her to cross. Exactly twenty minutes after Razumihin’s departure, there came two subdued but hurried knocks at the door: he had come back. “I won’t come in, I haven’t time,” he hastened to say when the door was opened. “He sleeps like a top, soundly, quietly, and God grant he may sleep ten hours. Nastasya’s with him; I told her not to leave till I came. Now I am fetching Zossimov, he will report to you and then you’d better turn in; I can see you are too tired to do anything....” And he ran off down the corridor. “What a very competent and... devoted young man!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna exceedingly delighted. “He seems a splendid person!” Avdotya Romanovna replied with some warmth, resuming her walk up and down the room. It was nearly an hour later when they heard footsteps in the corridor and another knock at the door. Both women waited this time completely relying on Razumihin’s promise; he actually had succeeded in bringing Zossimov. Zossimov had agreed at once to desert the drinking party to go to Raskolnikov’s, but he came reluctantly and with the greatest suspicion to see the ladies, mistrusting Razumihin in his exhilarated condition. But his vanity was at once reassured and flattered; he saw that they were really expecting him as an oracle. He stayed just ten minutes and succeeded in completely convincing and comforting Pulcheria Alexandrovna. He spoke with marked sympathy, but with the reserve and extreme seriousness of a young doctor at an important consultation. He did not utter a word on any other subject and did not display the slightest desire to enter into more personal relations with the two ladies. Remarking at his first entrance the dazzling beauty of Avdotya Romanovna, he endeavoured not to notice her at all during his visit and addressed himself solely to Pulcheria Alexandrovna. All this gave him extraordinary inward satisfaction. He declared that he thought the invalid at this moment going on very satisfactorily. According to his observations the patient’s illness was due partly to his unfortunate material surroundings during the last few months, but it had partly also a moral origin, “was, so to speak, the product of several material and moral influences, anxieties, apprehensions, troubles, certain ideas... and so on.” Noticing stealthily that Avdotya Romanovna was following his words with close attention, Zossimov allowed himself to enlarge on this theme. On Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s anxiously and timidly inquiring as to “some suspicion of insanity,” he replied with a composed and candid smile that his words had been exaggerated; that certainly the patient had some fixed idea, something approaching a monomania--he, Zossimov, was now particularly studying this interesting branch of medicine--but that it must be recollected that until to-day the patient had been in delirium and... and that no doubt the presence of his family would have a favourable effect on his recovery and distract his mind, “if only all fresh shocks can be avoided,” he added significantly. Then he got up, took leave with an impressive and affable bow, while blessings, warm gratitude, and entreaties were showered upon him, and Avdotya Romanovna spontaneously offered her hand to him. He went out exceedingly pleased with his visit and still more so with himself. “We’ll talk to-morrow; go to bed at once!” Razumihin said in conclusion, following Zossimov out. “I’ll be with you to-morrow morning as early as possible with my report.” “That’s a fetching little girl, Avdotya Romanovna,” remarked Zossimov, almost licking his lips as they both came out into the street. “Fetching? You said fetching?” roared Razumihin and he flew at Zossimov and seized him by the throat. “If you ever dare.... Do you understand? Do you understand?” he shouted, shaking him by the collar and squeezing him against the wall. “Do you hear?” “Let me go, you drunken devil,” said Zossimov, struggling and when he had let him go, he stared at him and went off into a sudden guffaw. Razumihin stood facing him in gloomy and earnest reflection. “Of course, I am an ass,” he observed, sombre as a storm cloud, “but still... you are another.” “No, brother, not at all such another. I am not dreaming of any folly.” They walked along in silence and only when they were close to Raskolnikov’s lodgings, Razumihin broke the silence in considerable anxiety. “Listen,” he said, “you’re a first-rate fellow, but among your other failings, you’re a loose fish, that I know, and a dirty one, too. You are a feeble, nervous wretch, and a mass of whims, you’re getting fat and lazy and can’t deny yourself anything--and I call that dirty because it leads one straight into the dirt. You’ve let yourself get so slack that I don’t know how it is you are still a good, even a devoted doctor. You--a doctor--sleep on a feather bed and get up at night to your patients! In another three or four years you won’t get up for your patients... But hang it all, that’s not the point!... You are going to spend to-night in the landlady’s flat here. (Hard work I’ve had to persuade her!) And I’ll be in the kitchen. So here’s a chance for you to get to know her better.... It’s not as you think! There’s not a trace of anything of the sort, brother...!” “But I don’t think!” “Here you have modesty, brother, silence, bashfulness, a savage virtue... and yet she’s sighing and melting like wax, simply melting! Save me from her, by all that’s unholy! She’s most prepossessing... I’ll repay you, I’ll do anything....” Zossimov laughed more violently than ever. “Well, you are smitten! But what am I to do with her?” “It won’t be much trouble, I assure you. Talk any rot you like to her, as long as you sit by her and talk. You’re a doctor, too; try curing her of something. I swear you won’t regret it. She has a piano, and you know, I strum a little. I have a song there, a genuine Russian one: ‘I shed hot tears.’ She likes the genuine article--and well, it all began with that song; Now you’re a regular performer, a _maître_, a Rubinstein.... I assure you, you won’t regret it!” “But have you made her some promise? Something signed? A promise of marriage, perhaps?” “Nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of the kind! Besides she is not that sort at all.... Tchebarov tried that....” “Well then, drop her!” “But I can’t drop her like that!” “Why can’t you?” “Well, I can’t, that’s all about it! There’s an element of attraction here, brother.” “Then why have you fascinated her?” “I haven’t fascinated her; perhaps I was fascinated myself in my folly. But she won’t care a straw whether it’s you or I, so long as somebody sits beside her, sighing.... I can’t explain the position, brother... look here, you are good at mathematics, and working at it now... begin teaching her the integral calculus; upon my soul, I’m not joking, I’m in earnest, it’ll be just the same to her. She will gaze at you and sigh for a whole year together. I talked to her once for two days at a time about the Prussian House of Lords (for one must talk of something)--she just sighed and perspired! And you mustn’t talk of love--she’s bashful to hysterics--but just let her see you can’t tear yourself away--that’s enough. It’s fearfully comfortable; you’re quite at home, you can read, sit, lie about, write. You may even venture on a kiss, if you’re careful.” “But what do I want with her?” “Ach, I can’t make you understand! You see, you are made for each other! I have often been reminded of you!... You’ll come to it in the end! So does it matter whether it’s sooner or later? There’s the feather-bed element here, brother--ach! and not only that! There’s an attraction here--here you have the end of the world, an anchorage, a quiet haven, the navel of the earth, the three fishes that are the foundation of the world, the essence of pancakes, of savoury fish-pies, of the evening samovar, of soft sighs and warm shawls, and hot stoves to sleep on--as snug as though you were dead, and yet you’re alive--the advantages of both at once! Well, hang it, brother, what stuff I’m talking, it’s bedtime! Listen. I sometimes wake up at night; so I’ll go in and look at him. But there’s no need, it’s all right. Don’t you worry yourself, yet if you like, you might just look in once, too. But if you notice anything--delirium or fever--wake me at once. But there can’t be....” CHAPTER II Razumihin waked up next morning at eight o’clock, troubled and serious. He found himself confronted with many new and unlooked-for perplexities. He had never expected that he would ever wake up feeling like that. He remembered every detail of the previous day and he knew that a perfectly novel experience had befallen him, that he had received an impression unlike anything he had known before. At the same time he recognised clearly that the dream which had fired his imagination was hopelessly unattainable--so unattainable that he felt positively ashamed of it, and he hastened to pass to the other more practical cares and difficulties bequeathed him by that “thrice accursed yesterday.” The most awful recollection of the previous day was the way he had shown himself “base and mean,” not only because he had been drunk, but because he had taken advantage of the young girl’s position to abuse her _fiancé_ in his stupid jealousy, knowing nothing of their mutual relations and obligations and next to nothing of the man himself. And what right had he to criticise him in that hasty and unguarded manner? Who had asked for his opinion? Was it thinkable that such a creature as Avdotya Romanovna would be marrying an unworthy man for money? So there must be something in him. The lodgings? But after all how could he know the character of the lodgings? He was furnishing a flat... Foo! how despicable it all was! And what justification was it that he was drunk? Such a stupid excuse was even more degrading! In wine is truth, and the truth had all come out, “that is, all the uncleanness of his coarse and envious heart”! And would such a dream ever be permissible to him, Razumihin? What was he beside such a girl--he, the drunken noisy braggart of last night? Was it possible to imagine so absurd and cynical a juxtaposition? Razumihin blushed desperately at the very idea and suddenly the recollection forced itself vividly upon him of how he had said last night on the stairs that the landlady would be jealous of Avdotya Romanovna... that was simply intolerable. He brought his fist down heavily on the kitchen stove, hurt his hand and sent one of the bricks flying. “Of course,” he muttered to himself a minute later with a feeling of self-abasement, “of course, all these infamies can never be wiped out or smoothed over... and so it’s useless even to think of it, and I must go to them in silence and do my duty... in silence, too... and not ask forgiveness, and say nothing... for all is lost now!” And yet as he dressed he examined his attire more carefully than usual. He hadn’t another suit--if he had had, perhaps he wouldn’t have put it on. “I would have made a point of not putting it on.” But in any case he could not remain a cynic and a dirty sloven; he had no right to offend the feelings of others, especially when they were in need of his assistance and asking him to see them. He brushed his clothes carefully. His linen was always decent; in that respect he was especially clean. He washed that morning scrupulously--he got some soap from Nastasya--he washed his hair, his neck and especially his hands. When it came to the question whether to shave his stubbly chin or not (Praskovya Pavlovna had capital razors that had been left by her late husband), the question was angrily answered in the negative. “Let it stay as it is! What if they think that I shaved on purpose to...? They certainly would think so! Not on any account!” “And... the worst of it was he was so coarse, so dirty, he had the manners of a pothouse; and... and even admitting that he knew he had some of the essentials of a gentleman... what was there in that to be proud of? Everyone ought to be a gentleman and more than that... and all the same (he remembered) he, too, had done little things... not exactly dishonest, and yet.... And what thoughts he sometimes had; hm... and to set all that beside Avdotya Romanovna! Confound it! So be it! Well, he’d make a point then of being dirty, greasy, pothouse in his manners and he wouldn’t care! He’d be worse!” He was engaged in such monologues when Zossimov, who had spent the night in Praskovya Pavlovna’s parlour, came in. He was going home and was in a hurry to look at the invalid first. Razumihin informed him that Raskolnikov was sleeping like a dormouse. Zossimov gave orders that they shouldn’t wake him and promised to see him again about eleven. “If he is still at home,” he added. “Damn it all! If one can’t control one’s patients, how is one to cure them? Do you know whether _he_ will go to them, or whether _they_ are coming here?” “They are coming, I think,” said Razumihin, understanding the object of the question, “and they will discuss their family affairs, no doubt. I’ll be off. You, as the doctor, have more right to be here than I.” “But I am not a father confessor; I shall come and go away; I’ve plenty to do besides looking after them.” “One thing worries me,” interposed Razumihin, frowning. “On the way home I talked a lot of drunken nonsense to him... all sorts of things... and amongst them that you were afraid that he... might become insane.” “You told the ladies so, too.” “I know it was stupid! You may beat me if you like! Did you think so seriously?” “That’s nonsense, I tell you, how could I think it seriously? You, yourself, described him as a monomaniac when you fetched me to him... and we added fuel to the fire yesterday, you did, that is, with your story about the painter; it was a nice conversation, when he was, perhaps, mad on that very point! If only I’d known what happened then at the police station and that some wretch... had insulted him with this suspicion! Hm... I would not have allowed that conversation yesterday. These monomaniacs will make a mountain out of a mole-hill... and see their fancies as solid realities.... As far as I remember, it was Zametov’s story that cleared up half the mystery, to my mind. Why, I know one case in which a hypochondriac, a man of forty, cut the throat of a little boy of eight, because he couldn’t endure the jokes he made every day at table! And in this case his rags, the insolent police officer, the fever and this suspicion! All that working upon a man half frantic with hypochondria, and with his morbid exceptional vanity! That may well have been the starting-point of illness. Well, bother it all!... And, by the way, that Zametov certainly is a nice fellow, but hm... he shouldn’t have told all that last night. He is an awful chatterbox!” “But whom did he tell it to? You and me?” “And Porfiry.” “What does that matter?” “And, by the way, have you any influence on them, his mother and sister? Tell them to be more careful with him to-day....” “They’ll get on all right!” Razumihin answered reluctantly. “Why is he so set against this Luzhin? A man with money and she doesn’t seem to dislike him... and they haven’t a farthing, I suppose? eh?” “But what business is it of yours?” Razumihin cried with annoyance. “How can I tell whether they’ve a farthing? Ask them yourself and perhaps you’ll find out....” “Foo! what an ass you are sometimes! Last night’s wine has not gone off yet.... Good-bye; thank your Praskovya Pavlovna from me for my night’s lodging. She locked herself in, made no reply to my _bonjour_ through the door; she was up at seven o’clock, the samovar was taken into her from the kitchen. I was not vouchsafed a personal interview....” At nine o’clock precisely Razumihin reached the lodgings at Bakaleyev’s house. Both ladies were waiting for him with nervous impatience. They had risen at seven o’clock or earlier. He entered looking as black as night, bowed awkwardly and was at once furious with himself for it. He had reckoned without his host: Pulcheria Alexandrovna fairly rushed at him, seized him by both hands and was almost kissing them. He glanced timidly at Avdotya Romanovna, but her proud countenance wore at that moment an expression of such gratitude and friendliness, such complete and unlooked-for respect (in place of the sneering looks and ill-disguised contempt he had expected), that it threw him into greater confusion than if he had been met with abuse. Fortunately there was a subject for conversation, and he made haste to snatch at it. Hearing that everything was going well and that Rodya had not yet waked, Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared that she was glad to hear it, because “she had something which it was very, very necessary to talk over beforehand.” Then followed an inquiry about breakfast and an invitation to have it with them; they had waited to have it with him. Avdotya Romanovna rang the bell: it was answered by a ragged dirty waiter, and they asked him to bring tea which was served at last, but in such a dirty and disorderly way that the ladies were ashamed. Razumihin vigorously attacked the lodgings, but, remembering Luzhin, stopped in embarrassment and was greatly relieved by Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s questions, which showered in a continual stream upon him. He talked for three quarters of an hour, being constantly interrupted by their questions, and succeeded in describing to them all the most important facts he knew of the last year of Raskolnikov’s life, concluding with a circumstantial account of his illness. He omitted, however, many things, which were better omitted, including the scene at the police station with all its consequences. They listened eagerly to his story, and, when he thought he had finished and satisfied his listeners, he found that they considered he had hardly begun. “Tell me, tell me! What do you think...? Excuse me, I still don’t know your name!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna put in hastily. “Dmitri Prokofitch.” “I should like very, very much to know, Dmitri Prokofitch... how he looks... on things in general now, that is, how can I explain, what are his likes and dislikes? Is he always so irritable? Tell me, if you can, what are his hopes and, so to say, his dreams? Under what influences is he now? In a word, I should like...” “Ah, mother, how can he answer all that at once?” observed Dounia. “Good heavens, I had not expected to find him in the least like this, Dmitri Prokofitch!” “Naturally,” answered Razumihin. “I have no mother, but my uncle comes every year and almost every time he can scarcely recognise me, even in appearance, though he is a clever man; and your three years’ separation means a great deal. What am I to tell you? I have known Rodion for a year and a half; he is morose, gloomy, proud and haughty, and of late--and perhaps for a long time before--he has been suspicious and fanciful. He has a noble nature and a kind heart. He does not like showing his feelings and would rather do a cruel thing than open his heart freely. Sometimes, though, he is not at all morbid, but simply cold and inhumanly callous; it’s as though he were alternating between two characters. Sometimes he is fearfully reserved! He says he is so busy that everything is a hindrance, and yet he lies in bed doing nothing. He doesn’t jeer at things, not because he hasn’t the wit, but as though he hadn’t time to waste on such trifles. He never listens to what is said to him. He is never interested in what interests other people at any given moment. He thinks very highly of himself and perhaps he is right. Well, what more? I think your arrival will have a most beneficial influence upon him.” “God grant it may,” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, distressed by Razumihin’s account of her Rodya. And Razumihin ventured to look more boldly at Avdotya Romanovna at last. He glanced at her often while he was talking, but only for a moment and looked away again at once. Avdotya Romanovna sat at the table, listening attentively, then got up again and began walking to and fro with her arms folded and her lips compressed, occasionally putting in a question, without stopping her walk. She had the same habit of not listening to what was said. She was wearing a dress of thin dark stuff and she had a white transparent scarf round her neck. Razumihin soon detected signs of extreme poverty in their belongings. Had Avdotya Romanovna been dressed like a queen, he felt that he would not be afraid of her, but perhaps just because she was poorly dressed and that he noticed all the misery of her surroundings, his heart was filled with dread and he began to be afraid of every word he uttered, every gesture he made, which was very trying for a man who already felt diffident. “You’ve told us a great deal that is interesting about my brother’s character... and have told it impartially. I am glad. I thought that you were too uncritically devoted to him,” observed Avdotya Romanovna with a smile. “I think you are right that he needs a woman’s care,” she added thoughtfully. “I didn’t say so; but I daresay you are right, only...” “What?” “He loves no one and perhaps he never will,” Razumihin declared decisively. “You mean he is not capable of love?” “Do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, you are awfully like your brother, in everything, indeed!” he blurted out suddenly to his own surprise, but remembering at once what he had just before said of her brother, he turned as red as a crab and was overcome with confusion. Avdotya Romanovna couldn’t help laughing when she looked at him. “You may both be mistaken about Rodya,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna remarked, slightly piqued. “I am not talking of our present difficulty, Dounia. What Pyotr Petrovitch writes in this letter and what you and I have supposed may be mistaken, but you can’t imagine, Dmitri Prokofitch, how moody and, so to say, capricious he is. I never could depend on what he would do when he was only fifteen. And I am sure that he might do something now that nobody else would think of doing... Well, for instance, do you know how a year and a half ago he astounded me and gave me a shock that nearly killed me, when he had the idea of marrying that girl--what was her name--his landlady’s daughter?” “Did you hear about that affair?” asked Avdotya Romanovna. “Do you suppose----” Pulcheria Alexandrovna continued warmly. “Do you suppose that my tears, my entreaties, my illness, my possible death from grief, our poverty would have made him pause? No, he would calmly have disregarded all obstacles. And yet it isn’t that he doesn’t love us!” “He has never spoken a word of that affair to me,” Razumihin answered cautiously. “But I did hear something from Praskovya Pavlovna herself, though she is by no means a gossip. And what I heard certainly was rather strange.” “And what did you hear?” both the ladies asked at once. “Well, nothing very special. I only learned that the marriage, which only failed to take place through the girl’s death, was not at all to Praskovya Pavlovna’s liking. They say, too, the girl was not at all pretty, in fact I am told positively ugly... and such an invalid... and queer. But she seems to have had some good qualities. She must have had some good qualities or it’s quite inexplicable.... She had no money either and he wouldn’t have considered her money.... But it’s always difficult to judge in such matters.” “I am sure she was a good girl,” Avdotya Romanovna observed briefly. “God forgive me, I simply rejoiced at her death. Though I don’t know which of them would have caused most misery to the other--he to her or she to him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna concluded. Then she began tentatively questioning him about the scene on the previous day with Luzhin, hesitating and continually glancing at Dounia, obviously to the latter’s annoyance. This incident more than all the rest evidently caused her uneasiness, even consternation. Razumihin described it in detail again, but this time he added his own conclusions: he openly blamed Raskolnikov for intentionally insulting Pyotr Petrovitch, not seeking to excuse him on the score of his illness. “He had planned it before his illness,” he added. “I think so, too,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna agreed with a dejected air. But she was very much surprised at hearing Razumihin express himself so carefully and even with a certain respect about Pyotr Petrovitch. Avdotya Romanovna, too, was struck by it. “So this is your opinion of Pyotr Petrovitch?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna could not resist asking. “I can have no other opinion of your daughter’s future husband,” Razumihin answered firmly and with warmth, “and I don’t say it simply from vulgar politeness, but because... simply because Avdotya Romanovna has of her own free will deigned to accept this man. If I spoke so rudely of him last night, it was because I was disgustingly drunk and... mad besides; yes, mad, crazy, I lost my head completely... and this morning I am ashamed of it.” He crimsoned and ceased speaking. Avdotya Romanovna flushed, but did not break the silence. She had not uttered a word from the moment they began to speak of Luzhin. Without her support Pulcheria Alexandrovna obviously did not know what to do. At last, faltering and continually glancing at her daughter, she confessed that she was exceedingly worried by one circumstance. “You see, Dmitri Prokofitch,” she began. “I’ll be perfectly open with Dmitri Prokofitch, Dounia?” “Of course, mother,” said Avdotya Romanovna emphatically. “This is what it is,” she began in haste, as though the permission to speak of her trouble lifted a weight off her mind. “Very early this morning we got a note from Pyotr Petrovitch in reply to our letter announcing our arrival. He promised to meet us at the station, you know; instead of that he sent a servant to bring us the address of these lodgings and to show us the way; and he sent a message that he would be here himself this morning. But this morning this note came from him. You’d better read it yourself; there is one point in it which worries me very much... you will soon see what that is, and... tell me your candid opinion, Dmitri Prokofitch! You know Rodya’s character better than anyone and no one can advise us better than you can. Dounia, I must tell you, made her decision at once, but I still don’t feel sure how to act and I... I’ve been waiting for your opinion.” Razumihin opened the note which was dated the previous evening and read as follows: “Dear Madam, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, I have the honour to inform you that owing to unforeseen obstacles I was rendered unable to meet you at the railway station; I sent a very competent person with the same object in view. I likewise shall be deprived of the honour of an interview with you to-morrow morning by business in the Senate that does not admit of delay, and also that I may not intrude on your family circle while you are meeting your son, and Avdotya Romanovna her brother. I shall have the honour of visiting you and paying you my respects at your lodgings not later than to-morrow evening at eight o’clock precisely, and herewith I venture to present my earnest and, I may add, imperative request that Rodion Romanovitch may not be present at our interview--as he offered me a gross and unprecedented affront on the occasion of my visit to him in his illness yesterday, and, moreover, since I desire from you personally an indispensable and circumstantial explanation upon a certain point, in regard to which I wish to learn your own interpretation. I have the honour to inform you, in anticipation, that if, in spite of my request, I meet Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be compelled to withdraw immediately and then you have only yourself to blame. I write on the assumption that Rodion Romanovitch who appeared so ill at my visit, suddenly recovered two hours later and so, being able to leave the house, may visit you also. I was confirmed in that belief by the testimony of my own eyes in the lodging of a drunken man who was run over and has since died, to whose daughter, a young woman of notorious behaviour, he gave twenty-five roubles on the pretext of the funeral, which gravely surprised me knowing what pains you were at to raise that sum. Herewith expressing my special respect to your estimable daughter, Avdotya Romanovna, I beg you to accept the respectful homage of “Your humble servant, “P. LUZHIN.” “What am I to do now, Dmitri Prokofitch?” began Pulcheria Alexandrovna, almost weeping. “How can I ask Rodya not to come? Yesterday he insisted so earnestly on our refusing Pyotr Petrovitch and now we are ordered not to receive Rodya! He will come on purpose if he knows, and... what will happen then?” “Act on Avdotya Romanovna’s decision,” Razumihin answered calmly at once. “Oh, dear me! She says... goodness knows what she says, she doesn’t explain her object! She says that it would be best, at least, not that it would be best, but that it’s absolutely necessary that Rodya should make a point of being here at eight o’clock and that they must meet.... I didn’t want even to show him the letter, but to prevent him from coming by some stratagem with your help... because he is so irritable.... Besides I don’t understand about that drunkard who died and that daughter, and how he could have given the daughter all the money... which...” “Which cost you such sacrifice, mother,” put in Avdotya Romanovna. “He was not himself yesterday,” Razumihin said thoughtfully, “if you only knew what he was up to in a restaurant yesterday, though there was sense in it too.... Hm! He did say something, as we were going home yesterday evening, about a dead man and a girl, but I didn’t understand a word.... But last night, I myself...” “The best thing, mother, will be for us to go to him ourselves and there I assure you we shall see at once what’s to be done. Besides, it’s getting late--good heavens, it’s past ten,” she cried looking at a splendid gold enamelled watch which hung round her neck on a thin Venetian chain, and looked entirely out of keeping with the rest of her dress. “A present from her _fiancé_,” thought Razumihin. “We must start, Dounia, we must start,” her mother cried in a flutter. “He will be thinking we are still angry after yesterday, from our coming so late. Merciful heavens!” While she said this she was hurriedly putting on her hat and mantle; Dounia, too, put on her things. Her gloves, as Razumihin noticed, were not merely shabby but had holes in them, and yet this evident poverty gave the two ladies an air of special dignity, which is always found in people who know how to wear poor clothes. Razumihin looked reverently at Dounia and felt proud of escorting her. “The queen who mended her stockings in prison,” he thought, “must have looked then every inch a queen and even more a queen than at sumptuous banquets and levées.” “My God!” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “little did I think that I should ever fear seeing my son, my darling, darling Rodya! I am afraid, Dmitri Prokofitch,” she added, glancing at him timidly. “Don’t be afraid, mother,” said Dounia, kissing her, “better have faith in him.” “Oh, dear, I have faith in him, but I haven’t slept all night,” exclaimed the poor woman. They came out into the street. “Do you know, Dounia, when I dozed a little this morning I dreamed of Marfa Petrovna... she was all in white... she came up to me, took my hand, and shook her head at me, but so sternly as though she were blaming me.... Is that a good omen? Oh, dear me! You don’t know, Dmitri Prokofitch, that Marfa Petrovna’s dead!” “No, I didn’t know; who is Marfa Petrovna?” “She died suddenly; and only fancy...” “Afterwards, mamma,” put in Dounia. “He doesn’t know who Marfa Petrovna is.” “Ah, you don’t know? And I was thinking that you knew all about us. Forgive me, Dmitri Prokofitch, I don’t know what I am thinking about these last few days. I look upon you really as a providence for us, and so I took it for granted that you knew all about us. I look on you as a relation.... Don’t be angry with me for saying so. Dear me, what’s the matter with your right hand? Have you knocked it?” “Yes, I bruised it,” muttered Razumihin overjoyed. “I sometimes speak too much from the heart, so that Dounia finds fault with me.... But, dear me, what a cupboard he lives in! I wonder whether he is awake? Does this woman, his landlady, consider it a room? Listen, you say he does not like to show his feelings, so perhaps I shall annoy him with my... weaknesses? Do advise me, Dmitri Prokofitch, how am I to treat him? I feel quite distracted, you know.” “Don’t question him too much about anything if you see him frown; don’t ask him too much about his health; he doesn’t like that.” “Ah, Dmitri Prokofitch, how hard it is to be a mother! But here are the stairs.... What an awful staircase!” “Mother, you are quite pale, don’t distress yourself, darling,” said Dounia caressing her, then with flashing eyes she added: “He ought to be happy at seeing you, and you are tormenting yourself so.” “Wait, I’ll peep in and see whether he has waked up.” The ladies slowly followed Razumihin, who went on before, and when they reached the landlady’s door on the fourth storey, they noticed that her door was a tiny crack open and that two keen black eyes were watching them from the darkness within. When their eyes met, the door was suddenly shut with such a slam that Pulcheria Alexandrovna almost cried out. CHAPTER III “He is well, quite well!” Zossimov cried cheerfully as they entered. He had come in ten minutes earlier and was sitting in the same place as before, on the sofa. Raskolnikov was sitting in the opposite corner, fully dressed and carefully washed and combed, as he had not been for some time past. The room was immediately crowded, yet Nastasya managed to follow the visitors in and stayed to listen. Raskolnikov really was almost well, as compared with his condition the day before, but he was still pale, listless, and sombre. He looked like a wounded man or one who has undergone some terrible physical suffering. His brows were knitted, his lips compressed, his eyes feverish. He spoke little and reluctantly, as though performing a duty, and there was a restlessness in his movements. He only wanted a sling on his arm or a bandage on his finger to complete the impression of a man with a painful abscess or a broken arm. The pale, sombre face lighted up for a moment when his mother and sister entered, but this only gave it a look of more intense suffering, in place of its listless dejection. The light soon died away, but the look of suffering remained, and Zossimov, watching and studying his patient with all the zest of a young doctor beginning to practise, noticed in him no joy at the arrival of his mother and sister, but a sort of bitter, hidden determination to bear another hour or two of inevitable torture. He saw later that almost every word of the following conversation seemed to touch on some sore place and irritate it. But at the same time he marvelled at the power of controlling himself and hiding his feelings in a patient who the previous day had, like a monomaniac, fallen into a frenzy at the slightest word. “Yes, I see myself now that I am almost well,” said Raskolnikov, giving his mother and sister a kiss of welcome which made Pulcheria Alexandrovna radiant at once. “And I don’t say this _as I did yesterday_,” he said, addressing Razumihin, with a friendly pressure of his hand. “Yes, indeed, I am quite surprised at him to-day,” began Zossimov, much delighted at the ladies’ entrance, for he had not succeeded in keeping up a conversation with his patient for ten minutes. “In another three or four days, if he goes on like this, he will be just as before, that is, as he was a month ago, or two... or perhaps even three. This has been coming on for a long while.... eh? Confess, now, that it has been perhaps your own fault?” he added, with a tentative smile, as though still afraid of irritating him. “It is very possible,” answered Raskolnikov coldly. “I should say, too,” continued Zossimov with zest, “that your complete recovery depends solely on yourself. Now that one can talk to you, I should like to impress upon you that it is essential to avoid the elementary, so to speak, fundamental causes tending to produce your morbid condition: in that case you will be cured, if not, it will go from bad to worse. These fundamental causes I don’t know, but they must be known to you. You are an intelligent man, and must have observed yourself, of course. I fancy the first stage of your derangement coincides with your leaving the university. You must not be left without occupation, and so, work and a definite aim set before you might, I fancy, be very beneficial.” “Yes, yes; you are perfectly right.... I will make haste and return to the university: and then everything will go smoothly....” Zossimov, who had begun his sage advice partly to make an effect before the ladies, was certainly somewhat mystified, when, glancing at his patient, he observed unmistakable mockery on his face. This lasted an instant, however. Pulcheria Alexandrovna began at once thanking Zossimov, especially for his visit to their lodging the previous night. “What! he saw you last night?” Raskolnikov asked, as though startled. “Then you have not slept either after your journey.” “Ach, Rodya, that was only till two o’clock. Dounia and I never go to bed before two at home.” “I don’t know how to thank him either,” Raskolnikov went on, suddenly frowning and looking down. “Setting aside the question of payment--forgive me for referring to it (he turned to Zossimov)--I really don’t know what I have done to deserve such special attention from you! I simply don’t understand it... and... and... it weighs upon me, indeed, because I don’t understand it. I tell you so candidly.” “Don’t be irritated.” Zossimov forced himself to laugh. “Assume that you are my first patient--well--we fellows just beginning to practise love our first patients as if they were our children, and some almost fall in love with them. And, of course, I am not rich in patients.” “I say nothing about him,” added Raskolnikov, pointing to Razumihin, “though he has had nothing from me either but insult and trouble.” “What nonsense he is talking! Why, you are in a sentimental mood to-day, are you?” shouted Razumihin. If he had had more penetration he would have seen that there was no trace of sentimentality in him, but something indeed quite the opposite. But Avdotya Romanovna noticed it. She was intently and uneasily watching her brother. “As for you, mother, I don’t dare to speak,” he went on, as though repeating a lesson learned by heart. “It is only to-day that I have been able to realise a little how distressed you must have been here yesterday, waiting for me to come back.” When he had said this, he suddenly held out his hand to his sister, smiling without a word. But in this smile there was a flash of real unfeigned feeling. Dounia caught it at once, and warmly pressed his hand, overjoyed and thankful. It was the first time he had addressed her since their dispute the previous day. The mother’s face lighted up with ecstatic happiness at the sight of this conclusive unspoken reconciliation. “Yes, that is what I love him for,” Razumihin, exaggerating it all, muttered to himself, with a vigorous turn in his chair. “He has these movements.” “And how well he does it all,” the mother was thinking to herself. “What generous impulses he has, and how simply, how delicately he put an end to all the misunderstanding with his sister--simply by holding out his hand at the right minute and looking at her like that.... And what fine eyes he has, and how fine his whole face is!... He is even better looking than Dounia.... But, good heavens, what a suit--how terribly he’s dressed!... Vasya, the messenger boy in Afanasy Ivanitch’s shop, is better dressed! I could rush at him and hug him... weep over him--but I am afraid.... Oh, dear, he’s so strange! He’s talking kindly, but I’m afraid! Why, what am I afraid of?...” “Oh, Rodya, you wouldn’t believe,” she began suddenly, in haste to answer his words to her, “how unhappy Dounia and I were yesterday! Now that it’s all over and done with and we are quite happy again--I can tell you. Fancy, we ran here almost straight from the train to embrace you and that woman--ah, here she is! Good morning, Nastasya!... She told us at once that you were lying in a high fever and had just run away from the doctor in delirium, and they were looking for you in the streets. You can’t imagine how we felt! I couldn’t help thinking of the tragic end of Lieutenant Potanchikov, a friend of your father’s--you can’t remember him, Rodya--who ran out in the same way in a high fever and fell into the well in the court-yard and they couldn’t pull him out till next day. Of course, we exaggerated things. We were on the point of rushing to find Pyotr Petrovitch to ask him to help.... Because we were alone, utterly alone,” she said plaintively and stopped short, suddenly, recollecting it was still somewhat dangerous to speak of Pyotr Petrovitch, although “we are quite happy again.” “Yes, yes.... Of course it’s very annoying....” Raskolnikov muttered in reply, but with such a preoccupied and inattentive air that Dounia gazed at him in perplexity. “What else was it I wanted to say?” He went on trying to recollect. “Oh, yes; mother, and you too, Dounia, please don’t think that I didn’t mean to come and see you to-day and was waiting for you to come first.” “What are you saying, Rodya?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. She, too, was surprised. “Is he answering us as a duty?” Dounia wondered. “Is he being reconciled and asking forgiveness as though he were performing a rite or repeating a lesson?” “I’ve only just waked up, and wanted to go to you, but was delayed owing to my clothes; I forgot yesterday to ask her... Nastasya... to wash out the blood... I’ve only just dressed.” “Blood! What blood?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in alarm. “Oh, nothing--don’t be uneasy. It was when I was wandering about yesterday, rather delirious, I chanced upon a man who had been run over... a clerk...” “Delirious? But you remember everything!” Razumihin interrupted. “That’s true,” Raskolnikov answered with special carefulness. “I remember everything even to the slightest detail, and yet--why I did that and went there and said that, I can’t clearly explain now.” “A familiar phenomenon,” interposed Zossimov, “actions are sometimes performed in a masterly and most cunning way, while the direction of the actions is deranged and dependent on various morbid impressions--it’s like a dream.” “Perhaps it’s a good thing really that he should think me almost a madman,” thought Raskolnikov. “Why, people in perfect health act in the same way too,” observed Dounia, looking uneasily at Zossimov. “There is some truth in your observation,” the latter replied. “In that sense we are certainly all not infrequently like madmen, but with the slight difference that the deranged are somewhat madder, for we must draw a line. A normal man, it is true, hardly exists. Among dozens--perhaps hundreds of thousands--hardly one is to be met with.” At the word “madman,” carelessly dropped by Zossimov in his chatter on his favourite subject, everyone frowned. Raskolnikov sat seeming not to pay attention, plunged in thought with a strange smile on his pale lips. He was still meditating on something. “Well, what about the man who was run over? I interrupted you!” Razumihin cried hastily. “What?” Raskolnikov seemed to wake up. “Oh... I got spattered with blood helping to carry him to his lodging. By the way, mamma, I did an unpardonable thing yesterday. I was literally out of my mind. I gave away all the money you sent me... to his wife for the funeral. She’s a widow now, in consumption, a poor creature... three little children, starving... nothing in the house... there’s a daughter, too... perhaps you’d have given it yourself if you’d seen them. But I had no right to do it I admit, especially as I knew how you needed the money yourself. To help others one must have the right to do it, or else _Crevez, chiens, si vous n’êtes pas contents_.” He laughed, “That’s right, isn’t it, Dounia?” “No, it’s not,” answered Dounia firmly. “Bah! you, too, have ideals,” he muttered, looking at her almost with hatred, and smiling sarcastically. “I ought to have considered that.... Well, that’s praiseworthy, and it’s better for you... and if you reach a line you won’t overstep, you will be unhappy... and if you overstep it, maybe you will be still unhappier.... But all that’s nonsense,” he added irritably, vexed at being carried away. “I only meant to say that I beg your forgiveness, mother,” he concluded, shortly and abruptly. “That’s enough, Rodya, I am sure that everything you do is very good,” said his mother, delighted. “Don’t be too sure,” he answered, twisting his mouth into a smile. A silence followed. There was a certain constraint in all this conversation, and in the silence, and in the reconciliation, and in the forgiveness, and all were feeling it. “It is as though they were afraid of me,” Raskolnikov was thinking to himself, looking askance at his mother and sister. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was indeed growing more timid the longer she kept silent. “Yet in their absence I seemed to love them so much,” flashed through his mind. “Do you know, Rodya, Marfa Petrovna is dead,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna suddenly blurted out. “What Marfa Petrovna?” “Oh, mercy on us--Marfa Petrovna Svidrigaïlov. I wrote you so much about her.” “A-a-h! Yes, I remember.... So she’s dead! Oh, really?” he roused himself suddenly, as if waking up. “What did she die of?” “Only imagine, quite suddenly,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna answered hurriedly, encouraged by his curiosity. “On the very day I was sending you that letter! Would you believe it, that awful man seems to have been the cause of her death. They say he beat her dreadfully.” “Why, were they on such bad terms?” he asked, addressing his sister. “Not at all. Quite the contrary indeed. With her, he was always very patient, considerate even. In fact, all those seven years of their married life he gave way to her, too much so indeed, in many cases. All of a sudden he seems to have lost patience.” “Then he could not have been so awful if he controlled himself for seven years? You seem to be defending him, Dounia?” “No, no, he’s an awful man! I can imagine nothing more awful!” Dounia answered, almost with a shudder, knitting her brows, and sinking into thought. “That had happened in the morning,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on hurriedly. “And directly afterwards she ordered the horses to be harnessed to drive to the town immediately after dinner. She always used to drive to the town in such cases. She ate a very good dinner, I am told....” “After the beating?” “That was always her... habit; and immediately after dinner, so as not to be late in starting, she went to the bath-house.... You see, she was undergoing some treatment with baths. They have a cold spring there, and she used to bathe in it regularly every day, and no sooner had she got into the water when she suddenly had a stroke!” “I should think so,” said Zossimov. “And did he beat her badly?” “What does that matter!” put in Dounia. “H’m! But I don’t know why you want to tell us such gossip, mother,” said Raskolnikov irritably, as it were in spite of himself. “Ah, my dear, I don’t know what to talk about,” broke from Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “Why, are you all afraid of me?” he asked, with a constrained smile. “That’s certainly true,” said Dounia, looking directly and sternly at her brother. “Mother was crossing herself with terror as she came up the stairs.” His face worked, as though in convulsion. “Ach, what are you saying, Dounia! Don’t be angry, please, Rodya.... Why did you say that, Dounia?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, overwhelmed--“You see, coming here, I was dreaming all the way, in the train, how we should meet, how we should talk over everything together.... And I was so happy, I did not notice the journey! But what am I saying? I am happy now.... You should not, Dounia.... I am happy now--simply in seeing you, Rodya....” “Hush, mother,” he muttered in confusion, not looking at her, but pressing her hand. “We shall have time to speak freely of everything!” As he said this, he was suddenly overwhelmed with confusion and turned pale. Again that awful sensation he had known of late passed with deadly chill over his soul. Again it became suddenly plain and perceptible to him that he had just told a fearful lie--that he would never now be able to speak freely of everything--that he would never again be able to _speak_ of anything to anyone. The anguish of this thought was such that for a moment he almost forgot himself. He got up from his seat, and not looking at anyone walked towards the door. “What are you about?” cried Razumihin, clutching him by the arm. He sat down again, and began looking about him, in silence. They were all looking at him in perplexity. “But what are you all so dull for?” he shouted, suddenly and quite unexpectedly. “Do say something! What’s the use of sitting like this? Come, do speak. Let us talk.... We meet together and sit in silence.... Come, anything!” “Thank God; I was afraid the same thing as yesterday was beginning again,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. “What is the matter, Rodya?” asked Avdotya Romanovna, distrustfully. “Oh, nothing! I remembered something,” he answered, and suddenly laughed. “Well, if you remembered something; that’s all right!... I was beginning to think...” muttered Zossimov, getting up from the sofa. “It is time for me to be off. I will look in again perhaps... if I can...” He made his bows, and went out. “What an excellent man!” observed Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “Yes, excellent, splendid, well-educated, intelligent,” Raskolnikov began, suddenly speaking with surprising rapidity, and a liveliness he had not shown till then. “I can’t remember where I met him before my illness.... I believe I have met him somewhere----... And this is a good man, too,” he nodded at Razumihin. “Do you like him, Dounia?” he asked her; and suddenly, for some unknown reason, laughed. “Very much,” answered Dounia. “Foo!--what a pig you are!” Razumihin protested, blushing in terrible confusion, and he got up from his chair. Pulcheria Alexandrovna smiled faintly, but Raskolnikov laughed aloud. “Where are you off to?” “I must go.” “You need not at all. Stay. Zossimov has gone, so you must. Don’t go. What’s the time? Is it twelve o’clock? What a pretty watch you have got, Dounia. But why are you all silent again? I do all the talking.” “It was a present from Marfa Petrovna,” answered Dounia. “And a very expensive one!” added Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “A-ah! What a big one! Hardly like a lady’s.” “I like that sort,” said Dounia. “So it is not a present from her _fiancé_,” thought Razumihin, and was unreasonably delighted. “I thought it was Luzhin’s present,” observed Raskolnikov. “No, he has not made Dounia any presents yet.” “A-ah! And do you remember, mother, I was in love and wanted to get married?” he said suddenly, looking at his mother, who was disconcerted by the sudden change of subject and the way he spoke of it. “Oh, yes, my dear.” Pulcheria Alexandrovna exchanged glances with Dounia and Razumihin. “H’m, yes. What shall I tell you? I don’t remember much indeed. She was such a sickly girl,” he went on, growing dreamy and looking down again. “Quite an invalid. She was fond of giving alms to the poor, and was always dreaming of a nunnery, and once she burst into tears when she began talking to me about it. Yes, yes, I remember. I remember very well. She was an ugly little thing. I really don’t know what drew me to her then--I think it was because she was always ill. If she had been lame or hunchback, I believe I should have liked her better still,” he smiled dreamily. “Yes, it was a sort of spring delirium.” “No, it was not only spring delirium,” said Dounia, with warm feeling. He fixed a strained intent look on his sister, but did not hear or did not understand her words. Then, completely lost in thought, he got up, went up to his mother, kissed her, went back to his place and sat down. “You love her even now?” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, touched. “Her? Now? Oh, yes.... You ask about her? No... that’s all now, as it were, in another world... and so long ago. And indeed everything happening here seems somehow far away.” He looked attentively at them. “You, now... I seem to be looking at you from a thousand miles away... but, goodness knows why we are talking of that! And what’s the use of asking about it?” he added with annoyance, and biting his nails, fell into dreamy silence again. “What a wretched lodging you have, Rodya! It’s like a tomb,” said Pulcheria Alexandrovna, suddenly breaking the oppressive silence. “I am sure it’s quite half through your lodging you have become so melancholy.” “My lodging,” he answered, listlessly. “Yes, the lodging had a great deal to do with it.... I thought that, too.... If only you knew, though, what a strange thing you said just now, mother,” he said, laughing strangely. A little more, and their companionship, this mother and this sister, with him after three years’ absence, this intimate tone of conversation, in face of the utter impossibility of really speaking about anything, would have been beyond his power of endurance. But there was one urgent matter which must be settled one way or the other that day--so he had decided when he woke. Now he was glad to remember it, as a means of escape. “Listen, Dounia,” he began, gravely and drily, “of course I beg your pardon for yesterday, but I consider it my duty to tell you again that I do not withdraw from my chief point. It is me or Luzhin. If I am a scoundrel, you must not be. One is enough. If you marry Luzhin, I cease at once to look on you as a sister.” “Rodya, Rodya! It is the same as yesterday again,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna cried, mournfully. “And why do you call yourself a scoundrel? I can’t bear it. You said the same yesterday.” “Brother,” Dounia answered firmly and with the same dryness. “In all this there is a mistake on your part. I thought it over at night, and found out the mistake. It is all because you seem to fancy I am sacrificing myself to someone and for someone. That is not the case at all. I am simply marrying for my own sake, because things are hard for me. Though, of course, I shall be glad if I succeed in being useful to my family. But that is not the chief motive for my decision....” “She is lying,” he thought to himself, biting his nails vindictively. “Proud creature! She won’t admit she wants to do it out of charity! Too haughty! Oh, base characters! They even love as though they hate.... Oh, how I... hate them all!” “In fact,” continued Dounia, “I am marrying Pyotr Petrovitch because of two evils I choose the less. I intend to do honestly all he expects of me, so I am not deceiving him.... Why did you smile just now?” She, too, flushed, and there was a gleam of anger in her eyes. “All?” he asked, with a malignant grin. “Within certain limits. Both the manner and form of Pyotr Petrovitch’s courtship showed me at once what he wanted. He may, of course, think too well of himself, but I hope he esteems me, too.... Why are you laughing again?” “And why are you blushing again? You are lying, sister. You are intentionally lying, simply from feminine obstinacy, simply to hold your own against me.... You cannot respect Luzhin. I have seen him and talked with him. So you are selling yourself for money, and so in any case you are acting basely, and I am glad at least that you can blush for it.” “It is not true. I am not lying,” cried Dounia, losing her composure. “I would not marry him if I were not convinced that he esteems me and thinks highly of me. I would not marry him if I were not firmly convinced that I can respect him. Fortunately, I can have convincing proof of it this very day... and such a marriage is not a vileness, as you say! And even if you were right, if I really had determined on a vile action, is it not merciless on your part to speak to me like that? Why do you demand of me a heroism that perhaps you have not either? It is despotism; it is tyranny. If I ruin anyone, it is only myself.... I am not committing a murder. Why do you look at me like that? Why are you so pale? Rodya, darling, what’s the matter?” “Good heavens! You have made him faint,” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “No, no, nonsense! It’s nothing. A little giddiness--not fainting. You have fainting on the brain. H’m, yes, what was I saying? Oh, yes. In what way will you get convincing proof to-day that you can respect him, and that he... esteems you, as you said. I think you said to-day?” “Mother, show Rodya Pyotr Petrovitch’s letter,” said Dounia. With trembling hands, Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave him the letter. He took it with great interest, but, before opening it, he suddenly looked with a sort of wonder at Dounia. “It is strange,” he said, slowly, as though struck by a new idea. “What am I making such a fuss for? What is it all about? Marry whom you like!” He said this as though to himself, but said it aloud, and looked for some time at his sister, as though puzzled. He opened the letter at last, still with the same look of strange wonder on his face. Then, slowly and attentively, he began reading, and read it through twice. Pulcheria Alexandrovna showed marked anxiety, and all indeed expected something particular. “What surprises me,” he began, after a short pause, handing the letter to his mother, but not addressing anyone in particular, “is that he is a business man, a lawyer, and his conversation is pretentious indeed, and yet he writes such an uneducated letter.” They all started. They had expected something quite different. “But they all write like that, you know,” Razumihin observed, abruptly. “Have you read it?” “Yes.” “We showed him, Rodya. We... consulted him just now,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, embarrassed. “That’s just the jargon of the courts,” Razumihin put in. “Legal documents are written like that to this day.” “Legal? Yes, it’s just legal--business language--not so very uneducated, and not quite educated--business language!” “Pyotr Petrovitch makes no secret of the fact that he had a cheap education, he is proud indeed of having made his own way,” Avdotya Romanovna observed, somewhat offended by her brother’s tone. “Well, if he’s proud of it, he has reason, I don’t deny it. You seem to be offended, sister, at my making only such a frivolous criticism on the letter, and to think that I speak of such trifling matters on purpose to annoy you. It is quite the contrary, an observation apropos of the style occurred to me that is by no means irrelevant as things stand. There is one expression, ‘blame yourselves’ put in very significantly and plainly, and there is besides a threat that he will go away at once if I am present. That threat to go away is equivalent to a threat to abandon you both if you are disobedient, and to abandon you now after summoning you to Petersburg. Well, what do you think? Can one resent such an expression from Luzhin, as we should if he (he pointed to Razumihin) had written it, or Zossimov, or one of us?” “N-no,” answered Dounia, with more animation. “I saw clearly that it was too naïvely expressed, and that perhaps he simply has no skill in writing... that is a true criticism, brother. I did not expect, indeed...” “It is expressed in legal style, and sounds coarser than perhaps he intended. But I must disillusion you a little. There is one expression in the letter, one slander about me, and rather a contemptible one. I gave the money last night to the widow, a woman in consumption, crushed with trouble, and not ‘on the pretext of the funeral,’ but simply to pay for the funeral, and not to the daughter--a young woman, as he writes, of notorious behaviour (whom I saw last night for the first time in my life)--but to the widow. In all this I see a too hasty desire to slander me and to raise dissension between us. It is expressed again in legal jargon, that is to say, with a too obvious display of the aim, and with a very naïve eagerness. He is a man of intelligence, but to act sensibly, intelligence is not enough. It all shows the man and... I don’t think he has a great esteem for you. I tell you this simply to warn you, because I sincerely wish for your good...” Dounia did not reply. Her resolution had been taken. She was only awaiting the evening. “Then what is your decision, Rodya?” asked Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who was more uneasy than ever at the sudden, new businesslike tone of his talk. “What decision?” “You see Pyotr Petrovitch writes that you are not to be with us this evening, and that he will go away if you come. So will you... come?” “That, of course, is not for me to decide, but for you first, if you are not offended by such a request; and secondly, by Dounia, if she, too, is not offended. I will do what you think best,” he added, drily. “Dounia has already decided, and I fully agree with her,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hastened to declare. “I decided to ask you, Rodya, to urge you not to fail to be with us at this interview,” said Dounia. “Will you come?” “Yes.” “I will ask you, too, to be with us at eight o’clock,” she said, addressing Razumihin. “Mother, I am inviting him, too.” “Quite right, Dounia. Well, since you have decided,” added Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “so be it. I shall feel easier myself. I do not like concealment and deception. Better let us have the whole truth.... Pyotr Petrovitch may be angry or not, now!” CHAPTER IV At that moment the door was softly opened, and a young girl walked into the room, looking timidly about her. Everyone turned towards her with surprise and curiosity. At first sight, Raskolnikov did not recognise her. It was Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov. He had seen her yesterday for the first time, but at such a moment, in such surroundings and in such a dress, that his memory retained a very different image of her. Now she was a modestly and poorly-dressed young girl, very young, indeed, almost like a child, with a modest and refined manner, with a candid but somewhat frightened-looking face. She was wearing a very plain indoor dress, and had on a shabby old-fashioned hat, but she still carried a parasol. Unexpectedly finding the room full of people, she was not so much embarrassed as completely overwhelmed with shyness, like a little child. She was even about to retreat. “Oh... it’s you!” said Raskolnikov, extremely astonished, and he, too, was confused. He at once recollected that his mother and sister knew through Luzhin’s letter of “some young woman of notorious behaviour.” He had only just been protesting against Luzhin’s calumny and declaring that he had seen the girl last night for the first time, and suddenly she had walked in. He remembered, too, that he had not protested against the expression “of notorious behaviour.” All this passed vaguely and fleetingly through his brain, but looking at her more intently, he saw that the humiliated creature was so humiliated that he felt suddenly sorry for her. When she made a movement to retreat in terror, it sent a pang to his heart. “I did not expect you,” he said, hurriedly, with a look that made her stop. “Please sit down. You come, no doubt, from Katerina Ivanovna. Allow me--not there. Sit here....” At Sonia’s entrance, Razumihin, who had been sitting on one of Raskolnikov’s three chairs, close to the door, got up to allow her to enter. Raskolnikov had at first shown her the place on the sofa where Zossimov had been sitting, but feeling that the sofa which served him as a bed, was too _familiar_ a place, he hurriedly motioned her to Razumihin’s chair. “You sit here,” he said to Razumihin, putting him on the sofa. Sonia sat down, almost shaking with terror, and looked timidly at the two ladies. It was evidently almost inconceivable to herself that she could sit down beside them. At the thought of it, she was so frightened that she hurriedly got up again, and in utter confusion addressed Raskolnikov. “I... I... have come for one minute. Forgive me for disturbing you,” she began falteringly. “I come from Katerina Ivanovna, and she had no one to send. Katerina Ivanovna told me to beg you... to be at the service... in the morning... at Mitrofanievsky... and then... to us... to her... to do her the honour... she told me to beg you...” Sonia stammered and ceased speaking. “I will try, certainly, most certainly,” answered Raskolnikov. He, too, stood up, and he, too, faltered and could not finish his sentence. “Please sit down,” he said, suddenly. “I want to talk to you. You are perhaps in a hurry, but please, be so kind, spare me two minutes,” and he drew up a chair for her. Sonia sat down again, and again timidly she took a hurried, frightened look at the two ladies, and dropped her eyes. Raskolnikov’s pale face flushed, a shudder passed over him, his eyes glowed. “Mother,” he said, firmly and insistently, “this is Sofya Semyonovna Marmeladov, the daughter of that unfortunate Mr. Marmeladov, who was run over yesterday before my eyes, and of whom I was just telling you.” Pulcheria Alexandrovna glanced at Sonia, and slightly screwed up her eyes. In spite of her embarrassment before Rodya’s urgent and challenging look, she could not deny herself that satisfaction. Dounia gazed gravely and intently into the poor girl’s face, and scrutinised her with perplexity. Sonia, hearing herself introduced, tried to raise her eyes again, but was more embarrassed than ever. “I wanted to ask you,” said Raskolnikov, hastily, “how things were arranged yesterday. You were not worried by the police, for instance?” “No, that was all right... it was too evident, the cause of death... they did not worry us... only the lodgers are angry.” “Why?” “At the body’s remaining so long. You see it is hot now. So that, to-day, they will carry it to the cemetery, into the chapel, until to-morrow. At first Katerina Ivanovna was unwilling, but now she sees herself that it’s necessary...” “To-day, then?” “She begs you to do us the honour to be in the church to-morrow for the service, and then to be present at the funeral lunch.” “She is giving a funeral lunch?” “Yes... just a little.... She told me to thank you very much for helping us yesterday. But for you, we should have had nothing for the funeral.” All at once her lips and chin began trembling, but, with an effort, she controlled herself, looking down again. During the conversation, Raskolnikov watched her carefully. She had a thin, very thin, pale little face, rather irregular and angular, with a sharp little nose and chin. She could not have been called pretty, but her blue eyes were so clear, and when they lighted up, there was such a kindliness and simplicity in her expression that one could not help being attracted. Her face, and her whole figure indeed, had another peculiar characteristic. In spite of her eighteen years, she looked almost a little girl--almost a child. And in some of her gestures, this childishness seemed almost absurd. “But has Katerina Ivanovna been able to manage with such small means? Does she even mean to have a funeral lunch?” Raskolnikov asked, persistently keeping up the conversation. “The coffin will be plain, of course... and everything will be plain, so it won’t cost much. Katerina Ivanovna and I have reckoned it all out, so that there will be enough left... and Katerina Ivanovna was very anxious it should be so. You know one can’t... it’s a comfort to her... she is like that, you know....” “I understand, I understand... of course... why do you look at my room like that? My mother has just said it is like a tomb.” “You gave us everything yesterday,” Sonia said suddenly, in reply, in a loud rapid whisper; and again she looked down in confusion. Her lips and chin were trembling once more. She had been struck at once by Raskolnikov’s poor surroundings, and now these words broke out spontaneously. A silence followed. There was a light in Dounia’s eyes, and even Pulcheria Alexandrovna looked kindly at Sonia. “Rodya,” she said, getting up, “we shall have dinner together, of course. Come, Dounia.... And you, Rodya, had better go for a little walk, and then rest and lie down before you come to see us.... I am afraid we have exhausted you....” “Yes, yes, I’ll come,” he answered, getting up fussily. “But I have something to see to.” “But surely you will have dinner together?” cried Razumihin, looking in surprise at Raskolnikov. “What do you mean?” “Yes, yes, I am coming... of course, of course! And you stay a minute. You do not want him just now, do you, mother? Or perhaps I am taking him from you?” “Oh, no, no. And will you, Dmitri Prokofitch, do us the favour of dining with us?” “Please do,” added Dounia. Razumihin bowed, positively radiant. For one moment, they were all strangely embarrassed. “Good-bye, Rodya, that is till we meet. I do not like saying good-bye. Good-bye, Nastasya. Ah, I have said good-bye again.” Pulcheria Alexandrovna meant to greet Sonia, too; but it somehow failed to come off, and she went in a flutter out of the room. But Avdotya Romanovna seemed to await her turn, and following her mother out, gave Sonia an attentive, courteous bow. Sonia, in confusion, gave a hurried, frightened curtsy. There was a look of poignant discomfort in her face, as though Avdotya Romanovna’s courtesy and attention were oppressive and painful to her. “Dounia, good-bye,” called Raskolnikov, in the passage. “Give me your hand.” “Why, I did give it to you. Have you forgotten?” said Dounia, turning warmly and awkwardly to him. “Never mind, give it to me again.” And he squeezed her fingers warmly. Dounia smiled, flushed, pulled her hand away, and went off quite happy. “Come, that’s capital,” he said to Sonia, going back and looking brightly at her. “God give peace to the dead, the living have still to live. That is right, isn’t it?” Sonia looked surprised at the sudden brightness of his face. He looked at her for some moments in silence. The whole history of the dead father floated before his memory in those moments.... ***** “Heavens, Dounia,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna began, as soon as they were in the street, “I really feel relieved myself at coming away--more at ease. How little did I think yesterday in the train that I could ever be glad of that.” “I tell you again, mother, he is still very ill. Don’t you see it? Perhaps worrying about us upset him. We must be patient, and much, much can be forgiven.” “Well, you were not very patient!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna caught her up, hotly and jealously. “Do you know, Dounia, I was looking at you two. You are the very portrait of him, and not so much in face as in soul. You are both melancholy, both morose and hot-tempered, both haughty and both generous.... Surely he can’t be an egoist, Dounia. Eh? When I think of what is in store for us this evening, my heart sinks!” “Don’t be uneasy, mother. What must be, will be.” “Dounia, only think what a position we are in! What if Pyotr Petrovitch breaks it off?” poor Pulcheria Alexandrovna blurted out, incautiously. “He won’t be worth much if he does,” answered Dounia, sharply and contemptuously. “We did well to come away,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly broke in. “He was in a hurry about some business or other. If he gets out and has a breath of air... it is fearfully close in his room.... But where is one to get a breath of air here? The very streets here feel like shut-up rooms. Good heavens! what a town!... stay... this side... they will crush you--carrying something. Why, it is a piano they have got, I declare... how they push!... I am very much afraid of that young woman, too.” “What young woman, mother? “Why, that Sofya Semyonovna, who was there just now.” “Why?” “I have a presentiment, Dounia. Well, you may believe it or not, but as soon as she came in, that very minute, I felt that she was the chief cause of the trouble....” “Nothing of the sort!” cried Dounia, in vexation. “What nonsense, with your presentiments, mother! He only made her acquaintance the evening before, and he did not know her when she came in.” “Well, you will see.... She worries me; but you will see, you will see! I was so frightened. She was gazing at me with those eyes. I could scarcely sit still in my chair when he began introducing her, do you remember? It seems so strange, but Pyotr Petrovitch writes like that about her, and he introduces her to us--to you! So he must think a great deal of her.” “People will write anything. We were talked about and written about, too. Have you forgotten? I am sure that she is a good girl, and that it is all nonsense.” “God grant it may be!” “And Pyotr Petrovitch is a contemptible slanderer,” Dounia snapped out, suddenly. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was crushed; the conversation was not resumed. ***** “I will tell you what I want with you,” said Raskolnikov, drawing Razumihin to the window. “Then I will tell Katerina Ivanovna that you are coming,” Sonia said hurriedly, preparing to depart. “One minute, Sofya Semyonovna. We have no secrets. You are not in our way. I want to have another word or two with you. Listen!” he turned suddenly to Razumihin again. “You know that... what’s his name... Porfiry Petrovitch?” “I should think so! He is a relation. Why?” added the latter, with interest. “Is not he managing that case... you know, about that murder?... You were speaking about it yesterday.” “Yes... well?” Razumihin’s eyes opened wide. “He was inquiring for people who had pawned things, and I have some pledges there, too--trifles--a ring my sister gave me as a keepsake when I left home, and my father’s silver watch--they are only worth five or six roubles altogether... but I value them. So what am I to do now? I do not want to lose the things, especially the watch. I was quaking just now, for fear mother would ask to look at it, when we spoke of Dounia’s watch. It is the only thing of father’s left us. She would be ill if it were lost. You know what women are. So tell me what to do. I know I ought to have given notice at the police station, but would it not be better to go straight to Porfiry? Eh? What do you think? The matter might be settled more quickly. You see, mother may ask for it before dinner.” “Certainly not to the police station. Certainly to Porfiry,” Razumihin shouted in extraordinary excitement. “Well, how glad I am. Let us go at once. It is a couple of steps. We shall be sure to find him.” “Very well, let us go.” “And he will be very, very glad to make your acquaintance. I have often talked to him of you at different times. I was speaking of you yesterday. Let us go. So you knew the old woman? So that’s it! It is all turning out splendidly.... Oh, yes, Sofya Ivanovna...” “Sofya Semyonovna,” corrected Raskolnikov. “Sofya Semyonovna, this is my friend Razumihin, and he is a good man.” “If you have to go now,” Sonia was beginning, not looking at Razumihin at all, and still more embarrassed. “Let us go,” decided Raskolnikov. “I will come to you to-day, Sofya Semyonovna. Only tell me where you live.” He was not exactly ill at ease, but seemed hurried, and avoided her eyes. Sonia gave her address, and flushed as she did so. They all went out together. “Don’t you lock up?” asked Razumihin, following him on to the stairs. “Never,” answered Raskolnikov. “I have been meaning to buy a lock for these two years. People are happy who have no need of locks,” he said, laughing, to Sonia. They stood still in the gateway. “Do you go to the right, Sofya Semyonovna? How did you find me, by the way?” he added, as though he wanted to say something quite different. He wanted to look at her soft clear eyes, but this was not easy. “Why, you gave your address to Polenka yesterday.” “Polenka? Oh, yes; Polenka, that is the little girl. She is your sister? Did I give her the address?” “Why, had you forgotten?” “No, I remember.” “I had heard my father speak of you... only I did not know your name, and he did not know it. And now I came... and as I had learnt your name, I asked to-day, ‘Where does Mr. Raskolnikov live?’ I did not know you had only a room too.... Good-bye, I will tell Katerina Ivanovna.” She was extremely glad to escape at last; she went away looking down, hurrying to get out of sight as soon as possible, to walk the twenty steps to the turning on the right and to be at last alone, and then moving rapidly along, looking at no one, noticing nothing, to think, to remember, to meditate on every word, every detail. Never, never had she felt anything like this. Dimly and unconsciously a whole new world was opening before her. She remembered suddenly that Raskolnikov meant to come to her that day, perhaps at once! “Only not to-day, please, not to-day!” she kept muttering with a sinking heart, as though entreating someone, like a frightened child. “Mercy! to me... to that room... he will see... oh, dear!” She was not capable at that instant of noticing an unknown gentleman who was watching her and following at her heels. He had accompanied her from the gateway. At the moment when Razumihin, Raskolnikov, and she stood still at parting on the pavement, this gentleman, who was just passing, started on hearing Sonia’s words: “and I asked where Mr. Raskolnikov lived?” He turned a rapid but attentive look upon all three, especially upon Raskolnikov, to whom Sonia was speaking; then looked back and noted the house. All this was done in an instant as he passed, and trying not to betray his interest, he walked on more slowly as though waiting for something. He was waiting for Sonia; he saw that they were parting, and that Sonia was going home. “Home? Where? I’ve seen that face somewhere,” he thought. “I must find out.” At the turning he crossed over, looked round, and saw Sonia coming the same way, noticing nothing. She turned the corner. He followed her on the other side. After about fifty paces he crossed over again, overtook her and kept two or three yards behind her. He was a man about fifty, rather tall and thickly set, with broad high shoulders which made him look as though he stooped a little. He wore good and fashionable clothes, and looked like a gentleman of position. He carried a handsome cane, which he tapped on the pavement at each step; his gloves were spotless. He had a broad, rather pleasant face with high cheek-bones and a fresh colour, not often seen in Petersburg. His flaxen hair was still abundant, and only touched here and there with grey, and his thick square beard was even lighter than his hair. His eyes were blue and had a cold and thoughtful look; his lips were crimson. He was a remarkedly well-preserved man and looked much younger than his years. When Sonia came out on the canal bank, they were the only two persons on the pavement. He observed her dreaminess and preoccupation. On reaching the house where she lodged, Sonia turned in at the gate; he followed her, seeming rather surprised. In the courtyard she turned to the right corner. “Bah!” muttered the unknown gentleman, and mounted the stairs behind her. Only then Sonia noticed him. She reached the third storey, turned down the passage, and rang at No. 9. On the door was inscribed in chalk, “Kapernaumov, Tailor.” “Bah!” the stranger repeated again, wondering at the strange coincidence, and he rang next door, at No. 8. The doors were two or three yards apart. “You lodge at Kapernaumov’s,” he said, looking at Sonia and laughing. “He altered a waistcoat for me yesterday. I am staying close here at Madame Resslich’s. How odd!” Sonia looked at him attentively. “We are neighbours,” he went on gaily. “I only came to town the day before yesterday. Good-bye for the present.” Sonia made no reply; the door opened and she slipped in. She felt for some reason ashamed and uneasy. ***** On the way to Porfiry’s, Razumihin was obviously excited. “That’s capital, brother,” he repeated several times, “and I am glad! I am glad!” “What are you glad about?” Raskolnikov thought to himself. “I didn’t know that you pledged things at the old woman’s, too. And... was it long ago? I mean, was it long since you were there?” “What a simple-hearted fool he is!” “When was it?” Raskolnikov stopped still to recollect. “Two or three days before her death it must have been. But I am not going to redeem the things now,” he put in with a sort of hurried and conspicuous solicitude about the things. “I’ve not more than a silver rouble left... after last night’s accursed delirium!” He laid special emphasis on the delirium. “Yes, yes,” Razumihin hastened to agree--with what was not clear. “Then that’s why you... were stuck... partly... you know in your delirium you were continually mentioning some rings or chains! Yes, yes... that’s clear, it’s all clear now.” “Hullo! How that idea must have got about among them. Here this man will go to the stake for me, and I find him delighted at having it _cleared up_ why I spoke of rings in my delirium! What a hold the idea must have on all of them!” “Shall we find him?” he asked suddenly. “Oh, yes,” Razumihin answered quickly. “He is a nice fellow, you will see, brother. Rather clumsy, that is to say, he is a man of polished manners, but I mean clumsy in a different sense. He is an intelligent fellow, very much so indeed, but he has his own range of ideas.... He is incredulous, sceptical, cynical... he likes to impose on people, or rather to make fun of them. His is the old, circumstantial method.... But he understands his work... thoroughly.... Last year he cleared up a case of murder in which the police had hardly a clue. He is very, very anxious to make your acquaintance!” “On what grounds is he so anxious?” “Oh, it’s not exactly... you see, since you’ve been ill I happen to have mentioned you several times.... So, when he heard about you... about your being a law student and not able to finish your studies, he said, ‘What a pity!’ And so I concluded... from everything together, not only that; yesterday Zametov... you know, Rodya, I talked some nonsense on the way home to you yesterday, when I was drunk... I am afraid, brother, of your exaggerating it, you see.” “What? That they think I am a madman? Maybe they are right,” he said with a constrained smile. “Yes, yes.... That is, pooh, no!... But all that I said (and there was something else too) it was all nonsense, drunken nonsense.” “But why are you apologising? I am so sick of it all!” Raskolnikov cried with exaggerated irritability. It was partly assumed, however. “I know, I know, I understand. Believe me, I understand. One’s ashamed to speak of it.” “If you are ashamed, then don’t speak of it.” Both were silent. Razumihin was more than ecstatic and Raskolnikov perceived it with repulsion. He was alarmed, too, by what Razumihin had just said about Porfiry. “I shall have to pull a long face with him too,” he thought, with a beating heart, and he turned white, “and do it naturally, too. But the most natural thing would be to do nothing at all. Carefully do nothing at all! No, _carefully_ would not be natural again.... Oh, well, we shall see how it turns out.... We shall see... directly. Is it a good thing to go or not? The butterfly flies to the light. My heart is beating, that’s what’s bad!” “In this grey house,” said Razumihin. “The most important thing, does Porfiry know that I was at the old hag’s flat yesterday... and asked about the blood? I must find that out instantly, as soon as I go in, find out from his face; otherwise... I’ll find out, if it’s my ruin.” “I say, brother,” he said suddenly, addressing Razumihin, with a sly smile, “I have been noticing all day that you seem to be curiously excited. Isn’t it so?” “Excited? Not a bit of it,” said Razumihin, stung to the quick. “Yes, brother, I assure you it’s noticeable. Why, you sat on your chair in a way you never do sit, on the edge somehow, and you seemed to be writhing all the time. You kept jumping up for nothing. One moment you were angry, and the next your face looked like a sweetmeat. You even blushed; especially when you were invited to dinner, you blushed awfully.” “Nothing of the sort, nonsense! What do you mean?” “But why are you wriggling out of it, like a schoolboy? By Jove, there he’s blushing again.” “What a pig you are!” “But why are you so shamefaced about it? Romeo! Stay, I’ll tell of you to-day. Ha-ha-ha! I’ll make mother laugh, and someone else, too...” “Listen, listen, listen, this is serious.... What next, you fiend!” Razumihin was utterly overwhelmed, turning cold with horror. “What will you tell them? Come, brother... foo! what a pig you are!” “You are like a summer rose. And if only you knew how it suits you; a Romeo over six foot high! And how you’ve washed to-day--you cleaned your nails, I declare. Eh? That’s something unheard of! Why, I do believe you’ve got pomatum on your hair! Bend down.” “Pig!” Raskolnikov laughed as though he could not restrain himself. So laughing, they entered Porfiry Petrovitch’s flat. This is what Raskolnikov wanted: from within they could be heard laughing as they came in, still guffawing in the passage. “Not a word here or I’ll... brain you!” Razumihin whispered furiously, seizing Raskolnikov by the shoulder. CHAPTER V Raskolnikov was already entering the room. He came in looking as though he had the utmost difficulty not to burst out laughing again. Behind him Razumihin strode in gawky and awkward, shamefaced and red as a peony, with an utterly crestfallen and ferocious expression. His face and whole figure really were ridiculous at that moment and amply justified Raskolnikov’s laughter. Raskolnikov, not waiting for an introduction, bowed to Porfiry Petrovitch, who stood in the middle of the room looking inquiringly at them. He held out his hand and shook hands, still apparently making desperate efforts to subdue his mirth and utter a few words to introduce himself. But he had no sooner succeeded in assuming a serious air and muttering something when he suddenly glanced again as though accidentally at Razumihin, and could no longer control himself: his stifled laughter broke out the more irresistibly the more he tried to restrain it. The extraordinary ferocity with which Razumihin received this “spontaneous” mirth gave the whole scene the appearance of most genuine fun and naturalness. Razumihin strengthened this impression as though on purpose. “Fool! You fiend,” he roared, waving his arm which at once struck a little round table with an empty tea-glass on it. Everything was sent flying and crashing. “But why break chairs, gentlemen? You know it’s a loss to the Crown,” Porfiry Petrovitch quoted gaily. Raskolnikov was still laughing, with his hand in Porfiry Petrovitch’s, but anxious not to overdo it, awaited the right moment to put a natural end to it. Razumihin, completely put to confusion by upsetting the table and smashing the glass, gazed gloomily at the fragments, cursed and turned sharply to the window where he stood looking out with his back to the company with a fiercely scowling countenance, seeing nothing. Porfiry Petrovitch laughed and was ready to go on laughing, but obviously looked for explanations. Zametov had been sitting in the corner, but he rose at the visitors’ entrance and was standing in expectation with a smile on his lips, though he looked with surprise and even it seemed incredulity at the whole scene and at Raskolnikov with a certain embarrassment. Zametov’s unexpected presence struck Raskolnikov unpleasantly. “I’ve got to think of that,” he thought. “Excuse me, please,” he began, affecting extreme embarrassment. “Raskolnikov.” “Not at all, very pleasant to see you... and how pleasantly you’ve come in.... Why, won’t he even say good-morning?” Porfiry Petrovitch nodded at Razumihin. “Upon my honour I don’t know why he is in such a rage with me. I only told him as we came along that he was like Romeo... and proved it. And that was all, I think!” “Pig!” ejaculated Razumihin, without turning round. “There must have been very grave grounds for it, if he is so furious at the word,” Porfiry laughed. “Oh, you sharp lawyer!... Damn you all!” snapped Razumihin, and suddenly bursting out laughing himself, he went up to Porfiry with a more cheerful face as though nothing had happened. “That’ll do! We are all fools. To come to business. This is my friend Rodion Romanovitch Raskolnikov; in the first place he has heard of you and wants to make your acquaintance, and secondly, he has a little matter of business with you. Bah! Zametov, what brought you here? Have you met before? Have you known each other long?” “What does this mean?” thought Raskolnikov uneasily. Zametov seemed taken aback, but not very much so. “Why, it was at your rooms we met yesterday,” he said easily. “Then I have been spared the trouble. All last week he was begging me to introduce him to you. Porfiry and you have sniffed each other out without me. Where is your tobacco?” Porfiry Petrovitch was wearing a dressing-gown, very clean linen, and trodden-down slippers. He was a man of about five and thirty, short, stout even to corpulence, and clean shaven. He wore his hair cut short and had a large round head, particularly prominent at the back. His soft, round, rather snub-nosed face was of a sickly yellowish colour, but had a vigorous and rather ironical expression. It would have been good-natured except for a look in the eyes, which shone with a watery, mawkish light under almost white, blinking eyelashes. The expression of those eyes was strangely out of keeping with his somewhat womanish figure, and gave it something far more serious than could be guessed at first sight. As soon as Porfiry Petrovitch heard that his visitor had a little matter of business with him, he begged him to sit down on the sofa and sat down himself on the other end, waiting for him to explain his business, with that careful and over-serious attention which is at once oppressive and embarrassing, especially to a stranger, and especially if what you are discussing is in your opinion of far too little importance for such exceptional solemnity. But in brief and coherent phrases Raskolnikov explained his business clearly and exactly, and was so well satisfied with himself that he even succeeded in taking a good look at Porfiry. Porfiry Petrovitch did not once take his eyes off him. Razumihin, sitting opposite at the same table, listened warmly and impatiently, looking from one to the other every moment with rather excessive interest. “Fool,” Raskolnikov swore to himself. “You have to give information to the police,” Porfiry replied, with a most businesslike air, “that having learnt of this incident, that is of the murder, you beg to inform the lawyer in charge of the case that such and such things belong to you, and that you desire to redeem them... or... but they will write to you.” “That’s just the point, that at the present moment,” Raskolnikov tried his utmost to feign embarrassment, “I am not quite in funds... and even this trifling sum is beyond me... I only wanted, you see, for the present to declare that the things are mine, and that when I have money....” “That’s no matter,” answered Porfiry Petrovitch, receiving his explanation of his pecuniary position coldly, “but you can, if you prefer, write straight to me, to say, that having been informed of the matter, and claiming such and such as your property, you beg...” “On an ordinary sheet of paper?” Raskolnikov interrupted eagerly, again interested in the financial side of the question. “Oh, the most ordinary,” and suddenly Porfiry Petrovitch looked with obvious irony at him, screwing up his eyes and, as it were, winking at him. But perhaps it was Raskolnikov’s fancy, for it all lasted but a moment. There was certainly something of the sort, Raskolnikov could have sworn he winked at him, goodness knows why. “He knows,” flashed through his mind like lightning. “Forgive my troubling you about such trifles,” he went on, a little disconcerted, “the things are only worth five roubles, but I prize them particularly for the sake of those from whom they came to me, and I must confess that I was alarmed when I heard...” “That’s why you were so much struck when I mentioned to Zossimov that Porfiry was inquiring for everyone who had pledges!” Razumihin put in with obvious intention. This was really unbearable. Raskolnikov could not help glancing at him with a flash of vindictive anger in his black eyes, but immediately recollected himself. “You seem to be jeering at me, brother?” he said to him, with a well-feigned irritability. “I dare say I do seem to you absurdly anxious about such trash; but you mustn’t think me selfish or grasping for that, and these two things may be anything but trash in my eyes. I told you just now that the silver watch, though it’s not worth a cent, is the only thing left us of my father’s. You may laugh at me, but my mother is here,” he turned suddenly to Porfiry, “and if she knew,” he turned again hurriedly to Razumihin, carefully making his voice tremble, “that the watch was lost, she would be in despair! You know what women are!” “Not a bit of it! I didn’t mean that at all! Quite the contrary!” shouted Razumihin distressed. “Was it right? Was it natural? Did I overdo it?” Raskolnikov asked himself in a tremor. “Why did I say that about women?” “Oh, your mother is with you?” Porfiry Petrovitch inquired. “Yes.” “When did she come?” “Last night.” Porfiry paused as though reflecting. “Your things would not in any case be lost,” he went on calmly and coldly. “I have been expecting you here for some time.” And as though that was a matter of no importance, he carefully offered the ash-tray to Razumihin, who was ruthlessly scattering cigarette ash over the carpet. Raskolnikov shuddered, but Porfiry did not seem to be looking at him, and was still concerned with Razumihin’s cigarette. “What? Expecting him? Why, did you know that he had pledges _there_?” cried Razumihin. Porfiry Petrovitch addressed himself to Raskolnikov. “Your things, the ring and the watch, were wrapped up together, and on the paper your name was legibly written in pencil, together with the date on which you left them with her...” “How observant you are!” Raskolnikov smiled awkwardly, doing his very utmost to look him straight in the face, but he failed, and suddenly added: “I say that because I suppose there were a great many pledges... that it must be difficult to remember them all.... But you remember them all so clearly, and... and...” “Stupid! Feeble!” he thought. “Why did I add that?” “But we know all who had pledges, and you are the only one who hasn’t come forward,” Porfiry answered with hardly perceptible irony. “I haven’t been quite well.” “I heard that too. I heard, indeed, that you were in great distress about something. You look pale still.” “I am not pale at all.... No, I am quite well,” Raskolnikov snapped out rudely and angrily, completely changing his tone. His anger was mounting, he could not repress it. “And in my anger I shall betray myself,” flashed through his mind again. “Why are they torturing me?” “Not quite well!” Razumihin caught him up. “What next! He was unconscious and delirious all yesterday. Would you believe, Porfiry, as soon as our backs were turned, he dressed, though he could hardly stand, and gave us the slip and went off on a spree somewhere till midnight, delirious all the time! Would you believe it! Extraordinary!” “Really delirious? You don’t say so!” Porfiry shook his head in a womanish way. “Nonsense! Don’t you believe it! But you don’t believe it anyway,” Raskolnikov let slip in his anger. But Porfiry Petrovitch did not seem to catch those strange words. “But how could you have gone out if you hadn’t been delirious?” Razumihin got hot suddenly. “What did you go out for? What was the object of it? And why on the sly? Were you in your senses when you did it? Now that all danger is over I can speak plainly.” “I was awfully sick of them yesterday.” Raskolnikov addressed Porfiry suddenly with a smile of insolent defiance, “I ran away from them to take lodgings where they wouldn’t find me, and took a lot of money with me. Mr. Zametov there saw it. I say, Mr. Zametov, was I sensible or delirious yesterday; settle our dispute.” He could have strangled Zametov at that moment, so hateful were his expression and his silence to him. “In my opinion you talked sensibly and even artfully, but you were extremely irritable,” Zametov pronounced dryly. “And Nikodim Fomitch was telling me to-day,” put in Porfiry Petrovitch, “that he met you very late last night in the lodging of a man who had been run over.” “And there,” said Razumihin, “weren’t you mad then? You gave your last penny to the widow for the funeral. If you wanted to help, give fifteen or twenty even, but keep three roubles for yourself at least, but he flung away all the twenty-five at once!” “Maybe I found a treasure somewhere and you know nothing of it? So that’s why I was liberal yesterday.... Mr. Zametov knows I’ve found a treasure! Excuse us, please, for disturbing you for half an hour with such trivialities,” he said, turning to Porfiry Petrovitch, with trembling lips. “We are boring you, aren’t we?” “Oh no, quite the contrary, quite the contrary! If only you knew how you interest me! It’s interesting to look on and listen... and I am really glad you have come forward at last.” “But you might give us some tea! My throat’s dry,” cried Razumihin. “Capital idea! Perhaps we will all keep you company. Wouldn’t you like... something more essential before tea?” “Get along with you!” Porfiry Petrovitch went out to order tea. Raskolnikov’s thoughts were in a whirl. He was in terrible exasperation. “The worst of it is they don’t disguise it; they don’t care to stand on ceremony! And how if you didn’t know me at all, did you come to talk to Nikodim Fomitch about me? So they don’t care to hide that they are tracking me like a pack of dogs. They simply spit in my face.” He was shaking with rage. “Come, strike me openly, don’t play with me like a cat with a mouse. It’s hardly civil, Porfiry Petrovitch, but perhaps I won’t allow it! I shall get up and throw the whole truth in your ugly faces, and you’ll see how I despise you.” He could hardly breathe. “And what if it’s only my fancy? What if I am mistaken, and through inexperience I get angry and don’t keep up my nasty part? Perhaps it’s all unintentional. All their phrases are the usual ones, but there is something about them.... It all might be said, but there is something. Why did he say bluntly, ‘With her’? Why did Zametov add that I spoke artfully? Why do they speak in that tone? Yes, the tone.... Razumihin is sitting here, why does he see nothing? That innocent blockhead never does see anything! Feverish again! Did Porfiry wink at me just now? Of course it’s nonsense! What could he wink for? Are they trying to upset my nerves or are they teasing me? Either it’s ill fancy or they know! Even Zametov is rude.... Is Zametov rude? Zametov has changed his mind. I foresaw he would change his mind! He is at home here, while it’s my first visit. Porfiry does not consider him a visitor; sits with his back to him. They’re as thick as thieves, no doubt, over me! Not a doubt they were talking about me before we came. Do they know about the flat? If only they’d make haste! When I said that I ran away to take a flat he let it pass.... I put that in cleverly about a flat, it may be of use afterwards.... Delirious, indeed... ha-ha-ha! He knows all about last night! He didn’t know of my mother’s arrival! The hag had written the date on in pencil! You are wrong, you won’t catch me! There are no facts... it’s all supposition! You produce facts! The flat even isn’t a fact but delirium. I know what to say to them.... Do they know about the flat? I won’t go without finding out. What did I come for? But my being angry now, maybe is a fact! Fool, how irritable I am! Perhaps that’s right; to play the invalid.... He is feeling me. He will try to catch me. Why did I come?” All this flashed like lightning through his mind. Porfiry Petrovitch returned quickly. He became suddenly more jovial. “Your party yesterday, brother, has left my head rather.... And I am out of sorts altogether,” he began in quite a different tone, laughing to Razumihin. “Was it interesting? I left you yesterday at the most interesting point. Who got the best of it?” “Oh, no one, of course. They got on to everlasting questions, floated off into space.” “Only fancy, Rodya, what we got on to yesterday. Whether there is such a thing as crime. I told you that we talked our heads off.” “What is there strange? It’s an everyday social question,” Raskolnikov answered casually. “The question wasn’t put quite like that,” observed Porfiry. “Not quite, that’s true,” Razumihin agreed at once, getting warm and hurried as usual. “Listen, Rodion, and tell us your opinion, I want to hear it. I was fighting tooth and nail with them and wanted you to help me. I told them you were coming.... It began with the socialist doctrine. You know their doctrine; crime is a protest against the abnormality of the social organisation and nothing more, and nothing more; no other causes admitted!...” “You are wrong there,” cried Porfiry Petrovitch; he was noticeably animated and kept laughing as he looked at Razumihin, which made him more excited than ever. “Nothing is admitted,” Razumihin interrupted with heat. “I am not wrong. I’ll show you their pamphlets. Everything with them is ‘the influence of environment,’ and nothing else. Their favourite phrase! From which it follows that, if society is normally organised, all crime will cease at once, since there will be nothing to protest against and all men will become righteous in one instant. Human nature is not taken into account, it is excluded, it’s not supposed to exist! They don’t recognise that humanity, developing by a historical living process, will become at last a normal society, but they believe that a social system that has come out of some mathematical brain is going to organise all humanity at once and make it just and sinless in an instant, quicker than any living process! That’s why they instinctively dislike history, ‘nothing but ugliness and stupidity in it,’ and they explain it all as stupidity! That’s why they so dislike the _living_ process of life; they don’t want a _living soul_! The living soul demands life, the soul won’t obey the rules of mechanics, the soul is an object of suspicion, the soul is retrograde! But what they want though it smells of death and can be made of India-rubber, at least is not alive, has no will, is servile and won’t revolt! And it comes in the end to their reducing everything to the building of walls and the planning of rooms and passages in a phalanstery! The phalanstery is ready, indeed, but your human nature is not ready for the phalanstery--it wants life, it hasn’t completed its vital process, it’s too soon for the graveyard! You can’t skip over nature by logic. Logic presupposes three possibilities, but there are millions! Cut away a million, and reduce it all to the question of comfort! That’s the easiest solution of the problem! It’s seductively clear and you musn’t think about it. That’s the great thing, you mustn’t think! The whole secret of life in two pages of print!” “Now he is off, beating the drum! Catch hold of him, do!” laughed Porfiry. “Can you imagine,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “six people holding forth like that last night, in one room, with punch as a preliminary! No, brother, you are wrong, environment accounts for a great deal in crime; I can assure you of that.” “Oh, I know it does, but just tell me: a man of forty violates a child of ten; was it environment drove him to it?” “Well, strictly speaking, it did,” Porfiry observed with noteworthy gravity; “a crime of that nature may be very well ascribed to the influence of environment.” Razumihin was almost in a frenzy. “Oh, if you like,” he roared. “I’ll prove to you that your white eyelashes may very well be ascribed to the Church of Ivan the Great’s being two hundred and fifty feet high, and I will prove it clearly, exactly, progressively, and even with a Liberal tendency! I undertake to! Will you bet on it?” “Done! Let’s hear, please, how he will prove it!” “He is always humbugging, confound him,” cried Razumihin, jumping up and gesticulating. “What’s the use of talking to you? He does all that on purpose; you don’t know him, Rodion! He took their side yesterday, simply to make fools of them. And the things he said yesterday! And they were delighted! He can keep it up for a fortnight together. Last year he persuaded us that he was going into a monastery: he stuck to it for two months. Not long ago he took it into his head to declare he was going to get married, that he had everything ready for the wedding. He ordered new clothes indeed. We all began to congratulate him. There was no bride, nothing, all pure fantasy!” “Ah, you are wrong! I got the clothes before. It was the new clothes in fact that made me think of taking you in.” “Are you such a good dissembler?” Raskolnikov asked carelessly. “You wouldn’t have supposed it, eh? Wait a bit, I shall take you in, too. Ha-ha-ha! No, I’ll tell you the truth. All these questions about crime, environment, children, recall to my mind an article of yours which interested me at the time. ‘On Crime’... or something of the sort, I forget the title, I read it with pleasure two months ago in the _Periodical Review_.” “My article? In the _Periodical Review_?” Raskolnikov asked in astonishment. “I certainly did write an article upon a book six months ago when I left the university, but I sent it to the _Weekly Review_.” “But it came out in the _Periodical_.” “And the _Weekly Review_ ceased to exist, so that’s why it wasn’t printed at the time.” “That’s true; but when it ceased to exist, the _Weekly Review_ was amalgamated with the _Periodical_, and so your article appeared two months ago in the latter. Didn’t you know?” Raskolnikov had not known. “Why, you might get some money out of them for the article! What a strange person you are! You lead such a solitary life that you know nothing of matters that concern you directly. It’s a fact, I assure you.” “Bravo, Rodya! I knew nothing about it either!” cried Razumihin. “I’ll run to-day to the reading-room and ask for the number. Two months ago? What was the date? It doesn’t matter though, I will find it. Think of not telling us!” “How did you find out that the article was mine? It’s only signed with an initial.” “I only learnt it by chance, the other day. Through the editor; I know him.... I was very much interested.” “I analysed, if I remember, the psychology of a criminal before and after the crime.” “Yes, and you maintained that the perpetration of a crime is always accompanied by illness. Very, very original, but... it was not that part of your article that interested me so much, but an idea at the end of the article which I regret to say you merely suggested without working it out clearly. There is, if you recollect, a suggestion that there are certain persons who can... that is, not precisely are able to, but have a perfect right to commit breaches of morality and crimes, and that the law is not for them.” Raskolnikov smiled at the exaggerated and intentional distortion of his idea. “What? What do you mean? A right to crime? But not because of the influence of environment?” Razumihin inquired with some alarm even. “No, not exactly because of it,” answered Porfiry. “In his article all men are divided into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary.’ Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, don’t you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary. That was your idea, if I am not mistaken?” “What do you mean? That can’t be right?” Razumihin muttered in bewilderment. Raskolnikov smiled again. He saw the point at once, and knew where they wanted to drive him. He decided to take up the challenge. “That wasn’t quite my contention,” he began simply and modestly. “Yet I admit that you have stated it almost correctly; perhaps, if you like, perfectly so.” (It almost gave him pleasure to admit this.) “The only difference is that I don’t contend that extraordinary people are always bound to commit breaches of morals, as you call it. In fact, I doubt whether such an argument could be published. I simply hinted that an ‘extraordinary’ man has the right... that is not an official right, but an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep... certain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfilment of his idea (sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity). You say that my article isn’t definite; I am ready to make it as clear as I can. Perhaps I am right in thinking you want me to; very well. I maintain that if the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have been made known except by sacrificing the lives of one, a dozen, a hundred, or more men, Newton would have had the right, would indeed have been in duty-bound... to _eliminate_ the dozen or the hundred men for the sake of making his discoveries known to the whole of humanity. But it does not follow from that that Newton had a right to murder people right and left and to steal every day in the market. Then, I remember, I maintain in my article that all... well, legislators and leaders of men, such as Lycurgus, Solon, Mahomet, Napoleon, and so on, were all without exception criminals, from the very fact that, making a new law, they transgressed the ancient one, handed down from their ancestors and held sacred by the people, and they did not stop short at bloodshed either, if that bloodshed--often of innocent persons fighting bravely in defence of ancient law--were of use to their cause. It’s remarkable, in fact, that the majority, indeed, of these benefactors and leaders of humanity were guilty of terrible carnage. In short, I maintain that all great men or even men a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving some new word, must from their very nature be criminals--more or less, of course. Otherwise it’s hard for them to get out of the common rut; and to remain in the common rut is what they can’t submit to, from their very nature again, and to my mind they ought not, indeed, to submit to it. You see that there is nothing particularly new in all that. The same thing has been printed and read a thousand times before. As for my division of people into ordinary and extraordinary, I acknowledge that it’s somewhat arbitrary, but I don’t insist upon exact numbers. I only believe in my leading idea that men are _in general_ divided by a law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter _a new word_. There are, of course, innumerable sub-divisions, but the distinguishing features of both categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied; for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or wade through blood, he can, I maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood--that depends on the idea and its dimensions, note that. It’s only in that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article (you remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for such anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right, they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfil quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal right to exist. In fact, all have equal rights with me--and _vive la guerre éternelle_--till the New Jerusalem, of course!” “Then you believe in the New Jerusalem, do you?” “I do,” Raskolnikov answered firmly; as he said these words and during the whole preceding tirade he kept his eyes on one spot on the carpet. “And... and do you believe in God? Excuse my curiosity.” “I do,” repeated Raskolnikov, raising his eyes to Porfiry. “And... do you believe in Lazarus’ rising from the dead?” “I... I do. Why do you ask all this?” “You believe it literally?” “Literally.” “You don’t say so.... I asked from curiosity. Excuse me. But let us go back to the question; they are not always executed. Some, on the contrary...” “Triumph in their lifetime? Oh, yes, some attain their ends in this life, and then...” “They begin executing other people?” “If it’s necessary; indeed, for the most part they do. Your remark is very witty.” “Thank you. But tell me this: how do you distinguish those extraordinary people from the ordinary ones? Are there signs at their birth? I feel there ought to be more exactitude, more external definition. Excuse the natural anxiety of a practical law-abiding citizen, but couldn’t they adopt a special uniform, for instance, couldn’t they wear something, be branded in some way? For you know if confusion arises and a member of one category imagines that he belongs to the other, begins to ‘eliminate obstacles’ as you so happily expressed it, then...” “Oh, that very often happens! That remark is wittier than the other.” “Thank you.” “No reason to; but take note that the mistake can only arise in the first category, that is among the ordinary people (as I perhaps unfortunately called them). In spite of their predisposition to obedience very many of them, through a playfulness of nature, sometimes vouchsafed even to the cow, like to imagine themselves advanced people, ‘destroyers,’ and to push themselves into the ‘new movement,’ and this quite sincerely. Meanwhile the really _new_ people are very often unobserved by them, or even despised as reactionaries of grovelling tendencies. But I don’t think there is any considerable danger here, and you really need not be uneasy for they never go very far. Of course, they might have a thrashing sometimes for letting their fancy run away with them and to teach them their place, but no more; in fact, even this isn’t necessary as they castigate themselves, for they are very conscientious: some perform this service for one another and others chastise themselves with their own hands.... They will impose various public acts of penitence upon themselves with a beautiful and edifying effect; in fact you’ve nothing to be uneasy about.... It’s a law of nature.” “Well, you have certainly set my mind more at rest on that score; but there’s another thing worries me. Tell me, please, are there many people who have the right to kill others, these extraordinary people? I am ready to bow down to them, of course, but you must admit it’s alarming if there are a great many of them, eh?” “Oh, you needn’t worry about that either,” Raskolnikov went on in the same tone. “People with new ideas, people with the faintest capacity for saying something _new_, are extremely few in number, extraordinarily so in fact. One thing only is clear, that the appearance of all these grades and sub-divisions of men must follow with unfailing regularity some law of nature. That law, of course, is unknown at present, but I am convinced that it exists, and one day may become known. The vast mass of mankind is mere material, and only exists in order by some great effort, by some mysterious process, by means of some crossing of races and stocks, to bring into the world at last perhaps one man out of a thousand with a spark of independence. One in ten thousand perhaps--I speak roughly, approximately--is born with some independence, and with still greater independence one in a hundred thousand. The man of genius is one of millions, and the great geniuses, the crown of humanity, appear on earth perhaps one in many thousand millions. In fact I have not peeped into the retort in which all this takes place. But there certainly is and must be a definite law, it cannot be a matter of chance.” “Why, are you both joking?” Razumihin cried at last. “There you sit, making fun of one another. Are you serious, Rodya?” Raskolnikov raised his pale and almost mournful face and made no reply. And the unconcealed, persistent, nervous, and _discourteous_ sarcasm of Porfiry seemed strange to Razumihin beside that quiet and mournful face. “Well, brother, if you are really serious... You are right, of course, in saying that it’s not new, that it’s like what we’ve read and heard a thousand times already; but what is really original in all this, and is exclusively your own, to my horror, is that you sanction bloodshed _in the name of conscience_, and, excuse my saying so, with such fanaticism.... That, I take it, is the point of your article. But that sanction of bloodshed _by conscience_ is to my mind... more terrible than the official, legal sanction of bloodshed....” “You are quite right, it is more terrible,” Porfiry agreed. “Yes, you must have exaggerated! There is some mistake, I shall read it. You can’t think that! I shall read it.” “All that is not in the article, there’s only a hint of it,” said Raskolnikov. “Yes, yes.” Porfiry couldn’t sit still. “Your attitude to crime is pretty clear to me now, but... excuse me for my impertinence (I am really ashamed to be worrying you like this), you see, you’ve removed my anxiety as to the two grades getting mixed, but... there are various practical possibilities that make me uneasy! What if some man or youth imagines that he is a Lycurgus or Mahomet--a future one of course--and suppose he begins to remove all obstacles.... He has some great enterprise before him and needs money for it... and tries to get it... do you see?” Zametov gave a sudden guffaw in his corner. Raskolnikov did not even raise his eyes to him. “I must admit,” he went on calmly, “that such cases certainly must arise. The vain and foolish are particularly apt to fall into that snare; young people especially.” “Yes, you see. Well then?” “What then?” Raskolnikov smiled in reply; “that’s not my fault. So it is and so it always will be. He said just now (he nodded at Razumihin) that I sanction bloodshed. Society is too well protected by prisons, banishment, criminal investigators, penal servitude. There’s no need to be uneasy. You have but to catch the thief.” “And what if we do catch him?” “Then he gets what he deserves.” “You are certainly logical. But what of his conscience?” “Why do you care about that?” “Simply from humanity.” “If he has a conscience he will suffer for his mistake. That will be his punishment--as well as the prison.” “But the real geniuses,” asked Razumihin frowning, “those who have the right to murder? Oughtn’t they to suffer at all even for the blood they’ve shed?” “Why the word _ought_? It’s not a matter of permission or prohibition. He will suffer if he is sorry for his victim. Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth,” he added dreamily, not in the tone of the conversation. He raised his eyes, looked earnestly at them all, smiled, and took his cap. He was too quiet by comparison with his manner at his entrance, and he felt this. Everyone got up. “Well, you may abuse me, be angry with me if you like,” Porfiry Petrovitch began again, “but I can’t resist. Allow me one little question (I know I am troubling you). There is just one little notion I want to express, simply that I may not forget it.” “Very good, tell me your little notion,” Raskolnikov stood waiting, pale and grave before him. “Well, you see... I really don’t know how to express it properly.... It’s a playful, psychological idea.... When you were writing your article, surely you couldn’t have helped, he-he! fancying yourself... just a little, an ‘extraordinary’ man, uttering a _new word_ in your sense.... That’s so, isn’t it?” “Quite possibly,” Raskolnikov answered contemptuously. Razumihin made a movement. “And, if so, could you bring yourself in case of worldly difficulties and hardship or for some service to humanity--to overstep obstacles?... For instance, to rob and murder?” And again he winked with his left eye, and laughed noiselessly just as before. “If I did I certainly should not tell you,” Raskolnikov answered with defiant and haughty contempt. “No, I was only interested on account of your article, from a literary point of view...” “Foo! how obvious and insolent that is!” Raskolnikov thought with repulsion. “Allow me to observe,” he answered dryly, “that I don’t consider myself a Mahomet or a Napoleon, nor any personage of that kind, and not being one of them I cannot tell you how I should act.” “Oh, come, don’t we all think ourselves Napoleons now in Russia?” Porfiry Petrovitch said with alarming familiarity. Something peculiar betrayed itself in the very intonation of his voice. “Perhaps it was one of these future Napoleons who did for Alyona Ivanovna last week?” Zametov blurted out from the corner. Raskolnikov did not speak, but looked firmly and intently at Porfiry. Razumihin was scowling gloomily. He seemed before this to be noticing something. He looked angrily around. There was a minute of gloomy silence. Raskolnikov turned to go. “Are you going already?” Porfiry said amiably, holding out his hand with excessive politeness. “Very, very glad of your acquaintance. As for your request, have no uneasiness, write just as I told you, or, better still, come to me there yourself in a day or two... to-morrow, indeed. I shall be there at eleven o’clock for certain. We’ll arrange it all; we’ll have a talk. As one of the last to be _there_, you might perhaps be able to tell us something,” he added with a most good-natured expression. “You want to cross-examine me officially in due form?” Raskolnikov asked sharply. “Oh, why? That’s not necessary for the present. You misunderstand me. I lose no opportunity, you see, and... I’ve talked with all who had pledges.... I obtained evidence from some of them, and you are the last.... Yes, by the way,” he cried, seemingly suddenly delighted, “I just remember, what was I thinking of?” he turned to Razumihin, “you were talking my ears off about that Nikolay... of course, I know, I know very well,” he turned to Raskolnikov, “that the fellow is innocent, but what is one to do? We had to trouble Dmitri too.... This is the point, this is all: when you went up the stairs it was past seven, wasn’t it?” “Yes,” answered Raskolnikov, with an unpleasant sensation at the very moment he spoke that he need not have said it. “Then when you went upstairs between seven and eight, didn’t you see in a flat that stood open on a second storey, do you remember? two workmen or at least one of them? They were painting there, didn’t you notice them? It’s very, very important for them.” “Painters? No, I didn’t see them,” Raskolnikov answered slowly, as though ransacking his memory, while at the same instant he was racking every nerve, almost swooning with anxiety to conjecture as quickly as possible where the trap lay and not to overlook anything. “No, I didn’t see them, and I don’t think I noticed a flat like that open.... But on the fourth storey” (he had mastered the trap now and was triumphant) “I remember now that someone was moving out of the flat opposite Alyona Ivanovna’s.... I remember... I remember it clearly. Some porters were carrying out a sofa and they squeezed me against the wall. But painters... no, I don’t remember that there were any painters, and I don’t think that there was a flat open anywhere, no, there wasn’t.” “What do you mean?” Razumihin shouted suddenly, as though he had reflected and realised. “Why, it was on the day of the murder the painters were at work, and he was there three days before? What are you asking?” “Foo! I have muddled it!” Porfiry slapped himself on the forehead. “Deuce take it! This business is turning my brain!” he addressed Raskolnikov somewhat apologetically. “It would be such a great thing for us to find out whether anyone had seen them between seven and eight at the flat, so I fancied you could perhaps have told us something.... I quite muddled it.” “Then you should be more careful,” Razumihin observed grimly. The last words were uttered in the passage. Porfiry Petrovitch saw them to the door with excessive politeness. They went out into the street gloomy and sullen, and for some steps they did not say a word. Raskolnikov drew a deep breath. CHAPTER VI “I don’t believe it, I can’t believe it!” repeated Razumihin, trying in perplexity to refute Raskolnikov’s arguments. They were by now approaching Bakaleyev’s lodgings, where Pulcheria Alexandrovna and Dounia had been expecting them a long while. Razumihin kept stopping on the way in the heat of discussion, confused and excited by the very fact that they were for the first time speaking openly about _it_. “Don’t believe it, then!” answered Raskolnikov, with a cold, careless smile. “You were noticing nothing as usual, but I was weighing every word.” “You are suspicious. That is why you weighed their words... h’m... certainly, I agree, Porfiry’s tone was rather strange, and still more that wretch Zametov!... You are right, there was something about him--but why? Why?” “He has changed his mind since last night.” “Quite the contrary! If they had that brainless idea, they would do their utmost to hide it, and conceal their cards, so as to catch you afterwards.... But it was all impudent and careless.” “If they had had facts--I mean, real facts--or at least grounds for suspicion, then they would certainly have tried to hide their game, in the hope of getting more (they would have made a search long ago besides). But they have no facts, not one. It is all mirage--all ambiguous. Simply a floating idea. So they try to throw me out by impudence. And perhaps, he was irritated at having no facts, and blurted it out in his vexation--or perhaps he has some plan... he seems an intelligent man. Perhaps he wanted to frighten me by pretending to know. They have a psychology of their own, brother. But it is loathsome explaining it all. Stop!” “And it’s insulting, insulting! I understand you. But... since we have spoken openly now (and it is an excellent thing that we have at last--I am glad) I will own now frankly that I noticed it in them long ago, this idea. Of course the merest hint only--an insinuation--but why an insinuation even? How dare they? What foundation have they? If only you knew how furious I have been. Think only! Simply because a poor student, unhinged by poverty and hypochondria, on the eve of a severe delirious illness (note that), suspicious, vain, proud, who has not seen a soul to speak to for six months, in rags and in boots without soles, has to face some wretched policemen and put up with their insolence; and the unexpected debt thrust under his nose, the I.O.U. presented by Tchebarov, the new paint, thirty degrees Reaumur and a stifling atmosphere, a crowd of people, the talk about the murder of a person where he had been just before, and all that on an empty stomach--he might well have a fainting fit! And that, that is what they found it all on! Damn them! I understand how annoying it is, but in your place, Rodya, I would laugh at them, or better still, spit in their ugly faces, and spit a dozen times in all directions. I’d hit out in all directions, neatly too, and so I’d put an end to it. Damn them! Don’t be downhearted. It’s a shame!” “He really has put it well, though,” Raskolnikov thought. “Damn them? But the cross-examination again, to-morrow?” he said with bitterness. “Must I really enter into explanations with them? I feel vexed as it is, that I condescended to speak to Zametov yesterday in the restaurant....” “Damn it! I will go myself to Porfiry. I will squeeze it out of him, as one of the family: he must let me know the ins and outs of it all! And as for Zametov...” “At last he sees through him!” thought Raskolnikov. “Stay!” cried Razumihin, seizing him by the shoulder again. “Stay! you were wrong. I have thought it out. You are wrong! How was that a trap? You say that the question about the workmen was a trap. But if you had done _that_, could you have said you had seen them painting the flat... and the workmen? On the contrary, you would have seen nothing, even if you had seen it. Who would own it against himself?” “If I had done _that thing_, I should certainly have said that I had seen the workmen and the flat,” Raskolnikov answered, with reluctance and obvious disgust. “But why speak against yourself?” “Because only peasants, or the most inexperienced novices deny everything flatly at examinations. If a man is ever so little developed and experienced, he will certainly try to admit all the external facts that can’t be avoided, but will seek other explanations of them, will introduce some special, unexpected turn, that will give them another significance and put them in another light. Porfiry might well reckon that I should be sure to answer so, and say I had seen them to give an air of truth, and then make some explanation.” “But he would have told you at once that the workmen could not have been there two days before, and that therefore you must have been there on the day of the murder at eight o’clock. And so he would have caught you over a detail.” “Yes, that is what he was reckoning on, that I should not have time to reflect, and should be in a hurry to make the most likely answer, and so would forget that the workmen could not have been there two days before.” “But how could you forget it?” “Nothing easier. It is in just such stupid things clever people are most easily caught. The more cunning a man is, the less he suspects that he will be caught in a simple thing. The more cunning a man is, the simpler the trap he must be caught in. Porfiry is not such a fool as you think....” “He is a knave then, if that is so!” Raskolnikov could not help laughing. But at the very moment, he was struck by the strangeness of his own frankness, and the eagerness with which he had made this explanation, though he had kept up all the preceding conversation with gloomy repulsion, obviously with a motive, from necessity. “I am getting a relish for certain aspects!” he thought to himself. But almost at the same instant he became suddenly uneasy, as though an unexpected and alarming idea had occurred to him. His uneasiness kept on increasing. They had just reached the entrance to Bakaleyev’s. “Go in alone!” said Raskolnikov suddenly. “I will be back directly.” “Where are you going? Why, we are just here.” “I can’t help it.... I will come in half an hour. Tell them.” “Say what you like, I will come with you.” “You, too, want to torture me!” he screamed, with such bitter irritation, such despair in his eyes that Razumihin’s hands dropped. He stood for some time on the steps, looking gloomily at Raskolnikov striding rapidly away in the direction of his lodging. At last, gritting his teeth and clenching his fist, he swore he would squeeze Porfiry like a lemon that very day, and went up the stairs to reassure Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who was by now alarmed at their long absence. When Raskolnikov got home, his hair was soaked with sweat and he was breathing heavily. He went rapidly up the stairs, walked into his unlocked room and at once fastened the latch. Then in senseless terror he rushed to the corner, to that hole under the paper where he had put the things; put his hand in, and for some minutes felt carefully in the hole, in every crack and fold of the paper. Finding nothing, he got up and drew a deep breath. As he was reaching the steps of Bakaleyev’s, he suddenly fancied that something, a chain, a stud or even a bit of paper in which they had been wrapped with the old woman’s handwriting on it, might somehow have slipped out and been lost in some crack, and then might suddenly turn up as unexpected, conclusive evidence against him. He stood as though lost in thought, and a strange, humiliated, half senseless smile strayed on his lips. He took his cap at last and went quietly out of the room. His ideas were all tangled. He went dreamily through the gateway. “Here he is himself,” shouted a loud voice. He raised his head. The porter was standing at the door of his little room and was pointing him out to a short man who looked like an artisan, wearing a long coat and a waistcoat, and looking at a distance remarkably like a woman. He stooped, and his head in a greasy cap hung forward. From his wrinkled flabby face he looked over fifty; his little eyes were lost in fat and they looked out grimly, sternly and discontentedly. “What is it?” Raskolnikov asked, going up to the porter. The man stole a look at him from under his brows and he looked at him attentively, deliberately; then he turned slowly and went out of the gate into the street without saying a word. “What is it?” cried Raskolnikov. “Why, he there was asking whether a student lived here, mentioned your name and whom you lodged with. I saw you coming and pointed you out and he went away. It’s funny.” The porter too seemed rather puzzled, but not much so, and after wondering for a moment he turned and went back to his room. Raskolnikov ran after the stranger, and at once caught sight of him walking along the other side of the street with the same even, deliberate step with his eyes fixed on the ground, as though in meditation. He soon overtook him, but for some time walked behind him. At last, moving on to a level with him, he looked at his face. The man noticed him at once, looked at him quickly, but dropped his eyes again; and so they walked for a minute side by side without uttering a word. “You were inquiring for me... of the porter?” Raskolnikov said at last, but in a curiously quiet voice. The man made no answer; he didn’t even look at him. Again they were both silent. “Why do you... come and ask for me... and say nothing.... What’s the meaning of it?” Raskolnikov’s voice broke and he seemed unable to articulate the words clearly. The man raised his eyes this time and turned a gloomy sinister look at Raskolnikov. “Murderer!” he said suddenly in a quiet but clear and distinct voice. Raskolnikov went on walking beside him. His legs felt suddenly weak, a cold shiver ran down his spine, and his heart seemed to stand still for a moment, then suddenly began throbbing as though it were set free. So they walked for about a hundred paces, side by side in silence. The man did not look at him. “What do you mean... what is.... Who is a murderer?” muttered Raskolnikov hardly audibly. “_You_ are a murderer,” the man answered still more articulately and emphatically, with a smile of triumphant hatred, and again he looked straight into Raskolnikov’s pale face and stricken eyes. They had just reached the cross-roads. The man turned to the left without looking behind him. Raskolnikov remained standing, gazing after him. He saw him turn round fifty paces away and look back at him still standing there. Raskolnikov could not see clearly, but he fancied that he was again smiling the same smile of cold hatred and triumph. With slow faltering steps, with shaking knees, Raskolnikov made his way back to his little garret, feeling chilled all over. He took off his cap and put it on the table, and for ten minutes he stood without moving. Then he sank exhausted on the sofa and with a weak moan of pain he stretched himself on it. So he lay for half an hour. He thought of nothing. Some thoughts or fragments of thoughts, some images without order or coherence floated before his mind--faces of people he had seen in his childhood or met somewhere once, whom he would never have recalled, the belfry of the church at V., the billiard table in a restaurant and some officers playing billiards, the smell of cigars in some underground tobacco shop, a tavern room, a back staircase quite dark, all sloppy with dirty water and strewn with egg-shells, and the Sunday bells floating in from somewhere.... The images followed one another, whirling like a hurricane. Some of them he liked and tried to clutch at, but they faded and all the while there was an oppression within him, but it was not overwhelming, sometimes it was even pleasant.... The slight shivering still persisted, but that too was an almost pleasant sensation. He heard the hurried footsteps of Razumihin; he closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Razumihin opened the door and stood for some time in the doorway as though hesitating, then he stepped softly into the room and went cautiously to the sofa. Raskolnikov heard Nastasya’s whisper: “Don’t disturb him! Let him sleep. He can have his dinner later.” “Quite so,” answered Razumihin. Both withdrew carefully and closed the door. Another half-hour passed. Raskolnikov opened his eyes, turned on his back again, clasping his hands behind his head. “Who is he? Who is that man who sprang out of the earth? Where was he, what did he see? He has seen it all, that’s clear. Where was he then? And from where did he see? Why has he only now sprung out of the earth? And how could he see? Is it possible? Hm...” continued Raskolnikov, turning cold and shivering, “and the jewel case Nikolay found behind the door--was that possible? A clue? You miss an infinitesimal line and you can build it into a pyramid of evidence! A fly flew by and saw it! Is it possible?” He felt with sudden loathing how weak, how physically weak he had become. “I ought to have known it,” he thought with a bitter smile. “And how dared I, knowing myself, knowing how I should be, take up an axe and shed blood! I ought to have known beforehand.... Ah, but I did know!” he whispered in despair. At times he came to a standstill at some thought. “No, those men are not made so. The real _Master_ to whom all is permitted storms Toulon, makes a massacre in Paris, _forgets_ an army in Egypt, _wastes_ half a million men in the Moscow expedition and gets off with a jest at Vilna. And altars are set up to him after his death, and so _all_ is permitted. No, such people, it seems, are not of flesh but of bronze!” One sudden irrelevant idea almost made him laugh. Napoleon, the pyramids, Waterloo, and a wretched skinny old woman, a pawnbroker with a red trunk under her bed--it’s a nice hash for Porfiry Petrovitch to digest! How can they digest it! It’s too inartistic. “A Napoleon creep under an old woman’s bed! Ugh, how loathsome!” At moments he felt he was raving. He sank into a state of feverish excitement. “The old woman is of no consequence,” he thought, hotly and incoherently. “The old woman was a mistake perhaps, but she is not what matters! The old woman was only an illness.... I was in a hurry to overstep.... I didn’t kill a human being, but a principle! I killed the principle, but I didn’t overstep, I stopped on this side.... I was only capable of killing. And it seems I wasn’t even capable of that... Principle? Why was that fool Razumihin abusing the socialists? They are industrious, commercial people; ‘the happiness of all’ is their case. No, life is only given to me once and I shall never have it again; I don’t want to wait for ‘the happiness of all.’ I want to live myself, or else better not live at all. I simply couldn’t pass by my mother starving, keeping my rouble in my pocket while I waited for the ‘happiness of all.’ I am putting my little brick into the happiness of all and so my heart is at peace. Ha-ha! Why have you let me slip? I only live once, I too want.... Ech, I am an æsthetic louse and nothing more,” he added suddenly, laughing like a madman. “Yes, I am certainly a louse,” he went on, clutching at the idea, gloating over it and playing with it with vindictive pleasure. “In the first place, because I can reason that I am one, and secondly, because for a month past I have been troubling benevolent Providence, calling it to witness that not for my own fleshly lusts did I undertake it, but with a grand and noble object--ha-ha! Thirdly, because I aimed at carrying it out as justly as possible, weighing, measuring and calculating. Of all the lice I picked out the most useless one and proposed to take from her only as much as I needed for the first step, no more nor less (so the rest would have gone to a monastery, according to her will, ha-ha!). And what shows that I am utterly a louse,” he added, grinding his teeth, “is that I am perhaps viler and more loathsome than the louse I killed, and _I felt beforehand_ that I should tell myself so _after_ killing her. Can anything be compared with the horror of that? The vulgarity! The abjectness! I understand the ‘prophet’ with his sabre, on his steed: Allah commands and ‘trembling’ creation must obey! The ‘prophet’ is right, he is right when he sets a battery across the street and blows up the innocent and the guilty without deigning to explain! It’s for you to obey, trembling creation, and not _to have desires_, for that’s not for you!... I shall never, never forgive the old woman!” His hair was soaked with sweat, his quivering lips were parched, his eyes were fixed on the ceiling. “Mother, sister--how I loved them! Why do I hate them now? Yes, I hate them, I feel a physical hatred for them, I can’t bear them near me.... I went up to my mother and kissed her, I remember.... To embrace her and think if she only knew... shall I tell her then? That’s just what I might do.... _She_ must be the same as I am,” he added, straining himself to think, as it were struggling with delirium. “Ah, how I hate the old woman now! I feel I should kill her again if she came to life! Poor Lizaveta! Why did she come in?... It’s strange though, why is it I scarcely ever think of her, as though I hadn’t killed her? Lizaveta! Sonia! Poor gentle things, with gentle eyes.... Dear women! Why don’t they weep? Why don’t they moan? They give up everything... their eyes are soft and gentle.... Sonia, Sonia! Gentle Sonia!” He lost consciousness; it seemed strange to him that he didn’t remember how he got into the street. It was late evening. The twilight had fallen and the full moon was shining more and more brightly; but there was a peculiar breathlessness in the air. There were crowds of people in the street; workmen and business people were making their way home; other people had come out for a walk; there was a smell of mortar, dust and stagnant water. Raskolnikov walked along, mournful and anxious; he was distinctly aware of having come out with a purpose, of having to do something in a hurry, but what it was he had forgotten. Suddenly he stood still and saw a man standing on the other side of the street, beckoning to him. He crossed over to him, but at once the man turned and walked away with his head hanging, as though he had made no sign to him. “Stay, did he really beckon?” Raskolnikov wondered, but he tried to overtake him. When he was within ten paces he recognised him and was frightened; it was the same man with stooping shoulders in the long coat. Raskolnikov followed him at a distance; his heart was beating; they went down a turning; the man still did not look round. “Does he know I am following him?” thought Raskolnikov. The man went into the gateway of a big house. Raskolnikov hastened to the gate and looked in to see whether he would look round and sign to him. In the court-yard the man did turn round and again seemed to beckon him. Raskolnikov at once followed him into the yard, but the man was gone. He must have gone up the first staircase. Raskolnikov rushed after him. He heard slow measured steps two flights above. The staircase seemed strangely familiar. He reached the window on the first floor; the moon shone through the panes with a melancholy and mysterious light; then he reached the second floor. Bah! this is the flat where the painters were at work... but how was it he did not recognise it at once? The steps of the man above had died away. “So he must have stopped or hidden somewhere.” He reached the third storey, should he go on? There was a stillness that was dreadful.... But he went on. The sound of his own footsteps scared and frightened him. How dark it was! The man must be hiding in some corner here. Ah! the flat was standing wide open, he hesitated and went in. It was very dark and empty in the passage, as though everything had been removed; he crept on tiptoe into the parlour which was flooded with moonlight. Everything there was as before, the chairs, the looking-glass, the yellow sofa and the pictures in the frames. A huge, round, copper-red moon looked in at the windows. “It’s the moon that makes it so still, weaving some mystery,” thought Raskolnikov. He stood and waited, waited a long while, and the more silent the moonlight, the more violently his heart beat, till it was painful. And still the same hush. Suddenly he heard a momentary sharp crack like the snapping of a splinter and all was still again. A fly flew up suddenly and struck the window pane with a plaintive buzz. At that moment he noticed in the corner between the window and the little cupboard something like a cloak hanging on the wall. “Why is that cloak here?” he thought, “it wasn’t there before....” He went up to it quietly and felt that there was someone hiding behind it. He cautiously moved the cloak and saw, sitting on a chair in the corner, the old woman bent double so that he couldn’t see her face; but it was she. He stood over her. “She is afraid,” he thought. He stealthily took the axe from the noose and struck her one blow, then another on the skull. But strange to say she did not stir, as though she were made of wood. He was frightened, bent down nearer and tried to look at her; but she, too, bent her head lower. He bent right down to the ground and peeped up into her face from below, he peeped and turned cold with horror: the old woman was sitting and laughing, shaking with noiseless laughter, doing her utmost that he should not hear it. Suddenly he fancied that the door from the bedroom was opened a little and that there was laughter and whispering within. He was overcome with frenzy and he began hitting the old woman on the head with all his force, but at every blow of the axe the laughter and whispering from the bedroom grew louder and the old woman was simply shaking with mirth. He was rushing away, but the passage was full of people, the doors of the flats stood open and on the landing, on the stairs and everywhere below there were people, rows of heads, all looking, but huddled together in silence and expectation. Something gripped his heart, his legs were rooted to the spot, they would not move.... He tried to scream and woke up. He drew a deep breath--but his dream seemed strangely to persist: his door was flung open and a man whom he had never seen stood in the doorway watching him intently. Raskolnikov had hardly opened his eyes and he instantly closed them again. He lay on his back without stirring. “Is it still a dream?” he wondered and again raised his eyelids hardly perceptibly; the stranger was standing in the same place, still watching him. He stepped cautiously into the room, carefully closing the door after him, went up to the table, paused a moment, still keeping his eyes on Raskolnikov, and noiselessly seated himself on the chair by the sofa; he put his hat on the floor beside him and leaned his hands on his cane and his chin on his hands. It was evident that he was prepared to wait indefinitely. As far as Raskolnikov could make out from his stolen glances, he was a man no longer young, stout, with a full, fair, almost whitish beard. Ten minutes passed. It was still light, but beginning to get dusk. There was complete stillness in the room. Not a sound came from the stairs. Only a big fly buzzed and fluttered against the window pane. It was unbearable at last. Raskolnikov suddenly got up and sat on the sofa. “Come, tell me what you want.” “I knew you were not asleep, but only pretending,” the stranger answered oddly, laughing calmly. “Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, allow me to introduce myself....” PART IV CHAPTER I “Can this be still a dream?” Raskolnikov thought once more. He looked carefully and suspiciously at the unexpected visitor. “Svidrigaïlov! What nonsense! It can’t be!” he said at last aloud in bewilderment. His visitor did not seem at all surprised at this exclamation. “I’ve come to you for two reasons. In the first place, I wanted to make your personal acquaintance, as I have already heard a great deal about you that is interesting and flattering; secondly, I cherish the hope that you may not refuse to assist me in a matter directly concerning the welfare of your sister, Avdotya Romanovna. For without your support she might not let me come near her now, for she is prejudiced against me, but with your assistance I reckon on...” “You reckon wrongly,” interrupted Raskolnikov. “They only arrived yesterday, may I ask you?” Raskolnikov made no reply. “It was yesterday, I know. I only arrived myself the day before. Well, let me tell you this, Rodion Romanovitch, I don’t consider it necessary to justify myself, but kindly tell me what was there particularly criminal on my part in all this business, speaking without prejudice, with common sense?” Raskolnikov continued to look at him in silence. “That in my own house I persecuted a defenceless girl and ‘insulted her with my infamous proposals’--is that it? (I am anticipating you.) But you’ve only to assume that I, too, am a man _et nihil humanum_... in a word, that I am capable of being attracted and falling in love (which does not depend on our will), then everything can be explained in the most natural manner. The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself a victim? And what if I am a victim? In proposing to the object of my passion to elope with me to America or Switzerland, I may have cherished the deepest respect for her and may have thought that I was promoting our mutual happiness! Reason is the slave of passion, you know; why, probably, I was doing more harm to myself than anyone!” “But that’s not the point,” Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust. “It’s simply that whether you are right or wrong, we dislike you. We don’t want to have anything to do with you. We show you the door. Go out!” Svidrigaïlov broke into a sudden laugh. “But you’re... but there’s no getting round you,” he said, laughing in the frankest way. “I hoped to get round you, but you took up the right line at once!” “But you are trying to get round me still!” “What of it? What of it?” cried Svidrigaïlov, laughing openly. “But this is what the French call _bonne guerre_, and the most innocent form of deception!... But still you have interrupted me; one way or another, I repeat again: there would never have been any unpleasantness except for what happened in the garden. Marfa Petrovna...” “You have got rid of Marfa Petrovna, too, so they say?” Raskolnikov interrupted rudely. “Oh, you’ve heard that, too, then? You’d be sure to, though.... But as for your question, I really don’t know what to say, though my own conscience is quite at rest on that score. Don’t suppose that I am in any apprehension about it. All was regular and in order; the medical inquiry diagnosed apoplexy due to bathing immediately after a heavy dinner and a bottle of wine, and indeed it could have proved nothing else. But I’ll tell you what I have been thinking to myself of late, on my way here in the train, especially: didn’t I contribute to all that... calamity, morally, in a way, by irritation or something of the sort. But I came to the conclusion that that, too, was quite out of the question.” Raskolnikov laughed. “I wonder you trouble yourself about it!” “But what are you laughing at? Only consider, I struck her just twice with a switch--there were no marks even... don’t regard me as a cynic, please; I am perfectly aware how atrocious it was of me and all that; but I know for certain, too, that Marfa Petrovna was very likely pleased at my, so to say, warmth. The story of your sister had been wrung out to the last drop; for the last three days Marfa Petrovna had been forced to sit at home; she had nothing to show herself with in the town. Besides, she had bored them so with that letter (you heard about her reading the letter). And all of a sudden those two switches fell from heaven! Her first act was to order the carriage to be got out.... Not to speak of the fact that there are cases when women are very, very glad to be insulted in spite of all their show of indignation. There are instances of it with everyone; human beings in general, indeed, greatly love to be insulted, have you noticed that? But it’s particularly so with women. One might even say it’s their only amusement.” At one time Raskolnikov thought of getting up and walking out and so finishing the interview. But some curiosity and even a sort of prudence made him linger for a moment. “You are fond of fighting?” he asked carelessly. “No, not very,” Svidrigaïlov answered, calmly. “And Marfa Petrovna and I scarcely ever fought. We lived very harmoniously, and she was always pleased with me. I only used the whip twice in all our seven years (not counting a third occasion of a very ambiguous character). The first time, two months after our marriage, immediately after we arrived in the country, and the last time was that of which we are speaking. Did you suppose I was such a monster, such a reactionary, such a slave driver? Ha, ha! By the way, do you remember, Rodion Romanovitch, how a few years ago, in those days of beneficent publicity, a nobleman, I’ve forgotten his name, was put to shame everywhere, in all the papers, for having thrashed a German woman in the railway train. You remember? It was in those days, that very year I believe, the ‘disgraceful action of the _Age_’ took place (you know, ‘The Egyptian Nights,’ that public reading, you remember? The dark eyes, you know! Ah, the golden days of our youth, where are they?). Well, as for the gentleman who thrashed the German, I feel no sympathy with him, because after all what need is there for sympathy? But I must say that there are sometimes such provoking ‘Germans’ that I don’t believe there is a progressive who could quite answer for himself. No one looked at the subject from that point of view then, but that’s the truly humane point of view, I assure you.” After saying this, Svidrigaïlov broke into a sudden laugh again. Raskolnikov saw clearly that this was a man with a firm purpose in his mind and able to keep it to himself. “I expect you’ve not talked to anyone for some days?” he asked. “Scarcely anyone. I suppose you are wondering at my being such an adaptable man?” “No, I am only wondering at your being too adaptable a man.” “Because I am not offended at the rudeness of your questions? Is that it? But why take offence? As you asked, so I answered,” he replied, with a surprising expression of simplicity. “You know, there’s hardly anything I take interest in,” he went on, as it were dreamily, “especially now, I’ve nothing to do.... You are quite at liberty to imagine though that I am making up to you with a motive, particularly as I told you I want to see your sister about something. But I’ll confess frankly, I am very much bored. The last three days especially, so I am delighted to see you.... Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, but you seem to be somehow awfully strange yourself. Say what you like, there’s something wrong with you, and now, too... not this very minute, I mean, but now, generally.... Well, well, I won’t, I won’t, don’t scowl! I am not such a bear, you know, as you think.” Raskolnikov looked gloomily at him. “You are not a bear, perhaps, at all,” he said. “I fancy indeed that you are a man of very good breeding, or at least know how on occasion to behave like one.” “I am not particularly interested in anyone’s opinion,” Svidrigaïlov answered, dryly and even with a shade of haughtiness, “and therefore why not be vulgar at times when vulgarity is such a convenient cloak for our climate... and especially if one has a natural propensity that way,” he added, laughing again. “But I’ve heard you have many friends here. You are, as they say, ‘not without connections.’ What can you want with me, then, unless you’ve some special object?” “That’s true that I have friends here,” Svidrigaïlov admitted, not replying to the chief point. “I’ve met some already. I’ve been lounging about for the last three days, and I’ve seen them, or they’ve seen me. That’s a matter of course. I am well dressed and reckoned not a poor man; the emancipation of the serfs hasn’t affected me; my property consists chiefly of forests and water meadows. The revenue has not fallen off; but... I am not going to see them, I was sick of them long ago. I’ve been here three days and have called on no one.... What a town it is! How has it come into existence among us, tell me that? A town of officials and students of all sorts. Yes, there’s a great deal I didn’t notice when I was here eight years ago, kicking up my heels.... My only hope now is in anatomy, by Jove, it is!” “Anatomy?” “But as for these clubs, Dussauts, parades, or progress, indeed, maybe--well, all that can go on without me,” he went on, again without noticing the question. “Besides, who wants to be a card-sharper?” “Why, have you been a card-sharper then?” “How could I help being? There was a regular set of us, men of the best society, eight years ago; we had a fine time. And all men of breeding, you know, poets, men of property. And indeed as a rule in our Russian society the best manners are found among those who’ve been thrashed, have you noticed that? I’ve deteriorated in the country. But I did get into prison for debt, through a low Greek who came from Nezhin. Then Marfa Petrovna turned up; she bargained with him and bought me off for thirty thousand silver pieces (I owed seventy thousand). We were united in lawful wedlock and she bore me off into the country like a treasure. You know she was five years older than I. She was very fond of me. For seven years I never left the country. And, take note, that all my life she held a document over me, the IOU for thirty thousand roubles, so if I were to elect to be restive about anything I should be trapped at once! And she would have done it! Women find nothing incompatible in that.” “If it hadn’t been for that, would you have given her the slip?” “I don’t know what to say. It was scarcely the document restrained me. I didn’t want to go anywhere else. Marfa Petrovna herself invited me to go abroad, seeing I was bored, but I’ve been abroad before, and always felt sick there. For no reason, but the sunrise, the bay of Naples, the sea--you look at them and it makes you sad. What’s most revolting is that one is really sad! No, it’s better at home. Here at least one blames others for everything and excuses oneself. I should have gone perhaps on an expedition to the North Pole, because _j’ai le vin mauvais_ and hate drinking, and there’s nothing left but wine. I have tried it. But, I say, I’ve been told Berg is going up in a great balloon next Sunday from the Yusupov Garden and will take up passengers at a fee. Is it true?” “Why, would you go up?” “I... No, oh, no,” muttered Svidrigaïlov really seeming to be deep in thought. “What does he mean? Is he in earnest?” Raskolnikov wondered. “No, the document didn’t restrain me,” Svidrigaïlov went on, meditatively. “It was my own doing, not leaving the country, and nearly a year ago Marfa Petrovna gave me back the document on my name-day and made me a present of a considerable sum of money, too. She had a fortune, you know. ‘You see how I trust you, Arkady Ivanovitch’--that was actually her expression. You don’t believe she used it? But do you know I managed the estate quite decently, they know me in the neighbourhood. I ordered books, too. Marfa Petrovna at first approved, but afterwards she was afraid of my over-studying.” “You seem to be missing Marfa Petrovna very much?” “Missing her? Perhaps. Really, perhaps I am. And, by the way, do you believe in ghosts?” “What ghosts?” “Why, ordinary ghosts.” “Do you believe in them?” “Perhaps not, _pour vous plaire_.... I wouldn’t say no exactly.” “Do you see them, then?” Svidrigaïlov looked at him rather oddly. “Marfa Petrovna is pleased to visit me,” he said, twisting his mouth into a strange smile. “How do you mean ‘she is pleased to visit you’?” “She has been three times. I saw her first on the very day of the funeral, an hour after she was buried. It was the day before I left to come here. The second time was the day before yesterday, at daybreak, on the journey at the station of Malaya Vishera, and the third time was two hours ago in the room where I am staying. I was alone.” “Were you awake?” “Quite awake. I was wide awake every time. She comes, speaks to me for a minute and goes out at the door--always at the door. I can almost hear her.” “What made me think that something of the sort must be happening to you?” Raskolnikov said suddenly. At the same moment he was surprised at having said it. He was much excited. “What! Did you think so?” Svidrigaïlov asked in astonishment. “Did you really? Didn’t I say that there was something in common between us, eh?” “You never said so!” Raskolnikov cried sharply and with heat. “Didn’t I?” “No!” “I thought I did. When I came in and saw you lying with your eyes shut, pretending, I said to myself at once, ‘Here’s the man.’” “What do you mean by ‘the man?’ What are you talking about?” cried Raskolnikov. “What do I mean? I really don’t know....” Svidrigaïlov muttered ingenuously, as though he, too, were puzzled. For a minute they were silent. They stared in each other’s faces. “That’s all nonsense!” Raskolnikov shouted with vexation. “What does she say when she comes to you?” “She! Would you believe it, she talks of the silliest trifles and--man is a strange creature--it makes me angry. The first time she came in (I was tired you know: the funeral service, the funeral ceremony, the lunch afterwards. At last I was left alone in my study. I lighted a cigar and began to think), she came in at the door. ‘You’ve been so busy to-day, Arkady Ivanovitch, you have forgotten to wind the dining-room clock,’ she said. All those seven years I’ve wound that clock every week, and if I forgot it she would always remind me. The next day I set off on my way here. I got out at the station at daybreak; I’d been asleep, tired out, with my eyes half open, I was drinking some coffee. I looked up and there was suddenly Marfa Petrovna sitting beside me with a pack of cards in her hands. ‘Shall I tell your fortune for the journey, Arkady Ivanovitch?’ She was a great hand at telling fortunes. I shall never forgive myself for not asking her to. I ran away in a fright, and, besides, the bell rang. I was sitting to-day, feeling very heavy after a miserable dinner from a cookshop; I was sitting smoking, all of a sudden Marfa Petrovna again. She came in very smart in a new green silk dress with a long train. ‘Good day, Arkady Ivanovitch! How do you like my dress? Aniska can’t make like this.’ (Aniska was a dressmaker in the country, one of our former serf girls who had been trained in Moscow, a pretty wench.) She stood turning round before me. I looked at the dress, and then I looked carefully, very carefully, at her face. ‘I wonder you trouble to come to me about such trifles, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘Good gracious, you won’t let one disturb you about anything!’ To tease her I said, ‘I want to get married, Marfa Petrovna.’ ‘That’s just like you, Arkady Ivanovitch; it does you very little credit to come looking for a bride when you’ve hardly buried your wife. And if you could make a good choice, at least, but I know it won’t be for your happiness or hers, you will only be a laughing-stock to all good people.’ Then she went out and her train seemed to rustle. Isn’t it nonsense, eh?” “But perhaps you are telling lies?” Raskolnikov put in. “I rarely lie,” answered Svidrigaïlov thoughtfully, apparently not noticing the rudeness of the question. “And in the past, have you ever seen ghosts before?” “Y-yes, I have seen them, but only once in my life, six years ago. I had a serf, Filka; just after his burial I called out forgetting ‘Filka, my pipe!’ He came in and went to the cupboard where my pipes were. I sat still and thought ‘he is doing it out of revenge,’ because we had a violent quarrel just before his death. ‘How dare you come in with a hole in your elbow?’ I said. ‘Go away, you scamp!’ He turned and went out, and never came again. I didn’t tell Marfa Petrovna at the time. I wanted to have a service sung for him, but I was ashamed.” “You should go to a doctor.” “I know I am not well, without your telling me, though I don’t know what’s wrong; I believe I am five times as strong as you are. I didn’t ask you whether you believe that ghosts are seen, but whether you believe that they exist.” “No, I won’t believe it!” Raskolnikov cried, with positive anger. “What do people generally say?” muttered Svidrigaïlov, as though speaking to himself, looking aside and bowing his head. “They say, ‘You are ill, so what appears to you is only unreal fantasy.’ But that’s not strictly logical. I agree that ghosts only appear to the sick, but that only proves that they are unable to appear except to the sick, not that they don’t exist.” “Nothing of the sort,” Raskolnikov insisted irritably. “No? You don’t think so?” Svidrigaïlov went on, looking at him deliberately. “But what do you say to this argument (help me with it): ghosts are, as it were, shreds and fragments of other worlds, the beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to see them, because he is above all a man of this earth and is bound for the sake of completeness and order to live only in this life. But as soon as one is ill, as soon as the normal earthly order of the organism is broken, one begins to realise the possibility of another world; and the more seriously ill one is, the closer becomes one’s contact with that other world, so that as soon as the man dies he steps straight into that world. I thought of that long ago. If you believe in a future life, you could believe in that, too.” “I don’t believe in a future life,” said Raskolnikov. Svidrigaïlov sat lost in thought. “And what if there are only spiders there, or something of that sort,” he said suddenly. “He is a madman,” thought Raskolnikov. “We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if it’s one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is? I sometimes fancy it like that.” “Can it be you can imagine nothing juster and more comforting than that?” Raskolnikov cried, with a feeling of anguish. “Juster? And how can we tell, perhaps that is just, and do you know it’s what I would certainly have made it,” answered Svidrigaïlov, with a vague smile. This horrible answer sent a cold chill through Raskolnikov. Svidrigaïlov raised his head, looked at him, and suddenly began laughing. “Only think,” he cried, “half an hour ago we had never seen each other, we regarded each other as enemies; there is a matter unsettled between us; we’ve thrown it aside, and away we’ve gone into the abstract! Wasn’t I right in saying that we were birds of a feather?” “Kindly allow me,” Raskolnikov went on irritably, “to ask you to explain why you have honoured me with your visit... and... and I am in a hurry, I have no time to waste. I want to go out.” “By all means, by all means. Your sister, Avdotya Romanovna, is going to be married to Mr. Luzhin, Pyotr Petrovitch?” “Can you refrain from any question about my sister and from mentioning her name? I can’t understand how you dare utter her name in my presence, if you really are Svidrigaïlov.” “Why, but I’ve come here to speak about her; how can I avoid mentioning her?” “Very good, speak, but make haste.” “I am sure that you must have formed your own opinion of this Mr. Luzhin, who is a connection of mine through my wife, if you have only seen him for half an hour, or heard any facts about him. He is no match for Avdotya Romanovna. I believe Avdotya Romanovna is sacrificing herself generously and imprudently for the sake of... for the sake of her family. I fancied from all I had heard of you that you would be very glad if the match could be broken off without the sacrifice of worldly advantages. Now I know you personally, I am convinced of it.” “All this is very naïve... excuse me, I should have said impudent on your part,” said Raskolnikov. “You mean to say that I am seeking my own ends. Don’t be uneasy, Rodion Romanovitch, if I were working for my own advantage, I would not have spoken out so directly. I am not quite a fool. I will confess something psychologically curious about that: just now, defending my love for Avdotya Romanovna, I said I was myself the victim. Well, let me tell you that I’ve no feeling of love now, not the slightest, so that I wonder myself indeed, for I really did feel something...” “Through idleness and depravity,” Raskolnikov put in. “I certainly am idle and depraved, but your sister has such qualities that even I could not help being impressed by them. But that’s all nonsense, as I see myself now.” “Have you seen that long?” “I began to be aware of it before, but was only perfectly sure of it the day before yesterday, almost at the moment I arrived in Petersburg. I still fancied in Moscow, though, that I was coming to try to get Avdotya Romanovna’s hand and to cut out Mr. Luzhin.” “Excuse me for interrupting you; kindly be brief, and come to the object of your visit. I am in a hurry, I want to go out...” “With the greatest pleasure. On arriving here and determining on a certain... journey, I should like to make some necessary preliminary arrangements. I left my children with an aunt; they are well provided for; and they have no need of me personally. And a nice father I should make, too! I have taken nothing but what Marfa Petrovna gave me a year ago. That’s enough for me. Excuse me, I am just coming to the point. Before the journey which may come off, I want to settle Mr. Luzhin, too. It’s not that I detest him so much, but it was through him I quarrelled with Marfa Petrovna when I learned that she had dished up this marriage. I want now to see Avdotya Romanovna through your mediation, and if you like in your presence, to explain to her that in the first place she will never gain anything but harm from Mr. Luzhin. Then, begging her pardon for all past unpleasantness, to make her a present of ten thousand roubles and so assist the rupture with Mr. Luzhin, a rupture to which I believe she is herself not disinclined, if she could see the way to it.” “You are certainly mad,” cried Raskolnikov not so much angered as astonished. “How dare you talk like that!” “I knew you would scream at me; but in the first place, though I am not rich, this ten thousand roubles is perfectly free; I have absolutely no need for it. If Avdotya Romanovna does not accept it, I shall waste it in some more foolish way. That’s the first thing. Secondly, my conscience is perfectly easy; I make the offer with no ulterior motive. You may not believe it, but in the end Avdotya Romanovna and you will know. The point is, that I did actually cause your sister, whom I greatly respect, some trouble and unpleasantness, and so, sincerely regretting it, I want--not to compensate, not to repay her for the unpleasantness, but simply to do something to her advantage, to show that I am not, after all, privileged to do nothing but harm. If there were a millionth fraction of self-interest in my offer, I should not have made it so openly; and I should not have offered her ten thousand only, when five weeks ago I offered her more, Besides, I may, perhaps, very soon marry a young lady, and that alone ought to prevent suspicion of any design on Avdotya Romanovna. In conclusion, let me say that in marrying Mr. Luzhin, she is taking money just the same, only from another man. Don’t be angry, Rodion Romanovitch, think it over coolly and quietly.” Svidrigaïlov himself was exceedingly cool and quiet as he was saying this. “I beg you to say no more,” said Raskolnikov. “In any case this is unpardonable impertinence.” “Not in the least. Then a man may do nothing but harm to his neighbour in this world, and is prevented from doing the tiniest bit of good by trivial conventional formalities. That’s absurd. If I died, for instance, and left that sum to your sister in my will, surely she wouldn’t refuse it?” “Very likely she would.” “Oh, no, indeed. However, if you refuse it, so be it, though ten thousand roubles is a capital thing to have on occasion. In any case I beg you to repeat what I have said to Avdotya Romanovna.” “No, I won’t.” “In that case, Rodion Romanovitch, I shall be obliged to try and see her myself and worry her by doing so.” “And if I do tell her, will you not try to see her?” “I don’t know really what to say. I should like very much to see her once more.” “Don’t hope for it.” “I’m sorry. But you don’t know me. Perhaps we may become better friends.” “You think we may become friends?” “And why not?” Svidrigaïlov said, smiling. He stood up and took his hat. “I didn’t quite intend to disturb you and I came here without reckoning on it... though I was very much struck by your face this morning.” “Where did you see me this morning?” Raskolnikov asked uneasily. “I saw you by chance.... I kept fancying there is something about you like me.... But don’t be uneasy. I am not intrusive; I used to get on all right with card-sharpers, and I never bored Prince Svirbey, a great personage who is a distant relation of mine, and I could write about Raphael’s _Madonna_ in Madam Prilukov’s album, and I never left Marfa Petrovna’s side for seven years, and I used to stay the night at Viazemsky’s house in the Hay Market in the old days, and I may go up in a balloon with Berg, perhaps.” “Oh, all right. Are you starting soon on your travels, may I ask?” “What travels?” “Why, on that ‘journey’; you spoke of it yourself.” “A journey? Oh, yes. I did speak of a journey. Well, that’s a wide subject.... if only you knew what you are asking,” he added, and gave a sudden, loud, short laugh. “Perhaps I’ll get married instead of the journey. They’re making a match for me.” “Here?” “Yes.” “How have you had time for that?” “But I am very anxious to see Avdotya Romanovna once. I earnestly beg it. Well, good-bye for the present. Oh, yes. I have forgotten something. Tell your sister, Rodion Romanovitch, that Marfa Petrovna remembered her in her will and left her three thousand roubles. That’s absolutely certain. Marfa Petrovna arranged it a week before her death, and it was done in my presence. Avdotya Romanovna will be able to receive the money in two or three weeks.” “Are you telling the truth?” “Yes, tell her. Well, your servant. I am staying very near you.” As he went out, Svidrigaïlov ran up against Razumihin in the doorway. CHAPTER II It was nearly eight o’clock. The two young men hurried to Bakaleyev’s, to arrive before Luzhin. “Why, who was that?” asked Razumihin, as soon as they were in the street. “It was Svidrigaïlov, that landowner in whose house my sister was insulted when she was their governess. Through his persecuting her with his attentions, she was turned out by his wife, Marfa Petrovna. This Marfa Petrovna begged Dounia’s forgiveness afterwards, and she’s just died suddenly. It was of her we were talking this morning. I don’t know why I’m afraid of that man. He came here at once after his wife’s funeral. He is very strange, and is determined on doing something.... We must guard Dounia from him... that’s what I wanted to tell you, do you hear?” “Guard her! What can he do to harm Avdotya Romanovna? Thank you, Rodya, for speaking to me like that.... We will, we will guard her. Where does he live?” “I don’t know.” “Why didn’t you ask? What a pity! I’ll find out, though.” “Did you see him?” asked Raskolnikov after a pause. “Yes, I noticed him, I noticed him well.” “You did really see him? You saw him clearly?” Raskolnikov insisted. “Yes, I remember him perfectly, I should know him in a thousand; I have a good memory for faces.” They were silent again. “Hm!... that’s all right,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Do you know, I fancied... I keep thinking that it may have been an hallucination.” “What do you mean? I don’t understand you.” “Well, you all say,” Raskolnikov went on, twisting his mouth into a smile, “that I am mad. I thought just now that perhaps I really am mad, and have only seen a phantom.” “What do you mean?” “Why, who can tell? Perhaps I am really mad, and perhaps everything that happened all these days may be only imagination.” “Ach, Rodya, you have been upset again!... But what did he say, what did he come for?” Raskolnikov did not answer. Razumihin thought a minute. “Now let me tell you my story,” he began, “I came to you, you were asleep. Then we had dinner and then I went to Porfiry’s, Zametov was still with him. I tried to begin, but it was no use. I couldn’t speak in the right way. They don’t seem to understand and can’t understand, but are not a bit ashamed. I drew Porfiry to the window, and began talking to him, but it was still no use. He looked away and I looked away. At last I shook my fist in his ugly face, and told him as a cousin I’d brain him. He merely looked at me, I cursed and came away. That was all. It was very stupid. To Zametov I didn’t say a word. But, you see, I thought I’d made a mess of it, but as I went downstairs a brilliant idea struck me: why should we trouble? Of course if you were in any danger or anything, but why need you care? You needn’t care a hang for them. We shall have a laugh at them afterwards, and if I were in your place I’d mystify them more than ever. How ashamed they’ll be afterwards! Hang them! We can thrash them afterwards, but let’s laugh at them now!” “To be sure,” answered Raskolnikov. “But what will you say to-morrow?” he thought to himself. Strange to say, till that moment it had never occurred to him to wonder what Razumihin would think when he knew. As he thought it, Raskolnikov looked at him. Razumihin’s account of his visit to Porfiry had very little interest for him, so much had come and gone since then. In the corridor they came upon Luzhin; he had arrived punctually at eight, and was looking for the number, so that all three went in together without greeting or looking at one another. The young men walked in first, while Pyotr Petrovitch, for good manners, lingered a little in the passage, taking off his coat. Pulcheria Alexandrovna came forward at once to greet him in the doorway, Dounia was welcoming her brother. Pyotr Petrovitch walked in and quite amiably, though with redoubled dignity, bowed to the ladies. He looked, however, as though he were a little put out and could not yet recover himself. Pulcheria Alexandrovna, who seemed also a little embarrassed, hastened to make them all sit down at the round table where a samovar was boiling. Dounia and Luzhin were facing one another on opposite sides of the table. Razumihin and Raskolnikov were facing Pulcheria Alexandrovna, Razumihin was next to Luzhin and Raskolnikov was beside his sister. A moment’s silence followed. Pyotr Petrovitch deliberately drew out a cambric handkerchief reeking of scent and blew his nose with an air of a benevolent man who felt himself slighted, and was firmly resolved to insist on an explanation. In the passage the idea had occurred to him to keep on his overcoat and walk away, and so give the two ladies a sharp and emphatic lesson and make them feel the gravity of the position. But he could not bring himself to do this. Besides, he could not endure uncertainty, and he wanted an explanation: if his request had been so openly disobeyed, there was something behind it, and in that case it was better to find it out beforehand; it rested with him to punish them and there would always be time for that. “I trust you had a favourable journey,” he inquired officially of Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “Oh, very, Pyotr Petrovitch.” “I am gratified to hear it. And Avdotya Romanovna is not over-fatigued either?” “I am young and strong, I don’t get tired, but it was a great strain for mother,” answered Dounia. “That’s unavoidable! our national railways are of terrible length. ‘Mother Russia,’ as they say, is a vast country.... In spite of all my desire to do so, I was unable to meet you yesterday. But I trust all passed off without inconvenience?” “Oh, no, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was all terribly disheartening,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hastened to declare with peculiar intonation, “and if Dmitri Prokofitch had not been sent us, I really believe by God Himself, we should have been utterly lost. Here, he is! Dmitri Prokofitch Razumihin,” she added, introducing him to Luzhin. “I had the pleasure... yesterday,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch with a hostile glance sidelong at Razumihin; then he scowled and was silent. Pyotr Petrovitch belonged to that class of persons, on the surface very polite in society, who make a great point of punctiliousness, but who, directly they are crossed in anything, are completely disconcerted, and become more like sacks of flour than elegant and lively men of society. Again all was silent; Raskolnikov was obstinately mute, Avdotya Romanovna was unwilling to open the conversation too soon. Razumihin had nothing to say, so Pulcheria Alexandrovna was anxious again. “Marfa Petrovna is dead, have you heard?” she began having recourse to her leading item of conversation. “To be sure, I heard so. I was immediately informed, and I have come to make you acquainted with the fact that Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov set off in haste for Petersburg immediately after his wife’s funeral. So at least I have excellent authority for believing.” “To Petersburg? here?” Dounia asked in alarm and looked at her mother. “Yes, indeed, and doubtless not without some design, having in view the rapidity of his departure, and all the circumstances preceding it.” “Good heavens! won’t he leave Dounia in peace even here?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I imagine that neither you nor Avdotya Romanovna have any grounds for uneasiness, unless, of course, you are yourselves desirous of getting into communication with him. For my part I am on my guard, and am now discovering where he is lodging.” “Oh, Pyotr Petrovitch, you would not believe what a fright you have given me,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went on: “I’ve only seen him twice, but I thought him terrible, terrible! I am convinced that he was the cause of Marfa Petrovna’s death.” “It’s impossible to be certain about that. I have precise information. I do not dispute that he may have contributed to accelerate the course of events by the moral influence, so to say, of the affront; but as to the general conduct and moral characteristics of that personage, I am in agreement with you. I do not know whether he is well off now, and precisely what Marfa Petrovna left him; this will be known to me within a very short period; but no doubt here in Petersburg, if he has any pecuniary resources, he will relapse at once into his old ways. He is the most depraved, and abjectly vicious specimen of that class of men. I have considerable reason to believe that Marfa Petrovna, who was so unfortunate as to fall in love with him and to pay his debts eight years ago, was of service to him also in another way. Solely by her exertions and sacrifices, a criminal charge, involving an element of fantastic and homicidal brutality for which he might well have been sentenced to Siberia, was hushed up. That’s the sort of man he is, if you care to know.” “Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Raskolnikov listened attentively. “Are you speaking the truth when you say that you have good evidence of this?” Dounia asked sternly and emphatically. “I only repeat what I was told in secret by Marfa Petrovna. I must observe that from the legal point of view the case was far from clear. There was, and I believe still is, living here a woman called Resslich, a foreigner, who lent small sums of money at interest, and did other commissions, and with this woman Svidrigaïlov had for a long while close and mysterious relations. She had a relation, a niece I believe, living with her, a deaf and dumb girl of fifteen, or perhaps not more than fourteen. Resslich hated this girl, and grudged her every crust; she used to beat her mercilessly. One day the girl was found hanging in the garret. At the inquest the verdict was suicide. After the usual proceedings the matter ended, but, later on, information was given that the child had been... cruelly outraged by Svidrigaïlov. It is true, this was not clearly established, the information was given by another German woman of loose character whose word could not be trusted; no statement was actually made to the police, thanks to Marfa Petrovna’s money and exertions; it did not get beyond gossip. And yet the story is a very significant one. You heard, no doubt, Avdotya Romanovna, when you were with them the story of the servant Philip who died of ill treatment he received six years ago, before the abolition of serfdom.” “I heard, on the contrary, that this Philip hanged himself.” “Quite so, but what drove him, or rather perhaps disposed him, to suicide was the systematic persecution and severity of Mr. Svidrigaïlov.” “I don’t know that,” answered Dounia, dryly. “I only heard a queer story that Philip was a sort of hypochondriac, a sort of domestic philosopher, the servants used to say, ‘he read himself silly,’ and that he hanged himself partly on account of Mr. Svidrigaïlov’s mockery of him and not his blows. When I was there he behaved well to the servants, and they were actually fond of him, though they certainly did blame him for Philip’s death.” “I perceive, Avdotya Romanovna, that you seem disposed to undertake his defence all of a sudden,” Luzhin observed, twisting his lips into an ambiguous smile, “there’s no doubt that he is an astute man, and insinuating where ladies are concerned, of which Marfa Petrovna, who has died so strangely, is a terrible instance. My only desire has been to be of service to you and your mother with my advice, in view of the renewed efforts which may certainly be anticipated from him. For my part it’s my firm conviction, that he will end in a debtor’s prison again. Marfa Petrovna had not the slightest intention of settling anything substantial on him, having regard for his children’s interests, and, if she left him anything, it would only be the merest sufficiency, something insignificant and ephemeral, which would not last a year for a man of his habits.” “Pyotr Petrovitch, I beg you,” said Dounia, “say no more of Mr. Svidrigaïlov. It makes me miserable.” “He has just been to see me,” said Raskolnikov, breaking his silence for the first time. There were exclamations from all, and they all turned to him. Even Pyotr Petrovitch was roused. “An hour and a half ago, he came in when I was asleep, waked me, and introduced himself,” Raskolnikov continued. “He was fairly cheerful and at ease, and quite hopes that we shall become friends. He is particularly anxious, by the way, Dounia, for an interview with you, at which he asked me to assist. He has a proposition to make to you, and he told me about it. He told me, too, that a week before her death Marfa Petrovna left you three thousand roubles in her will, Dounia, and that you can receive the money very shortly.” “Thank God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna, crossing herself. “Pray for her soul, Dounia!” “It’s a fact!” broke from Luzhin. “Tell us, what more?” Dounia urged Raskolnikov. “Then he said that he wasn’t rich and all the estate was left to his children who are now with an aunt, then that he was staying somewhere not far from me, but where, I don’t know, I didn’t ask....” “But what, what does he want to propose to Dounia?” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna in a fright. “Did he tell you?” “Yes.” “What was it?” “I’ll tell you afterwards.” Raskolnikov ceased speaking and turned his attention to his tea. Pyotr Petrovitch looked at his watch. “I am compelled to keep a business engagement, and so I shall not be in your way,” he added with an air of some pique and he began getting up. “Don’t go, Pyotr Petrovitch,” said Dounia, “you intended to spend the evening. Besides, you wrote yourself that you wanted to have an explanation with mother.” “Precisely so, Avdotya Romanovna,” Pyotr Petrovitch answered impressively, sitting down again, but still holding his hat. “I certainly desired an explanation with you and your honoured mother upon a very important point indeed. But as your brother cannot speak openly in my presence of some proposals of Mr. Svidrigaïlov, I, too, do not desire and am not able to speak openly... in the presence of others... of certain matters of the greatest gravity. Moreover, my most weighty and urgent request has been disregarded....” Assuming an aggrieved air, Luzhin relapsed into dignified silence. “Your request that my brother should not be present at our meeting was disregarded solely at my insistance,” said Dounia. “You wrote that you had been insulted by my brother; I think that this must be explained at once, and you must be reconciled. And if Rodya really has insulted you, then he _should_ and _will_ apologise.” Pyotr Petrovitch took a stronger line. “There are insults, Avdotya Romanovna, which no goodwill can make us forget. There is a line in everything which it is dangerous to overstep; and when it has been overstepped, there is no return.” “That wasn’t what I was speaking of exactly, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia interrupted with some impatience. “Please understand that our whole future depends now on whether all this is explained and set right as soon as possible. I tell you frankly at the start that I cannot look at it in any other light, and if you have the least regard for me, all this business must be ended to-day, however hard that may be. I repeat that if my brother is to blame he will ask your forgiveness.” “I am surprised at your putting the question like that,” said Luzhin, getting more and more irritated. “Esteeming, and so to say, adoring you, I may at the same time, very well indeed, be able to dislike some member of your family. Though I lay claim to the happiness of your hand, I cannot accept duties incompatible with...” “Ah, don’t be so ready to take offence, Pyotr Petrovitch,” Dounia interrupted with feeling, “and be the sensible and generous man I have always considered, and wish to consider, you to be. I’ve given you a great promise, I am your betrothed. Trust me in this matter and, believe me, I shall be capable of judging impartially. My assuming the part of judge is as much a surprise for my brother as for you. When I insisted on his coming to our interview to-day after your letter, I told him nothing of what I meant to do. Understand that, if you are not reconciled, I must choose between you--it must be either you or he. That is how the question rests on your side and on his. I don’t want to be mistaken in my choice, and I must not be. For your sake I must break off with my brother, for my brother’s sake I must break off with you. I can find out for certain now whether he is a brother to me, and I want to know it; and of you, whether I am dear to you, whether you esteem me, whether you are the husband for me.” “Avdotya Romanovna,” Luzhin declared huffily, “your words are of too much consequence to me; I will say more, they are offensive in view of the position I have the honour to occupy in relation to you. To say nothing of your strange and offensive setting me on a level with an impertinent boy, you admit the possibility of breaking your promise to me. You say ‘you or he,’ showing thereby of how little consequence I am in your eyes... I cannot let this pass considering the relationship and... the obligations existing between us.” “What!” cried Dounia, flushing. “I set your interest beside all that has hitherto been most precious in my life, what has made up the _whole_ of my life, and here you are offended at my making too _little_ account of you.” Raskolnikov smiled sarcastically, Razumihin fidgeted, but Pyotr Petrovitch did not accept the reproof; on the contrary, at every word he became more persistent and irritable, as though he relished it. “Love for the future partner of your life, for your husband, ought to outweigh your love for your brother,” he pronounced sententiously, “and in any case I cannot be put on the same level.... Although I said so emphatically that I would not speak openly in your brother’s presence, nevertheless, I intend now to ask your honoured mother for a necessary explanation on a point of great importance closely affecting my dignity. Your son,” he turned to Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “yesterday in the presence of Mr. Razsudkin (or... I think that’s it? excuse me I have forgotten your surname,” he bowed politely to Razumihin) “insulted me by misrepresenting the idea I expressed to you in a private conversation, drinking coffee, that is, that marriage with a poor girl who has had experience of trouble is more advantageous from the conjugal point of view than with one who has lived in luxury, since it is more profitable for the moral character. Your son intentionally exaggerated the significance of my words and made them ridiculous, accusing me of malicious intentions, and, as far as I could see, relied upon your correspondence with him. I shall consider myself happy, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, if it is possible for you to convince me of an opposite conclusion, and thereby considerately reassure me. Kindly let me know in what terms precisely you repeated my words in your letter to Rodion Romanovitch.” “I don’t remember,” faltered Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I repeated them as I understood them. I don’t know how Rodya repeated them to you, perhaps he exaggerated.” “He could not have exaggerated them, except at your instigation.” “Pyotr Petrovitch,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna declared with dignity, “the proof that Dounia and I did not take your words in a very bad sense is the fact that we are here.” “Good, mother,” said Dounia approvingly. “Then this is my fault again,” said Luzhin, aggrieved. “Well, Pyotr Petrovitch, you keep blaming Rodion, but you yourself have just written what was false about him,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna added, gaining courage. “I don’t remember writing anything false.” “You wrote,” Raskolnikov said sharply, not turning to Luzhin, “that I gave money yesterday not to the widow of the man who was killed, as was the fact, but to his daughter (whom I had never seen till yesterday). You wrote this to make dissension between me and my family, and for that object added coarse expressions about the conduct of a girl whom you don’t know. All that is mean slander.” “Excuse me, sir,” said Luzhin, quivering with fury. “I enlarged upon your qualities and conduct in my letter solely in response to your sister’s and mother’s inquiries, how I found you, and what impression you made on me. As for what you’ve alluded to in my letter, be so good as to point out one word of falsehood, show, that is, that you didn’t throw away your money, and that there are not worthless persons in that family, however unfortunate.” “To my thinking, you, with all your virtues, are not worth the little finger of that unfortunate girl at whom you throw stones.” “Would you go so far then as to let her associate with your mother and sister?” “I have done so already, if you care to know. I made her sit down to-day with mother and Dounia.” “Rodya!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Dounia crimsoned, Razumihin knitted his brows. Luzhin smiled with lofty sarcasm. “You may see for yourself, Avdotya Romanovna,” he said, “whether it is possible for us to agree. I hope now that this question is at an end, once and for all. I will withdraw, that I may not hinder the pleasures of family intimacy, and the discussion of secrets.” He got up from his chair and took his hat. “But in withdrawing, I venture to request that for the future I may be spared similar meetings, and, so to say, compromises. I appeal particularly to you, honoured Pulcheria Alexandrovna, on this subject, the more as my letter was addressed to you and to no one else.” Pulcheria Alexandrovna was a little offended. “You seem to think we are completely under your authority, Pyotr Petrovitch. Dounia has told you the reason your desire was disregarded, she had the best intentions. And indeed you write as though you were laying commands upon me. Are we to consider every desire of yours as a command? Let me tell you on the contrary that you ought to show particular delicacy and consideration for us now, because we have thrown up everything, and have come here relying on you, and so we are in any case in a sense in your hands.” “That is not quite true, Pulcheria Alexandrovna, especially at the present moment, when the news has come of Marfa Petrovna’s legacy, which seems indeed very apropos, judging from the new tone you take to me,” he added sarcastically. “Judging from that remark, we may certainly presume that you were reckoning on our helplessness,” Dounia observed irritably. “But now in any case I cannot reckon on it, and I particularly desire not to hinder your discussion of the secret proposals of Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov, which he has entrusted to your brother and which have, I perceive, a great and possibly a very agreeable interest for you.” “Good heavens!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Razumihin could not sit still on his chair. “Aren’t you ashamed now, sister?” asked Raskolnikov. “I am ashamed, Rodya,” said Dounia. “Pyotr Petrovitch, go away,” she turned to him, white with anger. Pyotr Petrovitch had apparently not at all expected such a conclusion. He had too much confidence in himself, in his power and in the helplessness of his victims. He could not believe it even now. He turned pale, and his lips quivered. “Avdotya Romanovna, if I go out of this door now, after such a dismissal, then, you may reckon on it, I will never come back. Consider what you are doing. My word is not to be shaken.” “What insolence!” cried Dounia, springing up from her seat. “I don’t want you to come back again.” “What! So that’s how it stands!” cried Luzhin, utterly unable to the last moment to believe in the rupture and so completely thrown out of his reckoning now. “So that’s how it stands! But do you know, Avdotya Romanovna, that I might protest?” “What right have you to speak to her like that?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna intervened hotly. “And what can you protest about? What rights have you? Am I to give my Dounia to a man like you? Go away, leave us altogether! We are to blame for having agreed to a wrong action, and I above all....” “But you have bound me, Pulcheria Alexandrovna,” Luzhin stormed in a frenzy, “by your promise, and now you deny it and... besides... I have been led on account of that into expenses....” This last complaint was so characteristic of Pyotr Petrovitch, that Raskolnikov, pale with anger and with the effort of restraining it, could not help breaking into laughter. But Pulcheria Alexandrovna was furious. “Expenses? What expenses? Are you speaking of our trunk? But the conductor brought it for nothing for you. Mercy on us, we have bound you! What are you thinking about, Pyotr Petrovitch, it was you bound us, hand and foot, not we!” “Enough, mother, no more please,” Avdotya Romanovna implored. “Pyotr Petrovitch, do be kind and go!” “I am going, but one last word,” he said, quite unable to control himself. “Your mamma seems to have entirely forgotten that I made up my mind to take you, so to speak, after the gossip of the town had spread all over the district in regard to your reputation. Disregarding public opinion for your sake and reinstating your reputation, I certainly might very well reckon on a fitting return, and might indeed look for gratitude on your part. And my eyes have only now been opened! I see myself that I may have acted very, very recklessly in disregarding the universal verdict....” “Does the fellow want his head smashed?” cried Razumihin, jumping up. “You are a mean and spiteful man!” cried Dounia. “Not a word! Not a movement!” cried Raskolnikov, holding Razumihin back; then going close up to Luzhin, “Kindly leave the room!” he said quietly and distinctly, “and not a word more or...” Pyotr Petrovitch gazed at him for some seconds with a pale face that worked with anger, then he turned, went out, and rarely has any man carried away in his heart such vindictive hatred as he felt against Raskolnikov. Him, and him alone, he blamed for everything. It is noteworthy that as he went downstairs he still imagined that his case was perhaps not utterly lost, and that, so far as the ladies were concerned, all might “very well indeed” be set right again. CHAPTER III The fact was that up to the last moment he had never expected such an ending; he had been overbearing to the last degree, never dreaming that two destitute and defenceless women could escape from his control. This conviction was strengthened by his vanity and conceit, a conceit to the point of fatuity. Pyotr Petrovitch, who had made his way up from insignificance, was morbidly given to self-admiration, had the highest opinion of his intelligence and capacities, and sometimes even gloated in solitude over his image in the glass. But what he loved and valued above all was the money he had amassed by his labour, and by all sorts of devices: that money made him the equal of all who had been his superiors. When he had bitterly reminded Dounia that he had decided to take her in spite of evil report, Pyotr Petrovitch had spoken with perfect sincerity and had, indeed, felt genuinely indignant at such “black ingratitude.” And yet, when he made Dounia his offer, he was fully aware of the groundlessness of all the gossip. The story had been everywhere contradicted by Marfa Petrovna, and was by then disbelieved by all the townspeople, who were warm in Dounia’a defence. And he would not have denied that he knew all that at the time. Yet he still thought highly of his own resolution in lifting Dounia to his level and regarded it as something heroic. In speaking of it to Dounia, he had let out the secret feeling he cherished and admired, and he could not understand that others should fail to admire it too. He had called on Raskolnikov with the feelings of a benefactor who is about to reap the fruits of his good deeds and to hear agreeable flattery. And as he went downstairs now, he considered himself most undeservedly injured and unrecognised. Dounia was simply essential to him; to do without her was unthinkable. For many years he had had voluptuous dreams of marriage, but he had gone on waiting and amassing money. He brooded with relish, in profound secret, over the image of a girl--virtuous, poor (she must be poor), very young, very pretty, of good birth and education, very timid, one who had suffered much, and was completely humbled before him, one who would all her life look on him as her saviour, worship him, admire him and only him. How many scenes, how many amorous episodes he had imagined on this seductive and playful theme, when his work was over! And, behold, the dream of so many years was all but realised; the beauty and education of Avdotya Romanovna had impressed him; her helpless position had been a great allurement; in her he had found even more than he dreamed of. Here was a girl of pride, character, virtue, of education and breeding superior to his own (he felt that), and this creature would be slavishly grateful all her life for his heroic condescension, and would humble herself in the dust before him, and he would have absolute, unbounded power over her!... Not long before, he had, too, after long reflection and hesitation, made an important change in his career and was now entering on a wider circle of business. With this change his cherished dreams of rising into a higher class of society seemed likely to be realised.... He was, in fact, determined to try his fortune in Petersburg. He knew that women could do a very great deal. The fascination of a charming, virtuous, highly educated woman might make his way easier, might do wonders in attracting people to him, throwing an aureole round him, and now everything was in ruins! This sudden horrible rupture affected him like a clap of thunder; it was like a hideous joke, an absurdity. He had only been a tiny bit masterful, had not even time to speak out, had simply made a joke, been carried away--and it had ended so seriously. And, of course, too, he did love Dounia in his own way; he already possessed her in his dreams--and all at once! No! The next day, the very next day, it must all be set right, smoothed over, settled. Above all he must crush that conceited milksop who was the cause of it all. With a sick feeling he could not help recalling Razumihin too, but, he soon reassured himself on that score; as though a fellow like that could be put on a level with him! The man he really dreaded in earnest was Svidrigaïlov.... He had, in short, a great deal to attend to.... ***** “No, I, I am more to blame than anyone!” said Dounia, kissing and embracing her mother. “I was tempted by his money, but on my honour, brother, I had no idea he was such a base man. If I had seen through him before, nothing would have tempted me! Don’t blame me, brother!” “God has delivered us! God has delivered us!” Pulcheria Alexandrovna muttered, but half consciously, as though scarcely able to realise what had happened. They were all relieved, and in five minutes they were laughing. Only now and then Dounia turned white and frowned, remembering what had passed. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was surprised to find that she, too, was glad: she had only that morning thought rupture with Luzhin a terrible misfortune. Razumihin was delighted. He did not yet dare to express his joy fully, but he was in a fever of excitement as though a ton-weight had fallen off his heart. Now he had the right to devote his life to them, to serve them.... Anything might happen now! But he felt afraid to think of further possibilities and dared not let his imagination range. But Raskolnikov sat still in the same place, almost sullen and indifferent. Though he had been the most insistent on getting rid of Luzhin, he seemed now the least concerned at what had happened. Dounia could not help thinking that he was still angry with her, and Pulcheria Alexandrovna watched him timidly. “What did Svidrigaïlov say to you?” said Dounia, approaching him. “Yes, yes!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Raskolnikov raised his head. “He wants to make you a present of ten thousand roubles and he desires to see you once in my presence.” “See her! On no account!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “And how dare he offer her money!” Then Raskolnikov repeated (rather dryly) his conversation with Svidrigaïlov, omitting his account of the ghostly visitations of Marfa Petrovna, wishing to avoid all unnecessary talk. “What answer did you give him?” asked Dounia. “At first I said I would not take any message to you. Then he said that he would do his utmost to obtain an interview with you without my help. He assured me that his passion for you was a passing infatuation, now he has no feeling for you. He doesn’t want you to marry Luzhin.... His talk was altogether rather muddled.” “How do you explain him to yourself, Rodya? How did he strike you?” “I must confess I don’t quite understand him. He offers you ten thousand, and yet says he is not well off. He says he is going away, and in ten minutes he forgets he has said it. Then he says he is going to be married and has already fixed on the girl.... No doubt he has a motive, and probably a bad one. But it’s odd that he should be so clumsy about it if he had any designs against you.... Of course, I refused this money on your account, once for all. Altogether, I thought him very strange.... One might almost think he was mad. But I may be mistaken; that may only be the part he assumes. The death of Marfa Petrovna seems to have made a great impression on him.” “God rest her soul,” exclaimed Pulcheria Alexandrovna. “I shall always, always pray for her! Where should we be now, Dounia, without this three thousand! It’s as though it had fallen from heaven! Why, Rodya, this morning we had only three roubles in our pocket and Dounia and I were just planning to pawn her watch, so as to avoid borrowing from that man until he offered help.” Dounia seemed strangely impressed by Svidrigaïlov’s offer. She still stood meditating. “He has got some terrible plan,” she said in a half whisper to herself, almost shuddering. Raskolnikov noticed this disproportionate terror. “I fancy I shall have to see him more than once again,” he said to Dounia. “We will watch him! I will track him out!” cried Razumihin, vigorously. “I won’t lose sight of him. Rodya has given me leave. He said to me himself just now. ‘Take care of my sister.’ Will you give me leave, too, Avdotya Romanovna?” Dounia smiled and held out her hand, but the look of anxiety did not leave her face. Pulcheria Alexandrovna gazed at her timidly, but the three thousand roubles had obviously a soothing effect on her. A quarter of an hour later, they were all engaged in a lively conversation. Even Raskolnikov listened attentively for some time, though he did not talk. Razumihin was the speaker. “And why, why should you go away?” he flowed on ecstatically. “And what are you to do in a little town? The great thing is, you are all here together and you need one another--you do need one another, believe me. For a time, anyway.... Take me into partnership, and I assure you we’ll plan a capital enterprise. Listen! I’ll explain it all in detail to you, the whole project! It all flashed into my head this morning, before anything had happened... I tell you what; I have an uncle, I must introduce him to you (a most accommodating and respectable old man). This uncle has got a capital of a thousand roubles, and he lives on his pension and has no need of that money. For the last two years he has been bothering me to borrow it from him and pay him six per cent. interest. I know what that means; he simply wants to help me. Last year I had no need of it, but this year I resolved to borrow it as soon as he arrived. Then you lend me another thousand of your three and we have enough for a start, so we’ll go into partnership, and what are we going to do?” Then Razumihin began to unfold his project, and he explained at length that almost all our publishers and booksellers know nothing at all of what they are selling, and for that reason they are usually bad publishers, and that any decent publications pay as a rule and give a profit, sometimes a considerable one. Razumihin had, indeed, been dreaming of setting up as a publisher. For the last two years he had been working in publishers’ offices, and knew three European languages well, though he had told Raskolnikov six days before that he was “schwach” in German with an object of persuading him to take half his translation and half the payment for it. He had told a lie then, and Raskolnikov knew he was lying. “Why, why should we let our chance slip when we have one of the chief means of success--money of our own!” cried Razumihin warmly. “Of course there will be a lot of work, but we will work, you, Avdotya Romanovna, I, Rodion.... You get a splendid profit on some books nowadays! And the great point of the business is that we shall know just what wants translating, and we shall be translating, publishing, learning all at once. I can be of use because I have experience. For nearly two years I’ve been scuttling about among the publishers, and now I know every detail of their business. You need not be a saint to make pots, believe me! And why, why should we let our chance slip! Why, I know--and I kept the secret--two or three books which one might get a hundred roubles simply for thinking of translating and publishing. Indeed, and I would not take five hundred for the very idea of one of them. And what do you think? If I were to tell a publisher, I dare say he’d hesitate--they are such blockheads! And as for the business side, printing, paper, selling, you trust to me, I know my way about. We’ll begin in a small way and go on to a large. In any case it will get us our living and we shall get back our capital.” Dounia’s eyes shone. “I like what you are saying, Dmitri Prokofitch!” she said. “I know nothing about it, of course,” put in Pulcheria Alexandrovna, “it may be a good idea, but again God knows. It’s new and untried. Of course, we must remain here at least for a time.” She looked at Rodya. “What do you think, brother?” said Dounia. “I think he’s got a very good idea,” he answered. “Of course, it’s too soon to dream of a publishing firm, but we certainly might bring out five or six books and be sure of success. I know of one book myself which would be sure to go well. And as for his being able to manage it, there’s no doubt about that either. He knows the business.... But we can talk it over later....” “Hurrah!” cried Razumihin. “Now, stay, there’s a flat here in this house, belonging to the same owner. It’s a special flat apart, not communicating with these lodgings. It’s furnished, rent moderate, three rooms. Suppose you take them to begin with. I’ll pawn your watch to-morrow and bring you the money, and everything can be arranged then. You can all three live together, and Rodya will be with you. But where are you off to, Rodya?” “What, Rodya, you are going already?” Pulcheria Alexandrovna asked in dismay. “At such a minute?” cried Razumihin. Dounia looked at her brother with incredulous wonder. He held his cap in his hand, he was preparing to leave them. “One would think you were burying me or saying good-bye for ever,” he said somewhat oddly. He attempted to smile, but it did not turn out a smile. “But who knows, perhaps it is the last time we shall see each other...” he let slip accidentally. It was what he was thinking, and it somehow was uttered aloud. “What is the matter with you?” cried his mother. “Where are you going, Rodya?” asked Dounia rather strangely. “Oh, I’m quite obliged to...” he answered vaguely, as though hesitating what he would say. But there was a look of sharp determination in his white face. “I meant to say... as I was coming here... I meant to tell you, mother, and you, Dounia, that it would be better for us to part for a time. I feel ill, I am not at peace.... I will come afterwards, I will come of myself... when it’s possible. I remember you and love you.... Leave me, leave me alone. I decided this even before... I’m absolutely resolved on it. Whatever may come to me, whether I come to ruin or not, I want to be alone. Forget me altogether, it’s better. Don’t inquire about me. When I can, I’ll come of myself or... I’ll send for you. Perhaps it will all come back, but now if you love me, give me up... else I shall begin to hate you, I feel it.... Good-bye!” “Good God!” cried Pulcheria Alexandrovna. Both his mother and his sister were terribly alarmed. Razumihin was also. “Rodya, Rodya, be reconciled with us! Let us be as before!” cried his poor mother. He turned slowly to the door and slowly went out of the room. Dounia overtook him. “Brother, what are you doing to mother?” she whispered, her eyes flashing with indignation. He looked dully at her. “No matter, I shall come.... I’m coming,” he muttered in an undertone, as though not fully conscious of what he was saying, and he went out of the room. “Wicked, heartless egoist!” cried Dounia. “He is insane, but not heartless. He is mad! Don’t you see it? You’re heartless after that!” Razumihin whispered in her ear, squeezing her hand tightly. “I shall be back directly,” he shouted to the horror-stricken mother, and he ran out of the room. Raskolnikov was waiting for him at the end of the passage. “I knew you would run after me,” he said. “Go back to them--be with them... be with them to-morrow and always.... I... perhaps I shall come... if I can. Good-bye.” And without holding out his hand he walked away. “But where are you going? What are you doing? What’s the matter with you? How can you go on like this?” Razumihin muttered, at his wits’ end. Raskolnikov stopped once more. “Once for all, never ask me about anything. I have nothing to tell you. Don’t come to see me. Maybe I’ll come here.... Leave me, but _don’t leave_ them. Do you understand me?” It was dark in the corridor, they were standing near the lamp. For a minute they were looking at one another in silence. Razumihin remembered that minute all his life. Raskolnikov’s burning and intent eyes grew more penetrating every moment, piercing into his soul, into his consciousness. Suddenly Razumihin started. Something strange, as it were, passed between them.... Some idea, some hint, as it were, slipped, something awful, hideous, and suddenly understood on both sides.... Razumihin turned pale. “Do you understand now?” said Raskolnikov, his face twitching nervously. “Go back, go to them,” he said suddenly, and turning quickly, he went out of the house. I will not attempt to describe how Razumihin went back to the ladies, how he soothed them, how he protested that Rodya needed rest in his illness, protested that Rodya was sure to come, that he would come every day, that he was very, very much upset, that he must not be irritated, that he, Razumihin, would watch over him, would get him a doctor, the best doctor, a consultation.... In fact from that evening Razumihin took his place with them as a son and a brother. CHAPTER IV Raskolnikov went straight to the house on the canal bank where Sonia lived. It was an old green house of three storeys. He found the porter and obtained from him vague directions as to the whereabouts of Kapernaumov, the tailor. Having found in the corner of the courtyard the entrance to the dark and narrow staircase, he mounted to the second floor and came out into a gallery that ran round the whole second storey over the yard. While he was wandering in the darkness, uncertain where to turn for Kapernaumov’s door, a door opened three paces from him; he mechanically took hold of it. “Who is there?” a woman’s voice asked uneasily. “It’s I... come to see you,” answered Raskolnikov and he walked into the tiny entry. On a broken chair stood a candle in a battered copper candlestick. “It’s you! Good heavens!” cried Sonia weakly, and she stood rooted to the spot. “Which is your room? This way?” and Raskolnikov, trying not to look at her, hastened in. A minute later Sonia, too, came in with the candle, set down the candlestick and, completely disconcerted, stood before him inexpressibly agitated and apparently frightened by his unexpected visit. The colour rushed suddenly to her pale face and tears came into her eyes... She felt sick and ashamed and happy, too.... Raskolnikov turned away quickly and sat on a chair by the table. He scanned the room in a rapid glance. It was a large but exceedingly low-pitched room, the only one let by the Kapernaumovs, to whose rooms a closed door led in the wall on the left. In the opposite side on the right hand wall was another door, always kept locked. That led to the next flat, which formed a separate lodging. Sonia’s room looked like a barn; it was a very irregular quadrangle and this gave it a grotesque appearance. A wall with three windows looking out on to the canal ran aslant so that one corner formed a very acute angle, and it was difficult to see in it without very strong light. The other corner was disproportionately obtuse. There was scarcely any furniture in the big room: in the corner on the right was a bedstead, beside it, nearest the door, a chair. A plain, deal table covered by a blue cloth stood against the same wall, close to the door into the other flat. Two rush-bottom chairs stood by the table. On the opposite wall near the acute angle stood a small plain wooden chest of drawers looking, as it were, lost in a desert. That was all there was in the room. The yellow, scratched and shabby wall-paper was black in the corners. It must have been damp and full of fumes in the winter. There was every sign of poverty; even the bedstead had no curtain. Sonia looked in silence at her visitor, who was so attentively and unceremoniously scrutinising her room, and even began at last to tremble with terror, as though she was standing before her judge and the arbiter of her destinies. “I am late.... It’s eleven, isn’t it?” he asked, still not lifting his eyes. “Yes,” muttered Sonia, “oh yes, it is,” she added, hastily, as though in that lay her means of escape. “My landlady’s clock has just struck... I heard it myself....” “I’ve come to you for the last time,” Raskolnikov went on gloomily, although this was the first time. “I may perhaps not see you again...” “Are you... going away?” “I don’t know... to-morrow....” “Then you are not coming to Katerina Ivanovna to-morrow?” Sonia’s voice shook. “I don’t know. I shall know to-morrow morning.... Never mind that: I’ve come to say one word....” He raised his brooding eyes to her and suddenly noticed that he was sitting down while she was all the while standing before him. “Why are you standing? Sit down,” he said in a changed voice, gentle and friendly. She sat down. He looked kindly and almost compassionately at her. “How thin you are! What a hand! Quite transparent, like a dead hand.” He took her hand. Sonia smiled faintly. “I have always been like that,” she said. “Even when you lived at home?” “Yes.” “Of course, you were,” he added abruptly and the expression of his face and the sound of his voice changed again suddenly. He looked round him once more. “You rent this room from the Kapernaumovs?” “Yes....” “They live there, through that door?” “Yes.... They have another room like this.” “All in one room?” “Yes.” “I should be afraid in your room at night,” he observed gloomily. “They are very good people, very kind,” answered Sonia, who still seemed bewildered, “and all the furniture, everything... everything is theirs. And they are very kind and the children, too, often come to see me.” “They all stammer, don’t they?” “Yes.... He stammers and he’s lame. And his wife, too.... It’s not exactly that she stammers, but she can’t speak plainly. She is a very kind woman. And he used to be a house serf. And there are seven children... and it’s only the eldest one that stammers and the others are simply ill... but they don’t stammer.... But where did you hear about them?” she added with some surprise. “Your father told me, then. He told me all about you.... And how you went out at six o’clock and came back at nine and how Katerina Ivanovna knelt down by your bed.” Sonia was confused. “I fancied I saw him to-day,” she whispered hesitatingly. “Whom?” “Father. I was walking in the street, out there at the corner, about ten o’clock and he seemed to be walking in front. It looked just like him. I wanted to go to Katerina Ivanovna....” “You were walking in the streets?” “Yes,” Sonia whispered abruptly, again overcome with confusion and looking down. “Katerina Ivanovna used to beat you, I dare say?” “Oh no, what are you saying? No!” Sonia looked at him almost with dismay. “You love her, then?” “Love her? Of course!” said Sonia with plaintive emphasis, and she clasped her hands in distress. “Ah, you don’t.... If you only knew! You see, she is quite like a child.... Her mind is quite unhinged, you see... from sorrow. And how clever she used to be... how generous... how kind! Ah, you don’t understand, you don’t understand!” Sonia said this as though in despair, wringing her hands in excitement and distress. Her pale cheeks flushed, there was a look of anguish in her eyes. It was clear that she was stirred to the very depths, that she was longing to speak, to champion, to express something. A sort of _insatiable_ compassion, if one may so express it, was reflected in every feature of her face. “Beat me! how can you? Good heavens, beat me! And if she did beat me, what then? What of it? You know nothing, nothing about it.... She is so unhappy... ah, how unhappy! And ill.... She is seeking righteousness, she is pure. She has such faith that there must be righteousness everywhere and she expects it.... And if you were to torture her, she wouldn’t do wrong. She doesn’t see that it’s impossible for people to be righteous and she is angry at it. Like a child, like a child. She is good!” “And what will happen to you?” Sonia looked at him inquiringly. “They are left on your hands, you see. They were all on your hands before, though.... And your father came to you to beg for drink. Well, how will it be now?” “I don’t know,” Sonia articulated mournfully. “Will they stay there?” “I don’t know.... They are in debt for the lodging, but the landlady, I hear, said to-day that she wanted to get rid of them, and Katerina Ivanovna says that she won’t stay another minute.” “How is it she is so bold? She relies upon you?” “Oh, no, don’t talk like that.... We are one, we live like one.” Sonia was agitated again and even angry, as though a canary or some other little bird were to be angry. “And what could she do? What, what could she do?” she persisted, getting hot and excited. “And how she cried to-day! Her mind is unhinged, haven’t you noticed it? At one minute she is worrying like a child that everything should be right to-morrow, the lunch and all that.... Then she is wringing her hands, spitting blood, weeping, and all at once she will begin knocking her head against the wall, in despair. Then she will be comforted again. She builds all her hopes on you; she says that you will help her now and that she will borrow a little money somewhere and go to her native town with me and set up a boarding school for the daughters of gentlemen and take me to superintend it, and we will begin a new splendid life. And she kisses and hugs me, comforts me, and you know she has such faith, such faith in her fancies! One can’t contradict her. And all the day long she has been washing, cleaning, mending. She dragged the wash tub into the room with her feeble hands and sank on the bed, gasping for breath. We went this morning to the shops to buy shoes for Polenka and Lida for theirs are quite worn out. Only the money we’d reckoned wasn’t enough, not nearly enough. And she picked out such dear little boots, for she has taste, you don’t know. And there in the shop she burst out crying before the shopmen because she hadn’t enough.... Ah, it was sad to see her....” “Well, after that I can understand your living like this,” Raskolnikov said with a bitter smile. “And aren’t you sorry for them? Aren’t you sorry?” Sonia flew at him again. “Why, I know, you gave your last penny yourself, though you’d seen nothing of it, and if you’d seen everything, oh dear! And how often, how often I’ve brought her to tears! Only last week! Yes, I! Only a week before his death. I was cruel! And how often I’ve done it! Ah, I’ve been wretched at the thought of it all day!” Sonia wrung her hands as she spoke at the pain of remembering it. “You were cruel?” “Yes, I--I. I went to see them,” she went on, weeping, “and father said, ‘read me something, Sonia, my head aches, read to me, here’s a book.’ He had a book he had got from Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, he lives there, he always used to get hold of such funny books. And I said, ‘I can’t stay,’ as I didn’t want to read, and I’d gone in chiefly to show Katerina Ivanovna some collars. Lizaveta, the pedlar, sold me some collars and cuffs cheap, pretty, new, embroidered ones. Katerina Ivanovna liked them very much; she put them on and looked at herself in the glass and was delighted with them. ‘Make me a present of them, Sonia,’ she said, ‘please do.’ ‘_Please do_,’ she said, she wanted them so much. And when could she wear them? They just reminded her of her old happy days. She looked at herself in the glass, admired herself, and she has no clothes at all, no things of her own, hasn’t had all these years! And she never asks anyone for anything; she is proud, she’d sooner give away everything. And these she asked for, she liked them so much. And I was sorry to give them. ‘What use are they to you, Katerina Ivanovna?’ I said. I spoke like that to her, I ought not to have said that! She gave me such a look. And she was so grieved, so grieved at my refusing her. And it was so sad to see.... And she was not grieved for the collars, but for my refusing, I saw that. Ah, if only I could bring it all back, change it, take back those words! Ah, if I... but it’s nothing to you!” “Did you know Lizaveta, the pedlar?” “Yes.... Did you know her?” Sonia asked with some surprise. “Katerina Ivanovna is in consumption, rapid consumption; she will soon die,” said Raskolnikov after a pause, without answering her question. “Oh, no, no, no!” And Sonia unconsciously clutched both his hands, as though imploring that she should not. “But it will be better if she does die.” “No, not better, not at all better!” Sonia unconsciously repeated in dismay. “And the children? What can you do except take them to live with you?” “Oh, I don’t know,” cried Sonia, almost in despair, and she put her hands to her head. It was evident that that idea had very often occurred to her before and he had only roused it again. “And, what, if even now, while Katerina Ivanovna is alive, you get ill and are taken to the hospital, what will happen then?” he persisted pitilessly. “How can you? That cannot be!” And Sonia’s face worked with awful terror. “Cannot be?” Raskolnikov went on with a harsh smile. “You are not insured against it, are you? What will happen to them then? They will be in the street, all of them, she will cough and beg and knock her head against some wall, as she did to-day, and the children will cry.... Then she will fall down, be taken to the police station and to the hospital, she will die, and the children...” “Oh, no.... God will not let it be!” broke at last from Sonia’s overburdened bosom. She listened, looking imploringly at him, clasping her hands in dumb entreaty, as though it all depended upon him. Raskolnikov got up and began to walk about the room. A minute passed. Sonia was standing with her hands and her head hanging in terrible dejection. “And can’t you save? Put by for a rainy day?” he asked, stopping suddenly before her. “No,” whispered Sonia. “Of course not. Have you tried?” he added almost ironically. “Yes.” “And it didn’t come off! Of course not! No need to ask.” And again he paced the room. Another minute passed. “You don’t get money every day?” Sonia was more confused than ever and colour rushed into her face again. “No,” she whispered with a painful effort. “It will be the same with Polenka, no doubt,” he said suddenly. “No, no! It can’t be, no!” Sonia cried aloud in desperation, as though she had been stabbed. “God would not allow anything so awful!” “He lets others come to it.” “No, no! God will protect her, God!” she repeated beside herself. “But, perhaps, there is no God at all,” Raskolnikov answered with a sort of malignance, laughed and looked at her. Sonia’s face suddenly changed; a tremor passed over it. She looked at him with unutterable reproach, tried to say something, but could not speak and broke into bitter, bitter sobs, hiding her face in her hands. “You say Katerina Ivanovna’s mind is unhinged; your own mind is unhinged,” he said after a brief silence. Five minutes passed. He still paced up and down the room in silence, not looking at her. At last he went up to her; his eyes glittered. He put his two hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her tearful face. His eyes were hard, feverish and piercing, his lips were twitching. All at once he bent down quickly and dropping to the ground, kissed her foot. Sonia drew back from him as from a madman. And certainly he looked like a madman. “What are you doing to me?” she muttered, turning pale, and a sudden anguish clutched at her heart. He stood up at once. “I did not bow down to you, I bowed down to all the suffering of humanity,” he said wildly and walked away to the window. “Listen,” he added, turning to her a minute later. “I said just now to an insolent man that he was not worth your little finger... and that I did my sister honour making her sit beside you.” “Ach, you said that to them! And in her presence?” cried Sonia, frightened. “Sit down with me! An honour! Why, I’m... dishonourable.... Ah, why did you say that?” “It was not because of your dishonour and your sin I said that of you, but because of your great suffering. But you are a great sinner, that’s true,” he added almost solemnly, “and your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself _for nothing_. Isn’t that fearful? Isn’t it fearful that you are living in this filth which you loathe so, and at the same time you know yourself (you’ve only to open your eyes) that you are not helping anyone by it, not saving anyone from anything? Tell me,” he went on almost in a frenzy, “how this shame and degradation can exist in you side by side with other, opposite, holy feelings? It would be better, a thousand times better and wiser to leap into the water and end it all!” “But what would become of them?” Sonia asked faintly, gazing at him with eyes of anguish, but not seeming surprised at his suggestion. Raskolnikov looked strangely at her. He read it all in her face; so she must have had that thought already, perhaps many times, and earnestly she had thought out in her despair how to end it and so earnestly, that now she scarcely wondered at his suggestion. She had not even noticed the cruelty of his words. (The significance of his reproaches and his peculiar attitude to her shame she had, of course, not noticed either, and that, too, was clear to him.) But he saw how monstrously the thought of her disgraceful, shameful position was torturing her and had long tortured her. “What, what,” he thought, “could hitherto have hindered her from putting an end to it?” Only then he realised what those poor little orphan children and that pitiful half-crazy Katerina Ivanovna, knocking her head against the wall in her consumption, meant for Sonia. But, nevertheless, it was clear to him again that with her character and the amount of education she had after all received, she could not in any case remain so. He was still confronted by the question, how could she have remained so long in that position without going out of her mind, since she could not bring herself to jump into the water? Of course he knew that Sonia’s position was an exceptional case, though unhappily not unique and not infrequent, indeed; but that very exceptionalness, her tinge of education, her previous life might, one would have thought, have killed her at the first step on that revolting path. What held her up--surely not depravity? All that infamy had obviously only touched her mechanically, not one drop of real depravity had penetrated to her heart; he saw that. He saw through her as she stood before him.... “There are three ways before her,” he thought, “the canal, the madhouse, or... at last to sink into depravity which obscures the mind and turns the heart to stone.” The last idea was the most revolting, but he was a sceptic, he was young, abstract, and therefore cruel, and so he could not help believing that the last end was the most likely. “But can that be true?” he cried to himself. “Can that creature who has still preserved the purity of her spirit be consciously drawn at last into that sink of filth and iniquity? Can the process already have begun? Can it be that she has only been able to bear it till now, because vice has begun to be less loathsome to her? No, no, that cannot be!” he cried, as Sonia had just before. “No, what has kept her from the canal till now is the idea of sin and they, the children.... And if she has not gone out of her mind... but who says she has not gone out of her mind? Is she in her senses? Can one talk, can one reason as she does? How can she sit on the edge of the abyss of loathsomeness into which she is slipping and refuse to listen when she is told of danger? Does she expect a miracle? No doubt she does. Doesn’t that all mean madness?” He stayed obstinately at that thought. He liked that explanation indeed better than any other. He began looking more intently at her. “So you pray to God a great deal, Sonia?” he asked her. Sonia did not speak; he stood beside her waiting for an answer. “What should I be without God?” she whispered rapidly, forcibly, glancing at him with suddenly flashing eyes, and squeezing his hand. “Ah, so that is it!” he thought. “And what does God do for you?” he asked, probing her further. Sonia was silent a long while, as though she could not answer. Her weak chest kept heaving with emotion. “Be silent! Don’t ask! You don’t deserve!” she cried suddenly, looking sternly and wrathfully at him. “That’s it, that’s it,” he repeated to himself. “He does everything,” she whispered quickly, looking down again. “That’s the way out! That’s the explanation,” he decided, scrutinising her with eager curiosity, with a new, strange, almost morbid feeling. He gazed at that pale, thin, irregular, angular little face, those soft blue eyes, which could flash with such fire, such stern energy, that little body still shaking with indignation and anger--and it all seemed to him more and more strange, almost impossible. “She is a religious maniac!” he repeated to himself. There was a book lying on the chest of drawers. He had noticed it every time he paced up and down the room. Now he took it up and looked at it. It was the New Testament in the Russian translation. It was bound in leather, old and worn. “Where did you get that?” he called to her across the room. She was still standing in the same place, three steps from the table. “It was brought me,” she answered, as it were unwillingly, not looking at him. “Who brought it?” “Lizaveta, I asked her for it.” “Lizaveta! strange!” he thought. Everything about Sonia seemed to him stranger and more wonderful every moment. He carried the book to the candle and began to turn over the pages. “Where is the story of Lazarus?” he asked suddenly. Sonia looked obstinately at the ground and would not answer. She was standing sideways to the table. “Where is the raising of Lazarus? Find it for me, Sonia.” She stole a glance at him. “You are not looking in the right place.... It’s in the fourth gospel,” she whispered sternly, without looking at him. “Find it and read it to me,” he said. He sat down with his elbow on the table, leaned his head on his hand and looked away sullenly, prepared to listen. “In three weeks’ time they’ll welcome me in the madhouse! I shall be there if I am not in a worse place,” he muttered to himself. Sonia heard Raskolnikov’s request distrustfully and moved hesitatingly to the table. She took the book however. “Haven’t you read it?” she asked, looking up at him across the table. Her voice became sterner and sterner. “Long ago.... When I was at school. Read!” “And haven’t you heard it in church?” “I... haven’t been. Do you often go?” “N-no,” whispered Sonia. Raskolnikov smiled. “I understand.... And you won’t go to your father’s funeral to-morrow?” “Yes, I shall. I was at church last week, too... I had a requiem service.” “For whom?” “For Lizaveta. She was killed with an axe.” His nerves were more and more strained. His head began to go round. “Were you friends with Lizaveta?” “Yes.... She was good... she used to come... not often... she couldn’t.... We used to read together and... talk. She will see God.” The last phrase sounded strange in his ears. And here was something new again: the mysterious meetings with Lizaveta and both of them--religious maniacs. “I shall be a religious maniac myself soon! It’s infectious!” “Read!” he cried irritably and insistently. Sonia still hesitated. Her heart was throbbing. She hardly dared to read to him. He looked almost with exasperation at the “unhappy lunatic.” “What for? You don’t believe?...” she whispered softly and as it were breathlessly. “Read! I want you to,” he persisted. “You used to read to Lizaveta.” Sonia opened the book and found the place. Her hands were shaking, her voice failed her. Twice she tried to begin and could not bring out the first syllable. “Now a certain man was sick named Lazarus of Bethany...” she forced herself at last to read, but at the third word her voice broke like an overstrained string. There was a catch in her breath. Raskolnikov saw in part why Sonia could not bring herself to read to him and the more he saw this, the more roughly and irritably he insisted on her doing so. He understood only too well how painful it was for her to betray and unveil all that was her _own_. He understood that these feelings really were her _secret treasure_, which she had kept perhaps for years, perhaps from childhood, while she lived with an unhappy father and a distracted stepmother crazed by grief, in the midst of starving children and unseemly abuse and reproaches. But at the same time he knew now and knew for certain that, although it filled her with dread and suffering, yet she had a tormenting desire to read and to read to _him_ that he might hear it, and to read _now_ whatever might come of it!... He read this in her eyes, he could see it in her intense emotion. She mastered herself, controlled the spasm in her throat and went on reading the eleventh chapter of St. John. She went on to the nineteenth verse: “And many of the Jews came to Martha and Mary to comfort them concerning their brother. “Then Martha as soon as she heard that Jesus was coming went and met Him: but Mary sat still in the house. “Then said Martha unto Jesus, Lord, if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. “But I know that even now whatsoever Thou wilt ask of God, God will give it Thee....” Then she stopped again with a shamefaced feeling that her voice would quiver and break again. “Jesus said unto her, thy brother shall rise again. “Martha saith unto Him, I know that he shall rise again in the resurrection, at the last day. “Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me though he were dead, yet shall he live. “And whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believest thou this? “She saith unto Him,” (And drawing a painful breath, Sonia read distinctly and forcibly as though she were making a public confession of faith.) “Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God Which should come into the world.” She stopped and looked up quickly at him, but controlling herself went on reading. Raskolnikov sat without moving, his elbows on the table and his eyes turned away. She read to the thirty-second verse. “Then when Mary was come where Jesus was and saw Him, she fell down at His feet, saying unto Him, Lord if Thou hadst been here, my brother had not died. “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled, “And said, Where have ye laid him? They said unto Him, Lord, come and see. “Jesus wept. “Then said the Jews, behold how He loved him! “And some of them said, could not this Man which opened the eyes of the blind, have caused that even this man should not have died?” Raskolnikov turned and looked at her with emotion. Yes, he had known it! She was trembling in a real physical fever. He had expected it. She was getting near the story of the greatest miracle and a feeling of immense triumph came over her. Her voice rang out like a bell; triumph and joy gave it power. The lines danced before her eyes, but she knew what she was reading by heart. At the last verse “Could not this Man which opened the eyes of the blind...” dropping her voice she passionately reproduced the doubt, the reproach and censure of the blind disbelieving Jews, who in another moment would fall at His feet as though struck by thunder, sobbing and believing.... “And _he, he_--too, is blinded and unbelieving, he, too, will hear, he, too, will believe, yes, yes! At once, now,” was what she was dreaming, and she was quivering with happy anticipation. “Jesus therefore again groaning in Himself cometh to the grave. It was a cave, and a stone lay upon it. “Jesus said, Take ye away the stone. Martha, the sister of him that was dead, saith unto Him, Lord by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days.” She laid emphasis on the word _four_. “Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto thee that if thou wouldest believe, thou shouldest see the glory of God? “Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me. “And I knew that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that Thou hast sent Me. “And when He thus had spoken, He cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth. “And he that was dead came forth.” (She read loudly, cold and trembling with ecstasy, as though she were seeing it before her eyes.) “Bound hand and foot with graveclothes; and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him and let him go. “Then many of the Jews which came to Mary and had seen the things which Jesus did believed on Him.” She could read no more, closed the book and got up from her chair quickly. “That is all about the raising of Lazarus,” she whispered severely and abruptly, and turning away she stood motionless, not daring to raise her eyes to him. She still trembled feverishly. The candle-end was flickering out in the battered candlestick, dimly lighting up in the poverty-stricken room the murderer and the harlot who had so strangely been reading together the eternal book. Five minutes or more passed. “I came to speak of something,” Raskolnikov said aloud, frowning. He got up and went to Sonia. She lifted her eyes to him in silence. His face was particularly stern and there was a sort of savage determination in it. “I have abandoned my family to-day,” he said, “my mother and sister. I am not going to see them. I’ve broken with them completely.” “What for?” asked Sonia amazed. Her recent meeting with his mother and sister had left a great impression which she could not analyse. She heard his news almost with horror. “I have only you now,” he added. “Let us go together.... I’ve come to you, we are both accursed, let us go our way together!” His eyes glittered “as though he were mad,” Sonia thought, in her turn. “Go where?” she asked in alarm and she involuntarily stepped back. “How do I know? I only know it’s the same road, I know that and nothing more. It’s the same goal!” She looked at him and understood nothing. She knew only that he was terribly, infinitely unhappy. “No one of them will understand, if you tell them, but I have understood. I need you, that is why I have come to you.” “I don’t understand,” whispered Sonia. “You’ll understand later. Haven’t you done the same? You, too, have transgressed... have had the strength to transgress. You have laid hands on yourself, you have destroyed a life... _your own_ (it’s all the same!). You might have lived in spirit and understanding, but you’ll end in the Hay Market.... But you won’t be able to stand it, and if you remain alone you’ll go out of your mind like me. You are like a mad creature already. So we must go together on the same road! Let us go!” “What for? What’s all this for?” said Sonia, strangely and violently agitated by his words. “What for? Because you can’t remain like this, that’s why! You must look things straight in the face at last, and not weep like a child and cry that God won’t allow it. What will happen, if you should really be taken to the hospital to-morrow? She is mad and in consumption, she’ll soon die and the children? Do you mean to tell me Polenka won’t come to grief? Haven’t you seen children here at the street corners sent out by their mothers to beg? I’ve found out where those mothers live and in what surroundings. Children can’t remain children there! At seven the child is vicious and a thief. Yet children, you know, are the image of Christ: ‘theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.’ He bade us honour and love them, they are the humanity of the future....” “What’s to be done, what’s to be done?” repeated Sonia, weeping hysterically and wringing her hands. “What’s to be done? Break what must be broken, once for all, that’s all, and take the suffering on oneself. What, you don’t understand? You’ll understand later.... Freedom and power, and above all, power! Over all trembling creation and all the ant-heap!... That’s the goal, remember that! That’s my farewell message. Perhaps it’s the last time I shall speak to you. If I don’t come to-morrow, you’ll hear of it all, and then remember these words. And some day later on, in years to come, you’ll understand perhaps what they meant. If I come to-morrow, I’ll tell you who killed Lizaveta.... Good-bye.” Sonia started with terror. “Why, do you know who killed her?” she asked, chilled with horror, looking wildly at him. “I know and will tell... you, only you. I have chosen you out. I’m not coming to you to ask forgiveness, but simply to tell you. I chose you out long ago to hear this, when your father talked of you and when Lizaveta was alive, I thought of it. Good-bye, don’t shake hands. To-morrow!” He went out. Sonia gazed at him as at a madman. But she herself was like one insane and felt it. Her head was going round. “Good heavens, how does he know who killed Lizaveta? What did those words mean? It’s awful!” But at the same time _the idea_ did not enter her head, not for a moment! “Oh, he must be terribly unhappy!... He has abandoned his mother and sister.... What for? What has happened? And what had he in his mind? What did he say to her? He had kissed her foot and said... said (yes, he had said it clearly) that he could not live without her.... Oh, merciful heavens!” Sonia spent the whole night feverish and delirious. She jumped up from time to time, wept and wrung her hands, then sank again into feverish sleep and dreamt of Polenka, Katerina Ivanovna and Lizaveta, of reading the gospel and him... him with pale face, with burning eyes... kissing her feet, weeping. On the other side of the door on the right, which divided Sonia’s room from Madame Resslich’s flat, was a room which had long stood empty. A card was fixed on the gate and a notice stuck in the windows over the canal advertising it to let. Sonia had long been accustomed to the room’s being uninhabited. But all that time Mr. Svidrigaïlov had been standing, listening at the door of the empty room. When Raskolnikov went out he stood still, thought a moment, went on tiptoe to his own room which adjoined the empty one, brought a chair and noiselessly carried it to the door that led to Sonia’s room. The conversation had struck him as interesting and remarkable, and he had greatly enjoyed it--so much so that he brought a chair that he might not in the future, to-morrow, for instance, have to endure the inconvenience of standing a whole hour, but might listen in comfort. CHAPTER V When next morning at eleven o’clock punctually Raskolnikov went into the department of the investigation of criminal causes and sent his name in to Porfiry Petrovitch, he was surprised at being kept waiting so long: it was at least ten minutes before he was summoned. He had expected that they would pounce upon him. But he stood in the waiting-room, and people, who apparently had nothing to do with him, were continually passing to and fro before him. In the next room which looked like an office, several clerks were sitting writing and obviously they had no notion who or what Raskolnikov might be. He looked uneasily and suspiciously about him to see whether there was not some guard, some mysterious watch being kept on him to prevent his escape. But there was nothing of the sort: he saw only the faces of clerks absorbed in petty details, then other people, no one seemed to have any concern with him. He might go where he liked for them. The conviction grew stronger in him that if that enigmatic man of yesterday, that phantom sprung out of the earth, had seen everything, they would not have let him stand and wait like that. And would they have waited till he elected to appear at eleven? Either the man had not yet given information, or... or simply he knew nothing, had seen nothing (and how could he have seen anything?) and so all that had happened to him the day before was again a phantom exaggerated by his sick and overstrained imagination. This conjecture had begun to grow strong the day before, in the midst of all his alarm and despair. Thinking it all over now and preparing for a fresh conflict, he was suddenly aware that he was trembling--and he felt a rush of indignation at the thought that he was trembling with fear at facing that hateful Porfiry Petrovitch. What he dreaded above all was meeting that man again; he hated him with an intense, unmitigated hatred and was afraid his hatred might betray him. His indignation was such that he ceased trembling at once; he made ready to go in with a cold and arrogant bearing and vowed to himself to keep as silent as possible, to watch and listen and for once at least to control his overstrained nerves. At that moment he was summoned to Porfiry Petrovitch. He found Porfiry Petrovitch alone in his study. His study was a room neither large nor small, furnished with a large writing-table, that stood before a sofa, upholstered in checked material, a bureau, a bookcase in the corner and several chairs--all government furniture, of polished yellow wood. In the further wall there was a closed door, beyond it there were no doubt other rooms. On Raskolnikov’s entrance Porfiry Petrovitch had at once closed the door by which he had come in and they remained alone. He met his visitor with an apparently genial and good-tempered air, and it was only after a few minutes that Raskolnikov saw signs of a certain awkwardness in him, as though he had been thrown out of his reckoning or caught in something very secret. “Ah, my dear fellow! Here you are... in our domain”... began Porfiry, holding out both hands to him. “Come, sit down, old man... or perhaps you don’t like to be called ‘my dear fellow’ and ‘old man!’--_tout court_? Please don’t think it too familiar.... Here, on the sofa.” Raskolnikov sat down, keeping his eyes fixed on him. “In our domain,” the apologies for familiarity, the French phrase _tout court_, were all characteristic signs. “He held out both hands to me, but he did not give me one--he drew it back in time,” struck him suspiciously. Both were watching each other, but when their eyes met, quick as lightning they looked away. “I brought you this paper... about the watch. Here it is. Is it all right or shall I copy it again?” “What? A paper? Yes, yes, don’t be uneasy, it’s all right,” Porfiry Petrovitch said as though in haste, and after he had said it he took the paper and looked at it. “Yes, it’s all right. Nothing more is needed,” he declared with the same rapidity and he laid the paper on the table. A minute later when he was talking of something else he took it from the table and put it on his bureau. “I believe you said yesterday you would like to question me... formally... about my acquaintance with the murdered woman?” Raskolnikov was beginning again. “Why did I put in ‘I believe’” passed through his mind in a flash. “Why am I so uneasy at having put in that ‘_I believe_’?” came in a second flash. And he suddenly felt that his uneasiness at the mere contact with Porfiry, at the first words, at the first looks, had grown in an instant to monstrous proportions, and that this was fearfully dangerous. His nerves were quivering, his emotion was increasing. “It’s bad, it’s bad! I shall say too much again.” “Yes, yes, yes! There’s no hurry, there’s no hurry,” muttered Porfiry Petrovitch, moving to and fro about the table without any apparent aim, as it were making dashes towards the window, the bureau and the table, at one moment avoiding Raskolnikov’s suspicious glance, then again standing still and looking him straight in the face. His fat round little figure looked very strange, like a ball rolling from one side to the other and rebounding back. “We’ve plenty of time. Do you smoke? have you your own? Here, a cigarette!” he went on, offering his visitor a cigarette. “You know I am receiving you here, but my own quarters are through there, you know, my government quarters. But I am living outside for the time, I had to have some repairs done here. It’s almost finished now.... Government quarters, you know, are a capital thing. Eh, what do you think?” “Yes, a capital thing,” answered Raskolnikov, looking at him almost ironically. “A capital thing, a capital thing,” repeated Porfiry Petrovitch, as though he had just thought of something quite different. “Yes, a capital thing,” he almost shouted at last, suddenly staring at Raskolnikov and stopping short two steps from him. This stupid repetition was too incongruous in its ineptitude with the serious, brooding and enigmatic glance he turned upon his visitor. But this stirred Raskolnikov’s spleen more than ever and he could not resist an ironical and rather incautious challenge. “Tell me, please,” he asked suddenly, looking almost insolently at him and taking a kind of pleasure in his own insolence. “I believe it’s a sort of legal rule, a sort of legal tradition--for all investigating lawyers--to begin their attack from afar, with a trivial, or at least an irrelevant subject, so as to encourage, or rather, to divert the man they are cross-examining, to disarm his caution and then all at once to give him an unexpected knock-down blow with some fatal question. Isn’t that so? It’s a sacred tradition, mentioned, I fancy, in all the manuals of the art?” “Yes, yes.... Why, do you imagine that was why I spoke about government quarters... eh?” And as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch screwed up his eyes and winked; a good-humoured, crafty look passed over his face. The wrinkles on his forehead were smoothed out, his eyes contracted, his features broadened and he suddenly went off into a nervous prolonged laugh, shaking all over and looking Raskolnikov straight in the face. The latter forced himself to laugh, too, but when Porfiry, seeing that he was laughing, broke into such a guffaw that he turned almost crimson, Raskolnikov’s repulsion overcame all precaution; he left off laughing, scowled and stared with hatred at Porfiry, keeping his eyes fixed on him while his intentionally prolonged laughter lasted. There was lack of precaution on both sides, however, for Porfiry Petrovitch seemed to be laughing in his visitor’s face and to be very little disturbed at the annoyance with which the visitor received it. The latter fact was very significant in Raskolnikov’s eyes: he saw that Porfiry Petrovitch had not been embarrassed just before either, but that he, Raskolnikov, had perhaps fallen into a trap; that there must be something, some motive here unknown to him; that, perhaps, everything was in readiness and in another moment would break upon him... He went straight to the point at once, rose from his seat and took his cap. “Porfiry Petrovitch,” he began resolutely, though with considerable irritation, “yesterday you expressed a desire that I should come to you for some inquiries” (he laid special stress on the word “inquiries”). “I have come and if you have anything to ask me, ask it, and if not, allow me to withdraw. I have no time to spare.... I have to be at the funeral of that man who was run over, of whom you... know also,” he added, feeling angry at once at having made this addition and more irritated at his anger. “I am sick of it all, do you hear? and have long been. It’s partly what made me ill. In short,” he shouted, feeling that the phrase about his illness was still more out of place, “in short, kindly examine me or let me go, at once. And if you must examine me, do so in the proper form! I will not allow you to do so otherwise, and so meanwhile, good-bye, as we have evidently nothing to keep us now.” “Good heavens! What do you mean? What shall I question you about?” cackled Porfiry Petrovitch with a change of tone, instantly leaving off laughing. “Please don’t disturb yourself,” he began fidgeting from place to place and fussily making Raskolnikov sit down. “There’s no hurry, there’s no hurry, it’s all nonsense. Oh, no, I’m very glad you’ve come to see me at last... I look upon you simply as a visitor. And as for my confounded laughter, please excuse it, Rodion Romanovitch. Rodion Romanovitch? That is your name?... It’s my nerves, you tickled me so with your witty observation; I assure you, sometimes I shake with laughter like an india-rubber ball for half an hour at a time.... I’m often afraid of an attack of paralysis. Do sit down. Please do, or I shall think you are angry...” Raskolnikov did not speak; he listened, watching him, still frowning angrily. He did sit down, but still held his cap. “I must tell you one thing about myself, my dear Rodion Romanovitch,” Porfiry Petrovitch continued, moving about the room and again avoiding his visitor’s eyes. “You see, I’m a bachelor, a man of no consequence and not used to society; besides, I have nothing before me, I’m set, I’m running to seed and... and have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that in our Petersburg circles, if two clever men meet who are not intimate, but respect each other, like you and me, it takes them half an hour before they can find a subject for conversation--they are dumb, they sit opposite each other and feel awkward. Everyone has subjects of conversation, ladies for instance... people in high society always have their subjects of conversation, _c’est de rigueur_, but people of the middle sort like us, thinking people that is, are always tongue-tied and awkward. What is the reason of it? Whether it is the lack of public interest, or whether it is we are so honest we don’t want to deceive one another, I don’t know. What do you think? Do put down your cap, it looks as if you were just going, it makes me uncomfortable... I am so delighted...” Raskolnikov put down his cap and continued listening in silence with a serious frowning face to the vague and empty chatter of Porfiry Petrovitch. “Does he really want to distract my attention with his silly babble?” “I can’t offer you coffee here; but why not spend five minutes with a friend?” Porfiry pattered on, “and you know all these official duties... please don’t mind my running up and down, excuse it, my dear fellow, I am very much afraid of offending you, but exercise is absolutely indispensable for me. I’m always sitting and so glad to be moving about for five minutes... I suffer from my sedentary life... I always intend to join a gymnasium; they say that officials of all ranks, even Privy Councillors, may be seen skipping gaily there; there you have it, modern science... yes, yes.... But as for my duties here, inquiries and all such formalities... you mentioned inquiries yourself just now... I assure you these interrogations are sometimes more embarrassing for the interrogator than for the interrogated.... You made the observation yourself just now very aptly and wittily.” (Raskolnikov had made no observation of the kind.) “One gets into a muddle! A regular muddle! One keeps harping on the same note, like a drum! There is to be a reform and we shall be called by a different name, at least, he-he-he! And as for our legal tradition, as you so wittily called it, I thoroughly agree with you. Every prisoner on trial, even the rudest peasant, knows that they begin by disarming him with irrelevant questions (as you so happily put it) and then deal him a knock-down blow, he-he-he!--your felicitous comparison, he-he! So you really imagined that I meant by ‘government quarters’... he-he! You are an ironical person. Come. I won’t go on! Ah, by the way, yes! One word leads to another. You spoke of formality just now, apropos of the inquiry, you know. But what’s the use of formality? In many cases it’s nonsense. Sometimes one has a friendly chat and gets a good deal more out of it. One can always fall back on formality, allow me to assure you. And after all, what does it amount to? An examining lawyer cannot be bounded by formality at every step. The work of investigation is, so to speak, a free art in its own way, he-he-he!” Porfiry Petrovitch took breath a moment. He had simply babbled on uttering empty phrases, letting slip a few enigmatic words and again reverting to incoherence. He was almost running about the room, moving his fat little legs quicker and quicker, looking at the ground, with his right hand behind his back, while with his left making gesticulations that were extraordinarily incongruous with his words. Raskolnikov suddenly noticed that as he ran about the room he seemed twice to stop for a moment near the door, as though he were listening. “Is he expecting anything?” “You are certainly quite right about it,” Porfiry began gaily, looking with extraordinary simplicity at Raskolnikov (which startled him and instantly put him on his guard); “certainly quite right in laughing so wittily at our legal forms, he-he! Some of these elaborate psychological methods are exceedingly ridiculous and perhaps useless, if one adheres too closely to the forms. Yes... I am talking of forms again. Well, if I recognise, or more strictly speaking, if I suspect someone or other to be a criminal in any case entrusted to me... you’re reading for the law, of course, Rodion Romanovitch?” “Yes, I was...” “Well, then it is a precedent for you for the future--though don’t suppose I should venture to instruct you after the articles you publish about crime! No, I simply make bold to state it by way of fact, if I took this man or that for a criminal, why, I ask, should I worry him prematurely, even though I had evidence against him? In one case I may be bound, for instance, to arrest a man at once, but another may be in quite a different position, you know, so why shouldn’t I let him walk about the town a bit? he-he-he! But I see you don’t quite understand, so I’ll give you a clearer example. If I put him in prison too soon, I may very likely give him, so to speak, moral support, he-he! You’re laughing?” Raskolnikov had no idea of laughing. He was sitting with compressed lips, his feverish eyes fixed on Porfiry Petrovitch’s. “Yet that is the case, with some types especially, for men are so different. You say ‘evidence’. Well, there may be evidence. But evidence, you know, can generally be taken two ways. I am an examining lawyer and a weak man, I confess it. I should like to make a proof, so to say, mathematically clear. I should like to make a chain of evidence such as twice two are four, it ought to be a direct, irrefutable proof! And if I shut him up too soon--even though I might be convinced _he_ was the man, I should very likely be depriving myself of the means of getting further evidence against him. And how? By giving him, so to speak, a definite position, I shall put him out of suspense and set his mind at rest, so that he will retreat into his shell. They say that at Sevastopol, soon after Alma, the clever people were in a terrible fright that the enemy would attack openly and take Sevastopol at once. But when they saw that the enemy preferred a regular siege, they were delighted, I am told and reassured, for the thing would drag on for two months at least. You’re laughing, you don’t believe me again? Of course, you’re right, too. You’re right, you’re right. These are special cases, I admit. But you must observe this, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, the general case, the case for which all legal forms and rules are intended, for which they are calculated and laid down in books, does not exist at all, for the reason that every case, every crime, for instance, so soon as it actually occurs, at once becomes a thoroughly special case and sometimes a case unlike any that’s gone before. Very comic cases of that sort sometimes occur. If I leave one man quite alone, if I don’t touch him and don’t worry him, but let him know or at least suspect every moment that I know all about it and am watching him day and night, and if he is in continual suspicion and terror, he’ll be bound to lose his head. He’ll come of himself, or maybe do something which will make it as plain as twice two are four--it’s delightful. It may be so with a simple peasant, but with one of our sort, an intelligent man cultivated on a certain side, it’s a dead certainty. For, my dear fellow, it’s a very important matter to know on what side a man is cultivated. And then there are nerves, there are nerves, you have overlooked them! Why, they are all sick, nervous and irritable!... And then how they all suffer from spleen! That I assure you is a regular gold-mine for us. And it’s no anxiety to me, his running about the town free! Let him, let him walk about for a bit! I know well enough that I’ve caught him and that he won’t escape me. Where could he escape to, he-he? Abroad, perhaps? A Pole will escape abroad, but not here, especially as I am watching and have taken measures. Will he escape into the depths of the country perhaps? But you know, peasants live there, real rude Russian peasants. A modern cultivated man would prefer prison to living with such strangers as our peasants. He-he! But that’s all nonsense, and on the surface. It’s not merely that he has nowhere to run to, he is _psychologically_ unable to escape me, he-he! What an expression! Through a law of nature he can’t escape me if he had anywhere to go. Have you seen a butterfly round a candle? That’s how he will keep circling and circling round me. Freedom will lose its attractions. He’ll begin to brood, he’ll weave a tangle round himself, he’ll worry himself to death! What’s more he will provide me with a mathematical proof--if I only give him long enough interval.... And he’ll keep circling round me, getting nearer and nearer and then--flop! He’ll fly straight into my mouth and I’ll swallow him, and that will be very amusing, he-he-he! You don’t believe me?” Raskolnikov made no reply; he sat pale and motionless, still gazing with the same intensity into Porfiry’s face. “It’s a lesson,” he thought, turning cold. “This is beyond the cat playing with a mouse, like yesterday. He can’t be showing off his power with no motive... prompting me; he is far too clever for that... he must have another object. What is it? It’s all nonsense, my friend, you are pretending, to scare me! You’ve no proofs and the man I saw had no real existence. You simply want to make me lose my head, to work me up beforehand and so to crush me. But you are wrong, you won’t do it! But why give me such a hint? Is he reckoning on my shattered nerves? No, my friend, you are wrong, you won’t do it even though you have some trap for me... let us see what you have in store for me.” And he braced himself to face a terrible and unknown ordeal. At times he longed to fall on Porfiry and strangle him. This anger was what he dreaded from the beginning. He felt that his parched lips were flecked with foam, his heart was throbbing. But he was still determined not to speak till the right moment. He realised that this was the best policy in his position, because instead of saying too much he would be irritating his enemy by his silence and provoking him into speaking too freely. Anyhow, this was what he hoped for. “No, I see you don’t believe me, you think I am playing a harmless joke on you,” Porfiry began again, getting more and more lively, chuckling at every instant and again pacing round the room. “And to be sure you’re right: God has given me a figure that can awaken none but comic ideas in other people; a buffoon; but let me tell you, and I repeat it, excuse an old man, my dear Rodion Romanovitch, you are a man still young, so to say, in your first youth and so you put intellect above everything, like all young people. Playful wit and abstract arguments fascinate you and that’s for all the world like the old Austrian _Hof-kriegsrath_, as far as I can judge of military matters, that is: on paper they’d beaten Napoleon and taken him prisoner, and there in their study they worked it all out in the cleverest fashion, but look you, General Mack surrendered with all his army, he-he-he! I see, I see, Rodion Romanovitch, you are laughing at a civilian like me, taking examples out of military history! But I can’t help it, it’s my weakness. I am fond of military science. And I’m ever so fond of reading all military histories. I’ve certainly missed my proper career. I ought to have been in the army, upon my word I ought. I shouldn’t have been a Napoleon, but I might have been a major, he-he! Well, I’ll tell you the whole truth, my dear fellow, about this _special case_, I mean: actual fact and a man’s temperament, my dear sir, are weighty matters and it’s astonishing how they sometimes deceive the sharpest calculation! I--listen to an old man--am speaking seriously, Rodion Romanovitch” (as he said this Porfiry Petrovitch, who was scarcely five-and-thirty, actually seemed to have grown old; even his voice changed and he seemed to shrink together) “Moreover, I’m a candid man... am I a candid man or not? What do you say? I fancy I really am: I tell you these things for nothing and don’t even expect a reward for it, he-he! Well, to proceed, wit in my opinion is a splendid thing, it is, so to say, an adornment of nature and a consolation of life, and what tricks it can play! So that it sometimes is hard for a poor examining lawyer to know where he is, especially when he’s liable to be carried away by his own fancy, too, for you know he is a man after all! But the poor fellow is saved by the criminal’s temperament, worse luck for him! But young people carried away by their own wit don’t think of that ‘when they overstep all obstacles,’ as you wittily and cleverly expressed it yesterday. He will lie--that is, the man who is a _special case_, the incognito, and he will lie well, in the cleverest fashion; you might think he would triumph and enjoy the fruits of his wit, but at the most interesting, the most flagrant moment he will faint. Of course there may be illness and a stuffy room as well, but anyway! Anyway he’s given us the idea! He lied incomparably, but he didn’t reckon on his temperament. That’s what betrays him! Another time he will be carried away by his playful wit into making fun of the man who suspects him, he will turn pale as it were on purpose to mislead, but his paleness will be _too natural_, too much like the real thing, again he has given us an idea! Though his questioner may be deceived at first, he will think differently next day if he is not a fool, and, of course, it is like that at every step! He puts himself forward where he is not wanted, speaks continually when he ought to keep silent, brings in all sorts of allegorical allusions, he-he! Comes and asks why didn’t you take me long ago? he-he-he! And that can happen, you know, with the cleverest man, the psychologist, the literary man. The temperament reflects everything like a mirror! Gaze into it and admire what you see! But why are you so pale, Rodion Romanovitch? Is the room stuffy? Shall I open the window?” “Oh, don’t trouble, please,” cried Raskolnikov and he suddenly broke into a laugh. “Please don’t trouble.” Porfiry stood facing him, paused a moment and suddenly he too laughed. Raskolnikov got up from the sofa, abruptly checking his hysterical laughter. “Porfiry Petrovitch,” he began, speaking loudly and distinctly, though his legs trembled and he could scarcely stand. “I see clearly at last that you actually suspect me of murdering that old woman and her sister Lizaveta. Let me tell you for my part that I am sick of this. If you find that you have a right to prosecute me legally, to arrest me, then prosecute me, arrest me. But I will not let myself be jeered at to my face and worried...” His lips trembled, his eyes glowed with fury and he could not restrain his voice. “I won’t allow it!” he shouted, bringing his fist down on the table. “Do you hear that, Porfiry Petrovitch? I won’t allow it.” “Good heavens! What does it mean?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, apparently quite frightened. “Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, what is the matter with you?” “I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov shouted again. “Hush, my dear man! They’ll hear and come in. Just think, what could we say to them?” Porfiry Petrovitch whispered in horror, bringing his face close to Raskolnikov’s. “I won’t allow it, I won’t allow it,” Raskolnikov repeated mechanically, but he too spoke in a sudden whisper. Porfiry turned quickly and ran to open the window. “Some fresh air! And you must have some water, my dear fellow. You’re ill!” and he was running to the door to call for some when he found a decanter of water in the corner. “Come, drink a little,” he whispered, rushing up to him with the decanter. “It will be sure to do you good.” Porfiry Petrovitch’s alarm and sympathy were so natural that Raskolnikov was silent and began looking at him with wild curiosity. He did not take the water, however. “Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow, you’ll drive yourself out of your mind, I assure you, ach, ach! Have some water, do drink a little.” He forced him to take the glass. Raskolnikov raised it mechanically to his lips, but set it on the table again with disgust. “Yes, you’ve had a little attack! You’ll bring back your illness again, my dear fellow,” Porfiry Petrovitch cackled with friendly sympathy, though he still looked rather disconcerted. “Good heavens, you must take more care of yourself! Dmitri Prokofitch was here, came to see me yesterday--I know, I know, I’ve a nasty, ironical temper, but what they made of it!... Good heavens, he came yesterday after you’d been. We dined and he talked and talked away, and I could only throw up my hands in despair! Did he come from you? But do sit down, for mercy’s sake, sit down!” “No, not from me, but I knew he went to you and why he went,” Raskolnikov answered sharply. “You knew?” “I knew. What of it?” “Why this, Rodion Romanovitch, that I know more than that about you; I know about everything. I know how you went _to take a flat_ at night when it was dark and how you rang the bell and asked about the blood, so that the workmen and the porter did not know what to make of it. Yes, I understand your state of mind at that time... but you’ll drive yourself mad like that, upon my word! You’ll lose your head! You’re full of generous indignation at the wrongs you’ve received, first from destiny, and then from the police officers, and so you rush from one thing to another to force them to speak out and make an end of it all, because you are sick of all this suspicion and foolishness. That’s so, isn’t it? I have guessed how you feel, haven’t I? Only in that way you’ll lose your head and Razumihin’s, too; he’s too _good_ a man for such a position, you must know that. You are ill and he is good and your illness is infectious for him... I’ll tell you about it when you are more yourself.... But do sit down, for goodness’ sake. Please rest, you look shocking, do sit down.” Raskolnikov sat down; he no longer shivered, he was hot all over. In amazement he listened with strained attention to Porfiry Petrovitch who still seemed frightened as he looked after him with friendly solicitude. But he did not believe a word he said, though he felt a strange inclination to believe. Porfiry’s unexpected words about the flat had utterly overwhelmed him. “How can it be, he knows about the flat then,” he thought suddenly, “and he tells it me himself!” “Yes, in our legal practice there was a case almost exactly similar, a case of morbid psychology,” Porfiry went on quickly. “A man confessed to murder and how he kept it up! It was a regular hallucination; he brought forward facts, he imposed upon everyone and why? He had been partly, but only partly, unintentionally the cause of a murder and when he knew that he had given the murderers the opportunity, he sank into dejection, it got on his mind and turned his brain, he began imagining things and he persuaded himself that he was the murderer. But at last the High Court of Appeal went into it and the poor fellow was acquitted and put under proper care. Thanks to the Court of Appeal! Tut-tut-tut! Why, my dear fellow, you may drive yourself into delirium if you have the impulse to work upon your nerves, to go ringing bells at night and asking about blood! I’ve studied all this morbid psychology in my practice. A man is sometimes tempted to jump out of a window or from a belfry. Just the same with bell-ringing.... It’s all illness, Rodion Romanovitch! You have begun to neglect your illness. You should consult an experienced doctor, what’s the good of that fat fellow? You are lightheaded! You were delirious when you did all this!” For a moment Raskolnikov felt everything going round. “Is it possible, is it possible,” flashed through his mind, “that he is still lying? He can’t be, he can’t be.” He rejected that idea, feeling to what a degree of fury it might drive him, feeling that that fury might drive him mad. “I was not delirious. I knew what I was doing,” he cried, straining every faculty to penetrate Porfiry’s game, “I was quite myself, do you hear?” “Yes, I hear and understand. You said yesterday you were not delirious, you were particularly emphatic about it! I understand all you can tell me! A-ach!... Listen, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow. If you were actually a criminal, or were somehow mixed up in this damnable business, would you insist that you were not delirious but in full possession of your faculties? And so emphatically and persistently? Would it be possible? Quite impossible, to my thinking. If you had anything on your conscience, you certainly ought to insist that you were delirious. That’s so, isn’t it?” There was a note of slyness in this inquiry. Raskolnikov drew back on the sofa as Porfiry bent over him and stared in silent perplexity at him. “Another thing about Razumihin--you certainly ought to have said that he came of his own accord, to have concealed your part in it! But you don’t conceal it! You lay stress on his coming at your instigation.” Raskolnikov had not done so. A chill went down his back. “You keep telling lies,” he said slowly and weakly, twisting his lips into a sickly smile, “you are trying again to show that you know all my game, that you know all I shall say beforehand,” he said, conscious himself that he was not weighing his words as he ought. “You want to frighten me... or you are simply laughing at me...” He still stared at him as he said this and again there was a light of intense hatred in his eyes. “You keep lying,” he said. “You know perfectly well that the best policy for the criminal is to tell the truth as nearly as possible... to conceal as little as possible. I don’t believe you!” “What a wily person you are!” Porfiry tittered, “there’s no catching you; you’ve a perfect monomania. So you don’t believe me? But still you do believe me, you believe a quarter; I’ll soon make you believe the whole, because I have a sincere liking for you and genuinely wish you good.” Raskolnikov’s lips trembled. “Yes, I do,” went on Porfiry, touching Raskolnikov’s arm genially, “you must take care of your illness. Besides, your mother and sister are here now; you must think of them. You must soothe and comfort them and you do nothing but frighten them...” “What has that to do with you? How do you know it? What concern is it of yours? You are keeping watch on me and want to let me know it?” “Good heavens! Why, I learnt it all from you yourself! You don’t notice that in your excitement you tell me and others everything. From Razumihin, too, I learnt a number of interesting details yesterday. No, you interrupted me, but I must tell you that, for all your wit, your suspiciousness makes you lose the common-sense view of things. To return to bell-ringing, for instance. I, an examining lawyer, have betrayed a precious thing like that, a real fact (for it is a fact worth having), and you see nothing in it! Why, if I had the slightest suspicion of you, should I have acted like that? No, I should first have disarmed your suspicions and not let you see I knew of that fact, should have diverted your attention and suddenly have dealt you a knock-down blow (your expression) saying: ‘And what were you doing, sir, pray, at ten or nearly eleven at the murdered woman’s flat and why did you ring the bell and why did you ask about blood? And why did you invite the porters to go with you to the police station, to the lieutenant?’ That’s how I ought to have acted if I had a grain of suspicion of you. I ought to have taken your evidence in due form, searched your lodging and perhaps have arrested you, too... so I have no suspicion of you, since I have not done that! But you can’t look at it normally and you see nothing, I say again.” Raskolnikov started so that Porfiry Petrovitch could not fail to perceive it. “You are lying all the while,” he cried, “I don’t know your object, but you are lying. You did not speak like that just now and I cannot be mistaken!” “I am lying?” Porfiry repeated, apparently incensed, but preserving a good-humoured and ironical face, as though he were not in the least concerned at Raskolnikov’s opinion of him. “I am lying... but how did I treat you just now, I, the examining lawyer? Prompting you and giving you every means for your defence; illness, I said, delirium, injury, melancholy and the police officers and all the rest of it? Ah! He-he-he! Though, indeed, all those psychological means of defence are not very reliable and cut both ways: illness, delirium, I don’t remember--that’s all right, but why, my good sir, in your illness and in your delirium were you haunted by just those delusions and not by any others? There may have been others, eh? He-he-he!” Raskolnikov looked haughtily and contemptuously at him. “Briefly,” he said loudly and imperiously, rising to his feet and in so doing pushing Porfiry back a little, “briefly, I want to know, do you acknowledge me perfectly free from suspicion or not? Tell me, Porfiry Petrovitch, tell me once for all and make haste!” “What a business I’m having with you!” cried Porfiry with a perfectly good-humoured, sly and composed face. “And why do you want to know, why do you want to know so much, since they haven’t begun to worry you? Why, you are like a child asking for matches! And why are you so uneasy? Why do you force yourself upon us, eh? He-he-he!” “I repeat,” Raskolnikov cried furiously, “that I can’t put up with it!” “With what? Uncertainty?” interrupted Porfiry. “Don’t jeer at me! I won’t have it! I tell you I won’t have it. I can’t and I won’t, do you hear, do you hear?” he shouted, bringing his fist down on the table again. “Hush! Hush! They’ll overhear! I warn you seriously, take care of yourself. I am not joking,” Porfiry whispered, but this time there was not the look of old womanish good nature and alarm in his face. Now he was peremptory, stern, frowning and for once laying aside all mystification. But this was only for an instant. Raskolnikov, bewildered, suddenly fell into actual frenzy, but, strange to say, he again obeyed the command to speak quietly, though he was in a perfect paroxysm of fury. “I will not allow myself to be tortured,” he whispered, instantly recognising with hatred that he could not help obeying the command and driven to even greater fury by the thought. “Arrest me, search me, but kindly act in due form and don’t play with me! Don’t dare!” “Don’t worry about the form,” Porfiry interrupted with the same sly smile, as it were, gloating with enjoyment over Raskolnikov. “I invited you to see me quite in a friendly way.” “I don’t want your friendship and I spit on it! Do you hear? And, here, I take my cap and go. What will you say now if you mean to arrest me?” He took up his cap and went to the door. “And won’t you see my little surprise?” chuckled Porfiry, again taking him by the arm and stopping him at the door. He seemed to become more playful and good-humoured which maddened Raskolnikov. “What surprise?” he asked, standing still and looking at Porfiry in alarm. “My little surprise, it’s sitting there behind the door, he-he-he!” (He pointed to the locked door.) “I locked him in that he should not escape.” “What is it? Where? What?...” Raskolnikov walked to the door and would have opened it, but it was locked. “It’s locked, here is the key!” And he brought a key out of his pocket. “You are lying,” roared Raskolnikov without restraint, “you lie, you damned punchinello!” and he rushed at Porfiry who retreated to the other door, not at all alarmed. “I understand it all! You are lying and mocking so that I may betray myself to you...” “Why, you could not betray yourself any further, my dear Rodion Romanovitch. You are in a passion. Don’t shout, I shall call the clerks.” “You are lying! Call the clerks! You knew I was ill and tried to work me into a frenzy to make me betray myself, that was your object! Produce your facts! I understand it all. You’ve no evidence, you have only wretched rubbishly suspicions like Zametov’s! You knew my character, you wanted to drive me to fury and then to knock me down with priests and deputies.... Are you waiting for them? eh! What are you waiting for? Where are they? Produce them?” “Why deputies, my good man? What things people will imagine! And to do so would not be acting in form as you say, you don’t know the business, my dear fellow.... And there’s no escaping form, as you see,” Porfiry muttered, listening at the door through which a noise could be heard. “Ah, they’re coming,” cried Raskolnikov. “You’ve sent for them! You expected them! Well, produce them all: your deputies, your witnesses, what you like!... I am ready!” But at this moment a strange incident occurred, something so unexpected that neither Raskolnikov nor Porfiry Petrovitch could have looked for such a conclusion to their interview. CHAPTER VI When he remembered the scene afterwards, this is how Raskolnikov saw it. The noise behind the door increased, and suddenly the door was opened a little. “What is it?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, annoyed. “Why, I gave orders...” For an instant there was no answer, but it was evident that there were several persons at the door, and that they were apparently pushing somebody back. “What is it?” Porfiry Petrovitch repeated, uneasily. “The prisoner Nikolay has been brought,” someone answered. “He is not wanted! Take him away! Let him wait! What’s he doing here? How irregular!” cried Porfiry, rushing to the door. “But he...” began the same voice, and suddenly ceased. Two seconds, not more, were spent in actual struggle, then someone gave a violent shove, and then a man, very pale, strode into the room. This man’s appearance was at first sight very strange. He stared straight before him, as though seeing nothing. There was a determined gleam in his eyes; at the same time there was a deathly pallor in his face, as though he were being led to the scaffold. His white lips were faintly twitching. He was dressed like a workman and was of medium height, very young, slim, his hair cut in round crop, with thin spare features. The man whom he had thrust back followed him into the room and succeeded in seizing him by the shoulder; he was a warder; but Nikolay pulled his arm away. Several persons crowded inquisitively into the doorway. Some of them tried to get in. All this took place almost instantaneously. “Go away, it’s too soon! Wait till you are sent for!... Why have you brought him so soon?” Porfiry Petrovitch muttered, extremely annoyed, and as it were thrown out of his reckoning. But Nikolay suddenly knelt down. “What’s the matter?” cried Porfiry, surprised. “I am guilty! Mine is the sin! I am the murderer,” Nikolay articulated suddenly, rather breathless, but speaking fairly loudly. For ten seconds there was silence as though all had been struck dumb; even the warder stepped back, mechanically retreated to the door, and stood immovable. “What is it?” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, recovering from his momentary stupefaction. “I... am the murderer,” repeated Nikolay, after a brief pause. “What... you... what... whom did you kill?” Porfiry Petrovitch was obviously bewildered. Nikolay again was silent for a moment. “Alyona Ivanovna and her sister Lizaveta Ivanovna, I... killed... with an axe. Darkness came over me,” he added suddenly, and was again silent. He still remained on his knees. Porfiry Petrovitch stood for some moments as though meditating, but suddenly roused himself and waved back the uninvited spectators. They instantly vanished and closed the door. Then he looked towards Raskolnikov, who was standing in the corner, staring wildly at Nikolay and moved towards him, but stopped short, looked from Nikolay to Raskolnikov and then again at Nikolay, and seeming unable to restrain himself darted at the latter. “You’re in too great a hurry,” he shouted at him, almost angrily. “I didn’t ask you what came over you.... Speak, did you kill them?” “I am the murderer.... I want to give evidence,” Nikolay pronounced. “Ach! What did you kill them with?” “An axe. I had it ready.” “Ach, he is in a hurry! Alone?” Nikolay did not understand the question. “Did you do it alone?” “Yes, alone. And Mitka is not guilty and had no share in it.” “Don’t be in a hurry about Mitka! A-ach! How was it you ran downstairs like that at the time? The porters met you both!” “It was to put them off the scent... I ran after Mitka,” Nikolay replied hurriedly, as though he had prepared the answer. “I knew it!” cried Porfiry, with vexation. “It’s not his own tale he is telling,” he muttered as though to himself, and suddenly his eyes rested on Raskolnikov again. He was apparently so taken up with Nikolay that for a moment he had forgotten Raskolnikov. He was a little taken aback. “My dear Rodion Romanovitch, excuse me!” he flew up to him, “this won’t do; I’m afraid you must go... it’s no good your staying... I will... you see, what a surprise!... Good-bye!” And taking him by the arm, he showed him to the door. “I suppose you didn’t expect it?” said Raskolnikov who, though he had not yet fully grasped the situation, had regained his courage. “You did not expect it either, my friend. See how your hand is trembling! He-he!” “You’re trembling, too, Porfiry Petrovitch!” “Yes, I am; I didn’t expect it.” They were already at the door; Porfiry was impatient for Raskolnikov to be gone. “And your little surprise, aren’t you going to show it to me?” Raskolnikov said, sarcastically. “Why, his teeth are chattering as he asks, he-he! You are an ironical person! Come, till we meet!” “I believe we can say _good-bye_!” “That’s in God’s hands,” muttered Porfiry, with an unnatural smile. As he walked through the office, Raskolnikov noticed that many people were looking at him. Among them he saw the two porters from _the_ house, whom he had invited that night to the police station. They stood there waiting. But he was no sooner on the stairs than he heard the voice of Porfiry Petrovitch behind him. Turning round, he saw the latter running after him, out of breath. “One word, Rodion Romanovitch; as to all the rest, it’s in God’s hands, but as a matter of form there are some questions I shall have to ask you... so we shall meet again, shan’t we?” And Porfiry stood still, facing him with a smile. “Shan’t we?” he added again. He seemed to want to say something more, but could not speak out. “You must forgive me, Porfiry Petrovitch, for what has just passed... I lost my temper,” began Raskolnikov, who had so far regained his courage that he felt irresistibly inclined to display his coolness. “Don’t mention it, don’t mention it,” Porfiry replied, almost gleefully. “I myself, too... I have a wicked temper, I admit it! But we shall meet again. If it’s God’s will, we may see a great deal of one another.” “And will get to know each other through and through?” added Raskolnikov. “Yes; know each other through and through,” assented Porfiry Petrovitch, and he screwed up his eyes, looking earnestly at Raskolnikov. “Now you’re going to a birthday party?” “To a funeral.” “Of course, the funeral! Take care of yourself, and get well.” “I don’t know what to wish you,” said Raskolnikov, who had begun to descend the stairs, but looked back again. “I should like to wish you success, but your office is such a comical one.” “Why comical?” Porfiry Petrovitch had turned to go, but he seemed to prick up his ears at this. “Why, how you must have been torturing and harassing that poor Nikolay psychologically, after your fashion, till he confessed! You must have been at him day and night, proving to him that he was the murderer, and now that he has confessed, you’ll begin vivisecting him again. ‘You are lying,’ you’ll say. ‘You are not the murderer! You can’t be! It’s not your own tale you are telling!’ You must admit it’s a comical business!” “He-he-he! You noticed then that I said to Nikolay just now that it was not his own tale he was telling?” “How could I help noticing it!” “He-he! You are quick-witted. You notice everything! You’ve really a playful mind! And you always fasten on the comic side... he-he! They say that was the marked characteristic of Gogol, among the writers.” “Yes, of Gogol.” “Yes, of Gogol.... I shall look forward to meeting you.” “So shall I.” Raskolnikov walked straight home. He was so muddled and bewildered that on getting home he sat for a quarter of an hour on the sofa, trying to collect his thoughts. He did not attempt to think about Nikolay; he was stupefied; he felt that his confession was something inexplicable, amazing--something beyond his understanding. But Nikolay’s confession was an actual fact. The consequences of this fact were clear to him at once, its falsehood could not fail to be discovered, and then they would be after him again. Till then, at least, he was free and must do something for himself, for the danger was imminent. But how imminent? His position gradually became clear to him. Remembering, sketchily, the main outlines of his recent scene with Porfiry, he could not help shuddering again with horror. Of course, he did not yet know all Porfiry’s aims, he could not see into all his calculations. But he had already partly shown his hand, and no one knew better than Raskolnikov how terrible Porfiry’s “lead” had been for him. A little more and he _might_ have given himself away completely, circumstantially. Knowing his nervous temperament and from the first glance seeing through him, Porfiry, though playing a bold game, was bound to win. There’s no denying that Raskolnikov had compromised himself seriously, but no _facts_ had come to light as yet; there was nothing positive. But was he taking a true view of the position? Wasn’t he mistaken? What had Porfiry been trying to get at? Had he really some surprise prepared for him? And what was it? Had he really been expecting something or not? How would they have parted if it had not been for the unexpected appearance of Nikolay? Porfiry had shown almost all his cards--of course, he had risked something in showing them--and if he had really had anything up his sleeve (Raskolnikov reflected), he would have shown that, too. What was that “surprise”? Was it a joke? Had it meant anything? Could it have concealed anything like a fact, a piece of positive evidence? His yesterday’s visitor? What had become of him? Where was he to-day? If Porfiry really had any evidence, it must be connected with him.... He sat on the sofa with his elbows on his knees and his face hidden in his hands. He was still shivering nervously. At last he got up, took his cap, thought a minute, and went to the door. He had a sort of presentiment that for to-day, at least, he might consider himself out of danger. He had a sudden sense almost of joy; he wanted to make haste to Katerina Ivanovna’s. He would be too late for the funeral, of course, but he would be in time for the memorial dinner, and there at once he would see Sonia. He stood still, thought a moment, and a suffering smile came for a moment on to his lips. “To-day! To-day,” he repeated to himself. “Yes, to-day! So it must be....” But as he was about to open the door, it began opening of itself. He started and moved back. The door opened gently and slowly, and there suddenly appeared a figure--yesterday’s visitor _from underground_. The man stood in the doorway, looked at Raskolnikov without speaking, and took a step forward into the room. He was exactly the same as yesterday; the same figure, the same dress, but there was a great change in his face; he looked dejected and sighed deeply. If he had only put his hand up to his cheek and leaned his head on one side he would have looked exactly like a peasant woman. “What do you want?” asked Raskolnikov, numb with terror. The man was still silent, but suddenly he bowed down almost to the ground, touching it with his finger. “What is it?” cried Raskolnikov. “I have sinned,” the man articulated softly. “How?” “By evil thoughts.” They looked at one another. “I was vexed. When you came, perhaps in drink, and bade the porters go to the police station and asked about the blood, I was vexed that they let you go and took you for drunken. I was so vexed that I lost my sleep. And remembering the address we came here yesterday and asked for you....” “Who came?” Raskolnikov interrupted, instantly beginning to recollect. “I did, I’ve wronged you.” “Then you come from that house?” “I was standing at the gate with them... don’t you remember? We have carried on our trade in that house for years past. We cure and prepare hides, we take work home... most of all I was vexed....” And the whole scene of the day before yesterday in the gateway came clearly before Raskolnikov’s mind; he recollected that there had been several people there besides the porters, women among them. He remembered one voice had suggested taking him straight to the police-station. He could not recall the face of the speaker, and even now he did not recognise it, but he remembered that he had turned round and made him some answer.... So this was the solution of yesterday’s horror. The most awful thought was that he had been actually almost lost, had almost done for himself on account of such a _trivial_ circumstance. So this man could tell nothing except his asking about the flat and the blood stains. So Porfiry, too, had nothing but that _delirium_, no facts but this _psychology_ which _cuts both ways_, nothing positive. So if no more facts come to light (and they must not, they must not!) then... then what can they do to him? How can they convict him, even if they arrest him? And Porfiry then had only just heard about the flat and had not known about it before. “Was it you who told Porfiry... that I’d been there?” he cried, struck by a sudden idea. “What Porfiry?” “The head of the detective department?” “Yes. The porters did not go there, but I went.” “To-day?” “I got there two minutes before you. And I heard, I heard it all, how he worried you.” “Where? What? When?” “Why, in the next room. I was sitting there all the time.” “What? Why, then you were the surprise? But how could it happen? Upon my word!” “I saw that the porters did not want to do what I said,” began the man; “for it’s too late, said they, and maybe he’ll be angry that we did not come at the time. I was vexed and I lost my sleep, and I began making inquiries. And finding out yesterday where to go, I went to-day. The first time I went he wasn’t there, when I came an hour later he couldn’t see me. I went the third time, and they showed me in. I informed him of everything, just as it happened, and he began skipping about the room and punching himself on the chest. ‘What do you scoundrels mean by it? If I’d known about it I should have arrested him!’ Then he ran out, called somebody and began talking to him in the corner, then he turned to me, scolding and questioning me. He scolded me a great deal; and I told him everything, and I told him that you didn’t dare to say a word in answer to me yesterday and that you didn’t recognise me. And he fell to running about again and kept hitting himself on the chest, and getting angry and running about, and when you were announced he told me to go into the next room. ‘Sit there a bit,’ he said. ‘Don’t move, whatever you may hear.’ And he set a chair there for me and locked me in. ‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘I may call you.’ And when Nikolay’d been brought he let me out as soon as you were gone. ‘I shall send for you again and question you,’ he said.” “And did he question Nikolay while you were there?” “He got rid of me as he did of you, before he spoke to Nikolay.” The man stood still, and again suddenly bowed down, touching the ground with his finger. “Forgive me for my evil thoughts, and my slander.” “May God forgive you,” answered Raskolnikov. And as he said this, the man bowed down again, but not to the ground, turned slowly and went out of the room. “It all cuts both ways, now it all cuts both ways,” repeated Raskolnikov, and he went out more confident than ever. “Now we’ll make a fight for it,” he said, with a malicious smile, as he went down the stairs. His malice was aimed at himself; with shame and contempt he recollected his “cowardice.” PART V CHAPTER I The morning that followed the fateful interview with Dounia and her mother brought sobering influences to bear on Pyotr Petrovitch. Intensely unpleasant as it was, he was forced little by little to accept as a fact beyond recall what had seemed to him only the day before fantastic and incredible. The black snake of wounded vanity had been gnawing at his heart all night. When he got out of bed, Pyotr Petrovitch immediately looked in the looking-glass. He was afraid that he had jaundice. However his health seemed unimpaired so far, and looking at his noble, clear-skinned countenance which had grown fattish of late, Pyotr Petrovitch for an instant was positively comforted in the conviction that he would find another bride and, perhaps, even a better one. But coming back to the sense of his present position, he turned aside and spat vigorously, which excited a sarcastic smile in Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov, the young friend with whom he was staying. That smile Pyotr Petrovitch noticed, and at once set it down against his young friend’s account. He had set down a good many points against him of late. His anger was redoubled when he reflected that he ought not to have told Andrey Semyonovitch about the result of yesterday’s interview. That was the second mistake he had made in temper, through impulsiveness and irritability.... Moreover, all that morning one unpleasantness followed another. He even found a hitch awaiting him in his legal case in the senate. He was particularly irritated by the owner of the flat which had been taken in view of his approaching marriage and was being redecorated at his own expense; the owner, a rich German tradesman, would not entertain the idea of breaking the contract which had just been signed and insisted on the full forfeit money, though Pyotr Petrovitch would be giving him back the flat practically redecorated. In the same way the upholsterers refused to return a single rouble of the instalment paid for the furniture purchased but not yet removed to the flat. “Am I to get married simply for the sake of the furniture?” Pyotr Petrovitch ground his teeth and at the same time once more he had a gleam of desperate hope. “Can all that be really so irrevocably over? Is it no use to make another effort?” The thought of Dounia sent a voluptuous pang through his heart. He endured anguish at that moment, and if it had been possible to slay Raskolnikov instantly by wishing it, Pyotr Petrovitch would promptly have uttered the wish. “It was my mistake, too, not to have given them money,” he thought, as he returned dejectedly to Lebeziatnikov’s room, “and why on earth was I such a Jew? It was false economy! I meant to keep them without a penny so that they should turn to me as their providence, and look at them! foo! If I’d spent some fifteen hundred roubles on them for the trousseau and presents, on knick-knacks, dressing-cases, jewellery, materials, and all that sort of trash from Knopp’s and the English shop, my position would have been better and... stronger! They could not have refused me so easily! They are the sort of people that would feel bound to return money and presents if they broke it off; and they would find it hard to do it! And their conscience would prick them: how can we dismiss a man who has hitherto been so generous and delicate?.... H’m! I’ve made a blunder.” And grinding his teeth again, Pyotr Petrovitch called himself a fool--but not aloud, of course. He returned home, twice as irritated and angry as before. The preparations for the funeral dinner at Katerina Ivanovna’s excited his curiosity as he passed. He had heard about it the day before; he fancied, indeed, that he had been invited, but absorbed in his own cares he had paid no attention. Inquiring of Madame Lippevechsel who was busy laying the table while Katerina Ivanovna was away at the cemetery, he heard that the entertainment was to be a great affair, that all the lodgers had been invited, among them some who had not known the dead man, that even Andrey Semyonovitch Lebeziatnikov was invited in spite of his previous quarrel with Katerina Ivanovna, that he, Pyotr Petrovitch, was not only invited, but was eagerly expected as he was the most important of the lodgers. Amalia Ivanovna herself had been invited with great ceremony in spite of the recent unpleasantness, and so she was very busy with preparations and was taking a positive pleasure in them; she was moreover dressed up to the nines, all in new black silk, and she was proud of it. All this suggested an idea to Pyotr Petrovitch and he went into his room, or rather Lebeziatnikov’s, somewhat thoughtful. He had learnt that Raskolnikov was to be one of the guests. Andrey Semyonovitch had been at home all the morning. The attitude of Pyotr Petrovitch to this gentleman was strange, though perhaps natural. Pyotr Petrovitch had despised and hated him from the day he came to stay with him and at the same time he seemed somewhat afraid of him. He had not come to stay with him on his arrival in Petersburg simply from parsimony, though that had been perhaps his chief object. He had heard of Andrey Semyonovitch, who had once been his ward, as a leading young progressive who was taking an important part in certain interesting circles, the doings of which were a legend in the provinces. It had impressed Pyotr Petrovitch. These powerful omniscient circles who despised everyone and showed everyone up had long inspired in him a peculiar but quite vague alarm. He had not, of course, been able to form even an approximate notion of what they meant. He, like everyone, had heard that there were, especially in Petersburg, progressives of some sort, nihilists and so on, and, like many people, he exaggerated and distorted the significance of those words to an absurd degree. What for many years past he had feared more than anything was _being shown up_ and this was the chief ground for his continual uneasiness at the thought of transferring his business to Petersburg. He was afraid of this as little children are sometimes panic-stricken. Some years before, when he was just entering on his own career, he had come upon two cases in which rather important personages in the province, patrons of his, had been cruelly shown up. One instance had ended in great scandal for the person attacked and the other had very nearly ended in serious trouble. For this reason Pyotr Petrovitch intended to go into the subject as soon as he reached Petersburg and, if necessary, to anticipate contingencies by seeking the favour of “our younger generation.” He relied on Andrey Semyonovitch for this and before his visit to Raskolnikov he had succeeded in picking up some current phrases. He soon discovered that Andrey Semyonovitch was a commonplace simpleton, but that by no means reassured Pyotr Petrovitch. Even if he had been certain that all the progressives were fools like him, it would not have allayed his uneasiness. All the doctrines, the ideas, the systems, with which Andrey Semyonovitch pestered him had no interest for him. He had his own object--he simply wanted to find out at once what was happening _here_. Had these people any power or not? Had he anything to fear from them? Would they expose any enterprise of his? And what precisely was now the object of their attacks? Could he somehow make up to them and get round them if they really were powerful? Was this the thing to do or not? Couldn’t he gain something through them? In fact hundreds of questions presented themselves. Andrey Semyonovitch was an anæmic, scrofulous little man, with strangely flaxen mutton-chop whiskers of which he was very proud. He was a clerk and had almost always something wrong with his eyes. He was rather soft-hearted, but self-confident and sometimes extremely conceited in speech, which had an absurd effect, incongruous with his little figure. He was one of the lodgers most respected by Amalia Ivanovna, for he did not get drunk and paid regularly for his lodgings. Andrey Semyonovitch really was rather stupid; he attached himself to the cause of progress and “our younger generation” from enthusiasm. He was one of the numerous and varied legion of dullards, of half-animate abortions, conceited, half-educated coxcombs, who attach themselves to the idea most in fashion only to vulgarise it and who caricature every cause they serve, however sincerely. Though Lebeziatnikov was so good-natured, he, too, was beginning to dislike Pyotr Petrovitch. This happened on both sides unconsciously. However simple Andrey Semyonovitch might be, he began to see that Pyotr Petrovitch was duping him and secretly despising him, and that “he was not the right sort of man.” He had tried expounding to him the system of Fourier and the Darwinian theory, but of late Pyotr Petrovitch began to listen too sarcastically and even to be rude. The fact was he had begun instinctively to guess that Lebeziatnikov was not merely a commonplace simpleton, but, perhaps, a liar, too, and that he had no connections of any consequence even in his own circle, but had simply picked things up third-hand; and that very likely he did not even know much about his own work of propaganda, for he was in too great a muddle. A fine person he would be to show anyone up! It must be noted, by the way, that Pyotr Petrovitch had during those ten days eagerly accepted the strangest praise from Andrey Semyonovitch; he had not protested, for instance, when Andrey Semyonovitch belauded him for being ready to contribute to the establishment of the new “commune,” or to abstain from christening his future children, or to acquiesce if Dounia were to take a lover a month after marriage, and so on. Pyotr Petrovitch so enjoyed hearing his own praises that he did not disdain even such virtues when they were attributed to him. Pyotr Petrovitch had had occasion that morning to realise some five-per-cent bonds and now he sat down to the table and counted over bundles of notes. Andrey Semyonovitch who hardly ever had any money walked about the room pretending to himself to look at all those bank notes with indifference and even contempt. Nothing would have convinced Pyotr Petrovitch that Andrey Semyonovitch could really look on the money unmoved, and the latter, on his side, kept thinking bitterly that Pyotr Petrovitch was capable of entertaining such an idea about him and was, perhaps, glad of the opportunity of teasing his young friend by reminding him of his inferiority and the great difference between them. He found him incredibly inattentive and irritable, though he, Andrey Semyonovitch, began enlarging on his favourite subject, the foundation of a new special “commune.” The brief remarks that dropped from Pyotr Petrovitch between the clicking of the beads on the reckoning frame betrayed unmistakable and discourteous irony. But the “humane” Andrey Semyonovitch ascribed Pyotr Petrovitch’s ill-humour to his recent breach with Dounia and he was burning with impatience to discourse on that theme. He had something progressive to say on the subject which might console his worthy friend and “could not fail” to promote his development. “There is some sort of festivity being prepared at that... at the widow’s, isn’t there?” Pyotr Petrovitch asked suddenly, interrupting Andrey Semyonovitch at the most interesting passage. “Why, don’t you know? Why, I was telling you last night what I think about all such ceremonies. And she invited you too, I heard. You were talking to her yesterday...” “I should never have expected that beggarly fool would have spent on this feast all the money she got from that other fool, Raskolnikov. I was surprised just now as I came through at the preparations there, the wines! Several people are invited. It’s beyond everything!” continued Pyotr Petrovitch, who seemed to have some object in pursuing the conversation. “What? You say I am asked too? When was that? I don’t remember. But I shan’t go. Why should I? I only said a word to her in passing yesterday of the possibility of her obtaining a year’s salary as a destitute widow of a government clerk. I suppose she has invited me on that account, hasn’t she? He-he-he!” “I don’t intend to go either,” said Lebeziatnikov. “I should think not, after giving her a thrashing! You might well hesitate, he-he!” “Who thrashed? Whom?” cried Lebeziatnikov, flustered and blushing. “Why, you thrashed Katerina Ivanovna a month ago. I heard so yesterday... so that’s what your convictions amount to... and the woman question, too, wasn’t quite sound, he-he-he!” and Pyotr Petrovitch, as though comforted, went back to clicking his beads. “It’s all slander and nonsense!” cried Lebeziatnikov, who was always afraid of allusions to the subject. “It was not like that at all, it was quite different. You’ve heard it wrong; it’s a libel. I was simply defending myself. She rushed at me first with her nails, she pulled out all my whiskers.... It’s permissable for anyone, I should hope, to defend himself and I never allow anyone to use violence to me on principle, for it’s an act of despotism. What was I to do? I simply pushed her back.” “He-he-he!” Luzhin went on laughing maliciously. “You keep on like that because you are out of humour yourself.... But that’s nonsense and it has nothing, nothing whatever to do with the woman question! You don’t understand; I used to think, indeed, that if women are equal to men in all respects, even in strength (as is maintained now) there ought to be equality in that, too. Of course, I reflected afterwards that such a question ought not really to arise, for there ought not to be fighting and in the future society fighting is unthinkable... and that it would be a queer thing to seek for equality in fighting. I am not so stupid... though, of course, there is fighting... there won’t be later, but at present there is... confound it! How muddled one gets with you! It’s not on that account that I am not going. I am not going on principle, not to take part in the revolting convention of memorial dinners, that’s why! Though, of course, one might go to laugh at it.... I am sorry there won’t be any priests at it. I should certainly go if there were.” “Then you would sit down at another man’s table and insult it and those who invited you. Eh?” “Certainly not insult, but protest. I should do it with a good object. I might indirectly assist the cause of enlightenment and propaganda. It’s a duty of every man to work for enlightenment and propaganda and the more harshly, perhaps, the better. I might drop a seed, an idea.... And something might grow up from that seed. How should I be insulting them? They might be offended at first, but afterwards they’d see I’d done them a service. You know, Terebyeva (who is in the community now) was blamed because when she left her family and... devoted... herself, she wrote to her father and mother that she wouldn’t go on living conventionally and was entering on a free marriage and it was said that that was too harsh, that she might have spared them and have written more kindly. I think that’s all nonsense and there’s no need of softness; on the contrary, what’s wanted is protest. Varents had been married seven years, she abandoned her two children, she told her husband straight out in a letter: ‘I have realised that I cannot be happy with you. I can never forgive you that you have deceived me by concealing from me that there is another organisation of society by means of the communities. I have only lately learned it from a great-hearted man to whom I have given myself and with whom I am establishing a community. I speak plainly because I consider it dishonest to deceive you. Do as you think best. Do not hope to get me back, you are too late. I hope you will be happy.’ That’s how letters like that ought to be written!” “Is that Terebyeva the one you said had made a third free marriage?” “No, it’s only the second, really! But what if it were the fourth, what if it were the fifteenth, that’s all nonsense! And if ever I regretted the death of my father and mother, it is now, and I sometimes think if my parents were living what a protest I would have aimed at them! I would have done something on purpose... I would have shown them! I would have astonished them! I am really sorry there is no one!” “To surprise! He-he! Well, be that as you will,” Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted, “but tell me this; do you know the dead man’s daughter, the delicate-looking little thing? It’s true what they say about her, isn’t it?” “What of it? I think, that is, it is my own personal conviction that this is the normal condition of women. Why not? I mean, _distinguons_. In our present society it is not altogether normal, because it is compulsory, but in the future society it will be perfectly normal, because it will be voluntary. Even as it is, she was quite right: she was suffering and that was her asset, so to speak, her capital which she had a perfect right to dispose of. Of course, in the future society there will be no need of assets, but her part will have another significance, rational and in harmony with her environment. As to Sofya Semyonovna personally, I regard her action as a vigorous protest against the organisation of society, and I respect her deeply for it; I rejoice indeed when I look at her!” “I was told that you got her turned out of these lodgings.” Lebeziatnikov was enraged. “That’s another slander,” he yelled. “It was not so at all! That was all Katerina Ivanovna’s invention, for she did not understand! And I never made love to Sofya Semyonovna! I was simply developing her, entirely disinterestedly, trying to rouse her to protest.... All I wanted was her protest and Sofya Semyonovna could not have remained here anyway!” “Have you asked her to join your community?” “You keep on laughing and very inappropriately, allow me to tell you. You don’t understand! There is no such rôle in a community. The community is established that there should be no such rôles. In a community, such a rôle is essentially transformed and what is stupid here is sensible there, what, under present conditions, is unnatural becomes perfectly natural in the community. It all depends on the environment. It’s all the environment and man himself is nothing. And I am on good terms with Sofya Semyonovna to this day, which is a proof that she never regarded me as having wronged her. I am trying now to attract her to the community, but on quite, quite a different footing. What are you laughing at? We are trying to establish a community of our own, a special one, on a broader basis. We have gone further in our convictions. We reject more! And meanwhile I’m still developing Sofya Semyonovna. She has a beautiful, beautiful character!” “And you take advantage of her fine character, eh? He-he!” “No, no! Oh, no! On the contrary.” “Oh, on the contrary! He-he-he! A queer thing to say!” “Believe me! Why should I disguise it? In fact, I feel it strange myself how timid, chaste and modern she is with me!” “And you, of course, are developing her... he-he! trying to prove to her that all that modesty is nonsense?” “Not at all, not at all! How coarsely, how stupidly--excuse me saying so--you misunderstand the word development! Good heavens, how... crude you still are! We are striving for the freedom of women and you have only one idea in your head.... Setting aside the general question of chastity and feminine modesty as useless in themselves and indeed prejudices, I fully accept her chastity with me, because that’s for her to decide. Of course if she were to tell me herself that she wanted me, I should think myself very lucky, because I like the girl very much; but as it is, no one has ever treated her more courteously than I, with more respect for her dignity... I wait in hopes, that’s all!” “You had much better make her a present of something. I bet you never thought of that.” “You don’t understand, as I’ve told you already! Of course, she is in such a position, but it’s another question. Quite another question! You simply despise her. Seeing a fact which you mistakenly consider deserving of contempt, you refuse to take a humane view of a fellow creature. You don’t know what a character she is! I am only sorry that of late she has quite given up reading and borrowing books. I used to lend them to her. I am sorry, too, that with all the energy and resolution in protesting--which she has already shown once--she has little self-reliance, little, so to say, independence, so as to break free from certain prejudices and certain foolish ideas. Yet she thoroughly understands some questions, for instance about kissing of hands, that is, that it’s an insult to a woman for a man to kiss her hand, because it’s a sign of inequality. We had a debate about it and I described it to her. She listened attentively to an account of the workmen’s associations in France, too. Now I am explaining the question of coming into the room in the future society.” “And what’s that, pray?” “We had a debate lately on the question: Has a member of the community the right to enter another member’s room, whether man or woman, at any time... and we decided that he has!” “It might be at an inconvenient moment, he-he!” Lebeziatnikov was really angry. “You are always thinking of something unpleasant,” he cried with aversion. “Tfoo! How vexed I am that when I was expounding our system, I referred prematurely to the question of personal privacy! It’s always a stumbling-block to people like you, they turn it into ridicule before they understand it. And how proud they are of it, too! Tfoo! I’ve often maintained that that question should not be approached by a novice till he has a firm faith in the system. And tell me, please, what do you find so shameful even in cesspools? I should be the first to be ready to clean out any cesspool you like. And it’s not a question of self-sacrifice, it’s simply work, honourable, useful work which is as good as any other and much better than the work of a Raphael and a Pushkin, because it is more useful.” “And more honourable, more honourable, he-he-he!” “What do you mean by ‘more honourable’? I don’t understand such expressions to describe human activity. ‘More honourable,’ ‘nobler’--all those are old-fashioned prejudices which I reject. Everything which is _of use_ to mankind is honourable. I only understand one word: _useful_! You can snigger as much as you like, but that’s so!” Pyotr Petrovitch laughed heartily. He had finished counting the money and was putting it away. But some of the notes he left on the table. The “cesspool question” had already been a subject of dispute between them. What was absurd was that it made Lebeziatnikov really angry, while it amused Luzhin and at that moment he particularly wanted to anger his young friend. “It’s your ill-luck yesterday that makes you so ill-humoured and annoying,” blurted out Lebeziatnikov, who in spite of his “independence” and his “protests” did not venture to oppose Pyotr Petrovitch and still behaved to him with some of the respect habitual in earlier years. “You’d better tell me this,” Pyotr Petrovitch interrupted with haughty displeasure, “can you... or rather are you really friendly enough with that young person to ask her to step in here for a minute? I think they’ve all come back from the cemetery... I heard the sound of steps... I want to see her, that young person.” “What for?” Lebeziatnikov asked with surprise. “Oh, I want to. I am leaving here to-day or to-morrow and therefore I wanted to speak to her about... However, you may be present during the interview. It’s better you should be, indeed. For there’s no knowing what you might imagine.” “I shan’t imagine anything. I only asked and, if you’ve anything to say to her, nothing is easier than to call her in. I’ll go directly and you may be sure I won’t be in your way.” Five minutes later Lebeziatnikov came in with Sonia. She came in very much surprised and overcome with shyness as usual. She was always shy in such circumstances and was always afraid of new people, she had been as a child and was even more so now.... Pyotr Petrovitch met her “politely and affably,” but with a certain shade of bantering familiarity which in his opinion was suitable for a man of his respectability and weight in dealing with a creature so young and so _interesting_ as she. He hastened to “reassure” her and made her sit down facing him at the table. Sonia sat down, looked about her--at Lebeziatnikov, at the notes lying on the table and then again at Pyotr Petrovitch and her eyes remained riveted on him. Lebeziatnikov was moving to the door. Pyotr Petrovitch signed to Sonia to remain seated and stopped Lebeziatnikov. “Is Raskolnikov in there? Has he come?” he asked him in a whisper. “Raskolnikov? Yes. Why? Yes, he is there. I saw him just come in.... Why?” “Well, I particularly beg you to remain here with us and not to leave me alone with this... young woman. I only want a few words with her, but God knows what they may make of it. I shouldn’t like Raskolnikov to repeat anything.... You understand what I mean?” “I understand!” Lebeziatnikov saw the point. “Yes, you are right.... Of course, I am convinced personally that you have no reason to be uneasy, but... still, you are right. Certainly I’ll stay. I’ll stand here at the window and not be in your way... I think you are right...” Pyotr Petrovitch returned to the sofa, sat down opposite Sonia, looked attentively at her and assumed an extremely dignified, even severe expression, as much as to say, “don’t you make any mistake, madam.” Sonia was overwhelmed with embarrassment. “In the first place, Sofya Semyonovna, will you make my excuses to your respected mamma.... That’s right, isn’t it? Katerina Ivanovna stands in the place of a mother to you?” Pyotr Petrovitch began with great dignity, though affably. It was evident that his intentions were friendly. “Quite so, yes; the place of a mother,” Sonia answered, timidly and hurriedly. “Then will you make my apologies to her? Through inevitable circumstances I am forced to be absent and shall not be at the dinner in spite of your mamma’s kind invitation.” “Yes... I’ll tell her... at once.” And Sonia hastily jumped up from her seat. “Wait, that’s not all,” Pyotr Petrovitch detained her, smiling at her simplicity and ignorance of good manners, “and you know me little, my dear Sofya Semyonovna, if you suppose I would have ventured to trouble a person like you for a matter of so little consequence affecting myself only. I have another object.” Sonia sat down hurriedly. Her eyes rested again for an instant on the grey-and-rainbow-coloured notes that remained on the table, but she quickly looked away and fixed her eyes on Pyotr Petrovitch. She felt it horribly indecorous, especially for _her_, to look at another person’s money. She stared at the gold eye-glass which Pyotr Petrovitch held in his left hand and at the massive and extremely handsome ring with a yellow stone on his middle finger. But suddenly she looked away and, not knowing where to turn, ended by staring Pyotr Petrovitch again straight in the face. After a pause of still greater dignity he continued. “I chanced yesterday in passing to exchange a couple of words with Katerina Ivanovna, poor woman. That was sufficient to enable me to ascertain that she is in a position--preternatural, if one may so express it.” “Yes... preternatural...” Sonia hurriedly assented. “Or it would be simpler and more comprehensible to say, ill.” “Yes, simpler and more comprehen... yes, ill.” “Quite so. So then from a feeling of humanity and so to speak compassion, I should be glad to be of service to her in any way, foreseeing her unfortunate position. I believe the whole of this poverty-stricken family depends now entirely on you?” “Allow me to ask,” Sonia rose to her feet, “did you say something to her yesterday of the possibility of a pension? Because she told me you had undertaken to get her one. Was that true?” “Not in the slightest, and indeed it’s an absurdity! I merely hinted at her obtaining temporary assistance as the widow of an official who had died in the service--if only she has patronage... but apparently your late parent had not served his full term and had not indeed been in the service at all of late. In fact, if there could be any hope, it would be very ephemeral, because there would be no claim for assistance in that case, far from it.... And she is dreaming of a pension already, he-he-he!... A go-ahead lady!” “Yes, she is. For she is credulous and good-hearted, and she believes everything from the goodness of her heart and... and... and she is like that... yes... You must excuse her,” said Sonia, and again she got up to go. “But you haven’t heard what I have to say.” “No, I haven’t heard,” muttered Sonia. “Then sit down.” She was terribly confused; she sat down again a third time. “Seeing her position with her unfortunate little ones, I should be glad, as I have said before, so far as lies in my power, to be of service, that is, so far as is in my power, not more. One might for instance get up a subscription for her, or a lottery, something of the sort, such as is always arranged in such cases by friends or even outsiders desirous of assisting people. It was of that I intended to speak to you; it might be done.” “Yes, yes... God will repay you for it,” faltered Sonia, gazing intently at Pyotr Petrovitch. “It might be, but we will talk of it later. We might begin it to-day, we will talk it over this evening and lay the foundation so to speak. Come to me at seven o’clock. Mr. Lebeziatnikov, I hope, will assist us. But there is one circumstance of which I ought to warn you beforehand and for which I venture to trouble you, Sofya Semyonovna, to come here. In my opinion money cannot be, indeed it’s unsafe to put it into Katerina Ivanovna’s own hands. The dinner to-day is a proof of that. Though she has not, so to speak, a crust of bread for to-morrow and... well, boots or shoes, or anything; she has bought to-day Jamaica rum, and even, I believe, Madeira and... and coffee. I saw it as I passed through. To-morrow it will all fall upon you again, they won’t have a crust of bread. It’s absurd, really, and so, to my thinking, a subscription ought to be raised so that the unhappy widow should not know of the money, but only you, for instance. Am I right?” “I don’t know... this is only to-day, once in her life.... She was so anxious to do honour, to celebrate the memory.... And she is very sensible... but just as you think and I shall be very, very... they will all be... and God will reward... and the orphans...” Sonia burst into tears. “Very well, then, keep it in mind; and now will you accept for the benefit of your relation the small sum that I am able to spare, from me personally. I am very anxious that my name should not be mentioned in connection with it. Here... having so to speak anxieties of my own, I cannot do more...” And Pyotr Petrovitch held out to Sonia a ten-rouble note carefully unfolded. Sonia took it, flushed crimson, jumped up, muttered something and began taking leave. Pyotr Petrovitch accompanied her ceremoniously to the door. She got out of the room at last, agitated and distressed, and returned to Katerina Ivanovna, overwhelmed with confusion. All this time Lebeziatnikov had stood at the window or walked about the room, anxious not to interrupt the conversation; when Sonia had gone he walked up to Pyotr Petrovitch and solemnly held out his hand. “I heard and _saw_ everything,” he said, laying stress on the last verb. “That is honourable, I mean to say, it’s humane! You wanted to avoid gratitude, I saw! And although I cannot, I confess, in principle sympathise with private charity, for it not only fails to eradicate the evil but even promotes it, yet I must admit that I saw your action with pleasure--yes, yes, I like it.” “That’s all nonsense,” muttered Pyotr Petrovitch, somewhat disconcerted, looking carefully at Lebeziatnikov. “No, it’s not nonsense! A man who has suffered distress and annoyance as you did yesterday and who yet can sympathise with the misery of others, such a man... even though he is making a social mistake--is still deserving of respect! I did not expect it indeed of you, Pyotr Petrovitch, especially as according to your ideas... oh, what a drawback your ideas are to you! How distressed you are for instance by your ill-luck yesterday,” cried the simple-hearted Lebeziatnikov, who felt a return of affection for Pyotr Petrovitch. “And, what do you want with marriage, with _legal_ marriage, my dear, noble Pyotr Petrovitch? Why do you cling to this _legality_ of marriage? Well, you may beat me if you like, but I am glad, positively glad it hasn’t come off, that you are free, that you are not quite lost for humanity.... you see, I’ve spoken my mind!” “Because I don’t want in your free marriage to be made a fool of and to bring up another man’s children, that’s why I want legal marriage,” Luzhin replied in order to make some answer. He seemed preoccupied by something. “Children? You referred to children,” Lebeziatnikov started off like a warhorse at the trumpet call. “Children are a social question and a question of first importance, I agree; but the question of children has another solution. Some refuse to have children altogether, because they suggest the institution of the family. We’ll speak of children later, but now as to the question of honour, I confess that’s my weak point. That horrid, military, Pushkin expression is unthinkable in the dictionary of the future. What does it mean indeed? It’s nonsense, there will be no deception in a free marriage! That is only the natural consequence of a legal marriage, so to say, its corrective, a protest. So that indeed it’s not humiliating... and if I ever, to suppose an absurdity, were to be legally married, I should be positively glad of it. I should say to my wife: ‘My dear, hitherto I have loved you, now I respect you, for you’ve shown you can protest!’ You laugh! That’s because you are incapable of getting away from prejudices. Confound it all! I understand now where the unpleasantness is of being deceived in a legal marriage, but it’s simply a despicable consequence of a despicable position in which both are humiliated. When the deception is open, as in a free marriage, then it does not exist, it’s unthinkable. Your wife will only prove how she respects you by considering you incapable of opposing her happiness and avenging yourself on her for her new husband. Damn it all! I sometimes dream if I were to be married, pfoo! I mean if I were to marry, legally or not, it’s just the same, I should present my wife with a lover if she had not found one for herself. ‘My dear,’ I should say, ‘I love you, but even more than that I desire you to respect me. See!’ Am I not right?” Pyotr Petrovitch sniggered as he listened, but without much merriment. He hardly heard it indeed. He was preoccupied with something else and even Lebeziatnikov at last noticed it. Pyotr Petrovitch seemed excited and rubbed his hands. Lebeziatnikov remembered all this and reflected upon it afterwards. CHAPTER II It would be difficult to explain exactly what could have originated the idea of that senseless dinner in Katerina Ivanovna’s disordered brain. Nearly ten of the twenty roubles, given by Raskolnikov for Marmeladov’s funeral, were wasted upon it. Possibly Katerina Ivanovna felt obliged to honour the memory of the deceased “suitably,” that all the lodgers, and still more Amalia Ivanovna, might know “that he was in no way their inferior, and perhaps very much their superior,” and that no one had the right “to turn up his nose at him.” Perhaps the chief element was that peculiar “poor man’s pride,” which compels many poor people to spend their last savings on some traditional social ceremony, simply in order to do “like other people,” and not to “be looked down upon.” It is very probable, too, that Katerina Ivanovna longed on this occasion, at the moment when she seemed to be abandoned by everyone, to show those “wretched contemptible lodgers” that she knew “how to do things, how to entertain” and that she had been brought up “in a genteel, she might almost say aristocratic colonel’s family” and had not been meant for sweeping floors and washing the children’s rags at night. Even the poorest and most broken-spirited people are sometimes liable to these paroxysms of pride and vanity which take the form of an irresistible nervous craving. And Katerina Ivanovna was not broken-spirited; she might have been killed by circumstance, but her spirit could not have been broken, that is, she could not have been intimidated, her will could not be crushed. Moreover Sonia had said with good reason that her mind was unhinged. She could not be said to be insane, but for a year past she had been so harassed that her mind might well be overstrained. The later stages of consumption are apt, doctors tell us, to affect the intellect. There was no great variety of wines, nor was there Madeira; but wine there was. There was vodka, rum and Lisbon wine, all of the poorest quality but in sufficient quantity. Besides the traditional rice and honey, there were three or four dishes, one of which consisted of pancakes, all prepared in Amalia Ivanovna’s kitchen. Two samovars were boiling, that tea and punch might be offered after dinner. Katerina Ivanovna had herself seen to purchasing the provisions, with the help of one of the lodgers, an unfortunate little Pole who had somehow been stranded at Madame Lippevechsel’s. He promptly put himself at Katerina Ivanovna’s disposal and had been all that morning and all the day before running about as fast as his legs could carry him, and very anxious that everyone should be aware of it. For every trifle he ran to Katerina Ivanovna, even hunting her out at the bazaar, at every instant called her “_Pani_.” She was heartily sick of him before the end, though she had declared at first that she could not have got on without this “serviceable and magnanimous man.” It was one of Katerina Ivanovna’s characteristics to paint everyone she met in the most glowing colours. Her praises were so exaggerated as sometimes to be embarrassing; she would invent various circumstances to the credit of her new acquaintance and quite genuinely believe in their reality. Then all of a sudden she would be disillusioned and would rudely and contemptuously repulse the person she had only a few hours before been literally adoring. She was naturally of a gay, lively and peace-loving disposition, but from continual failures and misfortunes she had come to desire so _keenly_ that all should live in peace and joy and should not _dare_ to break the peace, that the slightest jar, the smallest disaster reduced her almost to frenzy, and she would pass in an instant from the brightest hopes and fancies to cursing her fate and raving, and knocking her head against the wall. Amalia Ivanovna, too, suddenly acquired extraordinary importance in Katerina Ivanovna’s eyes and was treated by her with extraordinary respect, probably only because Amalia Ivanovna had thrown herself heart and soul into the preparations. She had undertaken to lay the table, to provide the linen, crockery, etc., and to cook the dishes in her kitchen, and Katerina Ivanovna had left it all in her hands and gone herself to the cemetery. Everything had been well done. Even the table-cloth was nearly clean; the crockery, knives, forks and glasses were, of course, of all shapes and patterns, lent by different lodgers, but the table was properly laid at the time fixed, and Amalia Ivanovna, feeling she had done her work well, had put on a black silk dress and a cap with new mourning ribbons and met the returning party with some pride. This pride, though justifiable, displeased Katerina Ivanovna for some reason: “as though the table could not have been laid except by Amalia Ivanovna!” She disliked the cap with new ribbons, too. “Could she be stuck up, the stupid German, because she was mistress of the house, and had consented as a favour to help her poor lodgers! As a favour! Fancy that! Katerina Ivanovna’s father who had been a colonel and almost a governor had sometimes had the table set for forty persons, and then anyone like Amalia Ivanovna, or rather Ludwigovna, would not have been allowed into the kitchen.” Katerina Ivanovna, however, put off expressing her feelings for the time and contented herself with treating her coldly, though she decided inwardly that she would certainly have to put Amalia Ivanovna down and set her in her proper place, for goodness only knew what she was fancying herself. Katerina Ivanovna was irritated too by the fact that hardly any of the lodgers invited had come to the funeral, except the Pole who had just managed to run into the cemetery, while to the memorial dinner the poorest and most insignificant of them had turned up, the wretched creatures, many of them not quite sober. The older and more respectable of them all, as if by common consent, stayed away. Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, for instance, who might be said to be the most respectable of all the lodgers, did not appear, though Katerina Ivanovna had the evening before told all the world, that is Amalia Ivanovna, Polenka, Sonia and the Pole, that he was the most generous, noble-hearted man with a large property and vast connections, who had been a friend of her first husband’s, and a guest in her father’s house, and that he had promised to use all his influence to secure her a considerable pension. It must be noted that when Katerina Ivanovna exalted anyone’s connections and fortune, it was without any ulterior motive, quite disinterestedly, for the mere pleasure of adding to the consequence of the person praised. Probably “taking his cue” from Luzhin, “that contemptible wretch Lebeziatnikov had not turned up either. What did he fancy himself? He was only asked out of kindness and because he was sharing the same room with Pyotr Petrovitch and was a friend of his, so that it would have been awkward not to invite him.” Among those who failed to appear were “the genteel lady and her old-maidish daughter,” who had only been lodgers in the house for the last fortnight, but had several times complained of the noise and uproar in Katerina Ivanovna’s room, especially when Marmeladov had come back drunk. Katerina Ivanovna heard this from Amalia Ivanovna who, quarrelling with Katerina Ivanovna, and threatening to turn the whole family out of doors, had shouted at her that they “were not worth the foot” of the honourable lodgers whom they were disturbing. Katerina Ivanovna determined now to invite this lady and her daughter, “whose foot she was not worth,” and who had turned away haughtily when she casually met them, so that they might know that “she was more noble in her thoughts and feelings and did not harbour malice,” and might see that she was not accustomed to her way of living. She had proposed to make this clear to them at dinner with allusions to her late father’s governorship, and also at the same time to hint that it was exceedingly stupid of them to turn away on meeting her. The fat colonel-major (he was really a discharged officer of low rank) was also absent, but it appeared that he had been “not himself” for the last two days. The party consisted of the Pole, a wretched looking clerk with a spotty face and a greasy coat, who had not a word to say for himself, and smelt abominably, a deaf and almost blind old man who had once been in the post office and who had been from immemorial ages maintained by someone at Amalia Ivanovna’s. A retired clerk of the commissariat department came, too; he was drunk, had a loud and most unseemly laugh and only fancy--was without a waistcoat! One of the visitors sat straight down to the table without even greeting Katerina Ivanovna. Finally one person having no suit appeared in his dressing-gown, but this was too much, and the efforts of Amalia Ivanovna and the Pole succeeded in removing him. The Pole brought with him, however, two other Poles who did not live at Amalia Ivanovna’s and whom no one had seen here before. All this irritated Katerina Ivanovna intensely. “For whom had they made all these preparations then?” To make room for the visitors the children had not even been laid for at the table; but the two little ones were sitting on a bench in the furthest corner with their dinner laid on a box, while Polenka as a big girl had to look after them, feed them, and keep their noses wiped like well-bred children’s. Katerina Ivanovna, in fact, could hardly help meeting her guests with increased dignity, and even haughtiness. She stared at some of them with special severity, and loftily invited them to take their seats. Rushing to the conclusion that Amalia Ivanovna must be responsible for those who were absent, she began treating her with extreme nonchalance, which the latter promptly observed and resented. Such a beginning was no good omen for the end. All were seated at last. Raskolnikov came in almost at the moment of their return from the cemetery. Katerina Ivanovna was greatly delighted to see him, in the first place, because he was the one “educated visitor, and, as everyone knew, was in two years to take a professorship in the university,” and secondly because he immediately and respectfully apologised for having been unable to be at the funeral. She positively pounced upon him, and made him sit on her left hand (Amalia Ivanovna was on her right). In spite of her continual anxiety that the dishes should be passed round correctly and that everyone should taste them, in spite of the agonising cough which interrupted her every minute and seemed to have grown worse during the last few days, she hastened to pour out in a half whisper to Raskolnikov all her suppressed feelings and her just indignation at the failure of the dinner, interspersing her remarks with lively and uncontrollable laughter at the expense of her visitors and especially of her landlady. “It’s all that cuckoo’s fault! You know whom I mean? Her, her!” Katerina Ivanovna nodded towards the landlady. “Look at her, she’s making round eyes, she feels that we are talking about her and can’t understand. Pfoo, the owl! Ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) And what does she put on that cap for? (Cough-cough-cough.) Have you noticed that she wants everyone to consider that she is patronising me and doing me an honour by being here? I asked her like a sensible woman to invite people, especially those who knew my late husband, and look at the set of fools she has brought! The sweeps! Look at that one with the spotty face. And those wretched Poles, ha-ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.) Not one of them has ever poked his nose in here, I’ve never set eyes on them. What have they come here for, I ask you? There they sit in a row. Hey, _pan_!” she cried suddenly to one of them, “have you tasted the pancakes? Take some more! Have some beer! Won’t you have some vodka? Look, he’s jumped up and is making his bows, they must be quite starved, poor things. Never mind, let them eat! They don’t make a noise, anyway, though I’m really afraid for our landlady’s silver spoons... Amalia Ivanovna!” she addressed her suddenly, almost aloud, “if your spoons should happen to be stolen, I won’t be responsible, I warn you! Ha-ha-ha!” She laughed turning to Raskolnikov, and again nodding towards the landlady, in high glee at her sally. “She didn’t understand, she didn’t understand again! Look how she sits with her mouth open! An owl, a real owl! An owl in new ribbons, ha-ha-ha!” Here her laugh turned again to an insufferable fit of coughing that lasted five minutes. Drops of perspiration stood out on her forehead and her handkerchief was stained with blood. She showed Raskolnikov the blood in silence, and as soon as she could get her breath began whispering to him again with extreme animation and a hectic flush on her cheeks. “Do you know, I gave her the most delicate instructions, so to speak, for inviting that lady and her daughter, you understand of whom I am speaking? It needed the utmost delicacy, the greatest nicety, but she has managed things so that that fool, that conceited baggage, that provincial nonentity, simply because she is the widow of a major, and has come to try and get a pension and to fray out her skirts in the government offices, because at fifty she paints her face (everybody knows it)... a creature like that did not think fit to come, and has not even answered the invitation, which the most ordinary good manners required! I can’t understand why Pyotr Petrovitch has not come? But where’s Sonia? Where has she gone? Ah, there she is at last! what is it, Sonia, where have you been? It’s odd that even at your father’s funeral you should be so unpunctual. Rodion Romanovitch, make room for her beside you. That’s your place, Sonia... take what you like. Have some of the cold entrée with jelly, that’s the best. They’ll bring the pancakes directly. Have they given the children some? Polenka, have you got everything? (Cough-cough-cough.) That’s all right. Be a good girl, Lida, and, Kolya, don’t fidget with your feet; sit like a little gentleman. What are you saying, Sonia?” Sonia hastened to give her Pyotr Petrovitch’s apologies, trying to speak loud enough for everyone to hear and carefully choosing the most respectful phrases which she attributed to Pyotr Petrovitch. She added that Pyotr Petrovitch had particularly told her to say that, as soon as he possibly could, he would come immediately to discuss _business_ alone with her and to consider what could be done for her, etc., etc. Sonia knew that this would comfort Katerina Ivanovna, would flatter her and gratify her pride. She sat down beside Raskolnikov; she made him a hurried bow, glancing curiously at him. But for the rest of the time she seemed to avoid looking at him or speaking to him. She seemed absent-minded, though she kept looking at Katerina Ivanovna, trying to please her. Neither she nor Katerina Ivanovna had been able to get mourning; Sonia was wearing dark brown, and Katerina Ivanovna had on her only dress, a dark striped cotton one. The message from Pyotr Petrovitch was very successful. Listening to Sonia with dignity, Katerina Ivanovna inquired with equal dignity how Pyotr Petrovitch was, then at once whispered almost aloud to Raskolnikov that it certainly would have been strange for a man of Pyotr Petrovitch’s position and standing to find himself in such “extraordinary company,” in spite of his devotion to her family and his old friendship with her father. “That’s why I am so grateful to you, Rodion Romanovitch, that you have not disdained my hospitality, even in such surroundings,” she added almost aloud. “But I am sure that it was only your special affection for my poor husband that has made you keep your promise.” Then once more with pride and dignity she scanned her visitors, and suddenly inquired aloud across the table of the deaf man: “Wouldn’t he have some more meat, and had he been given some wine?” The old man made no answer and for a long while could not understand what he was asked, though his neighbours amused themselves by poking and shaking him. He simply gazed about him with his mouth open, which only increased the general mirth. “What an imbecile! Look, look! Why was he brought? But as to Pyotr Petrovitch, I always had confidence in him,” Katerina Ivanovna continued, “and, of course, he is not like...” with an extremely stern face she addressed Amalia Ivanovna so sharply and loudly that the latter was quite disconcerted, “not like your dressed up draggletails whom my father would not have taken as cooks into his kitchen, and my late husband would have done them honour if he had invited them in the goodness of his heart.” “Yes, he was fond of drink, he was fond of it, he did drink!” cried the commissariat clerk, gulping down his twelfth glass of vodka. “My late husband certainly had that weakness, and everyone knows it,” Katerina Ivanovna attacked him at once, “but he was a kind and honourable man, who loved and respected his family. The worst of it was his good nature made him trust all sorts of disreputable people, and he drank with fellows who were not worth the sole of his shoe. Would you believe it, Rodion Romanovitch, they found a gingerbread cock in his pocket; he was dead drunk, but he did not forget the children!” “A cock? Did you say a cock?” shouted the commissariat clerk. Katerina Ivanovna did not vouchsafe a reply. She sighed, lost in thought. “No doubt you think, like everyone, that I was too severe with him,” she went on, addressing Raskolnikov. “But that’s not so! He respected me, he respected me very much! He was a kind-hearted man! And how sorry I was for him sometimes! He would sit in a corner and look at me, I used to feel so sorry for him, I used to want to be kind to him and then would think to myself: ‘Be kind to him and he will drink again,’ it was only by severity that you could keep him within bounds.” “Yes, he used to get his hair pulled pretty often,” roared the commissariat clerk again, swallowing another glass of vodka. “Some fools would be the better for a good drubbing, as well as having their hair pulled. I am not talking of my late husband now!” Katerina Ivanovna snapped at him. The flush on her cheeks grew more and more marked, her chest heaved. In another minute she would have been ready to make a scene. Many of the visitors were sniggering, evidently delighted. They began poking the commissariat clerk and whispering something to him. They were evidently trying to egg him on. “Allow me to ask what are you alluding to,” began the clerk, “that is to say, whose... about whom... did you say just now... But I don’t care! That’s nonsense! Widow! I forgive you.... Pass!” And he took another drink of vodka. Raskolnikov sat in silence, listening with disgust. He only ate from politeness, just tasting the food that Katerina Ivanovna was continually putting on his plate, to avoid hurting her feelings. He watched Sonia intently. But Sonia became more and more anxious and distressed; she, too, foresaw that the dinner would not end peaceably, and saw with terror Katerina Ivanovna’s growing irritation. She knew that she, Sonia, was the chief reason for the ‘genteel’ ladies’ contemptuous treatment of Katerina Ivanovna’s invitation. She had heard from Amalia Ivanovna that the mother was positively offended at the invitation and had asked the question: “How could she let her daughter sit down beside _that young person_?” Sonia had a feeling that Katerina Ivanovna had already heard this and an insult to Sonia meant more to Katerina Ivanovna than an insult to herself, her children, or her father, Sonia knew that Katerina Ivanovna would not be satisfied now, “till she had shown those draggletails that they were both...” To make matters worse someone passed Sonia, from the other end of the table, a plate with two hearts pierced with an arrow, cut out of black bread. Katerina Ivanovna flushed crimson and at once said aloud across the table that the man who sent it was “a drunken ass!” Amalia Ivanovna was foreseeing something amiss, and at the same time deeply wounded by Katerina Ivanovna’s haughtiness, and to restore the good-humour of the company and raise herself in their esteem she began, apropos of nothing, telling a story about an acquaintance of hers “Karl from the chemist’s,” who was driving one night in a cab, and that “the cabman wanted him to kill, and Karl very much begged him not to kill, and wept and clasped hands, and frightened and from fear pierced his heart.” Though Katerina Ivanovna smiled, she observed at once that Amalia Ivanovna ought not to tell anecdotes in Russian; the latter was still more offended, and she retorted that her “_Vater aus Berlin_ was a very important man, and always went with his hands in pockets.” Katerina Ivanovna could not restrain herself and laughed so much that Amalia Ivanovna lost patience and could scarcely control herself. “Listen to the owl!” Katerina Ivanovna whispered at once, her good-humour almost restored, “she meant to say he kept his hands in his pockets, but she said he put his hands in people’s pockets. (Cough-cough.) And have you noticed, Rodion Romanovitch, that all these Petersburg foreigners, the Germans especially, are all stupider than we! Can you fancy anyone of us telling how ‘Karl from the chemist’s’ ‘pierced his heart from fear’ and that the idiot, instead of punishing the cabman, ‘clasped his hands and wept, and much begged.’ Ah, the fool! And you know she fancies it’s very touching and does not suspect how stupid she is! To my thinking that drunken commissariat clerk is a great deal cleverer, anyway one can see that he has addled his brains with drink, but you know, these foreigners are always so well behaved and serious.... Look how she sits glaring! She is angry, ha-ha! (Cough-cough-cough.)” Regaining her good-humour, Katerina Ivanovna began at once telling Raskolnikov that when she had obtained her pension, she intended to open a school for the daughters of gentlemen in her native town T----. This was the first time she had spoken to him of the project, and she launched out into the most alluring details. It suddenly appeared that Katerina Ivanovna had in her hands the very certificate of honour of which Marmeladov had spoken to Raskolnikov in the tavern, when he told him that Katerina Ivanovna, his wife, had danced the shawl dance before the governor and other great personages on leaving school. This certificate of honour was obviously intended now to prove Katerina Ivanovna’s right to open a boarding-school; but she had armed herself with it chiefly with the object of overwhelming “those two stuck-up draggletails” if they came to the dinner, and proving incontestably that Katerina Ivanovna was of the most noble, “she might even say aristocratic family, a colonel’s daughter and was far superior to certain adventuresses who have been so much to the fore of late.” The certificate of honour immediately passed into the hands of the drunken guests, and Katerina Ivanovna did not try to retain it, for it actually contained the statement _en toutes lettres_, that her father was of the rank of a major, and also a companion of an order, so that she really was almost the daughter of a colonel. Warming up, Katerina Ivanovna proceeded to enlarge on the peaceful and happy life they would lead in T----, on the gymnasium teachers whom she would engage to give lessons in her boarding-school, one a most respectable old Frenchman, one Mangot, who had taught Katerina Ivanovna herself in old days and was still living in T----, and would no doubt teach in her school on moderate terms. Next she spoke of Sonia who would go with her to T---- and help her in all her plans. At this someone at the further end of the table gave a sudden guffaw. Though Katerina Ivanovna tried to appear to be disdainfully unaware of it, she raised her voice and began at once speaking with conviction of Sonia’s undoubted ability to assist her, of “her gentleness, patience, devotion, generosity and good education,” tapping Sonia on the cheek and kissing her warmly twice. Sonia flushed crimson, and Katerina Ivanovna suddenly burst into tears, immediately observing that she was “nervous and silly, that she was too much upset, that it was time to finish, and as the dinner was over, it was time to hand round the tea.” At that moment, Amalia Ivanovna, deeply aggrieved at taking no part in the conversation, and not being listened to, made one last effort, and with secret misgivings ventured on an exceedingly deep and weighty observation, that “in the future boarding-school she would have to pay particular attention to _die Wäsche_, and that there certainly must be a good _dame_ to look after the linen, and secondly that the young ladies must not novels at night read.” Katerina Ivanovna, who certainly was upset and very tired, as well as heartily sick of the dinner, at once cut short Amalia Ivanovna, saying “she knew nothing about it and was talking nonsense, that it was the business of the laundry maid, and not of the directress of a high-class boarding-school to look after _die Wäsche_, and as for novel-reading, that was simply rudeness, and she begged her to be silent.” Amalia Ivanovna fired up and getting angry observed that she only “meant her good,” and that “she had meant her very good,” and that “it was long since she had paid her _gold_ for the lodgings.” Katerina Ivanovna at once “set her down,” saying that it was a lie to say she wished her good, because only yesterday when her dead husband was lying on the table, she had worried her about the lodgings. To this Amalia Ivanovna very appropriately observed that she had invited those ladies, but “those ladies had not come, because those ladies _are_ ladies and cannot come to a lady who is not a lady.” Katerina Ivanovna at once pointed out to her, that as she was a slut she could not judge what made one really a lady. Amalia Ivanovna at once declared that her “_Vater aus Berlin_ was a very, very important man, and both hands in pockets went, and always used to say: ‘Poof! poof!’” and she leapt up from the table to represent her father, sticking her hands in her pockets, puffing her cheeks, and uttering vague sounds resembling “poof! poof!” amid loud laughter from all the lodgers, who purposely encouraged Amalia Ivanovna, hoping for a fight. But this was too much for Katerina Ivanovna, and she at once declared, so that all could hear, that Amalia Ivanovna probably never had a father, but was simply a drunken Petersburg Finn, and had certainly once been a cook and probably something worse. Amalia Ivanovna turned as red as a lobster and squealed that perhaps Katerina Ivanovna never had a father, “but she had a _Vater aus Berlin_ and that he wore a long coat and always said poof-poof-poof!” Katerina Ivanovna observed contemptuously that all knew what her family was and that on that very certificate of honour it was stated in print that her father was a colonel, while Amalia Ivanovna’s father--if she really had one--was probably some Finnish milkman, but that probably she never had a father at all, since it was still uncertain whether her name was Amalia Ivanovna or Amalia Ludwigovna. At this Amalia Ivanovna, lashed to fury, struck the table with her fist, and shrieked that she was Amalia Ivanovna, and not Ludwigovna, “that her _Vater_ was named Johann and that he was a burgomeister, and that Katerina Ivanovna’s _Vater_ was quite never a burgomeister.” Katerina Ivanovna rose from her chair, and with a stern and apparently calm voice (though she was pale and her chest was heaving) observed that “if she dared for one moment to set her contemptible wretch of a father on a level with her papa, she, Katerina Ivanovna, would tear her cap off her head and trample it under foot.” Amalia Ivanovna ran about the room, shouting at the top of her voice, that she was mistress of the house and that Katerina Ivanovna should leave the lodgings that minute; then she rushed for some reason to collect the silver spoons from the table. There was a great outcry and uproar, the children began crying. Sonia ran to restrain Katerina Ivanovna, but when Amalia Ivanovna shouted something about “the yellow ticket,” Katerina Ivanovna pushed Sonia away, and rushed at the landlady to carry out her threat. At that minute the door opened, and Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin appeared on the threshold. He stood scanning the party with severe and vigilant eyes. Katerina Ivanovna rushed to him. CHAPTER III “Pyotr Petrovitch,” she cried, “protect me... you at least! Make this foolish woman understand that she can’t behave like this to a lady in misfortune... that there is a law for such things.... I’ll go to the governor-general himself.... She shall answer for it.... Remembering my father’s hospitality protect these orphans.” “Allow me, madam.... Allow me.” Pyotr Petrovitch waved her off. “Your papa as you are well aware I had not the honour of knowing” (someone laughed aloud) “and I do not intend to take part in your everlasting squabbles with Amalia Ivanovna.... I have come here to speak of my own affairs... and I want to have a word with your stepdaughter, Sofya... Ivanovna, I think it is? Allow me to pass.” Pyotr Petrovitch, edging by her, went to the opposite corner where Sonia was. Katerina Ivanovna remained standing where she was, as though thunderstruck. She could not understand how Pyotr Petrovitch could deny having enjoyed her father’s hospitality. Though she had invented it herself, she believed in it firmly by this time. She was struck too by the businesslike, dry and even contemptuous menacing tone of Pyotr Petrovitch. All the clamour gradually died away at his entrance. Not only was this “serious business man” strikingly incongruous with the rest of the party, but it was evident, too, that he had come upon some matter of consequence, that some exceptional cause must have brought him and that therefore something was going to happen. Raskolnikov, standing beside Sonia, moved aside to let him pass; Pyotr Petrovitch did not seem to notice him. A minute later Lebeziatnikov, too, appeared in the doorway; he did not come in, but stood still, listening with marked interest, almost wonder, and seemed for a time perplexed. “Excuse me for possibly interrupting you, but it’s a matter of some importance,” Pyotr Petrovitch observed, addressing the company generally. “I am glad indeed to find other persons present. Amalia Ivanovna, I humbly beg you as mistress of the house to pay careful attention to what I have to say to Sofya Ivanovna. Sofya Ivanovna,” he went on, addressing Sonia, who was very much surprised and already alarmed, “immediately after your visit I found that a hundred-rouble note was missing from my table, in the room of my friend Mr. Lebeziatnikov. If in any way whatever you know and will tell us where it is now, I assure you on my word of honour and call all present to witness that the matter shall end there. In the opposite case I shall be compelled to have recourse to very serious measures and then... you must blame yourself.” Complete silence reigned in the room. Even the crying children were still. Sonia stood deadly pale, staring at Luzhin and unable to say a word. She seemed not to understand. Some seconds passed. “Well, how is it to be then?” asked Luzhin, looking intently at her. “I don’t know.... I know nothing about it,” Sonia articulated faintly at last. “No, you know nothing?” Luzhin repeated and again he paused for some seconds. “Think a moment, mademoiselle,” he began severely, but still, as it were, admonishing her. “Reflect, I am prepared to give you time for consideration. Kindly observe this: if I were not so entirely convinced I should not, you may be sure, with my experience venture to accuse you so directly. Seeing that for such direct accusation before witnesses, if false or even mistaken, I should myself in a certain sense be made responsible, I am aware of that. This morning I changed for my own purposes several five-per-cent securities for the sum of approximately three thousand roubles. The account is noted down in my pocket-book. On my return home I proceeded to count the money--as Mr. Lebeziatnikov will bear witness--and after counting two thousand three hundred roubles I put the rest in my pocket-book in my coat pocket. About five hundred roubles remained on the table and among them three notes of a hundred roubles each. At that moment you entered (at my invitation)--and all the time you were present you were exceedingly embarrassed; so that three times you jumped up in the middle of the conversation and tried to make off. Mr. Lebeziatnikov can bear witness to this. You yourself, mademoiselle, probably will not refuse to confirm my statement that I invited you through Mr. Lebeziatnikov, solely in order to discuss with you the hopeless and destitute position of your relative, Katerina Ivanovna (whose dinner I was unable to attend), and the advisability of getting up something of the nature of a subscription, lottery or the like, for her benefit. You thanked me and even shed tears. I describe all this as it took place, primarily to recall it to your mind and secondly to show you that not the slightest detail has escaped my recollection. Then I took a ten-rouble note from the table and handed it to you by way of first instalment on my part for the benefit of your relative. Mr. Lebeziatnikov saw all this. Then I accompanied you to the door--you being still in the same state of embarrassment--after which, being left alone with Mr. Lebeziatnikov I talked to him for ten minutes--then Mr. Lebeziatnikov went out and I returned to the table with the money lying on it, intending to count it and to put it aside, as I proposed doing before. To my surprise one hundred-rouble note had disappeared. Kindly consider the position. Mr. Lebeziatnikov I cannot suspect. I am ashamed to allude to such a supposition. I cannot have made a mistake in my reckoning, for the minute before your entrance I had finished my accounts and found the total correct. You will admit that recollecting your embarrassment, your eagerness to get away and the fact that you kept your hands for some time on the table, and taking into consideration your social position and the habits associated with it, I was, so to say, with horror and positively against my will, _compelled_ to entertain a suspicion--a cruel, but justifiable suspicion! I will add further and repeat that in spite of my positive conviction, I realise that I run a certain risk in making this accusation, but as you see, I could not let it pass. I have taken action and I will tell you why: solely, madam, solely, owing to your black ingratitude! Why! I invite you for the benefit of your destitute relative, I present you with my donation of ten roubles and you, on the spot, repay me for all that with such an action. It is too bad! You need a lesson. Reflect! Moreover, like a true friend I beg you--and you could have no better friend at this moment--think what you are doing, otherwise I shall be immovable! Well, what do you say?” “I have taken nothing,” Sonia whispered in terror, “you gave me ten roubles, here it is, take it.” Sonia pulled her handkerchief out of her pocket, untied a corner of it, took out the ten-rouble note and gave it to Luzhin. “And the hundred roubles you do not confess to taking?” he insisted reproachfully, not taking the note. Sonia looked about her. All were looking at her with such awful, stern, ironical, hostile eyes. She looked at Raskolnikov... he stood against the wall, with his arms crossed, looking at her with glowing eyes. “Good God!” broke from Sonia. “Amalia Ivanovna, we shall have to send word to the police and therefore I humbly beg you meanwhile to send for the house porter,” Luzhin said softly and even kindly. “_Gott der Barmherzige_! I knew she was the thief,” cried Amalia Ivanovna, throwing up her hands. “You knew it?” Luzhin caught her up, “then I suppose you had some reason before this for thinking so. I beg you, worthy Amalia Ivanovna, to remember your words which have been uttered before witnesses.” There was a buzz of loud conversation on all sides. All were in movement. “What!” cried Katerina Ivanovna, suddenly realising the position, and she rushed at Luzhin. “What! You accuse her of stealing? Sonia? Ah, the wretches, the wretches!” And running to Sonia she flung her wasted arms round her and held her as in a vise. “Sonia! how dared you take ten roubles from him? Foolish girl! Give it to me! Give me the ten roubles at once--here!” And snatching the note from Sonia, Katerina Ivanovna crumpled it up and flung it straight into Luzhin’s face. It hit him in the eye and fell on the ground. Amalia Ivanovna hastened to pick it up. Pyotr Petrovitch lost his temper. “Hold that mad woman!” he shouted. At that moment several other persons, besides Lebeziatnikov, appeared in the doorway, among them the two ladies. “What! Mad? Am I mad? Idiot!” shrieked Katerina Ivanovna. “You are an idiot yourself, pettifogging lawyer, base man! Sonia, Sonia take his money! Sonia a thief! Why, she’d give away her last penny!” and Katerina Ivanovna broke into hysterical laughter. “Did you ever see such an idiot?” she turned from side to side. “And you too?” she suddenly saw the landlady, “and you too, sausage eater, you declare that she is a thief, you trashy Prussian hen’s leg in a crinoline! She hasn’t been out of this room: she came straight from you, you wretch, and sat down beside me, everyone saw her. She sat here, by Rodion Romanovitch. Search her! Since she’s not left the room, the money would have to be on her! Search her, search her! But if you don’t find it, then excuse me, my dear fellow, you’ll answer for it! I’ll go to our Sovereign, to our Sovereign, to our gracious Tsar himself, and throw myself at his feet, to-day, this minute! I am alone in the world! They would let me in! Do you think they wouldn’t? You’re wrong, I will get in! I will get in! You reckoned on her meekness! You relied upon that! But I am not so submissive, let me tell you! You’ve gone too far yourself. Search her, search her!” And Katerina Ivanovna in a frenzy shook Luzhin and dragged him towards Sonia. “I am ready, I’ll be responsible... but calm yourself, madam, calm yourself. I see that you are not so submissive!... Well, well, but as to that...” Luzhin muttered, “that ought to be before the police... though indeed there are witnesses enough as it is.... I am ready.... But in any case it’s difficult for a man... on account of her sex.... But with the help of Amalia Ivanovna... though, of course, it’s not the way to do things.... How is it to be done?” “As you will! Let anyone who likes search her!” cried Katerina Ivanovna. “Sonia, turn out your pockets! See! Look, monster, the pocket is empty, here was her handkerchief! Here is the other pocket, look! D’you see, d’you see?” And Katerina Ivanovna turned--or rather snatched--both pockets inside out. But from the right pocket a piece of paper flew out and describing a parabola in the air fell at Luzhin’s feet. Everyone saw it, several cried out. Pyotr Petrovitch stooped down, picked up the paper in two fingers, lifted it where all could see it and opened it. It was a hundred-rouble note folded in eight. Pyotr Petrovitch held up the note showing it to everyone. “Thief! Out of my lodging. Police, police!” yelled Amalia Ivanovna. “They must to Siberia be sent! Away!” Exclamations arose on all sides. Raskolnikov was silent, keeping his eyes fixed on Sonia, except for an occasional rapid glance at Luzhin. Sonia stood still, as though unconscious. She was hardly able to feel surprise. Suddenly the colour rushed to her cheeks; she uttered a cry and hid her face in her hands. “No, it wasn’t I! I didn’t take it! I know nothing about it,” she cried with a heartrending wail, and she ran to Katerina Ivanovna, who clasped her tightly in her arms, as though she would shelter her from all the world. “Sonia! Sonia! I don’t believe it! You see, I don’t believe it!” she cried in the face of the obvious fact, swaying her to and fro in her arms like a baby, kissing her face continually, then snatching at her hands and kissing them, too, “you took it! How stupid these people are! Oh dear! You are fools, fools,” she cried, addressing the whole room, “you don’t know, you don’t know what a heart she has, what a girl she is! She take it, she? She’d sell her last rag, she’d go barefoot to help you if you needed it, that’s what she is! She has the yellow passport because my children were starving, she sold herself for us! Ah, husband, husband! Do you see? Do you see? What a memorial dinner for you! Merciful heavens! Defend her, why are you all standing still? Rodion Romanovitch, why don’t you stand up for her? Do you believe it, too? You are not worth her little finger, all of you together! Good God! Defend her now, at least!” The wail of the poor, consumptive, helpless woman seemed to produce a great effect on her audience. The agonised, wasted, consumptive face, the parched blood-stained lips, the hoarse voice, the tears unrestrained as a child’s, the trustful, childish and yet despairing prayer for help were so piteous that everyone seemed to feel for her. Pyotr Petrovitch at any rate was at once moved to _compassion_. “Madam, madam, this incident does not reflect upon you!” he cried impressively, “no one would take upon himself to accuse you of being an instigator or even an accomplice in it, especially as you have proved her guilt by turning out her pockets, showing that you had no previous idea of it. I am most ready, most ready to show compassion, if poverty, so to speak, drove Sofya Semyonovna to it, but why did you refuse to confess, mademoiselle? Were you afraid of the disgrace? The first step? You lost your head, perhaps? One can quite understand it.... But how could you have lowered yourself to such an action? Gentlemen,” he addressed the whole company, “gentlemen! Compassionate and, so to say, commiserating these people, I am ready to overlook it even now in spite of the personal insult lavished upon me! And may this disgrace be a lesson to you for the future,” he said, addressing Sonia, “and I will carry the matter no further. Enough!” Pyotr Petrovitch stole a glance at Raskolnikov. Their eyes met, and the fire in Raskolnikov’s seemed ready to reduce him to ashes. Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna apparently heard nothing. She was kissing and hugging Sonia like a madwoman. The children, too, were embracing Sonia on all sides, and Polenka--though she did not fully understand what was wrong--was drowned in tears and shaking with sobs, as she hid her pretty little face, swollen with weeping, on Sonia’s shoulder. “How vile!” a loud voice cried suddenly in the doorway. Pyotr Petrovitch looked round quickly. “What vileness!” Lebeziatnikov repeated, staring him straight in the face. Pyotr Petrovitch gave a positive start--all noticed it and recalled it afterwards. Lebeziatnikov strode into the room. “And you dared to call me as witness?” he said, going up to Pyotr Petrovitch. “What do you mean? What are you talking about?” muttered Luzhin. “I mean that you... are a slanderer, that’s what my words mean!” Lebeziatnikov said hotly, looking sternly at him with his short-sighted eyes. He was extremely angry. Raskolnikov gazed intently at him, as though seizing and weighing each word. Again there was a silence. Pyotr Petrovitch indeed seemed almost dumbfounded for the first moment. “If you mean that for me,...” he began, stammering. “But what’s the matter with you? Are you out of your mind?” “I’m in my mind, but you are a scoundrel! Ah, how vile! I have heard everything. I kept waiting on purpose to understand it, for I must own even now it is not quite logical.... What you have done it all for I can’t understand.” “Why, what have I done then? Give over talking in your nonsensical riddles! Or maybe you are drunk!” “You may be a drunkard, perhaps, vile man, but I am not! I never touch vodka, for it’s against my convictions. Would you believe it, he, he himself, with his own hands gave Sofya Semyonovna that hundred-rouble note--I saw it, I was a witness, I’ll take my oath! He did it, he!” repeated Lebeziatnikov, addressing all. “Are you crazy, milksop?” squealed Luzhin. “She is herself before you--she herself here declared just now before everyone that I gave her only ten roubles. How could I have given it to her?” “I saw it, I saw it,” Lebeziatnikov repeated, “and though it is against my principles, I am ready this very minute to take any oath you like before the court, for I saw how you slipped it in her pocket. Only like a fool I thought you did it out of kindness! When you were saying good-bye to her at the door, while you held her hand in one hand, with the other, the left, you slipped the note into her pocket. I saw it, I saw it!” Luzhin turned pale. “What lies!” he cried impudently, “why, how could you, standing by the window, see the note? You fancied it with your short-sighted eyes. You are raving!” “No, I didn’t fancy it. And though I was standing some way off, I saw it all. And though it certainly would be hard to distinguish a note from the window--that’s true--I knew for certain that it was a hundred-rouble note, because, when you were going to give Sofya Semyonovna ten roubles, you took up from the table a hundred-rouble note (I saw it because I was standing near then, and an idea struck me at once, so that I did not forget you had it in your hand). You folded it and kept it in your hand all the time. I didn’t think of it again until, when you were getting up, you changed it from your right hand to your left and nearly dropped it! I noticed it because the same idea struck me again, that you meant to do her a kindness without my seeing. You can fancy how I watched you and I saw how you succeeded in slipping it into her pocket. I saw it, I saw it, I’ll take my oath.” Lebeziatnikov was almost breathless. Exclamations arose on all hands chiefly expressive of wonder, but some were menacing in tone. They all crowded round Pyotr Petrovitch. Katerina Ivanovna flew to Lebeziatnikov. “I was mistaken in you! Protect her! You are the only one to take her part! She is an orphan. God has sent you!” Katerina Ivanovna, hardly knowing what she was doing, sank on her knees before him. “A pack of nonsense!” yelled Luzhin, roused to fury, “it’s all nonsense you’ve been talking! ‘An idea struck you, you didn’t think, you noticed’--what does it amount to? So I gave it to her on the sly on purpose? What for? With what object? What have I to do with this...?” “What for? That’s what I can’t understand, but that what I am telling you is the fact, that’s certain! So far from my being mistaken, you infamous criminal man, I remember how, on account of it, a question occurred to me at once, just when I was thanking you and pressing your hand. What made you put it secretly in her pocket? Why you did it secretly, I mean? Could it be simply to conceal it from me, knowing that my convictions are opposed to yours and that I do not approve of private benevolence, which effects no radical cure? Well, I decided that you really were ashamed of giving such a large sum before me. Perhaps, too, I thought, he wants to give her a surprise, when she finds a whole hundred-rouble note in her pocket. (For I know, some benevolent people are very fond of decking out their charitable actions in that way.) Then the idea struck me, too, that you wanted to test her, to see whether, when she found it, she would come to thank you. Then, too, that you wanted to avoid thanks and that, as the saying is, your right hand should not know... something of that sort, in fact. I thought of so many possibilities that I put off considering it, but still thought it indelicate to show you that I knew your secret. But another idea struck me again that Sofya Semyonovna might easily lose the money before she noticed it, that was why I decided to come in here to call her out of the room and to tell her that you put a hundred roubles in her pocket. But on my way I went first to Madame Kobilatnikov’s to take them the ‘General Treatise on the Positive Method’ and especially to recommend Piderit’s article (and also Wagner’s); then I come on here and what a state of things I find! Now could I, could I, have all these ideas and reflections if I had not seen you put the hundred-rouble note in her pocket?” When Lebeziatnikov finished his long-winded harangue with the logical deduction at the end, he was quite tired, and the perspiration streamed from his face. He could not, alas, even express himself correctly in Russian, though he knew no other language, so that he was quite exhausted, almost emaciated after this heroic exploit. But his speech produced a powerful effect. He had spoken with such vehemence, with such conviction that everyone obviously believed him. Pyotr Petrovitch felt that things were going badly with him. “What is it to do with me if silly ideas did occur to you?” he shouted, “that’s no evidence. You may have dreamt it, that’s all! And I tell you, you are lying, sir. You are lying and slandering from some spite against me, simply from pique, because I did not agree with your free-thinking, godless, social propositions!” But this retort did not benefit Pyotr Petrovitch. Murmurs of disapproval were heard on all sides. “Ah, that’s your line now, is it!” cried Lebeziatnikov, “that’s nonsense! Call the police and I’ll take my oath! There’s only one thing I can’t understand: what made him risk such a contemptible action. Oh, pitiful, despicable man!” “I can explain why he risked such an action, and if necessary, I, too, will swear to it,” Raskolnikov said at last in a firm voice, and he stepped forward. He appeared to be firm and composed. Everyone felt clearly, from the very look of him that he really knew about it and that the mystery would be solved. “Now I can explain it all to myself,” said Raskolnikov, addressing Lebeziatnikov. “From the very beginning of the business, I suspected that there was some scoundrelly intrigue at the bottom of it. I began to suspect it from some special circumstances known to me only, which I will explain at once to everyone: they account for everything. Your valuable evidence has finally made everything clear to me. I beg all, all to listen. This gentleman (he pointed to Luzhin) was recently engaged to be married to a young lady--my sister, Avdotya Romanovna Raskolnikov. But coming to Petersburg he quarrelled with me, the day before yesterday, at our first meeting and I drove him out of my room--I have two witnesses to prove it. He is a very spiteful man.... The day before yesterday I did not know that he was staying here, in your room, and that consequently on the very day we quarrelled--the day before yesterday--he saw me give Katerina Ivanovna some money for the funeral, as a friend of the late Mr. Marmeladov. He at once wrote a note to my mother and informed her that I had given away all my money, not to Katerina Ivanovna but to Sofya Semyonovna, and referred in a most contemptible way to the... character of Sofya Semyonovna, that is, hinted at the character of my attitude to Sofya Semyonovna. All this you understand was with the object of dividing me from my mother and sister, by insinuating that I was squandering on unworthy objects the money which they had sent me and which was all they had. Yesterday evening, before my mother and sister and in his presence, I declared that I had given the money to Katerina Ivanovna for the funeral and not to Sofya Semyonovna and that I had no acquaintance with Sofya Semyonovna and had never seen her before, indeed. At the same time I added that he, Pyotr Petrovitch Luzhin, with all his virtues, was not worth Sofya Semyonovna’s little finger, though he spoke so ill of her. To his question--would I let Sofya Semyonovna sit down beside my sister, I answered that I had already done so that day. Irritated that my mother and sister were unwilling to quarrel with me at his insinuations, he gradually began being unpardonably rude to them. A final rupture took place and he was turned out of the house. All this happened yesterday evening. Now I beg your special attention: consider: if he had now succeeded in proving that Sofya Semyonovna was a thief, he would have shown to my mother and sister that he was almost right in his suspicions, that he had reason to be angry at my putting my sister on a level with Sofya Semyonovna, that, in attacking me, he was protecting and preserving the honour of my sister, his betrothed. In fact he might even, through all this, have been able to estrange me from my family, and no doubt he hoped to be restored to favour with them; to say nothing of revenging himself on me personally, for he has grounds for supposing that the honour and happiness of Sofya Semyonovna are very precious to me. That was what he was working for! That’s how I understand it. That’s the whole reason for it and there can be no other!” It was like this, or somewhat like this, that Raskolnikov wound up his speech which was followed very attentively, though often interrupted by exclamations from his audience. But in spite of interruptions he spoke clearly, calmly, exactly, firmly. His decisive voice, his tone of conviction and his stern face made a great impression on everyone. “Yes, yes, that’s it,” Lebeziatnikov assented gleefully, “that must be it, for he asked me, as soon as Sofya Semyonovna came into our room, whether you were here, whether I had seen you among Katerina Ivanovna’s guests. He called me aside to the window and asked me in secret. It was essential for him that you should be here! That’s it, that’s it!” Luzhin smiled contemptuously and did not speak. But he was very pale. He seemed to be deliberating on some means of escape. Perhaps he would have been glad to give up everything and get away, but at the moment this was scarcely possible. It would have implied admitting the truth of the accusations brought against him. Moreover, the company, which had already been excited by drink, was now too much stirred to allow it. The commissariat clerk, though indeed he had not grasped the whole position, was shouting louder than anyone and was making some suggestions very unpleasant to Luzhin. But not all those present were drunk; lodgers came in from all the rooms. The three Poles were tremendously excited and were continually shouting at him: “The _pan_ is a _lajdak_!” and muttering threats in Polish. Sonia had been listening with strained attention, though she too seemed unable to grasp it all; she seemed as though she had just returned to consciousness. She did not take her eyes off Raskolnikov, feeling that all her safety lay in him. Katerina Ivanovna breathed hard and painfully and seemed fearfully exhausted. Amalia Ivanovna stood looking more stupid than anyone, with her mouth wide open, unable to make out what had happened. She only saw that Pyotr Petrovitch had somehow come to grief. Raskolnikov was attempting to speak again, but they did not let him. Everyone was crowding round Luzhin with threats and shouts of abuse. But Pyotr Petrovitch was not intimidated. Seeing that his accusation of Sonia had completely failed, he had recourse to insolence: “Allow me, gentlemen, allow me! Don’t squeeze, let me pass!” he said, making his way through the crowd. “And no threats, if you please! I assure you it will be useless, you will gain nothing by it. On the contrary, you’ll have to answer, gentlemen, for violently obstructing the course of justice. The thief has been more than unmasked, and I shall prosecute. Our judges are not so blind and... not so drunk, and will not believe the testimony of two notorious infidels, agitators, and atheists, who accuse me from motives of personal revenge which they are foolish enough to admit.... Yes, allow me to pass!” “Don’t let me find a trace of you in my room! Kindly leave at once, and everything is at an end between us! When I think of the trouble I’ve been taking, the way I’ve been expounding... all this fortnight!” “I told you myself to-day that I was going, when you tried to keep me; now I will simply add that you are a fool. I advise you to see a doctor for your brains and your short sight. Let me pass, gentlemen!” He forced his way through. But the commissariat clerk was unwilling to let him off so easily: he picked up a glass from the table, brandished it in the air and flung it at Pyotr Petrovitch; but the glass flew straight at Amalia Ivanovna. She screamed, and the clerk, overbalancing, fell heavily under the table. Pyotr Petrovitch made his way to his room and half an hour later had left the house. Sonia, timid by nature, had felt before that day that she could be ill-treated more easily than anyone, and that she could be wronged with impunity. Yet till that moment she had fancied that she might escape misfortune by care, gentleness and submissiveness before everyone. Her disappointment was too great. She could, of course, bear with patience and almost without murmur anything, even this. But for the first minute she felt it too bitter. In spite of her triumph and her justification--when her first terror and stupefaction had passed and she could understand it all clearly--the feeling of her helplessness and of the wrong done to her made her heart throb with anguish and she was overcome with hysterical weeping. At last, unable to bear any more, she rushed out of the room and ran home, almost immediately after Luzhin’s departure. When amidst loud laughter the glass flew at Amalia Ivanovna, it was more than the landlady could endure. With a shriek she rushed like a fury at Katerina Ivanovna, considering her to blame for everything. “Out of my lodgings! At once! Quick march!” And with these words she began snatching up everything she could lay her hands on that belonged to Katerina Ivanovna, and throwing it on the floor. Katerina Ivanovna, pale, almost fainting, and gasping for breath, jumped up from the bed where she had sunk in exhaustion and darted at Amalia Ivanovna. But the battle was too unequal: the landlady waved her away like a feather. “What! As though that godless calumny was not enough--this vile creature attacks me! What! On the day of my husband’s funeral I am turned out of my lodging! After eating my bread and salt she turns me into the street, with my orphans! Where am I to go?” wailed the poor woman, sobbing and gasping. “Good God!” she cried with flashing eyes, “is there no justice upon earth? Whom should you protect if not us orphans? We shall see! There is law and justice on earth, there is, I will find it! Wait a bit, godless creature! Polenka, stay with the children, I’ll come back. Wait for me, if you have to wait in the street. We will see whether there is justice on earth!” And throwing over her head that green shawl which Marmeladov had mentioned to Raskolnikov, Katerina Ivanovna squeezed her way through the disorderly and drunken crowd of lodgers who still filled the room, and, wailing and tearful, she ran into the street--with a vague intention of going at once somewhere to find justice. Polenka with the two little ones in her arms crouched, terrified, on the trunk in the corner of the room, where she waited trembling for her mother to come back. Amalia Ivanovna raged about the room, shrieking, lamenting and throwing everything she came across on the floor. The lodgers talked incoherently, some commented to the best of their ability on what had happened, others quarrelled and swore at one another, while others struck up a song.... “Now it’s time for me to go,” thought Raskolnikov. “Well, Sofya Semyonovna, we shall see what you’ll say now!” And he set off in the direction of Sonia’s lodgings. CHAPTER IV Raskolnikov had been a vigorous and active champion of Sonia against Luzhin, although he had such a load of horror and anguish in his own heart. But having gone through so much in the morning, he found a sort of relief in a change of sensations, apart from the strong personal feeling which impelled him to defend Sonia. He was agitated too, especially at some moments, by the thought of his approaching interview with Sonia: he _had_ to tell her who had killed Lizaveta. He knew the terrible suffering it would be to him and, as it were, brushed away the thought of it. So when he cried as he left Katerina Ivanovna’s, “Well, Sofya Semyonovna, we shall see what you’ll say now!” he was still superficially excited, still vigorous and defiant from his triumph over Luzhin. But, strange to say, by the time he reached Sonia’s lodging, he felt a sudden impotence and fear. He stood still in hesitation at the door, asking himself the strange question: “Must he tell her who killed Lizaveta?” It was a strange question because he felt at the very time not only that he could not help telling her, but also that he could not put off the telling. He did not yet know why it must be so, he only _felt_ it, and the agonising sense of his impotence before the inevitable almost crushed him. To cut short his hesitation and suffering, he quickly opened the door and looked at Sonia from the doorway. She was sitting with her elbows on the table and her face in her hands, but seeing Raskolnikov she got up at once and came to meet him as though she were expecting him. “What would have become of me but for you?” she said quickly, meeting him in the middle of the room. Evidently she was in haste to say this to him. It was what she had been waiting for. Raskolnikov went to the table and sat down on the chair from which she had only just risen. She stood facing him, two steps away, just as she had done the day before. “Well, Sonia?” he said, and felt that his voice was trembling, “it was all due to ‘your social position and the habits associated with it.’ Did you understand that just now?” Her face showed her distress. “Only don’t talk to me as you did yesterday,” she interrupted him. “Please don’t begin it. There is misery enough without that.” She made haste to smile, afraid that he might not like the reproach. “I was silly to come away from there. What is happening there now? I wanted to go back directly, but I kept thinking that... you would come.” He told her that Amalia Ivanovna was turning them out of their lodging and that Katerina Ivanovna had run off somewhere “to seek justice.” “My God!” cried Sonia, “let’s go at once....” And she snatched up her cape. “It’s everlastingly the same thing!” said Raskolnikov, irritably. “You’ve no thought except for them! Stay a little with me.” “But... Katerina Ivanovna?” “You won’t lose Katerina Ivanovna, you may be sure, she’ll come to you herself since she has run out,” he added peevishly. “If she doesn’t find you here, you’ll be blamed for it....” Sonia sat down in painful suspense. Raskolnikov was silent, gazing at the floor and deliberating. “This time Luzhin did not want to prosecute you,” he began, not looking at Sonia, “but if he had wanted to, if it had suited his plans, he would have sent you to prison if it had not been for Lebeziatnikov and me. Ah?” “Yes,” she assented in a faint voice. “Yes,” she repeated, preoccupied and distressed. “But I might easily not have been there. And it was quite an accident Lebeziatnikov’s turning up.” Sonia was silent. “And if you’d gone to prison, what then? Do you remember what I said yesterday?” Again she did not answer. He waited. “I thought you would cry out again ‘don’t speak of it, leave off.’” Raskolnikov gave a laugh, but rather a forced one. “What, silence again?” he asked a minute later. “We must talk about something, you know. It would be interesting for me to know how you would decide a certain ‘problem’ as Lebeziatnikov would say.” (He was beginning to lose the thread.) “No, really, I am serious. Imagine, Sonia, that you had known all Luzhin’s intentions beforehand. Known, that is, for a fact, that they would be the ruin of Katerina Ivanovna and the children and yourself thrown in--since you don’t count yourself for anything--Polenka too... for she’ll go the same way. Well, if suddenly it all depended on your decision whether he or they should go on living, that is whether Luzhin should go on living and doing wicked things, or Katerina Ivanovna should die? How would you decide which of them was to die? I ask you?” Sonia looked uneasily at him. There was something peculiar in this hesitating question, which seemed approaching something in a roundabout way. “I felt that you were going to ask some question like that,” she said, looking inquisitively at him. “I dare say you did. But how is it to be answered?” “Why do you ask about what could not happen?” said Sonia reluctantly. “Then it would be better for Luzhin to go on living and doing wicked things? You haven’t dared to decide even that!” “But I can’t know the Divine Providence.... And why do you ask what can’t be answered? What’s the use of such foolish questions? How could it happen that it should depend on my decision--who has made me a judge to decide who is to live and who is not to live?” “Oh, if the Divine Providence is to be mixed up in it, there is no doing anything,” Raskolnikov grumbled morosely. “You’d better say straight out what you want!” Sonia cried in distress. “You are leading up to something again.... Can you have come simply to torture me?” She could not control herself and began crying bitterly. He looked at her in gloomy misery. Five minutes passed. “Of course you’re right, Sonia,” he said softly at last. He was suddenly changed. His tone of assumed arrogance and helpless defiance was gone. Even his voice was suddenly weak. “I told you yesterday that I was not coming to ask forgiveness and almost the first thing I’ve said is to ask forgiveness.... I said that about Luzhin and Providence for my own sake. I was asking forgiveness, Sonia....” He tried to smile, but there was something helpless and incomplete in his pale smile. He bowed his head and hid his face in his hands. And suddenly a strange, surprising sensation of a sort of bitter hatred for Sonia passed through his heart. As it were wondering and frightened of this sensation, he raised his head and looked intently at her; but he met her uneasy and painfully anxious eyes fixed on him; there was love in them; his hatred vanished like a phantom. It was not the real feeling; he had taken the one feeling for the other. It only meant that _that_ minute had come. He hid his face in his hands again and bowed his head. Suddenly he turned pale, got up from his chair, looked at Sonia, and without uttering a word sat down mechanically on her bed. His sensations that moment were terribly like the moment when he had stood over the old woman with the axe in his hand and felt that “he must not lose another minute.” “What’s the matter?” asked Sonia, dreadfully frightened. He could not utter a word. This was not at all, not at all the way he had intended to “tell” and he did not understand what was happening to him now. She went up to him, softly, sat down on the bed beside him and waited, not taking her eyes off him. Her heart throbbed and sank. It was unendurable; he turned his deadly pale face to her. His lips worked, helplessly struggling to utter something. A pang of terror passed through Sonia’s heart. “What’s the matter?” she repeated, drawing a little away from him. “Nothing, Sonia, don’t be frightened.... It’s nonsense. It really is nonsense, if you think of it,” he muttered, like a man in delirium. “Why have I come to torture you?” he added suddenly, looking at her. “Why, really? I keep asking myself that question, Sonia....” He had perhaps been asking himself that question a quarter of an hour before, but now he spoke helplessly, hardly knowing what he said and feeling a continual tremor all over. “Oh, how you are suffering!” she muttered in distress, looking intently at him. “It’s all nonsense.... Listen, Sonia.” He suddenly smiled, a pale helpless smile for two seconds. “You remember what I meant to tell you yesterday?” Sonia waited uneasily. “I said as I went away that perhaps I was saying good-bye for ever, but that if I came to-day I would tell you who... who killed Lizaveta.” She began trembling all over. “Well, here I’ve come to tell you.” “Then you really meant it yesterday?” she whispered with difficulty. “How do you know?” she asked quickly, as though suddenly regaining her reason. Sonia’s face grew paler and paler, and she breathed painfully. “I know.” She paused a minute. “Have they found him?” she asked timidly. “No.” “Then how do you know about _it_?” she asked again, hardly audibly and again after a minute’s pause. He turned to her and looked very intently at her. “Guess,” he said, with the same distorted helpless smile. A shudder passed over her. “But you... why do you frighten me like this?” she said, smiling like a child. “I must be a great friend of _his_... since I know,” Raskolnikov went on, still gazing into her face, as though he could not turn his eyes away. “He... did not mean to kill that Lizaveta... he... killed her accidentally.... He meant to kill the old woman when she was alone and he went there... and then Lizaveta came in... he killed her too.” Another awful moment passed. Both still gazed at one another. “You can’t guess, then?” he asked suddenly, feeling as though he were flinging himself down from a steeple. “N-no...” whispered Sonia. “Take a good look.” As soon as he had said this again, the same familiar sensation froze his heart. He looked at her and all at once seemed to see in her face the face of Lizaveta. He remembered clearly the expression in Lizaveta’s face, when he approached her with the axe and she stepped back to the wall, putting out her hand, with childish terror in her face, looking as little children do when they begin to be frightened of something, looking intently and uneasily at what frightens them, shrinking back and holding out their little hands on the point of crying. Almost the same thing happened now to Sonia. With the same helplessness and the same terror, she looked at him for a while and, suddenly putting out her left hand, pressed her fingers faintly against his breast and slowly began to get up from the bed, moving further from him and keeping her eyes fixed even more immovably on him. Her terror infected him. The same fear showed itself on his face. In the same way he stared at her and almost with the same _childish_ smile. “Have you guessed?” he whispered at last. “Good God!” broke in an awful wail from her bosom. She sank helplessly on the bed with her face in the pillows, but a moment later she got up, moved quickly to him, seized both his hands and, gripping them tight in her thin fingers, began looking into his face again with the same intent stare. In this last desperate look she tried to look into him and catch some last hope. But there was no hope; there was no doubt remaining; it was all true! Later on, indeed, when she recalled that moment, she thought it strange and wondered why she had seen at once that there was no doubt. She could not have said, for instance, that she had foreseen something of the sort--and yet now, as soon as he told her, she suddenly fancied that she had really foreseen this very thing. “Stop, Sonia, enough! don’t torture me,” he begged her miserably. It was not at all, not at all like this he had thought of telling her, but this is how it happened. She jumped up, seeming not to know what she was doing, and, wringing her hands, walked into the middle of the room; but quickly went back and sat down again beside him, her shoulder almost touching his. All of a sudden she started as though she had been stabbed, uttered a cry and fell on her knees before him, she did not know why. “What have you done--what have you done to yourself?” she said in despair, and, jumping up, she flung herself on his neck, threw her arms round him, and held him tightly. Raskolnikov drew back and looked at her with a mournful smile. “You are a strange girl, Sonia--you kiss me and hug me when I tell you about that.... You don’t think what you are doing.” “There is no one--no one in the whole world now so unhappy as you!” she cried in a frenzy, not hearing what he said, and she suddenly broke into violent hysterical weeping. A feeling long unfamiliar to him flooded his heart and softened it at once. He did not struggle against it. Two tears started into his eyes and hung on his eyelashes. “Then you won’t leave me, Sonia?” he said, looking at her almost with hope. “No, no, never, nowhere!” cried Sonia. “I will follow you, I will follow you everywhere. Oh, my God! Oh, how miserable I am!... Why, why didn’t I know you before! Why didn’t you come before? Oh, dear!” “Here I have come.” “Yes, now! What’s to be done now?... Together, together!” she repeated as it were unconsciously, and she hugged him again. “I’ll follow you to Siberia!” He recoiled at this, and the same hostile, almost haughty smile came to his lips. “Perhaps I don’t want to go to Siberia yet, Sonia,” he said. Sonia looked at him quickly. Again after her first passionate, agonising sympathy for the unhappy man the terrible idea of the murder overwhelmed her. In his changed tone she seemed to hear the murderer speaking. She looked at him bewildered. She knew nothing as yet, why, how, with what object it had been. Now all these questions rushed at once into her mind. And again she could not believe it: “He, he is a murderer! Could it be true?” “What’s the meaning of it? Where am I?” she said in complete bewilderment, as though still unable to recover herself. “How could you, you, a man like you.... How could you bring yourself to it?... What does it mean?” “Oh, well--to plunder. Leave off, Sonia,” he answered wearily, almost with vexation. Sonia stood as though struck dumb, but suddenly she cried: “You were hungry! It was... to help your mother? Yes?” “No, Sonia, no,” he muttered, turning away and hanging his head. “I was not so hungry.... I certainly did want to help my mother, but... that’s not the real thing either.... Don’t torture me, Sonia.” Sonia clasped her hands. “Could it, could it all be true? Good God, what a truth! Who could believe it? And how could you give away your last farthing and yet rob and murder! Ah,” she cried suddenly, “that money you gave Katerina Ivanovna... that money.... Can that money...” “No, Sonia,” he broke in hurriedly, “that money was not it. Don’t worry yourself! That money my mother sent me and it came when I was ill, the day I gave it to you.... Razumihin saw it... he received it for me.... That money was mine--my own.” Sonia listened to him in bewilderment and did her utmost to comprehend. “And _that_ money.... I don’t even know really whether there was any money,” he added softly, as though reflecting. “I took a purse off her neck, made of chamois leather... a purse stuffed full of something... but I didn’t look in it; I suppose I hadn’t time.... And the things--chains and trinkets--I buried under a stone with the purse next morning in a yard off the V---- Prospect. They are all there now....” Sonia strained every nerve to listen. “Then why... why, you said you did it to rob, but you took nothing?” she asked quickly, catching at a straw. “I don’t know.... I haven’t yet decided whether to take that money or not,” he said, musing again; and, seeming to wake up with a start, he gave a brief ironical smile. “Ach, what silly stuff I am talking, eh?” The thought flashed through Sonia’s mind, wasn’t he mad? But she dismissed it at once. “No, it was something else.” She could make nothing of it, nothing. “Do you know, Sonia,” he said suddenly with conviction, “let me tell you: if I’d simply killed because I was hungry,” laying stress on every word and looking enigmatically but sincerely at her, “I should be _happy_ now. You must believe that! What would it matter to you,” he cried a moment later with a sort of despair, “what would it matter to you if I were to confess that I did wrong? What do you gain by such a stupid triumph over me? Ah, Sonia, was it for that I’ve come to you to-day?” Again Sonia tried to say something, but did not speak. “I asked you to go with me yesterday because you are all I have left.” “Go where?” asked Sonia timidly. “Not to steal and not to murder, don’t be anxious,” he smiled bitterly. “We are so different.... And you know, Sonia, it’s only now, only this moment that I understand _where_ I asked you to go with me yesterday! Yesterday when I said it I did not know where. I asked you for one thing, I came to you for one thing--not to leave me. You won’t leave me, Sonia?” She squeezed his hand. “And why, why did I tell her? Why did I let her know?” he cried a minute later in despair, looking with infinite anguish at her. “Here you expect an explanation from me, Sonia; you are sitting and waiting for it, I see that. But what can I tell you? You won’t understand and will only suffer misery... on my account! Well, you are crying and embracing me again. Why do you do it? Because I couldn’t bear my burden and have come to throw it on another: you suffer too, and I shall feel better! And can you love such a mean wretch?” “But aren’t you suffering, too?” cried Sonia. Again a wave of the same feeling surged into his heart, and again for an instant softened it. “Sonia, I have a bad heart, take note of that. It may explain a great deal. I have come because I am bad. There are men who wouldn’t have come. But I am a coward and... a mean wretch. But... never mind! That’s not the point. I must speak now, but I don’t know how to begin.” He paused and sank into thought. “Ach, we are so different,” he cried again, “we are not alike. And why, why did I come? I shall never forgive myself that.” “No, no, it was a good thing you came,” cried Sonia. “It’s better I should know, far better!” He looked at her with anguish. “What if it were really that?” he said, as though reaching a conclusion. “Yes, that’s what it was! I wanted to become a Napoleon, that is why I killed her.... Do you understand now?” “N-no,” Sonia whispered naïvely and timidly. “Only speak, speak, I shall understand, I shall understand _in myself_!” she kept begging him. “You’ll understand? Very well, we shall see!” He paused and was for some time lost in meditation. “It was like this: I asked myself one day this question--what if Napoleon, for instance, had happened to be in my place, and if he had not had Toulon nor Egypt nor the passage of Mont Blanc to begin his career with, but instead of all those picturesque and monumental things, there had simply been some ridiculous old hag, a pawnbroker, who had to be murdered too to get money from her trunk (for his career, you understand). Well, would he have brought himself to that if there had been no other means? Wouldn’t he have felt a pang at its being so far from monumental and... and sinful, too? Well, I must tell you that I worried myself fearfully over that ‘question’ so that I was awfully ashamed when I guessed at last (all of a sudden, somehow) that it would not have given him the least pang, that it would not even have struck him that it was not monumental... that he would not have seen that there was anything in it to pause over, and that, if he had had no other way, he would have strangled her in a minute without thinking about it! Well, I too... left off thinking about it... murdered her, following his example. And that’s exactly how it was! Do you think it funny? Yes, Sonia, the funniest thing of all is that perhaps that’s just how it was.” Sonia did not think it at all funny. “You had better tell me straight out... without examples,” she begged, still more timidly and scarcely audibly. He turned to her, looked sadly at her and took her hands. “You are right again, Sonia. Of course that’s all nonsense, it’s almost all talk! You see, you know of course that my mother has scarcely anything, my sister happened to have a good education and was condemned to drudge as a governess. All their hopes were centered on me. I was a student, but I couldn’t keep myself at the university and was forced for a time to leave it. Even if I had lingered on like that, in ten or twelve years I might (with luck) hope to be some sort of teacher or clerk with a salary of a thousand roubles” (he repeated it as though it were a lesson) “and by that time my mother would be worn out with grief and anxiety and I could not succeed in keeping her in comfort while my sister... well, my sister might well have fared worse! And it’s a hard thing to pass everything by all one’s life, to turn one’s back upon everything, to forget one’s mother and decorously accept the insults inflicted on one’s sister. Why should one? When one has buried them to burden oneself with others--wife and children--and to leave them again without a farthing? So I resolved to gain possession of the old woman’s money and to use it for my first years without worrying my mother, to keep myself at the university and for a little while after leaving it--and to do this all on a broad, thorough scale, so as to build up a completely new career and enter upon a new life of independence.... Well... that’s all.... Well, of course in killing the old woman I did wrong.... Well, that’s enough.” He struggled to the end of his speech in exhaustion and let his head sink. “Oh, that’s not it, that’s not it,” Sonia cried in distress. “How could one... no, that’s not right, not right.” “You see yourself that it’s not right. But I’ve spoken truly, it’s the truth.” “As though that could be the truth! Good God!” “I’ve only killed a louse, Sonia, a useless, loathsome, harmful creature.” “A human being--a louse!” “I too know it wasn’t a louse,” he answered, looking strangely at her. “But I am talking nonsense, Sonia,” he added. “I’ve been talking nonsense a long time.... That’s not it, you are right there. There were quite, quite other causes for it! I haven’t talked to anyone for so long, Sonia.... My head aches dreadfully now.” His eyes shone with feverish brilliance. He was almost delirious; an uneasy smile strayed on his lips. His terrible exhaustion could be seen through his excitement. Sonia saw how he was suffering. She too was growing dizzy. And he talked so strangely; it seemed somehow comprehensible, but yet... “But how, how! Good God!” And she wrung her hands in despair. “No, Sonia, that’s not it,” he began again suddenly, raising his head, as though a new and sudden train of thought had struck and as it were roused him--“that’s not it! Better... imagine--yes, it’s certainly better--imagine that I am vain, envious, malicious, base, vindictive and... well, perhaps with a tendency to insanity. (Let’s have it all out at once! They’ve talked of madness already, I noticed.) I told you just now I could not keep myself at the university. But do you know that perhaps I might have done? My mother would have sent me what I needed for the fees and I could have earned enough for clothes, boots and food, no doubt. Lessons had turned up at half a rouble. Razumihin works! But I turned sulky and wouldn’t. (Yes, sulkiness, that’s the right word for it!) I sat in my room like a spider. You’ve been in my den, you’ve seen it.... And do you know, Sonia, that low ceilings and tiny rooms cramp the soul and the mind? Ah, how I hated that garret! And yet I wouldn’t go out of it! I wouldn’t on purpose! I didn’t go out for days together, and I wouldn’t work, I wouldn’t even eat, I just lay there doing nothing. If Nastasya brought me anything, I ate it, if she didn’t, I went all day without; I wouldn’t ask, on purpose, from sulkiness! At night I had no light, I lay in the dark and I wouldn’t earn money for candles. I ought to have studied, but I sold my books; and the dust lies an inch thick on the notebooks on my table. I preferred lying still and thinking. And I kept thinking.... And I had dreams all the time, strange dreams of all sorts, no need to describe! Only then I began to fancy that... No, that’s not it! Again I am telling you wrong! You see I kept asking myself then: why am I so stupid that if others are stupid--and I know they are--yet I won’t be wiser? Then I saw, Sonia, that if one waits for everyone to get wiser it will take too long.... Afterwards I understood that that would never come to pass, that men won’t change and that nobody can alter it and that it’s not worth wasting effort over it. Yes, that’s so. That’s the law of their nature, Sonia,... that’s so!... And I know now, Sonia, that whoever is strong in mind and spirit will have power over them. Anyone who is greatly daring is right in their eyes. He who despises most things will be a lawgiver among them and he who dares most of all will be most in the right! So it has been till now and so it will always be. A man must be blind not to see it!” Though Raskolnikov looked at Sonia as he said this, he no longer cared whether she understood or not. The fever had complete hold of him; he was in a sort of gloomy ecstasy (he certainly had been too long without talking to anyone). Sonia felt that his gloomy creed had become his faith and code. “I divined then, Sonia,” he went on eagerly, “that power is only vouchsafed to the man who dares to stoop and pick it up. There is only one thing, one thing needful: one has only to dare! Then for the first time in my life an idea took shape in my mind which no one had ever thought of before me, no one! I saw clear as daylight how strange it is that not a single person living in this mad world has had the daring to go straight for it all and send it flying to the devil! I... I wanted _to have the daring_... and I killed her. I only wanted to have the daring, Sonia! That was the whole cause of it!” “Oh hush, hush,” cried Sonia, clasping her hands. “You turned away from God and God has smitten you, has given you over to the devil!” “Then Sonia, when I used to lie there in the dark and all this became clear to me, was it a temptation of the devil, eh?” “Hush, don’t laugh, blasphemer! You don’t understand, you don’t understand! Oh God! He won’t understand!” “Hush, Sonia! I am not laughing. I know myself that it was the devil leading me. Hush, Sonia, hush!” he repeated with gloomy insistence. “I know it all, I have thought it all over and over and whispered it all over to myself, lying there in the dark.... I’ve argued it all over with myself, every point of it, and I know it all, all! And how sick, how sick I was then of going over it all! I have kept wanting to forget it and make a new beginning, Sonia, and leave off thinking. And you don’t suppose that I went into it headlong like a fool? I went into it like a wise man, and that was just my destruction. And you mustn’t suppose that I didn’t know, for instance, that if I began to question myself whether I had the right to gain power--I certainly hadn’t the right--or that if I asked myself whether a human being is a louse it proved that it wasn’t so for me, though it might be for a man who would go straight to his goal without asking questions.... If I worried myself all those days, wondering whether Napoleon would have done it or not, I felt clearly of course that I wasn’t Napoleon. I had to endure all the agony of that battle of ideas, Sonia, and I longed to throw it off: I wanted to murder without casuistry, to murder for my own sake, for myself alone! I didn’t want to lie about it even to myself. It wasn’t to help my mother I did the murder--that’s nonsense--I didn’t do the murder to gain wealth and power and to become a benefactor of mankind. Nonsense! I simply did it; I did the murder for myself, for myself alone, and whether I became a benefactor to others, or spent my life like a spider catching men in my web and sucking the life out of men, I couldn’t have cared at that moment.... And it was not the money I wanted, Sonia, when I did it. It was not so much the money I wanted, but something else.... I know it all now.... Understand me! Perhaps I should never have committed a murder again. I wanted to find out something else; it was something else led me on. I wanted to find out then and quickly whether I was a louse like everybody else or a man. Whether I can step over barriers or not, whether I dare stoop to pick up or not, whether I am a trembling creature or whether I have the _right_...” “To kill? Have the right to kill?” Sonia clasped her hands. “Ach, Sonia!” he cried irritably and seemed about to make some retort, but was contemptuously silent. “Don’t interrupt me, Sonia. I want to prove one thing only, that the devil led me on then and he has shown me since that I had not the right to take that path, because I am just such a louse as all the rest. He was mocking me and here I’ve come to you now! Welcome your guest! If I were not a louse, should I have come to you? Listen: when I went then to the old woman’s I only went to _try_.... You may be sure of that!” “And you murdered her!” “But how did I murder her? Is that how men do murders? Do men go to commit a murder as I went then? I will tell you some day how I went! Did I murder the old woman? I murdered myself, not her! I crushed myself once for all, for ever.... But it was the devil that killed that old woman, not I. Enough, enough, Sonia, enough! Let me be!” he cried in a sudden spasm of agony, “let me be!” He leaned his elbows on his knees and squeezed his head in his hands as in a vise. “What suffering!” A wail of anguish broke from Sonia. “Well, what am I to do now?” he asked, suddenly raising his head and looking at her with a face hideously distorted by despair. “What are you to do?” she cried, jumping up, and her eyes that had been full of tears suddenly began to shine. “Stand up!” (She seized him by the shoulder, he got up, looking at her almost bewildered.) “Go at once, this very minute, stand at the cross-roads, bow down, first kiss the earth which you have defiled and then bow down to all the world and say to all men aloud, ‘I am a murderer!’ Then God will send you life again. Will you go, will you go?” she asked him, trembling all over, snatching his two hands, squeezing them tight in hers and gazing at him with eyes full of fire. He was amazed at her sudden ecstasy. “You mean Siberia, Sonia? I must give myself up?” he asked gloomily. “Suffer and expiate your sin by it, that’s what you must do.” “No! I am not going to them, Sonia!” “But how will you go on living? What will you live for?” cried Sonia, “how is it possible now? Why, how can you talk to your mother? (Oh, what will become of them now?) But what am I saying? You have abandoned your mother and your sister already. He has abandoned them already! Oh, God!” she cried, “why, he knows it all himself. How, how can he live by himself! What will become of you now?” “Don’t be a child, Sonia,” he said softly. “What wrong have I done them? Why should I go to them? What should I say to them? That’s only a phantom.... They destroy men by millions themselves and look on it as a virtue. They are knaves and scoundrels, Sonia! I am not going to them. And what should I say to them--that I murdered her, but did not dare to take the money and hid it under a stone?” he added with a bitter smile. “Why, they would laugh at me, and would call me a fool for not getting it. A coward and a fool! They wouldn’t understand and they don’t deserve to understand. Why should I go to them? I won’t. Don’t be a child, Sonia....” “It will be too much for you to bear, too much!” she repeated, holding out her hands in despairing supplication. “Perhaps I’ve been unfair to myself,” he observed gloomily, pondering, “perhaps after all I am a man and not a louse and I’ve been in too great a hurry to condemn myself. I’ll make another fight for it.” A haughty smile appeared on his lips. “What a burden to bear! And your whole life, your whole life!” “I shall get used to it,” he said grimly and thoughtfully. “Listen,” he began a minute later, “stop crying, it’s time to talk of the facts: I’ve come to tell you that the police are after me, on my track....” “Ach!” Sonia cried in terror. “Well, why do you cry out? You want me to go to Siberia and now you are frightened? But let me tell you: I shall not give myself up. I shall make a struggle for it and they won’t do anything to me. They’ve no real evidence. Yesterday I was in great danger and believed I was lost; but to-day things are going better. All the facts they know can be explained two ways, that’s to say I can turn their accusations to my credit, do you understand? And I shall, for I’ve learnt my lesson. But they will certainly arrest me. If it had not been for something that happened, they would have done so to-day for certain; perhaps even now they will arrest me to-day.... But that’s no matter, Sonia; they’ll let me out again... for there isn’t any real proof against me, and there won’t be, I give you my word for it. And they can’t convict a man on what they have against me. Enough.... I only tell you that you may know.... I will try to manage somehow to put it to my mother and sister so that they won’t be frightened.... My sister’s future is secure, however, now, I believe... and my mother’s must be too.... Well, that’s all. Be careful, though. Will you come and see me in prison when I am there?” “Oh, I will, I will.” They sat side by side, both mournful and dejected, as though they had been cast up by the tempest alone on some deserted shore. He looked at Sonia and felt how great was her love for him, and strange to say he felt it suddenly burdensome and painful to be so loved. Yes, it was a strange and awful sensation! On his way to see Sonia he had felt that all his hopes rested on her; he expected to be rid of at least part of his suffering, and now, when all her heart turned towards him, he suddenly felt that he was immeasurably unhappier than before. “Sonia,” he said, “you’d better not come and see me when I am in prison.” Sonia did not answer, she was crying. Several minutes passed. “Have you a cross on you?” she asked, as though suddenly thinking of it. He did not at first understand the question. “No, of course not. Here, take this one, of cypress wood. I have another, a copper one that belonged to Lizaveta. I changed with Lizaveta: she gave me her cross and I gave her my little ikon. I will wear Lizaveta’s now and give you this. Take it... it’s mine! It’s mine, you know,” she begged him. “We will go to suffer together, and together we will bear our cross!” “Give it me,” said Raskolnikov. He did not want to hurt her feelings. But immediately he drew back the hand he held out for the cross. “Not now, Sonia. Better later,” he added to comfort her. “Yes, yes, better,” she repeated with conviction, “when you go to meet your suffering, then put it on. You will come to me, I’ll put it on you, we will pray and go together.” At that moment someone knocked three times at the door. “Sofya Semyonovna, may I come in?” they heard in a very familiar and polite voice. Sonia rushed to the door in a fright. The flaxen head of Mr. Lebeziatnikov appeared at the door. CHAPTER V Lebeziatnikov looked perturbed. “I’ve come to you, Sofya Semyonovna,” he began. “Excuse me... I thought I should find you,” he said, addressing Raskolnikov suddenly, “that is, I didn’t mean anything... of that sort... But I just thought... Katerina Ivanovna has gone out of her mind,” he blurted out suddenly, turning from Raskolnikov to Sonia. Sonia screamed. “At least it seems so. But... we don’t know what to do, you see! She came back--she seems to have been turned out somewhere, perhaps beaten.... So it seems at least,... She had run to your father’s former chief, she didn’t find him at home: he was dining at some other general’s.... Only fancy, she rushed off there, to the other general’s, and, imagine, she was so persistent that she managed to get the chief to see her, had him fetched out from dinner, it seems. You can imagine what happened. She was turned out, of course; but, according to her own story, she abused him and threw something at him. One may well believe it.... How it is she wasn’t taken up, I can’t understand! Now she is telling everyone, including Amalia Ivanovna; but it’s difficult to understand her, she is screaming and flinging herself about.... Oh yes, she shouts that since everyone has abandoned her, she will take the children and go into the street with a barrel-organ, and the children will sing and dance, and she too, and collect money, and will go every day under the general’s window... ‘to let everyone see well-born children, whose father was an official, begging in the street.’ She keeps beating the children and they are all crying. She is teaching Lida to sing ‘My Village,’ the boy to dance, Polenka the same. She is tearing up all the clothes, and making them little caps like actors; she means to carry a tin basin and make it tinkle, instead of music.... She won’t listen to anything.... Imagine the state of things! It’s beyond anything!” Lebeziatnikov would have gone on, but Sonia, who had heard him almost breathless, snatched up her cloak and hat, and ran out of the room, putting on her things as she went. Raskolnikov followed her and Lebeziatnikov came after him. “She has certainly gone mad!” he said to Raskolnikov, as they went out into the street. “I didn’t want to frighten Sofya Semyonovna, so I said ‘it seemed like it,’ but there isn’t a doubt of it. They say that in consumption the tubercles sometimes occur in the brain; it’s a pity I know nothing of medicine. I did try to persuade her, but she wouldn’t listen.” “Did you talk to her about the tubercles?” “Not precisely of the tubercles. Besides, she wouldn’t have understood! But what I say is, that if you convince a person logically that he has nothing to cry about, he’ll stop crying. That’s clear. Is it your conviction that he won’t?” “Life would be too easy if it were so,” answered Raskolnikov. “Excuse me, excuse me; of course it would be rather difficult for Katerina Ivanovna to understand, but do you know that in Paris they have been conducting serious experiments as to the possibility of curing the insane, simply by logical argument? One professor there, a scientific man of standing, lately dead, believed in the possibility of such treatment. His idea was that there’s nothing really wrong with the physical organism of the insane, and that insanity is, so to say, a logical mistake, an error of judgment, an incorrect view of things. He gradually showed the madman his error and, would you believe it, they say he was successful? But as he made use of douches too, how far success was due to that treatment remains uncertain.... So it seems at least.” Raskolnikov had long ceased to listen. Reaching the house where he lived, he nodded to Lebeziatnikov and went in at the gate. Lebeziatnikov woke up with a start, looked about him and hurried on. Raskolnikov went into his little room and stood still in the middle of it. Why had he come back here? He looked at the yellow and tattered paper, at the dust, at his sofa.... From the yard came a loud continuous knocking; someone seemed to be hammering... He went to the window, rose on tiptoe and looked out into the yard for a long time with an air of absorbed attention. But the yard was empty and he could not see who was hammering. In the house on the left he saw some open windows; on the window-sills were pots of sickly-looking geraniums. Linen was hung out of the windows... He knew it all by heart. He turned away and sat down on the sofa. Never, never had he felt himself so fearfully alone! Yes, he felt once more that he would perhaps come to hate Sonia, now that he had made her more miserable. “Why had he gone to her to beg for her tears? What need had he to poison her life? Oh, the meanness of it!” “I will remain alone,” he said resolutely, “and she shall not come to the prison!” Five minutes later he raised his head with a strange smile. That was a strange thought. “Perhaps it really would be better in Siberia,” he thought suddenly. He could not have said how long he sat there with vague thoughts surging through his mind. All at once the door opened and Dounia came in. At first she stood still and looked at him from the doorway, just as he had done at Sonia; then she came in and sat down in the same place as yesterday, on the chair facing him. He looked silently and almost vacantly at her. “Don’t be angry, brother; I’ve only come for one minute,” said Dounia. Her face looked thoughtful but not stern. Her eyes were bright and soft. He saw that she too had come to him with love. “Brother, now I know all, _all_. Dmitri Prokofitch has explained and told me everything. They are worrying and persecuting you through a stupid and contemptible suspicion.... Dmitri Prokofitch told me that there is no danger, and that you are wrong in looking upon it with such horror. I don’t think so, and I fully understand how indignant you must be, and that that indignation may have a permanent effect on you. That’s what I am afraid of. As for your cutting yourself off from us, I don’t judge you, I don’t venture to judge you, and forgive me for having blamed you for it. I feel that I too, if I had so great a trouble, should keep away from everyone. I shall tell mother nothing _of this_, but I shall talk about you continually and shall tell her from you that you will come very soon. Don’t worry about her; _I_ will set her mind at rest; but don’t you try her too much--come once at least; remember that she is your mother. And now I have come simply to say” (Dounia began to get up) “that if you should need me or should need... all my life or anything... call me, and I’ll come. Good-bye!” She turned abruptly and went towards the door. “Dounia!” Raskolnikov stopped her and went towards her. “That Razumihin, Dmitri Prokofitch, is a very good fellow.” Dounia flushed slightly. “Well?” she asked, waiting a moment. “He is competent, hardworking, honest and capable of real love.... Good-bye, Dounia.” Dounia flushed crimson, then suddenly she took alarm. “But what does it mean, brother? Are we really parting for ever that you... give me such a parting message?” “Never mind.... Good-bye.” He turned away, and walked to the window. She stood a moment, looked at him uneasily, and went out troubled. No, he was not cold to her. There was an instant (the very last one) when he had longed to take her in his arms and _say good-bye_ to her, and even _to tell_ her, but he had not dared even to touch her hand. “Afterwards she may shudder when she remembers that I embraced her, and will feel that I stole her kiss.” “And would _she_ stand that test?” he went on a few minutes later to himself. “No, she wouldn’t; girls like that can’t stand things! They never do.” And he thought of Sonia. There was a breath of fresh air from the window. The daylight was fading. He took up his cap and went out. He could not, of course, and would not consider how ill he was. But all this continual anxiety and agony of mind could not but affect him. And if he were not lying in high fever it was perhaps just because this continual inner strain helped to keep him on his legs and in possession of his faculties. But this artificial excitement could not last long. He wandered aimlessly. The sun was setting. A special form of misery had begun to oppress him of late. There was nothing poignant, nothing acute about it; but there was a feeling of permanence, of eternity about it; it brought a foretaste of hopeless years of this cold leaden misery, a foretaste of an eternity “on a square yard of space.” Towards evening this sensation usually began to weigh on him more heavily. “With this idiotic, purely physical weakness, depending on the sunset or something, one can’t help doing something stupid! You’ll go to Dounia, as well as to Sonia,” he muttered bitterly. He heard his name called. He looked round. Lebeziatnikov rushed up to him. “Only fancy, I’ve been to your room looking for you. Only fancy, she’s carried out her plan, and taken away the children. Sofya Semyonovna and I have had a job to find them. She is rapping on a frying-pan and making the children dance. The children are crying. They keep stopping at the cross-roads and in front of shops; there’s a crowd of fools running after them. Come along!” “And Sonia?” Raskolnikov asked anxiously, hurrying after Lebeziatnikov. “Simply frantic. That is, it’s not Sofya Semyonovna’s frantic, but Katerina Ivanovna, though Sofya Semyonova’s frantic too. But Katerina Ivanovna is absolutely frantic. I tell you she is quite mad. They’ll be taken to the police. You can fancy what an effect that will have.... They are on the canal bank, near the bridge now, not far from Sofya Semyonovna’s, quite close.” On the canal bank near the bridge and not two houses away from the one where Sonia lodged, there was a crowd of people, consisting principally of gutter children. The hoarse broken voice of Katerina Ivanovna could be heard from the bridge, and it certainly was a strange spectacle likely to attract a street crowd. Katerina Ivanovna in her old dress with the green shawl, wearing a torn straw hat, crushed in a hideous way on one side, was really frantic. She was exhausted and breathless. Her wasted consumptive face looked more suffering than ever, and indeed out of doors in the sunshine a consumptive always looks worse than at home. But her excitement did not flag, and every moment her irritation grew more intense. She rushed at the children, shouted at them, coaxed them, told them before the crowd how to dance and what to sing, began explaining to them why it was necessary, and driven to desperation by their not understanding, beat them.... Then she would make a rush at the crowd; if she noticed any decently dressed person stopping to look, she immediately appealed to him to see what these children “from a genteel, one may say aristocratic, house” had been brought to. If she heard laughter or jeering in the crowd, she would rush at once at the scoffers and begin squabbling with them. Some people laughed, others shook their heads, but everyone felt curious at the sight of the madwoman with the frightened children. The frying-pan of which Lebeziatnikov had spoken was not there, at least Raskolnikov did not see it. But instead of rapping on the pan, Katerina Ivanovna began clapping her wasted hands, when she made Lida and Kolya dance and Polenka sing. She too joined in the singing, but broke down at the second note with a fearful cough, which made her curse in despair and even shed tears. What made her most furious was the weeping and terror of Kolya and Lida. Some effort had been made to dress the children up as street singers are dressed. The boy had on a turban made of something red and white to look like a Turk. There had been no costume for Lida; she simply had a red knitted cap, or rather a night cap that had belonged to Marmeladov, decorated with a broken piece of white ostrich feather, which had been Katerina Ivanovna’s grandmother’s and had been preserved as a family possession. Polenka was in her everyday dress; she looked in timid perplexity at her mother, and kept at her side, hiding her tears. She dimly realised her mother’s condition, and looked uneasily about her. She was terribly frightened of the street and the crowd. Sonia followed Katerina Ivanovna, weeping and beseeching her to return home, but Katerina Ivanovna was not to be persuaded. “Leave off, Sonia, leave off,” she shouted, speaking fast, panting and coughing. “You don’t know what you ask; you are like a child! I’ve told you before that I am not coming back to that drunken German. Let everyone, let all Petersburg see the children begging in the streets, though their father was an honourable man who served all his life in truth and fidelity, and one may say died in the service.” (Katerina Ivanovna had by now invented this fantastic story and thoroughly believed it.) “Let that wretch of a general see it! And you are silly, Sonia: what have we to eat? Tell me that. We have worried you enough, I won’t go on so! Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, is that you?” she cried, seeing Raskolnikov and rushing up to him. “Explain to this silly girl, please, that nothing better could be done! Even organ-grinders earn their living, and everyone will see at once that we are different, that we are an honourable and bereaved family reduced to beggary. And that general will lose his post, you’ll see! We shall perform under his windows every day, and if the Tsar drives by, I’ll fall on my knees, put the children before me, show them to him, and say ‘Defend us father.’ He is the father of the fatherless, he is merciful, he’ll protect us, you’ll see, and that wretch of a general.... Lida, _tenez vous droite_! Kolya, you’ll dance again. Why are you whimpering? Whimpering again! What are you afraid of, stupid? Goodness, what am I to do with them, Rodion Romanovitch? If you only knew how stupid they are! What’s one to do with such children?” And she, almost crying herself--which did not stop her uninterrupted, rapid flow of talk--pointed to the crying children. Raskolnikov tried to persuade her to go home, and even said, hoping to work on her vanity, that it was unseemly for her to be wandering about the streets like an organ-grinder, as she was intending to become the principal of a boarding-school. “A boarding-school, ha-ha-ha! A castle in the air,” cried Katerina Ivanovna, her laugh ending in a cough. “No, Rodion Romanovitch, that dream is over! All have forsaken us!... And that general.... You know, Rodion Romanovitch, I threw an inkpot at him--it happened to be standing in the waiting-room by the paper where you sign your name. I wrote my name, threw it at him and ran away. Oh, the scoundrels, the scoundrels! But enough of them, now I’ll provide for the children myself, I won’t bow down to anybody! She has had to bear enough for us!” she pointed to Sonia. “Polenka, how much have you got? Show me! What, only two farthings! Oh, the mean wretches! They give us nothing, only run after us, putting their tongues out. There, what is that blockhead laughing at?” (She pointed to a man in the crowd.) “It’s all because Kolya here is so stupid; I have such a bother with him. What do you want, Polenka? Tell me in French, _parlez-moi français_. Why, I’ve taught you, you know some phrases. Else how are you to show that you are of good family, well brought-up children, and not at all like other organ-grinders? We aren’t going to have a Punch and Judy show in the street, but to sing a genteel song.... Ah, yes,... What are we to sing? You keep putting me out, but we... you see, we are standing here, Rodion Romanovitch, to find something to sing and get money, something Kolya can dance to.... For, as you can fancy, our performance is all impromptu.... We must talk it over and rehearse it all thoroughly, and then we shall go to Nevsky, where there are far more people of good society, and we shall be noticed at once. Lida knows ‘My Village’ only, nothing but ‘My Village,’ and everyone sings that. We must sing something far more genteel.... Well, have you thought of anything, Polenka? If only you’d help your mother! My memory’s quite gone, or I should have thought of something. We really can’t sing ‘An Hussar.’ Ah, let us sing in French, ‘Cinq sous,’ I have taught it you, I have taught it you. And as it is in French, people will see at once that you are children of good family, and that will be much more touching.... You might sing ‘Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre,’ for that’s quite a child’s song and is sung as a lullaby in all the aristocratic houses. “_Marlborough s’en va-t-en guerre Ne sait quand reviendra_...” she began singing. “But no, better sing ‘Cinq sous.’ Now, Kolya, your hands on your hips, make haste, and you, Lida, keep turning the other way, and Polenka and I will sing and clap our hands! “_Cinq sous, cinq sous Pour monter notre menage_.” (Cough-cough-cough!) “Set your dress straight, Polenka, it’s slipped down on your shoulders,” she observed, panting from coughing. “Now it’s particularly necessary to behave nicely and genteelly, that all may see that you are well-born children. I said at the time that the bodice should be cut longer, and made of two widths. It was your fault, Sonia, with your advice to make it shorter, and now you see the child is quite deformed by it.... Why, you’re all crying again! What’s the matter, stupids? Come, Kolya, begin. Make haste, make haste! Oh, what an unbearable child! “Cinq sous, cinq sous. “A policeman again! What do you want?” A policeman was indeed forcing his way through the crowd. But at that moment a gentleman in civilian uniform and an overcoat--a solid-looking official of about fifty with a decoration on his neck (which delighted Katerina Ivanovna and had its effect on the policeman)--approached and without a word handed her a green three-rouble note. His face wore a look of genuine sympathy. Katerina Ivanovna took it and gave him a polite, even ceremonious, bow. “I thank you, honoured sir,” she began loftily. “The causes that have induced us (take the money, Polenka: you see there are generous and honourable people who are ready to help a poor gentlewoman in distress). You see, honoured sir, these orphans of good family--I might even say of aristocratic connections--and that wretch of a general sat eating grouse... and stamped at my disturbing him. ‘Your excellency,’ I said, ‘protect the orphans, for you knew my late husband, Semyon Zaharovitch, and on the very day of his death the basest of scoundrels slandered his only daughter.’... That policeman again! Protect me,” she cried to the official. “Why is that policeman edging up to me? We have only just run away from one of them. What do you want, fool?” “It’s forbidden in the streets. You mustn’t make a disturbance.” “It’s you’re making a disturbance. It’s just the same as if I were grinding an organ. What business is it of yours?” “You have to get a licence for an organ, and you haven’t got one, and in that way you collect a crowd. Where do you lodge?” “What, a license?” wailed Katerina Ivanovna. “I buried my husband to-day. What need of a license?” “Calm yourself, madam, calm yourself,” began the official. “Come along; I will escort you.... This is no place for you in the crowd. You are ill.” “Honoured sir, honoured sir, you don’t know,” screamed Katerina Ivanovna. “We are going to the Nevsky.... Sonia, Sonia! Where is she? She is crying too! What’s the matter with you all? Kolya, Lida, where are you going?” she cried suddenly in alarm. “Oh, silly children! Kolya, Lida, where are they off to?...” Kolya and Lida, scared out of their wits by the crowd, and their mother’s mad pranks, suddenly seized each other by the hand, and ran off at the sight of the policeman who wanted to take them away somewhere. Weeping and wailing, poor Katerina Ivanovna ran after them. She was a piteous and unseemly spectacle, as she ran, weeping and panting for breath. Sonia and Polenka rushed after them. “Bring them back, bring them back, Sonia! Oh stupid, ungrateful children!... Polenka! catch them.... It’s for your sakes I...” She stumbled as she ran and fell down. “She’s cut herself, she’s bleeding! Oh, dear!” cried Sonia, bending over her. All ran up and crowded around. Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov were the first at her side, the official too hastened up, and behind him the policeman who muttered, “Bother!” with a gesture of impatience, feeling that the job was going to be a troublesome one. “Pass on! Pass on!” he said to the crowd that pressed forward. “She’s dying,” someone shouted. “She’s gone out of her mind,” said another. “Lord have mercy upon us,” said a woman, crossing herself. “Have they caught the little girl and the boy? They’re being brought back, the elder one’s got them.... Ah, the naughty imps!” When they examined Katerina Ivanovna carefully, they saw that she had not cut herself against a stone, as Sonia thought, but that the blood that stained the pavement red was from her chest. “I’ve seen that before,” muttered the official to Raskolnikov and Lebeziatnikov; “that’s consumption; the blood flows and chokes the patient. I saw the same thing with a relative of my own not long ago... nearly a pint of blood, all in a minute.... What’s to be done though? She is dying.” “This way, this way, to my room!” Sonia implored. “I live here!... See, that house, the second from here.... Come to me, make haste,” she turned from one to the other. “Send for the doctor! Oh, dear!” Thanks to the official’s efforts, this plan was adopted, the policeman even helping to carry Katerina Ivanovna. She was carried to Sonia’s room, almost unconscious, and laid on the bed. The blood was still flowing, but she seemed to be coming to herself. Raskolnikov, Lebeziatnikov, and the official accompanied Sonia into the room and were followed by the policeman, who first drove back the crowd which followed to the very door. Polenka came in holding Kolya and Lida, who were trembling and weeping. Several persons came in too from the Kapernaumovs’ room; the landlord, a lame one-eyed man of strange appearance with whiskers and hair that stood up like a brush, his wife, a woman with an everlastingly scared expression, and several open-mouthed children with wonder-struck faces. Among these, Svidrigaïlov suddenly made his appearance. Raskolnikov looked at him with surprise, not understanding where he had come from and not having noticed him in the crowd. A doctor and priest wore spoken of. The official whispered to Raskolnikov that he thought it was too late now for the doctor, but he ordered him to be sent for. Kapernaumov ran himself. Meanwhile Katerina Ivanovna had regained her breath. The bleeding ceased for a time. She looked with sick but intent and penetrating eyes at Sonia, who stood pale and trembling, wiping the sweat from her brow with a handkerchief. At last she asked to be raised. They sat her up on the bed, supporting her on both sides. “Where are the children?” she said in a faint voice. “You’ve brought them, Polenka? Oh the sillies! Why did you run away.... Och!” Once more her parched lips were covered with blood. She moved her eyes, looking about her. “So that’s how you live, Sonia! Never once have I been in your room.” She looked at her with a face of suffering. “We have been your ruin, Sonia. Polenka, Lida, Kolya, come here! Well, here they are, Sonia, take them all! I hand them over to you, I’ve had enough! The ball is over.” (Cough!) “Lay me down, let me die in peace.” They laid her back on the pillow. “What, the priest? I don’t want him. You haven’t got a rouble to spare. I have no sins. God must forgive me without that. He knows how I have suffered.... And if He won’t forgive me, I don’t care!” She sank more and more into uneasy delirium. At times she shuddered, turned her eyes from side to side, recognised everyone for a minute, but at once sank into delirium again. Her breathing was hoarse and difficult, there was a sort of rattle in her throat. “I said to him, your excellency,” she ejaculated, gasping after each word. “That Amalia Ludwigovna, ah! Lida, Kolya, hands on your hips, make haste! _Glissez, glissez! pas de basque!_ Tap with your heels, be a graceful child! “_Du hast Diamanten und Perlen_ “What next? That’s the thing to sing. “_Du hast die schönsten Augen Mädchen, was willst du mehr?_ “What an idea! _Was willst du mehr?_ What things the fool invents! Ah, yes! “In the heat of midday in the vale of Dagestan. “Ah, how I loved it! I loved that song to distraction, Polenka! Your father, you know, used to sing it when we were engaged.... Oh those days! Oh that’s the thing for us to sing! How does it go? I’ve forgotten. Remind me! How was it?” She was violently excited and tried to sit up. At last, in a horribly hoarse, broken voice, she began, shrieking and gasping at every word, with a look of growing terror. “In the heat of midday!... in the vale!... of Dagestan!... With lead in my breast!...” “Your excellency!” she wailed suddenly with a heart-rending scream and a flood of tears, “protect the orphans! You have been their father’s guest... one may say aristocratic....” She started, regaining consciousness, and gazed at all with a sort of terror, but at once recognised Sonia. “Sonia, Sonia!” she articulated softly and caressingly, as though surprised to find her there. “Sonia darling, are you here, too?” They lifted her up again. “Enough! It’s over! Farewell, poor thing! I am done for! I am broken!” she cried with vindictive despair, and her head fell heavily back on the pillow. She sank into unconsciousness again, but this time it did not last long. Her pale, yellow, wasted face dropped back, her mouth fell open, her leg moved convulsively, she gave a deep, deep sigh and died. Sonia fell upon her, flung her arms about her, and remained motionless with her head pressed to the dead woman’s wasted bosom. Polenka threw herself at her mother’s feet, kissing them and weeping violently. Though Kolya and Lida did not understand what had happened, they had a feeling that it was something terrible; they put their hands on each other’s little shoulders, stared straight at one another and both at once opened their mouths and began screaming. They were both still in their fancy dress; one in a turban, the other in the cap with the ostrich feather. And how did “the certificate of merit” come to be on the bed beside Katerina Ivanovna? It lay there by the pillow; Raskolnikov saw it. He walked away to the window. Lebeziatnikov skipped up to him. “She is dead,” he said. “Rodion Romanovitch, I must have two words with you,” said Svidrigaïlov, coming up to them. Lebeziatnikov at once made room for him and delicately withdrew. Svidrigaïlov drew Raskolnikov further away. “I will undertake all the arrangements, the funeral and that. You know it’s a question of money and, as I told you, I have plenty to spare. I will put those two little ones and Polenka into some good orphan asylum, and I will settle fifteen hundred roubles to be paid to each on coming of age, so that Sofya Semyonovna need have no anxiety about them. And I will pull her out of the mud too, for she is a good girl, isn’t she? So tell Avdotya Romanovna that that is how I am spending her ten thousand.” “What is your motive for such benevolence?” asked Raskolnikov. “Ah! you sceptical person!” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “I told you I had no need of that money. Won’t you admit that it’s simply done from humanity? She wasn’t ‘a louse,’ you know” (he pointed to the corner where the dead woman lay), “was she, like some old pawnbroker woman? Come, you’ll agree, is Luzhin to go on living, and doing wicked things or is she to die? And if I didn’t help them, Polenka would go the same way.” He said this with an air of a sort of gay winking slyness, keeping his eyes fixed on Raskolnikov, who turned white and cold, hearing his own phrases, spoken to Sonia. He quickly stepped back and looked wildly at Svidrigaïlov. “How do you know?” he whispered, hardly able to breathe. “Why, I lodge here at Madame Resslich’s, the other side of the wall. Here is Kapernaumov, and there lives Madame Resslich, an old and devoted friend of mine. I am a neighbour.” “You?” “Yes,” continued Svidrigaïlov, shaking with laughter. “I assure you on my honour, dear Rodion Romanovitch, that you have interested me enormously. I told you we should become friends, I foretold it. Well, here we have. And you will see what an accommodating person I am. You’ll see that you can get on with me!” PART VI CHAPTER I A strange period began for Raskolnikov: it was as though a fog had fallen upon him and wrapped him in a dreary solitude from which there was no escape. Recalling that period long after, he believed that his mind had been clouded at times, and that it had continued so, with intervals, till the final catastrophe. He was convinced that he had been mistaken about many things at that time, for instance as to the date of certain events. Anyway, when he tried later on to piece his recollections together, he learnt a great deal about himself from what other people told him. He had mixed up incidents and had explained events as due to circumstances which existed only in his imagination. At times he was a prey to agonies of morbid uneasiness, amounting sometimes to panic. But he remembered, too, moments, hours, perhaps whole days, of complete apathy, which came upon him as a reaction from his previous terror and might be compared with the abnormal insensibility, sometimes seen in the dying. He seemed to be trying in that latter stage to escape from a full and clear understanding of his position. Certain essential facts which required immediate consideration were particularly irksome to him. How glad he would have been to be free from some cares, the neglect of which would have threatened him with complete, inevitable ruin. He was particularly worried about Svidrigaïlov, he might be said to be permanently thinking of Svidrigaïlov. From the time of Svidrigaïlov’s too menacing and unmistakable words in Sonia’s room at the moment of Katerina Ivanovna’s death, the normal working of his mind seemed to break down. But although this new fact caused him extreme uneasiness, Raskolnikov was in no hurry for an explanation of it. At times, finding himself in a solitary and remote part of the town, in some wretched eating-house, sitting alone lost in thought, hardly knowing how he had come there, he suddenly thought of Svidrigaïlov. He recognised suddenly, clearly, and with dismay that he ought at once to come to an understanding with that man and to make what terms he could. Walking outside the city gates one day, he positively fancied that they had fixed a meeting there, that he was waiting for Svidrigaïlov. Another time he woke up before daybreak lying on the ground under some bushes and could not at first understand how he had come there. But during the two or three days after Katerina Ivanovna’s death, he had two or three times met Svidrigaïlov at Sonia’s lodging, where he had gone aimlessly for a moment. They exchanged a few words and made no reference to the vital subject, as though they were tacitly agreed not to speak of it for a time. Katerina Ivanovna’s body was still lying in the coffin, Svidrigaïlov was busy making arrangements for the funeral. Sonia too was very busy. At their last meeting Svidrigaïlov informed Raskolnikov that he had made an arrangement, and a very satisfactory one, for Katerina Ivanovna’s children; that he had, through certain connections, succeeded in getting hold of certain personages by whose help the three orphans could be at once placed in very suitable institutions; that the money he had settled on them had been of great assistance, as it is much easier to place orphans with some property than destitute ones. He said something too about Sonia and promised to come himself in a day or two to see Raskolnikov, mentioning that “he would like to consult with him, that there were things they must talk over....” This conversation took place in the passage on the stairs. Svidrigaïlov looked intently at Raskolnikov and suddenly, after a brief pause, dropping his voice, asked: “But how is it, Rodion Romanovitch; you don’t seem yourself? You look and you listen, but you don’t seem to understand. Cheer up! We’ll talk things over; I am only sorry, I’ve so much to do of my own business and other people’s. Ah, Rodion Romanovitch,” he added suddenly, “what all men need is fresh air, fresh air... more than anything!” He moved to one side to make way for the priest and server, who were coming up the stairs. They had come for the requiem service. By Svidrigaïlov’s orders it was sung twice a day punctually. Svidrigaïlov went his way. Raskolnikov stood still a moment, thought, and followed the priest into Sonia’s room. He stood at the door. They began quietly, slowly and mournfully singing the service. From his childhood the thought of death and the presence of death had something oppressive and mysteriously awful; and it was long since he had heard the requiem service. And there was something else here as well, too awful and disturbing. He looked at the children: they were all kneeling by the coffin; Polenka was weeping. Behind them Sonia prayed, softly and, as it were, timidly weeping. “These last two days she hasn’t said a word to me, she hasn’t glanced at me,” Raskolnikov thought suddenly. The sunlight was bright in the room; the incense rose in clouds; the priest read, “Give rest, oh Lord....” Raskolnikov stayed all through the service. As he blessed them and took his leave, the priest looked round strangely. After the service, Raskolnikov went up to Sonia. She took both his hands and let her head sink on his shoulder. This slight friendly gesture bewildered Raskolnikov. It seemed strange to him that there was no trace of repugnance, no trace of disgust, no tremor in her hand. It was the furthest limit of self-abnegation, at least so he interpreted it. Sonia said nothing. Raskolnikov pressed her hand and went out. He felt very miserable. If it had been possible to escape to some solitude, he would have thought himself lucky, even if he had to spend his whole life there. But although he had almost always been by himself of late, he had never been able to feel alone. Sometimes he walked out of the town on to the high road, once he had even reached a little wood, but the lonelier the place was, the more he seemed to be aware of an uneasy presence near him. It did not frighten him, but greatly annoyed him, so that he made haste to return to the town, to mingle with the crowd, to enter restaurants and taverns, to walk in busy thoroughfares. There he felt easier and even more solitary. One day at dusk he sat for an hour listening to songs in a tavern and he remembered that he positively enjoyed it. But at last he had suddenly felt the same uneasiness again, as though his conscience smote him. “Here I sit listening to singing, is that what I ought to be doing?” he thought. Yet he felt at once that that was not the only cause of his uneasiness; there was something requiring immediate decision, but it was something he could not clearly understand or put into words. It was a hopeless tangle. “No, better the struggle again! Better Porfiry again... or Svidrigaïlov.... Better some challenge again... some attack. Yes, yes!” he thought. He went out of the tavern and rushed away almost at a run. The thought of Dounia and his mother suddenly reduced him almost to a panic. That night he woke up before morning among some bushes in Krestovsky Island, trembling all over with fever; he walked home, and it was early morning when he arrived. After some hours’ sleep the fever left him, but he woke up late, two o’clock in the afternoon. He remembered that Katerina Ivanovna’s funeral had been fixed for that day, and was glad that he was not present at it. Nastasya brought him some food; he ate and drank with appetite, almost with greediness. His head was fresher and he was calmer than he had been for the last three days. He even felt a passing wonder at his previous attacks of panic. The door opened and Razumihin came in. “Ah, he’s eating, then he’s not ill,” said Razumihin. He took a chair and sat down at the table opposite Raskolnikov. He was troubled and did not attempt to conceal it. He spoke with evident annoyance, but without hurry or raising his voice. He looked as though he had some special fixed determination. “Listen,” he began resolutely. “As far as I am concerned, you may all go to hell, but from what I see, it’s clear to me that I can’t make head or tail of it; please don’t think I’ve come to ask you questions. I don’t want to know, hang it! If you begin telling me your secrets, I dare say I shouldn’t stay to listen, I should go away cursing. I have only come to find out once for all whether it’s a fact that you are mad? There is a conviction in the air that you are mad or very nearly so. I admit I’ve been disposed to that opinion myself, judging from your stupid, repulsive and quite inexplicable actions, and from your recent behavior to your mother and sister. Only a monster or a madman could treat them as you have; so you must be mad.” “When did you see them last?” “Just now. Haven’t you seen them since then? What have you been doing with yourself? Tell me, please. I’ve been to you three times already. Your mother has been seriously ill since yesterday. She had made up her mind to come to you; Avdotya Romanovna tried to prevent her; she wouldn’t hear a word. ‘If he is ill, if his mind is giving way, who can look after him like his mother?’ she said. We all came here together, we couldn’t let her come alone all the way. We kept begging her to be calm. We came in, you weren’t here; she sat down, and stayed ten minutes, while we stood waiting in silence. She got up and said: ‘If he’s gone out, that is, if he is well, and has forgotten his mother, it’s humiliating and unseemly for his mother to stand at his door begging for kindness.’ She returned home and took to her bed; now she is in a fever. ‘I see,’ she said, ‘that he has time for _his girl_.’ She means by _your girl_ Sofya Semyonovna, your betrothed or your mistress, I don’t know. I went at once to Sofya Semyonovna’s, for I wanted to know what was going on. I looked round, I saw the coffin, the children crying, and Sofya Semyonovna trying them on mourning dresses. No sign of you. I apologised, came away, and reported to Avdotya Romanovna. So that’s all nonsense and you haven’t got a girl; the most likely thing is that you are mad. But here you sit, guzzling boiled beef as though you’d not had a bite for three days. Though as far as that goes, madmen eat too, but though you have not said a word to me yet... you are not mad! That I’d swear! Above all, you are not mad! So you may go to hell, all of you, for there’s some mystery, some secret about it, and I don’t intend to worry my brains over your secrets. So I’ve simply come to swear at you,” he finished, getting up, “to relieve my mind. And I know what to do now.” “What do you mean to do now?” “What business is it of yours what I mean to do?” “You are going in for a drinking bout.” “How... how did you know?” “Why, it’s pretty plain.” Razumihin paused for a minute. “You always have been a very rational person and you’ve never been mad, never,” he observed suddenly with warmth. “You’re right: I shall drink. Good-bye!” And he moved to go out. “I was talking with my sister--the day before yesterday, I think it was--about you, Razumihin.” “About me! But... where can you have seen her the day before yesterday?” Razumihin stopped short and even turned a little pale. One could see that his heart was throbbing slowly and violently. “She came here by herself, sat there and talked to me.” “She did!” “Yes.” “What did you say to her... I mean, about me?” “I told her you were a very good, honest, and industrious man. I didn’t tell her you love her, because she knows that herself.” “She knows that herself?” “Well, it’s pretty plain. Wherever I might go, whatever happened to me, you would remain to look after them. I, so to speak, give them into your keeping, Razumihin. I say this because I know quite well how you love her, and am convinced of the purity of your heart. I know that she too may love you and perhaps does love you already. Now decide for yourself, as you know best, whether you need go in for a drinking bout or not.” “Rodya! You see... well.... Ach, damn it! But where do you mean to go? Of course, if it’s all a secret, never mind.... But I... I shall find out the secret... and I am sure that it must be some ridiculous nonsense and that you’ve made it all up. Anyway you are a capital fellow, a capital fellow!...” “That was just what I wanted to add, only you interrupted, that that was a very good decision of yours not to find out these secrets. Leave it to time, don’t worry about it. You’ll know it all in time when it must be. Yesterday a man said to me that what a man needs is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air. I mean to go to him directly to find out what he meant by that.” Razumihin stood lost in thought and excitement, making a silent conclusion. “He’s a political conspirator! He must be. And he’s on the eve of some desperate step, that’s certain. It can only be that! And... and Dounia knows,” he thought suddenly. “So Avdotya Romanovna comes to see you,” he said, weighing each syllable, “and you’re going to see a man who says we need more air, and so of course that letter... that too must have something to do with it,” he concluded to himself. “What letter?” “She got a letter to-day. It upset her very much--very much indeed. Too much so. I began speaking of you, she begged me not to. Then... then she said that perhaps we should very soon have to part... then she began warmly thanking me for something; then she went to her room and locked herself in.” “She got a letter?” Raskolnikov asked thoughtfully. “Yes, and you didn’t know? hm...” They were both silent. “Good-bye, Rodion. There was a time, brother, when I.... Never mind, good-bye. You see, there was a time.... Well, good-bye! I must be off too. I am not going to drink. There’s no need now.... That’s all stuff!” He hurried out; but when he had almost closed the door behind him, he suddenly opened it again, and said, looking away: “Oh, by the way, do you remember that murder, you know Porfiry’s, that old woman? Do you know the murderer has been found, he has confessed and given the proofs. It’s one of those very workmen, the painter, only fancy! Do you remember I defended them here? Would you believe it, all that scene of fighting and laughing with his companions on the stairs while the porter and the two witnesses were going up, he got up on purpose to disarm suspicion. The cunning, the presence of mind of the young dog! One can hardly credit it; but it’s his own explanation, he has confessed it all. And what a fool I was about it! Well, he’s simply a genius of hypocrisy and resourcefulness in disarming the suspicions of the lawyers--so there’s nothing much to wonder at, I suppose! Of course people like that are always possible. And the fact that he couldn’t keep up the character, but confessed, makes him easier to believe in. But what a fool I was! I was frantic on their side!” “Tell me, please, from whom did you hear that, and why does it interest you so?” Raskolnikov asked with unmistakable agitation. “What next? You ask me why it interests me!... Well, I heard it from Porfiry, among others... It was from him I heard almost all about it.” “From Porfiry?” “From Porfiry.” “What... what did he say?” Raskolnikov asked in dismay. “He gave me a capital explanation of it. Psychologically, after his fashion.” “He explained it? Explained it himself?” “Yes, yes; good-bye. I’ll tell you all about it another time, but now I’m busy. There was a time when I fancied... But no matter, another time!... What need is there for me to drink now? You have made me drunk without wine. I am drunk, Rodya! Good-bye, I’m going. I’ll come again very soon.” He went out. “He’s a political conspirator, there’s not a doubt about it,” Razumihin decided, as he slowly descended the stairs. “And he’s drawn his sister in; that’s quite, quite in keeping with Avdotya Romanovna’s character. There are interviews between them!... She hinted at it too... So many of her words.... and hints... bear that meaning! And how else can all this tangle be explained? Hm! And I was almost thinking... Good heavens, what I thought! Yes, I took leave of my senses and I wronged him! It was his doing, under the lamp in the corridor that day. Pfoo! What a crude, nasty, vile idea on my part! Nikolay is a brick, for confessing.... And how clear it all is now! His illness then, all his strange actions... before this, in the university, how morose he used to be, how gloomy.... But what’s the meaning now of that letter? There’s something in that, too, perhaps. Whom was it from? I suspect...! No, I must find out!” He thought of Dounia, realising all he had heard and his heart throbbed, and he suddenly broke into a run. As soon as Razumihin went out, Raskolnikov got up, turned to the window, walked into one corner and then into another, as though forgetting the smallness of his room, and sat down again on the sofa. He felt, so to speak, renewed; again the struggle, so a means of escape had come. “Yes, a means of escape had come! It had been too stifling, too cramping, the burden had been too agonising. A lethargy had come upon him at times. From the moment of the scene with Nikolay at Porfiry’s he had been suffocating, penned in without hope of escape. After Nikolay’s confession, on that very day had come the scene with Sonia; his behaviour and his last words had been utterly unlike anything he could have imagined beforehand; he had grown feebler, instantly and fundamentally! And he had agreed at the time with Sonia, he had agreed in his heart he could not go on living alone with such a thing on his mind! “And Svidrigaïlov was a riddle... He worried him, that was true, but somehow not on the same point. He might still have a struggle to come with Svidrigaïlov. Svidrigaïlov, too, might be a means of escape; but Porfiry was a different matter. “And so Porfiry himself had explained it to Razumihin, had explained it _psychologically_. He had begun bringing in his damned psychology again! Porfiry? But to think that Porfiry should for one moment believe that Nikolay was guilty, after what had passed between them before Nikolay’s appearance, after that tête-à-tête interview, which could have only _one_ explanation? (During those days Raskolnikov had often recalled passages in that scene with Porfiry; he could not bear to let his mind rest on it.) Such words, such gestures had passed between them, they had exchanged such glances, things had been said in such a tone and had reached such a pass, that Nikolay, whom Porfiry had seen through at the first word, at the first gesture, could not have shaken his conviction. “And to think that even Razumihin had begun to suspect! The scene in the corridor under the lamp had produced its effect then. He had rushed to Porfiry.... But what had induced the latter to receive him like that? What had been his object in putting Razumihin off with Nikolay? He must have some plan; there was some design, but what was it? It was true that a long time had passed since that morning--too long a time--and no sight nor sound of Porfiry. Well, that was a bad sign....” Raskolnikov took his cap and went out of the room, still pondering. It was the first time for a long while that he had felt clear in his mind, at least. “I must settle Svidrigaïlov,” he thought, “and as soon as possible; he, too, seems to be waiting for me to come to him of my own accord.” And at that moment there was such a rush of hate in his weary heart that he might have killed either of those two--Porfiry or Svidrigaïlov. At least he felt that he would be capable of doing it later, if not now. “We shall see, we shall see,” he repeated to himself. But no sooner had he opened the door than he stumbled upon Porfiry himself in the passage. He was coming in to see him. Raskolnikov was dumbfounded for a minute, but only for one minute. Strange to say, he was not very much astonished at seeing Porfiry and scarcely afraid of him. He was simply startled, but was quickly, instantly, on his guard. “Perhaps this will mean the end? But how could Porfiry have approached so quietly, like a cat, so that he had heard nothing? Could he have been listening at the door?” “You didn’t expect a visitor, Rodion Romanovitch,” Porfiry explained, laughing. “I’ve been meaning to look in a long time; I was passing by and thought why not go in for five minutes. Are you going out? I won’t keep you long. Just let me have one cigarette.” “Sit down, Porfiry Petrovitch, sit down.” Raskolnikov gave his visitor a seat with so pleased and friendly an expression that he would have marvelled at himself, if he could have seen it. The last moment had come, the last drops had to be drained! So a man will sometimes go through half an hour of mortal terror with a brigand, yet when the knife is at his throat at last, he feels no fear. Raskolnikov seated himself directly facing Porfiry, and looked at him without flinching. Porfiry screwed up his eyes and began lighting a cigarette. “Speak, speak,” seemed as though it would burst from Raskolnikov’s heart. “Come, why don’t you speak?” CHAPTER II “Ah these cigarettes!” Porfiry Petrovitch ejaculated at last, having lighted one. “They are pernicious, positively pernicious, and yet I can’t give them up! I cough, I begin to have tickling in my throat and a difficulty in breathing. You know I am a coward, I went lately to Dr. B----n; he always gives at least half an hour to each patient. He positively laughed looking at me; he sounded me: ‘Tobacco’s bad for you,’ he said, ‘your lungs are affected.’ But how am I to give it up? What is there to take its place? I don’t drink, that’s the mischief, he-he-he, that I don’t. Everything is relative, Rodion Romanovitch, everything is relative!” “Why, he’s playing his professional tricks again,” Raskolnikov thought with disgust. All the circumstances of their last interview suddenly came back to him, and he felt a rush of the feeling that had come upon him then. “I came to see you the day before yesterday, in the evening; you didn’t know?” Porfiry Petrovitch went on, looking round the room. “I came into this very room. I was passing by, just as I did to-day, and I thought I’d return your call. I walked in as your door was wide open, I looked round, waited and went out without leaving my name with your servant. Don’t you lock your door?” Raskolnikov’s face grew more and more gloomy. Porfiry seemed to guess his state of mind. “I’ve come to have it out with you, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow! I owe you an explanation and must give it to you,” he continued with a slight smile, just patting Raskolnikov’s knee. But almost at the same instant a serious and careworn look came into his face; to his surprise Raskolnikov saw a touch of sadness in it. He had never seen and never suspected such an expression in his face. “A strange scene passed between us last time we met, Rodion Romanovitch. Our first interview, too, was a strange one; but then... and one thing after another! This is the point: I have perhaps acted unfairly to you; I feel it. Do you remember how we parted? Your nerves were unhinged and your knees were shaking and so were mine. And, you know, our behaviour was unseemly, even ungentlemanly. And yet we are gentlemen, above all, in any case, gentlemen; that must be understood. Do you remember what we came to?... and it was quite indecorous.” “What is he up to, what does he take me for?” Raskolnikov asked himself in amazement, raising his head and looking with open eyes on Porfiry. “I’ve decided openness is better between us,” Porfiry Petrovitch went on, turning his head away and dropping his eyes, as though unwilling to disconcert his former victim and as though disdaining his former wiles. “Yes, such suspicions and such scenes cannot continue for long. Nikolay put a stop to it, or I don’t know what we might not have come to. That damned workman was sitting at the time in the next room--can you realise that? You know that, of course; and I am aware that he came to you afterwards. But what you supposed then was not true: I had not sent for anyone, I had made no kind of arrangements. You ask why I hadn’t? What shall I say to you? it had all come upon me so suddenly. I had scarcely sent for the porters (you noticed them as you went out, I dare say). An idea flashed upon me; I was firmly convinced at the time, you see, Rodion Romanovitch. Come, I thought--even if I let one thing slip for a time, I shall get hold of something else--I shan’t lose what I want, anyway. You are nervously irritable, Rodion Romanovitch, by temperament; it’s out of proportion with other qualities of your heart and character, which I flatter myself I have to some extent divined. Of course I did reflect even then that it does not always happen that a man gets up and blurts out his whole story. It does happen sometimes, if you make a man lose all patience, though even then it’s rare. I was capable of realising that. If I only had a fact, I thought, the least little fact to go upon, something I could lay hold of, something tangible, not merely psychological. For if a man is guilty, you must be able to get something substantial out of him; one may reckon upon most surprising results indeed. I was reckoning on your temperament, Rodion Romanovitch, on your temperament above all things! I had great hopes of you at that time.” “But what are you driving at now?” Raskolnikov muttered at last, asking the question without thinking. “What is he talking about?” he wondered distractedly, “does he really take me to be innocent?” “What am I driving at? I’ve come to explain myself, I consider it my duty, so to speak. I want to make clear to you how the whole business, the whole misunderstanding arose. I’ve caused you a great deal of suffering, Rodion Romanovitch. I am not a monster. I understand what it must mean for a man who has been unfortunate, but who is proud, imperious and above all, impatient, to have to bear such treatment! I regard you in any case as a man of noble character and not without elements of magnanimity, though I don’t agree with all your convictions. I wanted to tell you this first, frankly and quite sincerely, for above all I don’t want to deceive you. When I made your acquaintance, I felt attracted by you. Perhaps you will laugh at my saying so. You have a right to. I know you disliked me from the first and indeed you’ve no reason to like me. You may think what you like, but I desire now to do all I can to efface that impression and to show that I am a man of heart and conscience. I speak sincerely.” Porfiry Petrovitch made a dignified pause. Raskolnikov felt a rush of renewed alarm. The thought that Porfiry believed him to be innocent began to make him uneasy. “It’s scarcely necessary to go over everything in detail,” Porfiry Petrovitch went on. “Indeed, I could scarcely attempt it. To begin with there were rumours. Through whom, how, and when those rumours came to me... and how they affected you, I need not go into. My suspicions were aroused by a complete accident, which might just as easily not have happened. What was it? Hm! I believe there is no need to go into that either. Those rumours and that accident led to one idea in my mind. I admit it openly--for one may as well make a clean breast of it--I was the first to pitch on you. The old woman’s notes on the pledges and the rest of it--that all came to nothing. Yours was one of a hundred. I happened, too, to hear of the scene at the office, from a man who described it capitally, unconsciously reproducing the scene with great vividness. It was just one thing after another, Rodion Romanovitch, my dear fellow! How could I avoid being brought to certain ideas? From a hundred rabbits you can’t make a horse, a hundred suspicions don’t make a proof, as the English proverb says, but that’s only from the rational point of view--you can’t help being partial, for after all a lawyer is only human. I thought, too, of your article in that journal, do you remember, on your first visit we talked of it? I jeered at you at the time, but that was only to lead you on. I repeat, Rodion Romanovitch, you are ill and impatient. That you were bold, headstrong, in earnest and... had felt a great deal I recognised long before. I, too, have felt the same, so that your article seemed familiar to me. It was conceived on sleepless nights, with a throbbing heart, in ecstasy and suppressed enthusiasm. And that proud suppressed enthusiasm in young people is dangerous! I jeered at you then, but let me tell you that, as a literary amateur, I am awfully fond of such first essays, full of the heat of youth. There is a mistiness and a chord vibrating in the mist. Your article is absurd and fantastic, but there’s a transparent sincerity, a youthful incorruptible pride and the daring of despair in it. It’s a gloomy article, but that’s what’s fine in it. I read your article and put it aside, thinking as I did so ‘that man won’t go the common way.’ Well, I ask you, after that as a preliminary, how could I help being carried away by what followed? Oh, dear, I am not saying anything, I am not making any statement now. I simply noted it at the time. What is there in it? I reflected. There’s nothing in it, that is really nothing and perhaps absolutely nothing. And it’s not at all the thing for the prosecutor to let himself be carried away by notions: here I have Nikolay on my hands with actual evidence against him--you may think what you like of it, but it’s evidence. He brings in his psychology, too; one has to consider him, too, for it’s a matter of life and death. Why am I explaining this to you? That you may understand, and not blame my malicious behaviour on that occasion. It was not malicious, I assure you, he-he! Do you suppose I didn’t come to search your room at the time? I did, I did, he-he! I was here when you were lying ill in bed, not officially, not in my own person, but I was here. Your room was searched to the last thread at the first suspicion; but _umsonst_! I thought to myself, now that man will come, will come of himself and quickly, too; if he’s guilty, he’s sure to come. Another man wouldn’t, but he will. And you remember how Mr. Razumihin began discussing the subject with you? We arranged that to excite you, so we purposely spread rumours, that he might discuss the case with you, and Razumihin is not a man to restrain his indignation. Mr. Zametov was tremendously struck by your anger and your open daring. Think of blurting out in a restaurant ‘I killed her.’ It was too daring, too reckless. I thought so myself, if he is guilty he will be a formidable opponent. That was what I thought at the time. I was expecting you. But you simply bowled Zametov over and... well, you see, it all lies in this--that this damnable psychology can be taken two ways! Well, I kept expecting you, and so it was, you came! My heart was fairly throbbing. Ach! “Now, why need you have come? Your laughter, too, as you came in, do you remember? I saw it all plain as daylight, but if I hadn’t expected you so specially, I should not have noticed anything in your laughter. You see what influence a mood has! Mr. Razumihin then--ah, that stone, that stone under which the things were hidden! I seem to see it somewhere in a kitchen garden. It was in a kitchen garden, you told Zametov and afterwards you repeated that in my office? And when we began picking your article to pieces, how you explained it! One could take every word of yours in two senses, as though there were another meaning hidden. “So in this way, Rodion Romanovitch, I reached the furthest limit, and knocking my head against a post, I pulled myself up, asking myself what I was about. After all, I said, you can take it all in another sense if you like, and it’s more natural so, indeed. I couldn’t help admitting it was more natural. I was bothered! ‘No, I’d better get hold of some little fact’ I said. So when I heard of the bell-ringing, I held my breath and was all in a tremor. ‘Here is my little fact,’ thought I, and I didn’t think it over, I simply wouldn’t. I would have given a thousand roubles at that minute to have seen you with my own eyes, when you walked a hundred paces beside that workman, after he had called you murderer to your face, and you did not dare to ask him a question all the way. And then what about your trembling, what about your bell-ringing in your illness, in semi-delirium? “And so, Rodion Romanovitch, can you wonder that I played such pranks on you? And what made you come at that very minute? Someone seemed to have sent you, by Jove! And if Nikolay had not parted us... and do you remember Nikolay at the time? Do you remember him clearly? It was a thunderbolt, a regular thunderbolt! And how I met him! I didn’t believe in the thunderbolt, not for a minute. You could see it for yourself; and how could I? Even afterwards, when you had gone and he began making very, very plausible answers on certain points, so that I was surprised at him myself, even then I didn’t believe his story! You see what it is to be as firm as a rock! No, thought I, _Morgenfrüh_. What has Nikolay got to do with it!” “Razumihin told me just now that you think Nikolay guilty and had yourself assured him of it....” His voice failed him, and he broke off. He had been listening in indescribable agitation, as this man who had seen through and through him, went back upon himself. He was afraid of believing it and did not believe it. In those still ambiguous words he kept eagerly looking for something more definite and conclusive. “Mr. Razumihin!” cried Porfiry Petrovitch, seeming glad of a question from Raskolnikov, who had till then been silent. “He-he-he! But I had to put Mr. Razumihin off; two is company, three is none. Mr. Razumihin is not the right man, besides he is an outsider. He came running to me with a pale face.... But never mind him, why bring him in? To return to Nikolay, would you like to know what sort of a type he is, how I understand him, that is? To begin with, he is still a child and not exactly a coward, but something by way of an artist. Really, don’t laugh at my describing him so. He is innocent and responsive to influence. He has a heart, and is a fantastic fellow. He sings and dances, he tells stories, they say, so that people come from other villages to hear him. He attends school too, and laughs till he cries if you hold up a finger to him; he will drink himself senseless--not as a regular vice, but at times, when people treat him, like a child. And he stole, too, then, without knowing it himself, for ‘How can it be stealing, if one picks it up?’ And do you know he is an Old Believer, or rather a dissenter? There have been Wanderers[*] in his family, and he was for two years in his village under the spiritual guidance of a certain elder. I learnt all this from Nikolay and from his fellow villagers. And what’s more, he wanted to run into the wilderness! He was full of fervour, prayed at night, read the old books, ‘the true’ ones, and read himself crazy. [*] A religious sect.--TRANSLATOR’S NOTE. “Petersburg had a great effect upon him, especially the women and the wine. He responds to everything and he forgot the elder and all that. I learnt that an artist here took a fancy to him, and used to go and see him, and now this business came upon him. “Well, he was frightened, he tried to hang himself! He ran away! How can one get over the idea the people have of Russian legal proceedings? The very word ‘trial’ frightens some of them. Whose fault is it? We shall see what the new juries will do. God grant they do good! Well, in prison, it seems, he remembered the venerable elder; the Bible, too, made its appearance again. Do you know, Rodion Romanovitch, the force of the word ‘suffering’ among some of these people! It’s not a question of suffering for someone’s benefit, but simply, ‘one must suffer.’ If they suffer at the hands of the authorities, so much the better. In my time there was a very meek and mild prisoner who spent a whole year in prison always reading his Bible on the stove at night and he read himself crazy, and so crazy, do you know, that one day, apropos of nothing, he seized a brick and flung it at the governor; though he had done him no harm. And the way he threw it too: aimed it a yard on one side on purpose, for fear of hurting him. Well, we know what happens to a prisoner who assaults an officer with a weapon. So ‘he took his suffering.’ “So I suspect now that Nikolay wants to take his suffering or something of the sort. I know it for certain from facts, indeed. Only he doesn’t know that I know. What, you don’t admit that there are such fantastic people among the peasants? Lots of them. The elder now has begun influencing him, especially since he tried to hang himself. But he’ll come and tell me all himself. You think he’ll hold out? Wait a bit, he’ll take his words back. I am waiting from hour to hour for him to come and abjure his evidence. I have come to like that Nikolay and am studying him in detail. And what do you think? He-he! He answered me very plausibly on some points, he obviously had collected some evidence and prepared himself cleverly. But on other points he is simply at sea, knows nothing and doesn’t even suspect that he doesn’t know! “No, Rodion Romanovitch, Nikolay doesn’t come in! This is a fantastic, gloomy business, a modern case, an incident of to-day when the heart of man is troubled, when the phrase is quoted that blood ‘renews,’ when comfort is preached as the aim of life. Here we have bookish dreams, a heart unhinged by theories. Here we see resolution in the first stage, but resolution of a special kind: he resolved to do it like jumping over a precipice or from a bell tower and his legs shook as he went to the crime. He forgot to shut the door after him, and murdered two people for a theory. He committed the murder and couldn’t take the money, and what he did manage to snatch up he hid under a stone. It wasn’t enough for him to suffer agony behind the door while they battered at the door and rung the bell, no, he had to go to the empty lodging, half delirious, to recall the bell-ringing, he wanted to feel the cold shiver over again.... Well, that we grant, was through illness, but consider this: he is a murderer, but looks upon himself as an honest man, despises others, poses as injured innocence. No, that’s not the work of a Nikolay, my dear Rodion Romanovitch!” All that had been said before had sounded so like a recantation that these words were too great a shock. Raskolnikov shuddered as though he had been stabbed. “Then... who then... is the murderer?” he asked in a breathless voice, unable to restrain himself. Porfiry Petrovitch sank back in his chair, as though he were amazed at the question. “Who is the murderer?” he repeated, as though unable to believe his ears. “Why, _you_, Rodion Romanovitch! You are the murderer,” he added, almost in a whisper, in a voice of genuine conviction. Raskolnikov leapt from the sofa, stood up for a few seconds and sat down again without uttering a word. His face twitched convulsively. “Your lip is twitching just as it did before,” Porfiry Petrovitch observed almost sympathetically. “You’ve been misunderstanding me, I think, Rodion Romanovitch,” he added after a brief pause, “that’s why you are so surprised. I came on purpose to tell you everything and deal openly with you.” “It was not I murdered her,” Raskolnikov whispered like a frightened child caught in the act. “No, it was you, you Rodion Romanovitch, and no one else,” Porfiry whispered sternly, with conviction. They were both silent and the silence lasted strangely long, about ten minutes. Raskolnikov put his elbow on the table and passed his fingers through his hair. Porfiry Petrovitch sat quietly waiting. Suddenly Raskolnikov looked scornfully at Porfiry. “You are at your old tricks again, Porfiry Petrovitch! Your old method again. I wonder you don’t get sick of it!” “Oh, stop that, what does that matter now? It would be a different matter if there were witnesses present, but we are whispering alone. You see yourself that I have not come to chase and capture you like a hare. Whether you confess it or not is nothing to me now; for myself, I am convinced without it.” “If so, what did you come for?” Raskolnikov asked irritably. “I ask you the same question again: if you consider me guilty, why don’t you take me to prison?” “Oh, that’s your question! I will answer you, point for point. In the first place, to arrest you so directly is not to my interest.” “How so? If you are convinced you ought....” “Ach, what if I am convinced? That’s only my dream for the time. Why should I put you in safety? You know that’s it, since you ask me to do it. If I confront you with that workman for instance and you say to him ‘were you drunk or not? Who saw me with you? I simply took you to be drunk, and you were drunk, too.’ Well, what could I answer, especially as your story is a more likely one than his? for there’s nothing but psychology to support his evidence--that’s almost unseemly with his ugly mug, while you hit the mark exactly, for the rascal is an inveterate drunkard and notoriously so. And I have myself admitted candidly several times already that that psychology can be taken in two ways and that the second way is stronger and looks far more probable, and that apart from that I have as yet nothing against you. And though I shall put you in prison and indeed have come--quite contrary to etiquette--to inform you of it beforehand, yet I tell you frankly, also contrary to etiquette, that it won’t be to my advantage. Well, secondly, I’ve come to you because...” “Yes, yes, secondly?” Raskolnikov was listening breathless. “Because, as I told you just now, I consider I owe you an explanation. I don’t want you to look upon me as a monster, as I have a genuine liking for you, you may believe me or not. And in the third place I’ve come to you with a direct and open proposition--that you should surrender and confess. It will be infinitely more to your advantage and to my advantage too, for my task will be done. Well, is this open on my part or not?” Raskolnikov thought a minute. “Listen, Porfiry Petrovitch. You said just now you have nothing but psychology to go on, yet now you’ve gone on mathematics. Well, what if you are mistaken yourself, now?” “No, Rodion Romanovitch, I am not mistaken. I have a little fact even then, Providence sent it me.” “What little fact?” “I won’t tell you what, Rodion Romanovitch. And in any case, I haven’t the right to put it off any longer, I must arrest you. So think it over: it makes no difference to me _now_ and so I speak only for your sake. Believe me, it will be better, Rodion Romanovitch.” Raskolnikov smiled malignantly. “That’s not simply ridiculous, it’s positively shameless. Why, even if I were guilty, which I don’t admit, what reason should I have to confess, when you tell me yourself that I shall be in greater safety in prison?” “Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, don’t put too much faith in words, perhaps prison will not be altogether a restful place. That’s only theory and my theory, and what authority am I for you? Perhaps, too, even now I am hiding something from you? I can’t lay bare everything, he-he! And how can you ask what advantage? Don’t you know how it would lessen your sentence? You would be confessing at a moment when another man has taken the crime on himself and so has muddled the whole case. Consider that! I swear before God that I will so arrange that your confession shall come as a complete surprise. We will make a clean sweep of all these psychological points, of a suspicion against you, so that your crime will appear to have been something like an aberration, for in truth it was an aberration. I am an honest man, Rodion Romanovitch, and will keep my word.” Raskolnikov maintained a mournful silence and let his head sink dejectedly. He pondered a long while and at last smiled again, but his smile was sad and gentle. “No!” he said, apparently abandoning all attempt to keep up appearances with Porfiry, “it’s not worth it, I don’t care about lessening the sentence!” “That’s just what I was afraid of!” Porfiry cried warmly and, as it seemed, involuntarily. “That’s just what I feared, that you wouldn’t care about the mitigation of sentence.” Raskolnikov looked sadly and expressively at him. “Ah, don’t disdain life!” Porfiry went on. “You have a great deal of it still before you. How can you say you don’t want a mitigation of sentence? You are an impatient fellow!” “A great deal of what lies before me?” “Of life. What sort of prophet are you, do you know much about it? Seek and ye shall find. This may be God’s means for bringing you to Him. And it’s not for ever, the bondage....” “The time will be shortened,” laughed Raskolnikov. “Why, is it the bourgeois disgrace you are afraid of? It may be that you are afraid of it without knowing it, because you are young! But anyway _you_ shouldn’t be afraid of giving yourself up and confessing.” “Ach, hang it!” Raskolnikov whispered with loathing and contempt, as though he did not want to speak aloud. He got up again as though he meant to go away, but sat down again in evident despair. “Hang it, if you like! You’ve lost faith and you think that I am grossly flattering you; but how long has your life been? How much do you understand? You made up a theory and then were ashamed that it broke down and turned out to be not at all original! It turned out something base, that’s true, but you are not hopelessly base. By no means so base! At least you didn’t deceive yourself for long, you went straight to the furthest point at one bound. How do I regard you? I regard you as one of those men who would stand and smile at their torturer while he cuts their entrails out, if only they have found faith or God. Find it and you will live. You have long needed a change of air. Suffering, too, is a good thing. Suffer! Maybe Nikolay is right in wanting to suffer. I know you don’t believe in it--but don’t be over-wise; fling yourself straight into life, without deliberation; don’t be afraid--the flood will bear you to the bank and set you safe on your feet again. What bank? How can I tell? I only believe that you have long life before you. I know that you take all my words now for a set speech prepared beforehand, but maybe you will remember them after. They may be of use some time. That’s why I speak. It’s as well that you only killed the old woman. If you’d invented another theory you might perhaps have done something a thousand times more hideous. You ought to thank God, perhaps. How do you know? Perhaps God is saving you for something. But keep a good heart and have less fear! Are you afraid of the great expiation before you? No, it would be shameful to be afraid of it. Since you have taken such a step, you must harden your heart. There is justice in it. You must fulfil the demands of justice. I know that you don’t believe it, but indeed, life will bring you through. You will live it down in time. What you need now is fresh air, fresh air, fresh air!” Raskolnikov positively started. “But who are you? what prophet are you? From the height of what majestic calm do you proclaim these words of wisdom?” “Who am I? I am a man with nothing to hope for, that’s all. A man perhaps of feeling and sympathy, maybe of some knowledge too, but my day is over. But you are a different matter, there is life waiting for you. Though, who knows? maybe your life, too, will pass off in smoke and come to nothing. Come, what does it matter, that you will pass into another class of men? It’s not comfort you regret, with your heart! What of it that perhaps no one will see you for so long? It’s not time, but yourself that will decide that. Be the sun and all will see you. The sun has before all to be the sun. Why are you smiling again? At my being such a Schiller? I bet you’re imagining that I am trying to get round you by flattery. Well, perhaps I am, he-he-he! Perhaps you’d better not believe my word, perhaps you’d better never believe it altogether--I’m made that way, I confess it. But let me add, you can judge for yourself, I think, how far I am a base sort of man and how far I am honest.” “When do you mean to arrest me?” “Well, I can let you walk about another day or two. Think it over, my dear fellow, and pray to God. It’s more in your interest, believe me.” “And what if I run away?” asked Raskolnikov with a strange smile. “No, you won’t run away. A peasant would run away, a fashionable dissenter would run away, the flunkey of another man’s thought, for you’ve only to show him the end of your little finger and he’ll be ready to believe in anything for the rest of his life. But you’ve ceased to believe in your theory already, what will you run away with? And what would you do in hiding? It would be hateful and difficult for you, and what you need more than anything in life is a definite position, an atmosphere to suit you. And what sort of atmosphere would you have? If you ran away, you’d come back to yourself. _You can’t get on without us._ And if I put you in prison--say you’ve been there a month, or two, or three--remember my word, you’ll confess of yourself and perhaps to your own surprise. You won’t know an hour beforehand that you are coming with a confession. I am convinced that you will decide, ‘to take your suffering.’ You don’t believe my words now, but you’ll come to it of yourself. For suffering, Rodion Romanovitch, is a great thing. Never mind my having grown fat, I know all the same. Don’t laugh at it, there’s an idea in suffering, Nikolay is right. No, you won’t run away, Rodion Romanovitch.” Raskolnikov got up and took his cap. Porfiry Petrovitch also rose. “Are you going for a walk? The evening will be fine, if only we don’t have a storm. Though it would be a good thing to freshen the air.” He, too, took his cap. “Porfiry Petrovitch, please don’t take up the notion that I have confessed to you to-day,” Raskolnikov pronounced with sullen insistence. “You’re a strange man and I have listened to you from simple curiosity. But I have admitted nothing, remember that!” “Oh, I know that, I’ll remember. Look at him, he’s trembling! Don’t be uneasy, my dear fellow, have it your own way. Walk about a bit, you won’t be able to walk too far. If anything happens, I have one request to make of you,” he added, dropping his voice. “It’s an awkward one, but important. If anything were to happen (though indeed I don’t believe in it and think you quite incapable of it), yet in case you were taken during these forty or fifty hours with the notion of putting an end to the business in some other way, in some fantastic fashion--laying hands on yourself--(it’s an absurd proposition, but you must forgive me for it) do leave a brief but precise note, only two lines, and mention the stone. It will be more generous. Come, till we meet! Good thoughts and sound decisions to you!” Porfiry went out, stooping and avoiding looking at Raskolnikov. The latter went to the window and waited with irritable impatience till he calculated that Porfiry had reached the street and moved away. Then he too went hurriedly out of the room. CHAPTER III He hurried to Svidrigaïlov’s. What he had to hope from that man he did not know. But that man had some hidden power over him. Having once recognised this, he could not rest, and now the time had come. On the way, one question particularly worried him: had Svidrigaïlov been to Porfiry’s? As far as he could judge, he would swear to it, that he had not. He pondered again and again, went over Porfiry’s visit; no, he hadn’t been, of course he hadn’t. But if he had not been yet, would he go? Meanwhile, for the present he fancied he couldn’t. Why? He could not have explained, but if he could, he would not have wasted much thought over it at the moment. It all worried him and at the same time he could not attend to it. Strange to say, none would have believed it perhaps, but he only felt a faint vague anxiety about his immediate future. Another, much more important anxiety tormented him--it concerned himself, but in a different, more vital way. Moreover, he was conscious of immense moral fatigue, though his mind was working better that morning than it had done of late. And was it worth while, after all that had happened, to contend with these new trivial difficulties? Was it worth while, for instance, to manoeuvre that Svidrigaïlov should not go to Porfiry’s? Was it worth while to investigate, to ascertain the facts, to waste time over anyone like Svidrigaïlov? Oh, how sick he was of it all! And yet he was hastening to Svidrigaïlov; could he be expecting something _new_ from him, information, or means of escape? Men will catch at straws! Was it destiny or some instinct bringing them together? Perhaps it was only fatigue, despair; perhaps it was not Svidrigaïlov but some other whom he needed, and Svidrigaïlov had simply presented himself by chance. Sonia? But what should he go to Sonia for now? To beg her tears again? He was afraid of Sonia, too. Sonia stood before him as an irrevocable sentence. He must go his own way or hers. At that moment especially he did not feel equal to seeing her. No, would it not be better to try Svidrigaïlov? And he could not help inwardly owning that he had long felt that he must see him for some reason. But what could they have in common? Their very evil-doing could not be of the same kind. The man, moreover, was very unpleasant, evidently depraved, undoubtedly cunning and deceitful, possibly malignant. Such stories were told about him. It is true he was befriending Katerina Ivanovna’s children, but who could tell with what motive and what it meant? The man always had some design, some project. There was another thought which had been continually hovering of late about Raskolnikov’s mind, and causing him great uneasiness. It was so painful that he made distinct efforts to get rid of it. He sometimes thought that Svidrigaïlov was dogging his footsteps. Svidrigaïlov had found out his secret and had had designs on Dounia. What if he had them still? Wasn’t it practically certain that he had? And what if, having learnt his secret and so having gained power over him, he were to use it as a weapon against Dounia? This idea sometimes even tormented his dreams, but it had never presented itself so vividly to him as on his way to Svidrigaïlov. The very thought moved him to gloomy rage. To begin with, this would transform everything, even his own position; he would have at once to confess his secret to Dounia. Would he have to give himself up perhaps to prevent Dounia from taking some rash step? The letter? This morning Dounia had received a letter. From whom could she get letters in Petersburg? Luzhin, perhaps? It’s true Razumihin was there to protect her, but Razumihin knew nothing of the position. Perhaps it was his duty to tell Razumihin? He thought of it with repugnance. In any case he must see Svidrigaïlov as soon as possible, he decided finally. Thank God, the details of the interview were of little consequence, if only he could get at the root of the matter; but if Svidrigaïlov were capable... if he were intriguing against Dounia--then... Raskolnikov was so exhausted by what he had passed through that month that he could only decide such questions in one way; “then I shall kill him,” he thought in cold despair. A sudden anguish oppressed his heart, he stood still in the middle of the street and began looking about to see where he was and which way he was going. He found himself in X. Prospect, thirty or forty paces from the Hay Market, through which he had come. The whole second storey of the house on the left was used as a tavern. All the windows were wide open; judging from the figures moving at the windows, the rooms were full to overflowing. There were sounds of singing, of clarionet and violin, and the boom of a Turkish drum. He could hear women shrieking. He was about to turn back wondering why he had come to the X. Prospect, when suddenly at one of the end windows he saw Svidrigaïlov, sitting at a tea-table right in the open window with a pipe in his mouth. Raskolnikov was dreadfully taken aback, almost terrified. Svidrigaïlov was silently watching and scrutinising him and, what struck Raskolnikov at once, seemed to be meaning to get up and slip away unobserved. Raskolnikov at once pretended not to have seen him, but to be looking absent-mindedly away, while he watched him out of the corner of his eye. His heart was beating violently. Yet, it was evident that Svidrigaïlov did not want to be seen. He took the pipe out of his mouth and was on the point of concealing himself, but as he got up and moved back his chair, he seemed to have become suddenly aware that Raskolnikov had seen him, and was watching him. What had passed between them was much the same as what happened at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s room. A sly smile came into Svidrigaïlov’s face and grew broader and broader. Each knew that he was seen and watched by the other. At last Svidrigaïlov broke into a loud laugh. “Well, well, come in if you want me; I am here!” he shouted from the window. Raskolnikov went up into the tavern. He found Svidrigaïlov in a tiny back room, adjoining the saloon in which merchants, clerks and numbers of people of all sorts were drinking tea at twenty little tables to the desperate bawling of a chorus of singers. The click of billiard balls could be heard in the distance. On the table before Svidrigaïlov stood an open bottle and a glass half full of champagne. In the room he found also a boy with a little hand organ, a healthy-looking red-cheeked girl of eighteen, wearing a tucked-up striped skirt, and a Tyrolese hat with ribbons. In spite of the chorus in the other room, she was singing some servants’ hall song in a rather husky contralto, to the accompaniment of the organ. “Come, that’s enough,” Svidrigaïlov stopped her at Raskolnikov’s entrance. The girl at once broke off and stood waiting respectfully. She had sung her guttural rhymes, too, with a serious and respectful expression in her face. “Hey, Philip, a glass!” shouted Svidrigaïlov. “I won’t drink anything,” said Raskolnikov. “As you like, I didn’t mean it for you. Drink, Katia! I don’t want anything more to-day, you can go.” He poured her out a full glass, and laid down a yellow note. Katia drank off her glass of wine, as women do, without putting it down, in twenty gulps, took the note and kissed Svidrigaïlov’s hand, which he allowed quite seriously. She went out of the room and the boy trailed after her with the organ. Both had been brought in from the street. Svidrigaïlov had not been a week in Petersburg, but everything about him was already, so to speak, on a patriarchal footing; the waiter, Philip, was by now an old friend and very obsequious. The door leading to the saloon had a lock on it. Svidrigaïlov was at home in this room and perhaps spent whole days in it. The tavern was dirty and wretched, not even second-rate. “I was going to see you and looking for you,” Raskolnikov began, “but I don’t know what made me turn from the Hay Market into the X. Prospect just now. I never take this turning. I turn to the right from the Hay Market. And this isn’t the way to you. I simply turned and here you are. It is strange!” “Why don’t you say at once ‘it’s a miracle’?” “Because it may be only chance.” “Oh, that’s the way with all you folk,” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “You won’t admit it, even if you do inwardly believe it a miracle! Here you say that it may be only chance. And what cowards they all are here, about having an opinion of their own, you can’t fancy, Rodion Romanovitch. I don’t mean you, you have an opinion of your own and are not afraid to have it. That’s how it was you attracted my curiosity.” “Nothing else?” “Well, that’s enough, you know,” Svidrigaïlov was obviously exhilarated, but only slightly so, he had not had more than half a glass of wine. “I fancy you came to see me before you knew that I was capable of having what you call an opinion of my own,” observed Raskolnikov. “Oh, well, it was a different matter. Everyone has his own plans. And apropos of the miracle let me tell you that I think you have been asleep for the last two or three days. I told you of this tavern myself, there is no miracle in your coming straight here. I explained the way myself, told you where it was, and the hours you could find me here. Do you remember?” “I don’t remember,” answered Raskolnikov with surprise. “I believe you. I told you twice. The address has been stamped mechanically on your memory. You turned this way mechanically and yet precisely according to the direction, though you are not aware of it. When I told you then, I hardly hoped you understood me. You give yourself away too much, Rodion Romanovitch. And another thing, I’m convinced there are lots of people in Petersburg who talk to themselves as they walk. This is a town of crazy people. If only we had scientific men, doctors, lawyers and philosophers might make most valuable investigations in Petersburg each in his own line. There are few places where there are so many gloomy, strong and queer influences on the soul of man as in Petersburg. The mere influences of climate mean so much. And it’s the administrative centre of all Russia and its character must be reflected on the whole country. But that is neither here nor there now. The point is that I have several times watched you. You walk out of your house--holding your head high--twenty paces from home you let it sink, and fold your hands behind your back. You look and evidently see nothing before nor beside you. At last you begin moving your lips and talking to yourself, and sometimes you wave one hand and declaim, and at last stand still in the middle of the road. That’s not at all the thing. Someone may be watching you besides me, and it won’t do you any good. It’s nothing really to do with me and I can’t cure you, but, of course, you understand me.” “Do you know that I am being followed?” asked Raskolnikov, looking inquisitively at him. “No, I know nothing about it,” said Svidrigaïlov, seeming surprised. “Well, then, let us leave me alone,” Raskolnikov muttered, frowning. “Very good, let us leave you alone.” “You had better tell me, if you come here to drink, and directed me twice to come here to you, why did you hide, and try to get away just now when I looked at the window from the street? I saw it.” “He-he! And why was it you lay on your sofa with closed eyes and pretended to be asleep, though you were wide awake while I stood in your doorway? I saw it.” “I may have had... reasons. You know that yourself.” “And I may have had my reasons, though you don’t know them.” Raskolnikov dropped his right elbow on the table, leaned his chin in the fingers of his right hand, and stared intently at Svidrigaïlov. For a full minute he scrutinised his face, which had impressed him before. It was a strange face, like a mask; white and red, with bright red lips, with a flaxen beard, and still thick flaxen hair. His eyes were somehow too blue and their expression somehow too heavy and fixed. There was something awfully unpleasant in that handsome face, which looked so wonderfully young for his age. Svidrigaïlov was smartly dressed in light summer clothes and was particularly dainty in his linen. He wore a huge ring with a precious stone in it. “Have I got to bother myself about you, too, now?” said Raskolnikov suddenly, coming with nervous impatience straight to the point. “Even though perhaps you are the most dangerous man if you care to injure me, I don’t want to put myself out any more. I will show you at once that I don’t prize myself as you probably think I do. I’ve come to tell you at once that if you keep to your former intentions with regard to my sister and if you think to derive any benefit in that direction from what has been discovered of late, I will kill you before you get me locked up. You can reckon on my word. You know that I can keep it. And in the second place if you want to tell me anything--for I keep fancying all this time that you have something to tell me--make haste and tell it, for time is precious and very likely it will soon be too late.” “Why in such haste?” asked Svidrigaïlov, looking at him curiously. “Everyone has his plans,” Raskolnikov answered gloomily and impatiently. “You urged me yourself to frankness just now, and at the first question you refuse to answer,” Svidrigaïlov observed with a smile. “You keep fancying that I have aims of my own and so you look at me with suspicion. Of course it’s perfectly natural in your position. But though I should like to be friends with you, I shan’t trouble myself to convince you of the contrary. The game isn’t worth the candle and I wasn’t intending to talk to you about anything special.” “What did you want me, for, then? It was you who came hanging about me.” “Why, simply as an interesting subject for observation. I liked the fantastic nature of your position--that’s what it was! Besides you are the brother of a person who greatly interested me, and from that person I had in the past heard a very great deal about you, from which I gathered that you had a great influence over her; isn’t that enough? Ha-ha-ha! Still I must admit that your question is rather complex, and is difficult for me to answer. Here, you, for instance, have come to me not only for a definite object, but for the sake of hearing something new. Isn’t that so? Isn’t that so?” persisted Svidrigaïlov with a sly smile. “Well, can’t you fancy then that I, too, on my way here in the train was reckoning on you, on your telling me something new, and on my making some profit out of you! You see what rich men we are!” “What profit could you make?” “How can I tell you? How do I know? You see in what a tavern I spend all my time and it’s my enjoyment, that’s to say it’s no great enjoyment, but one must sit somewhere; that poor Katia now--you saw her?... If only I had been a glutton now, a club gourmand, but you see I can eat this.” He pointed to a little table in the corner where the remnants of a terrible-looking beef-steak and potatoes lay on a tin dish. “Have you dined, by the way? I’ve had something and want nothing more. I don’t drink, for instance, at all. Except for champagne I never touch anything, and not more than a glass of that all the evening, and even that is enough to make my head ache. I ordered it just now to wind myself up, for I am just going off somewhere and you see me in a peculiar state of mind. That was why I hid myself just now like a schoolboy, for I was afraid you would hinder me. But I believe,” he pulled out his watch, “I can spend an hour with you. It’s half-past four now. If only I’d been something, a landowner, a father, a cavalry officer, a photographer, a journalist... I am nothing, no specialty, and sometimes I am positively bored. I really thought you would tell me something new.” “But what are you, and why have you come here?” “What am I? You know, a gentleman, I served for two years in the cavalry, then I knocked about here in Petersburg, then I married Marfa Petrovna and lived in the country. There you have my biography!” “You are a gambler, I believe?” “No, a poor sort of gambler. A card-sharper--not a gambler.” “You have been a card-sharper then?” “Yes, I’ve been a card-sharper too.” “Didn’t you get thrashed sometimes?” “It did happen. Why?” “Why, you might have challenged them... altogether it must have been lively.” “I won’t contradict you, and besides I am no hand at philosophy. I confess that I hastened here for the sake of the women.” “As soon as you buried Marfa Petrovna?” “Quite so,” Svidrigaïlov smiled with engaging candour. “What of it? You seem to find something wrong in my speaking like that about women?” “You ask whether I find anything wrong in vice?” “Vice! Oh, that’s what you are after! But I’ll answer you in order, first about women in general; you know I am fond of talking. Tell me, what should I restrain myself for? Why should I give up women, since I have a passion for them? It’s an occupation, anyway.” “So you hope for nothing here but vice?” “Oh, very well, for vice then. You insist on its being vice. But anyway I like a direct question. In this vice at least there is something permanent, founded indeed upon nature and not dependent on fantasy, something present in the blood like an ever-burning ember, for ever setting one on fire and, maybe, not to be quickly extinguished, even with years. You’ll agree it’s an occupation of a sort.” “That’s nothing to rejoice at, it’s a disease and a dangerous one.” “Oh, that’s what you think, is it! I agree, that it is a disease like everything that exceeds moderation. And, of course, in this one must exceed moderation. But in the first place, everybody does so in one way or another, and in the second place, of course, one ought to be moderate and prudent, however mean it may be, but what am I to do? If I hadn’t this, I might have to shoot myself. I am ready to admit that a decent man ought to put up with being bored, but yet...” “And could you shoot yourself?” “Oh, come!” Svidrigaïlov parried with disgust. “Please don’t speak of it,” he added hurriedly and with none of the bragging tone he had shown in all the previous conversation. His face quite changed. “I admit it’s an unpardonable weakness, but I can’t help it. I am afraid of death and I dislike its being talked of. Do you know that I am to a certain extent a mystic?” “Ah, the apparitions of Marfa Petrovna! Do they still go on visiting you?” “Oh, don’t talk of them; there have been no more in Petersburg, confound them!” he cried with an air of irritation. “Let’s rather talk of that... though... H’m! I have not much time, and can’t stay long with you, it’s a pity! I should have found plenty to tell you.” “What’s your engagement, a woman?” “Yes, a woman, a casual incident.... No, that’s not what I want to talk of.” “And the hideousness, the filthiness of all your surroundings, doesn’t that affect you? Have you lost the strength to stop yourself?” “And do you pretend to strength, too? He-he-he! You surprised me just now, Rodion Romanovitch, though I knew beforehand it would be so. You preach to me about vice and æsthetics! You--a Schiller, you--an idealist! Of course that’s all as it should be and it would be surprising if it were not so, yet it is strange in reality.... Ah, what a pity I have no time, for you’re a most interesting type! And, by-the-way, are you fond of Schiller? I am awfully fond of him.” “But what a braggart you are,” Raskolnikov said with some disgust. “Upon my word, I am not,” answered Svidrigaïlov laughing. “However, I won’t dispute it, let me be a braggart, why not brag, if it hurts no one? I spent seven years in the country with Marfa Petrovna, so now when I come across an intelligent person like you--intelligent and highly interesting--I am simply glad to talk and, besides, I’ve drunk that half-glass of champagne and it’s gone to my head a little. And besides, there’s a certain fact that has wound me up tremendously, but about that I... will keep quiet. Where are you off to?” he asked in alarm. Raskolnikov had begun getting up. He felt oppressed and stifled and, as it were, ill at ease at having come here. He felt convinced that Svidrigaïlov was the most worthless scoundrel on the face of the earth. “A-ach! Sit down, stay a little!” Svidrigaïlov begged. “Let them bring you some tea, anyway. Stay a little, I won’t talk nonsense, about myself, I mean. I’ll tell you something. If you like I’ll tell you how a woman tried ‘to save’ me, as you would call it? It will be an answer to your first question indeed, for the woman was your sister. May I tell you? It will help to spend the time.” “Tell me, but I trust that you...” “Oh, don’t be uneasy. Besides, even in a worthless low fellow like me, Avdotya Romanovna can only excite the deepest respect.” CHAPTER IV “You know perhaps--yes, I told you myself,” began Svidrigaïlov, “that I was in the debtors’ prison here, for an immense sum, and had not any expectation of being able to pay it. There’s no need to go into particulars how Marfa Petrovna bought me out; do you know to what a point of insanity a woman can sometimes love? She was an honest woman, and very sensible, although completely uneducated. Would you believe that this honest and jealous woman, after many scenes of hysterics and reproaches, condescended to enter into a kind of contract with me which she kept throughout our married life? She was considerably older than I, and besides, she always kept a clove or something in her mouth. There was so much swinishness in my soul and honesty too, of a sort, as to tell her straight out that I couldn’t be absolutely faithful to her. This confession drove her to frenzy, but yet she seems in a way to have liked my brutal frankness. She thought it showed I was unwilling to deceive her if I warned her like this beforehand and for a jealous woman, you know, that’s the first consideration. After many tears an unwritten contract was drawn up between us: first, that I would never leave Marfa Petrovna and would always be her husband; secondly, that I would never absent myself without her permission; thirdly, that I would never set up a permanent mistress; fourthly, in return for this, Marfa Petrovna gave me a free hand with the maidservants, but only with her secret knowledge; fifthly, God forbid my falling in love with a woman of our class; sixthly, in case I--which God forbid--should be visited by a great serious passion I was bound to reveal it to Marfa Petrovna. On this last score, however, Marfa Petrovna was fairly at ease. She was a sensible woman and so she could not help looking upon me as a dissolute profligate incapable of real love. But a sensible woman and a jealous woman are two very different things, and that’s where the trouble came in. But to judge some people impartially we must renounce certain preconceived opinions and our habitual attitude to the ordinary people about us. I have reason to have faith in your judgment rather than in anyone’s. Perhaps you have already heard a great deal that was ridiculous and absurd about Marfa Petrovna. She certainly had some very ridiculous ways, but I tell you frankly that I feel really sorry for the innumerable woes of which I was the cause. Well, and that’s enough, I think, by way of a decorous _oraison funèbre_ for the most tender wife of a most tender husband. When we quarrelled, I usually held my tongue and did not irritate her and that gentlemanly conduct rarely failed to attain its object, it influenced her, it pleased her, indeed. These were times when she was positively proud of me. But your sister she couldn’t put up with, anyway. And however she came to risk taking such a beautiful creature into her house as a governess. My explanation is that Marfa Petrovna was an ardent and impressionable woman and simply fell in love herself--literally fell in love--with your sister. Well, little wonder--look at Avdotya Romanovna! I saw the danger at the first glance and what do you think, I resolved not to look at her even. But Avdotya Romanovna herself made the first step, would you believe it? Would you believe it too that Marfa Petrovna was positively angry with me at first for my persistent silence about your sister, for my careless reception of her continual adoring praises of Avdotya Romanovna. I don’t know what it was she wanted! Well, of course, Marfa Petrovna told Avdotya Romanovna every detail about me. She had the unfortunate habit of telling literally everyone all our family secrets and continually complaining of me; how could she fail to confide in such a delightful new friend? I expect they talked of nothing else but me and no doubt Avdotya Romanovna heard all those dark mysterious rumours that were current about me.... I don’t mind betting that you too have heard something of the sort already?” “I have. Luzhin charged you with having caused the death of a child. Is that true?” “Don’t refer to those vulgar tales, I beg,” said Svidrigaïlov with disgust and annoyance. “If you insist on wanting to know about all that idiocy, I will tell you one day, but now...” “I was told too about some footman of yours in the country whom you treated badly.” “I beg you to drop the subject,” Svidrigaïlov interrupted again with obvious impatience. “Was that the footman who came to you after death to fill your pipe?... you told me about it yourself.” Raskolnikov felt more and more irritated. Svidrigaïlov looked at him attentively and Raskolnikov fancied he caught a flash of spiteful mockery in that look. But Svidrigaïlov restrained himself and answered very civilly: “Yes, it was. I see that you, too, are extremely interested and shall feel it my duty to satisfy your curiosity at the first opportunity. Upon my soul! I see that I really might pass for a romantic figure with some people. Judge how grateful I must be to Marfa Petrovna for having repeated to Avdotya Romanovna such mysterious and interesting gossip about me. I dare not guess what impression it made on her, but in any case it worked in my interests. With all Avdotya Romanovna’s natural aversion and in spite of my invariably gloomy and repellent aspect--she did at least feel pity for me, pity for a lost soul. And if once a girl’s heart is moved to _pity_, it’s more dangerous than anything. She is bound to want to ‘save him,’ to bring him to his senses, and lift him up and draw him to nobler aims, and restore him to new life and usefulness--well, we all know how far such dreams can go. I saw at once that the bird was flying into the cage of herself. And I too made ready. I think you are frowning, Rodion Romanovitch? There’s no need. As you know, it all ended in smoke. (Hang it all, what a lot I am drinking!) Do you know, I always, from the very beginning, regretted that it wasn’t your sister’s fate to be born in the second or third century A.D., as the daughter of a reigning prince or some governor or pro-consul in Asia Minor. She would undoubtedly have been one of those who would endure martyrdom and would have smiled when they branded her bosom with hot pincers. And she would have gone to it of herself. And in the fourth or fifth century she would have walked away into the Egyptian desert and would have stayed there thirty years living on roots and ecstasies and visions. She is simply thirsting to face some torture for someone, and if she can’t get her torture, she’ll throw herself out of a window. I’ve heard something of a Mr. Razumihin--he’s said to be a sensible fellow; his surname suggests it, indeed. He’s probably a divinity student. Well, he’d better look after your sister! I believe I understand her, and I am proud of it. But at the beginning of an acquaintance, as you know, one is apt to be more heedless and stupid. One doesn’t see clearly. Hang it all, why is she so handsome? It’s not my fault. In fact, it began on my side with a most irresistible physical desire. Avdotya Romanovna is awfully chaste, incredibly and phenomenally so. Take note, I tell you this about your sister as a fact. She is almost morbidly chaste, in spite of her broad intelligence, and it will stand in her way. There happened to be a girl in the house then, Parasha, a black-eyed wench, whom I had never seen before--she had just come from another village--very pretty, but incredibly stupid: she burst into tears, wailed so that she could be heard all over the place and caused scandal. One day after dinner Avdotya Romanovna followed me into an avenue in the garden and with flashing eyes _insisted_ on my leaving poor Parasha alone. It was almost our first conversation by ourselves. I, of course, was only too pleased to obey her wishes, tried to appear disconcerted, embarrassed, in fact played my part not badly. Then came interviews, mysterious conversations, exhortations, entreaties, supplications, even tears--would you believe it, even tears? Think what the passion for propaganda will bring some girls to! I, of course, threw it all on my destiny, posed as hungering and thirsting for light, and finally resorted to the most powerful weapon in the subjection of the female heart, a weapon which never fails one. It’s the well-known resource--flattery. Nothing in the world is harder than speaking the truth and nothing easier than flattery. If there’s the hundredth part of a false note in speaking the truth, it leads to a discord, and that leads to trouble. But if all, to the last note, is false in flattery, it is just as agreeable, and is heard not without satisfaction. It may be a coarse satisfaction, but still a satisfaction. And however coarse the flattery, at least half will be sure to seem true. That’s so for all stages of development and classes of society. A vestal virgin might be seduced by flattery. I can never remember without laughter how I once seduced a lady who was devoted to her husband, her children, and her principles. What fun it was and how little trouble! And the lady really had principles--of her own, anyway. All my tactics lay in simply being utterly annihilated and prostrate before her purity. I flattered her shamelessly, and as soon as I succeeded in getting a pressure of the hand, even a glance from her, I would reproach myself for having snatched it by force, and would declare that she had resisted, so that I could never have gained anything but for my being so unprincipled. I maintained that she was so innocent that she could not foresee my treachery, and yielded to me unconsciously, unawares, and so on. In fact, I triumphed, while my lady remained firmly convinced that she was innocent, chaste, and faithful to all her duties and obligations and had succumbed quite by accident. And how angry she was with me when I explained to her at last that it was my sincere conviction that she was just as eager as I. Poor Marfa Petrovna was awfully weak on the side of flattery, and if I had only cared to, I might have had all her property settled on me during her lifetime. (I am drinking an awful lot of wine now and talking too much.) I hope you won’t be angry if I mention now that I was beginning to produce the same effect on Avdotya Romanovna. But I was stupid and impatient and spoiled it all. Avdotya Romanovna had several times--and one time in particular--been greatly displeased by the expression of my eyes, would you believe it? There was sometimes a light in them which frightened her and grew stronger and stronger and more unguarded till it was hateful to her. No need to go into detail, but we parted. There I acted stupidly again. I fell to jeering in the coarsest way at all such propaganda and efforts to convert me; Parasha came on to the scene again, and not she alone; in fact there was a tremendous to-do. Ah, Rodion Romanovitch, if you could only see how your sister’s eyes can flash sometimes! Never mind my being drunk at this moment and having had a whole glass of wine. I am speaking the truth. I assure you that this glance has haunted my dreams; the very rustle of her dress was more than I could stand at last. I really began to think that I might become epileptic. I could never have believed that I could be moved to such a frenzy. It was essential, indeed, to be reconciled, but by then it was impossible. And imagine what I did then! To what a pitch of stupidity a man can be brought by frenzy! Never undertake anything in a frenzy, Rodion Romanovitch. I reflected that Avdotya Romanovna was after all a beggar (ach, excuse me, that’s not the word... but does it matter if it expresses the meaning?), that she lived by her work, that she had her mother and you to keep (ach, hang it, you are frowning again), and I resolved to offer her all my money--thirty thousand roubles I could have realised then--if she would run away with me here, to Petersburg. Of course I should have vowed eternal love, rapture, and so on. Do you know, I was so wild about her at that time that if she had told me to poison Marfa Petrovna or to cut her throat and to marry herself, it would have been done at once! But it ended in the catastrophe of which you know already. You can fancy how frantic I was when I heard that Marfa Petrovna had got hold of that scoundrelly attorney, Luzhin, and had almost made a match between them--which would really have been just the same thing as I was proposing. Wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t it? I notice that you’ve begun to be very attentive... you interesting young man....” Svidrigaïlov struck the table with his fist impatiently. He was flushed. Raskolnikov saw clearly that the glass or glass and a half of champagne that he had sipped almost unconsciously was affecting him--and he resolved to take advantage of the opportunity. He felt very suspicious of Svidrigaïlov. “Well, after what you have said, I am fully convinced that you have come to Petersburg with designs on my sister,” he said directly to Svidrigaïlov, in order to irritate him further. “Oh, nonsense,” said Svidrigaïlov, seeming to rouse himself. “Why, I told you... besides your sister can’t endure me.” “Yes, I am certain that she can’t, but that’s not the point.” “Are you so sure that she can’t?” Svidrigaïlov screwed up his eyes and smiled mockingly. “You are right, she doesn’t love me, but you can never be sure of what has passed between husband and wife or lover and mistress. There’s always a little corner which remains a secret to the world and is only known to those two. Will you answer for it that Avdotya Romanovna regarded me with aversion?” “From some words you’ve dropped, I notice that you still have designs--and of course evil ones--on Dounia and mean to carry them out promptly.” “What, have I dropped words like that?” Svidrigaïlov asked in naïve dismay, taking not the slightest notice of the epithet bestowed on his designs. “Why, you are dropping them even now. Why are you so frightened? What are you so afraid of now?” “Me--afraid? Afraid of you? You have rather to be afraid of me, _cher ami_. But what nonsense.... I’ve drunk too much though, I see that. I was almost saying too much again. Damn the wine! Hi! there, water!” He snatched up the champagne bottle and flung it without ceremony out of the window. Philip brought the water. “That’s all nonsense!” said Svidrigaïlov, wetting a towel and putting it to his head. “But I can answer you in one word and annihilate all your suspicions. Do you know that I am going to get married?” “You told me so before.” “Did I? I’ve forgotten. But I couldn’t have told you so for certain for I had not even seen my betrothed; I only meant to. But now I really have a betrothed and it’s a settled thing, and if it weren’t that I have business that can’t be put off, I would have taken you to see them at once, for I should like to ask your advice. Ach, hang it, only ten minutes left! See, look at the watch. But I must tell you, for it’s an interesting story, my marriage, in its own way. Where are you off to? Going again?” “No, I’m not going away now.” “Not at all? We shall see. I’ll take you there, I’ll show you my betrothed, only not now. For you’ll soon have to be off. You have to go to the right and I to the left. Do you know that Madame Resslich, the woman I am lodging with now, eh? I know what you’re thinking, that she’s the woman whose girl they say drowned herself in the winter. Come, are you listening? She arranged it all for me. You’re bored, she said, you want something to fill up your time. For, you know, I am a gloomy, depressed person. Do you think I’m light-hearted? No, I’m gloomy. I do no harm, but sit in a corner without speaking a word for three days at a time. And that Resslich is a sly hussy, I tell you. I know what she has got in her mind; she thinks I shall get sick of it, abandon my wife and depart, and she’ll get hold of her and make a profit out of her--in our class, of course, or higher. She told me the father was a broken-down retired official, who has been sitting in a chair for the last three years with his legs paralysed. The mamma, she said, was a sensible woman. There is a son serving in the provinces, but he doesn’t help; there is a daughter, who is married, but she doesn’t visit them. And they’ve two little nephews on their hands, as though their own children were not enough, and they’ve taken from school their youngest daughter, a girl who’ll be sixteen in another month, so that then she can be married. She was for me. We went there. How funny it was! I present myself--a landowner, a widower, of a well-known name, with connections, with a fortune. What if I am fifty and she is not sixteen? Who thinks of that? But it’s fascinating, isn’t it? It is fascinating, ha-ha! You should have seen how I talked to the papa and mamma. It was worth paying to have seen me at that moment. She comes in, curtseys, you can fancy, still in a short frock--an unopened bud! Flushing like a sunset--she had been told, no doubt. I don’t know how you feel about female faces, but to my mind these sixteen years, these childish eyes, shyness and tears of bashfulness are better than beauty; and she is a perfect little picture, too. Fair hair in little curls, like a lamb’s, full little rosy lips, tiny feet, a charmer!... Well, we made friends. I told them I was in a hurry owing to domestic circumstances, and the next day, that is the day before yesterday, we were betrothed. When I go now I take her on my knee at once and keep her there.... Well, she flushes like a sunset and I kiss her every minute. Her mamma of course impresses on her that this is her husband and that this must be so. It’s simply delicious! The present betrothed condition is perhaps better than marriage. Here you have what is called _la nature et la vérité_, ha-ha! I’ve talked to her twice, she is far from a fool. Sometimes she steals a look at me that positively scorches me. Her face is like Raphael’s Madonna. You know, the Sistine Madonna’s face has something fantastic in it, the face of mournful religious ecstasy. Haven’t you noticed it? Well, she’s something in that line. The day after we’d been betrothed, I bought her presents to the value of fifteen hundred roubles--a set of diamonds and another of pearls and a silver dressing-case as large as this, with all sorts of things in it, so that even my Madonna’s face glowed. I sat her on my knee, yesterday, and I suppose rather too unceremoniously--she flushed crimson and the tears started, but she didn’t want to show it. We were left alone, she suddenly flung herself on my neck (for the first time of her own accord), put her little arms round me, kissed me, and vowed that she would be an obedient, faithful, and good wife, would make me happy, would devote all her life, every minute of her life, would sacrifice everything, everything, and that all she asks in return is my _respect_, and that she wants ‘nothing, nothing more from me, no presents.’ You’ll admit that to hear such a confession, alone, from an angel of sixteen in a muslin frock, with little curls, with a flush of maiden shyness in her cheeks and tears of enthusiasm in her eyes is rather fascinating! Isn’t it fascinating? It’s worth paying for, isn’t it? Well... listen, we’ll go to see my betrothed, only not just now!” “The fact is this monstrous difference in age and development excites your sensuality! Will you really make such a marriage?” “Why, of course. Everyone thinks of himself, and he lives most gaily who knows best how to deceive himself. Ha-ha! But why are you so keen about virtue? Have mercy on me, my good friend. I am a sinful man. Ha-ha-ha!” “But you have provided for the children of Katerina Ivanovna. Though... though you had your own reasons.... I understand it all now.” “I am always fond of children, very fond of them,” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “I can tell you one curious instance of it. The first day I came here I visited various haunts, after seven years I simply rushed at them. You probably notice that I am not in a hurry to renew acquaintance with my old friends. I shall do without them as long as I can. Do you know, when I was with Marfa Petrovna in the country, I was haunted by the thought of these places where anyone who knows his way about can find a great deal. Yes, upon my soul! The peasants have vodka, the educated young people, shut out from activity, waste themselves in impossible dreams and visions and are crippled by theories; Jews have sprung up and are amassing money, and all the rest give themselves up to debauchery. From the first hour the town reeked of its familiar odours. I chanced to be in a frightful den--I like my dens dirty--it was a dance, so called, and there was a _cancan_ such as I never saw in my day. Yes, there you have progress. All of a sudden I saw a little girl of thirteen, nicely dressed, dancing with a specialist in that line, with another one _vis-à-vis_. Her mother was sitting on a chair by the wall. You can’t fancy what a _cancan_ that was! The girl was ashamed, blushed, at last felt insulted, and began to cry. Her partner seized her and began whirling her round and performing before her; everyone laughed and--I like your public, even the _cancan_ public--they laughed and shouted, ‘Serves her right--serves her right! Shouldn’t bring children!’ Well, it’s not my business whether that consoling reflection was logical or not. I at once fixed on my plan, sat down by the mother, and began by saying that I too was a stranger and that people here were ill-bred and that they couldn’t distinguish decent folks and treat them with respect, gave her to understand that I had plenty of money, offered to take them home in my carriage. I took them home and got to know them. They were lodging in a miserable little hole and had only just arrived from the country. She told me that she and her daughter could only regard my acquaintance as an honour. I found out that they had nothing of their own and had come to town upon some legal business. I proffered my services and money. I learnt that they had gone to the dancing saloon by mistake, believing that it was a genuine dancing class. I offered to assist in the young girl’s education in French and dancing. My offer was accepted with enthusiasm as an honour--and we are still friendly.... If you like, we’ll go and see them, only not just now.” “Stop! Enough of your vile, nasty anecdotes, depraved vile, sensual man!” “Schiller, you are a regular Schiller! _O la vertu va-t-elle se nicher?_ But you know I shall tell you these things on purpose, for the pleasure of hearing your outcries!” “I dare say. I can see I am ridiculous myself,” muttered Raskolnikov angrily. Svidrigaïlov laughed heartily; finally he called Philip, paid his bill, and began getting up. “I say, but I am drunk, _assez causé_,” he said. “It’s been a pleasure.” “I should rather think it must be a pleasure!” cried Raskolnikov, getting up. “No doubt it is a pleasure for a worn-out profligate to describe such adventures with a monstrous project of the same sort in his mind--especially under such circumstances and to such a man as me.... It’s stimulating!” “Well, if you come to that,” Svidrigaïlov answered, scrutinising Raskolnikov with some surprise, “if you come to that, you are a thorough cynic yourself. You’ve plenty to make you so, anyway. You can understand a great deal... and you can do a great deal too. But enough. I sincerely regret not having had more talk with you, but I shan’t lose sight of you.... Only wait a bit.” Svidrigaïlov walked out of the restaurant. Raskolnikov walked out after him. Svidrigaïlov was not however very drunk, the wine had affected him for a moment, but it was passing off every minute. He was preoccupied with something of importance and was frowning. He was apparently excited and uneasy in anticipation of something. His manner to Raskolnikov had changed during the last few minutes, and he was ruder and more sneering every moment. Raskolnikov noticed all this, and he too was uneasy. He became very suspicious of Svidrigaïlov and resolved to follow him. They came out on to the pavement. “You go to the right, and I to the left, or if you like, the other way. Only _adieu, mon plaisir_, may we meet again.” And he walked to the right towards the Hay Market. CHAPTER V Raskolnikov walked after him. “What’s this?” cried Svidrigaïlov turning round, “I thought I said...” “It means that I am not going to lose sight of you now.” “What?” Both stood still and gazed at one another, as though measuring their strength. “From all your half tipsy stories,” Raskolnikov observed harshly, “I am _positive_ that you have not given up your designs on my sister, but are pursuing them more actively than ever. I have learnt that my sister received a letter this morning. You have hardly been able to sit still all this time.... You may have unearthed a wife on the way, but that means nothing. I should like to make certain myself.” Raskolnikov could hardly have said himself what he wanted and of what he wished to make certain. “Upon my word! I’ll call the police!” “Call away!” Again they stood for a minute facing each other. At last Svidrigaïlov’s face changed. Having satisfied himself that Raskolnikov was not frightened at his threat, he assumed a mirthful and friendly air. “What a fellow! I purposely refrained from referring to your affair, though I am devoured by curiosity. It’s a fantastic affair. I’ve put it off till another time, but you’re enough to rouse the dead.... Well, let us go, only I warn you beforehand I am only going home for a moment, to get some money; then I shall lock up the flat, take a cab and go to spend the evening at the Islands. Now, now are you going to follow me?” “I’m coming to your lodgings, not to see you but Sofya Semyonovna, to say I’m sorry not to have been at the funeral.” “That’s as you like, but Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. She has taken the three children to an old lady of high rank, the patroness of some orphan asylums, whom I used to know years ago. I charmed the old lady by depositing a sum of money with her to provide for the three children of Katerina Ivanovna and subscribing to the institution as well. I told her too the story of Sofya Semyonovna in full detail, suppressing nothing. It produced an indescribable effect on her. That’s why Sofya Semyonovna has been invited to call to-day at the X. Hotel where the lady is staying for the time.” “No matter, I’ll come all the same.” “As you like, it’s nothing to me, but I won’t come with you; here we are at home. By the way, I am convinced that you regard me with suspicion just because I have shown such delicacy and have not so far troubled you with questions... you understand? It struck you as extraordinary; I don’t mind betting it’s that. Well, it teaches one to show delicacy!” “And to listen at doors!” “Ah, that’s it, is it?” laughed Svidrigaïlov. “Yes, I should have been surprised if you had let that pass after all that has happened. Ha-ha! Though I did understand something of the pranks you had been up to and were telling Sofya Semyonovna about, what was the meaning of it? Perhaps I am quite behind the times and can’t understand. For goodness’ sake, explain it, my dear boy. Expound the latest theories!” “You couldn’t have heard anything. You’re making it all up!” “But I’m not talking about that (though I did hear something). No, I’m talking of the way you keep sighing and groaning now. The Schiller in you is in revolt every moment, and now you tell me not to listen at doors. If that’s how you feel, go and inform the police that you had this mischance: you made a little mistake in your theory. But if you are convinced that one mustn’t listen at doors, but one may murder old women at one’s pleasure, you’d better be off to America and make haste. Run, young man! There may still be time. I’m speaking sincerely. Haven’t you the money? I’ll give you the fare.” “I’m not thinking of that at all,” Raskolnikov interrupted with disgust. “I understand (but don’t put yourself out, don’t discuss it if you don’t want to). I understand the questions you are worrying over--moral ones, aren’t they? Duties of citizen and man? Lay them all aside. They are nothing to you now, ha-ha! You’ll say you are still a man and a citizen. If so you ought not to have got into this coil. It’s no use taking up a job you are not fit for. Well, you’d better shoot yourself, or don’t you want to?” “You seem trying to enrage me, to make me leave you.” “What a queer fellow! But here we are. Welcome to the staircase. You see, that’s the way to Sofya Semyonovna. Look, there is no one at home. Don’t you believe me? Ask Kapernaumov. She leaves the key with him. Here is Madame de Kapernaumov herself. Hey, what? She is rather deaf. Has she gone out? Where? Did you hear? She is not in and won’t be till late in the evening probably. Well, come to my room; you wanted to come and see me, didn’t you? Here we are. Madame Resslich’s not at home. She is a woman who is always busy, an excellent woman I assure you.... She might have been of use to you if you had been a little more sensible. Now, see! I take this five-per-cent bond out of the bureau--see what a lot I’ve got of them still--this one will be turned into cash to-day. I mustn’t waste any more time. The bureau is locked, the flat is locked, and here we are again on the stairs. Shall we take a cab? I’m going to the Islands. Would you like a lift? I’ll take this carriage. Ah, you refuse? You are tired of it! Come for a drive! I believe it will come on to rain. Never mind, we’ll put down the hood....” Svidrigaïlov was already in the carriage. Raskolnikov decided that his suspicions were at least for that moment unjust. Without answering a word he turned and walked back towards the Hay Market. If he had only turned round on his way he might have seen Svidrigaïlov get out not a hundred paces off, dismiss the cab and walk along the pavement. But he had turned the corner and could see nothing. Intense disgust drew him away from Svidrigaïlov. “To think that I could for one instant have looked for help from that coarse brute, that depraved sensualist and blackguard!” he cried. Raskolnikov’s judgment was uttered too lightly and hastily: there was something about Svidrigaïlov which gave him a certain original, even a mysterious character. As concerned his sister, Raskolnikov was convinced that Svidrigaïlov would not leave her in peace. But it was too tiresome and unbearable to go on thinking and thinking about this. When he was alone, he had not gone twenty paces before he sank, as usual, into deep thought. On the bridge he stood by the railing and began gazing at the water. And his sister was standing close by him. He met her at the entrance to the bridge, but passed by without seeing her. Dounia had never met him like this in the street before and was struck with dismay. She stood still and did not know whether to call to him or not. Suddenly she saw Svidrigaïlov coming quickly from the direction of the Hay Market. He seemed to be approaching cautiously. He did not go on to the bridge, but stood aside on the pavement, doing all he could to avoid Raskolnikov’s seeing him. He had observed Dounia for some time and had been making signs to her. She fancied he was signalling to beg her not to speak to her brother, but to come to him. That was what Dounia did. She stole by her brother and went up to Svidrigaïlov. “Let us make haste away,” Svidrigaïlov whispered to her, “I don’t want Rodion Romanovitch to know of our meeting. I must tell you I’ve been sitting with him in the restaurant close by, where he looked me up and I had great difficulty in getting rid of him. He has somehow heard of my letter to you and suspects something. It wasn’t you who told him, of course, but if not you, who then?” “Well, we’ve turned the corner now,” Dounia interrupted, “and my brother won’t see us. I have to tell you that I am going no further with you. Speak to me here. You can tell it all in the street.” “In the first place, I can’t say it in the street; secondly, you must hear Sofya Semyonovna too; and, thirdly, I will show you some papers.... Oh well, if you won’t agree to come with me, I shall refuse to give any explanation and go away at once. But I beg you not to forget that a very curious secret of your beloved brother’s is entirely in my keeping.” Dounia stood still, hesitating, and looked at Svidrigaïlov with searching eyes. “What are you afraid of?” he observed quietly. “The town is not the country. And even in the country you did me more harm than I did you.” “Have you prepared Sofya Semyonovna?” “No, I have not said a word to her and am not quite certain whether she is at home now. But most likely she is. She has buried her stepmother to-day: she is not likely to go visiting on such a day. For the time I don’t want to speak to anyone about it and I half regret having spoken to you. The slightest indiscretion is as bad as betrayal in a thing like this. I live there in that house, we are coming to it. That’s the porter of our house--he knows me very well; you see, he’s bowing; he sees I’m coming with a lady and no doubt he has noticed your face already and you will be glad of that if you are afraid of me and suspicious. Excuse my putting things so coarsely. I haven’t a flat to myself; Sofya Semyonovna’s room is next to mine--she lodges in the next flat. The whole floor is let out in lodgings. Why are you frightened like a child? Am I really so terrible?” Svidrigaïlov’s lips were twisted in a condescending smile; but he was in no smiling mood. His heart was throbbing and he could scarcely breathe. He spoke rather loud to cover his growing excitement. But Dounia did not notice this peculiar excitement, she was so irritated by his remark that she was frightened of him like a child and that he was so terrible to her. “Though I know that you are not a man... of honour, I am not in the least afraid of you. Lead the way,” she said with apparent composure, but her face was very pale. Svidrigaïlov stopped at Sonia’s room. “Allow me to inquire whether she is at home.... She is not. How unfortunate! But I know she may come quite soon. If she’s gone out, it can only be to see a lady about the orphans. Their mother is dead.... I’ve been meddling and making arrangements for them. If Sofya Semyonovna does not come back in ten minutes, I will send her to you, to-day if you like. This is my flat. These are my two rooms. Madame Resslich, my landlady, has the next room. Now, look this way. I will show you my chief piece of evidence: this door from my bedroom leads into two perfectly empty rooms, which are to let. Here they are... You must look into them with some attention.” Svidrigaïlov occupied two fairly large furnished rooms. Dounia was looking about her mistrustfully, but saw nothing special in the furniture or position of the rooms. Yet there was something to observe, for instance, that Svidrigaïlov’s flat was exactly between two sets of almost uninhabited apartments. His rooms were not entered directly from the passage, but through the landlady’s two almost empty rooms. Unlocking a door leading out of his bedroom, Svidrigaïlov showed Dounia the two empty rooms that were to let. Dounia stopped in the doorway, not knowing what she was called to look upon, but Svidrigaïlov hastened to explain. “Look here, at this second large room. Notice that door, it’s locked. By the door stands a chair, the only one in the two rooms. I brought it from my rooms so as to listen more conveniently. Just the other side of the door is Sofya Semyonovna’s table; she sat there talking to Rodion Romanovitch. And I sat here listening on two successive evenings, for two hours each time--and of course I was able to learn something, what do you think?” “You listened?” “Yes, I did. Now come back to my room; we can’t sit down here.” He brought Avdotya Romanovna back into his sitting-room and offered her a chair. He sat down at the opposite side of the table, at least seven feet from her, but probably there was the same glow in his eyes which had once frightened Dounia so much. She shuddered and once more looked about her distrustfully. It was an involuntary gesture; she evidently did not wish to betray her uneasiness. But the secluded position of Svidrigaïlov’s lodging had suddenly struck her. She wanted to ask whether his landlady at least were at home, but pride kept her from asking. Moreover, she had another trouble in her heart incomparably greater than fear for herself. She was in great distress. “Here is your letter,” she said, laying it on the table. “Can it be true what you write? You hint at a crime committed, you say, by my brother. You hint at it too clearly; you daren’t deny it now. I must tell you that I’d heard of this stupid story before you wrote and don’t believe a word of it. It’s a disgusting and ridiculous suspicion. I know the story and why and how it was invented. You can have no proofs. You promised to prove it. Speak! But let me warn you that I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you!” Dounia said this, speaking hurriedly, and for an instant the colour rushed to her face. “If you didn’t believe it, how could you risk coming alone to my rooms? Why have you come? Simply from curiosity?” “Don’t torment me. Speak, speak!” “There’s no denying that you are a brave girl. Upon my word, I thought you would have asked Mr. Razumihin to escort you here. But he was not with you nor anywhere near. I was on the look-out. It’s spirited of you, it proves you wanted to spare Rodion Romanovitch. But everything is divine in you.... About your brother, what am I to say to you? You’ve just seen him yourself. What did you think of him?” “Surely that’s not the only thing you are building on?” “No, not on that, but on his own words. He came here on two successive evenings to see Sofya Semyonovna. I’ve shown you where they sat. He made a full confession to her. He is a murderer. He killed an old woman, a pawnbroker, with whom he had pawned things himself. He killed her sister too, a pedlar woman called Lizaveta, who happened to come in while he was murdering her sister. He killed them with an axe he brought with him. He murdered them to rob them and he did rob them. He took money and various things.... He told all this, word for word, to Sofya Semyonovna, the only person who knows his secret. But she has had no share by word or deed in the murder; she was as horrified at it as you are now. Don’t be anxious, she won’t betray him.” “It cannot be,” muttered Dounia, with white lips. She gasped for breath. “It cannot be. There was not the slightest cause, no sort of ground.... It’s a lie, a lie!” “He robbed her, that was the cause, he took money and things. It’s true that by his own admission he made no use of the money or things, but hid them under a stone, where they are now. But that was because he dared not make use of them.” “But how could he steal, rob? How could he dream of it?” cried Dounia, and she jumped up from the chair. “Why, you know him, and you’ve seen him, can he be a thief?” She seemed to be imploring Svidrigaïlov; she had entirely forgotten her fear. “There are thousands and millions of combinations and possibilities, Avdotya Romanovna. A thief steals and knows he is a scoundrel, but I’ve heard of a gentleman who broke open the mail. Who knows, very likely he thought he was doing a gentlemanly thing! Of course I should not have believed it myself if I’d been told of it as you have, but I believe my own ears. He explained all the causes of it to Sofya Semyonovna too, but she did not believe her ears at first, yet she believed her own eyes at last.” “What... were the causes?” “It’s a long story, Avdotya Romanovna. Here’s... how shall I tell you?--A theory of a sort, the same one by which I for instance consider that a single misdeed is permissible if the principal aim is right, a solitary wrongdoing and hundreds of good deeds! It’s galling too, of course, for a young man of gifts and overweening pride to know that if he had, for instance, a paltry three thousand, his whole career, his whole future would be differently shaped and yet not to have that three thousand. Add to that, nervous irritability from hunger, from lodging in a hole, from rags, from a vivid sense of the charm of his social position and his sister’s and mother’s position too. Above all, vanity, pride and vanity, though goodness knows he may have good qualities too.... I am not blaming him, please don’t think it; besides, it’s not my business. A special little theory came in too--a theory of a sort--dividing mankind, you see, into material and superior persons, that is persons to whom the law does not apply owing to their superiority, who make laws for the rest of mankind, the material, that is. It’s all right as a theory, _une théorie comme une autre_. Napoleon attracted him tremendously, that is, what affected him was that a great many men of genius have not hesitated at wrongdoing, but have overstepped the law without thinking about it. He seems to have fancied that he was a genius too--that is, he was convinced of it for a time. He has suffered a great deal and is still suffering from the idea that he could make a theory, but was incapable of boldly overstepping the law, and so he is not a man of genius. And that’s humiliating for a young man of any pride, in our day especially....” “But remorse? You deny him any moral feeling then? Is he like that?” “Ah, Avdotya Romanovna, everything is in a muddle now; not that it was ever in very good order. Russians in general are broad in their ideas, Avdotya Romanovna, broad like their land and exceedingly disposed to the fantastic, the chaotic. But it’s a misfortune to be broad without a special genius. Do you remember what a lot of talk we had together on this subject, sitting in the evenings on the terrace after supper? Why, you used to reproach me with breadth! Who knows, perhaps we were talking at the very time when he was lying here thinking over his plan. There are no sacred traditions amongst us, especially in the educated class, Avdotya Romanovna. At the best someone will make them up somehow for himself out of books or from some old chronicle. But those are for the most part the learned and all old fogeys, so that it would be almost ill-bred in a man of society. You know my opinions in general, though. I never blame anyone. I do nothing at all, I persevere in that. But we’ve talked of this more than once before. I was so happy indeed as to interest you in my opinions.... You are very pale, Avdotya Romanovna.” “I know his theory. I read that article of his about men to whom all is permitted. Razumihin brought it to me.” “Mr. Razumihin? Your brother’s article? In a magazine? Is there such an article? I didn’t know. It must be interesting. But where are you going, Avdotya Romanovna?” “I want to see Sofya Semyonovna,” Dounia articulated faintly. “How do I go to her? She has come in, perhaps. I must see her at once. Perhaps she...” Avdotya Romanovna could not finish. Her breath literally failed her. “Sofya Semyonovna will not be back till night, at least I believe not. She was to have been back at once, but if not, then she will not be in till quite late.” “Ah, then you are lying! I see... you were lying... lying all the time.... I don’t believe you! I don’t believe you!” cried Dounia, completely losing her head. Almost fainting, she sank on to a chair which Svidrigaïlov made haste to give her. “Avdotya Romanovna, what is it? Control yourself! Here is some water. Drink a little....” He sprinkled some water over her. Dounia shuddered and came to herself. “It has acted violently,” Svidrigaïlov muttered to himself, frowning. “Avdotya Romanovna, calm yourself! Believe me, he has friends. We will save him. Would you like me to take him abroad? I have money, I can get a ticket in three days. And as for the murder, he will do all sorts of good deeds yet, to atone for it. Calm yourself. He may become a great man yet. Well, how are you? How do you feel?” “Cruel man! To be able to jeer at it! Let me go...” “Where are you going?” “To him. Where is he? Do you know? Why is this door locked? We came in at that door and now it is locked. When did you manage to lock it?” “We couldn’t be shouting all over the flat on such a subject. I am far from jeering; it’s simply that I’m sick of talking like this. But how can you go in such a state? Do you want to betray him? You will drive him to fury, and he will give himself up. Let me tell you, he is already being watched; they are already on his track. You will simply be giving him away. Wait a little: I saw him and was talking to him just now. He can still be saved. Wait a bit, sit down; let us think it over together. I asked you to come in order to discuss it alone with you and to consider it thoroughly. But do sit down!” “How can you save him? Can he really be saved?” Dounia sat down. Svidrigaïlov sat down beside her. “It all depends on you, on you, on you alone,” he began with glowing eyes, almost in a whisper and hardly able to utter the words for emotion. Dounia drew back from him in alarm. He too was trembling all over. “You... one word from you, and he is saved. I... I’ll save him. I have money and friends. I’ll send him away at once. I’ll get a passport, two passports, one for him and one for me. I have friends... capable people.... If you like, I’ll take a passport for you... for your mother.... What do you want with Razumihin? I love you too.... I love you beyond everything.... Let me kiss the hem of your dress, let me, let me.... The very rustle of it is too much for me. Tell me, ‘do that,’ and I’ll do it. I’ll do everything. I will do the impossible. What you believe, I will believe. I’ll do anything--anything! Don’t, don’t look at me like that. Do you know that you are killing me?...” He was almost beginning to rave.... Something seemed suddenly to go to his head. Dounia jumped up and rushed to the door. “Open it! Open it!” she called, shaking the door. “Open it! Is there no one there?” Svidrigaïlov got up and came to himself. His still trembling lips slowly broke into an angry mocking smile. “There is no one at home,” he said quietly and emphatically. “The landlady has gone out, and it’s waste of time to shout like that. You are only exciting yourself uselessly.” “Where is the key? Open the door at once, at once, base man!” “I have lost the key and cannot find it.” “This is an outrage,” cried Dounia, turning pale as death. She rushed to the furthest corner, where she made haste to barricade herself with a little table. She did not scream, but she fixed her eyes on her tormentor and watched every movement he made. Svidrigaïlov remained standing at the other end of the room facing her. He was positively composed, at least in appearance, but his face was pale as before. The mocking smile did not leave his face. “You spoke of outrage just now, Avdotya Romanovna. In that case you may be sure I’ve taken measures. Sofya Semyonovna is not at home. The Kapernaumovs are far away--there are five locked rooms between. I am at least twice as strong as you are and I have nothing to fear, besides. For you could not complain afterwards. You surely would not be willing actually to betray your brother? Besides, no one would believe you. How should a girl have come alone to visit a solitary man in his lodgings? So that even if you do sacrifice your brother, you could prove nothing. It is very difficult to prove an assault, Avdotya Romanovna.” “Scoundrel!” whispered Dounia indignantly. “As you like, but observe I was only speaking by way of a general proposition. It’s my personal conviction that you are perfectly right--violence is hateful. I only spoke to show you that you need have no remorse even if... you were willing to save your brother of your own accord, as I suggest to you. You would be simply submitting to circumstances, to violence, in fact, if we must use that word. Think about it. Your brother’s and your mother’s fate are in your hands. I will be your slave... all my life... I will wait here.” Svidrigaïlov sat down on the sofa about eight steps from Dounia. She had not the slightest doubt now of his unbending determination. Besides, she knew him. Suddenly she pulled out of her pocket a revolver, cocked it and laid it in her hand on the table. Svidrigaïlov jumped up. “Aha! So that’s it, is it?” he cried, surprised but smiling maliciously. “Well, that completely alters the aspect of affairs. You’ve made things wonderfully easier for me, Avdotya Romanovna. But where did you get the revolver? Was it Mr. Razumihin? Why, it’s my revolver, an old friend! And how I’ve hunted for it! The shooting lessons I’ve given you in the country have not been thrown away.” “It’s not your revolver, it belonged to Marfa Petrovna, whom you killed, wretch! There was nothing of yours in her house. I took it when I began to suspect what you were capable of. If you dare to advance one step, I swear I’ll kill you.” She was frantic. “But your brother? I ask from curiosity,” said Svidrigaïlov, still standing where he was. “Inform, if you want to! Don’t stir! Don’t come nearer! I’ll shoot! You poisoned your wife, I know; you are a murderer yourself!” She held the revolver ready. “Are you so positive I poisoned Marfa Petrovna?” “You did! You hinted it yourself; you talked to me of poison.... I know you went to get it... you had it in readiness.... It was your doing.... It must have been your doing.... Scoundrel!” “Even if that were true, it would have been for your sake... you would have been the cause.” “You are lying! I hated you always, always....” “Oho, Avdotya Romanovna! You seem to have forgotten how you softened to me in the heat of propaganda. I saw it in your eyes. Do you remember that moonlight night, when the nightingale was singing?” “That’s a lie,” there was a flash of fury in Dounia’s eyes, “that’s a lie and a libel!” “A lie? Well, if you like, it’s a lie. I made it up. Women ought not to be reminded of such things,” he smiled. “I know you will shoot, you pretty wild creature. Well, shoot away!” Dounia raised the revolver, and deadly pale, gazed at him, measuring the distance and awaiting the first movement on his part. Her lower lip was white and quivering and her big black eyes flashed like fire. He had never seen her so handsome. The fire glowing in her eyes at the moment she raised the revolver seemed to kindle him and there was a pang of anguish in his heart. He took a step forward and a shot rang out. The bullet grazed his hair and flew into the wall behind. He stood still and laughed softly. “The wasp has stung me. She aimed straight at my head. What’s this? Blood?” he pulled out his handkerchief to wipe the blood, which flowed in a thin stream down his right temple. The bullet seemed to have just grazed the skin. Dounia lowered the revolver and looked at Svidrigaïlov not so much in terror as in a sort of wild amazement. She seemed not to understand what she was doing and what was going on. “Well, you missed! Fire again, I’ll wait,” said Svidrigaïlov softly, still smiling, but gloomily. “If you go on like that, I shall have time to seize you before you cock again.” Dounia started, quickly cocked the pistol and again raised it. “Let me be,” she cried in despair. “I swear I’ll shoot again. I... I’ll kill you.” “Well... at three paces you can hardly help it. But if you don’t... then.” His eyes flashed and he took two steps forward. Dounia shot again: it missed fire. “You haven’t loaded it properly. Never mind, you have another charge there. Get it ready, I’ll wait.” He stood facing her, two paces away, waiting and gazing at her with wild determination, with feverishly passionate, stubborn, set eyes. Dounia saw that he would sooner die than let her go. “And... now, of course she would kill him, at two paces!” Suddenly she flung away the revolver. “She’s dropped it!” said Svidrigaïlov with surprise, and he drew a deep breath. A weight seemed to have rolled from his heart--perhaps not only the fear of death; indeed he may scarcely have felt it at that moment. It was the deliverance from another feeling, darker and more bitter, which he could not himself have defined. He went to Dounia and gently put his arm round her waist. She did not resist, but, trembling like a leaf, looked at him with suppliant eyes. He tried to say something, but his lips moved without being able to utter a sound. “Let me go,” Dounia implored. Svidrigaïlov shuddered. Her voice now was quite different. “Then you don’t love me?” he asked softly. Dounia shook her head. “And... and you can’t? Never?” he whispered in despair. “Never!” There followed a moment of terrible, dumb struggle in the heart of Svidrigaïlov. He looked at her with an indescribable gaze. Suddenly he withdrew his arm, turned quickly to the window and stood facing it. Another moment passed. “Here’s the key.” He took it out of the left pocket of his coat and laid it on the table behind him, without turning or looking at Dounia. “Take it! Make haste!” He looked stubbornly out of the window. Dounia went up to the table to take the key. “Make haste! Make haste!” repeated Svidrigaïlov, still without turning or moving. But there seemed a terrible significance in the tone of that “make haste.” Dounia understood it, snatched up the key, flew to the door, unlocked it quickly and rushed out of the room. A minute later, beside herself, she ran out on to the canal bank in the direction of X. Bridge. Svidrigaïlov remained three minutes standing at the window. At last he slowly turned, looked about him and passed his hand over his forehead. A strange smile contorted his face, a pitiful, sad, weak smile, a smile of despair. The blood, which was already getting dry, smeared his hand. He looked angrily at it, then wetted a towel and washed his temple. The revolver which Dounia had flung away lay near the door and suddenly caught his eye. He picked it up and examined it. It was a little pocket three-barrel revolver of old-fashioned construction. There were still two charges and one capsule left in it. It could be fired again. He thought a little, put the revolver in his pocket, took his hat and went out. CHAPTER VI He spent that evening till ten o’clock going from one low haunt to another. Katia too turned up and sang another gutter song, how a certain “villain and tyrant,” “began kissing Katia.” Svidrigaïlov treated Katia and the organ-grinder and some singers and the waiters and two little clerks. He was particularly drawn to these clerks by the fact that they both had crooked noses, one bent to the left and the other to the right. They took him finally to a pleasure garden, where he paid for their entrance. There was one lanky three-year-old pine-tree and three bushes in the garden, besides a “Vauxhall,” which was in reality a drinking-bar where tea too was served, and there were a few green tables and chairs standing round it. A chorus of wretched singers and a drunken but exceedingly depressed German clown from Munich with a red nose entertained the public. The clerks quarrelled with some other clerks and a fight seemed imminent. Svidrigaïlov was chosen to decide the dispute. He listened to them for a quarter of an hour, but they shouted so loud that there was no possibility of understanding them. The only fact that seemed certain was that one of them had stolen something and had even succeeded in selling it on the spot to a Jew, but would not share the spoil with his companion. Finally it appeared that the stolen object was a teaspoon belonging to the Vauxhall. It was missed and the affair began to seem troublesome. Svidrigaïlov paid for the spoon, got up, and walked out of the garden. It was about six o’clock. He had not drunk a drop of wine all this time and had ordered tea more for the sake of appearances than anything. It was a dark and stifling evening. Threatening storm-clouds came over the sky about ten o’clock. There was a clap of thunder, and the rain came down like a waterfall. The water fell not in drops, but beat on the earth in streams. There were flashes of lightning every minute and each flash lasted while one could count five. Drenched to the skin, he went home, locked himself in, opened the bureau, took out all his money and tore up two or three papers. Then, putting the money in his pocket, he was about to change his clothes, but, looking out of the window and listening to the thunder and the rain, he gave up the idea, took up his hat and went out of the room without locking the door. He went straight to Sonia. She was at home. She was not alone: the four Kapernaumov children were with her. She was giving them tea. She received Svidrigaïlov in respectful silence, looking wonderingly at his soaking clothes. The children all ran away at once in indescribable terror. Svidrigaïlov sat down at the table and asked Sonia to sit beside him. She timidly prepared to listen. “I may be going to America, Sofya Semyonovna,” said Svidrigaïlov, “and as I am probably seeing you for the last time, I have come to make some arrangements. Well, did you see the lady to-day? I know what she said to you, you need not tell me.” (Sonia made a movement and blushed.) “Those people have their own way of doing things. As to your sisters and your brother, they are really provided for and the money assigned to them I’ve put into safe keeping and have received acknowledgments. You had better take charge of the receipts, in case anything happens. Here, take them! Well now, that’s settled. Here are three 5-per-cent bonds to the value of three thousand roubles. Take those for yourself, entirely for yourself, and let that be strictly between ourselves, so that no one knows of it, whatever you hear. You will need the money, for to go on living in the old way, Sofya Semyonovna, is bad, and besides there is no need for it now.” “I am so much indebted to you, and so are the children and my stepmother,” said Sonia hurriedly, “and if I’ve said so little... please don’t consider...” “That’s enough! that’s enough!” “But as for the money, Arkady Ivanovitch, I am very grateful to you, but I don’t need it now. I can always earn my own living. Don’t think me ungrateful. If you are so charitable, that money....” “It’s for you, for you, Sofya Semyonovna, and please don’t waste words over it. I haven’t time for it. You will want it. Rodion Romanovitch has two alternatives: a bullet in the brain or Siberia.” (Sonia looked wildly at him, and started.) “Don’t be uneasy, I know all about it from himself and I am not a gossip; I won’t tell anyone. It was good advice when you told him to give himself up and confess. It would be much better for him. Well, if it turns out to be Siberia, he will go and you will follow him. That’s so, isn’t it? And if so, you’ll need money. You’ll need it for him, do you understand? Giving it to you is the same as my giving it to him. Besides, you promised Amalia Ivanovna to pay what’s owing. I heard you. How can you undertake such obligations so heedlessly, Sofya Semyonovna? It was Katerina Ivanovna’s debt and not yours, so you ought not to have taken any notice of the German woman. You can’t get through the world like that. If you are ever questioned about me--to-morrow or the day after you will be asked--don’t say anything about my coming to see you now and don’t show the money to anyone or say a word about it. Well, now good-bye.” (He got up.) “My greetings to Rodion Romanovitch. By the way, you’d better put the money for the present in Mr. Razumihin’s keeping. You know Mr. Razumihin? Of course you do. He’s not a bad fellow. Take it to him to-morrow or... when the time comes. And till then, hide it carefully.” Sonia too jumped up from her chair and looked in dismay at Svidrigaïlov. She longed to speak, to ask a question, but for the first moments she did not dare and did not know how to begin. “How can you... how can you be going now, in such rain?” “Why, be starting for America, and be stopped by rain! Ha, ha! Good-bye, Sofya Semyonovna, my dear! Live and live long, you will be of use to others. By the way... tell Mr. Razumihin I send my greetings to him. Tell him Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigaïlov sends his greetings. Be sure to.” He went out, leaving Sonia in a state of wondering anxiety and vague apprehension. It appeared afterwards that on the same evening, at twenty past eleven, he made another very eccentric and unexpected visit. The rain still persisted. Drenched to the skin, he walked into the little flat where the parents of his betrothed lived, in Third Street in Vassilyevsky Island. He knocked some time before he was admitted, and his visit at first caused great perturbation; but Svidrigaïlov could be very fascinating when he liked, so that the first, and indeed very intelligent surmise of the sensible parents that Svidrigaïlov had probably had so much to drink that he did not know what he was doing vanished immediately. The decrepit father was wheeled in to see Svidrigaïlov by the tender and sensible mother, who as usual began the conversation with various irrelevant questions. She never asked a direct question, but began by smiling and rubbing her hands and then, if she were obliged to ascertain something--for instance, when Svidrigaïlov would like to have the wedding--she would begin by interested and almost eager questions about Paris and the court life there, and only by degrees brought the conversation round to Third Street. On other occasions this had of course been very impressive, but this time Arkady Ivanovitch seemed particularly impatient, and insisted on seeing his betrothed at once, though he had been informed, to begin with, that she had already gone to bed. The girl of course appeared. Svidrigaïlov informed her at once that he was obliged by very important affairs to leave Petersburg for a time, and therefore brought her fifteen thousand roubles and begged her accept them as a present from him, as he had long been intending to make her this trifling present before their wedding. The logical connection of the present with his immediate departure and the absolute necessity of visiting them for that purpose in pouring rain at midnight was not made clear. But it all went off very well; even the inevitable ejaculations of wonder and regret, the inevitable questions were extraordinarily few and restrained. On the other hand, the gratitude expressed was most glowing and was reinforced by tears from the most sensible of mothers. Svidrigaïlov got up, laughed, kissed his betrothed, patted her cheek, declared he would soon come back, and noticing in her eyes, together with childish curiosity, a sort of earnest dumb inquiry, reflected and kissed her again, though he felt sincere anger inwardly at the thought that his present would be immediately locked up in the keeping of the most sensible of mothers. He went away, leaving them all in a state of extraordinary excitement, but the tender mamma, speaking quietly in a half whisper, settled some of the most important of their doubts, concluding that Svidrigaïlov was a great man, a man of great affairs and connections and of great wealth--there was no knowing what he had in his mind. He would start off on a journey and give away money just as the fancy took him, so that there was nothing surprising about it. Of course it was strange that he was wet through, but Englishmen, for instance, are even more eccentric, and all these people of high society didn’t think of what was said of them and didn’t stand on ceremony. Possibly, indeed, he came like that on purpose to show that he was not afraid of anyone. Above all, not a word should be said about it, for God knows what might come of it, and the money must be locked up, and it was most fortunate that Fedosya, the cook, had not left the kitchen. And above all not a word must be said to that old cat, Madame Resslich, and so on and so on. They sat up whispering till two o’clock, but the girl went to bed much earlier, amazed and rather sorrowful. Svidrigaïlov meanwhile, exactly at midnight, crossed the bridge on the way back to the mainland. The rain had ceased and there was a roaring wind. He began shivering, and for one moment he gazed at the black waters of the Little Neva with a look of special interest, even inquiry. But he soon felt it very cold, standing by the water; he turned and went towards Y. Prospect. He walked along that endless street for a long time, almost half an hour, more than once stumbling in the dark on the wooden pavement, but continually looking for something on the right side of the street. He had noticed passing through this street lately that there was a hotel somewhere towards the end, built of wood, but fairly large, and its name he remembered was something like Adrianople. He was not mistaken: the hotel was so conspicuous in that God-forsaken place that he could not fail to see it even in the dark. It was a long, blackened wooden building, and in spite of the late hour there were lights in the windows and signs of life within. He went in and asked a ragged fellow who met him in the corridor for a room. The latter, scanning Svidrigaïlov, pulled himself together and led him at once to a close and tiny room in the distance, at the end of the corridor, under the stairs. There was no other, all were occupied. The ragged fellow looked inquiringly. “Is there tea?” asked Svidrigaïlov. “Yes, sir.” “What else is there?” “Veal, vodka, savouries.” “Bring me tea and veal.” “And you want nothing else?” he asked with apparent surprise. “Nothing, nothing.” The ragged man went away, completely disillusioned. “It must be a nice place,” thought Svidrigaïlov. “How was it I didn’t know it? I expect I look as if I came from a café chantant and have had some adventure on the way. It would be interesting to know who stayed here?” He lighted the candle and looked at the room more carefully. It was a room so low-pitched that Svidrigaïlov could only just stand up in it; it had one window; the bed, which was very dirty, and the plain-stained chair and table almost filled it up. The walls looked as though they were made of planks, covered with shabby paper, so torn and dusty that the pattern was indistinguishable, though the general colour--yellow--could still be made out. One of the walls was cut short by the sloping ceiling, though the room was not an attic but just under the stairs. Svidrigaïlov set down the candle, sat down on the bed and sank into thought. But a strange persistent murmur which sometimes rose to a shout in the next room attracted his attention. The murmur had not ceased from the moment he entered the room. He listened: someone was upbraiding and almost tearfully scolding, but he heard only one voice. Svidrigaïlov got up, shaded the light with his hand and at once he saw light through a crack in the wall; he went up and peeped through. The room, which was somewhat larger than his, had two occupants. One of them, a very curly-headed man with a red inflamed face, was standing in the pose of an orator, without his coat, with his legs wide apart to preserve his balance, and smiting himself on the breast. He reproached the other with being a beggar, with having no standing whatever. He declared that he had taken the other out of the gutter and he could turn him out when he liked, and that only the finger of Providence sees it all. The object of his reproaches was sitting in a chair, and had the air of a man who wants dreadfully to sneeze, but can’t. He sometimes turned sheepish and befogged eyes on the speaker, but obviously had not the slightest idea what he was talking about and scarcely heard it. A candle was burning down on the table; there were wine-glasses, a nearly empty bottle of vodka, bread and cucumber, and glasses with the dregs of stale tea. After gazing attentively at this, Svidrigaïlov turned away indifferently and sat down on the bed. The ragged attendant, returning with the tea, could not resist asking him again whether he didn’t want anything more, and again receiving a negative reply, finally withdrew. Svidrigaïlov made haste to drink a glass of tea to warm himself, but could not eat anything. He began to feel feverish. He took off his coat and, wrapping himself in the blanket, lay down on the bed. He was annoyed. “It would have been better to be well for the occasion,” he thought with a smile. The room was close, the candle burnt dimly, the wind was roaring outside, he heard a mouse scratching in the corner and the room smelt of mice and of leather. He lay in a sort of reverie: one thought followed another. He felt a longing to fix his imagination on something. “It must be a garden under the window,” he thought. “There’s a sound of trees. How I dislike the sound of trees on a stormy night, in the dark! They give one a horrid feeling.” He remembered how he had disliked it when he passed Petrovsky Park just now. This reminded him of the bridge over the Little Neva and he felt cold again as he had when standing there. “I never have liked water,” he thought, “even in a landscape,” and he suddenly smiled again at a strange idea: “Surely now all these questions of taste and comfort ought not to matter, but I’ve become more particular, like an animal that picks out a special place... for such an occasion. I ought to have gone into the Petrovsky Park! I suppose it seemed dark, cold, ha-ha! As though I were seeking pleasant sensations!... By the way, why haven’t I put out the candle?” he blew it out. “They’ve gone to bed next door,” he thought, not seeing the light at the crack. “Well, now, Marfa Petrovna, now is the time for you to turn up; it’s dark, and the very time and place for you. But now you won’t come!” He suddenly recalled how, an hour before carrying out his design on Dounia, he had recommended Raskolnikov to trust her to Razumihin’s keeping. “I suppose I really did say it, as Raskolnikov guessed, to tease myself. But what a rogue that Raskolnikov is! He’s gone through a good deal. He may be a successful rogue in time when he’s got over his nonsense. But now he’s _too_ eager for life. These young men are contemptible on that point. But, hang the fellow! Let him please himself, it’s nothing to do with me.” He could not get to sleep. By degrees Dounia’s image rose before him, and a shudder ran over him. “No, I must give up all that now,” he thought, rousing himself. “I must think of something else. It’s queer and funny. I never had a great hatred for anyone, I never particularly desired to avenge myself even, and that’s a bad sign, a bad sign, a bad sign. I never liked quarrelling either, and never lost my temper--that’s a bad sign too. And the promises I made her just now, too--Damnation! But--who knows?--perhaps she would have made a new man of me somehow....” He ground his teeth and sank into silence again. Again Dounia’s image rose before him, just as she was when, after shooting the first time, she had lowered the revolver in terror and gazed blankly at him, so that he might have seized her twice over and she would not have lifted a hand to defend herself if he had not reminded her. He recalled how at that instant he felt almost sorry for her, how he had felt a pang at his heart... “Aïe! Damnation, these thoughts again! I must put it away!” He was dozing off; the feverish shiver had ceased, when suddenly something seemed to run over his arm and leg under the bedclothes. He started. “Ugh! hang it! I believe it’s a mouse,” he thought, “that’s the veal I left on the table.” He felt fearfully disinclined to pull off the blanket, get up, get cold, but all at once something unpleasant ran over his leg again. He pulled off the blanket and lighted the candle. Shaking with feverish chill he bent down to examine the bed: there was nothing. He shook the blanket and suddenly a mouse jumped out on the sheet. He tried to catch it, but the mouse ran to and fro in zigzags without leaving the bed, slipped between his fingers, ran over his hand and suddenly darted under the pillow. He threw down the pillow, but in one instant felt something leap on his chest and dart over his body and down his back under his shirt. He trembled nervously and woke up. The room was dark. He was lying on the bed and wrapped up in the blanket as before. The wind was howling under the window. “How disgusting,” he thought with annoyance. He got up and sat on the edge of the bedstead with his back to the window. “It’s better not to sleep at all,” he decided. There was a cold damp draught from the window, however; without getting up he drew the blanket over him and wrapped himself in it. He was not thinking of anything and did not want to think. But one image rose after another, incoherent scraps of thought without beginning or end passed through his mind. He sank into drowsiness. Perhaps the cold, or the dampness, or the dark, or the wind that howled under the window and tossed the trees roused a sort of persistent craving for the fantastic. He kept dwelling on images of flowers, he fancied a charming flower garden, a bright, warm, almost hot day, a holiday--Trinity day. A fine, sumptuous country cottage in the English taste overgrown with fragrant flowers, with flower beds going round the house; the porch, wreathed in climbers, was surrounded with beds of roses. A light, cool staircase, carpeted with rich rugs, was decorated with rare plants in china pots. He noticed particularly in the windows nosegays of tender, white, heavily fragrant narcissus bending over their bright, green, thick long stalks. He was reluctant to move away from them, but he went up the stairs and came into a large, high drawing-room and again everywhere--at the windows, the doors on to the balcony, and on the balcony itself--were flowers. The floors were strewn with freshly-cut fragrant hay, the windows were open, a fresh, cool, light air came into the room. The birds were chirruping under the window, and in the middle of the room, on a table covered with a white satin shroud, stood a coffin. The coffin was covered with white silk and edged with a thick white frill; wreaths of flowers surrounded it on all sides. Among the flowers lay a girl in a white muslin dress, with her arms crossed and pressed on her bosom, as though carved out of marble. But her loose fair hair was wet; there was a wreath of roses on her head. The stern and already rigid profile of her face looked as though chiselled of marble too, and the smile on her pale lips was full of an immense unchildish misery and sorrowful appeal. Svidrigaïlov knew that girl; there was no holy image, no burning candle beside the coffin; no sound of prayers: the girl had drowned herself. She was only fourteen, but her heart was broken. And she had destroyed herself, crushed by an insult that had appalled and amazed that childish soul, had smirched that angel purity with unmerited disgrace and torn from her a last scream of despair, unheeded and brutally disregarded, on a dark night in the cold and wet while the wind howled.... Svidrigaïlov came to himself, got up from the bed and went to the window. He felt for the latch and opened it. The wind lashed furiously into the little room and stung his face and his chest, only covered with his shirt, as though with frost. Under the window there must have been something like a garden, and apparently a pleasure garden. There, too, probably there were tea-tables and singing in the daytime. Now drops of rain flew in at the window from the trees and bushes; it was dark as in a cellar, so that he could only just make out some dark blurs of objects. Svidrigaïlov, bending down with elbows on the window-sill, gazed for five minutes into the darkness; the boom of a cannon, followed by a second one, resounded in the darkness of the night. “Ah, the signal! The river is overflowing,” he thought. “By morning it will be swirling down the street in the lower parts, flooding the basements and cellars. The cellar rats will swim out, and men will curse in the rain and wind as they drag their rubbish to their upper storeys. What time is it now?” And he had hardly thought it when, somewhere near, a clock on the wall, ticking away hurriedly, struck three. “Aha! It will be light in an hour! Why wait? I’ll go out at once straight to the park. I’ll choose a great bush there drenched with rain, so that as soon as one’s shoulder touches it, millions of drops drip on one’s head.” He moved away from the window, shut it, lighted the candle, put on his waistcoat, his overcoat and his hat and went out, carrying the candle, into the passage to look for the ragged attendant who would be asleep somewhere in the midst of candle-ends and all sorts of rubbish, to pay him for the room and leave the hotel. “It’s the best minute; I couldn’t choose a better.” He walked for some time through a long narrow corridor without finding anyone and was just going to call out, when suddenly in a dark corner between an old cupboard and the door he caught sight of a strange object which seemed to be alive. He bent down with the candle and saw a little girl, not more than five years old, shivering and crying, with her clothes as wet as a soaking house-flannel. She did not seem afraid of Svidrigaïlov, but looked at him with blank amazement out of her big black eyes. Now and then she sobbed as children do when they have been crying a long time, but are beginning to be comforted. The child’s face was pale and tired, she was numb with cold. “How can she have come here? She must have hidden here and not slept all night.” He began questioning her. The child suddenly becoming animated, chattered away in her baby language, something about “mammy” and that “mammy would beat her,” and about some cup that she had “bwoken.” The child chattered on without stopping. He could only guess from what she said that she was a neglected child, whose mother, probably a drunken cook, in the service of the hotel, whipped and frightened her; that the child had broken a cup of her mother’s and was so frightened that she had run away the evening before, had hidden for a long while somewhere outside in the rain, at last had made her way in here, hidden behind the cupboard and spent the night there, crying and trembling from the damp, the darkness and the fear that she would be badly beaten for it. He took her in his arms, went back to his room, sat her on the bed, and began undressing her. The torn shoes which she had on her stockingless feet were as wet as if they had been standing in a puddle all night. When he had undressed her, he put her on the bed, covered her up and wrapped her in the blanket from her head downwards. She fell asleep at once. Then he sank into dreary musing again. “What folly to trouble myself,” he decided suddenly with an oppressive feeling of annoyance. “What idiocy!” In vexation he took up the candle to go and look for the ragged attendant again and make haste to go away. “Damn the child!” he thought as he opened the door, but he turned again to see whether the child was asleep. He raised the blanket carefully. The child was sleeping soundly, she had got warm under the blanket, and her pale cheeks were flushed. But strange to say that flush seemed brighter and coarser than the rosy cheeks of childhood. “It’s a flush of fever,” thought Svidrigaïlov. It was like the flush from drinking, as though she had been given a full glass to drink. Her crimson lips were hot and glowing; but what was this? He suddenly fancied that her long black eyelashes were quivering, as though the lids were opening and a sly crafty eye peeped out with an unchildlike wink, as though the little girl were not asleep, but pretending. Yes, it was so. Her lips parted in a smile. The corners of her mouth quivered, as though she were trying to control them. But now she quite gave up all effort, now it was a grin, a broad grin; there was something shameless, provocative in that quite unchildish face; it was depravity, it was the face of a harlot, the shameless face of a French harlot. Now both eyes opened wide; they turned a glowing, shameless glance upon him; they laughed, invited him.... There was something infinitely hideous and shocking in that laugh, in those eyes, in such nastiness in the face of a child. “What, at five years old?” Svidrigaïlov muttered in genuine horror. “What does it mean?” And now she turned to him, her little face all aglow, holding out her arms.... “Accursed child!” Svidrigaïlov cried, raising his hand to strike her, but at that moment he woke up. He was in the same bed, still wrapped in the blanket. The candle had not been lighted, and daylight was streaming in at the windows. “I’ve had nightmare all night!” He got up angrily, feeling utterly shattered; his bones ached. There was a thick mist outside and he could see nothing. It was nearly five. He had overslept himself! He got up, put on his still damp jacket and overcoat. Feeling the revolver in his pocket, he took it out and then he sat down, took a notebook out of his pocket and in the most conspicuous place on the title page wrote a few lines in large letters. Reading them over, he sank into thought with his elbows on the table. The revolver and the notebook lay beside him. Some flies woke up and settled on the untouched veal, which was still on the table. He stared at them and at last with his free right hand began trying to catch one. He tried till he was tired, but could not catch it. At last, realising that he was engaged in this interesting pursuit, he started, got up and walked resolutely out of the room. A minute later he was in the street. A thick milky mist hung over the town. Svidrigaïlov walked along the slippery dirty wooden pavement towards the Little Neva. He was picturing the waters of the Little Neva swollen in the night, Petrovsky Island, the wet paths, the wet grass, the wet trees and bushes and at last the bush.... He began ill-humouredly staring at the houses, trying to think of something else. There was not a cabman or a passer-by in the street. The bright yellow, wooden, little houses looked dirty and dejected with their closed shutters. The cold and damp penetrated his whole body and he began to shiver. From time to time he came across shop signs and read each carefully. At last he reached the end of the wooden pavement and came to a big stone house. A dirty, shivering dog crossed his path with its tail between its legs. A man in a greatcoat lay face downwards; dead drunk, across the pavement. He looked at him and went on. A high tower stood up on the left. “Bah!” he shouted, “here is a place. Why should it be Petrovsky? It will be in the presence of an official witness anyway....” He almost smiled at this new thought and turned into the street where there was the big house with the tower. At the great closed gates of the house, a little man stood with his shoulder leaning against them, wrapped in a grey soldier’s coat, with a copper Achilles helmet on his head. He cast a drowsy and indifferent glance at Svidrigaïlov. His face wore that perpetual look of peevish dejection, which is so sourly printed on all faces of Jewish race without exception. They both, Svidrigaïlov and Achilles, stared at each other for a few minutes without speaking. At last it struck Achilles as irregular for a man not drunk to be standing three steps from him, staring and not saying a word. “What do you want here?” he said, without moving or changing his position. “Nothing, brother, good morning,” answered Svidrigaïlov. “This isn’t the place.” “I am going to foreign parts, brother.” “To foreign parts?” “To America.” “America.” Svidrigaïlov took out the revolver and cocked it. Achilles raised his eyebrows. “I say, this is not the place for such jokes!” “Why shouldn’t it be the place?” “Because it isn’t.” “Well, brother, I don’t mind that. It’s a good place. When you are asked, you just say he was going, he said, to America.” He put the revolver to his right temple. “You can’t do it here, it’s not the place,” cried Achilles, rousing himself, his eyes growing bigger and bigger. Svidrigaïlov pulled the trigger. CHAPTER VII The same day, about seven o’clock in the evening, Raskolnikov was on his way to his mother’s and sister’s lodging--the lodging in Bakaleyev’s house which Razumihin had found for them. The stairs went up from the street. Raskolnikov walked with lagging steps, as though still hesitating whether to go or not. But nothing would have turned him back: his decision was taken. “Besides, it doesn’t matter, they still know nothing,” he thought, “and they are used to thinking of me as eccentric.” He was appallingly dressed: his clothes torn and dirty, soaked with a night’s rain. His face was almost distorted from fatigue, exposure, the inward conflict that had lasted for twenty-four hours. He had spent all the previous night alone, God knows where. But anyway he had reached a decision. He knocked at the door which was opened by his mother. Dounia was not at home. Even the servant happened to be out. At first Pulcheria Alexandrovna was speechless with joy and surprise; then she took him by the hand and drew him into the room. “Here you are!” she began, faltering with joy. “Don’t be angry with me, Rodya, for welcoming you so foolishly with tears: I am laughing not crying. Did you think I was crying? No, I am delighted, but I’ve got into such a stupid habit of shedding tears. I’ve been like that ever since your father’s death. I cry for anything. Sit down, dear boy, you must be tired; I see you are. Ah, how muddy you are.” “I was in the rain yesterday, mother....” Raskolnikov began. “No, no,” Pulcheria Alexandrovna hurriedly interrupted, “you thought I was going to cross-question you in the womanish way I used to; don’t be anxious, I understand, I understand it all: now I’ve learned the ways here and truly I see for myself that they are better. I’ve made up my mind once for all: how could I understand your plans and expect you to give an account of them? God knows what concerns and plans you may have, or what ideas you are hatching; so it’s not for me to keep nudging your elbow, asking you what you are thinking about? But, my goodness! why am I running to and fro as though I were crazy...? I am reading your article in the magazine for the third time, Rodya. Dmitri Prokofitch brought it to me. Directly I saw it I cried out to myself: ‘There, foolish one,’ I thought, ‘that’s what he is busy about; that’s the solution of the mystery! Learned people are always like that. He may have some new ideas in his head just now; he is thinking them over and I worry him and upset him.’ I read it, my dear, and of course there was a great deal I did not understand; but that’s only natural--how should I?” “Show me, mother.” Raskolnikov took the magazine and glanced at his article. Incongruous as it was with his mood and his circumstances, he felt that strange and bitter sweet sensation that every author experiences the first time he sees himself in print; besides, he was only twenty-three. It lasted only a moment. After reading a few lines he frowned and his heart throbbed with anguish. He recalled all the inward conflict of the preceding months. He flung the article on the table with disgust and anger. “But, however foolish I may be, Rodya, I can see for myself that you will very soon be one of the leading--if not the leading man--in the world of Russian thought. And they dared to think you were mad! You don’t know, but they really thought that. Ah, the despicable creatures, how could they understand genius! And Dounia, Dounia was all but believing it--what do you say to that? Your father sent twice to magazines--the first time poems (I’ve got the manuscript and will show you) and the second time a whole novel (I begged him to let me copy it out) and how we prayed that they should be taken--they weren’t! I was breaking my heart, Rodya, six or seven days ago over your food and your clothes and the way you are living. But now I see again how foolish I was, for you can attain any position you like by your intellect and talent. No doubt you don’t care about that for the present and you are occupied with much more important matters....” “Dounia’s not at home, mother?” “No, Rodya. I often don’t see her; she leaves me alone. Dmitri Prokofitch comes to see me, it’s so good of him, and he always talks about you. He loves you and respects you, my dear. I don’t say that Dounia is very wanting in consideration. I am not complaining. She has her ways and I have mine; she seems to have got some secrets of late and I never have any secrets from you two. Of course, I am sure that Dounia has far too much sense, and besides she loves you and me... but I don’t know what it will all lead to. You’ve made me so happy by coming now, Rodya, but she has missed you by going out; when she comes in I’ll tell her: ‘Your brother came in while you were out. Where have you been all this time?’ You mustn’t spoil me, Rodya, you know; come when you can, but if you can’t, it doesn’t matter, I can wait. I shall know, anyway, that you are fond of me, that will be enough for me. I shall read what you write, I shall hear about you from everyone, and sometimes you’ll come yourself to see me. What could be better? Here you’ve come now to comfort your mother, I see that.” Here Pulcheria Alexandrovna began to cry. “Here I am again! Don’t mind my foolishness. My goodness, why am I sitting here?” she cried, jumping up. “There is coffee and I don’t offer you any. Ah, that’s the selfishness of old age. I’ll get it at once!” “Mother, don’t trouble, I am going at once. I haven’t come for that. Please listen to me.” Pulcheria Alexandrovna went up to him timidly. “Mother, whatever happens, whatever you hear about me, whatever you are told about me, will you always love me as you do now?” he asked suddenly from the fullness of his heart, as though not thinking of his words and not weighing them. “Rodya, Rodya, what is the matter? How can you ask me such a question? Why, who will tell me anything about you? Besides, I shouldn’t believe anyone, I should refuse to listen.” “I’ve come to assure you that I’ve always loved you and I am glad that we are alone, even glad Dounia is out,” he went on with the same impulse. “I have come to tell you that though you will be unhappy, you must believe that your son loves you now more than himself, and that all you thought about me, that I was cruel and didn’t care about you, was all a mistake. I shall never cease to love you.... Well, that’s enough: I thought I must do this and begin with this....” Pulcheria Alexandrovna embraced him in silence, pressing him to her bosom and weeping gently. “I don’t know what is wrong with you, Rodya,” she said at last. “I’ve been thinking all this time that we were simply boring you and now I see that there is a great sorrow in store for you, and that’s why you are miserable. I’ve foreseen it a long time, Rodya. Forgive me for speaking about it. I keep thinking about it and lie awake at nights. Your sister lay talking in her sleep all last night, talking of nothing but you. I caught something, but I couldn’t make it out. I felt all the morning as though I were going to be hanged, waiting for something, expecting something, and now it has come! Rodya, Rodya, where are you going? You are going away somewhere?” “Yes.” “That’s what I thought! I can come with you, you know, if you need me. And Dounia, too; she loves you, she loves you dearly--and Sofya Semyonovna may come with us if you like. You see, I am glad to look upon her as a daughter even... Dmitri Prokofitch will help us to go together. But... where... are you going?” “Good-bye, mother.” “What, to-day?” she cried, as though losing him for ever. “I can’t stay, I must go now....” “And can’t I come with you?” “No, but kneel down and pray to God for me. Your prayer perhaps will reach Him.” “Let me bless you and sign you with the cross. That’s right, that’s right. Oh, God, what are we doing?” Yes, he was glad, he was very glad that there was no one there, that he was alone with his mother. For the first time after all those awful months his heart was softened. He fell down before her, he kissed her feet and both wept, embracing. And she was not surprised and did not question him this time. For some days she had realised that something awful was happening to her son and that now some terrible minute had come for him. “Rodya, my darling, my first born,” she said sobbing, “now you are just as when you were little. You would run like this to me and hug me and kiss me. When your father was living and we were poor, you comforted us simply by being with us and when I buried your father, how often we wept together at his grave and embraced, as now. And if I’ve been crying lately, it’s that my mother’s heart had a foreboding of trouble. The first time I saw you, that evening, you remember, as soon as we arrived here, I guessed simply from your eyes. My heart sank at once, and to-day when I opened the door and looked at you, I thought the fatal hour had come. Rodya, Rodya, you are not going away to-day?” “No!” “You’ll come again?” “Yes... I’ll come.” “Rodya, don’t be angry, I don’t dare to question you. I know I mustn’t. Only say two words to me--is it far where you are going?” “Very far.” “What is awaiting you there? Some post or career for you?” “What God sends... only pray for me.” Raskolnikov went to the door, but she clutched him and gazed despairingly into his eyes. Her face worked with terror. “Enough, mother,” said Raskolnikov, deeply regretting that he had come. “Not for ever, it’s not yet for ever? You’ll come, you’ll come to-morrow?” “I will, I will, good-bye.” He tore himself away at last. It was a warm, fresh, bright evening; it had cleared up in the morning. Raskolnikov went to his lodgings; he made haste. He wanted to finish all before sunset. He did not want to meet anyone till then. Going up the stairs he noticed that Nastasya rushed from the samovar to watch him intently. “Can anyone have come to see me?” he wondered. He had a disgusted vision of Porfiry. But opening his door he saw Dounia. She was sitting alone, plunged in deep thought, and looked as though she had been waiting a long time. He stopped short in the doorway. She rose from the sofa in dismay and stood up facing him. Her eyes, fixed upon him, betrayed horror and infinite grief. And from those eyes alone he saw at once that she knew. “Am I to come in or go away?” he asked uncertainly. “I’ve been all day with Sofya Semyonovna. We were both waiting for you. We thought that you would be sure to come there.” Raskolnikov went into the room and sank exhausted on a chair. “I feel weak, Dounia, I am very tired; and I should have liked at this moment to be able to control myself.” He glanced at her mistrustfully. “Where were you all night?” “I don’t remember clearly. You see, sister, I wanted to make up my mind once for all, and several times I walked by the Neva, I remember that I wanted to end it all there, but... I couldn’t make up my mind,” he whispered, looking at her mistrustfully again. “Thank God! That was just what we were afraid of, Sofya Semyonovna and I. Then you still have faith in life? Thank God, thank God!” Raskolnikov smiled bitterly. “I haven’t faith, but I have just been weeping in mother’s arms; I haven’t faith, but I have just asked her to pray for me. I don’t know how it is, Dounia, I don’t understand it.” “Have you been at mother’s? Have you told her?” cried Dounia, horror-stricken. “Surely you haven’t done that?” “No, I didn’t tell her... in words; but she understood a great deal. She heard you talking in your sleep. I am sure she half understands it already. Perhaps I did wrong in going to see her. I don’t know why I did go. I am a contemptible person, Dounia.” “A contemptible person, but ready to face suffering! You are, aren’t you?” “Yes, I am going. At once. Yes, to escape the disgrace I thought of drowning myself, Dounia, but as I looked into the water, I thought that if I had considered myself strong till now I’d better not be afraid of disgrace,” he said, hurrying on. “It’s pride, Dounia.” “Pride, Rodya.” There was a gleam of fire in his lustreless eyes; he seemed to be glad to think that he was still proud. “You don’t think, sister, that I was simply afraid of the water?” he asked, looking into her face with a sinister smile. “Oh, Rodya, hush!” cried Dounia bitterly. Silence lasted for two minutes. He sat with his eyes fixed on the floor; Dounia stood at the other end of the table and looked at him with anguish. Suddenly he got up. “It’s late, it’s time to go! I am going at once to give myself up. But I don’t know why I am going to give myself up.” Big tears fell down her cheeks. “You are crying, sister, but can you hold out your hand to me?” “You doubted it?” She threw her arms round him. “Aren’t you half expiating your crime by facing the suffering?” she cried, holding him close and kissing him. “Crime? What crime?” he cried in sudden fury. “That I killed a vile noxious insect, an old pawnbroker woman, of use to no one!... Killing her was atonement for forty sins. She was sucking the life out of poor people. Was that a crime? I am not thinking of it and I am not thinking of expiating it, and why are you all rubbing it in on all sides? ‘A crime! a crime!’ Only now I see clearly the imbecility of my cowardice, now that I have decided to face this superfluous disgrace. It’s simply because I am contemptible and have nothing in me that I have decided to, perhaps too for my advantage, as that... Porfiry... suggested!” “Brother, brother, what are you saying? Why, you have shed blood?” cried Dounia in despair. “Which all men shed,” he put in almost frantically, “which flows and has always flowed in streams, which is spilt like champagne, and for which men are crowned in the Capitol and are called afterwards benefactors of mankind. Look into it more carefully and understand it! I too wanted to do good to men and would have done hundreds, thousands of good deeds to make up for that one piece of stupidity, not stupidity even, simply clumsiness, for the idea was by no means so stupid as it seems now that it has failed.... (Everything seems stupid when it fails.) By that stupidity I only wanted to put myself into an independent position, to take the first step, to obtain means, and then everything would have been smoothed over by benefits immeasurable in comparison.... But I... I couldn’t carry out even the first step, because I am contemptible, that’s what’s the matter! And yet I won’t look at it as you do. If I had succeeded I should have been crowned with glory, but now I’m trapped.” “But that’s not so, not so! Brother, what are you saying?” “Ah, it’s not picturesque, not æsthetically attractive! I fail to understand why bombarding people by regular siege is more honourable. The fear of appearances is the first symptom of impotence. I’ve never, never recognised this more clearly than now, and I am further than ever from seeing that what I did was a crime. I’ve never, never been stronger and more convinced than now.” The colour had rushed into his pale exhausted face, but as he uttered his last explanation, he happened to meet Dounia’s eyes and he saw such anguish in them that he could not help being checked. He felt that he had, anyway, made these two poor women miserable, that he was, anyway, the cause... “Dounia darling, if I am guilty forgive me (though I cannot be forgiven if I am guilty). Good-bye! We won’t dispute. It’s time, high time to go. Don’t follow me, I beseech you, I have somewhere else to go.... But you go at once and sit with mother. I entreat you to! It’s my last request of you. Don’t leave her at all; I left her in a state of anxiety, that she is not fit to bear; she will die or go out of her mind. Be with her! Razumihin will be with you. I’ve been talking to him.... Don’t cry about me: I’ll try to be honest and manly all my life, even if I am a murderer. Perhaps I shall some day make a name. I won’t disgrace you, you will see; I’ll still show.... Now good-bye for the present,” he concluded hurriedly, noticing again a strange expression in Dounia’s eyes at his last words and promises. “Why are you crying? Don’t cry, don’t cry: we are not parting for ever! Ah, yes! Wait a minute, I’d forgotten!” He went to the table, took up a thick dusty book, opened it and took from between the pages a little water-colour portrait on ivory. It was the portrait of his landlady’s daughter, who had died of fever, that strange girl who had wanted to be a nun. For a minute he gazed at the delicate expressive face of his betrothed, kissed the portrait and gave it to Dounia. “I used to talk a great deal about it to her, only to her,” he said thoughtfully. “To her heart I confided much of what has since been so hideously realised. Don’t be uneasy,” he returned to Dounia, “she was as much opposed to it as you, and I am glad that she is gone. The great point is that everything now is going to be different, is going to be broken in two,” he cried, suddenly returning to his dejection. “Everything, everything, and am I prepared for it? Do I want it myself? They say it is necessary for me to suffer! What’s the object of these senseless sufferings? shall I know any better what they are for, when I am crushed by hardships and idiocy, and weak as an old man after twenty years’ penal servitude? And what shall I have to live for then? Why am I consenting to that life now? Oh, I knew I was contemptible when I stood looking at the Neva at daybreak to-day!” At last they both went out. It was hard for Dounia, but she loved him. She walked away, but after going fifty paces she turned round to look at him again. He was still in sight. At the corner he too turned and for the last time their eyes met; but noticing that she was looking at him, he motioned her away with impatience and even vexation, and turned the corner abruptly. “I am wicked, I see that,” he thought to himself, feeling ashamed a moment later of his angry gesture to Dounia. “But why are they so fond of me if I don’t deserve it? Oh, if only I were alone and no one loved me and I too had never loved anyone! _Nothing of all this would have happened._ But I wonder shall I in those fifteen or twenty years grow so meek that I shall humble myself before people and whimper at every word that I am a criminal? Yes, that’s it, that’s it, that’s what they are sending me there for, that’s what they want. Look at them running to and fro about the streets, every one of them a scoundrel and a criminal at heart and, worse still, an idiot. But try to get me off and they’d be wild with righteous indignation. Oh, how I hate them all!” He fell to musing by what process it could come to pass, that he could be humbled before all of them, indiscriminately--humbled by conviction. And yet why not? It must be so. Would not twenty years of continual bondage crush him utterly? Water wears out a stone. And why, why should he live after that? Why should he go now when he knew that it would be so? It was the hundredth time perhaps that he had asked himself that question since the previous evening, but still he went. CHAPTER VIII When he went into Sonia’s room, it was already getting dark. All day Sonia had been waiting for him in terrible anxiety. Dounia had been waiting with her. She had come to her that morning, remembering Svidrigaïlov’s words that Sonia knew. We will not describe the conversation and tears of the two girls, and how friendly they became. Dounia gained one comfort at least from that interview, that her brother would not be alone. He had gone to her, Sonia, first with his confession; he had gone to her for human fellowship when he needed it; she would go with him wherever fate might send him. Dounia did not ask, but she knew it was so. She looked at Sonia almost with reverence and at first almost embarrassed her by it. Sonia was almost on the point of tears. She felt herself, on the contrary, hardly worthy to look at Dounia. Dounia’s gracious image when she had bowed to her so attentively and respectfully at their first meeting in Raskolnikov’s room had remained in her mind as one of the fairest visions of her life. Dounia at last became impatient and, leaving Sonia, went to her brother’s room to await him there; she kept thinking that he would come there first. When she had gone, Sonia began to be tortured by the dread of his committing suicide, and Dounia too feared it. But they had spent the day trying to persuade each other that that could not be, and both were less anxious while they were together. As soon as they parted, each thought of nothing else. Sonia remembered how Svidrigaïlov had said to her the day before that Raskolnikov had two alternatives--Siberia or... Besides she knew his vanity, his pride and his lack of faith. “Is it possible that he has nothing but cowardice and fear of death to make him live?” she thought at last in despair. Meanwhile the sun was setting. Sonia was standing in dejection, looking intently out of the window, but from it she could see nothing but the unwhitewashed blank wall of the next house. At last when she began to feel sure of his death--he walked into the room. She gave a cry of joy, but looking carefully into his face she turned pale. “Yes,” said Raskolnikov, smiling. “I have come for your cross, Sonia. It was you told me to go to the cross-roads; why is it you are frightened now it’s come to that?” Sonia gazed at him astonished. His tone seemed strange to her; a cold shiver ran over her, but in a moment she guessed that the tone and the words were a mask. He spoke to her looking away, as though to avoid meeting her eyes. “You see, Sonia, I’ve decided that it will be better so. There is one fact.... But it’s a long story and there’s no need to discuss it. But do you know what angers me? It annoys me that all those stupid brutish faces will be gaping at me directly, pestering me with their stupid questions, which I shall have to answer--they’ll point their fingers at me.... Tfoo! You know I am not going to Porfiry, I am sick of him. I’d rather go to my friend, the Explosive Lieutenant; how I shall surprise him, what a sensation I shall make! But I must be cooler; I’ve become too irritable of late. You know I was nearly shaking my fist at my sister just now, because she turned to take a last look at me. It’s a brutal state to be in! Ah! what am I coming to! Well, where are the crosses?” He seemed hardly to know what he was doing. He could not stay still or concentrate his attention on anything; his ideas seemed to gallop after one another, he talked incoherently, his hands trembled slightly. Without a word Sonia took out of the drawer two crosses, one of cypress wood and one of copper. She made the sign of the cross over herself and over him, and put the wooden cross on his neck. “It’s the symbol of my taking up the cross,” he laughed. “As though I had not suffered much till now! The wooden cross, that is the peasant one; the copper one, that is Lizaveta’s--you will wear yourself, show me! So she had it on... at that moment? I remember two things like these too, a silver one and a little ikon. I threw them back on the old woman’s neck. Those would be appropriate now, really, those are what I ought to put on now.... But I am talking nonsense and forgetting what matters; I’m somehow forgetful.... You see I have come to warn you, Sonia, so that you might know... that’s all--that’s all I came for. But I thought I had more to say. You wanted me to go yourself. Well, now I am going to prison and you’ll have your wish. Well, what are you crying for? You too? Don’t. Leave off! Oh, how I hate it all!” But his feeling was stirred; his heart ached, as he looked at her. “Why is she grieving too?” he thought to himself. “What am I to her? Why does she weep? Why is she looking after me, like my mother or Dounia? She’ll be my nurse.” “Cross yourself, say at least one prayer,” Sonia begged in a timid broken voice. “Oh certainly, as much as you like! And sincerely, Sonia, sincerely....” But he wanted to say something quite different. He crossed himself several times. Sonia took up her shawl and put it over her head. It was the green _drap de dames_ shawl of which Marmeladov had spoken, “the family shawl.” Raskolnikov thought of that looking at it, but he did not ask. He began to feel himself that he was certainly forgetting things and was disgustingly agitated. He was frightened at this. He was suddenly struck too by the thought that Sonia meant to go with him. “What are you doing? Where are you going? Stay here, stay! I’ll go alone,” he cried in cowardly vexation, and almost resentful, he moved towards the door. “What’s the use of going in procession?” he muttered going out. Sonia remained standing in the middle of the room. He had not even said good-bye to her; he had forgotten her. A poignant and rebellious doubt surged in his heart. “Was it right, was it right, all this?” he thought again as he went down the stairs. “Couldn’t he stop and retract it all... and not go?” But still he went. He felt suddenly once for all that he mustn’t ask himself questions. As he turned into the street he remembered that he had not said good-bye to Sonia, that he had left her in the middle of the room in her green shawl, not daring to stir after he had shouted at her, and he stopped short for a moment. At the same instant, another thought dawned upon him, as though it had been lying in wait to strike him then. “Why, with what object did I go to her just now? I told her--on business; on what business? I had no sort of business! To tell her I was _going_; but where was the need? Do I love her? No, no, I drove her away just now like a dog. Did I want her crosses? Oh, how low I’ve sunk! No, I wanted her tears, I wanted to see her terror, to see how her heart ached! I had to have something to cling to, something to delay me, some friendly face to see! And I dared to believe in myself, to dream of what I would do! I am a beggarly contemptible wretch, contemptible!” He walked along the canal bank, and he had not much further to go. But on reaching the bridge he stopped and turning out of his way along it went to the Hay Market. He looked eagerly to right and left, gazed intently at every object and could not fix his attention on anything; everything slipped away. “In another week, another month I shall be driven in a prison van over this bridge, how shall I look at the canal then? I should like to remember this!” slipped into his mind. “Look at this sign! How shall I read those letters then? It’s written here ‘Campany,’ that’s a thing to remember, that letter _a_, and to look at it again in a month--how shall I look at it then? What shall I be feeling and thinking then?... How trivial it all must be, what I am fretting about now! Of course it must all be interesting... in its way... (Ha-ha-ha! What am I thinking about?) I am becoming a baby, I am showing off to myself; why am I ashamed? Foo! how people shove! that fat man--a German he must be--who pushed against me, does he know whom he pushed? There’s a peasant woman with a baby, begging. It’s curious that she thinks me happier than she is. I might give her something, for the incongruity of it. Here’s a five copeck piece left in my pocket, where did I get it? Here, here... take it, my good woman!” “God bless you,” the beggar chanted in a lachrymose voice. He went into the Hay Market. It was distasteful, very distasteful to be in a crowd, but he walked just where he saw most people. He would have given anything in the world to be alone; but he knew himself that he would not have remained alone for a moment. There was a man drunk and disorderly in the crowd; he kept trying to dance and falling down. There was a ring round him. Raskolnikov squeezed his way through the crowd, stared for some minutes at the drunken man and suddenly gave a short jerky laugh. A minute later he had forgotten him and did not see him, though he still stared. He moved away at last, not remembering where he was; but when he got into the middle of the square an emotion suddenly came over him, overwhelming him body and mind. He suddenly recalled Sonia’s words, “Go to the cross-roads, bow down to the people, kiss the earth, for you have sinned against it too, and say aloud to the whole world, ‘I am a murderer.’” He trembled, remembering that. And the hopeless misery and anxiety of all that time, especially of the last hours, had weighed so heavily upon him that he positively clutched at the chance of this new unmixed, complete sensation. It came over him like a fit; it was like a single spark kindled in his soul and spreading fire through him. Everything in him softened at once and the tears started into his eyes. He fell to the earth on the spot.... He knelt down in the middle of the square, bowed down to the earth, and kissed that filthy earth with bliss and rapture. He got up and bowed down a second time. “He’s boozed,” a youth near him observed. There was a roar of laughter. “He’s going to Jerusalem, brothers, and saying good-bye to his children and his country. He’s bowing down to all the world and kissing the great city of St. Petersburg and its pavement,” added a workman who was a little drunk. “Quite a young man, too!” observed a third. “And a gentleman,” someone observed soberly. “There’s no knowing who’s a gentleman and who isn’t nowadays.” These exclamations and remarks checked Raskolnikov, and the words, “I am a murderer,” which were perhaps on the point of dropping from his lips, died away. He bore these remarks quietly, however, and, without looking round, he turned down a street leading to the police office. He had a glimpse of something on the way which did not surprise him; he had felt that it must be so. The second time he bowed down in the Hay Market he saw, standing fifty paces from him on the left, Sonia. She was hiding from him behind one of the wooden shanties in the market-place. She had followed him then on his painful way! Raskolnikov at that moment felt and knew once for all that Sonia was with him for ever and would follow him to the ends of the earth, wherever fate might take him. It wrung his heart... but he was just reaching the fatal place. He went into the yard fairly resolutely. He had to mount to the third storey. “I shall be some time going up,” he thought. He felt as though the fateful moment was still far off, as though he had plenty of time left for consideration. Again the same rubbish, the same eggshells lying about on the spiral stairs, again the open doors of the flats, again the same kitchens and the same fumes and stench coming from them. Raskolnikov had not been here since that day. His legs were numb and gave way under him, but still they moved forward. He stopped for a moment to take breath, to collect himself, so as to enter _like a man_. “But why? what for?” he wondered, reflecting. “If I must drink the cup what difference does it make? The more revolting the better.” He imagined for an instant the figure of the “explosive lieutenant,” Ilya Petrovitch. Was he actually going to him? Couldn’t he go to someone else? To Nikodim Fomitch? Couldn’t he turn back and go straight to Nikodim Fomitch’s lodgings? At least then it would be done privately.... No, no! To the “explosive lieutenant”! If he must drink it, drink it off at once. Turning cold and hardly conscious, he opened the door of the office. There were very few people in it this time--only a house porter and a peasant. The doorkeeper did not even peep out from behind his screen. Raskolnikov walked into the next room. “Perhaps I still need not speak,” passed through his mind. Some sort of clerk not wearing a uniform was settling himself at a bureau to write. In a corner another clerk was seating himself. Zametov was not there, nor, of course, Nikodim Fomitch. “No one in?” Raskolnikov asked, addressing the person at the bureau. “Whom do you want?” “A-ah! Not a sound was heard, not a sight was seen, but I scent the Russian... how does it go on in the fairy tale... I’ve forgotten! ‘At your service!’” a familiar voice cried suddenly. Raskolnikov shuddered. The Explosive Lieutenant stood before him. He had just come in from the third room. “It is the hand of fate,” thought Raskolnikov. “Why is he here?” “You’ve come to see us? What about?” cried Ilya Petrovitch. He was obviously in an exceedingly good humour and perhaps a trifle exhilarated. “If it’s on business you are rather early.[*] It’s only a chance that I am here... however I’ll do what I can. I must admit, I... what is it, what is it? Excuse me....” [*] Dostoevsky appears to have forgotten that it is after sunset, and that the last time Raskolnikov visited the police office at two in the afternoon he was reproached for coming too late.--TRANSLATOR. “Raskolnikov.” “Of course, Raskolnikov. You didn’t imagine I’d forgotten? Don’t think I am like that... Rodion Ro--Ro--Rodionovitch, that’s it, isn’t it?” “Rodion Romanovitch.” “Yes, yes, of course, Rodion Romanovitch! I was just getting at it. I made many inquiries about you. I assure you I’ve been genuinely grieved since that... since I behaved like that... it was explained to me afterwards that you were a literary man... and a learned one too... and so to say the first steps... Mercy on us! What literary or scientific man does not begin by some originality of conduct! My wife and I have the greatest respect for literature, in my wife it’s a genuine passion! Literature and art! If only a man is a gentleman, all the rest can be gained by talents, learning, good sense, genius. As for a hat--well, what does a hat matter? I can buy a hat as easily as I can a bun; but what’s under the hat, what the hat covers, I can’t buy that! I was even meaning to come and apologise to you, but thought maybe you’d... But I am forgetting to ask you, is there anything you want really? I hear your family have come?” “Yes, my mother and sister.” “I’ve even had the honour and happiness of meeting your sister--a highly cultivated and charming person. I confess I was sorry I got so hot with you. There it is! But as for my looking suspiciously at your fainting fit--that affair has been cleared up splendidly! Bigotry and fanaticism! I understand your indignation. Perhaps you are changing your lodging on account of your family’s arriving?” “No, I only looked in... I came to ask... I thought that I should find Zametov here.” “Oh, yes! Of course, you’ve made friends, I heard. Well, no, Zametov is not here. Yes, we’ve lost Zametov. He’s not been here since yesterday... he quarrelled with everyone on leaving... in the rudest way. He is a feather-headed youngster, that’s all; one might have expected something from him, but there, you know what they are, our brilliant young men. He wanted to go in for some examination, but it’s only to talk and boast about it, it will go no further than that. Of course it’s a very different matter with you or Mr. Razumihin there, your friend. Your career is an intellectual one and you won’t be deterred by failure. For you, one may say, all the attractions of life _nihil est_--you are an ascetic, a monk, a hermit!... A book, a pen behind your ear, a learned research--that’s where your spirit soars! I am the same way myself.... Have you read Livingstone’s Travels?” “No.” “Oh, I have. There are a great many Nihilists about nowadays, you know, and indeed it is not to be wondered at. What sort of days are they? I ask you. But we thought... you are not a Nihilist of course? Answer me openly, openly!” “N-no...” “Believe me, you can speak openly to me as you would to yourself! Official duty is one thing but... you are thinking I meant to say _friendship_ is quite another? No, you’re wrong! It’s not friendship, but the feeling of a man and a citizen, the feeling of humanity and of love for the Almighty. I may be an official, but I am always bound to feel myself a man and a citizen.... You were asking about Zametov. Zametov will make a scandal in the French style in a house of bad reputation, over a glass of champagne... that’s all your Zametov is good for! While I’m perhaps, so to speak, burning with devotion and lofty feelings, and besides I have rank, consequence, a post! I am married and have children, I fulfil the duties of a man and a citizen, but who is he, may I ask? I appeal to you as a man ennobled by education... Then these midwives, too, have become extraordinarily numerous.” Raskolnikov raised his eyebrows inquiringly. The words of Ilya Petrovitch, who had obviously been dining, were for the most part a stream of empty sounds for him. But some of them he understood. He looked at him inquiringly, not knowing how it would end. “I mean those crop-headed wenches,” the talkative Ilya Petrovitch continued. “Midwives is my name for them. I think it a very satisfactory one, ha-ha! They go to the Academy, study anatomy. If I fall ill, am I to send for a young lady to treat me? What do you say? Ha-ha!” Ilya Petrovitch laughed, quite pleased with his own wit. “It’s an immoderate zeal for education, but once you’re educated, that’s enough. Why abuse it? Why insult honourable people, as that scoundrel Zametov does? Why did he insult me, I ask you? Look at these suicides, too, how common they are, you can’t fancy! People spend their last halfpenny and kill themselves, boys and girls and old people. Only this morning we heard about a gentleman who had just come to town. Nil Pavlitch, I say, what was the name of that gentleman who shot himself?” “Svidrigaïlov,” someone answered from the other room with drowsy listlessness. Raskolnikov started. “Svidrigaïlov! Svidrigaïlov has shot himself!” he cried. “What, do you know Svidrigaïlov?” “Yes... I knew him.... He hadn’t been here long.” “Yes, that’s so. He had lost his wife, was a man of reckless habits and all of a sudden shot himself, and in such a shocking way.... He left in his notebook a few words: that he dies in full possession of his faculties and that no one is to blame for his death. He had money, they say. How did you come to know him?” “I... was acquainted... my sister was governess in his family.” “Bah-bah-bah! Then no doubt you can tell us something about him. You had no suspicion?” “I saw him yesterday... he... was drinking wine; I knew nothing.” Raskolnikov felt as though something had fallen on him and was stifling him. “You’ve turned pale again. It’s so stuffy here...” “Yes, I must go,” muttered Raskolnikov. “Excuse my troubling you....” “Oh, not at all, as often as you like. It’s a pleasure to see you and I am glad to say so.” Ilya Petrovitch held out his hand. “I only wanted... I came to see Zametov.” “I understand, I understand, and it’s a pleasure to see you.” “I... am very glad... good-bye,” Raskolnikov smiled. He went out; he reeled, he was overtaken with giddiness and did not know what he was doing. He began going down the stairs, supporting himself with his right hand against the wall. He fancied that a porter pushed past him on his way upstairs to the police office, that a dog in the lower storey kept up a shrill barking and that a woman flung a rolling-pin at it and shouted. He went down and out into the yard. There, not far from the entrance, stood Sonia, pale and horror-stricken. She looked wildly at him. He stood still before her. There was a look of poignant agony, of despair, in her face. She clasped her hands. His lips worked in an ugly, meaningless smile. He stood still a minute, grinned and went back to the police office. Ilya Petrovitch had sat down and was rummaging among some papers. Before him stood the same peasant who had pushed by on the stairs. “Hulloa! Back again! have you left something behind? What’s the matter?” Raskolnikov, with white lips and staring eyes, came slowly nearer. He walked right to the table, leaned his hand on it, tried to say something, but could not; only incoherent sounds were audible. “You are feeling ill, a chair! Here, sit down! Some water!” Raskolnikov dropped on to a chair, but he kept his eyes fixed on the face of Ilya Petrovitch, which expressed unpleasant surprise. Both looked at one another for a minute and waited. Water was brought. “It was I...” began Raskolnikov. “Drink some water.” Raskolnikov refused the water with his hand, and softly and brokenly, but distinctly said: “_It was I killed the old pawnbroker woman and her sister Lizaveta with an axe and robbed them._” Ilya Petrovitch opened his mouth. People ran up on all sides. Raskolnikov repeated his statement. EPILOGUE I Siberia. On the banks of a broad solitary river stands a town, one of the administrative centres of Russia; in the town there is a fortress, in the fortress there is a prison. In the prison the second-class convict Rodion Raskolnikov has been confined for nine months. Almost a year and a half has passed since his crime. There had been little difficulty about his trial. The criminal adhered exactly, firmly, and clearly to his statement. He did not confuse nor misrepresent the facts, nor soften them in his own interest, nor omit the smallest detail. He explained every incident of the murder, the secret of _the pledge_ (the piece of wood with a strip of metal) which was found in the murdered woman’s hand. He described minutely how he had taken her keys, what they were like, as well as the chest and its contents; he explained the mystery of Lizaveta’s murder; described how Koch and, after him, the student knocked, and repeated all they had said to one another; how he afterwards had run downstairs and heard Nikolay and Dmitri shouting; how he had hidden in the empty flat and afterwards gone home. He ended by indicating the stone in the yard off the Voznesensky Prospect under which the purse and the trinkets were found. The whole thing, in fact, was perfectly clear. The lawyers and the judges were very much struck, among other things, by the fact that he had hidden the trinkets and the purse under a stone, without making use of them, and that, what was more, he did not now remember what the trinkets were like, or even how many there were. The fact that he had never opened the purse and did not even know how much was in it seemed incredible. There turned out to be in the purse three hundred and seventeen roubles and sixty copecks. From being so long under the stone, some of the most valuable notes lying uppermost had suffered from the damp. They were a long while trying to discover why the accused man should tell a lie about this, when about everything else he had made a truthful and straightforward confession. Finally some of the lawyers more versed in psychology admitted that it was possible he had really not looked into the purse, and so didn’t know what was in it when he hid it under the stone. But they immediately drew the deduction that the crime could only have been committed through temporary mental derangement, through homicidal mania, without object or the pursuit of gain. This fell in with the most recent fashionable theory of temporary insanity, so often applied in our days in criminal cases. Moreover Raskolnikov’s hypochondriacal condition was proved by many witnesses, by Dr. Zossimov, his former fellow students, his landlady and her servant. All this pointed strongly to the conclusion that Raskolnikov was not quite like an ordinary murderer and robber, but that there was another element in the case. To the intense annoyance of those who maintained this opinion, the criminal scarcely attempted to defend himself. To the decisive question as to what motive impelled him to the murder and the robbery, he answered very clearly with the coarsest frankness that the cause was his miserable position, his poverty and helplessness, and his desire to provide for his first steps in life by the help of the three thousand roubles he had reckoned on finding. He had been led to the murder through his shallow and cowardly nature, exasperated moreover by privation and failure. To the question what led him to confess, he answered that it was his heartfelt repentance. All this was almost coarse.... The sentence however was more merciful than could have been expected, perhaps partly because the criminal had not tried to justify himself, but had rather shown a desire to exaggerate his guilt. All the strange and peculiar circumstances of the crime were taken into consideration. There could be no doubt of the abnormal and poverty-stricken condition of the criminal at the time. The fact that he had made no use of what he had stolen was put down partly to the effect of remorse, partly to his abnormal mental condition at the time of the crime. Incidentally the murder of Lizaveta served indeed to confirm the last hypothesis: a man commits two murders and forgets that the door is open! Finally, the confession, at the very moment when the case was hopelessly muddled by the false evidence given by Nikolay through melancholy and fanaticism, and when, moreover, there were no proofs against the real criminal, no suspicions even (Porfiry Petrovitch fully kept his word)--all this did much to soften the sentence. Other circumstances, too, in the prisoner’s favour came out quite unexpectedly. Razumihin somehow discovered and proved that while Raskolnikov was at the university he had helped a poor consumptive fellow student and had spent his last penny on supporting him for six months, and when this student died, leaving a decrepit old father whom he had maintained almost from his thirteenth year, Raskolnikov had got the old man into a hospital and paid for his funeral when he died. Raskolnikov’s landlady bore witness, too, that when they had lived in another house at Five Corners, Raskolnikov had rescued two little children from a house on fire and was burnt in doing so. This was investigated and fairly well confirmed by many witnesses. These facts made an impression in his favour. And in the end the criminal was, in consideration of extenuating circumstances, condemned to penal servitude in the second class for a term of eight years only. At the very beginning of the trial Raskolnikov’s mother fell ill. Dounia and Razumihin found it possible to get her out of Petersburg during the trial. Razumihin chose a town on the railway not far from Petersburg, so as to be able to follow every step of the trial and at the same time to see Avdotya Romanovna as often as possible. Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s illness was a strange nervous one and was accompanied by a partial derangement of her intellect. When Dounia returned from her last interview with her brother, she had found her mother already ill, in feverish delirium. That evening Razumihin and she agreed what answers they must make to her mother’s questions about Raskolnikov and made up a complete story for her mother’s benefit of his having to go away to a distant part of Russia on a business commission, which would bring him in the end money and reputation. But they were struck by the fact that Pulcheria Alexandrovna never asked them anything on the subject, neither then nor thereafter. On the contrary, she had her own version of her son’s sudden departure; she told them with tears how he had come to say good-bye to her, hinting that she alone knew many mysterious and important facts, and that Rodya had many very powerful enemies, so that it was necessary for him to be in hiding. As for his future career, she had no doubt that it would be brilliant when certain sinister influences could be removed. She assured Razumihin that her son would be one day a great statesman, that his article and brilliant literary talent proved it. This article she was continually reading, she even read it aloud, almost took it to bed with her, but scarcely asked where Rodya was, though the subject was obviously avoided by the others, which might have been enough to awaken her suspicions. They began to be frightened at last at Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s strange silence on certain subjects. She did not, for instance, complain of getting no letters from him, though in previous years she had only lived on the hope of letters from her beloved Rodya. This was the cause of great uneasiness to Dounia; the idea occurred to her that her mother suspected that there was something terrible in her son’s fate and was afraid to ask, for fear of hearing something still more awful. In any case, Dounia saw clearly that her mother was not in full possession of her faculties. It happened once or twice, however, that Pulcheria Alexandrovna gave such a turn to the conversation that it was impossible to answer her without mentioning where Rodya was, and on receiving unsatisfactory and suspicious answers she became at once gloomy and silent, and this mood lasted for a long time. Dounia saw at last that it was hard to deceive her and came to the conclusion that it was better to be absolutely silent on certain points; but it became more and more evident that the poor mother suspected something terrible. Dounia remembered her brother’s telling her that her mother had overheard her talking in her sleep on the night after her interview with Svidrigaïlov and before the fatal day of the confession: had not she made out something from that? Sometimes days and even weeks of gloomy silence and tears would be succeeded by a period of hysterical animation, and the invalid would begin to talk almost incessantly of her son, of her hopes of his future.... Her fancies were sometimes very strange. They humoured her, pretended to agree with her (she saw perhaps that they were pretending), but she still went on talking. Five months after Raskolnikov’s confession, he was sentenced. Razumihin and Sonia saw him in prison as often as it was possible. At last the moment of separation came. Dounia swore to her brother that the separation should not be for ever, Razumihin did the same. Razumihin, in his youthful ardour, had firmly resolved to lay the foundations at least of a secure livelihood during the next three or four years, and saving up a certain sum, to emigrate to Siberia, a country rich in every natural resource and in need of workers, active men and capital. There they would settle in the town where Rodya was and all together would begin a new life. They all wept at parting. Raskolnikov had been very dreamy for a few days before. He asked a great deal about his mother and was constantly anxious about her. He worried so much about her that it alarmed Dounia. When he heard about his mother’s illness he became very gloomy. With Sonia he was particularly reserved all the time. With the help of the money left to her by Svidrigaïlov, Sonia had long ago made her preparations to follow the party of convicts in which he was despatched to Siberia. Not a word passed between Raskolnikov and her on the subject, but both knew it would be so. At the final leave-taking he smiled strangely at his sister’s and Razumihin’s fervent anticipations of their happy future together when he should come out of prison. He predicted that their mother’s illness would soon have a fatal ending. Sonia and he at last set off. Two months later Dounia was married to Razumihin. It was a quiet and sorrowful wedding; Porfiry Petrovitch and Zossimov were invited however. During all this period Razumihin wore an air of resolute determination. Dounia put implicit faith in his carrying out his plans and indeed she could not but believe in him. He displayed a rare strength of will. Among other things he began attending university lectures again in order to take his degree. They were continually making plans for the future; both counted on settling in Siberia within five years at least. Till then they rested their hopes on Sonia. Pulcheria Alexandrovna was delighted to give her blessing to Dounia’s marriage with Razumihin; but after the marriage she became even more melancholy and anxious. To give her pleasure Razumihin told her how Raskolnikov had looked after the poor student and his decrepit father and how a year ago he had been burnt and injured in rescuing two little children from a fire. These two pieces of news excited Pulcheria Alexandrovna’s disordered imagination almost to ecstasy. She was continually talking about them, even entering into conversation with strangers in the street, though Dounia always accompanied her. In public conveyances and shops, wherever she could capture a listener, she would begin the discourse about her son, his article, how he had helped the student, how he had been burnt at the fire, and so on! Dounia did not know how to restrain her. Apart from the danger of her morbid excitement, there was the risk of someone’s recalling Raskolnikov’s name and speaking of the recent trial. Pulcheria Alexandrovna found out the address of the mother of the two children her son had saved and insisted on going to see her. At last her restlessness reached an extreme point. She would sometimes begin to cry suddenly and was often ill and feverishly delirious. One morning she declared that by her reckoning Rodya ought soon to be home, that she remembered when he said good-bye to her he said that they must expect him back in nine months. She began to prepare for his coming, began to do up her room for him, to clean the furniture, to wash and put up new hangings and so on. Dounia was anxious, but said nothing and helped her to arrange the room. After a fatiguing day spent in continual fancies, in joyful day-dreams and tears, Pulcheria Alexandrovna was taken ill in the night and by morning she was feverish and delirious. It was brain fever. She died within a fortnight. In her delirium she dropped words which showed that she knew a great deal more about her son’s terrible fate than they had supposed. For a long time Raskolnikov did not know of his mother’s death, though a regular correspondence had been maintained from the time he reached Siberia. It was carried on by means of Sonia, who wrote every month to the Razumihins and received an answer with unfailing regularity. At first they found Sonia’s letters dry and unsatisfactory, but later on they came to the conclusion that the letters could not be better, for from these letters they received a complete picture of their unfortunate brother’s life. Sonia’s letters were full of the most matter-of-fact detail, the simplest and clearest description of all Raskolnikov’s surroundings as a convict. There was no word of her own hopes, no conjecture as to the future, no description of her feelings. Instead of any attempt to interpret his state of mind and inner life, she gave the simple facts--that is, his own words, an exact account of his health, what he asked for at their interviews, what commission he gave her and so on. All these facts she gave with extraordinary minuteness. The picture of their unhappy brother stood out at last with great clearness and precision. There could be no mistake, because nothing was given but facts. But Dounia and her husband could get little comfort out of the news, especially at first. Sonia wrote that he was constantly sullen and not ready to talk, that he scarcely seemed interested in the news she gave him from their letters, that he sometimes asked after his mother and that when, seeing that he had guessed the truth, she told him at last of her death, she was surprised to find that he did not seem greatly affected by it, not externally at any rate. She told them that, although he seemed so wrapped up in himself and, as it were, shut himself off from everyone--he took a very direct and simple view of his new life; that he understood his position, expected nothing better for the time, had no ill-founded hopes (as is so common in his position) and scarcely seemed surprised at anything in his surroundings, so unlike anything he had known before. She wrote that his health was satisfactory; he did his work without shirking or seeking to do more; he was almost indifferent about food, but except on Sundays and holidays the food was so bad that at last he had been glad to accept some money from her, Sonia, to have his own tea every day. He begged her not to trouble about anything else, declaring that all this fuss about him only annoyed him. Sonia wrote further that in prison he shared the same room with the rest, that she had not seen the inside of their barracks, but concluded that they were crowded, miserable and unhealthy; that he slept on a plank bed with a rug under him and was unwilling to make any other arrangement. But that he lived so poorly and roughly, not from any plan or design, but simply from inattention and indifference. Sonia wrote simply that he had at first shown no interest in her visits, had almost been vexed with her indeed for coming, unwilling to talk and rude to her. But that in the end these visits had become a habit and almost a necessity for him, so that he was positively distressed when she was ill for some days and could not visit him. She used to see him on holidays at the prison gates or in the guard-room, to which he was brought for a few minutes to see her. On working days she would go to see him at work either at the workshops or at the brick kilns, or at the sheds on the banks of the Irtish. About herself, Sonia wrote that she had succeeded in making some acquaintances in the town, that she did sewing, and, as there was scarcely a dressmaker in the town, she was looked upon as an indispensable person in many houses. But she did not mention that the authorities were, through her, interested in Raskolnikov; that his task was lightened and so on. At last the news came (Dounia had indeed noticed signs of alarm and uneasiness in the preceding letters) that he held aloof from everyone, that his fellow prisoners did not like him, that he kept silent for days at a time and was becoming very pale. In the last letter Sonia wrote that he had been taken very seriously ill and was in the convict ward of the hospital. II He was ill a long time. But it was not the horrors of prison life, not the hard labour, the bad food, the shaven head, or the patched clothes that crushed him. What did he care for all those trials and hardships! he was even glad of the hard work. Physically exhausted, he could at least reckon on a few hours of quiet sleep. And what was the food to him--the thin cabbage soup with beetles floating in it? In the past as a student he had often not had even that. His clothes were warm and suited to his manner of life. He did not even feel the fetters. Was he ashamed of his shaven head and parti-coloured coat? Before whom? Before Sonia? Sonia was afraid of him, how could he be ashamed before her? And yet he was ashamed even before Sonia, whom he tortured because of it with his contemptuous rough manner. But it was not his shaven head and his fetters he was ashamed of: his pride had been stung to the quick. It was wounded pride that made him ill. Oh, how happy he would have been if he could have blamed himself! He could have borne anything then, even shame and disgrace. But he judged himself severely, and his exasperated conscience found no particularly terrible fault in his past, except a simple _blunder_ which might happen to anyone. He was ashamed just because he, Raskolnikov, had so hopelessly, stupidly come to grief through some decree of blind fate, and must humble himself and submit to “the idiocy” of a sentence, if he were anyhow to be at peace. Vague and objectless anxiety in the present, and in the future a continual sacrifice leading to nothing--that was all that lay before him. And what comfort was it to him that at the end of eight years he would only be thirty-two and able to begin a new life! What had he to live for? What had he to look forward to? Why should he strive? To live in order to exist? Why, he had been ready a thousand times before to give up existence for the sake of an idea, for a hope, even for a fancy. Mere existence had always been too little for him; he had always wanted more. Perhaps it was just because of the strength of his desires that he had thought himself a man to whom more was permissible than to others. And if only fate would have sent him repentance--burning repentance that would have torn his heart and robbed him of sleep, that repentance, the awful agony of which brings visions of hanging or drowning! Oh, he would have been glad of it! Tears and agonies would at least have been life. But he did not repent of his crime. At least he might have found relief in raging at his stupidity, as he had raged at the grotesque blunders that had brought him to prison. But now in prison, _in freedom_, he thought over and criticised all his actions again and by no means found them so blundering and so grotesque as they had seemed at the fatal time. “In what way,” he asked himself, “was my theory stupider than others that have swarmed and clashed from the beginning of the world? One has only to look at the thing quite independently, broadly, and uninfluenced by commonplace ideas, and my idea will by no means seem so... strange. Oh, sceptics and halfpenny philosophers, why do you halt half-way! “Why does my action strike them as so horrible?” he said to himself. “Is it because it was a crime? What is meant by crime? My conscience is at rest. Of course, it was a legal crime, of course, the letter of the law was broken and blood was shed. Well, punish me for the letter of the law... and that’s enough. Of course, in that case many of the benefactors of mankind who snatched power for themselves instead of inheriting it ought to have been punished at their first steps. But those men succeeded and so _they were right_, and I didn’t, and so I had no right to have taken that step.” It was only in that that he recognised his criminality, only in the fact that he had been unsuccessful and had confessed it. He suffered too from the question: why had he not killed himself? Why had he stood looking at the river and preferred to confess? Was the desire to live so strong and was it so hard to overcome it? Had not Svidrigaïlov overcome it, although he was afraid of death? In misery he asked himself this question, and could not understand that, at the very time he had been standing looking into the river, he had perhaps been dimly conscious of the fundamental falsity in himself and his convictions. He didn’t understand that that consciousness might be the promise of a future crisis, of a new view of life and of his future resurrection. He preferred to attribute it to the dead weight of instinct which he could not step over, again through weakness and meanness. He looked at his fellow prisoners and was amazed to see how they all loved life and prized it. It seemed to him that they loved and valued life more in prison than in freedom. What terrible agonies and privations some of them, the tramps for instance, had endured! Could they care so much for a ray of sunshine, for the primeval forest, the cold spring hidden away in some unseen spot, which the tramp had marked three years before, and longed to see again, as he might to see his sweetheart, dreaming of the green grass round it and the bird singing in the bush? As he went on he saw still more inexplicable examples. In prison, of course, there was a great deal he did not see and did not want to see; he lived as it were with downcast eyes. It was loathsome and unbearable for him to look. But in the end there was much that surprised him and he began, as it were involuntarily, to notice much that he had not suspected before. What surprised him most of all was the terrible impossible gulf that lay between him and all the rest. They seemed to be a different species, and he looked at them and they at him with distrust and hostility. He felt and knew the reasons of his isolation, but he would never have admitted till then that those reasons were so deep and strong. There were some Polish exiles, political prisoners, among them. They simply looked down upon all the rest as ignorant churls; but Raskolnikov could not look upon them like that. He saw that these ignorant men were in many respects far wiser than the Poles. There were some Russians who were just as contemptuous, a former officer and two seminarists. Raskolnikov saw their mistake as clearly. He was disliked and avoided by everyone; they even began to hate him at last--why, he could not tell. Men who had been far more guilty despised and laughed at his crime. “You’re a gentleman,” they used to say. “You shouldn’t hack about with an axe; that’s not a gentleman’s work.” The second week in Lent, his turn came to take the sacrament with his gang. He went to church and prayed with the others. A quarrel broke out one day, he did not know how. All fell on him at once in a fury. “You’re an infidel! You don’t believe in God,” they shouted. “You ought to be killed.” He had never talked to them about God nor his belief, but they wanted to kill him as an infidel. He said nothing. One of the prisoners rushed at him in a perfect frenzy. Raskolnikov awaited him calmly and silently; his eyebrows did not quiver, his face did not flinch. The guard succeeded in intervening between him and his assailant, or there would have been bloodshed. There was another question he could not decide: why were they all so fond of Sonia? She did not try to win their favour; she rarely met them, sometimes only she came to see him at work for a moment. And yet everybody knew her, they knew that she had come out to follow _him_, knew how and where she lived. She never gave them money, did them no particular services. Only once at Christmas she sent them all presents of pies and rolls. But by degrees closer relations sprang up between them and Sonia. She would write and post letters for them to their relations. Relations of the prisoners who visited the town, at their instructions, left with Sonia presents and money for them. Their wives and sweethearts knew her and used to visit her. And when she visited Raskolnikov at work, or met a party of the prisoners on the road, they all took off their hats to her. “Little mother Sofya Semyonovna, you are our dear, good little mother,” coarse branded criminals said to that frail little creature. She would smile and bow to them and everyone was delighted when she smiled. They even admired her gait and turned round to watch her walking; they admired her too for being so little, and, in fact, did not know what to admire her most for. They even came to her for help in their illnesses. He was in the hospital from the middle of Lent till after Easter. When he was better, he remembered the dreams he had had while he was feverish and delirious. He dreamt that the whole world was condemned to a terrible new strange plague that had come to Europe from the depths of Asia. All were to be destroyed except a very few chosen. Some new sorts of microbes were attacking the bodies of men, but these microbes were endowed with intelligence and will. Men attacked by them became at once mad and furious. But never had men considered themselves so intellectual and so completely in possession of the truth as these sufferers, never had they considered their decisions, their scientific conclusions, their moral convictions so infallible. Whole villages, whole towns and peoples went mad from the infection. All were excited and did not understand one another. Each thought that he alone had the truth and was wretched looking at the others, beat himself on the breast, wept, and wrung his hands. They did not know how to judge and could not agree what to consider evil and what good; they did not know whom to blame, whom to justify. Men killed each other in a sort of senseless spite. They gathered together in armies against one another, but even on the march the armies would begin attacking each other, the ranks would be broken and the soldiers would fall on each other, stabbing and cutting, biting and devouring each other. The alarm bell was ringing all day long in the towns; men rushed together, but why they were summoned and who was summoning them no one knew. The most ordinary trades were abandoned, because everyone proposed his own ideas, his own improvements, and they could not agree. The land too was abandoned. Men met in groups, agreed on something, swore to keep together, but at once began on something quite different from what they had proposed. They accused one another, fought and killed each other. There were conflagrations and famine. All men and all things were involved in destruction. The plague spread and moved further and further. Only a few men could be saved in the whole world. They were a pure chosen people, destined to found a new race and a new life, to renew and purify the earth, but no one had seen these men, no one had heard their words and their voices. Raskolnikov was worried that this senseless dream haunted his memory so miserably, the impression of this feverish delirium persisted so long. The second week after Easter had come. There were warm bright spring days; in the prison ward the grating windows under which the sentinel paced were opened. Sonia had only been able to visit him twice during his illness; each time she had to obtain permission, and it was difficult. But she often used to come to the hospital yard, especially in the evening, sometimes only to stand a minute and look up at the windows of the ward. One evening, when he was almost well again, Raskolnikov fell asleep. On waking up he chanced to go to the window, and at once saw Sonia in the distance at the hospital gate. She seemed to be waiting for someone. Something stabbed him to the heart at that minute. He shuddered and moved away from the window. Next day Sonia did not come, nor the day after; he noticed that he was expecting her uneasily. At last he was discharged. On reaching the prison he learnt from the convicts that Sofya Semyonovna was lying ill at home and was unable to go out. He was very uneasy and sent to inquire after her; he soon learnt that her illness was not dangerous. Hearing that he was anxious about her, Sonia sent him a pencilled note, telling him that she was much better, that she had a slight cold and that she would soon, very soon come and see him at his work. His heart throbbed painfully as he read it. Again it was a warm bright day. Early in the morning, at six o’clock, he went off to work on the river bank, where they used to pound alabaster and where there was a kiln for baking it in a shed. There were only three of them sent. One of the convicts went with the guard to the fortress to fetch a tool; the other began getting the wood ready and laying it in the kiln. Raskolnikov came out of the shed on to the river bank, sat down on a heap of logs by the shed and began gazing at the wide deserted river. From the high bank a broad landscape opened before him, the sound of singing floated faintly audible from the other bank. In the vast steppe, bathed in sunshine, he could just see, like black specks, the nomads’ tents. There there was freedom, there other men were living, utterly unlike those here; there time itself seemed to stand still, as though the age of Abraham and his flocks had not passed. Raskolnikov sat gazing, his thoughts passed into day-dreams, into contemplation; he thought of nothing, but a vague restlessness excited and troubled him. Suddenly he found Sonia beside him; she had come up noiselessly and sat down at his side. It was still quite early; the morning chill was still keen. She wore her poor old burnous and the green shawl; her face still showed signs of illness, it was thinner and paler. She gave him a joyful smile of welcome, but held out her hand with her usual timidity. She was always timid of holding out her hand to him and sometimes did not offer it at all, as though afraid he would repel it. He always took her hand as though with repugnance, always seemed vexed to meet her and was sometimes obstinately silent throughout her visit. Sometimes she trembled before him and went away deeply grieved. But now their hands did not part. He stole a rapid glance at her and dropped his eyes on the ground without speaking. They were alone, no one had seen them. The guard had turned away for the time. How it happened he did not know. But all at once something seemed to seize him and fling him at her feet. He wept and threw his arms round her knees. For the first instant she was terribly frightened and she turned pale. She jumped up and looked at him trembling. But at the same moment she understood, and a light of infinite happiness came into her eyes. She knew and had no doubt that he loved her beyond everything and that at last the moment had come.... They wanted to speak, but could not; tears stood in their eyes. They were both pale and thin; but those sick pale faces were bright with the dawn of a new future, of a full resurrection into a new life. They were renewed by love; the heart of each held infinite sources of life for the heart of the other. They resolved to wait and be patient. They had another seven years to wait, and what terrible suffering and what infinite happiness before them! But he had risen again and he knew it and felt it in all his being, while she--she only lived in his life. On the evening of the same day, when the barracks were locked, Raskolnikov lay on his plank bed and thought of her. He had even fancied that day that all the convicts who had been his enemies looked at him differently; he had even entered into talk with them and they answered him in a friendly way. He remembered that now, and thought it was bound to be so. Wasn’t everything now bound to be changed? He thought of her. He remembered how continually he had tormented her and wounded her heart. He remembered her pale and thin little face. But these recollections scarcely troubled him now; he knew with what infinite love he would now repay all her sufferings. And what were all, _all_ the agonies of the past! Everything, even his crime, his sentence and imprisonment, seemed to him now in the first rush of feeling an external, strange fact with which he had no concern. But he could not think for long together of anything that evening, and he could not have analysed anything consciously; he was simply feeling. Life had stepped into the place of theory and something quite different would work itself out in his mind. Under his pillow lay the New Testament. He took it up mechanically. The book belonged to Sonia; it was the one from which she had read the raising of Lazarus to him. At first he was afraid that she would worry him about religion, would talk about the gospel and pester him with books. But to his great surprise she had not once approached the subject and had not even offered him the Testament. He had asked her for it himself not long before his illness and she brought him the book without a word. Till now he had not opened it. He did not open it now, but one thought passed through his mind: “Can her convictions not be mine now? Her feelings, her aspirations at least....” She too had been greatly agitated that day, and at night she was taken ill again. But she was so happy--and so unexpectedly happy--that she was almost frightened of her happiness. Seven years, _only_ seven years! At the beginning of their happiness at some moments they were both ready to look on those seven years as though they were seven days. He did not know that the new life would not be given him for nothing, that he would have to pay dearly for it, that it would cost him great striving, great suffering. But that is the beginning of a new story--the story of the gradual renewal of a man, the story of his gradual regeneration, of his passing from one world into another, of his initiation into a new unknown life. That might be the subject of a new story, but our present story is ended. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRIME AND PUNISHMENT *** Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be renamed. 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It was nearly two hours before day-break; that time which in the autumn of the year, may be truly called the dead of night; when the streets are silent and deserted; when even sounds appear to slumber, and profligacy and riot have staggered home to dream; it was at this still and silent hour, that Fagin sat watching in his old lair, with face so distorted and pale, and eyes so red and blood-shot, that he looked less like a man, than like some hideous phantom, moist from the grave, and worried by an evil spirit. He sat crouching over a cold hearth, wrapped in an old torn coverlet, with his face turned towards a wasting candle that stood upon a table by his side. His right hand was raised to his lips, and as, absorbed in thought, he hit his long black nails, he disclosed among his toothless gums a few such fangs as should have been a dog's or rat's. Stretched upon a mattress on the floor, lay Noah Claypole, fast asleep. Towards him the old man sometimes directed his eyes for an instant, and then brought them back again to the candle; which with a long-burnt wick drooping almost double, and hot grease falling down in clots upon the table, plainly showed that his thoughts were busy elsewhere. Indeed they were. Mortification at the overthrow of his notable scheme; hatred of the girl who had dared to palter with strangers; and utter distrust of the sincerity of her refusal to yield him up; bitter disappointment at the loss of his revenge on Sikes; the fear of detection, and ruin, and death; and a fierce and deadly rage kindled by all; these were the passionate considerations which, following close upon each other with rapid and ceaseless whirl, shot through the brain of Fagin, as every evil thought and blackest purpose lay working at his heart. He sat without changing his attitude in the least, or appearing to take the smallest heed of time, until his quick ear seemed to be attracted by a footstep in the street. 'At last,' he muttered, wiping his dry and fevered mouth. 'At last!' The bell rang gently as he spoke. He crept upstairs to the door, and presently returned accompanied by a man muffled to the chin, who carried a bundle under one arm. Sitting down and throwing back his outer coat, the man displayed the burly frame of Sikes. 'There!' he said, laying the bundle on the table. 'Take care of that, and do the most you can with it. It's been trouble enough to get; I thought I should have been here, three hours ago.' Fagin laid his hand upon the bundle, and locking it in the cupboard, sat down again without speaking. But he did not take his eyes off the robber, for an instant, during this action; and now that they sat over against each other, face to face, he looked fixedly at him, with his lips quivering so violently, and his face so altered by the emotions which had mastered him, that the housebreaker involuntarily drew back his chair, and surveyed him with a look of real affright. 'Wot now?' cried Sikes. 'Wot do you look at a man so for?' Fagin raised his right hand, and shook his trembling forefinger in the air; but his passion was so great, that the power of speech was for the moment gone. 'Damme!' said Sikes, feeling in his breast with a look of alarm. 'He's gone mad. I must look to myself here.' 'No, no,' rejoined Fagin, finding his voice. 'It's not--you're not the person, Bill. I've no--no fault to find with you.' 'Oh, you haven't, haven't you?' said Sikes, looking sternly at him, and ostentatiously passing a pistol into a more convenient pocket. 'That's lucky--for one of us. Which one that is, don't matter.' 'I've got that to tell you, Bill,' said Fagin, drawing his chair nearer, 'will make you worse than me.' 'Aye?' returned the robber with an incredulous air. 'Tell away! Look sharp, or Nance will think I'm lost.' 'Lost!' cried Fagin. 'She has pretty well settled that, in her own mind, already.' Sikes looked with an aspect of great perplexity into the Jew's face, and reading no satisfactory explanation of the riddle there, clenched his coat collar in his huge hand and shook him soundly. 'Speak, will you!' he said; 'or if you don't, it shall be for want of breath. Open your mouth and say wot you've got to say in plain words. Out with it, you thundering old cur, out with it!' 'Suppose that lad that's laying there--' Fagin began. Sikes turned round to where Noah was sleeping, as if he had not previously observed him. 'Well!' he said, resuming his former position. 'Suppose that lad,' pursued Fagin, 'was to peach--to blow upon us all--first seeking out the right folks for the purpose, and then having a meeting with 'em in the street to paint our likenesses, describe every mark that they might know us by, and the crib where we might be most easily taken. Suppose he was to do all this, and besides to blow upon a plant we've all been in, more or less--of his own fancy; not grabbed, trapped, tried, earwigged by the parson and brought to it on bread and water,--but of his own fancy; to please his own taste; stealing out at nights to find those most interested against us, and peaching to them. Do you hear me?' cried the Jew, his eyes flashing with rage. 'Suppose he did all this, what then?' 'What then!' replied Sikes; with a tremendous oath. 'If he was left alive till I came, I'd grind his skull under the iron heel of my boot into as many grains as there are hairs upon his head.' 'What if I did it!' cried Fagin almost in a yell. 'I, that knows so much, and could hang so many besides myself!' 'I don't know,' replied Sikes, clenching his teeth and turning white at the mere suggestion. 'I'd do something in the jail that 'ud get me put in irons; and if I was tried along with you, I'd fall upon you with them in the open court, and beat your brains out afore the people. I should have such strength,' muttered the robber, poising his brawny arm, 'that I could smash your head as if a loaded waggon had gone over it.' 'You would?' 'Would I!' said the housebreaker. 'Try me.' 'If it was Charley, or the Dodger, or Bet, or--' 'I don't care who,' replied Sikes impatiently. 'Whoever it was, I'd serve them the same.' Fagin looked hard at the robber; and, motioning him to be silent, stooped over the bed upon the floor, and shook the sleeper to rouse him. Sikes leant forward in his chair: looking on with his hands upon his knees, as if wondering much what all this questioning and preparation was to end in. 'Bolter, Bolter! Poor lad!' said Fagin, looking up with an expression of devilish anticipation, and speaking slowly and with marked emphasis. 'He's tired--tired with watching for her so long,--watching for _her_, Bill.' 'Wot d'ye mean?' asked Sikes, drawing back. Fagin made no answer, but bending over the sleeper again, hauled him into a sitting posture. When his assumed name had been repeated several times, Noah rubbed his eyes, and, giving a heavy yawn, looked sleepily about him. 'Tell me that again--once again, just for him to hear,' said the Jew, pointing to Sikes as he spoke. 'Tell yer what?' asked the sleepy Noah, shaking himself pettishly. 'That about-- _Nancy_,' said Fagin, clutching Sikes by the wrist, as if to prevent his leaving the house before he had heard enough. 'You followed her?' 'Yes.' 'To London Bridge?' 'Yes.' 'Where she met two people.' 'So she did.' 'A gentleman and a lady that she had gone to of her own accord before, who asked her to give up all her pals, and Monks first, which she did--and to describe him, which she did--and to tell her what house it was that we meet at, and go to, which she did--and where it could be best watched from, which she did--and what time the people went there, which she did. She did all this. She told it all every word without a threat, without a murmur--she did--did she not?' cried Fagin, half mad with fury. 'All right,' replied Noah, scratching his head. 'That's just what it was!' 'What did they say, about last Sunday?' 'About last Sunday!' replied Noah, considering. 'Why I told yer that before.' 'Again. Tell it again!' cried Fagin, tightening his grasp on Sikes, and brandishing his other hand aloft, as the foam flew from his lips. 'They asked her,' said Noah, who, as he grew more wakeful, seemed to have a dawning perception who Sikes was, 'they asked her why she didn't come, last Sunday, as she promised. She said she couldn't.' 'Why--why? Tell him that.' 'Because she was forcibly kept at home by Bill, the man she had told them of before,' replied Noah. 'What more of him?' cried Fagin. 'What more of the man she had told them of before? Tell him that, tell him that.' 'Why, that she couldn't very easily get out of doors unless he knew where she was going to,' said Noah; 'and so the first time she went to see the lady, she--ha! ha! ha! it made me laugh when she said it, that it did--she gave him a drink of laudanum.' 'Hell's fire!' cried Sikes, breaking fiercely from the Jew. 'Let me go!' Flinging the old man from him, he rushed from the room, and darted, wildly and furiously, up the stairs. 'Bill, Bill!' cried Fagin, following him hastily. 'A word. Only a word.' The word would not have been exchanged, but that the housebreaker was unable to open the door: on which he was expending fruitless oaths and violence, when the Jew came panting up. 'Let me out,' said Sikes. 'Don't speak to me; it's not safe. Let me out, I say!' 'Hear me speak a word,' rejoined Fagin, laying his hand upon the lock. 'You won't be--' 'Well,' replied the other. 'You won't be--too--violent, Bill?' The day was breaking, and there was light enough for the men to see each other's faces. They exchanged one brief glance; there was a fire in the eyes of both, which could not be mistaken. 'I mean,' said Fagin, showing that he felt all disguise was now useless, 'not too violent for safety. Be crafty, Bill, and not too bold.' Sikes made no reply; but, pulling open the door, of which Fagin had turned the lock, dashed into the silent streets. Without one pause, or moment's consideration; without once turning his head to the right or left, or raising his eyes to the sky, or lowering them to the ground, but looking straight before him with savage resolution: his teeth so tightly compressed that the strained jaw seemed starting through his skin; the robber held on his headlong course, nor muttered a word, nor relaxed a muscle, until he reached his own door. He opened it, softly, with a key; strode lightly up the stairs; and entering his own room, double-locked the door, and lifting a heavy table against it, drew back the curtain of the bed. The girl was lying, half-dressed, upon it. He had roused her from her sleep, for she raised herself with a hurried and startled look. 'Get up!' said the man. 'It is you, Bill!' said the girl, with an expression of pleasure at his return. 'It is,' was the reply. 'Get up.' There was a candle burning, but the man hastily drew it from the candlestick, and hurled it under the grate. Seeing the faint light of early day without, the girl rose to undraw the curtain. 'Let it be,' said Sikes, thrusting his hand before her. 'There's enough light for wot I've got to do.' 'Bill,' said the girl, in the low voice of alarm, 'why do you look like that at me!' The robber sat regarding her, for a few seconds, with dilated nostrils and heaving breast; and then, grasping her by the head and throat, dragged her into the middle of the room, and looking once towards the door, placed his heavy hand upon her mouth. 'Bill, Bill!' gasped the girl, wrestling with the strength of mortal fear,--'I--I won't scream or cry--not once--hear me--speak to me--tell me what I have done!' 'You know, you she devil!' returned the robber, suppressing his breath. 'You were watched to-night; every word you said was heard.' 'Then spare my life for the love of Heaven, as I spared yours,' rejoined the girl, clinging to him. 'Bill, dear Bill, you cannot have the heart to kill me. Oh! think of all I have given up, only this one night, for you. You _shall_ have time to think, and save yourself this crime; I will not loose my hold, you cannot throw me off. Bill, Bill, for dear God's sake, for your own, for mine, stop before you spill my blood! I have been true to you, upon my guilty soul I have!' The man struggled violently, to release his arms; but those of the girl were clasped round his, and tear her as he would, he could not tear them away. 'Bill,' cried the girl, striving to lay her head upon his breast, 'the gentleman and that dear lady, told me to-night of a home in some foreign country where I could end my days in solitude and peace. Let me see them again, and beg them, on my knees, to show the same mercy and goodness to you; and let us both leave this dreadful place, and far apart lead better lives, and forget how we have lived, except in prayers, and never see each other more. It is never too late to repent. They told me so--I feel it now--but we must have time--a little, little time!' The housebreaker freed one arm, and grasped his pistol. The certainty of immediate detection if he fired, flashed across his mind even in the midst of his fury; and he beat it twice with all the force he could summon, upon the upturned face that almost touched his own. She staggered and fell: nearly blinded with the blood that rained down from a deep gash in her forehead; but raising herself, with difficulty, on her knees, drew from her bosom a white handkerchief--Rose Maylie's own--and holding it up, in her folded hands, as high towards Heaven as her feeble strength would allow, breathed one prayer for mercy to her Maker. It was a ghastly figure to look upon. The murderer staggering backward to the wall, and shutting out the sight with his hand, seized a heavy club and struck her down. The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Trevor case, by Natalie Sumner Lincoln This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The Trevor case Author: Natalie Sumner Lincoln Illustrator: Edmund Frederick Release Date: September 17, 2022 [eBook #69004] Language: English Produced by: D A Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (Scans were generously made available by The New York Public Library's Digital Collections) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TREVOR CASE *** _The_ TREVOR CASE [Illustration: “De Morny’s eyes sparkled with anger as he watched”] THE TREVOR CASE By NATALIE SUMNER LINCOLN AUTHOR OF “C. O. D.,” “The Man Outside,” Etc. With Frontispiece by EDMUND FREDERICK A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS - - NEW YORK PUBLISHED BY ARRANGEMENT WITH D. APPLETON & COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY _Published February, 1912_ Printed in the United States of America TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR FATHER AND TO MY KINDEST CRITIC MY MOTHER CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE THE TREVOR CASE CHAPTER I FACE TO FACE A FAINT, very faint scratching noise broke the stillness. Then a hand was thrust through the hole in the window pane; deftly the burglar alarm was disconnected, and the fingers fumbled with the catch of the window. The sash was pushed gently up, and a man’s figure was outlined for a second against the star-lit sky as he dropped noiselessly through the window to the stair landing. For a few moments he crouched behind the heavy curtains, but his entry had been too noiseless to awaken the sleeping household. Gathering courage from the stillness around him, the intruder stole down the steps, through the broad hall, and stopped before a door on his left. Cautiously he turned the knob and entered the room. He could hear his own breathing in the heavy silence, as he pushed to the door, and then flashed the light of his electric torch on his surroundings. The room, save for the massive office furniture, was empty. Satisfied on that point, the intruder wasted no time, but with noiseless tread and cat-like quickness, he darted across the room to the door of what was apparently a closet. It was not locked, and as it swung back at his touch the front of a large safe was revealed. Placing his light where it would do the most good, the intruder tried the lock of the safe. Backwards and forwards the wards fell under the skillful fingers of the cracksman. His keen ear, attuned to the work, at last solved the combination. With a sigh of relief he stopped to mop his perspiring face and readjust his mask. “Lucky for me,” he muttered, “the safe’s an old-fashioned one. As it is, it’s taken three quarters of an hour, and time’s precious.” The big door moved noiselessly back on its oiled hinges, and the intruder, catching up his electric torch, turned its rays full on the interior of the safe. For one second it burned brilliantly; then went dark in his nerveless hand. God in Heaven! He was mad! It was some fantasy conjured up by his excited brain. With desperate effort his strong will conquered his shrinking senses. Slowly, slowly the light was raised to that fearful thing which crouched just inside the entrance. Eye to eye they gazed at each other--the quick and the dead! The intruder’s breath came in panting gasps behind his mask. Again the light went out. In his abject state of terror, instinct did for him what reason could not. His hand groped blindly for the safe door; but not until it closed did he regain his benumbed wits. Silently, mysteriously as he had come, so he vanished. CHAPTER II THE SECRET OF THE SAFE “HELP! Murder! Murder!” The sinister cry rang through the house. Seated at the breakfast table, his daughter opposite him, the daily papers at his elbow, the Attorney General, hardly realizing the tragical interruption, sprang from his chair as the cry came nearer and the door burst open admitting his confidential secretary. “In God’s name, Clark, what is the matter?” he demanded, seizing the distraught man. “Father, Father, give him time, he is dreadfully upset,” begged Beatrice, coming around the breakfast table and laying a restraining hand on his arm. Wilkins, the impassive butler, for once shaken out of his calm, hastened to assist his master in helping Alfred Clark to a chair, and then he gave the half-fainting man a stiff drink of whisky. “It’s the safe, sir,” gasped Clark, struggling to regain his self-control. “The safe?” questioned the Attorney General. “Yes; she’s there--dead!” “She--who?” “Mrs. Trevor.” “My wife! Nonsense, man; she is breakfasting in her own room!” “Beg pardon, sir,” Wilkins interrupted. “Mary has just brought the tray downstairs again. She says she knocked and knocked, and couldn’t get an answer.” The Attorney General and his daughter exchanged glances. It was impossible to tell which was the paler. Without a word he turned and hastened out of the room. He hardly noticed the excited servants who, attracted by the cry, had already gathered in the spacious hall outside the door of his private office. With swift, decisive step he crossed the room and stood in front of the two opened doors. A cry of unutterable horror escaped him. For one dreadful moment the room swam around him, and there was a roaring in his ears of a thousand Niagaras. “Father?” With a violent effort he pulled himself together. “Do not enter,” he said, sternly, to the shrinking girl who had remained by the hall door. “This is no sight for you. Wilkins, send at once for Doctor Davis. Clark, close that door, and see that no one comes in except the doctor. Then telephone the Department that I shall not be there to-day.” His orders were obeyed instantly. The Attorney General turned back to the safe; to that still figure which was keeping vigil over his belongings. The pitiless light of a sunny morning shone full on the beautiful face. The wonderful Titian hair, her greatest glory, was coiled around the shapely head, and her low-cut evening dress was scarcely disarranged as she crouched on one knee leaning her weight on her left arm, which was pressed against the door-jamb of the safe. Her lips were slightly parted, and her blue eyes were wide open, the pupils much dilated. No need to feel pulse or heart; to the most casual observer it was apparent that she was dead. His beautiful young wife! Edmund Trevor groaned aloud and buried his face in his hands. Clark watched him for a moment in unhappy silence; then moved quietly over to the window and looked out with unseeing eyes into the garden. The large mottled brick- and stone-trimmed house was situated on one of Washington’s most fashionable corners, Massachusetts Avenue and Dupont Circle. On being appointed Attorney General, Trevor had taken it on a long lease. He had selected it from the many offered because it was very deep on the 20th Street side, thus allowing the drawing-room, library, and dining-room to open out of each other. On the right of the large entrance hall was a small reception room, and back of it the big octagonal-shaped room, with its long French windows opening into the enclosed garden, that had appealed to him for his own private use, as a den, or office. And he was particularly pleased with the huge safe, more like a vault, which had been built in one of the large old-fashioned closets by the owner. It had been useful to the Attorney General on many occasions. The silence was broken by a tap at the door. “Doctor Davis, sir,” announced Wilkins. “I came at once,” said the doctor, advancing quickly to the Attorney General’s side. A horrified exclamation escaped him as his eyes fell on the tragic figure, and he recoiled a few steps. Then his professional instincts returned to him, and he made a cursory examination of Mrs. Trevor. As he rose from his knees, the eyes of the two men met. He silently shook his head. “Life has been extinct for hours,” he said. “Rigor mortis has set in.” The Attorney General gulped back a sob. Reason had told him the same thing when he first found her; but he had hoped blindly against hope. “Can she be removed to her room?” he asked, as soon as he could control his voice. The doctor nodded his acquiescence, and with the assistance of Clark, Wilkins, and the chauffeur, they carried all that was mortal of the beautiful young wife to her chamber. Shortly afterwards, the Attorney General returned to his office, and together he and Clark went over the contents of the safe. They had just finished their task when Beatrice came into the room. Beatrice Trevor was a well-known figure in the society life of New York, Paris, and Washington. Taller than most women, with a superb figure, she carried herself with regal grace. She was not, strictly speaking, a beauty; her features were not regular enough. But there were men, and women, too, who were her adoring slaves. Her mother had died when she was five years old, and up to the time of her eighteenth year she had lived alone with her father. Then he met, wooed, and won the beautiful foreigner, whose butterfly career had come to so untimely an end. “Father, I _must_ know just what has happened.” “Why, my dearest--” there was deep tenderness in the Attorney General’s usually impassive voice--“I thought you had been told. Hélène evidently went into the safe to put away her jewelry; and in some mysterious way she must have pulled the heavy door to behind her. Thus locked in, she was smothered. It is terrible--terrible--” His voice shook with the intensity of his emotion. “But--well, Wilkins, what is it?” “A detective, sir, from headquarters.” “A detective! What on earth--did you telephone them, Clark?” The secretary shook his head. “No? Well, show him in, Wilkins.” There was nothing about the man who entered to suggest a detective; he was quietly dressed, middle aged, and carried himself with military erectness. He had spent five years as a member of the Canadian Northwest mounted police, and that service had left its mark in his appearance. “Good morning, Mr. Attorney General.” His bow included all in the room. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but my errand won’t take long.” “Be seated, Mr. ----” “Hardy--James Hardy, sir. Just before dawn this morning, O’Grady, who patrols this beat, noticed a man sneak out of your back yard. O’Grady promptly gave chase and caught his man just as he was boarding a train for New York. He took him to the station and had him locked up on suspicion. As the fellow had a full kit of burglar’s tools with him, including mask and sneakers, the Chief sent me round here to ask if you’d been robbed?” “Oh, no,” replied the Attorney General. “I have just been through my safe and everything is intact. There’s nothing missing in your quarters, Wilkins?” he added, turning to the white-faced butler. “No, sir; nothing, sir.” Wilkins’ voice trembled, and he looked at the detective with frightened eyes. “Perhaps he tried, and finding all the windows barred gave it up as a bad job. I am--” continued the Attorney General, but his speech was cut short by the entrance of Doctor Davis. “I am told there is a detective here.” The Attorney General bowed and motioned to Hardy. “You are properly accredited?” went on the physician. Hardy threw back his coat and displayed his badge. “Have you told him of Mrs. Trevor’s death?” “No. Why speak of that terrible accident--” “It was no accident.” The physician’s voice, though low pitched, vibrated with feeling. The Attorney General half rose from his chair; then sank back again. “Davis,” he said, almost fiercely, “you _know_ that by some fearful mischance Hélène locked herself in the air-tight safe and was suffocated.” The detective glanced with quickened interest at the two men. “On closer examination upstairs,” said the doctor, slowly, “I found a small wound under the left breast. The wound was concealed by the lace bertha of her evening dress. The weapon penetrated to the heart, and she bled internally. Mrs. Trevor was dead before she was put in that safe.” The detective broke the appalling silence with an exclamation: “Murdered!” Without one word Beatrice Trevor fell fainting at her father’s feet. CHAPTER III AT THE MACALLISTERS’ MANY called, but few were invited to attend Mrs. Van Zandt Macallister’s stately entertainments. Possibly for that reason alone her invitations were eagerly sought and highly prized by social aspirants. For more years than she cared to remember, official, residential, and diplomatic Washington had gathered on an equal footing in her hospitable mansion on F Street. So strictly did she draw social distinctions that one disgruntled climber spoke of her evening receptions as “Resurrection Parties,” and the name clung. But all Washingtonians took a deep interest in “Madam” Macallister, as they affectionately called her. She was _grande dame_ to her fingertips. On the occasion of her daughter’s marriage to the Duke of Middlesex she gave a beautiful wedding breakfast. The wedding was of international importance. The President, his Cabinet, and the Diplomatic Corps were among the guests. Mrs. Macallister was standing in the drawing-room with her back to the dining-room door talking to the President. As the butler drew apart the folding doors, the long table, covered with massive silver, china, and glass, gave way under the weight. The crash was resounding. The terrified guests glanced at each other. Mrs. Macallister never even turned her head, but went on conversing placidly with the President. The doors were instantly closed; the guests, taking their cue from their hostess, resumed their light chatter and laughter; and in a remarkably short time the table was cleared and reset, and the breakfast announced. As the President, with a look of deep admiration, offered his arm to Mrs. Macallister, he murmured in her ear: “‘And mistress of herself though china fall.’” Washington society had never forgotten the incident. Mrs. Macallister had rather a caustic tongue, but a warm, generous heart beat under her somewhat frosty exterior. Her charities were never aired in public. Only the clergymen knew how many families she kept supplied with coal in winter and ice in summer. And many an erring sister had cause to bless her name. Mrs. Macallister glanced impatiently at the clock--twenty minutes past five. She leaned forward and touched the electric bell beside the large open fireplace. There were two things she abominated--to be kept waiting--and midday dinners; the former upset her nerves; the latter her digestion. “Has Miss Margaret returned?” she asked, as Hurley entered with the tea tray. Before the butler could answer there was the sound of a quick, light footstep in the hall, and then the portières were pushed aside. Mrs. Macallister looked approvingly at her granddaughter. Peggy was more like her father’s people, and her grandmother’s heart had warmed to her from the moment the motherless little baby had been placed in her tender care. The young father, never very strong, had not long outlived his girl-wife. Since then Peggy and her grandmother had lived alone in the old-fashioned residence, which her grandfather Macallister had bought years before when coming to live in Washington on the expiration of his third term as Governor of Pennsylvania. “Well, Granny, am I very late?” giving Mrs. Macallister a warm hug. She had never stood in awe of her formidable grandmother, but with all the passionate feeling of her loving nature, she looked up to and adored her. “My dear, five o’clock is five o’clock, not twenty minutes past,” retorted Mrs. Macallister, smoothing her silvery hair, which had been decidedly ruffled by Peggy’s precipitancy. “I declare, Granny, you are as bad as Nana; if it is three minutes past five she says its ‘hard on six o’clock.’ I had an awfully good time at the luncheon, and stayed to talk things over with Maud. She has asked me to be one of her bridesmaids, you know.” “Did you hear the news there?” “News? What news?” “Mrs. Trevor has been murdered!” “Mrs. Trevor--murdered!” Peggy nearly dropped her teacup on the floor. “I really wish, Peggy, you would stop your habit of repeating my words. It’s very uncomfortable living with an echo under one’s nose.” “Oh, Granny, please tell me all about it right away.” “Well, according to the _Evening Star_--_What_ is it, Hurley?” as that solemn individual entered the room. “Mr. Tillinghast, to see you and Miss Margaret, ma’am.” “Show him in. Now, Peggy, we will probably get the news at first hand. Good evening, Dick.” The young fellow bowed with old-fashioned courtesy over her beautifully shaped, blue-veined hand. Clean living and plenty of outdoor sports could be read in his clear skin and splendid physique. He was a particular favorite of Mrs. Macallister’s. “I suppose you are discussing the all-absorbing topic,” he said after greeting Peggy. “I have been reading this.” Mrs. Macallister held up the paper with its flaring headlines: MURDER MOST FOUL MRS. TREVOR KILLED BY BURGLAR CRIMINAL IN THE TOILS “The police acted very promptly, and deserve a lot of praise,” said Dick. “Well,” remarked Mrs. Macallister, slowly, “they have caught the burglar, but whether he is also the murderer is yet to be proved.” “That’s true; but there is hardly any doubt. Nothing was stolen, therefore it is a fairly easy deduction that Mrs. Trevor, disturbed by some noise, went down into the office to investigate and was killed. He had the safe already open, stabbed her, then locked her in. Probably his nerve forsook him, and he fled without stopping to steal what he came for.” “My _dear_ Dick! Your theory might answer if any other woman was in question; but Mrs. Trevor--_she_ wouldn’t have troubled herself if there had been a cloud-burst in the office. She was simply a human mollusk. And as for--” Mrs. Macallister’s feelings were beyond expression. “I say, aren’t you a little hard on her? I don’t know when I’ve seen a more beautiful woman, and one so popular--” “With men,” supplemented Mrs. Macallister, dryly. Dick laughed outright. “Anyway,” he said, “the police have found that the burglar entered the house by the window on the stair landing, which looks out on the roof of the butler’s pantry. It is an easy climb for an active man. All the windows on the first floor are heavily barred. They found one of the small panes of glass had been cut out, and the window unfastened, although closed. I’m afraid our friend, the burglar, will have a hard time proving his innocence.” “It is terrible, terrible,” groaned Peggy, who had been reading the paper’s account of the tragedy. “I must go at once and leave a note for Beatrice,” and she started to rise. “Sit still, child; I have just returned from the Trevors, and left your card and mine with messages.” “Did you see Beatrice, Granny?” “No, only that odious Alfred Clark. I cannot bear the man, he is so--so specious--” hunting about for a word. “He told me that Beatrice and the Attorney General would see no one.” “Beatrice must be terribly upset, poor darling.” “I didn’t know there was much love lost between them?” “There wasn’t,” confessed Peggy. “Mrs. Trevor was perfectly horrid to her.” “That’s news to me,” said Dick, helping himself to another sandwich. “Beatrice is not the kind to air her troubles in public,” answered Peggy, “and she never talked much to me, either; but I couldn’t help noticing lots of things. I’ve got eyes in my head.” “That you have,” thought Dick, who had long since fallen a victim. “Why, last night Beatrice and I went to the Bachelors’ together. I stopped for her, and she just broke down and cried right there in the carriage. She had had an awful scene with her stepmother just before I got there. We had to drive around for half an hour before she was composed enough to enter the ballroom.” “What did they quarrel about?” asked Mrs. Macallister, deeply interested. “She didn’t tell me.” “By Jove! what actresses women are,” ejaculated Dick. “I danced with her several times, and I thought she was enjoying herself immensely.” Peggy sniffed; she had not a high opinion of a mere man’s perceptions; then she qualified her disapproval by a smile which showed each pretty dimple, and sent Dick into the seventh heaven of bliss. “Of what nationality was Mrs. Trevor?” asked Mrs. Macallister, coming out of a brown study. “She was an Italian,” answered Dick. “No, Dick, I think you are mistaken. I am sure she was a Spaniard,” declared Peggy. “She spoke Spanish faultlessly.” Mrs. Macallister shook her head. “That doesn’t prove anything. She spoke French like a Parisian, and also Italian fluently. The only language in which her accent was pronounced was English.” “Beatrice told me her maiden name was de Beaupré, so perhaps she was of French descent,” continued Peggy. “Mr. Trevor met her in London. They were married six weeks later very quietly, and Beatrice was not told of the affair until after the ceremony.” “Indeed!” Mrs. Macallister smiled grimly. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure.” “But being a lawyer perhaps he just naturally pressed his suit quickly,” interrupted Dick, man-like, standing up for his sex. “I’d do the same, if _you_ gave me half a chance,” he added in an ardent aside to Peggy, whose only answer was a vivid blush. “Don’t talk to me of lawyers,” retorted Mrs. Macallister, who had unpleasant recollections of a bitter lawsuit with one of her relatives. “Their ways are past finding out. But I really must discover who Mrs. Trevor was before her marriage.” “Why, Granny, I have just told you she was Mademoiselle de Beaupré.” “The only de Beaupré I have ever heard of, Peggy, is Anne de Beaupré. And I imagine it is a far cry from Sainte Anne to Hélène whose very name suggests sulphur. Must you go?” she asked, as Dick rose. “Yes. I have a special story to send on to the Philadelphia papers. If I hear any further details of the murder, I’ll drop in and tell you.” “Thanks; but I have decided to attend the inquest, which the papers say will be held at the Trevors’.” “Granny!” cried Peggy, in a tone of horror. “Tut, child, of course I am going. I dearly love a mystery; besides, the world and his wife will be there.” “And so will I,” added Dick, as he bowed himself out. CHAPTER IV THE INQUEST THE dastardly murder created a tremendous sensation not only in Washington, but in every State of the Union as well. The Trevors were bombarded with telegrams and special delivery letters, and their house besieged by reporters. Mrs. Macallister was right; all fashionable society turned out to attend the inquest, and fought and struggled for admittance, rubbing shoulders with the denizens of Southeast Washington and Anacostia as they pushed their way into the Trevor mansion. The inquest was to be held in the library, the suite of rooms, comprising parlor, library and dining-room, having been thrown open to accommodate the public. A rope had been stretched in front of the office door and across the square staircase to keep the crowd within bounds. Uniformed policemen stationed in the wide hall warned those whose curiosity caused them to linger about the room where the tragedy occurred, to “move on.” Mrs. Macallister, true to her word, had arrived early, and she and Peggy had been given seats in the library. As she glanced about her, she caught the eye of Senator Phillips, who instantly rose and joined her. “This is a terrible affair,” said the Senator, after they had exchanged greetings. “Beautiful Mrs. Trevor--so young--so fascinating!” “It is indeed dreadful,” agreed Mrs. Macallister, with a slight shiver. “The idea of any woman coming to such an end makes my blood run cold. I cannot sleep at night thinking of it. Have you seen the Attorney General?” “Yes. He sent for me; we were college chums, you know. I never saw such self-control. He is bearing up most bravely under the fearful shock.” In the meantime, Peggy, sick at heart, was looking about her and thinking of the many handsome dinners, luncheons, and receptions she had attended in the Trevors’ beautiful home. When all was said and done, Mrs. Trevor had been an ideal hostess; for besides beauty, she had tact and social perception, and, therefore, had always steered clear of the social pitfalls which lie in wait for the feet of the unwary in Washington’s complex society. Only the night before the murder, Mrs. Trevor had given a large theater and supper party, and Peggy remembered that she had never seen her hostess appear more animated or more beautiful; and now--“In the midst of life we are in death”; the solemn words recurred to Peggy as she watched the coroner and the jury file into the room and seat themselves around the large table which had been brought in for their use. To one side, representatives of the Associated Press and the local papers were busy with pad and pencil. Among the latter Peggy recognized Dick Tillinghast. Some telepathy seemed to tell him of her presence, for he turned and his eyes lighted with pleasure as he bowed gravely to her and Mrs. Macallister. Senator Phillips and Mrs. Macallister were intently scanning the jury. They realized how much might depend upon their intelligence and good judgment. In this case the jurymen had apparently been selected from a higher stratum of life than usual, and Senator Phillips sighed with relief as he pointed to the men sitting at the end of the long table. “Why _did_ the Lord ever make four such ugly men?” he asked Mrs. Macallister, in a whisper. “To show His power,” she answered, quickly. All further remarks were cut short by Coroner Wilson swearing in the jury. Their foreman was then elected. All the witnesses were waiting in the small reception room to the right of the front door. Policemen guarded each entrance. “Have you viewed the scene of the tragedy, and the body of the victim?” asked the coroner. “We have, sir,” answered the foreman. Then the coroner in a few words briefly stated the occasion for the hearing. The first witness summoned was Doctor Davis. After being duly sworn, he seated himself in the witness chair facing the jury. In a few clear words he stated that he had been telephoned for by Wilkins, and had come at once. On his arrival he had been shown into the private office. “Please state to the jury the exact position in which you found Mrs. Trevor.” “Mrs. Trevor was crouching on one knee directly inside the safe, with her left hand pressing against the door-jamb, so--” and he illustrated his statement. “From the condition of her body I judged she had been dead about eight or nine hours. The pupils of her open eyes were very much dilated.” One of the jurymen leaned forward and opened his lips as if to speak, then drew back. The coroner noticed his hesitancy. “Do you wish to question the witness?” he asked. “I--I,” he was obviously confused by the attention drawn to him. “Doctor, I always thought that when people died their eyes shut up.” “On the contrary,” answered Doctor Davis, dryly. “Their eyes usually have to be closed by the undertaker.” “Did you order the body removed, Doctor?” asked the coroner, resuming the examination. “Yes. I thought that Mrs. Trevor had been asphyxiated in the air-tight safe. It was not until her clothes had been removed that I discovered the small wound a little to one side under her left breast. At the post-mortem we found no other cause for death, Mrs. Trevor having been perfectly sound physically and mentally.” “Were there no blood stains?” “None. The weapon, which pierced the heart, was broken off in the wound preventing any outward flow of blood. She bled internally. Death was probably instantaneous.” “Have you the weapon?” “Yes. I probed the wound in the presence of the deputy-coroner and Doctor Wells. Here it is.” There was instant craning of necks to see the small object which Doctor Davis took out of his pocket. It was a piece of sharp-pointed steel about four inches long. The coroner passed it over to the jury, then continued his questions. “Could the wound have been self-inflicted?” “Impossible, unless the victim was left-handed.” “Now, Doctor, what kind of a weapon do you think this point belongs to?” “Well--” the doctor hesitated a moment--“I don’t think it could be called a weapon in the usual sense of the word. To me it looks like the end of a hat-pin.” His words caused a genuine sensation. A hat-pin! Men and women looked at each other. What a weapon for a burglar to use! “Could so frail an article as a hat-pin penetrate through dress, corset and underclothes?” asked the coroner, incredulously. “Mrs. Trevor wore no corsets. In place of them she had on an elastic girdle which fitted perfectly her slender, supple figure.” The coroner asked a few more questions, then the doctor was dismissed. The next to take the stand was the deputy-coroner. His testimony simply corroborated that of Doctor Davis in every particular. As he left the witness chair, the clerk summoned Alfred Clark. “Your name?” asked the coroner, after the usual preliminaries had been gone through with. “Alfred Lindsay Clark.” “Occupation?” “Confidential secretary to the Attorney General.” “How long have you been in his employ?” “Eleven months.” “And before that time?” “I was a clerk in the Department of Justice for over two years, in fact, ever since I have resided in this city.” “Then you are not a native of Washington?” “No. My father was in the Consular Service. At the time of my birth, he was vice consul at Naples, and I was born in that city. I lived abroad until two years and a half ago.” “You were the first to find Mrs. Trevor, were you not?” “Yes. I always reach here at eight o’clock to sort and arrange the mail for the Attorney General. He breakfasts at that time, and usually joins me in the private office twenty minutes later. At five minutes of nine we leave for the Department. This is the everyday routine--” he hesitated. “And yesterday, Mr. Clark?” “I arrived a few minutes earlier than usual, as there were some notes which I had to transcribe before the Attorney General left for the Department. I went immediately to the office.” “Did you notice any signs of confusion, or unusual disturbance in the room?” “No. Everything was apparently just as I had left it the night before. I started to typewrite my notes but had not proceeded very far when I found I needed to refer to some papers which were in the safe. So I went....” “One moment. You know the combination?” “Certainly. It is one of my duties to open the safe every morning, and lock it the last thing at night.” “Did you find the safe just the same as when you left the night before?” “Exactly the same. Apparently the lock had not been tampered with.” “Proceed.” Clark spoke with a visible effort. “I unlocked the safe and pulled open the door and found--” his voice broke. “At first I could not believe the evidences of my senses. I put out my hand and touched Mrs. Trevor. Then, and then only, did I appreciate that she was dead. In unspeakable horror I ran out of the room to summon aid.” “What led you to think she was murdered? Doctor Davis did not know it until much later.” “I beg your pardon. I had no idea Mrs. Trevor was murdered.” “Then, why did you cry ‘Murder’ as you ran along?” “I have no recollection of raising such a cry. But I was half out of my senses with the shock, and did not know what I was doing.” Clark’s handsome face had turned a shade paler, and he moistened his lips nervously. Mrs. Macallister noticed his agitation, and gave vent to her feelings by pinching Peggy’s arm. “Was Mrs. Trevor facing you?” “Yes. She was crouching on one knee, her left hand extended.” “Could two people stand in the safe at the same time.” “Side by side, yes; but not one in front of the other. The safe, which really resembles a small vault, is shallow but wide. The back of it is filled with filing cases. In fact, Mrs. Trevor’s body was wedged in between the cases and the narrow door-jamb. It was probably owing to this that she remained in such a peculiar position.” “Was her head sunk forward on her breast?” “No; on the contrary, it was thrown back and she was looking up, so that I, standing, looked directly down into her eyes.” “Did you touch or move anything in the vault before summoning aid?” There was a barely perceptible pause before the secretary answered. “No, sir; nothing.” “Did you see much of Mrs. Trevor?” “No. She came but seldom to the office during the day.” “Do you mean that it was her habit to go there often at night?” “As to that, I cannot say, because I am not with the Attorney General at night unless some special work has to be done.” At that moment a note was handed to the coroner. He read it twice; then addressed the secretary, saying: “I think that is all just now.” Clark bowed and retired. Coroner Wilson turned and addressed the jury. “I have just received a note from the Chief of Police. He says that his prisoner, the burglar who was captured after leaving these premises, has asked to be allowed to make a statement before this jury. Therefore he has been sent here under guard. Up to the present time he has stubbornly refused to answer any questions, although every influence has been brought to hear to make him speak. I expected to call him later, anyway.” The coroner’s remarks were interrupted by the entrance of the guard with their prisoner. He was of medium height, and insignificant enough in appearance save for his small, piercing blue eyes. His abundant red hair was plastered down on his round, bullet-shaped head, and his numerous freckles showed up plainly against the pallor of his face. “Swear the prisoner,” ordered the coroner. The clerk rose and stepped up to the man. “Place your hand on this book and say after me: ‘I, John Smith--’” “Hold on; my name’s William Nelson. T’other one I just used to blind the cops, see?” “I, William Nelson, do solemnly swear--” The singsong voice of the clerk, and the heavier bass of the prisoner seemed interminable to Peggy, whose nerves were getting beyond her control. She wished he would get through his confession quickly. It was awful sitting in callous judgment on a human being, no matter how guilty he might be. “Now, William Nelson, alias John Smith,” said the coroner, sternly, “I am told you have volunteered to confess--” “Nix, no confession,” interrupted Nelson. “Just an account of how I came to get mixed up in this deal.” “Well, remember you are on oath, and that every word will be used against you.” The prisoner nodded, cleared his throat, then spoke clearly and with deliberation. “I came to Washington just to get certain papers. We knew those papers were kept in the Attorney General’s private safe. I used to be a messenger at the Department of Justice, and knew this house well, as I often brought papers to the Attorney General in his private office here. I had my kit with me, and broke in by way of the window over the pantry. The safe is an old one, and I found the combination easy. But, though I crack safes--by God! I am no murderer! When I opened that door I found the lady there--_dead_!” The man rose. “I know no more than you who killed her, so help me God!” Nelson’s deep voice, vibrating with intense feeling, carried conviction. There was no doubting the effect his words had upon the jury and the spectators. “I ain’t no coward, but the sight of that figure crouching there, and I looking down into her dead eyes, struck cold to my marrow bones. I ain’t been able to sleep since,” and the prisoner’s hand shook as he wiped the beads of perspiration off his forehead. “Quite a dramatic story,” said the coroner, dryly. “And the proof?” The prisoner struck the table fiercely with his clenched hand. “Go ask the men who hired me to come here and steal the papers showing the attitude the Attorney General and the Department of Justice would take against the Fairbanks railroad combine. Ask those who wanted to get the news first, before it was given out to the public.” “Do you think they would incriminate themselves by admitting such a rascally piece of business?” “Perhaps not,” sullenly, “but I’ll make them.” “Secondly, the motive of your presence here does not clear you of the suspicion of being the murderer. Did you get the papers?” “No. When I saw that dead body I stopped for nothing. You don’t believe me, but I’ve told you God’s truth. I don’t mind doing time for house-breaking; but I ain’t hankering for the electric chair.” The coroner rose abruptly and signaled to the guards. “You will be summoned again, Nelson,” he said, and as the guards closed about the prisoner, he announced that the hearing was adjourned until one o’clock that afternoon. CHAPTER V THE SIGNET RING EXCITEMENT ran high among the spectators as they crowded into the rooms a few minutes before one o’clock. The burglar’s story had impressed them by its sincerity. But, if he was innocent, who could be the criminal? “Nelson knew how to play on people’s emotions and made up a plausible tale; but as the coroner says, he has given no proof to back his statement that Mrs. Trevor was killed before he entered the house,” said Philip White, in answer to one of Peggy’s questions. She and her grandmother were occupying their old seats in the library, and Dick Tillinghast and White had just joined them. Philip White, who stood at the head of the district bar, was not one to form opinions hastily. Therefore, he was usually listened to. He was a warm friend of the Attorney General’s, and had been a frequent visitor at his house. “No, Miss Peggy,” he went on, “the fellow’s just a clever criminal.” “I rather believe in him,” said Peggy, stoutly. “He didn’t have to tell what he knew.” “That’s just it--it was a neat play to the galleries. He would have been summoned before the jury anyway, and his story dragged from him piece by piece. He hoped it would tell in his favor if he volunteered and gave a dramatic account of what occurred that night.” “Where did he get his information about the papers being in the safe?” queried Mrs. Macallister, who had been an interested listener. “Probably there is some leak in the Department of Justice.” The low hum of voices ceased as the coroner’s clerk rose and called the Attorney General to the stand. Many a sympathetic eye followed his tall, erect figure, as he passed quietly through the room. Edmund Trevor had won distinction early in life by his unremitting labor and ability. A New Yorker born and bred, he had given up a large law practice to accept the President’s tender of the portfolio of Attorney General. His devotion to his beautiful wife, some twenty years his junior, had been often commented upon by their friends. While not, strictly speaking, a handsome man, his dark hair, silvering at the temples, his fine eyes and firm mouth gave him an air of distinction. He was very popular with both men and women, as his courtly manner and kind heart gained him a warm place in their regard. To-day sorrow and fatigue were visible on his face. He looked careworn and troubled. After he had answered the usual questions as to his age, full name, and length of residence in Washington, the coroner turned directly to him. “How old was Mrs. Trevor, and where was she born?” he asked. “Thirty years old. She was born in Paris, France.” “Where did you first meet her?” “In London at a ball given by the American Ambassador three years ago.” “When and where were you married?” “We were married on the eleventh of June of the same year, at St. George’s, Hanover Square.” The coroner’s manner was very sympathetic, as he said: “Now, Mr. Attorney General, will you kindly tell the jury of your movements on Wednesday night, last.” “Certainly. I did not dine at home, as I had to attend the annual banquet given by the Yale alumni, at which I was to be one of the speakers. Just before leaving the house, I joined my wife and daughter in the dining-room. Mrs. Trevor told me that, as she had a bad nervous headache, she had decided not to go to the Bachelors’ Cotillion, but instead she was going to retire early. My daughter Beatrice had, therefore, arranged to go to the ball with her friend, Miss Macallister, who was to call for her at ten o’clock. “My motor was announced, and as I kissed my wife, she asked me not to disturb her on my return, as she wanted to get a good night’s sleep. That was the last time I saw her _alive_--” His voice quivered with emotion, but in a few seconds he resumed: “On my return, about midnight, I went directly upstairs. Seeing no light in my wife’s room, which is separated from mine by a large dressing room, I retired.” “Did you hear no noises during the night; no cries; no person moving about?” “No. I am always a heavy sleeper, besides which I had had a very fatiguing day; a Cabinet meeting in the morning; and I had also been detained at the Department by pressure of business until six o’clock that evening.” “Were your doors and windows securely fastened?” “Wilkins attends to that. I did not put up the night-latch on the front door because I knew Beatrice had to come in with her latch key.” “How did you find the house lighted on your return?” “Why, as is usual at that time of night when we are not entertaining. All the rooms were in darkness; the only lights being in the front and upper halls--they were turned down low.” “In regard to Wilkins--” “I would trust him as I would myself,” interrupted the Attorney General. “He has lived first with my father and then with me for over twenty years.” “And your other servants?” “I have every confidence in them. The cook, second man, and chambermaids have been in my employ for at least five years.” “And Mrs. Trevor’s personal maid?” “Came with her from England three years ago.” “Were you not surprised when Mrs. Trevor did not breakfast with you the next morning?” “No. My wife was not an early riser. She always had a French breakfast served in her room. Unless she called to me to enter, as I went downstairs, I often did not see her until luncheon.” “Was Mrs. Trevor left-handed?” The Attorney General looked at the coroner in surprise. “She was, sir,” he answered. “Have you formed any theory as to who perpetrated this foul murder?” “I think the burglar, Nelson, guilty.” “Was Mrs. Trevor on good terms with everyone of your household?” The witness’ face changed, ever so slightly. “To the best of my knowledge, she was,” was the quiet reply. “Then that is all. Stay just a moment,” as the Attorney General rose. “Will you kindly describe what took place on the discovery of Mrs. Trevor’s body?” In a concise manner the Attorney General gave the details of that trying scene. He was then excused. His place was taken by Wilkins, who in a few words confirmed the Attorney General’s statement that he had served the Trevor family, as butler, for nearly twenty-one years. “Did you securely close the house for the night on Wednesday, Wilkins?” “Yes, sir; I did, sir. I bolted every door and window, sir.” “Are you positive, Wilkins?” “Absolutely positive, sir.” “Did anyone call at the house after dinner that night to see either of the ladies?” “No, sir, no one; except Miss Macallister came in her carriage to take Miss Beatrice to the ball.” “At what time did they finish dinner?” “About twenty minutes past eight, sir. The hall clock was striking the half hour as I carried the coffee into the library. Mrs. Trevor was there, and she told me that Miss Beatrice had gone upstairs to dress, so I left her cup on the table, sir.” “At what time did you go to bed?” “I went up a few minutes after ten o’clock, sir. All the other servants had gone upstairs before me.” “Was that their usual hour for retiring?” “No, sir. You see, sir, Mrs. Trevor gave a very large supper party for Madame Bernhardt on Tuesday night. The guests didn’t leave until nearly four o’clock Wednesday morning. We were all dead tired from the extra work and no sleep, so Mrs. Trevor told me in the library that night, sir, that I was to tell the others to go to bed as soon as their work was done, and that I needn’t wait up, nor her maid either, as she would undress herself.” “Was that the last time you saw Mrs. Trevor alive?” “Yes, sir; the last time I saw her.” There was a peculiar inflection in Wilkins’ usually quiet monotone that caught the coroner’s attention. “What do you mean, Wilkins?” “I didn’t _see_ her again, sir.” “Well, I’ll change my question. Did you hear her afterwards?” “Yes, sir,” reluctantly. “When?” “Why, sir, the door bell rang about a quarter to ten. It was a messenger boy with a telegram for the Attorney General. I signed for it, and walked over towards the library intending to hand it to Mrs. Trevor. The door was partly open, sir, and I heard the ladies--” “Ladies! What ladies?” “Mrs. Trevor and Miss Beatrice, sir. I recognized their voices.” “Could you hear what they were saying?” “Perfectly, sir; but indeed I didn’t listen intentionally, sir. The carpet deadened my footsteps; besides, they were too excited to hear me.” “Were they quarreling?” “I--I--” “Remember, Wilkins, you are on oath to tell the truth, the _whole_ truth.” “Yes, sir.” The unhappy man glanced appealingly at the jury, but found no help there. They were all waiting expectantly for what was to follow. “I only caught a few words, sir. Miss Beatrice said: ‘And your price?’ ‘You know it,’ answered Mrs. Trevor. She said it in a voice that seemed to infuriate Miss Beatrice, who cried out: ‘You devil, get out of my way, or I may forget myself and strike you.’” Everyone in the over-crowded rooms felt the shock of the testimony. “What happened next?” “Just then the front door bell rang loudly. Putting the telegram on the hall table, I went to answer it, and found Mrs. Macallister’s footman waiting in the vestibule. I started to tell Miss Beatrice, but at that moment she walked out of the library, with her cloak over her arm. When I helped her on with it she was trembling from head to foot.” “What became of Mrs. Trevor?” “I don’t know, sir. After the carriage drove off, I went first into the private office to fasten the windows, and from there into the other rooms. I think Mrs. Trevor must have gone upstairs when I was in the parlor. I went to bed very soon after.” “Were you disturbed in the night?” “No, sir. The servants’ quarters are all on the fourth floor. The house is well built and the walls are very thick. We couldn’t hear any sound up there, except the bells in the corridor, and they did not ring at all.” “How did you find everything when you came down the next morning?” “Every window was locked on the ground floor, and the night-latch was up on the front door, sir. The window on the stairway by which the burglar entered is covered by heavy curtains; and as it was closed, I never noticed it was unfastened until after the detective’s arrival.” “Did you enter the private office?” “Yes, sir; nothing had been disturbed.” “No sign of a struggle?” “No, sir. Every chair and rug was in its place.” “That’s all; you can go now,” said the coroner, after a moment’s silence. Wilkins heaved a sigh of relief, as he hastened out of the room. Interest was at fever heat among the spectators. For once Mrs. Macallister was too shocked by the trend of suspicion to voice her feelings to Peggy. Apparently the least concerned person in the room was Beatrice Trevor, who had entered in answer to the clerk’s summons. Lack of sleep and anxiety had left their mark on the girl’s finely cut features, but there was no trace of fear in her large, candid eyes, which were turned inquiringly on the coroner. Peggy’s heart was hot within her. How dare these people insinuate that Beatrice, her dear, dear friend, was guilty of murder. The idea was too preposterous! Even the coroner was struck by the young girl’s poise and dignity, and his manner was very gentle as he said: “Miss Trevor, I have just a few questions to ask you. At what hour did you return from the ball?” “We left the New Willard at a quarter to three, and reached here about fifteen minutes later.” “Did you encounter anyone as you entered?” “No.” “Was the house dark?” “Yes; except for the light in the hall.” “Did you go directly to your room?” “Yes. I put up the night-latch, turned out the light, and went to my room at once.” “When did you last see your stepmother?” “In the library, before the carriage came for me.” “Miss Trevor”--the coroner fumbled with his watch chain--“what did you and Mrs. Trevor quarrel about that night?” The question struck home. Beatrice reeled in her seat. “What did you say?” she stammered. The coroner repeated his question. With a visible effort, Beatrice regained her self-control. “That is a matter between my stepmother and myself. I decline to discuss it with anyone.” “But you must, Miss Trevor.” “I will not. Our quarrel had nothing whatever to do with Mrs. Trevor’s death.” “I am the best judge of that,” retorted Coroner Wilson, but Beatrice remained obstinately silent. “Come, Miss Trevor, can you not see that you are injuring yourself by this refusal. People will jump to but one conclusion. For your own sake, I beg you to tell us what your quarrel was about.” “I decline to answer.” The coroner shrugged his shoulders. He had warned her; he could do no more. “Very well, Miss Trevor. You may retire.” With pale, set lips and flashing eyes, Beatrice swept from the room. For a few minutes the coroner looked over his papers, then he beckoned to his clerk. The next instant, Lieutenant-Commander Donald Gordon had been called to the stand. There was a gasp of amazement from the fashionable spectators. How came Donald Gordon to be mixed up in this affair? But none was more surprised than Donald Gordon himself. He had been subpœnaed as a witness that morning, to his great disgust, as he had orders to accompany the President to New York on the afternoon train. He reported the subpœna to his superiors, and another aide had been detailed to attend the President in his place. Gordon had an enviable record as an officer in the United States navy. He had served bravely under Admiral Dewey at Manila, and had on several occasions received special commendation from Congress. Good-looking, in a big, fine way, he was immensely popular in the service, and also with his many civilian friends. “Mr. Gordon,” said the coroner, after he had been duly sworn, “I wish to ask if this is your property.” As he spoke, he held up a heavy gold signet ring. Absolute incredulity was plainly written on Gordon’s face, as he leaned over and took the ring. “Yes,” he said, turning it over, “yes. It is my class ring. My initials and the date of my graduation from the Naval Academy are engraved on the inside.” Then his voice deepened. “How came you to have this ring in your possession?” “It was found”--the coroner paused impressively--“it was found tightly clasped in Mrs. Trevor’s right hand.” In stupefied silence, Gordon gazed at the coroner, while the meaning of his words slowly took form in his brain. Then he leaped to his feet. “You lie--damn you--you lie!” he cried, fiercely. CHAPTER VI THE VERDICT SO totally unexpected had been the dénouement that for a few seconds the spectators sat stunned; then pandemonium broke loose. It was only after the coroner threatened to clear the rooms that quiet was restored. “Such violence is unnecessary,” said he, addressing Gordon. “I--I--beg pardon,” the young officer spoke with an effort. “Your statement was so utterly unbelievable, so astounding that I forgot myself.” “It is absolutely true, and can be proved by Doctor Davis and Detective Hardy, who was present when the doctor found the ring. Mrs. Trevor’s hand was so tightly clenched that he had to exert his strength to force it open. Can you explain its presence there?” He gazed intently at Gordon, but the latter had his emotions under control, and his face was expressionless, as he answered with perfect composure: “I cannot, sir.” “Where were you on Wednesday night, last?” “I dined at the Metropolitan Club with Lieutenant James Raymond. We went later to the Bachelors’ Cotillion.” The coroner held a whispered conversation with his clerk, then turned to the witness. “Will you kindly withdraw to the waiting room, Mr. Gordon; but don’t leave the house, as I wish to call you again to the stand.” Gordon nodded silently to Dick Tillinghast and several other friends as he left the room. The next witness was Lieutenant Raymond. His testimony was very brief. Yes, he and Lieutenant-Commander Gordon had dined together on Wednesday night. They had left the Club about half past nine as he, Raymond, was a member of the Committee and had to go early to the New Willard. No, Mr. Gordon did not accompany him to the hotel; but had left him at the corner of 17th and H Streets, saying he had to return to his rooms at the Benedict, but would go to the dance later on. Gordon did not enter the ballroom until just after supper, which was served at midnight. “Are you positive of that?” asked the coroner. “Absolutely positive, because I had to get a temporary partner for Miss Underhill, who was to have danced the cotillion with Mr. Gordon.” “How long a time would it take for Mr. Gordon to go from 17th and H Streets to his apartment?” “About five minutes.” “And how long would it take him to get from his apartment at the Benedict to the New Willard?” “Seven minutes if he went in the cars, and fifteen minutes if he walked.” Lieutenant Raymond was then excused, and after his departure Detective Hardy was called to the witness chair. He gave a brief résumé of all that took place after the murder was discovered. “Did you find any trace of the end of the weapon?” asked the coroner. “No, sir. I turned the whole place inside out, but could find nothing. The only clue I had to go upon was the ring which we found in Mrs. Trevor’s hand. I saw at a glance that it was a naval class ring, so I at once went to the Navy Department. There I looked through the register of Annapolis graduates, and found that two men in that class had the two initials ‘D. G.’--Donald Gordon and Daniel Green. The latter is stationed at Mare Island, California. That eliminated him, so I went to Mr. Gordon’s quarters at the Benedict Apartment House.” He paused. “Go on,” ordered the coroner. “Tell your story in your own way.” The jury to a man were leaning across the table, regarding the detective with deep interest. “The janitor there is a friend of mine, so he let me into Mr. Gordon’s apartment, which is on the second floor, with his pass key. I searched his rooms thoroughly, but could find nothing. Then I went through his personal belongings. In the inner pocket of his overcoat, I found a few pieces of a torn note. “It didn’t take me long to fit the words together. I then pasted them all on a sheet of note paper. Here, you can see for yourselves.” He drew out his pocketbook as he spoke, and removed from it a sheet of paper on which were pasted scraps torn in different shapes, and handed it to the coroner. After one startled glance, the coroner read the contents aloud. “Come--Wedn--half--elev--must--you--for--leav--New Yor-- “HÉLÈNE DE--T--” Without a word of comment, the coroner handed the paper to the jurymen, who eagerly scanned it. “Have you any further evidence to give to the jury?” “No, sir.” “That is all, then, Hardy. You are excused. Bayne,” to his clerk, “recall Mr. Gordon.” Gordon was walking impatiently up and down the smaller room, eager to be gone, and he answered the summons with alacrity. “Mr. Gordon, where were you between the hours of nine thirty P.M. and midnight on Wednesday last?” “I decline to state.” “Tut! We know you called to see Mrs. Trevor at eleven thirty that night.” “Indeed, and may I ask who your informant is?” The coroner paid no attention to the interruption, but went steadily on with his examination. “Did Mrs. Trevor admit you?” Silence. The coroner repeated his question. Still no reply. “Come, sir; you must answer. Yes, or no?” Gordon stirred uneasily in his chair. “I was in my rooms at the Benedict until I left to go to the ball,” he said. “Was anyone with you?” “No.” “Did anyone see you leave the Benedict?” “Not to my knowledge.” Then he added quickly, “At least, there may have been some of the other tenants around, or perhaps the janitor; I never noticed in my hurry.” “Mr. Gordon--” the coroner’s manner was abrupt and stern--“do you see these pieces?” He took up the sheet from the table. “They are apparently torn from a letter of Mrs. Trevor’s to you, making an appointment to see you here on Wednesday night at eleven thirty. These scraps were found in your overcoat pocket. Again I ask, did Mrs. Trevor admit you?” Gordon glanced at the sheet and recognized the handwriting. His mouth closed in a hard line, and he grew perceptibly paler. He straightened his broad shoulders, and faced the jury squarely, saying: “I refuse to incriminate myself.” In the dead silence the scratching of the stenographer’s pen could be heard plainly. “You may retire,” said the coroner. With perfect self-possession, Gordon left the room. The coroner’s summing up of the case was short and to the point. As soon as he finished, the jury left the room to deliberate. The hands of the ormolu clock on the mantel had gone five times around its dial, but there was no thinning out of the crowd. The majority of the spectators had attended the inquest out of friendship for the Trevors, others had been brought there by morbid curiosity; but none had expected such an outcome to the investigation. Now, in silence and nervous apprehension they waited for the return of the jury. The tension was snapped by their reappearance. The coroner rose and addressed them. “Gentlemen of the jury, have you reached a verdict?” “The jury find,” answered the foreman, “that Mrs. Hélène de Beaupré Trevor came to her death on the night of Wednesday, February 3rd, 19--, in the City of Washington, District of Columbia, from a wound inflicted by Lieutenant-Commander Donald Gordon.” CHAPTER VII WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS TRAMP, tramp, back and forth, back and forth, went the restless footsteps. Would she never tire? Would she never stop? Alfred Clark bent lower until his eye was on a level with the keyhole of the closed library door. Suddenly the gong over the front door rang loudly. With a smothered exclamation, Clark glided quickly across the wide hall and entered the private office just as Wilkins came out of the dining-room. “Good afternoon, Wilkins. Can I see Miss Beatrice?” Peggy’s fresh young voice sounded cheerily in Wilkins’ ears. During the last week he had had a surfeit of horrors and unmitigated gloom. “Yes, Miss Margaret, she is expecting you. Will you please walk into the drawing-room, and I will tell her you have come.” Peggy had only time to straighten one refractory curl which would trail down on her forehead. It had been the cause of much mental anguish in childish days because everyone dinned into her ears, “There was a little girl, and she had a little curl.” Consequently she always took care to tuck that particular lock carefully out of sight. As she turned from the mirror, Beatrice came in through the communicating doors leading to the library. “My dearest, how good it is to see you again,” exclaimed Peggy, giving her a warm kiss and hug. “It is, indeed,” and Beatrice’s sad face brightened, as she affectionately returned the embrace. “I have been here several times since the funeral, Beatrice.” “I know, dear, and it did my heart good to know you were thinking of me. I feel so alone, so utterly alone.” Beatrice stopped to control her voice, and Peggy, with loving sympathy, threw her arm about her shoulders. They made a charming foil sitting side by side on the divan, one so dark in her stately beauty, the other so fair and winsome, their faces seen first in shadow then in light as the fickle wood fire flickered to and fro on the wide hearth. “There, I did not intend to allude to the terrible happenings. Since the funeral, which was private, I have tried not to let my mind dwell on the tragedy. Otherwise I think I should go mad. I cannot, cannot speak of it even to you, dearest.” Her hands twitched spasmodically, and she bit her lips to hide their trembling. Regaining her composure by a desperate effort, she signed to Wilkins to move the tea table nearer the fire. “Two lumps and lemon, Peggy?” “Yes, please, and very weak.” “It was dear of you to come out in this snow storm.” “Puf! I don’t care that for a storm.” Peggy snapped her fingers derisively. “I had been in all day and was longing for fresh air when you telephoned me. And the walk up here did me no end of good. I always eat too much at Granny’s lunches.” “Tell me who were there?” “Oh! just the Topic Club. One of the members gave out at the eleventh hour, and Granny asked me to take her place.” “It must have been interesting,” ejaculated Beatrice. The Topic Club, composed of eleven witty women, was a time-honored institution in the Capital. It met once a month at the different members’ houses. Each hostess was always allowed to ask one of her friends to make the twelfth guest, an invitation eagerly sought for. The topic to be discussed was written on the back of the place cards. “What was the topic this time, Peggy?” “‘What does a woman remember longest?’ May I have some more hot water, my tea is a little too strong?” “And what answer did they find for it?” asked Beatrice, taking up the hot water kettle as Peggy held out her cup. “Why, they decided that no woman ever forgets ‘the man who has once loved her.’ My gracious, Beatrice, look out!” as a few drops of boiling water went splashing over her fingers. “Oh, Peggy, did I scald you?” “Not very much,” groaned Peggy, putting her injured finger in her mouth, that human receptacle for all things--good and bad. “I am so sorry, dear. Tell me, did you hear anything exciting at luncheon?” “Nothing in particular.” Peggy could not tell her that the chief topic at the table had been the Trevor murder, so she rattled on: “People say that divorce proceedings are pending in the Van Auken family. You know their home is called ‘the house of a thousand scandals.’ But the latest news is that Martha Underhill’s engagement to Bobby Crane has been broken off.” “Why?” asked Beatrice, her curiosity excited. “Well, they quarreled about Donald Gordon--” Beatrice’s convulsive start brought Peggy up short. As usual her thoughtless tongue had gotten her into hot water. To hesitate would be but to make a bad matter worse, so she went bravely on: “Bobby is desperately jealous, and simply hates to have Martha even look at any other man. So he was simply raging when she told him she intended dancing the last Bachelors’ with Mr. Gordon, who is an old friend of hers. Bobby was very nasty about it. Yesterday when we were all walking up Connecticut Avenue from St. John’s, Martha remarked how mortified she had been at being left without a partner during the first part of the cotillion. “‘Serves you jolly well right,’ snapped Bobby. ‘That’s what comes of dancing with a murderer!’” “Oh, the coward!” exclaimed Beatrice. “The coward!” “That’s what we all thought, and I left Martha telling Bobby what she thought of him. Result--the broken engagement. As to Mr. Gordon, we all believe in his innocence,” declared Peggy, stoutly. “It is not the first time a Court of Justice has blundered,” agreed Beatrice, wearily, and she brushed her soft hair off her hot forehead. “The idea of suspecting Mr. Gordon,” went on Peggy, heatedly. “He is so chivalrous; so tender in his manner to all women! What matter if he is a bit of a flirt--” Beatrice moved uneasily in her chair. “How is Mrs. Macallister?” she asked abruptly. “Very well, and enjoying herself immensely at present. She is having an out and out row with the Commissioners of the District. Major Stone applied to them for permission to cut an entrance to the alley through Granny’s rose garden. My, she was mad!” and Peggy smiled broadly at the recollection. “I don’t wonder,” exclaimed Beatrice. “Why, Peggy, it would be a perfect shame. Mrs. Macallister’s garden is one of the beauties of Washington.” “It would be beastly. You see, Granny owns nearly half the square between 19th and 20th on F Street. To prevent apartment houses going up, she wanted to buy the whole block. But the owners, finding she wanted the real estate, asked her an exorbitant price, which Granny naturally refused to pay. Now, I suppose to get back at her, old Major Stone insists that the alley, which already has two entrances, must have a third. “So yesterday, Granny and I went to call on Major Cochrane, the new Engineer Commissioner, in the District Building. He didn’t know us from Adam, and didn’t seem able to get a clear idea of our errand. Finally, he asked Granny: “‘Do I understand you came here to get an alley put through?’ “‘No,’ replied Granny, with her blandest smile, ‘I came to get an ally.’ And she did, too,” laughed Peggy. “Before we left she had won him, body and soul, over to her cause.” “I prophesy Mrs. Macallister wins. Must you go, dear,” as Peggy started gathering her wraps together. “It’s getting late, and I am far, far from home; besides which, I am dining with the Van Winkles, and afterwards going to the Charity Ball. So I have a busy night ahead of me. But I hate to leave you, dearie, all by yourself. Won’t you come down and visit us? We’d love to have you. Indeed, it is not good for you to stay shut up here by yourself--” Peggy came to a breathless pause. There were tears in Beatrice’s eyes as she bent and kissed the soft, rosy cheek. What it cost her to stay in that house, none would ever know. She shook her head. “It is like you to ask me, Peggy darling, but I cannot leave Father. He needs me _now_.” The slight emphasis was lost on Peggy, who was busy adjusting her furs. With a searching glance around the dimly lighted room, Beatrice drew a small, flat box from her dainty work bag, and going close to Peggy whispered: “I am surrounded by prying eyes. You, and you only, can I trust. In the name of our long friendship, and for the sake of the old school days I beg, I entreat you, Peggy, to take this box and keep it for me!” “Indeed I will!” Peggy’s whisper was reassuring in its vehemence. “No one shall ever see or know of it.” As she spoke, she thrust it in her large muff. “Remember, Beatrice, Granny and I are always your devoted, loyal friends. Do not hesitate to let us help you.” Beatrice’s only answer was to fold Peggy in a passionate embrace. Then, as the latter left the room, she threw herself on the divan, her slender form racked with sobs. As Peggy crossed the square hall on her way to the front door, she came face to face with the Attorney General’s secretary. Alfred Clark, who was putting on his overcoat, greeted her effusively. “Oh, good afternoon,” she replied, a trifle coldly; for his obsequious manner always grated on her. “Can I see you home?” asked Clark, eagerly, opening the front door as he spoke. “You are very kind, but I am going to catch the car at the corner, and I wouldn’t think of taking you so far out of your way.” “On the contrary, it is right in the direction I am going,” rejoined Clark, helping Peggy down the slippery steps. “I was so sorry not to see you when I called last Sunday,” he continued, as they turned to walk in the direction of Connecticut Avenue. “I thought you always stayed at home that day?” “I usually do; but last Sunday I went down to the station to see a friend off, so missed all my callers. Gracious! there’s our car. Do stop it.” Obediently Clark ran ahead and signalled the motorman to wait until Peggy could get there. But once inside the car they had no further chance for conversation, for Clark, jostled by the crowd, was obliged to stand some distance from Peggy, who had been given a seat further up. On transferring to the G Street herdic they found they had that antiquated vehicle entirely to themselves. “How do you think Miss Trevor is looking?” inquired Clark, after he had stuffed the transfers into the change box by the driver’s seat. “She seems utterly used up, poor dear,” answered Peggy, soberly. “I am afraid the strain is telling on her more than she will admit.” “You are right, Miss Macallister; and something should be done about it.” Clark spoke with so much feeling that she glanced at him with deepened interest. “Her father is so absorbed in his grief that he never notices his daughter’s condition.” “It is a shame,” agreed Peggy, “and yet, not surprising. He was perfectly devoted to Mrs. Trevor, and Senator Phillips says he is heartbroken by her tragic death.” “That is no excuse for neglecting the living. Mr. Trevor owes much to his daughter’s affection.” Peggy did not see the quickly suppressed sneer that distorted Clark’s handsome features. “Miss Trevor acts as if she had something preying on her mind, don’t you think so?” Peggy clutched the box secreted so carefully inside her muff in sudden panic. What did the man’s insinuation mean? “No,” she answered tartly. “I think her nervous, over-wrought condition is simply due to the tragedy, and its attending mystery.” “Mystery?” echoed Clark. “Why, all that has been cleared up by Gordon’s arrest.” “Indeed it has not,” indignantly declared Peggy. “I don’t for a moment believe him guilty. I think he is the victim of circumstantial evidence.” Her rapid speech was interrupted by their arrival at her street corner, and she did not finish her sentence until they stood in the vestibule of the Macallister mansion. “In the first place, Mr. Clark,” she continued, “where would you find a motive for such a crime?” “In Gordon’s past, Miss Macallister.” And, as Hurley opened the front door, “Good night; thanks so much for allowing me to escort you home.” He ran down the steps and walked rapidly up the street before the astonished girl could frame another sentence. CHAPTER VIII THE CHALLENGE JUST before midnight the Charity Ball, given annually for the benefit of the Children’s Hospital, was at its height. The long ballroom at the New Willard was almost too crowded for comfort, at least so thought the dancing contingent. “Come on over here out of the crowd, Peggy,” and Dick Tillinghast pointed to one of the deep window recesses. It looked cool and comfortable after the heat of the room, and with a sigh of relief Peggy sank back in its kindly shelter. She was beginning to feel weary, having danced every encore and extra. “Now, I call this jolly,” went on Dick, fanning her vigorously. “Peggy--you wretch--you have been flirting outrageously with little de Morny all the evening.” “The Count is very agreeable,” answered Peggy, demurely. “Besides, I was giving him lessons in English.” Dick snorted. “_You_ may call it what you like; but the Count is in dead earnest.” “Really, Mr. Tillinghast--” Peggy’s head went up. Dick, seeing the light of combat in her eyes, hastened to interrupt her. “Now, Peggy--please. You’ve been perfectly beastly to me all the evening; never even saved me a dance, and I had to steal this one.” “It is customary to ask for them,” frigidly. “It wasn’t my fault. I was detained at the office, as you know perfectly well. It wasn’t kind, Peggy, indeed it wasn’t.” Dick’s voice expressed more bitterness than the occasion warranted. Swiftly Peggy’s kind heart relented. “I didn’t keep a dance, Dick, because,” she lowered her voice, “I--I--thought you would prefer to take me out to supper.” “You darling!” Dick leaned impulsively nearer; then cursed inwardly as Tom Blake’s stout form stopped before them. “Well, you two look very ‘comfy’; may I join you?” The chair, which Peggy pushed toward him creaked under his weight. “This is a bully alcove; you are in the crowd and yet not of it. Hello, de Morny, come and sit with us. Miss Macallister was just asking for you,” and he winked at Dick. De Morny was walking past, vainly searching for Peggy, and he accepted the invitation with alacrity. He had met her early in the season. Her sunny disposition and fascinating personality had made instant appeal to the Frenchman’s volatile nature. Wherever Peggy went, de Morny was sure to follow, much to Dick’s silent fury. Their mutual friends had not been slow to grasp the situation, and many were the conjectures as to which man would win the little flirt, and, incidentally, the Macallister millions. The money consideration did not enter altogether into de Morny’s calculations, for contrary to the usual order of things, he was wealthy. Belonging to the old nobility of France, he was a most desirable _parti_, and had often been relentlessly pursued by mothers with marriageable daughters on their hands. But many times Dick cursed Peggy’s prospective inheritance. Without a penny except his salary, it was bitter indeed to the proud fellow to feel that he was looked upon as a fortune hunter. They had been boy and girl sweethearts when their parents had lived next door to each other until the crash came. His father gave up home and personal belongings to meet his creditors, dying shortly after, and Dick had been thrown on his own resources during his freshman year at Harvard. It was simply another case of from shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations, no uncommon occurrence in America. “Mademoiselle,” said the Frenchman, bowing before Peggy, “have I zer permission to present to you _mon ami_, Count de Smirnoff.” He beckoned to a tall stranger who had stopped just outside the alcove when de Morny joined the little group. “And to you, also, Monsieur Blake, and Monsieur Tillinghast.” Count de Smirnoff acknowledged the introductions most courteously, and then, to Dick’s secret annoyance, promptly appropriated the chair nearest Peggy and devoted himself to her. “Will you look at Mrs. Wheeler,” whispered Tom Blake to his companions. “Solomon in all his glory couldn’t touch her.” Mrs. Wheeler was dazzling to behold. Dressed in scarlet and gold, with diamonds in front of her, diamonds on top of her, she easily out-diamonded every woman present. The crowd parted to make way for her as she moved slowly, very slowly up the long room. With the Vice-President on one side of her and the British Ambassador on the other, the apotheosis of the house of Wheeler was reached. Dick drew a long breath after they had passed. “My eyes actually hurt from such illumination. Why, oh, why does Washington accept such people?” “Because she possesses the Golden Key which unlocks most doors in democratic America,” answered Tom, dryly. “She wined and dined herself into our midst, and now--” he paused dramatically--“she draws the line on the Army and Navy people here, because her calling list is already so large!” “How’s poor Gordon?” he asked, suddenly, a few minutes later. “He refuses to see anyone, or talk,” answered Dick. “Poor devil! What made him do such a mad action?” “I don’t believe he is guilty,” said Dick, slowly. “He isn’t that sort. He wouldn’t kill a man in cold blood, let alone strike a woman.” “I agree with you, Dick. There has been some dreadful mistake,” chimed in Peggy. “Is it the Trevor murder of which you speak?” asked de Smirnoff. He spoke English perfectly, but for a slight accent. “Yes, Monsieur. Even the District Attorney thinks someone has blundered; he is furious because the coroner’s jury brought in that verdict against Gordon.” “Oh, well, he’ll have a chance to clear himself before the Grand Jury two weeks from now. After all, Dick, he virtually admitted he was guilty.” “I don’t see it that way,” answered Dick, obstinately. “Well, I hope he can prove an alibi. But if he does it will go hard with Beatrice Trevor. Suspicion already points to her.” “Oh! no, no!” cried Peggy, in horror, and she looked appealingly at Dick. “I’m afraid so,” he said, sorrowfully, answering her unspoken thought. “You see, it’s very obvious that she has some secret to conceal.” Peggy actually jumped as her mind flew to the box which was at that moment safely hidden in the secret drawer of her bureau. Beatrice guilty--never--never--she put the thought from her, but it would return. “You mustn’t say such things,” she said, angry with herself for her disloyal thoughts, and her face paled perceptibly. “I am sorry I spoke in that way,” replied Dick. “I had forgotten for the moment that she is your greatest friend. Indeed, Peggy, I meant no offense. You know I would do anything for you, anything.” “So would we all, Miss Peggy,” exclaimed Tom, and de Morny, but half understanding the rapidly spoken English, nodded his head back and forth like a china mandarin. “Then,” said Peggy, “find the real murderer of Mrs. Trevor. That,” loyally, “would clear my friends from suspicion. And I will give you”--unconsciously her eyes sought Dick’s and the look in them made his heart throb with hope; then she glanced quickly at Count de Morny, and his heart sank with sickening dread--“unto the half of my kingdom.” “I accept the challenge,” he said, gravely, and he raised her hand to his lips; while Tom, in a few sentences, explained the wager to the two foreigners. “To find ze murderer? But ze police have done zat, Mademoiselle,” de Morny ejaculated. “No, no; they have only arrested a man on suspicion. Miss Peggy thinks the murderer is still at large.” “As Mademoiselle sinks, so sinks I,” answered the Count gallantly. “It appears to me that the police acted with great discretion,” said de Smirnoff, who had been an interested listener. “But they do not make the most of their opportunities.” “In what way, Count?” asked Dick. “In regard to the burglar, Monsieur. Since my arrival here I have read with deep interest all the newspaper accounts of the tragedy. Frankly, I had not expected to find such a _cause celebre_ in the Capital of this great country. It occurs to me that the burglar has not told all he knows.” “Since telling his story at the inquest he refuses to talk.” De Smirnoff shrugged his shoulders. “In my country he would be made to talk. The secret police of Russia, Monsieur, can extract information from the most unwilling of witnesses.” “You really think Nelson is keeping something back?” asked Tom, incredulously. “Why, the poor devil is only too anxious to clear himself. Surely, if he knew he would not hesitate to tell the whole truth?” “It is difficult to say, Monsieur. He may have been bribed to hold his tongue; money can do much these days. Again, fear of the murderer may force him to silence.” “That’s true, too; yet fear of the gallows would make most people talk.” “Ah, but he does not stand in very much danger there, for has not another man already been arrested, charged with the crime? No, no, depend upon it, he is holding something back.” “What, for instance?” inquired Dick, eagerly. “The weapon,” suggested de Smirnoff. “It is quite within the possible that he found it. According to his testimony, he was the first to find the body. Now, he may be keeping back this information so as to be able to blackmail the murderer when his sentence for house-breaking is over. Apparently, he is a clever crook, and undoubtedly knows how best to look after his own interests.” CHAPTER IX “MAIN 6” BUZZ--buzz--sounded the alarm. Dick stirred, shivered slightly, and sat up. “May the devil fly away with you!” he muttered, addressing the clock. “I wish to thunder I could go to bed as sleepy as I wake up,” stretching himself, and vividly recollecting how many hours he had lain awake thinking of Peggy. His thoughts turned quickly to her challenge; with a bound he was out of bed; no time for loitering now--too much was at stake. Some hours later Dick was staring moodily at the snow and slush in front of the District building on Pennsylvania Avenue. So far, he had been unsuccessful. Gordon had refused to be interviewed by him, now he was in search of Detective Hardy. Muttering uncomplimentary remarks about the offenders who allowed the streets in Washington to get in such a fearful condition, he waded ankle deep through the melting snow to the sidewalk, and almost into the arms of the very man he was looking for. “Hello, Mr. Tillinghast, how are you?” exclaimed Hardy, recovering his balance as he slipped on the icy pavement. “What brings you down to these diggings?” “You,” answered Dick, briefly. “I’m assigned to cover the Trevor murder, as you know, and I’m looking for more material.” “Gwan,” chuckled Hardy. “Your paper has already spread itself some on that line. In fact, it’s said just a leetle too much,” remembering the furore Gordon’s arrest had made, and the attendant abuse heaped on the detective force for not making more headway with the case. “Pshaw! Hardy, you know the paper has to cater to the public, and Washington has gone wild over the murder. I’ve had to write columns and give ’em all sorts of theories, but none hold water.” “’Course not. We’ve got the guilty man under lock and key.” “Hum! Found the weapon yet?” A look of chagrin crossed Hardy’s face. “Naw, damn it!” he growled. “Mr. Gordon sure hid it safely; threw it down an open street sewer most likely.” “How about Nelson?” “Nelson? Oh! he’s doing time for house-breaking; so we’ve got him dead to rights if we find he’s wanted for the murder. Sorry, sir,” glancing as he spoke at the clock over the City Post Office, “but I’ve got to beat it quick.” Then, lowering his voice, “I’ve a bit of news which may surprise some folks. Come round in a day or two and I’ll let you in on it.” “Here, wait,” shouted Dick, making a futile dive for Hardy’s coat as he swung himself aboard a south-bound car. “What are you wasting so much energy for, Dick?” asked a hearty voice at his elbow. Dick swung around with a jump. “Why, where in ---- did you drop from?” he gasped, hardly able to credit his senses as the newcomer seized his hand and wrung it vigorously. “Just arrived via Panama,” explained General Long. “Let’s get on the sidewalk, Dick. I didn’t come to Washington to be knocked down by a dray horse,” and he dragged his still bewildered friend to the curb. “Come into the Willard and lunch with me. I’m half dead with hunger.” “Now,” said Dick, after they had done justice to the Martinis, “give an account of yourself, past, present and future.” “Past--Philippines; present--here; future--God knows!” General Long sighed as he helped Dick and himself to the tempting dish in front of him. “It’s good to taste Christian cooking once again. Don’t insult good food by hurrying too much, Dick; take your time. At present I’ve come here on waiting orders.” Dick inwardly wondered what necessity had induced the War Department to send for Chester Long. A man of exceptional executive ability and personal bravery, he had been rapidly advanced over the heads of older officers, to their unspeakable rage, until finally he had been appointed second in command in the Philippines. He had made a record for himself out there, and Dick was astounded that his recall should have been kept so profound a secret. “How did you slip away without the papers getting on?” he asked. “Orders from the Department hushed things up pretty well, and then I traveled incog. The why and the wherefore, I may--guess--” he smiled quietly. “Now, Dick, give an account of yourself.” It did not take long in the telling, as the two friends had never completely lost sight of each other, and mutual friends had kept them in touch with their doings. General Long was Dick’s senior by some fifteen years, but since the days of the Spanish war in Cuba, where Dick was sent as war correspondent, they had been sworn allies. “I’m dreadfully shocked about the Trevor murder,” said Long, after Dick had finished speaking of himself. “The papers are filled with it. Gordon is the last person I’d think capable of so dastardly a crime. While at Annapolis, where he was a three-striper, he was voted the most popular man, and the one most likely to succeed. He never lied, and he never went back on a friend. Since his graduation his record in the Service has been fine, fine. And now, to have such a charge against him! How have the mighty fallen! Poor Gordon--poor devil!” “Things look pretty black for him,” admitted Dick. “But still the evidence is not absolutely conclusive, simply circumstantial.” “In what way?” “In the first place no weapon has been found in his possession. Secondly, the absolute lack of motive.” Long twirled his wine glass about in his fingers. “Is there none?” he asked, finally. “Apparently none. After years of absence Gordon came to Washington on receiving his appointment as aide to the President one month ago. He never went to the Trevors much. In fact, he and Mrs. Trevor were total strangers. They met first at a theater party I gave, which Mrs. Trevor chaperoned, on the night of Gordon’s arrival in town. You know he and I went to Lawrenceville together.” Long glanced around the half empty café; their table was in the farther corner, and their waiter had departed after removing the dessert and putting the liqueur and coffee before them. There was no chance of their conversation being overheard, but Long motioned to Dick to pull his chair closer, as he said in a low voice: “I’ve always had great respect for your discretion, Dick; therefore, I’m going to confide in you. You can use your judgment about speaking of what I tell you now. “Some four years ago or more, I was military attaché at the Court of St. James. One day I ran across Don Gordon in Hyde Park. He told me he was there on leave visiting his sister, Lady Dorchester. I didn’t see much of him because his entire time was taken up with paying desperate attention to--Hélène de Beaupré.” “What!” shouted Dick, starting up in his intense surprise. “Hush, man,” said Long, sternly. “You are attracting attention.” Dick, much abashed, subsided into his chair. “I can swear to what I am saying, because at that time Hélène de Beaupré was the rage in London. Men and women raved about her, and she was received everywhere. Gordon lost his head over her, he was madly infatuated with her beauty; whether his affection was returned, I know not.” Long shrugged his shoulders. “Just about that time I was relieved from duty in London, and in the rush of departure forgot all about Gordon and his affairs. But one day on shipboard Alfred Clark told me that he had seen Gordon and Hélène de Beaupré applying at the Home Office for a special license to marry at once.” Dick looked at his friend too dazed to speak. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he muttered. For a few minutes they sat regarding each other in puzzled silence. Then Dick roused himself to ask: “Is the Alfred Clark of whom you speak the man who is now secretary to the Attorney General?” “Is he tall, well-built, handsome, with a peculiar scar on his temple?” “You have described the man to a dot. Looks like a Gypsy?” Long nodded in acquiescence. “He goes out here a great deal; sort of insinuates himself into people’s good graces. I never liked him--too much of a beauty man to suit me. What was he doing in England?” “He stopped there from Italy on his way to the States. At that time his father had plenty of money, and Alfred did nothing but travel about at his own sweet will. The crash came just afterwards, and then he had to get to work.” “It must have been a bitter pill for him to swallow, poor devil. I’ve gone through a somewhat similar experience,” and Dick sighed sympathetically. “Strange that Mrs. Trevor, Gordon and Clark should all be here at the same time!” “Fate plays strange tricks,” agreed Long. “I heard nothing further about these three people until I read of the Trevor tragedy. How did Gordon and Mrs. Trevor look, Dick, when you introduced them?” “I don’t know,” confessed Dick. “Gordon didn’t appear until about the middle of the first act; the box was in semi-darkness. I introduced him to all my friends as he was the stranger, and I remember hearing Mrs. Trevor say she was ‘delighted to meet him.’ I took it for granted she didn’t know him.” Long shook his head. “It’s a black business, Dick, whichever way you look at it. If she jilted Gordon and married Trevor, it might be a reason for the crime; or if Gordon really married her first, then there is a still greater motive for the murder.” “Bigamy?” ejaculated Dick. “Perhaps. Gordon is poor--Trevor rich; apparently the balance dipped in the latter’s favor. It is not the first time souls have been bought and honor lost by the desire for filthy lucre. Mind you, Dick, this last is all surmise. I may be entirely wrong. You can use the information I have given you if you think best; and I’ll be here if you want to consult me about it.” “Which way are you going?” asked Dick. “To the War Department, and you--?” “To the office. I’ll drop in and see you sometime to-morrow. It’s bully having you back again, old man. So long,” and with a parting hand shake the two friends parted. Dick was very tired when he reached his home in Georgetown that night. His landlady heard his key turn in the lock and came out in the hall to meet him. Mrs. Brisbane, “befo’ de wah,” had not known what it was to put on her own silk stockings; now, she took “paying guests.” Her husband and brothers had died for “The Cause”; her property near Charleston, South Carolina, had been totally destroyed during the horrors of the Reconstruction period. She had come to Washington, that Mecca for unemployed gentlewomen, in hopes of adding to her slender income. For years she had been employed in the Post Office Department, as a handwriting expert. Then suddenly her eyesight failed her; and broken in health and hopes, she and her young granddaughter kept the wolf from the door and a roof over their heads as best they could. Dick was devoted to Mrs. Brisbane. Her gentle dignity and indomitable pluck in the face of every misfortune had won his admiration and respect. He had lived with them for over three years, and was looked upon as one of the family. “You are late, Dick,” she said. “Have you had a busy day?” “Yes, Mrs. Brisbane,” he answered, “and I’m dog tired, having been on the dead jump ever since I left here this morning.” “Not too tired to come into the dining-room and help us celebrate my seventieth birthday, I hope?” Dick looked reproachfully at her. “And you never told me! I don’t think that’s fair. Am I not one of the family? Yes-- Then I claim a relative’s privilege.” Mrs. Brisbane beamed upon him. “You extravagant boy! That’s just why I did not tell you. I hope you are not too exhausted to enjoy a glass of eggnog?” “What a question! You know I would walk miles to get a taste of your eggnog. There’s nothing like it, this side of Heaven.” “Heaven is not usually associated with eggnog,” laughed Nancy Pelham, a pretty young girl of sixteen. “And Granny’s brew is apt to lead one in the opposite direction.” “Tut! Child. As Pa once said, eggnog was invented especially for God’s po’ creatures in their moments of tribulation. It puts new heart in most everyone, even a po’ Yankee.” Dick laughed. “You are a pretty good hater, Mrs. Brisbane,” he said, helping himself to the frothy beverage. “I reckon I’ve got cause.” Mrs. Brisbane’s drawl was delicious. “An’ I’m from Charleston, Dick, don’t forget that. Why, one of my nieces never knew until she got to New York that ‘damn Yankee’ was two words.” “Granny, Granny,” remonstrated Nancy. “Dick’s a good Northerner by birth, and we mustn’t wave the bloody shirt.” “Nonsense,” said Dick, hastily. “I love to fight our battles over with Mrs. Brisbane. What a beautiful punch bowl that is?” he added, enthusiastically. “Isn’t it? It was given to Granny’s father, General Pinckney, by Mr. Calhoun.” “It is the only piece of silver saved from the wreck,” said Mrs. Brisbane, sadly. “I could not part with it for old associations’ sake. Everything else of value, silver and jewelry, was sold long ago. How many distinguished men have drunk out of that bowl!” she sighed involuntarily. “Heigh oh! It is not good to reminisce. But I’ll never forget, Dick, one dinner I attended here. “It was before I secured my place in the Post Office, and I was visiting some Washington friends. They took me to a dinner given by Mr. and Mrs. John Thompson, who were new-comers. They had struck ‘ile’ and were entertaining lavishly that winter. Imagine my feelings when I saw them using my entire silver service, even to the small silver! “I recognized our coat-of-arms, as well as the pattern of the silver. They passed it off as family heirlooms! I found out later that they had spent months collecting the pieces from different second-hand dealers in antiques. I would not have minded so much if they had not been so palpably nouveaux riches. It seemed a sacrilege! Why, they hardly knew the uses of some of the pieces.” Dick leaned over and patted her hand sympathetically. “‘Heaven sends almonds to those who have no teeth,’” he quoted. “Now, I wonder if you can tell me anything about Texas?” he added, suddenly. “Texas!” exclaimed Mrs. Brisbane. “Not much; I’ve never been there myself, but I have been told that only men and mules can live in that State. The climate usually kills all the women.” “It isn’t Texas in general I am interested in,” chuckled Dick, “but the Gordons.” “The Gordons are Georgians, Dick.” “Not Donald Gordon, he was born in Texas.” “Now, I do recollect that Major Gordon moved to Texas just after the wah. I believe he married a Galveston woman; and then went into politics.” “Whatever the cause,” said Dick, his eyes twinkling, “he represented Texas in the Senate for years; finally died in Washington, and is interred in the Congressional Burying Ground here. Now, Mrs. Brisbane, can you tell me anything about them?” “Not a thing, Dick, except that Senator Gordon was a man of very high temper; he nearly killed a soldier once for disobeying orders. Why do you ask?” “I know,” broke in Nancy. She had been an interested listener, and had also seen that Dick’s glass was never empty. “It has something to do with the Trevor murder.” “Yes,” acknowledged Dick, gravely. “I am doing my best to prove Gordon’s innocence; and, hang it all! every shred of evidence I turn up, is against him.” “It was a shocking murder of a defenseless woman. I do not believe a Gordon could have done it,” declared Mrs. Brisbane. “And yet--” “Listen to me a moment, Dick,” Nancy tapped the table in her earnestness. “Perhaps I can help you. That Wednesday was my night shift at the North Exchange.” Nancy was temporarily working as a central in the Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company until she had taken her Civil Service examination for a Government position. “Well, about fifteen minutes after two that morning a call came for the Trevors’ house.” “What? Really?” “Yes. I don’t mean the regular house telephone, but for the Attorney General’s private wire in his private office.” “What!” Dick’s voice grew in volume as his astonishment increased. “Are you sure, Nancy?” “Absolutely positive. You know the number of the telephone in the Attorney General’s private office at his home is not listed in the regular book, as is his house wire. His private telephone is ‘North--123’; I remember it because it is so easy; and the other is ‘North--6795.’” “But as to the time, Nancy?” “I am certain about that, too. It was very quiet in the Exchange, and when the call came I nearly jumped out of my skin. I looked at the big wall clock directly opposite, and I saw it was fifteen minutes past two.” “Nancy, you are a wonder--a brick. But why didn’t you come forward and give your evidence at the inquest?” “Oh, I couldn’t, Dick,” the young girl colored painfully. “I went to work at the Exchange because we are so frightfully poor; but I--I--just couldn’t face the notoriety which I feared I would be dragged into. Then again, it might not have anything to do with the terrible affair.” “Do?” echoed Dick; his tone was eloquent. “Was the telephone answered?” “Yes, at once.” “Now, do you happen to know where the call came from?” “Yes. It was--‘Main 6.’” Dick gazed at her too spellbound for words. _Main 6--The White House!_ CHAPTER X CAUGHT ON THE WIRES DICK was up betimes the next morning, stopping only long enough to swallow a cup of coffee and a plate of oatmeal. Then calling a cheery good-by to Mrs. Brisbane, he banged out of the front door and down the steps in such haste that he collided violently with “Uncle” Andy Jackson, the Brisbane factotum, who was busy shoveling the snow off the steps. “Laws, Marse Dick,” groaned Uncle Andy, picking himself up carefully. “’Pears like yo’ am in a hurry.” “Awfully sorry, Uncle,” said Dick, helping the old man to his feet. “Here,” thrusting some loose change into the ready palm, “buy some liniment for the bruises. Whew! I didn’t realize it snowed so much last night.” As far as the eye could see the large, old-fashioned gardens, which surround the old houses in Georgetown, were covered with banks of snow, an unusual sight in the Capital City. In some places the drifts were waist high. “Plenty mo’ snow fo’ ole Andy to shovel,” grumbled the old man, who dearly loved the sound of his own voice, and seized every opportunity to talk to Dick, whom he especially admired because he belonged to “de quality.” “’Pears like de sky am a-tryin’ ter whitewash dis hyer wicked city. Las’ night, sah, I went to hear de Reverend Jedediah Hamilton. He sho’ am a powerful preacher. He says Satan am a-knocking at de gates ob Washington; dat it am a whitened sepulcher; an’ dat we all am a-gwine ter perdition. Hadn’t yo’ better git religion, Marse Dick?” “Oh, I’m not worrying just now, Uncle. You see, my brother John is a minister of the Gospel, and I guess he’ll intercede for me.” “’Twon’t do, Marse Dick; de Good Book it say: ‘Every man shall bear his own burden and every tongue shall stand on its own bottom.’” Dick waved his hand in farewell as he plunged through the drifts to cross the street. Uncle Andy watched the tall, athletic figure out of sight; then shook his head solemnly. “’Pears like Marse Dick am pas’ prayin’ fo’,” he muttered. Then, hearing Mrs. Brisbane’s frantic calls for him, he shouted: “Comin’, ole Miss, comin’.” The street cars were blocked by the heavy fall of snow, so Dick had to walk from Georgetown to the _Star_ Building, a distance of nearly two miles, consequently he was late. But after the first rush of work was over, he stole a moment to call up the White House, and asked the names of the night watchmen who were on duty in the Executive Offices on that fatal Wednesday. “Wait a moment,” answered the White House central, “and I’ll find out. Hello--the men were Charlie Flynn and Tom Murray.” “Much obliged,” called Dick, as he rang off. Luck was certainly with him at last. He had greatly feared that he would not get any information in regard to the mysterious telephone call without a great deal of difficulty and delay, for “mum” was the word with all the White House employés. But Tom Murray had been General Long’s orderly during the campaign in Cuba, and, in fact, owed his present position to the General’s influence. Dick knew where he lived, as Tom had married Peggy Macallister’s maid, Betty; and once when Betty was ill with typhoid fever, Peggy had asked Dick to go with her to Tom’s modest home on Capitol Hill. Dick hurriedly covered his first assignment, rushed back to the office in time to get his story in the afternoon paper, then tore out again and jumped aboard a Navy Yard car. Twenty minutes later he was beating a hasty tattoo on the Murrays’ front door. Tom himself admitted him. “Why, Mr. Tillinghast, sir! I’m mighty glad to see you. Won’t you come in?” Dick stepped into the tiny parlor. “I’ve just stopped by for a moment, Tom. Thought you’d like to know that General Long is in town.” Tom fell back a step in his astonishment. “Glory be,” he shouted. “Where is he stopping, sir. That is, if he cares to see me?” “At the New Willard. He wants to see you to-night.” Tom’s face fell. “I can’t go, at least not to-night, sir. You see, I’m on night duty at the White House now, sir. I get off at six every morning and sleep until noon. I’m just up now, sir. Do you think the General could see me in the afternoon?” “Sure; I’ll ask him. By the way, Tom, who answers the White House telephones at night?” “I do, sir; leastways, I attend to the switch-board in the Executive Offices.” “Do you happen to recollect what person in the White House called up ‘North--123’ on February third, or rather February fourth, at two fifteen in the morning?” Tom looked searchingly at his questioner. “Ought I to answer that question, sir?” “I think you should. General Long sent me here to ask you.” “May the good Lord forgive me,” thought Dick, “I know Cheater will back me up.” Tom’s face cleared. “Then it’s all right, sir. I hesitated to answer you, sir, because--the call came from the President himself.” For a moment Dick was too aghast to speak. The President! Truly, his investigations were leading him into deep water. “Are you quite sure, Tom?” he asked, soberly. “Quite, sir,” with military precision. “I remember the night perfectly, sir. While the White House is often called up at all hours, it ain’t usual for inmates of the household to ring up outside calls after midnight.” “Had you any trouble getting your party?” “No, sir. Central was rather slow about answering, but that was the only delay.” “Thanks, Tom, you’ve helped General Long a lot by telling me all this. Go and see him about six to-night on your way to the White House. You will probably catch him then. Is your wife well?” “Yes, sir, thank you. Please tell the General I will be at the hotel without fail. Good-by, sir.” When Dick had departed, Tom walked into his kitchen with a grave face. “I’m afraid, Betty, I talked too freely with Mr. Tillinghast.” “Nonsense,” snapped Betty, whose temper was apt to get peppery when she worked over a hot fire. “Master Dick isn’t the sort to get us into trouble.” And that ended the discussion. Dick plodded along the streets too absorbed in thought to notice the snow and ice. Should he, or should he not? Well, he would try anyway, so quickening his steps he hastened over to the Congressional Library and entered one of the pay-station telephone booths in the building. “What number, please?” asked Central. “Main 6.” A few minutes’ wait. “Drop in your nickel, there’s your party.” “Hello, White House, I want to speak to Secretary Burton--Hello, Burton, that you? This is Dick Tillinghast talking.” “Well, Dick, how are you?” “Oh, so-so. Say, Burton, do you think the President would see me alone for a few minutes?” Dick heard Burton whistle. “I know he is fearfully busy with the arrival of the Grand Duke Sergius, but I swear it’s important--a matter of life and death.” Burton detected the earnest note in Dick’s voice, and was convinced. “Hold the wire, old man.” Dick waited impatiently. So much depended on the answer. “Hello, Central, don’t cut me off--Burton, that you?” “Yes. The President says he will see you at ten minutes of five, _sharp_.” “Burton, you are a trump. By-by.” Prompt to the minute, Dick appeared in the waiting room of the Executive Offices. Burton came to the door and beckoned to him. “In with you,” he whispered. “I sincerely hope your news is of sufficient importance to excuse my sending you in ahead of two irate senators,” and he gave Dick’s broad shoulders an encouraging pat, as the door swung open to admit him to the private office. Dick had been frequently thrown with the President, having been one of the reporters detailed to accompany him when he toured the country before his election, but he never entered his presence without feeling the force and personality of the great American, who, with unerring hand, was steering the Ship of State through such turbulent waters. The President straightened his tall, wiry form as Dick advanced to greet him. His large dark eyes, set deep under shaggy eyebrows, gazed rather blankly at Dick for a moment, then lighted with recognition as they shook hands. “How are you, Mr. Tillinghast? Sit down here.” The President pointed to a large arm chair close beside his desk, then he glanced at the clock. “Burton said you wished to see me alone about a matter of life and death.” “Well, yes, Mr. President; I put it that way to attract Burton’s attention.” Then, seeing a frown gathering on the rugged, heavily lined face, he hastened to add: “I came to see you about the Trevor murder.” There was no mistaking the President’s genuine start of surprise. “To see me! Why?” “I wanted to ask you, sir, who it was answered the telephone when you called up the Attorney General’s private office on Thursday morning at two fifteen o’clock?” The President leaned thoughtfully back in his chair and regarded Dick intently. Apparently what he saw in his appearance pleased him, for after a prolonged scrutiny, which Dick bore with what equanimity he could, he reached over and touched his desk bell. “Is Secretary Bowers still in the White House?” he asked the attendant who answered his summons. “Yes, Mr. President.” “My compliments, and ask him to step here.” Dick waited in silence, a good deal perturbed in spirit. What was to pay? The President had but time to gather up some loose papers and put them in his desk when the door opened and admitted his Secretary of State, James Bowers, a man known throughout the length and breadth of the land as representing all that was best in America and Americans. “Your attendant caught me just as I was leaving, Mr. President,” he said. “I am entirely at your service,” and he bowed gravely to Dick, who had risen on his entrance. “I won’t detain you long. You know Mr. Tillinghast?” “Yes,” smiled the Secretary. “He has interviewed me on many occasions.” “Then sit here by me.” The President pushed a chair toward him. “Mr. Tillinghast has come to me about the Trevor murder.” The Secretary raised his eyebrows in surprise. “I leave this matter entirely in your hands, Bowers. Use your judgment in the affair. Now, Mr. Tillinghast, tell us how you found out a telephone call came from this office at that particular hour for the Trevor house.” Quickly Dick told them; and the two men followed each word with deep attention. After Dick ceased speaking, the Secretary sprang from his chair and paced the room rapidly in deep thought. “Tillinghast,” he said, stopping abruptly, “what I tell you now is strictly confidential. I am not speaking for publication.” “Mr. Secretary,” replied Dick, quietly, “I give you my word of honor that I shall never make use of what you tell me.” “Good! On the whole, I am glad you came, because I was just debating whether or not to send for the Chief of Police about this very affair. Have I your permission to speak freely to Tillinghast, Mr. President.” “You have.” Secretary Bowers settled himself more comfortably in his chair, cleared his throat, and began: “On that Wednesday night I came here to have a secret conference about a matter of national importance. The President and I talked until long after midnight. During our discussion we found it necessary to get the Attorney General’s advice on a vital law point. Knowing that Trevor often stays until daylight in his private office, as I do--” a ghost of a smile lighted his lips--“I took the chance of finding him and rang him up there first, intending, if that failed, to call his house ’phone. The President’s voice and mine are much alike, and it is not surprising that Murray thought it was he calling up Mr. Trevor at that hour.” “And did he answer you?” asked Dick, breathlessly. “No--a woman did.” Dick sat back in his chair and gazed hopelessly at the President, and then at the Secretary. Instantly his thoughts flew to Beatrice. Great Heavens! He was almost afraid to ask the next question. “Did--did you by chance recognize her voice?” The Secretary hesitated a moment before answering. “She spoke with a decided foreign accent”--again he hesitated. “I called her ‘Mrs. Trevor.’” “Mrs. Trevor!” gasped Dick. For once words failed him. “Let me describe the scene to you exactly,” went on the Secretary. “I waited only a few minutes for the connection, and then I heard the faint click of the receiver being removed from the hook, then a woman’s cultivated voice asked: ‘Who is eet?’ I promptly replied: ‘Can I speak to your husband, Mrs. Trevor?’ She made no answer, but in a second the Attorney General came to the telephone, gave me the desired information, and I rang off.” In absolute silence the three men faced each other, with bewilderment and doubt written on their countenances. The long pause was broken by the Secretary. “When I first heard of the tragedy I, like the rest of the world, thought poor Mrs. Trevor had been murdered by the burglar, Nelson. On the day the inquest was held, I received a telegram saying that my wife was dangerously ill with typhoid fever in Cambridge. She had gone there two weeks before to be with our son, who is at Harvard. I dropped everything and hastened at once to her bedside. Until the crisis was over I never left her. And so deep was my anxiety, for the doctors held out little hope that she would recover, that I neglected everything outside the sick room. I left all my business to my private secretary. “My wife rallied wonderfully after the crisis was passed, and I returned to Washington on last night’s Federal. On the trip down my secretary told me all the developments in the Trevor case. I was simply thunderstruck!” “In his direct testimony Mr. Trevor denied being in his private office after his return from the banquet; denied having seen his wife again. He undoubtedly perjured himself,” said the President, thoughtfully. “Still, even in the face of such evidence, he may be innocent of the crime. For the time being I shall give him the benefit of the doubt.” “You are right, and very just, Mr. President,” exclaimed the Secretary. “This phase of the case must be sifted to the bottom in absolute secrecy. It would be ruinous to let the outside world know you even suspect your Attorney General guilty of murder. The effect would be appalling. Now, Tillinghast--” he spoke with greater emphasis--“I know you to be a man of integrity. You have already shown great skill in this affair; therefore, I am going to ask you to go and see the Attorney General as my representative, and ask him for an explanation. Then come and report to me. I could send one of the Secret Service men, but the fewer people involved in this scandal the better.” “I’ll do my very best, Mr. Secretary, to merit your trust,” said Dick, warmly. “But how am I to reach the Attorney General? He refuses to see any newspaper men.” “That is easily arranged,” said the Secretary. “May I borrow pen and ink, Mr. President?” drawing some note paper toward him as he spoke. “I’ll write a few lines asking him to see you; that will be all that is necessary.” Quickly Secretary Bowers’ hand traveled over the paper; then, folding it neatly, he handed the note to Dick, saying: “Don’t fail us, Tillinghast; remember we depend on your tact and discretion. I would see Trevor myself, but my time is entirely taken up with the Grand Duke Sergius’ presence in the city. He dines with the President to-night, as you doubtless know....” “Come in,” called the President, as a discreet knock interrupted the Secretary. Burton entered and handed him a note. “This is marked ‘Immediate and Personal,’ Mr. President. Recognizing the handwriting, I brought it right in.” As the President tore open the envelope and rapidly read its contents, Secretary Bowers turned to Dick, who was standing by the desk awaiting an opportunity to depart, and said quickly: “Come and see me at the State Department to-morrow morning at nine o’clock.” The President signaled to Burton to withdraw; then he looked directly at the Secretary of State and Dick. “This,” he said, tapping the letter in his hand, “is from Mr. Trevor, tendering me his resignation as my Attorney General on the ground of ill health.” CHAPTER XI BEHIND CLOSED DOORS A LOUD rat-a-tat-tat startled Dick as he dressed in his room that night. On opening the door, he was much surprised to find General Long standing on the threshold. “Didn’t expect to see me, did you?” asked Long, smiling at Dick’s amazement. “Your very charming landlady told me I might come right up. By Jove! she has fixed you up in comfort,” and he looked enviously around Dick’s pleasant, home-like room. “This is something like,” sinking luxuriously into a huge lounging chair. “It’s mighty good of you to look me up so soon, Chester. Sorry I can’t spend the evening with you, but I must hurry along as soon as I am fully dressed,” struggling to tie his cravat as he spoke. “Don’t mind me. I only dropped in to ask what you did to Tom Murray; he’s in the devil of a flutter for fear he betrayed official secrets.” “Tom need not worry; he won’t get into trouble. Say, old man, I simply must consult you; but first promise by all that you hold sacred you won’t breathe a word of what I’m telling you.” “I swear.” Long’s mouth closed like a steel trap. When he spoke in that tone Dick knew he meant what he said. “The Secretary of State asked me to keep these facts from becoming public; but I know you can be relied on to be ‘mum.’” Dick spoke slowly, weighing each word. “I must have your advice, Chester. Since I saw you last I have received incontestable proof that Trevor _did_ see his wife on his return from the banquet that night, although he testified to the contrary.” Long whistled. “You think then that he had a hand in the murder?” he asked doubtfully. “I cannot reach any other conclusion.” Dick stopped a moment to check off his deductions on his fingers. “First, there is the possibility of Gordon’s being Mrs. Trevor’s first husband--anyway, an old lover. Secondly, he certainly was there that night. Probably Trevor returned in time to catch them together.” “Or perhaps he overheard their conversation, waited until Gordon left, then had it out with his wife,” interjected Long, quickly. “He may have lost his temper--biff! Poor devil!” remorsefully. “We must not judge too hastily, Dick; we don’t know what provocation he had--he may have been insanely jealous, like Othello, for instance.” “Think of having to go and ask a man why he murdered his wife--oh, Lord!--oh, damn!” Dick’s lamentations changed to maledictions. To emphasize his remarks he had inadvertently used too much strength in forcing his sleeve button through his cuff, and one of the links had broken in his hand. “Here, help yourself to a cigarette,” pushing a box towards Long, “while I mend this confounded button. Why aren’t you dining at the White House to-night?” “Not sufficiently urged. Nothing under a Major-General was invited to meet his Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke. The Russians are a mighty fine looking race of men, Dick, and the Grand Duke’s staff is no exception to the rule.” “Is that so? I met a very distinguished looking Russian last night, a Count de Smirnoff. He spoke our language much better than most foreigners.” “Oh, his nation are all good linguists. Is the Count a member of the Grand Duke’s staff?” “De Morny didn’t tell me. By the way, we discussed the Trevor murder last night, and Count de Smirnoff suggested that the burglar may have picked up the broken end of the weapon used to kill Mrs. Trevor, and being in no immediate fear of the hangman, is holding it back to use as blackmail when he gets out of jail.” “That’s not a bad theory,” said Long. “Look into it, Dick. The deeper we get in this affair the more involved it becomes. At present,” rising as he saw Dick pick up his overcoat and hat, “it looks as if the Attorney General were indeed the guilty man. And yet, Dick, if those three people had a scene that night, Gordon, if innocent, must suspect Trevor. Then why doesn’t he speak out and clear himself?” Dick shook his head despondently. “It’s beyond me,” he groaned. “Come down and see me at the office to-morrow afternoon, Chester.” “I am sorry, but I can’t; for I have to escort the Grand Duke to Fort Myer. The troops stationed there are to give a special drill in his honor. But you come and dine with me at the Willard, about seven thirty; for I am most anxious to hear the outcome of your interview with Trevor.” “All right, I’ll be there. Come, hurry up, Chester, I’m behind time.” So saying he hustled Long into his overcoat and out of the house. Twenty minutes later Dick ran lightly up the Trevor steps in much tribulation of spirit. He heartily wished the night was over. “Can I see the Attorney General, Wilkins?” he asked, as that functionary opened the door. “No, sir. He is not at home, sir.” “Sorry, Wilkins, but I must insist on being admitted. I come from the Secretary of State. Take this note and my card up to the Attorney General and ask if he can see me.” On entering the drawing-room Dick was surprised to see Alfred Clark lounging comfortably back on the big divan near the fireplace. He glanced up with annoyance at the sound of footsteps; but, recognizing Dick, he came forward with outstretched hand. “Good evening, Tillinghast,” he said cordially. “I didn’t hear the front bell ring; I must have been dozing.” “Indeed,” answered Dick. What was it about the fellow he didn’t like? Ah, it came to him as Clark moved forward a chair--it was the Secretary’s air of proprietorship--as if he were host and Dick a tolerated intruder! “Can I do anything for you to-night, Tillinghast?” “No, thanks. I called to see the Attorney General.” “Ah!” Clark’s exclamation and shrug were foreign in their expressiveness. “That is impossible. Mr. Trevor sees no one.” “I think he will see me,” said Dick, patiently. “I fear you are mistaken, Tillinghast. The Attorney General denies himself to all callers,” Clark replied suavely. “You will really have to confide your business to me.” “That is impossible,” replied Dick, shortly. Clark flushed at his tone, and his eyes flashed. “You forget, sir, that I am the Attorney General’s confidential secretary, in fact, his representative. I would be perfectly within my rights if I denied you admittance to this house.” The hot retort on Dick’s lips was checked by Wilkins’ entrance. “The Attorney General will see you, sir. Please walk into his private office.” Try as he would, Clark could not prevent a look of deep chagrin crossing his face, and Dick chuckled inwardly as he followed the butler out of the room and across the broad hall. Just before he reached the door leading into the office, he felt his nose twitching, premonitory symptoms of a sneeze, and with hasty fingers he pulled his handkerchief out of his cuff. The mended cuff link broke and made a tinkling noise as it struck on the hearth of the open fireplace; and then, with the evil ingenuity which sometimes possesses inanimate objects, it rolled far out of sight under a suit of chain armor which hung to the left of the chimney. Dick sprang in pursuit; Mrs. Macallister had given the set to him that Christmas, and he was determined not to lose the button. So getting down on hands and knees he groped about until his fingers closed over it again; then rose hurriedly to his feet at the same time thrusting the recovered link into his waistcoat pocket, to find himself face to face with the Attorney General. “G--good e--evening, Mr. Attorney General,” he stammered, much flustered. “I smashed my cuff link, and was hunting for the thing.” And he exhibited his unfastened cuff to the Attorney General’s amused gaze. “I am sorry, Tillinghast,” said he. “Wilkins, see if you can help--” “Oh, I have the link,” broke in Dick, tapping his pocket reassuringly. “Then let us go into the office. I believe you wish to see me alone. Ah! Clark,” as his secretary came out of the drawing-room, “you need not wait any longer. Stay,” as Clark hastily put on his overcoat with Wilkins’ assistance, “please stop on your way down Connecticut Avenue and send this night letter for me. Good night, my boy.” “Good night, sir; good night, Tillinghast,” and the door banged to behind his retreating form. After they were seated in the closed room Dick gazed in shocked surprise at the Attorney General. Never had he seen a man alter so much in so short a time. His hair and mustache were white, deep lines had formed about his mouth and eyes, and the latter had a feverish light in them which worried Dick extremely. For a moment he was at a loss how to explain his errand, but the Attorney General solved the difficulty for him. “Secretary Bowers in his note tells me that I can trust you absolutely, and that you have confidential news of importance for my ear alone. Is it in regard to my resignation?” “Well, partly, sir. I was with the President and the Secretary when your letter was delivered. They both wish you to reconsider your decision.” A shade of annoyance crossed Trevor’s face. “I am afraid that is impossible, Tillinghast. I am an ill man, as you can see. It is physically impossible for me to carry on my work at the Department of Justice.” “Very true, sir. But could you not take a vacation only? That would set you up wonderfully.” “My mind is made up,” said Trevor, stubbornly. “I intend to resign.” “The President told me, Mr. Attorney General, that he could not accept your resignation until--until--” “Until what?” questioned Trevor, in growing surprise. Dick, taking his courage in both hands, continued: “Until you explain your presence here with your wife shortly before she was killed.” “Are you mad?” shouted Trevor. “As I said on the witness stand, I never saw my wife after my return that night--I--” “One moment, sir. You forget the Secretary himself talked on the telephone to both you and your wife in this room at fifteen minutes past two on Thursday morning.” The Attorney General grew so ghastly that Dick feared he would collapse in his chair. “The telephone,” he croaked. “My God! the telephone--I forgot that--” then, in uncontrollable agitation, he sprang to his feet and walked up and down, head bent, eyes on the floor. Five minutes, ten minutes passed; but the silence between the two men remained unbroken. Dick simply could not speak, he felt as if he were torturing some dumb animal, for the look of agony on Trevor’s face unnerved him. Finally the Attorney General dropped exhausted into his revolving chair. “Tillinghast,” he said, slowly, “I am miserable--miserable--” His shaking hand played for a second with his watch chain. “I thought that by taking a certain course of action I could prevent knowledge of other matters from becoming known broadcast.” “I beg your pardon, sir,” interrupted Dick, gently. “What you tell me to-night will, as far as I am concerned, be repeated to only one person--the Secretary.” “Thanks; that assurance makes it easier for me. If I had recollected about the telephone call I would have gone to the President myself; but--” a shrug completed his sentence. “Now, as I understand it, Tillinghast,” he continued, “you three men think I came down here, met my wife, quarreled with her, and killed her.” “Yes, that’s about it,” admitted Dick, reluctantly. “It is, I suppose, a natural inference. But the woman whom I was talking to in this room--was not my wife.” Dick started so violently that he overturned a pile of magazines lying on the desk by his elbow. He was too confused to pick them up, but sat gazing blankly at Trevor. A vulgar intrigue! He had never supposed he was that sort of man. The Attorney General colored painfully as he read Dick’s thought. “Don’t jump to conclusions,” he said, harshly. “To explain matters fully I shall have to go back to my marriage to Hélène de Beaupré. We met in London, and I, like many others, fell madly in love with her. She returned my affection, and I persuaded her to marry me at once. “She has always been a good and loving wife to me. But I found she had one fault; in fact, it became an overwhelming passion--she gambled. It seemed to be some taint in her blood. Again and again I remonstrated with her, but to no purpose. She gambled so persistently, so recklessly, and her losses were so large that, finally, I told her my income was crippled by her extravagance, and that hereafter she would have to live within a certain allowance. She realized at last that I was in earnest, and did her best to comply with my request. Would God I had never made it!” Trevor spoke with passionate feeling. “I might have known that a born gambler can never be cured or kept within bounds. “Well, to go on with my story, I thought that she had stopped gambling, knowing that she had not overdrawn her allowance, or appealed to me for extra money. But on Monday, February 1st, I went to the Barclays’ about midnight to fetch my wife home from their card party. They play bridge for high stakes in that house, and I had asked my wife to decline the invitation. She refused to do so, however, saying if I would go there for supper she would leave with me immediately afterwards. Knowing that most of the high play took place after midnight, I agreed to do as she requested. “When I entered the Barclays’ drawing-room the guests were still playing, and I went and stood silently behind my wife’s chair. She was absorbed in the play and did not notice my presence. To my unspeakable horror, I saw her deliberately cheat. “For a moment the room swam around me, then gathering my wits I looked to see if the other players had also detected her. As my eye traveled around the table, Madame de Berriot raised her head, and I saw by her expression that she also had caught my wife in the act of cheating. For one sickening second I feared she would call everyone’s attention to their table, but to my surprise, she said nothing. “I got my wife away as quickly as possible, but I was too sick at heart to tell her of my discovery. I walked the floor for the rest of the night wondering what was the best thing for me to do. “On my arrival at the Department Tuesday morning, I found Madame de Berriot awaiting me in my office. It was not a pleasant interview.” The Attorney General smiled bitterly. “We went over the whole dirty business. She had come there to bleed me, and she did--$10,000 was her price of silence. “I am a proud man, Tillinghast, and I could not bear to have my wife and my name coupled with dishonor. I--I could not face the scandal that would follow the exposé; therefore, I bought the woman off. “It was a large sum, and I could not give it to her at a moment’s notice. She was then on her way to Baltimore, but intended to return to Washington late on Wednesday afternoon to get her traps together, as she was leaving here for good Thursday morning on the Colonial Express. She did not wish me to call at the Embassy where she was stopping as it might cause comment; she would not accept a certified check for the same reason. “My engagements on Wednesday were such that I had no time free. Therefore, in desperation, I suggested she should stop here for the money. I knew my wife and Beatrice intended to go to the Bachelors’, and that they never left a dance until the very end. So it was arranged that she should come here on her way from the ball about two o’clock. “It was sheer madness to yield to a blackmailer, I know, but, Tillinghast, I was half wild by that time, and lost my head; and bitterly have I rued it since.” Trevor sighed drearily. “I came home that night, as I testified at the inquest, and went directly to my room, tiptoeing past my wife’s door, for I was desperately afraid of awakening her. I threw myself down on the lounge and, overcome by weariness, fell into a troubled sleep. “Some time later I awoke with a start, struck a match and glanced at the clock; it was just five minutes of two. I raised the shade and looked out of the window. The Embassy was not far away. Suddenly I saw a woman’s figure coming slowly down 20th Street. I watched her cross the street, and then hurried downstairs as noiselessly as I could and admitted her. We went at once to the private office, and there I discovered that I had left my wallet containing the money in my bedroom, and I hastened back upstairs to get it. Just as I was returning the telephone rang. Madame de Berriot, thinking the noise might be overheard, removed the receiver, but instead of putting it on the table answered the call; then beckoned to me. I talked to the Secretary; then rang off. Immediately afterwards I gave Madame de Berriot her money in gold certificates, and escorted her to the door. That is the last I ever saw of her,” he added, leaning wearily back in his chair. For some minutes Dick sat regarding Trevor in silence. Then he roused himself. “Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?” “No; go ahead.” “Do you think anyone could have been in hiding in this room while you were here?” “I think not. Madame de Berriot was as nervous as a cat, she kept glancing in every direction.” “Was the safe open or closed?” “The outside closet door was closed, so the one to the safe had to be shut.” “Why did you not keep the $10,000 in the safe?” “I had forgotten the combination.” Then, as he saw Dick’s look of incredulity, he added: “I never can remember the complicated numbers; so for convenience I wrote the word ‘safe’ and the numbers of the combination down in a small memorandum book when I first took this house. I seldom open the safe as Clark attends to it for me.” “Why didn’t you ask your secretary for the combination, or look it up in your book?” “I forgot to ask Clark until after he had gone,” explained the Attorney General patiently, “and when I looked for the book it was not in its place.” “Indeed. Where do you usually keep it?” The Attorney General put his hand on the beveled front of his massive, flat-topped desk. “This looks like a solid piece of mahogany,” he said, “but in fact it is a secret drawer. To unlock it you open this upper left hand drawer as far as it will go. There is a round hole in its back partition, and by putting your hand through it you can touch the spring.” He illustrated his words as he spoke, and the small secret drawer slid noiselessly open. Dick examined the mechanism with care. “How many people can open this drawer besides yourself?” he asked. The Attorney General considered a moment before replying. “I am positive only Mrs. Trevor, my daughter, and myself can do so,” he declared, finally. “My daughter bought the desk at an auction in New York, and gave it to me shortly after we moved here.” “Did you go immediately upstairs after Madame de Berriot’s departure?” asked Dick, continuing his inquiries. “I did; going straight to my room. Everything upstairs was perfectly quiet. I went to bed at once, and fell sound asleep shortly after my head touched the pillow.” Then, as Dick rose, he added quickly: “Tell the Secretary everything. Now that I know I may be suspected of murder, I withdraw my resignation. I will stay here and fight it out. Tell him, also--” his voice rang out clearly, impressively--“that, as God is my witness, I know nothing of my wife’s murder!” CHAPTER XII BLIND CLEWS “AND what is your opinion, Tillinghast?” asked the Secretary. They were sitting alone the next morning in his private office. He had listened attentively to Dick’s detailed account of his interview with the Attorney General. “I believe Mr. Trevor’s statement,” he answered, looking squarely at Secretary Bowers. “And so do I,” heartily agreed the other. “Trevor had to buy Madame de Berriot’s silence. If the scandal had gotten out it would have meant social ostracism, not only for the guilty woman, but for Beatrice Trevor and her father as well. It is another case of the innocent suffering with the guilty. Now, Tillinghast, do you know any facts about Mr. Gordon’s connection with this affair which have not been made public?” Seeing Dick’s hesitancy, he added, “Murders are usually outside my province, I know, but this one touches the President closely; first one of his aides is suspected, then his Attorney General is dragged into the affair. If innocent, they must be cleared as quickly as possible. Come, sir, I must have an answer.” “You are right, Mr. Secretary,” replied Dick. “I only hesitated fearing I might get Gordon into further trouble.” Then, in a few words, he repeated what General Long had told him. “Whew!” whistled the Secretary. “That certainly complicates matters. Do you think Trevor knew of Gordon’s former infatuation for his wife?” “Indeed, sir, I was afraid to speak of Gordon,” confessed Dick. “I didn’t know what effect it might have. Mr. Trevor looked so desperately ill and worn.” The Secretary nodded comprehendingly. “I am going to send for him to lunch with me to-day to tell him that he must on no account resign just now, and I will try and find out how much he does know of Mrs. Trevor’s old love-affair.” He paused a moment, then resumed: “There are two things which I think have a bearing on this case.” “What are they, Mr. Secretary?” asked Dick, eagerly. “First--find out who removed the Attorney General’s memorandum book. Secondly--while everyone has tried to prove who entered the Trevor house, no one has sought to find out when a certain member of the household left there.” “Whom do you mean?” “Why, what time did the private secretary leave the house, and where did he spend the evening?” “By Jove! I never thought of him.” “Look up those two things. I feel sure they will repay you.” Then, as Dick picked up his hat and cane, “Tillinghast, you have acted with great discretion in this affair, and I feel convinced you will carry your investigations to a successful issue. If I can be of service to you at any time, come and see me.” Thanking the Secretary warmly for his encouraging words, Dick hastened out of the room. At the _Star_ Office, he found a note awaiting him from Peggy. She asked him to come and see her that afternoon and “report progress.” “‘Report progress,’” groaned poor Dick. “I’m damned if I can. Your Uncle Dudley’s up a tree for sure, Peggy darling, but he’ll do some tall climbing before he gives up, you bet.” “Say, son, the City Editor wants you P. D. Q.,” called Dan Conner. “Stop mooning and hump yourself.” Taking the hint, Dick fled upstairs to the city room on the double quick. “Morning, Dick,” said Colonel Byrd. “Gibson has just sent word that he is sick, so you will have to take his place at the Capitol. Get down there early, as there are some important committee meetings to cover. By the way, any further news about the Trevor murder?” “Not now, sir. There may be some new developments shortly, though. Can I get off if I hear of anything turning up in that quarter?” “Sure; drop everything and run. Get your stuff in as quick as you can.” And the busy editor turned back to his desk. * * * * * The clock was just striking half past five when Dick, after an eventful day at the Capitol, reached Mrs. Macallister’s hospitable mansion on F Street. The old house with its Colonial architecture looked like a relic of antebellum days, for standing as it did well back from the sidewalk, with two fine old elms on either side of the brick walk, it had an individuality of its own. A central hall ran through it, the drawing-room and dining-room being to the left of the front door, while the large library and billiard room were on the other side. The ceilings were very high, which made the house most comfortable in hot weather. That fact, combined with her beautiful rose garden, induced Mrs. Macallister to stay in the city until July. True to the traditions of old Washington, Mrs. Macallister kept her “Fridays at Home” from November until June. The fashion of having only four days in a month did not suit her hospitable mind, and those who put first and third Tuesdays, or Wednesdays, as the case might be, on their visiting cards, drove her nearly frantic. “I was always a poor mathematician,” she informed one of her friends. “I know two and two make four, but this dot and carry one business is beyond me.” Therefore, she usually flung the offending pasteboards into the scrap basket and went serenely on her way, returning calls when it suited her pleasure and convenience. Another innovation to which she seriously objected was having tea served in her drawing-room. Five o’clock tea at home in the bosom of her family was one thing; but having a small tea table, littered with cups and saucers and plates, stuck in one corner with an unhappy matron presiding over it was quite a different matter. Therefore, every Friday the dining-room table was regularly set and covered with tempting dishes of all descriptions; and Peggy poured tea at one end, and one of her numerous friends was always asked to take care of the hot chocolate at the other. The callers had thinned out by the time Dick arrived, only about a dozen people, mostly men, were sitting comfortably around the table. His heart sank when he saw de Morny in close attendance upon Peggy. To his jealous eyes they appeared to be on very confidential terms indeed, which completed his misery. Mrs. Macallister beckoned to him to sit by her, so, casting a lingering glance at Peggy, he obediently carried his cup and saucer to her side of the table. “Any further developments in the Trevor murder, Dick?” Mrs. Macallister asked him, after a few minutes’ chat about other matters. Her words were overheard by a tall, showily dressed woman sitting across the table from them, and she leaned over and joined in the conversation. “Yes, do tell us, Mr. Tillinghast,” she begged, with an ingratiating smile. Matilda Gleason was one of four sisters who lived in a handsome palace on Columbia Road. It was rumored to have cost in the neighborhood of two hundred thousand dollars; as to the architecture, the Gleasons _said_ it was Early English, but having employed three architects before the house was completed, the effect was more or less startling. It had been nicknamed “Gilded Misery.” Where the Gleasons had come from was a mooted question, but they had taken a good many staid Washingtonians into camp by the splendor of their entertainments. Mrs. Macallister had never called upon them, but in an unwary moment the chairman of the Board of Lady Managers of the Children’s Hospital had put Miss Gleason on the same committee with Mrs. Macallister, and the former had seized the opportunity to call that afternoon on the pretext of discussing business pertaining to the Hospital. “Why, no news at all,” answered Dick, cautiously. He knew Miss Gleason’s love of scandal, and that the sisters had been nicknamed “Envy, Hatred, Malice, and All Uncharitableness” by one long-suffering matron, who had been their victim on several occasions. “When does the case go to the Grand Jury, Dick,” called Peggy, from her end of the table. “In about ten days, I think.” “I hope Mr. Gordon’s sentence will be all that the law allows,” said Miss Gleason. It was apparent to everyone where the shoe pinched. All Washington, which in some ways is like an overgrown village, knew of her relentless and unsuccessful pursuit of Gordon during the month that he had been stationed at the White House, and several of the men present, who had suffered from the same cause, smiled to themselves. “It is not at all certain he committed the crime,” said Mrs. Macallister, freezingly. “He virtually admitted it,” retorted Miss Gleason. “We look on a man as innocent until proven guilty, you know, Miss Gleason,” answered Dick, quietly. “Well, if he isn’t guilty, who is?” asked Miss Gleason. “The burglar,” promptly chimed in Peggy. “Nonsense, my dear; why should such a person use a hat-pin when he had his revolver, and where would he get such a thing?” For a moment Peggy was at a loss for a reply. She had the same doubt herself, but she was determined not to give in to Miss Gleason, “horrid old cat.” Count de Morny, all unconsciously, came to her rescue. The other guests were silently listening to the discussion. “I sink Madame Trevor haf stick herself wiz ze pin,” he volunteered, struggling with the _langue terrible_, which he had never been able to master. “But yes, Monsieur,” catching Dick’s incredulous stare, “did not ze doctaire say it was possible for one who was left handed to strike herself the blow?” “How do you know Mrs. Trevor was left handed?” demanded Miss Gleason loudly. “I haf played ze cards wiz her most often,” answered de Morny, simply. “But why should Mrs. Trevor commit suicide?” asked Dick, unbelievingly. De Morny shrugged his shoulders, and answered his question with another: “Why should Monsieur Gordon kill her?” “That’s right,” declared Captain McLane, of the U.S. Marine Corps. “Why should he? I served three years on board the same cruiser with Donald Gordon, and there isn’t a more honorable, lovable fellow in the Service. It is absolutely unbelievable that he could perpetrate so ghastly a crime.” As Dick looked across at Peggy he caught Count de Smirnoff’s eye. The Russian was sitting between his hostess and Miss Gleason. For the first time he joined in the conversation. “Your theory is weak, Henri,” he said, mildly. “Why should a young and beautiful woman, who enjoys health, wealth, and a happy home, kill herself?” “You nevaire can tell about ze ladies,” retorted de Morny, obstinately. “Zey are--what you say--‘a law unto themselves, and easily wrought-over and deviled up. Zey make trifles into mountains.” “Granting that Mrs. Trevor might have had a motive for suicide,” said Dick, smiling at the excited Frenchman, “it was utterly impossible for a dead woman to lock herself in the safe.” “Could she not have killed herself in the safe after shutting the door?” inquired de Smirnoff. Dick shook his head. “Possibly you do not recollect that witnesses testified at the inquest that her left arm was pressed tightly against the door-jamb, supporting her weight.” “She might have fallen forward into that position.” “I hardly think it likely. Mr. Clark, who was the first inmate of the household to find Mrs. Trevor, testified that her body was literally wedged into the safe.” “You have but his word for it.” A peculiar tone in the speaker’s voice caused Dick to glance sharply at him, but he learned nothing from the Russian’s face. It was expressionless. Before Dick could pursue his questions, Miss Gleason threw herself into the conversation. “How is that dear Mr. Clark bearing up under this terrible tragedy?” she asked, addressing Peggy directly. “He looked very well the last time I saw him,” said the latter, a twinkle of mischief in her deep blue eyes. “I am so glad to hear it. You know, dear Mrs. Macallister, he is such a delightful man to have around. He always looks after one so attentively. I never want for anything when he is in the room; and then he is so handsome, so cultivated! It is a dreadful blow having him in mourning.” “I wasn’t aware he is in mourning,” said Peggy, surprised. “Has he lost a relative?” “Oh, no. But of course he will accept no invitations now, on account of his engagement to Beatrice Trevor.” “What!” Peggy nearly overturned the urn in her excitement. “Miss Gleason, you are entirely mistaken. Beatrice never was engaged to Mr. Clark.” “Indeed? Mrs. Trevor led me to suppose otherwise. From what she said I gathered the engagement was to be announced shortly. It is not surprising I thought it a love match,” she continued, catching a glimpse of Peggy’s indignant expression. “He is desperately attentive to her, and I see them together all the time.” “Speaking of seeing people,” broke in Captain McLane, “have you seen Bertie Lee since he and his wife returned from their honeymoon? He came into the club the other night looking absolutely woe-begone.” “He did, indeed,” laughed Dick. “I couldn’t help thinking of the lines: ‘“When I think on what I are And what I uster was I feel I threw myself away Without sufficient cos!”’” “They suit him to a ‘T,’” agreed McLane, helping himself to a glass of cherry bounce. “You know the Courtland Browns, do you not, Mrs. Macallister,” asked Miss Gleason, pulling on her gloves preparatory to departing. “I hear they are going to air their marital troubles in court, but it’s a long story, and I must go. Good-by, dear Mrs. Macallister, such a delightful afternoon. Good-by, everybody, don’t get up?” She waved her hand to them all and tripped out of the room. “‘The wicked flee when no man pursueth,’” quoted Mrs. Macallister, a naughty twinkle in her eye. “Have you heard of the dinner the Gleasons gave at which they separated the goats from the sheep?” asked Captain McLane. “They served Veuve Cliquot at one table, and American champagne at the other.” “Oh, why do we put up with such ill-bred behavior?” cried Peggy, impulsively. “My dear, you are wrong,” said Mrs. Macallister. “The Gleasons belong to a large class who show ‘the unconscious insolence of conscious wealth,’ as one of our statesmen aptly puts it.” “Miss Gleason is very highly colored for a woman of her years,” said de Smirnoff, gravely. “Highly colored!” exclaimed Mrs. Macallister. “It’s a wonder she doesn’t die of painter’s colic. Must you go?” as her guests rose from the table, and she walked with them into the drawing-room. It was some few minutes before the other callers started on their way, and Dick listened with what patience he could muster to their interminable good-bys. But Peggy soon joined him in the drawing-room. “Now, sir, give an account of yourself,” she said, with mock severity. “You haven’t been near me since the ball--” a sudden recollection caused her to blush hotly, and Dick thought what a lovely, dainty bit of femininity she was. Her shimmering crêpe de chine Princess dress of sapphire blue showed up her blonde beauty in a way to tantalize any man, let alone poor Dick, who was already hopelessly in the toils. Dick promptly lost his head. “Peggy,” he stammered. “Dearest--be--” “What are you two talking about?” asked Mrs. Macallister, coming suddenly back into the room. “Er--nothing,” gasped Dick, who had a wholesome dread of incurring her displeasure. Having a very modest opinion of himself, he feared she would bitterly oppose his suit. “I was just going to ask Peggy about Alfred Clark and Beatrice Trevor. Was there ever anything between them, Peggy?” “Well, really, Dick!--” “I know, Peggy, I know you won’t break a confidence; but indeed it is important that I know.” Peggy debated for a moment while Mrs Macallister looked thoughtfully at them. What were those two young people up to? It behooved her to find out. “Then, I think I’d better tell you, Dick; particularly as I’m not breaking any confidence. Alfred Clark _is_ devoted to Beatrice, and I overheard him making desperate love to her at their house on Tuesday night, or rather Wednesday morning. I was searching for Beatrice to say good-by and walked in upon them in the private office. You know it was a very large party, and the entire first floor was thrown open to accommodate the guests. Beatrice seemed glad of the interruption, but Mr. Clark looked as black as a thunder cloud. I rather enjoyed his discomfiture,” and Peggy laughed at the recollection. “One gets so tired of his perpetual smile.” “Do you think Miss Trevor returns his affection?” Peggy looked troubled. “Beatrice is very reserved,” she said. “She seldom speaks of men’s attentions to her, even to me, her best friend. If you had asked me that question a month ago I would have said positively, ‘No’--but lately, Beatrice, without actually encouraging Mr. Clark, has allowed him to be with her more than formally.” “Then you think--?” “I don’t know what I think,” pettishly. “Was this supper given the night before the murder?” “Yes. Madame Bernhardt was the guest of honor.” “Was Gordon there by chance?” “Oh, yes. He took me out to supper and was just as jolly and nice as he could be.” “I am sorry to interrupt you young people,” called Mrs. Macallister from the doorway. She had strolled out into the hall to speak to her maid. “But I must remind Peggy that she has to dress for a dinner at the Pattersons’.” “Gracious!” exclaimed Dick, in dismay, glancing at his watch. “I had no idea it was so late. Do forgive me, Mrs. Macallister, for staying so long.” “I will, provided you promise to come and dine with us on Wednesday next, at eight o’clock.” Peggy’s eyes seconded the invitation, and Dick accepted so joyfully that Mrs. Macallister’s eyes danced wickedly. “Count de Smirnoff is very agreeable,” she said, as Peggy left the room, “and I am indebted to Count de Morny for bringing him to see me. They had been to the drill at Fort Myer, and the Russian gave a most entertaining account of it. It is a relief to talk to him after struggling with Count de Morny’s broken English.” “It is indeed,” agreed Dick, heartily. “Poor de Morny certainly murders the King’s English.” “I asked Count de Smirnoff to call again,” pursued Mrs. Macallister. “I like him, and we have many mutual friends.” “How long is he going to be here?” “Until the Grand Duke returns to New York. Good night, Dick; come and see us soon again.” CHAPTER XIII THE THREAT ON that same afternoon Beatrice sat in the library gazing with troubled eyes at a letter lying open in her lap. Suddenly she tore it into shreds and flung the pieces into the open fire. “How dare he?” she exclaimed aloud. “Beg pardon, Miss Beatrice,” said Wilkins, patiently. He had already addressed her three times. “What is it?” asked Beatrice, for the first time aware of his presence. “Detective Hardy is at the telephone, miss. He wishes to know if you can see him this afternoon.” “No, I cannot.” She shivered slightly. “Tell him, Wilkins, that I am lying down, but that I will see him to-morrow about this time. I am not at home to anyone to-day.” “Very good, miss.” Just as Wilkins hung up the telephone receiver, the front bell rang so loudly that in the library Beatrice paused in her rapid pacing back and forth to listen. She heard voices raised in a heated altercation. “Some more reporters,” she thought, shrugging her shoulders nervously. She threw herself on the lounge and took up her embroidery. “Well, here I am,” said a heavy bass voice from the doorway. Beatrice glanced up in surprise, and saw Mrs. Curtis, wife of the Secretary of War, standing on the threshold. Wilkins’ flushed and unhappy countenance could be seen over her shoulder. It was not often that he was out-maneuvered as a watch-dog. “Your servant said you were out, but I knew he was _lying_, so just walked right by him. I simply had to see you, Beatrice,” kissing her affectionately. “And I’m very glad to see you, Mrs. Curtis,” answered Beatrice, warmly, as she helped her off with her wraps. “Joe said you wouldn’t want to see me,” went on Mrs. Curtis, picking out a comfortable chair and seating her two hundred odd pounds in it very gingerly. “Joe also said I must not allude to your troubles--Mercy on us!”--greatly embarrassed--“well, the murder’s out--good gracious!” Her consternation was so ludicrous that Beatrice smiled as she pulled a chair forward. Mrs. Curtis’ faculty for making “breaks” was well known among her friends. Short of stature, her weight made her waddle when she walked, and no art of any dressmaker could give her a waist line. Boasting as she did of a long line of ancestors, whose names were illustrious in American history, she considered she could do as she pleased, live where she pleased, and associate with whom she pleased. Her manners could not always be relied on; they were apt to vary with the state of her digestion. Abrupt and often overbearing at times, she had, however, two traits of character shared by few--loyalty and the courage of her convictions. She had always been fond of Beatrice, and some recent gossip about the Trevors coming to her ears that afternoon had made her very angry. She championed their cause at once, to the consternation of the two worthy women who, having repeated the gossip, wilted under her indignant glance. Hence the determined assault on the Trevors’ front door. “Tea!” she exclaimed, overhearing Beatrice’s order to Wilkins. “My dear, don’t have it on my account. I detest the stuff. A glass of sherry and a biscuit will do me more good than anything else you can offer.” “How is the Secretary?” asked Beatrice, placing the decanter and biscuits which had been quickly forthcoming, before her guest. “Very well, barring an attack of gout. I told him it was a case of suppressed kicking against the powers that be on Capitol Hill. I met your father on the street this morning. He looks dreadfully, poor man. Is there any truth in this rumor of his resigning?” casting a keen glance at the unconscious girl. “No truth at all,” Beatrice answered emphatically. “We may both go to Atlantic City for a week, but that is the only time father will be away from his office until June. I can’t imagine how such a report started.” “Washington is a hotbed of rumors always,” retorted Mrs. Curtis. “What people don’t know, they make up. But I did not come here to talk about my neighbors’ shortcomings, but to ask if you won’t go motoring with me as soon as the condition of the streets permits. You need to be out in the fresh air,” and she patted Beatrice’s thin cheeks. The somber black garb enhanced her pallor, but for all that Mrs. Curtis decided in her own mind that she had seldom seen her look more lovely. “If that man has been playing fast and loose with her affections,” she thought, “I’ll--I’ll give him a piece of my mind.” It was no idle threat. Those who had experienced a piece of her gray matter would rather have faced a Gatling gun; at least, the end came swiftly. “I’d love to go with you, Mrs. Curtis.” “Good. And you’ll come back and dine with us?” “Oh, I wouldn’t like to, just yet, because of our deep--” for the life of her she could not say grief--“mourning,” she supplemented. “Tut! No one stops to think of that, nowadays.” Suddenly realizing that she might be treading on rather painful ground for Beatrice, Mrs. Curtis pulled herself up short. “I’ll take another glass of sherry after all, for I am simply exhausted. Ever since three o’clock I’ve done nothing but peddle cards from house to house.” “Done what?” asked Beatrice, in blank amazement. “Peddle cards--visiting cards. I have a calling list as long as the Washington Monument. It’s perfectly fearful. First they call; you call; they call, and so it goes, back and forth, battledore and shuttlecock.” “It is a treadmill,” agreed Beatrice, laughing. “It is a pity someone doesn’t open a clearing house for callers, it would simplify matters, particularly for the official set.” “The habit is just as bad among the Cave Dwellers (old Washingtonians), ” she explained in parenthesis. “_They_ even make tea calls! I work like a slavey, and yet it’s all I can do to make my bread and butter ones. By the way, did you go to the Constables’ dinner dance two weeks ago?” “No,” answered Beatrice, interested. “I heard it was a feast.” “A feast? It was a feed! One hundred and fifty dinner guests, and fifty extra couples for the cotillion afterwards. The favors were beautiful, so beautiful that there was great rivalry to get them, and later in the evening it was noised around that the souvenir favors were twenty dollar gold pieces. Anyway, that particular favor was given out in cardboard boxes, and none of the men would give them away to a girl until they investigated them first for fear they wouldn’t get one in return.” “What were they?” asked Beatrice, greatly diverted. “Oh, pieces of handsome jewelry. By the way, I saw Margaret Macallister there flirting outrageously. That nice Mr. Tillinghast is very attentive to her.” “He has been in love with her for years. But Peggy flouts him, as she does all the rest.” “To take up with a broken stick in the end, I suppose. Well, it’s a pity young Tillinghast is wasting his time. Mrs. Macallister would never consent to her marrying a poor man when a title is in sight.” “You are wrong, Mrs. Curtis,” said Beatrice, politely but positively. “Mrs. Macallister is a woman of the world, not a worldly woman. She is devoted to her granddaughter, and would not let money considerations interfere with Peggy’s future happiness.” “Still, my dear, Count de Morny is a matrimonial prize. Perhaps he will win her after all, the diplomats have such charming, delightful manners--a great contrast to our men.” “Quite true, Mrs. Curtis; but personally give me an American every time. Our men may not know parlor tricks, but they are tender, loyal and brave.” Beatrice spoke with unwonted feeling. “Hoity-toity, child, don’t get so excited. I meant no particular criticism of our men. Haven’t I a dear old bear at home, whom I’d positively _hate_ if he wasn’t an American. Mercy on us, it’s nearly six o’clock, I must run along. Good-by, my dear,” kissing Beatrice with unusual tenderness. “Keep a good heart.” And she bustled out of the house. Beatrice walked rather slowly back to the library. She was deeply touched as well as surprised by Mrs. Curtis’ blunt kindness. “From those we expect the least, we get the most,” she thought bitterly, while gathering up her workbag preparatory to going to her room. “May I come in for a moment?” asked a voice from the doorway. Beatrice glanced with some astonishment at the speaker, and answered quietly: “Why, certainly, Mr. Clark.” “Your father has just telephoned that he is detained at the White House, and will not be back until late.” He stopped speaking, and fingered the table ornaments; then burst out: “Miss Beatrice, why do you not take better care of yourself?” Beatrice flushed. “I am stronger than I look. You must not always judge by appearances.” Clark shook his head. “It does not require much intelligence to see that you are nearly worn out. Why,” leaning a little closer, “your eyes are actually red from crying.” “You are not very complimentary,” said Beatrice, vexedly, biting her lip, “and,” drawing herself up, “just a trifle personal.” “You mean familiar?” Beatrice made no answer. “Well, I plead guilty. Do not be angry with me. I am only personal because I cannot bear to see you ill--suffering.” “Indeed, Mr. Clark, you are mistaken,” she answered lightly. “There is nothing whatever the matter with me, except the physical exhaustion which naturally follows such a tragedy. A good sleep would be my best tonic. I am going upstairs now to rest before dinner. Ring for Wilkins if you wish anything.” As she moved towards the door Clark put out his hands beseechingly. “Don’t go; stay just a moment. I so seldom see you now. Why do you avoid me?” “_You_ ask me that?” “Yes,” steadily. “Your own conscience can answer better than I.” “It tells me only of my love for you.” “You must have it well under control then.” Clark’s dark eyes flamed. “You doubt my love, my devotion, after all these months?” Beatrice faced him squarely, her face showing white and drawn in the cold electric light. “Do you call it ‘love’ to torment me day after day with unwelcome attentions; to use my stepmother as a lever against me; to poison my father’s affection for me with lying tales? Do you think _that_ a way to win a woman?” Clark’s handsome face paled under Beatrice’s accusing eyes. “I deny your charges,” he said, keeping his self-control with difficulty. “What is the use?” Beatrice sighed wearily. “It was owing entirely to your influence that my home became unendurable. Mrs. Trevor did everything in her power to force me to accept you.” Under his breath, Clark muttered a remark that was not complimentary to the dead woman. “Beatrice,” he said, gently, “in your sheltered life you know little of the temptations, of the evil of this world. Before I came to your father, I had knocked about from pillar to post and been thrown with all sorts and conditions of men and women. The least said about the latter the better.” He smiled unpleasantly. “Then I met you, so kind, so courteous to the poor secretary. Is it any wonder that I lost my head, and built castles in the air? As week followed week my admiration for you changed to passionate love. God knows, you never gave me any encouragement. But I have hoped on, my starved heart feeding on every stray crumb of attention that you showed me. “Beatrice, Beatrice, look at me.” He flung back his head, shaking his black hair off his broad forehead, his handsome face alight with feeling; and he drew his well-knit, slender figure to his full height. “Am I deformed? Am I hateful to look upon? My darling, my dear, dear one, give me but a chance.” Beatrice’s face softened. He was making it very hard for her. As she hesitated, he caught the look of pity in her beautiful eyes, mistook it, and springing forward clasped her in his arms, showering frantic kisses on her brow, face and lips. Desperately Beatrice struggled to free herself. With superhuman strength she thrust him from her. “You coward--you coward!” she cried. Clark stood a short distance from her, panting a little from his emotions. “You coward,” reiterated Beatrice, “to take advantage of a defenseless woman!” Slowly the hot blood ebbed from Clark’s face, and his eyes gleamed wickedly. “Take care,” he said. “I admit I forgot myself; but God! you don’t know how I’ve longed to hold you in my arms; to feel your heart beating against mine. It was sheer madness; but the look in your dear eyes went to my head like wine. I thought I had won.” “Do you think that such a cur as you can win an honest woman’s love?” “Stop! Don’t go too far. I come of a race that never forgets an insult. My mother was a Neapolitan.” He drew a long breath. “That one moment was worth your hate.” “My hate!” echoed Beatrice. “Say rather my loathing!” And she drew her handkerchief across her lips as if to wipe out the burning kisses he had showered upon her. Clark saw the gesture and read its meaning. The fierce anger in his eyes almost made her quail. “So,” he said, as soon as he could speak; “so I am not good enough to touch you--” He laughed insultingly. “Bah! you are not worth my love.” Shaken and outraged as she was, Beatrice faced him proudly. “This scene has gone far enough,” she said. “Go!” “Go? Yes, I’ll go.” Clark fairly shook with rage as he bent towards her. “But be sure of one thing: I’ll get even, although it ruins me. Oh, I can do it, too--” seeing her look of disdain--“for--I know your secret!” With ashen face and fast beating heart, Beatrice stood transfixed gazing at Clark’s retreating figure. As the library door slammed to behind him, she staggered rather than walked to the lounge and threw herself face down upon it. CHAPTER XIV HAND AND PIN “AND so you are no nearer clearing poor Gordon than you were twenty-four hours ago?” said Long, thoughtfully. “Exactly,” answered Dick, glumly. The two friends were sitting in Long’s room at the New Willard, and Dick had been giving an account of his efforts to straighten out the tangled threads of the Trevor mystery. He was tired in body, and discouraged in mind. Even the fragrant Havana he was smoking gave him no comfort. Then his teeth came together with a snap, and he threw back his head defiantly. “I refuse to give up. I’ll find out the truth if it takes me years!” “Bully for you, old man. I wish I could help you.” “After all, the evidence against Gordon is simply circumstantial,” argued Dick. “Many men have been convicted on that alone; and these against Gordon are pretty damning,” commented Long. “We have already established a motive for the crime.” “Hold on. Clark’s statement of Mrs. Trevor’s marriage to Gordon has never been substantiated. He simply saw them--” “Applying for a license. Quite true; but there is one fact you cannot overlook. Gordon was infatuated with the murdered woman; for that I can vouch. He knew her intimately in London; and yet, you say they greeted each other as strangers when they met here three years later.” “A lot can happen in that time.” “Very true. But why were they not consistent in their behavior? Outwardly posing as mere acquaintances, Mrs. Trevor made an appointment with Gordon at a most unconventional hour when she _knew_ her husband would be absent. Do you think she would have run the risk of compromising herself if some vital interest had not been at stake?” “No.” “Obviously they quarreled--what about we have yet to find out--and the murder followed.” Dick shook his head in dissent. “I cannot reconcile the perpetrator of so frightful a deed with the Gordon I have known and admired.” “Mrs. Trevor probably goaded him past human endurance, and he struck her in a moment of ungovernable rage.” “Where did he get the weapon?” “Very likely Mrs. Trevor left her hat-pin in her husband’s office some time during the day, and forgot about it. Gordon may have picked it up, and toyed with it, all unconscious of the use he could put it to until the blind moment came.” “It may have been no murder at all,” exclaimed Dick. “Perhaps Mrs. Trevor tripped, and Gordon, forgetful of the pin in his hand, tried to catch her and accidentally pierced her side in a vital spot.” “Then how did her dead body get into the safe?” “Ask me something easy,” groaned Dick. “Perhaps Gordon, fearing his story of an accident would not be believed, thrust her in there and fled, thinking he would not then be connected with the affair.” “How did Gordon get the safe open?” “Possibly Mrs. Trevor opened the safe before he got there.” “Did she know the combination?” “The Attorney General declares that only he and Clark knew it.” The room telephone rang loudly, and Long hastened to answer it. “Hello! Yes, at the ’phone. Yes; he’s here--all right.” He hung up the receiver. “It’s a note for you, Dick, so I told the clerk to send it right up.” “Thanks. Secretary Bowers advised me to find out the whereabouts of Clark on the night of the third,” pursued Dick, tossing his cigar stub into the ash receiver, “but up to now I’ve been so busy I have not had a chance.” “That’s not a bad idea-- Come in,” called Long, as a knock sounded on his door. A district messenger boy entered. “Mr. Tillinghast?” he asked. Long motioned to Dick. “Sign here, sir,” and he extended his book and the letter at the same time. “How did you know Mr. Tillinghast was here?” asked Long, idly, as Dick hurriedly scrawled his name in the place designated. “The lady at his house told me he was dining here with you, sir; and as the Attorney General said it must be delivered at once, I came right here. I’ve already been paid, sir, thankee, sir, good night,” and, taking back his book, the messenger departed. “I have so many hurry calls that I always tell Mrs. Brisbane where I am to be found when I dine out,” explained Dick, tearing open his note. “Hello! the Attorney General wants to see me on ‘most important business’ to-night, if possible. I wonder what has turned up? Will you excuse me, Chester, if I hurry along?” “Sure. It looks as if things might be getting exciting. I wonder if Trevor hasn’t some clew; some person in mind whom he suspects?” “He swears he hasn’t.” “Could it be that Mrs. Trevor overheard his interview with the Frenchwoman, became alarmed at the prospect of discovery as a card cheat and committed suicide?” “That’s what de Morny suggested yesterday. By gracious! I wonder if he knew she cheated at cards?” “If he played much with her, he may have discovered it,” answered Long, dryly. “Who is this Count?” “One of the attachés of the French Embassy,” explained Dick, struggling into his overcoat. “He and Mrs. Trevor did play often together, for I have seen them. Can’t afford to play auction myself, but I drop in for supper at many of the card parties.” “There is the same objection to the theory of suicide as to that of accidental death--how did her body get into the safe?” “Trevor might have placed her there, if he knew she killed herself, to conceal the fact and make people think it a murder. Otherwise she could not have been buried in consecrated ground. They are Roman Catholics, you know.” “He told you that he had forgotten the combination, and couldn’t open the safe.” “Somebody must be lying,” answered Dick, with conviction. “Coming?” as Long started for the open door. “Yes; I am going down to the lobby.” The two men left the room together. Wilkins was expecting Dick, and showed him at once into the private office where the Attorney General was sitting. “Good evening, Tillinghast. It is good of you to come,” said he, warmly. “I want to see you particularly. Sit down and I will explain.” Dick took the chair pushed toward him, and waited for the Attorney General to begin. “My nerve is not what it was,” said Trevor. “It has been badly shaken by the tragic event through which I have just passed. Ordinarily I would not pay any attention to an anonymous letter. But I confess this one has upset me.” He opened the secret drawer and took from it a soiled sheet of paper. “Read this, and tell me what you think of it.” Dick’s eyes opened wide with astonishment as he perused the badly written scrawl. If you prosecute the Fabriani Merger as being in violation of the Sherman Act, you seal your own Death warrant. You have tasted of our Power. Take heed to this Warning lest worse should befall you. Remember--February third! Dick examined the letter closely. It was written on a soiled sheet of cheap, ruled paper, and the handwriting was evidently disguised. Towards the bottom of the page were crude drawings of a black hand, a coffin, and a hat-pin! “When did you receive this, Mr. Attorney General?” he asked. “By the four o’clock post. Wait a moment,” as Dick started to speak. “The mail was delivered just as I was leaving the Department to go to the White House, and I hastily gathered up what I thought were my personal letters, leaving the rest of my correspondence for Clark to look over. I opened this while driving home.” “Can I see the envelope?” “Certainly; but I am afraid you will find no clew there. It is postmarked ‘Times Square Station, N. Y.,’ and was mailed early this morning. It is next to impossible to trace anonymous letters through the post office, for they are usually mailed at an hour when no one is about.” Dick tossed the envelope on the table. There was nothing to be learned from its ordinary exterior. It was addressed in the same disguised writing as the letter. “Who is Fabriani?” “An Italian importer. He and two other Italian merchants have merged their business, and have crowded out the smaller importers. Fabriani has resorted to illegal measures to force his rivals out of business. They have appealed to the courts to protect them against the merger.” “I see.” Dick balanced the letter in his hand. “Do you think that it is Fabriani who is trying to intimidate you by making use of a Black Hand threat?” “It has that appearance. Come,” glancing keenly at Dick, “what is your opinion?” “Why, that this rascal Fabriani has concocted this scheme in his own head and is using your wife’s tragic death in hopes to check your actions against his merger. Of course, he may be a member of the Black Hand. But in the numerous accounts of murders attributed to that society some token of the Black Hand has always been found by the body of the victim. Besides, I really do not think they would perpetrate so wanton a crime on so slight a provocation.” “That would not stop them,” declared Trevor. “They are a bloodthirsty crew, and when lust and hate lure them on will commit any crime.” “But in this instance they had neither of those motives,” said Dick, obstinately. Trevor moved restlessly in his chair. “I would give much to believe in your theory.” “What makes you doubt its truth?” asked Dick, quickly, and he looked searchingly at his companion. Trevor’s face flushed darkly, and he considered a moment before replying. “I have had a long talk with my friend, Secretary Bowers,” he said finally. “He advised me to do all in my power to have the real murderer apprehended; and to that end thought I should offer a large reward for his detection. I cannot believe that Mr. Gordon murdered my wife--cannot, cannot believe there was a--a--” he stumbled in his speech--“an affair between them. Whatever her faults, my wife,” proudly, “was faithful to me. Nothing will make me believe otherwise. I am convinced there is an innocent explanation of their meeting that night.” “I am sure there is,” exclaimed Dick, heartily. “And, Mr. Attorney General, I honor you for the stand you are taking.” “Thanks, Tillinghast, thanks,” said Trevor, huskily. “I have been searching vainly for a clew. This letter,” taking it from Dick, “puzzles me greatly. On thinking the matter over I decided to send for you and ask your advice. Publicity is hateful to me, and I find it easier to discuss these details with you, as you already know so much about my family affairs.” “I shall be delighted to be of any service, sir.” “I think I told you in our last interview,” began Trevor, “that my wife and I were married after a six weeks’ acquaintance. We met through mutual friends. I know nothing of her past. I loved her devotedly, and was satisfied when she told me that my affection was returned and that she was free to become my wife. During our happy married life I never questioned her, being content to live in the present and let the dead past bury its dead. But about eight months ago I discovered that my wife was in deadly fear of one man--” he hesitated. “Do go on,” urged Dick, bending forward in his eagerness. “Did you find out who he was?” “He was an Italian.” “And his name?” “Giovanni Savelli.” Dick sat back in his chair and stared at the Attorney General. “Giovanni Savelli,” he repeated, thoughtfully; “Giovanni Savelli. Why, he is said to be one of the heads of the Camorra.” “Exactly,” replied Trevor, dryly. CHAPTER XV MAN PROPOSES PEGGY went to her room that night very cross and very sleepy. The Patterson dinner had been a very long and, to her, a very tedious affair of many courses and numerous pauses. “I never before worked so hard to make conversation,” she confided to her grandmother in the privacy of her pretty bedroom. No matter how late Peggy stayed out, she always found her grandmother awake and waiting for her when she returned. When no social engagements took her from home, Mrs. Macallister, who required very little sleep, always retired to her own sitting room about ten o’clock. She dressed in a warm wrapper and made herself comfortable by her reading lamp and perused magazines and the latest novels at her leisure. “You see, Granny, it was a mixed affair,” explained Peggy, sitting on the edge of her bed while she took down and shook out her lovely “lint white locks,” as Dick called them. “And one man gave out at the last moment, so I sat between old Mr. Forsythe and Mrs. Wheeler.” “Good Heavens! what a combination! Were you the only young person present?” “No; Sybil Ferguson and Tony Forsythe were across the way from me, and Captain McLane sat by Mary Patterson. Mrs. Patterson invited Ned Morgan for me, but, as I said before, he could not come as he is ill in bed with grippe.” “Did you play auction afterwards?” “Yes. I had miserable luck; everything went against me,” Peggy sighed with vexation. “I even drew Mrs. Wheeler as my first partner. Have you ever played with her?” “Once!” Mrs. Macallister’s tone spoke volumes. “Was Ruth Wheeler there, also?” “No, she went to a débutante dinner given by the Wilsons. Oh, Granny, I must tell you something so funny. During dinner, Mr. Forsythe leaned across me and asked Mrs. Wheeler if Ruth enjoyed being out. “‘She does indeed,’ answered Mrs. Wheeler, with a beaming smile, ‘and she has been a great success since her début last December. Why, Mr. Forsythe, she has already had two proposals and one hint.’” “That is just like Maria Wheeler,” laughed Mrs. Macallister. “What did you do this evening, Granny? You read a blood-curdling mystery story as usual, I suppose.” “Indeed, I did nothing of the sort. I was most agreeably entertained by a young man.” “General de Peyster?” “I said a young man,” with dignity. “I give it up, Granny; you have too many of the male gender anxious to call on you. It would take me an hour to go through the list.” “Tut! child, I am not to be flattered,” but she smiled quietly, well pleased. She had queened it too long in salon and drawing-room not to know her power. “My visitor this evening was Count de Morny.” “Count de Morny! Why, good gracious, Granny, he was here only this afternoon.” “I know it,” placidly. “Why did he come a second time?” “He came to ask my permission to pay his addresses to you.” Peggy dropped her slipper with a thud on the floor, while the rich, warm blood mounted to her cheeks. “And you told him?” “That he could--yes.” The clock ticked loudly in the quiet room. Mrs. Macallister was the first to break the silence. “Peggy, look at me.” Slowly the deep blue eyes were raised to hers, but the dearly loved face was blurred by the tears that filled them. “Granny, Granny, I cannot leave you. Why need we speak of marriage, we are so happy, we two?” “Nonsense, child,” Mrs. Macallister’s tone was husky, and she cleared her throat of a suspicious lump. “Do you think I want you to be a lonely old maid? No, dear heart, I wish you to marry a man worthy of you. I want to see you rich in domestic happiness, so that when you reach my age and look back over the past, you can say, as I do: ‘My life has been one grand Thanksgiving Hymn.’” It was not often that the stately dame showed emotion, and Peggy was deeply touched. She dropped down on her knees and pressed her cheek against her grandmother’s as the loving arms met around her. “Hush, dearie, do not cry.” Mrs. Macallister rocked her back and forth as she had been wont to do in her babyhood. “You do not have to accept Count de Morny if you do not care for him. I did not think it fair to either of you to forbid his proposal. He says he loves you devotedly, and he offers you a most distinguished name, and a splendid social position in the Old World. I know nothing against him, and I like him personally. But, Peggy, I warn you, de Morny is not a man to trifle with. He has a high temper under that debonair manner. Come, it is late; go to bed, dear, and do not worry any more. Remember, I shall not force you into any marriage. The decision must rest with you. Now, hurry and undress,” kissing her warmly. “I will come back and tuck you up in bed.” Left alone, Peggy went thoughtfully over to her bureau. She took up a photograph in its silver frame and studied it long; the Court dress was becoming to de Morny. Then her left hand strayed toward a kodak picture, a snap shot, and she gazed down into a gay, laughing face, but the lips, which curved in a merry smile, were well shaped, and the chin determined. A strong face, and a lovable one; and the other--Peggy sighed as she put them back in their places. Glancing at the clock she was shocked to find it long after midnight. Hastily picking up her jewelry, she pressed the spring of her secret drawer. It opened half-way, then stuck. Slipping her hand inside the small opening, she felt about to find the obstruction. A box was jammed against the top, and with impatient fingers she pulled it out breaking the side of the pasteboard in her effort to get it free. Its contents fell into the now fully opened drawer. She picked it up and examined it; then let it fall as if it scorched her fingers. It was the broken top of a hat-pin which she had given Beatrice Trevor that Christmas. She recognized it instantly because of the curious design in gold surrounding the cat’s-eye. She picked up the box. It was the identical one which Beatrice had entrusted to her care. The twine around the middle still held; only one end had been broken. Merciful Heaven! what had she discovered? No, it could not be possible--her gentle, charming friend could not be guilty. It was too monstrous for belief. And yet, Beatrice’s intense desire to get the box out of the house, her quarrel with her stepmother--the doctor’s testimony that Mrs. Trevor had been killed by a stab from a hat-pin--all pointed to her guilt. With trembling fingers the bewildered and over-wrought girl thrust the telltale cat’s-eye back into the box, put it securely in the drawer, dropped in her jewelry and snapped the lock. Then, for the first time in her healthy, happy life, Peggy fainted just as Mrs. Macallister re-entered the room. CHAPTER XVI PLAYING WITH FIRE IT was a very woe-begone Peggy who came into the drawing-room the next afternoon, and Dick looked with consternation at her pale cheeks and heavy eyelids. “Peggy! What have you been doing with yourself?” he exclaimed, detaining her small hand in his. “Sit down here,” patting the chair next her. Dick needed no second bidding. “I could not sleep--Granny was so upset,” she began, incoherently, “I simply had to send for you.” “Is Mrs. Macallister ill?” he demanded. “Oh, no. I gave her a dreadful fright, that was all. She found me in my room last night in a dead faint.” “Great Heavens!” bending toward her much alarmed. “My dearest--what--” “I am all right now; my fainting was caused by a shock. I made a terrible discovery. But before I tell you about it, you must give me your solemn word of honor not to repeat what it was.” Dick gave her the desired promise; then he listened with growing amazement to her account of finding the broken hat-pin in the box Beatrice had entrusted to her care. He drew a long breath when she finished. “Rosamond’s Bower can’t be mentioned in the same breath with this Trevor maze,” he said. “This discovery of yours, Peggy, certainly complicates matters more than ever.” She looked at him with troubled eyes, and her lips quivered as she answered: “Indeed, Dick, I cannot think Beatrice knew anything of this fearful murder, or that she is implicated in any way in it.” “Of course not, Peggy,” returned Dick, soothingly, but there was doubt, black doubt, in his heart. He remembered the quarrel Wilkins overheard. “Don’t you think the simpler way to find out would be to go and ask her!” “Oh, I couldn’t,” wailed Peggy, wringing her hands. “And I would not hurt her now when she is in such trouble, by letting her think I have doubted her, and had betrayed her trust. She would be sure to jump to that conclusion. Dick,” with sudden energy, “you have just got to clear her. Think of the suffering of a proud, delicately reared, and lovable girl being under the stigma of murder. It would kill her.” “I’ll do my very best, Peggy,” declared Dick, stoutly. “I do not need your urging. Remember all that is at stake for me.” A bright blush dyed Peggy’s pale cheeks, and she hastened to change the subject. “Have you seen Mr. Gordon?” “No,” vexedly. “Gordon still declines to see anyone, and his lawyers are equally reticent. He even refused to allow them to apply for bail.” “I thought a man arrested on a charge of murder was never permitted to be bailed out?” “Oh, it has been done in the District on several occasions. I am told Gordon takes the situation very calmly.” “My heart aches for him. It is like him to face his troubles so bravely. What has the Navy Department done about him, Dick?” “Done? Oh, nothing. They cannot take any steps in the affair until after the Civil Court decides whether he is innocent or guilty. Now, Peggy,” he went on, glancing at her sorrowful face, “I don’t want you to make yourself ill worrying, so I am going to tell you in strict confidence that the Attorney General is convinced that Mrs. Trevor was a victim of the Camorra. But mind you,” as her face brightened with relief, “he has no direct evidence, only surmise and a threat to go upon, so far. But he is sending for the head of Pinkerton’s Agency to investigate these clews. If necessary he will communicate direct with the Italian Government.” “That is splendid!” exclaimed Peggy, her eyes shining with relief. “But then,” again perplexed, “why should Beatrice secrete the top of her hat-pin?” “It is bewildering,” acknowledged Dick. “Perhaps she accidentally found the broken pin and did not dare confess that she had it, thinking it might involve her in further difficulties with the police.” “Of course that is it,” agreed Peggy. “Under the same circumstances I might have done the same myself. I am so glad I consulted you, Dick. You have taken a weight off my mind. Can’t you stay and have tea with me?” “I am sorry that I cannot. I must hurry off. At present I am covering the Russian Grand Duke’s visit here for an out-of-town paper, and am to have an interview with his Chief-of-Staff at five o’clock. If anything else turns up let me know, and above all--” his tone was very tender--“take care of your precious self.” Her reply was interrupted by Hurley’s quiet entrance. “Count de Morny, Miss Margaret,” he announced, holding back the portière, as the Frenchman appeared in the doorway. “Ah, Mademoiselle,” he exclaimed, advancing with outstretched hand, “it is ze great plaiser to find zat you are in.” Peggy was instantly conscious of the restrained antagonism between the two men as they greeted each other. “Monsieur Tillinghast and I, like ze great minds, sink alike,” smiled de Morny. “We each decide to come here. We shall wear out ze chairs.” “To-day it is just how-de-do and good-by, Count,” said Dick, briefly. “Unfortunately I must hurry away. Good-by again, Peggy.” De Morny’s eyes sparkled with anger as he watched their cordial leave taking. As Dick disappeared he drew his chair closer to Peggy and proceeded to improve his opportunity. “You look fatigue, Mademoiselle,” glancing keenly at her. “I have been doing too much,” confessed Peggy. “Fortunately Lent will be here soon, and I can then take a much-needed rest.” “It ees hard to go every night and in ze day time, too, yes,” sympathized de Morny. “I nevaire haf known so fas a season. But I like eet. I feel as keen as a mink.” “As a what?” questioned Peggy, puzzled. “As a mink,” complaisantly. “I am ver happy to-day, Mademoiselle; for Madame, your _grande mère_, has given me permission to tell you how much I lof you.” Peggy’s heart beat fast, and she crumpled her handkerchief into a little ball. De Morny stopped to glare at Hurley, as that solemn individual came in with the tea tray. “Will you not gif me some hope,” he pleaded, as soon as Hurley went out of the room. “_Mon cœur_, I adore you; I cannot lif without you.” The excited Frenchman bent forward, caught Peggy’s little hand, and impulsively kissed it before she could snatch it away. “Monsieur, monsieur, you go too fast,” she remonstrated. “You forget that at the Charity Ball I said I would listen to you and,” hesitating, “my other friends, only on one condition.” “And that condition, Mademoiselle?” “Is that you find the murderer of Mrs. Trevor.” The pupils of de Morny’s eyes contracted suddenly. An involuntary shiver ran down Peggy’s spine as they met hers. “And zen--what, Mademoiselle?” he asked, slowly. “Come and have a cup of tea.” Peggy held the tongs poised over the sugar bowl. “One lump, or two, Count? Oh, Granny,” as Mrs. Macallister walked in, “you are just in time to have some hot toast and tea.” CHAPTER XVII ACROSS THE POTOMAC AFTER getting his special story on the wires, Dick had only time for a hasty meal at a down-town restaurant. Then he hurried over to the _Star_ office, and was soon at work in the city room. About half past nine his chief sent for him. “This is the busiest Saturday night we’ve had in years,” grumbled Colonel Byrd. “You know Dr. Gibson, superintendent of St. Elizabeth’s, don’t you?” Dick nodded assent. “Well, go over there as quick as you can and see if you can get him to talk. Word has just come in that two of the criminally insane have escaped and are still at large terrorizing the neighborhood. Get all the details, for it is local news and we will feature it.” St. Elizabeth’s, The U. S. Government Hospital for the Insane, is on Nichols Avenue beyond Anacostia. Anacostia, one of the most beautifully situated suburbs of Washington, is on the Eastern Branch of the Potomac, and directly across from the Navy Yard. The scenery in that vicinity is very fine, and from the extensive grounds about the Insane Asylum there is a wonderful view of the winding Potomac, with Washington and its environs in the distance. At no time an accessible place even in summer, on that stormy night it was a fearful journey to the Government Reservation; and Dick prepared for his trip with no great alacrity. Some hours later he stopped, footsore and weary, at the intersection of Sheridan Road and Nichols Avenue and sought shelter from the storm on a porch of a vacant house. He had not only interviewed Dr. Gibson, but, joining one of the searching parties, had been present at the capture of the two escaped lunatics. The pursuit and capture would make a readable story, so, well satisfied with his night’s work, he waited patiently to catch the last car to Washington, which left at eight minutes past one o’clock. It lacked fifteen minutes of that time, so, pulling his coat collar up about his ears, he made himself as comfortable as circumstances permitted. While waiting, his eyes, grown accustomed to the darkness, discerned a solitary figure coming toward him from Anacostia. When opposite Dick the newcomer paused and, screening himself from the storm behind one of the porch pillars, struck a match. Holding it in the hollow of his two hands, he lighted his pipe. As the tiny flame flared up his face was visible. Dick, too amazed to speak, drew back deeper in the shadow of the friendly porch. With growing curiosity, he watched the slender figure glide rapidly up Nichols Avenue. What was Alfred Clark doing in that neighborhood after midnight? Dick hesitated. It was obviously his duty to return to the _Star_ with his story, but a certain furtiveness in Clark’s movements caused all doubt to vanish. Throwing his duty to the winds, he pulled his soft hat low on his head, scrambled down the steps, and turned up Nichols Avenue. Dick picked his way carefully along the frozen and slippery sidewalk, keeping Clark in view, but not getting close enough to let him suspect that he was being shadowed. On and on they went, past the entrance and the extensive grounds of St. Elizabeth’s, past the few straggling houses marking the outskirts of the little village, and into the more desolate country beyond. After about twenty minutes’ walking, Clark turned into a lane on his right, and going some distance in the direction of the Potomac River, he suddenly leaped a fence and struck off across country. It was not very easy to follow him in the more open fields, and Dick, fearful of being discovered, dropped far behind. On reaching the top of a slight rise in ground he was dismayed to find that Clark had disappeared. He glanced about him in every direction, but save for himself the field was deserted. Cursing himself for going on so wild a goose chase, he started forward in the direction he judged Clark might have gone. But his hopes fell when, after trudging along for ten minutes, he found no trace of his quarry. Thoroughly discouraged, he rested for a moment against a rail fence before retracing his way to Anacostia. As his eyes traveled over the low, rolling country, he noticed three trees forming a triangle standing in a field a quarter of a mile away. His heart gave a bound; at last he knew where he was. He could not be mistaken. He hurried over to the trees; yes, he was right, they were the tall poplars which he himself had named “The Three Sisters.” He was on land belonging to Allan Dorsey. While he had accompanied Allan there in the summer, he had never been there in winter or at night. Allan Dorsey, whose paintings were known the world over, had purchased the deserted farm because of the magnificent views which stirred his artist soul. He would work for days at a time in solitude, and only Dick was privileged to come and see him on rare occasions. “Lord! I wish Allan were there instead of in Paris,” thought Dick. “He’d give me a high ball for the inner man, and a dry suit for the outer one.” He shivered in his damp clothes. “May the foul fiend seize that Clark! I wonder where in thunder he went to.” As if in answer to his unspoken question, an idea flashed into his head. The studio! By Jove! that was it; and yet, what in the name of Heaven was Clark doing in so deserted and forsaken a place? There was but one way to find out and suiting the action to his thought, Dick walked in the direction of the old barn which had been converted into a roomy and up-to-date studio. It stood some distance from the “Three Sisters,” hidden from view by a grove of trees. Dick cautiously approached the building. There was no sign of life or human habitation. The heavy, old-fashioned wooden shutters were tightly closed, but as Dick bent and placed his ear against the wide door, he distinctly heard the sound of several voices. Certain now that he was on the right track, and his curiosity at fever heat, he paused to think over the situation. The rain and sleet had stopped some time before, and the wind was dying down. Suddenly he thought of the skylight Allan had built into the roof of the barn to obtain a better light. If he could climb up there he could see all that was going on inside the studio. To think was to act with Dick; his blood was up and he was determined to see the adventure through, whatever the consequences. Taking off his coat and shoes and hiding them behind a large bowlder, he proceeded to climb a tree whose limbs stretched out close to the roof of the barn. He hated to trust his weight to the slender limb, but there was no other way to accomplish his object. So, putting his trust in Providence, he crept along until just parallel with the chimney, then dropped lightly as a cat to the shingled roof. Very gingerly and softly he crawled forward on hands and knees to the skylight. Gently he ran his hand over the portion of the glass frame nearest him. Joy of joys; one of the panes of glass was out, and his hand passed through the opening and touched the large Holland shade which was drawn over the inside of the skylight. Light was visible around the edges of the shade; that was all he could discover. He pulled out his penknife and gently cut an opening in the green shade, and applied his eye to the hole. Seated directly beneath him around a table were four masked men. Their voices carried distinctly in the closed room to where he crouched above them. To his great surprise they spoke in Italian, a language with which he was fairly familiar, having studied it with a view to going into the Consular Service. The smallest man of the four placed a square box in the center of the table. “Draw,” he said briefly. “The one who gets the marked card is accepted by the Brotherhood as its Avenger.” One by one four hands were slipped inside of the small opening in the end of the box and silently withdrawn, holding a card at which each glanced indifferently. Dick could not tell from their quiet movements which had drawn the fatal card. The leader rapped softly on the table before speaking. “Our plans are now perfected,” he said. “There can be no failure. In this country of the free we, children of the Camorra, can wreak its vengeance upon those who have thwarted our society. The Grand Duke Sergius has seen fit to hound certain of our members who have come within his power. The Brotherhood has decreed his death. The Grand Duke, the President, the great men of this country, and the Diplomatic Corps will be assembled five days from now to attend the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. No better opportunity could be found. The means, I leave to the fortunate holder of the marked card. Remember--the Place and the Hour.” Dick could hardly believe his ears. The Camorra! Surely he was in some mad dream. So bewildered was he that he missed a few sentences, but his wandering attention was attracted by the excited gestures of the masked man who sat facing the leader. “You ask for an explanation,” said the latter. “For that you must apply to Giovanni Savelli. The Trevor affair is in his hands. But are you not his direct agent?” The man’s answer was spoken in so low a tone that Dick, not catching what he said, bent far over the skylight, forgetful of the frailness of the structure. Glass and frame gave way beneath his weight, and, with a resounding crash, Dick fell forward into space. CHAPTER XVIII NIP AND TUCK BEFORE Dick, half stunned by his fall, could get upon his feet, the four masked men threw themselves upon him, and, despite his struggles, bound him hand and foot. They cleared away the débris made by him in his unlucky fall, and placed him in the cleared space. “Do you speak Italian?” asked the leader in fairly good English, as the men, after reconnoitering outside, returned and grouped themselves about their prisoner. “No,” lied Dick, calmly. “That is not so,” spoke up one of the men next the leader. “He is a good linguist and speaks our language fluently.” Dick recognized the voice despite the mask. “Clark! You renegade!” he shouted with sudden fury. Clark made a hasty move in his direction, but the leader checked him. “What matter,” he said, indifferently. “It will not be long in his power to injure us by any information he may have picked up to-night.” The finality of his tone sent a cold shiver up and down Dick’s spine. Apparently his doom was sealed. Only a game of bluff might pull him out of his ghastly predicament. “Don’t be too certain of that,” he said, coolly. “Clark, there, can add to the information he has already given you of me by saying that I am a representative of the _Washington Star_, one of the most influential newspapers in the country. You know the power of the press in America.” His words made a visible impression on the three men. They glanced uneasily at each other. The leader spoke hastily and sternly. “It does not matter who is at your back. You are in our power and cannot escape the fate of a spy.” Dick’s heart sank, but he refused to give up. He was fighting for time. Something must intervene. “I was sent over to follow that man,” pointing to Clark. “Do you think my disappearance will not be noticed if I don’t turn up safe and sound? Well, you are wrong. By noon to-morrow you will all be in custody; your precious plans for murdering the Grand Duke will then be nipped in the bud. Thus, instead of carrying out the orders of the Camorra you will be preparing to swing for my death.” “Your arguments are all very fine, my friend,” returned the leader composedly, “provided everything happens as you say. But no one will know of your disappearance. It is an easy matter to secure a specimen of your handwriting, forge a letter from New York to your employers saying you were called there suddenly. One of the Brotherhood will impersonate you on a voyage to Europe. We never fail in our plans. Months will elapse before your disappearance will be noticed. You will never be traced.” “Sounds well,” commented Dick. “You forget I have a very substantial body which is apt to betray your best laid schemes.” “It will not be found.” “Pooh! Murder will out!” “Not in this instance.” The leader rose and stepped over into a corner and picked up a satchel, which he opened. He took out a hypodermic syringe and a small black leather box such as surgeons carry. “We have plenty of disguises with us,” he continued. “You will be dressed in one of them. Your body will be found, but it will never be recognized as yours. In this little vial,” taking it out of the leather case, “there is a deadly poison. Under its influence your body becomes bloated and your features unrecognizable. It will be necessary to bury you at once, as decomposition follows fast. Therefore, no lengthy examination can be made.” A terrible fear was upon Dick, brave fellow that he was. He could have faced death by dagger or revolver without flinching, but this creeping horror shook his nerve. Despairingly he glanced about the room; there was no help there. His eyes traveled back to the leader, and, fascinated, he watched him fit on the hypodermic needle and fill the syringe. His back and forehead were bathed in a cold perspiration, and his throat was parched and dry. He thought of Peggy, his dear, dear love, and involuntarily a groan escaped him. “Tut!” said the Italian. “Just a pin prick. A few twists of your limbs and all will be over.” At his signal two of the men tore off Dick’s left cuff and bared his arm. As the hand holding the needle hovered above Dick’s wrist, a shot rang out, and the leader crumpled up and fell forward over him, the syringe flying across the room. “Throw up your hands!” commanded a stern voice from the broken skylight. The amazed men looked up into the barrels of four revolvers, while Dick fainted away. A few minutes later Dick recovered consciousness. Dazed and bewildered he looked at the tall man bending over him, and put out his hand to push the brandy flask away. “De Smirnoff!” he gasped. “How in h--l did you get here?” “Gently, gently, my friend; drink this cognac,” and, as Dick complied with his request, he added, “I am a member of the Russian Secret Police. It is my special duty to guard the person of his Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Sergius.” CHAPTER XIX THE CONFERENCE “HOW my head aches,” groaned Dick, “and every part of my body.” He touched himself tenderly as he changed his position on the lounge. “It is not surprising,” said Long, dryly, “after the experience you went through last night, or rather early this morning. How I wish I had been with you, instead of sitting up and chatting small talk with a stuffy dowager. Just my beastly luck!” “You are a nice one to begrudge me such an adventure, after all the fighting you have seen,” retorted Dick. “I wish you had been with me, though. Just thinking of that fearful needle hovering over me sends my heart into my mouth.” He shuddered. “I never was so glad to see anyone in my life as de Smirnoff.” “It was a close shave. Have you had a chance to ask the Russian how he came to be there?” “No. I was in pretty bad shape, so de Smirnoff sent me back to town with one of his assistants. We came directly here. It was good of you to square me with my chief, Chester,” looking gratefully at Long. “How did you do it?” “After hearing your story I went to see Colonel Byrd and told him you had stumbled into an affair of state over in Anacostia which couldn’t be divulged at present. The old boy was very decent, took my word for it, and said you were not to return to work until fit to be up and doing. Then I returned here, and Mrs. Brisbane gave me a capital midday dinner. She told me you did full justice to the share she sent up to you.” “Bless her heart! She is the salt of the earth. As poor as she is, she is always doing something for her fellow man. Only last week she sent five dollars to an indigent Southern friend, who is frightfully hard up, thinking she would buy some much-needed underclothing. She received a note yesterday from the Southerner saying that she and her daughter were so obliged for her kind assistance. It had enabled them to buy a canvasback duck, which they had wanted for a long time!” “De Smirnoff said he would drop in this afternoon,” continued Dick. “He ought to be here at any moment now,” glancing at his watch. “I asked Mrs. Brisbane to have him shown right up.” “Then I’ll be going.” Long started to rise. “No, no, Chester; sit down. I particularly want you to know each other.” A quick rap interrupted him, and Long hastened to open the door. “Here is Count de Smirnoff,” said Mrs. Brisbane’s cheery voice from the hall. As the Russian, with innate courtesy stood aside to allow her to enter first, Dick rose and went into the hall. “How are you, Count?” he said, cordially, and their hands met in a strong, firm clasp. “Thanks so much, Mrs. Brisbane, for taking all this trouble. Won’t you both come in?” But Mrs. Brisbane shook her head and disappeared down the corridor. Dick ushered the Russian into his room and closed the door. “Count de Smirnoff--my friend, General Long,” he said, quickly. “General Long is well known to me by reputation,” exclaimed de Smirnoff. “It is a great pleasure to meet so distinguished an American.” “I am glad of this opportunity of thanking you for what you did for my friend, Tillinghast, last night, Count,” answered Long, shaking hands warmly; while Dick busied himself putting cigars and cigarettes on the table alongside a syphon of vichy and its accompanying bottle of Scotch. “I am a poor hand at expressing my feelings, Count,” said the latter, gravely. “I owe you a debt I can never repay.” “If I have won your friendship, I am repaid,” replied de Smirnoff, looking with admiration at Dick’s fine, determined face. The Slav and the Anglo-Saxon have one trait in common--neither is demonstrative. Long, seeing that both men were much embarrassed, broke the awkward pause. “Suppose, Count, you tell us how you came to arrive at the studio at so opportune a moment for Dick.” “May I speak of confidential matters?” asked the Russian, glancing hastily about the room. “Yes, indeed; there is no danger of our being overheard.” “Some months ago our Secret Service Bureau, which is probably the finest in the world, received information that the Camorra were plotting against the Grand Duke’s life,” began de Smirnoff. “I thought it was usually the Nihilists who do that,” interposed Long. “The hands of the Nihilists, anarchists, the Mafia, and the Camorra are all raised against law and order, General; call them what you will. At present the Camorra desire to punish the Grand Duke because he was instrumental in having certain information against their leaders given to the Italian Government. “Russia wishes to honor the memory of that great American, Lincoln, whose friend she was; therefore, it was decided that the Grand Duke should come to this country to attend the ceremonies of the dedication of his Memorial. The moment they heard this the Camorra leaders laid their plans to assassinate his Imperial Highness. I was put on the case, and my researches brought me here. “When I reached Washington I communicated with the Chief of your Secret Service, and he immediately coöperated with me to safeguard the Grand Duke. My agents brought me word that several Italians, disguised as fruit venders, were spending much time in Anacostia with a certain Tamaso Velati. I had my agent point out the latter to me. Despite his disguise I recognized him as a man long suspected of having secret dealing with that society. My suspicions were aroused, and I placed a watch upon his movements. “Last night, accompanied by four of your Secret Service men, I crossed over to Anacostia. We went to a tavern near the water-front and waited for my spy to join me there. He was very late in keeping his appointment; I was on the point of starting out after Tamaso without waiting for him, when he appeared. He told me that he had traced Tamaso to a deserted building some miles away, and had waited about until he saw several men join the Italian. Thinking some deviltry was to pay, he hastened back to warn me. He is familiar with the country about Anacostia, and so took us by a short cut direct to the studio. The Italians were so absorbed in dealing with you, Monsieur Tillinghast, they never heard our cautious approach. I saw the light shining above the broken skylight, climbed on the roof by aid of the tree, and reached the opening just in time to shoot Tamaso as he bent above you.” Dick drew a long breath. The agonizing scene was too fresh in his mind to be pleasant. “Take a drink,” he said, by way of relieving his feelings, and he pushed the paraphernalia towards the Russian. De Smirnoff helped himself liberally, and the others followed his example. “What have you done with the prisoners?” questioned Long. “Tamaso is to be buried to-morrow. I surrendered the two Italians to your Chief of the Secret Service.” “That accounts for three men; what became of the fourth?” asked Dick. De Smirnoff colored with vexation. “He escaped,” he said, bitterly. Dick swore softly. “It was this way,” hastily explained the Russian: “As two of my men forced open the studio door one of the masked men, who stood near a window, threw up its sash. The detective covering him fired, but missed, and before he could take aim again the prisoner had pushed open the shutter, vaulted through the window and was gone. Luck was with him; every one of our shots went astray, and though I sent men in pursuit, he made good his escape. The other two men, cowed by the death of their leader, gave us no trouble.” “Were they Italians?” inquired Dick. “Yes. Why do you ask?” Dick pondered a moment. Should he take de Smirnoff into his confidence? He looked earnestly at the Russian’s face; the broad brow and clever, handsome eyes, the slightly aquiline nose, and the firm, thin-lipped mouth--he looked what he was: a keen, brilliant officer of the Secret Service, brave to a fault, secretive perhaps, but withal a gentleman. Quickly Dick made up his mind to trust him. “Because the fourth masked man was an American,” he answered, slowly. Long, as well as de Smirnoff, glanced at him in surprise. “It was Alfred Clark.” “Well, by gad!” muttered Long, completely taken aback. De Smirnoff looked inquiringly at Dick. “I went to Anacostia to cover an assignment for my paper,” the latter hastened to explain. “While I was waiting for a Washington car, Clark passed me. I never trusted the fellow, and seeing him there on such a night and at that hour made me suspect that he was up to no good. So I followed him, with what results you already know.” “Did you overhear much of their talk?” “Enough to know that the men were plotting to assassinate the Grand Duke at the dedication of the Lincoln Memorial. Then they spoke of the Trevor murder.” “What did they say about it?” asked Long, as Dick stopped to strike a match. “If I remember correctly, Clark asked some question which I did not catch, and Tamaso replied: ‘The Trevor affair is in the hands of Giovanni Savelli. But are you not his direct agent?’ In trying to hear Clark’s reply I leaned too far forward and fell through the skylight. “Now,” went on Dick earnestly, “this fits in with a Black Hand threat the Attorney General received on Friday afternoon. He is convinced the Camorra is responsible for his wife’s murder, chiefly because he knows she lived in fear of this Giovanni Savelli. He doesn’t know why she feared him. The Black Hand letter spoke of the Fabriani Merger, but that looks to me like a blind to throw him off the trail. Can you tell me, Count, the best way to get track of this Savelli?” De Smirnoff leaned thoughtfully back in his chair and considered the question. “It seems to me,” he said finally, “that the person you need to put your hands on is Monsieur Clark. You heard Tamaso say that he was Savelli’s direct agent in the affair.” Dick sat up as straight as his sore body would permit, and swore fluently. “Of course, you are right. What a blundering fool I have been.” “You were in no condition to reason out clews last night, Monsieur,” smiled de Smirnoff, consolingly. “I am sure your theory is right,” argued Long. “Clark must be the guilty man. He knew the combination of the safe, and he also knew when certain inmates of the house would be absent.” “It looks plausible,” agreed Dick. “Clark may have joined the Camorra while in Naples. But he must have been very deeply involved to commit murder for this Savelli.” “Perhaps Monsieur Clark is using the Camorra to shield his own deed,” suggested de Smirnoff, slowly. “We, in the Secret Service keep in touch with every country in the world. I recollect now that this Alfred Clark, of whom you speak, was a resident in Naples for many years. He did not have a very savory reputation. Madame Trevor, or as she was then, Hélène de Beaupré, spent several winters in that city. Monsieur Clark, before he lost his money, was her devoted lover.” Long bent forward and helped himself to Scotch and vichy. “The plot thickens,” he said, laconically. De Smirnoff nodded his head. “I must take steps to have this Monsieur Clark apprehended,” he said. “According to Count de Morny, Madame Trevor,” he raised his glass and examined its contents critically, “Madame Trevor was not--a good woman.” CHAPTER XX CASTING OF NETS DICK was awakened out of a sound sleep the next morning by a loud banging on his door. “Come in,” he shouted, sleepily; then, realizing that the disturber of his peace could not crawl through the keyhole, he scrambled out of bed, unlocked the door and jerked it open. “I ax yo’ pardon, Marse Dick,” said Uncle Andy, bowing and scraping on the threshold, “but dis hyer note done come fo’ yo’, an’ de bearer am waitin’ fo’ an answer, sah.” As he spoke he handed Dick a sealed envelope and a small package. “Wait a minute, Uncle, and I’ll see what it’s about,” and Dick, going inside his room, plumped himself down on the edge of his bed and tore open the note. Not recognizing the bold, clear writing, he turned at once to read the signature on the last page. It was from Beatrice Trevor. With quickened interest, he read the few lines. _Dear Mr. Tillinghast_: My father tells me that you are doing your best to clear up the terrible mystery which surrounds our house. I am in great trouble. I must see you. I am going to dine alone with Mrs. Macallister to-night. Will you come there at eight o’clock? I have told Wilkins to wait for your answer. Sincerely yours, BEATRICE TREVOR. P. S. Wilkins tells me the accompanying package belongs to you. “Thank the Lord!” ejaculated Dick, aloud. “Your note’s a direct answer to my unspoken wish. You want to see me, Miss Beatrice, but I bet not half so badly as I want to see you. But what does your postscript mean?” Taking up the small package he looked doubtfully at it. “Best way to find out is to open it,” he muttered, tearing off the string and wrapping paper. It proved to be a small pasteboard box, and on lifting the cover he saw his broken cuff link lying inside on some cotton. It was unmistakable. The round gold button with his interwoven initials “R. T.” stared him in the face. With a startled cry, he sprang up and pulled out his white waistcoat from the half-opened bureau drawer. Quickly his fingers fumbled in the little pocket--yes, there it was, just where he had put it four nights before. In growing excitement, he jerked out his fingers and disclosed not his broken cuff button, but a round coin attached to a broken, golden link! With open mouth, and eyes fairly popping from his head, Dick contemplated the two links, while his bewildered mind gradually pieced together the scene in the hall. It was not surprising he had made such a mistake, the two were identical in size; and in the semi-darkness of the large hall and his hurry he had never glanced at the recovered cuff button, but had taken it for granted it was the piece of jewelry he had dropped. As busy as he was, he had not troubled to get his broken set mended. He had used a second pair the next morning; and this was, therefore the first time he had thought of the broken set since thrusting the button into his waistcoat pocket. Taking up the coin, he examined it closely. It was apparently very old; the edges were worn thin and the hieroglyphics on the two sides were so defaced he could make nothing of them. It was attached by a swivel to the heavy red-gold link. The link itself was worn at the rough ends, but still it must have been a powerful wrench which had caused it to break off. To Dick it looked like a link torn from a watch chain; and an unusual one at that, for the outer side was delicately etched in some intricate design. Pshaw! What was the use of puzzling his brains, Wilkins could tell him all about it; and with the thought Dick walked over to the closed door, and, opening it, looked into the corridor. But Uncle Andy, tired of waiting, had gone about his work. There was nothing for it but to go to the back stairs and “fetch a yell” for the old darky, as the ancient house boasted of no bell except the one to the front door. Mrs. Brisbane answered Dick’s stentorian shout from the kitchen, where she had gone to superintend the cooking of the Maryland beaten biscuits for the morning meal. “What is it, Dick?” she called. “Oh, good morning, Mrs. Brisbane. Will you please ask Uncle Andy to show the messenger up to my room. Thanks, ever so much.” And Dick retreated hastily, conscious of his pajamas as a female boarder thrust her head out of the door to find out what the noise was about. He was busy writing at his desk when Wilkins’ discreet tap sounded on his door, and at his bidding the butler entered and closed the door behind him. “Good morning, Wilkins; sorry to keep you waiting, but I was delayed.” “Morning, sir. That’s all right, sir. Miss Beatrice wanted me to be sure and see you received her note, and told me to come over here before you left for your office. I was to be particular and get an answer.” “I am writing it now. I’m much obliged to you for returning my cuff link. By the way, where did you find it?” “I didn’t find it, sir. The second man took up the large rug near the fireplace to shake it in the yard yesterday morning and saw the bit of jewelry lying under one corner. He brought it to me, and as I knew you had broken your cuff button, sir, I was pretty sure it was yours.” “Quite right, Wilkins, and here’s a small token of my thanks,” handing the butler some change. And as the man thanked him profusely, Dick held up the coin, and asked: “Who does this belong to?” Wilkins stared at it in astonishment. “I don’t know, sir.” “Oh, come, Wilkins, I picked it up in the hall under the armor the other night, thinking it was my cuff link. Surely, you know who owns it?” Wilkins turned it over curiously in his hand; then shook his head. “I have never seen it before, sir,” he said, positively. Dick sat for a few moments thoughtfully nibbling his pen. He recollected that the Attorney General’s watch chain was a plain gold affair, very different from the link in his hand. “Did Mrs. Trevor, or perhaps Miss Beatrice, have a chain like it?” he asked. “Women wear such peculiar gewgaws nowadays.” But Wilkins stuck to his guns. “No, sir, they didn’t. It’s an uncommon thing, and I’m sure I’d ’a’ remembered it if I had ever seen either of them wear such a thing,” he stubbornly declared. “Some guest must have dropped it, though I dunno how it stayed so long unnoticed.” Dick looked at Wilkins queerly. A sudden thought had entered his active brain ... by Heaven!... Suppose.... “Has the front hall been swept since the murder of Mrs. Trevor?” he asked. Wilkins looked bewildered. “We don’t sweep it, sir,” he answered. “It is a hard wood floor, sir. The different rugs in the hall are shaken and gone over by a vacuum cleaner every day. We oiled the entire floor, sir, the morning after the supper for Madame Bernhardt. If the gold link had been there _then_, sir, we would have found it.” “The morning after? Why, that was the third--Mrs. Trevor was murdered that same night?” “Yes, sir,” stolidly. “Does Mr. Clark, the secretary, own such a chain?” “No, sir; he always wears a fob.” “At what hour did Mr. Clark leave the house the day Mrs. Trevor was killed?” “Why, I suppose about the usual time, sir, five o’clock.” Wilkins hesitated. “I really don’t know the exact time because I didn’t see him go, sir.” “Well, ask the other servants if they know, and then send me word. But don’t rouse comment by too many questions, Wilkins. I’ll make it worth your while if you get that information on the quiet.” Wilkins hesitated a perceptible moment. “It wouldn’t be much use asking them, sir. Mr. Clark can run in and out of the house at any time,” he volunteered, finally. “He has a front door key. Mrs. Trevor said she couldn’t have the front bell rung so often, and asked the Attorney General to give him an extra key.” Dick looked thoughtfully at Wilkins, but the butler’s expressionless face told him nothing. “Was Mr. Clark with the Attorney General yesterday?” “No, sir; I don’t think he has been to the house since Friday afternoon. I heard Mr. Trevor tell Miss Beatrice he had been called away on business.” He paused, and looked suggestively at the clock. Dick signed his note and hastily sealed the envelope. And he was on the point of handing it to the butler when Secretary Bowers’ advice about the missing memorandum book occurred to him. “Can you tell me, Wilkins, how Mrs. Trevor and Miss Beatrice spent the afternoon of the third?” “Yes, sir. Mrs. Trevor was at home receiving callers, for Wednesday is Cabinet Day, you know, sir. Mrs. Trevor never served refreshments except at private teas, so I spent the afternoon in the hall with the footman helping her guests with their coats and wraps. Miss Beatrice went out directly after luncheon and didn’t return until about five o’clock, sir.” “Did she join her stepmother?” “Not at once, sir; she first went into the private office and took off her wraps. After that she went into the drawing-room.” “Was anyone else in the office at that time?” “No, sir.” “How long did she stay there?” “About fifteen minutes, sir. Mrs. Trevor sent me to ask her to come into the drawing-room as Mrs. Macallister wished to see her.” “What was Miss Beatrice doing when you entered the office?” “Sitting at her father’s desk, sir, and writing.” “Had--had she a memorandum book in her hand?” asked Dick hesitatingly. So much depended on the answer. “I didn’t see any such book, sir,” answered Wilkins, surprised. “After I gave her Mrs. Trevor’s message, Miss Beatrice picked up her hat and fur coat and went immediately out of the room.” “What did she do with the papers on which she was writing?” “She stuffed them inside the pocket of her fur coat, sir.” “Could you see what she had been writing?” “No, sir; I couldn’t.” “Well, I won’t detain you any longer, Wilkins. Here’s the note for Miss Beatrice. By the way, were Mrs. Trevor and Mr. Clark good friends?” “Not always, sir.” Then, seeing Dick’s surprise, Wilkins hastened to add: “Mrs. Trevor had a very quick temper. Many’s the time I’ve nearly given notice on account of her hasty way of finding fault. She and Mr. Clark were very thick, that is,” stumbling in his speech, “good friends like. Mr. Clark had eyes for nobody but Miss Beatrice, and he and Mrs. Trevor often had words over her. They had several nasty quarrels last month, sir. Is--is that all, sir?” “Yes. I’m very much obliged to you, Wilkins,” replied Dick, heartily. “Good day.” “Good day, sir,” answered Wilkins. He stopped for a moment on the other side of the door to scratch his head in perplexity. “He’s a rum cove, wonder what he’s up to.” Dick wondered very much himself. It was a case of the blind leading the blind. If Clark was guilty, and certainly suspicion pointed his way, why should Beatrice hide the hat-pin? Above all, who had dropped the broken gold link in the Trevors’ front hall? More and more puzzled by the facts which he had elicited from the communicative Wilkins, he dressed with what speed he could, and, not waiting for breakfast, ran across to the corner drug store and rang up a taxi-cab. While waiting he telephoned to Peggy and then to Mrs. Curtis. Both of them told him they had never owned a chain of any description with such a coin attached to it. The taxi-cab was not long in coming, and he was whirled away to the Treasury Department as rapidly as the speed laws of the District allowed. On his arrival there he went direct to the Secret Service Division, and on mentioning his name and errand he was at once taken to Chief Connor. “I won’t take up a moment of your time, Chief,” explained Dick, as the two men sat down. “Count de Smirnoff told me of your share in the capture of the three Italians on Saturday,” said the famous Secret Service man. “What can I do for you?” “Did the Count tell you the identity of the fourth man?” “Yes. Apparently Clark realized the game was up, for on inquiry at the Buckingham we learned that he hasn’t been to his room since Saturday afternoon. I have sent a description of him to every Secret Service man in the country, and have also had the trans-Atlantic steamship lines watched. We shall catch him, never fear, but I am afraid he will get off afterwards. Conspiracy is a mighty hard thing to prove.” “I am convinced you can hold Clark for another crime,” said Dick slowly. Chief Connor looked at him in surprise. “As for instance?” he asked. “Mrs. Trevor’s murder.” “Indeed!” The Chief sat back and pulled his mustache thoughtfully. “And your grounds for such a charge?” “Clark is the one person beside the Attorney General who can open the safe. Mrs. Trevor’s body, you may remember, was found locked inside it. The burglar, Nelson, declares on oath that she was there when he opened the safe. According to the butler, who has lived with the Trevors for over twenty years, Clark and Mrs. Trevor quarreled often. He had a key to the Trevors’ front door, so that he could enter without anyone in the house being the wiser. And,” added Dick, “he knew where every member of the household would be on that night. Then the Camorra had evidently decreed her death; Clark was said to be their direct agent in the affair.” “And his motive for killing Mrs. Trevor?” “Count de Smirnoff informed me Clark was an old lover of hers in Naples. I know that he has been paying great attention to Miss Trevor. Possibly he did not take the precaution of being off with the old love before being on with the new.” Chief Connor followed Dick’s arguments closely. “Circumstantial evidence does point toward him,” he admitted. “There is no doubt that Clark is a pretty thorough-going rascal. Have you tried to find out where he was on the night of the third?” “Not yet. I came to find out if Clark had been arrested, to tell you of my suspicions, and to ask your advice in the matter.” “My men are busy now tracing Clark’s career. If they discover any facts which point to the murder I will send for you. In the meantime, haven’t you a mutual friend who would know something of Clark’s life here?” Dick’s face brightened. “Of course, there’s Charlie Archibald; he knows Clark pretty well. Charlie works in the Department of Justice. I’ll go right over there.” He rose as he spoke. “Let me know the result,” said Chief Connor. “All right, sir. Many thanks for your suggestion. Good-by.” And he hastened out of the building. “The chase is getting warm,” thought Dick, as the taxi turned and started up Fifteenth Street. “If only--only Peggy meant what she said. Well, here’s for another try,” and he opened the door just as the car drew up in front of the Department of Justice. Dick hastily threaded his way through the busy rooms searching for his friend. “Hello, Charlie, you’re a sight for sair een,” he hailed. “Where have you been keeping yourself?” “Oh, boning for an exam,” said Archibald, his tired face lighting up with a smile. “You look as if the world were treating you pretty well, Dick?” “Nothing to boast of. Say, Charlie,” drawing him to one side and speaking in a low tone, “can you tell me anything about Alfred Clark?” “Tell you anything about him?” echoed Archibald, surprised. “Well, no, not much; he’s a quiet sort of chap, keeps himself pretty much to himself, not a good mixer with the boys. I’ve seen more of him than the others because he’s lending me a hand in my studies for the District Bar examination.” “Perhaps you can tell me where he was on the night of the third?” “The third,” repeated Archibald. “What the deuce was I doing that night? Wait a moment.” He took out a memorandum book and turned the leaves rapidly. “22nd January--1st of February--ah, here we are--‘study with Clark.’ Of course, I remember now. That night I went over to his rooms at the Buckingham, to go over some papers with him. He has often told me to go up to his room and wait if he wasn’t there; and so I sat waiting and waiting until after midnight, but he never showed up. Then I cleared out.” “Did he ever tell you what detained him?” “Nope, just said he forgot the engagement.” “Do you know where Clark generally spends his time when not working?” “He used to be with the Trevors all the time. He is quite a lady killer, you know.” Dick shivered involuntarily, while his unconscious friend went on. “He is society mad, but lately he’s not been like himself. It may be money troubles; he plays the races and has been a heavy loser. I know because I made him a small loan, and lately the money lenders have been pressing him for payments.” He looked curiously at Dick. “Why do you want to know all this? You and Clark never hit it off very well.” “I’ll explain some other time. Many thanks, old man. By-by,” and Dick turned and ran down the corridor after the Attorney General, who had just entered the building. “How are you, Tillinghast?” said he, cordially, as Dick brought up breathless before him. “Want to see me?” “Only to ask you one question.” As he spoke, he took the gold coin out of his pocket. “Have you ever seen this before, sir?” The Attorney General examined the coin with interest, then handed it back to Dick. “Never laid eyes on it before,” he said. “Why do you ask?” But Dick never waited to reply; he was off down the corridor as fast as his legs could take him. “District Building,” he called to the chauffeur as he jumped inside and slammed the door. Detective Hardy was reflecting on his week’s work with great satisfaction when Dick burst hurriedly into his office. “Time’s up, Hardy,” he said, coolly. “Come, divulge your news.” Hardy smiled indulgently. He could afford to tease Dick a little. “News in regard to what, sir?” “Who killed Mrs. Trevor?” “That’s rather a large order,” smiled the detective. “Well, I’ll amend the question. Who do you _think_ killed Mrs. Trevor?” Hardy’s eyes flashed with anger. He hated to be made fun of, especially by a young “Mr.-Know-It-All,” and he instantly determined to take the wind out of his sails. “It isn’t a case of ‘think,’ Mr. Tillinghast; I have absolute proof.” “Against whom?” “Miss Beatrice Trevor.” “Oh, nonsense!” exclaimed Dick, roughly. But his heart sank as he thought of the hat-pin and Beatrice’s endeavor to secrete it. Should he confide in Hardy? His conscience pricked him. Undoubtedly the detective should be told. But he had given his word to Peggy to shield her friend; let the consequences be what they might, he would keep it. “Nothing of the sort,” retorted Hardy. “We know they had a bitter quarrel; she threatened to strike her stepmother.” “Pooh! If we believe everything an angry woman says--” Dick shrugged his shoulders expressively. “Their bark is worse than their bite, Hardy.” “Maybe so, but not in this instance.” “Next?” questioned Dick, with a tantalizing smile. “Her maid--” began Hardy, then checked himself. “Look here, sir; this is absolutely private, it must not get into the papers until I say so.” “Sure; I’ll keep absolutely mum.” “I’ve made myself solid with Suzanne, Miss Trevor’s maid. Nothing like using a little tact in that direction, sir,” chuckled Hardy. “Anyway, she told me that a handsome, strong (mind you, _strong_) hat-pin that was given to Miss Beatrice by Miss Macallister is missing. Wait a moment,” as Dick opened his lips to speak. “Suzanne says Miss Beatrice wore it that afternoon, and when she came in went into the private office and took off her hat there, later, carrying it up to her room, but she didn’t have the hat-pin with her, because Suzanne asked her where it was when she put her coat and hat away. Miss Beatrice made no reply, and shortly after went downstairs to dinner. Suzanne never saw the hat-pin again. She remembers it distinctly because of the curious design of the gold about the cat’s-eye in the top.” “See here, Hardy, that’s not much to go on. You haven’t found the weapon remember, and therefore cannot prove it belonged to Miss Beatrice. Secondly, Mrs. Trevor was found locked in the safe, not on the floor.” “Quite true, sir. But you must recollect that Mrs. Trevor was a small, slender woman. I don’t believe she weighed over one hundred and twenty-five pounds.” “I know; but a relaxed body is a mighty heavy, unwieldy thing to lift.” “Miss Trevor is tall and strong,” said Hardy, dryly. “She is a fine tennis player, a good fencer, and is also a magnificent cross-country rider. It wouldn’t be much exertion for her to get Mrs. Trevor into the safe, which was a short distance away.” Dick shook his head. “I can’t agree with you, Hardy.” The detective leaned toward Dick and raised his hand impressively. “Listen to me, sir. Her initialed handkerchief with blood stains upon it was found in the safe near the body.” Dick stared with unbelieving eyes at the triumphant detective. “You are crazy,” he said, tersely. “In the first place, Doctor Davis said no blood was visible on Mrs. Trevor’s outer garments. Then all the witnesses, including yourself, testified at the inquest that nothing had been found either in the safe or in the room.” “I have just seen Doctor Davis,” explained Hardy, patiently. “He said that undoubtedly some blood must have spurted out on the murderer’s hand when the foul blow was struck. Secondly, we didn’t find the handkerchief. It was brought to me by a person who said his conscience would no longer permit him to keep the matter secret. He had held back the information to protect Miss Trevor; but now, convinced of her guilt, he could no longer shield her.” “And may I ask the name of this--this shrimp?” asked Dick, boiling with rage. “Certainly. Alfred Clark, the secretary!” CHAPTER XXI FORGING THE FETTERS DICK sat back in his chair and glowered at Hardy. “Do you know that your informant is at present a fugitive from justice?” he asked. “What!” cried the detective, springing to his feet in his surprise. “It’s a fact,” declared Dick. “The Secret Service men are after him. I expect to hear of his arrest at any moment.” Hardy sank back in his chair and mopped his red face. He had very much the appearance of a pricked gas balloon. “Would you mind putting me wise?” he asked, finally. “I’ve been so busy shadowing Miss Trevor, I am all in the dark about Clark. The Secret Service Bureau haven’t notified us yet. I suppose they want him for some Government business.” In a few terse sentences Dick told him of his interview with Chief Connor, and of the evidence he had collected against Clark. At the end Hardy swore with fluency and ease. “What a blank--blank--fool I’ve been to be taken in by that scoundrel,” he gasped. “Then this handkerchief business is only a plan to throw dust in my eyes.” “I think so,” agreed Dick. “Clark evidently wanted to turn suspicion against Miss Trevor, so manufactured this evidence. It was probably an easy matter for him to pick up one of Miss Trevor’s handkerchiefs; as a rule women shed them wherever they go. Then he pricked his arm, or made his nose bleed so as to get blood stains on it. Depend upon it, Hardy, he is your man.” “You are right, sir,” exclaimed Hardy, banging his fist on the table. “Now that you have shown me the way, I’ll bring the murder home to him, or bust. Here, Johnston,” to a plain clothes officer who had just entered the office, “get your hat and come on.” Dick left the two detectives at the main entrance of the District Building and rushed down to the _Star_. After a satisfactory interview with Colonel Byrd, he hastened to his desk where he found an accumulation of work waiting for him. But, as it happened, that particular work was never finished by him, for at that moment a District messenger boy handed him a note, the contents of which surprised him very much. It read: _Dear Dick_: Get over here as quick as you can. Must see you. Most important. Yours in haste, TOM BLAKE. Blake the phlegmatic--Blake the most easy-going and laziest of clubmen! Dick wondered what was to pay as he closed his desk and got his overcoat and hat. After a few words of explanation to Colonel Byrd, he left the office and hastened up to Stoneleigh Court. Blake’s apartment on the sixth floor faced on Connecticut Avenue, but from the side windows there was a magnificent view of the White House grounds and the Washington Monument, whose wonderful white shaft seemed to float aloft, detached from the solid earth, a part of the fleecy clouds themselves; while still farther to the south a glimpse of the Potomac River could be caught now and then as it twisted and turned along the Virginia and Maryland shores. Dick had plenty of time to admire the view before Tom made his appearance, dressed immaculately. “Sorry to keep you waiting, old man, but I had to shift after traveling all night, first getting some sleep; never closed my eyes all night in a beastly upper berth. Lunch ready, Lambert?” as his man came to the door. “All right, come along, Dick.” Dick sighed with satisfaction, as he helped himself to a juicy piece of beefsteak and some French fried potatoes. He was almost famished, and Tom was in like condition. For a short time conversation languished while they both attended to the wants of the inner man. “Where have you been, Tom?” Dick finally asked, helping himself to a hot muffin. “Philadelphia,” answered Tom, his speech somewhat impeded by a large mouthful which he, with difficulty, swallowed in a hurry. “I had to go over there to see about the strike in the Warren textile mills. I’m a big stockholder in the concern, so had to take an interest in the blooming business. Can’t say I was much help; couldn’t seem to understand the rights of the row. Far as I could make out, the workers wanted more wages.” “Most people do,” interrupted Dick, laughing. “I know, but the business doesn’t warrant a raise, hasn’t paid a dividend for months. The strikers claim they can’t even buy the necessities of life at the present scale of wages. The whole trouble is, no one knows nowadays what are necessities and what luxuries, and no one attempts to live without them both.” “Oh, I could exist without the necessities if someone supplied me with all the luxuries,” laughed Dick. “But seriously, Tom, why did you send me this urgent note?” Tom beckoned to Lambert. “Put the cigars and coffee on the table, and don’t wait.” He remained silent until his order had been swiftly obeyed, then continued, “While I was in Philadelphia, Dick, I saw your brother John.” “How’s the dear old chap?” inquired Dick, much pleased to get first-hand information, as he and his brother were poor correspondents. “Looking finely, but, of course, as busy as ever. Never saw such a man for work,” grumbled Tom. “He told me he was on the point of coming to Washington, when he read in the papers that I was at the Bellevue-Stratford. Therefore, he decided to consult me instead of you.” “What did he consult you about?” “The Trevor murder.” Dick straightened up in his chair. “What on earth induces him to take a particular interest in that?” “In the first place he knows you are investigating the murder, having read your signed despatches to the _Inquirer_. Secondly, he feels that he is holding back some information which may help to elucidate the mystery. He confided certain facts to me, first making me promise to tell no one but you.” “What did he tell you?” eagerly demanded Dick. “That Beatrice Trevor and Donald Gordon were married on the first of January.” His startling news had more effect on his friend than Tom expected. For a moment Dick felt physically ill, and the dishes on the table whirled up and down. “Here,” exclaimed Tom, startled by his white face. “Take some whisky, quick!” He poured out a liberal portion. “There, that will soon set you up.” “Are you sure there is no mistake?” asked Dick, imploringly. “Absolutely positive,” answered Tom, gravely. “Your brother and I both realize the scandal that must follow if the secret leaks out before Gordon is cleared of this monstrous charge. John gave me all the details known to him. The marriage was perfectly legal. He performed the ceremony, and Mrs. John Dundas and Arthur Vandergrift were the witnesses. The affair was kept absolutely quiet for personal reasons given by Mrs. Dundas. John wouldn’t, of course, tell me what they were, except to say that everything was open and above board.” “Did he tell you anything else?” “Only that the marriage took place at three o’clock in the afternoon. He gave me this copy of the marriage certificate for you.” He took the paper out of his notebook and handed it to Dick. The printed lines danced before the latter’s eyes as he studied them. “Whichever way I look at it, Gordon’s guilt seems certain,” he said, finally. But Tom shook his head in doubt. “I still don’t see where the motive comes in,” he argued. “Just because he married Beatrice in secret he didn’t have to kill her stepmother.” “It happens that Gordon was an old lover of Mrs. Trevor’s,” answered Dick, shortly. “General Long says he was madly infatuated with her, and there’s a rumor they were married in London before she met Trevor.” “Good Lord!” ejaculated Tom, in open-eyed amazement. “Do you mean that Gordon intentionally or unintentionally committed bigamy?” “I don’t know,” moodily. “Apparently the marriage was kept from the Trevors. But why? From a worldly point of view it was a most suitable match. Both are well-born, wealthy, and good looking. Why, then, elope?” “Blessed if I know.” Tom scratched his head hopelessly. “Mrs. Trevor, as proved by her letter, made an appointment with Gordon at a most unconventional hour. Perhaps she refused to keep silent about the past in that last interview, and in a boiling fury he snatched up the hat-pin.” “But then how did Beatrice get so entangled in the affair?” asked Dick. “Is she?” inquired Tom, puzzled by the new development. “Yes,” despondently. “I know positively that she had the top of the broken hat-pin in her possession after the murder. It was undoubtedly the weapon used to kill Mrs. Trevor. Also, Beatrice’s blood-stained handkerchief is said to have been found inside the safe by the body of her stepmother. Gordon is the last man to throw suspicion on an innocent woman by using her handkerchief and her hat-pin. Even if guilty, he would never hide behind a woman’s petticoat.” Tom’s eyes grew bigger and bigger as he listened to Dick. “It strikes me you are on the wrong tack,” he said when the latter paused. “All your arguments appear to me to point to the fact that Gordon is trying to shield Beatrice. Innocent himself, he might have purposely let them arrest him for her crime.” “Good God!” Dick looked at Tom in sudden horror. “Beatrice might have been concealed behind a curtain and overheard the scene between her husband and her stepmother. Mrs. Trevor was very beautiful, also very fascinating; perhaps Gordon lost his head and made love to her. Beatrice’s jealousy roused--” “No, no,” exclaimed Dick. “Beatrice was at the ball then. I was with her myself at the very time Mrs. Trevor and Gordon were together.” “Why not later on then?” pursued Tom. “She was the last person to enter the house--everyone else was in bed--perhaps the two women met and continued their quarrel. You remember Wilkins overheard Beatrice threaten her stepmother earlier in the evening. Stronger than most of her sex, blind hatred may have nerved Beatrice’s arm and eye to strike the fatal blow.” “I won’t believe it!” declared Dick, fiercely. “I won’t! I stick to it that Alfred Clark is the criminal.” “The secretary?” asked Tom, much astonished. “Yes. He was Mrs. Trevor’s old lover, too....” “Another! Apparently the woods were full of them,” interpolated Tom. “Mrs. Trevor was probably jealous of his attentions to Beatrice, and threatened to disclose some disgraceful secret of his past. Clark, to silence her, killed her, the cold-blooded fish. He would not scruple to throw suspicion on Beatrice, particularly as, being married to Gordon, she must have rejected his suit.” “For all that, Dick,” said Tom, obstinately, “if Beatrice Trevor ever comes to trial for this crime, you will have great difficulty in convincing twelve good men and true that she is innocent.” “I’ll do it!” Dick’s eyes snapped with determination. “How?” “By proving that that black-hearted scoundrel Clark is guilty.” “Beg pardon, sir,” Lambert’s discreet voice from the doorway interrupted them. “James has just sent up word, sir, that the car is here, sir.” “All right, Lambert; get Mr. Tillinghast’s coat and hat, and mine. I’ll take you wherever you wish to go, Dick, but first come with me to Galt’s. I have to buy a wedding present for May Seymour. Please come and help me select it.” Dick consulted his watch. “If you won’t be very long, I’ll come. I have an appointment with General Long at four o’clock.” Lambert helped them into their overcoats, and a few minutes later they were whirled away in the big Pierce Arrow car which was Tom’s latest addition to his overstocked garage. “I had a great mind to turn detective and use the knowledge of Beatrice’s secret marriage to find the murderer of her stepmother,” said Tom, as the big car slowed up at a street crossing. “You remember, Dick, that Peggy Macallister challenged us all. But don’t worry, old man,” seeing the telltale color rise in Dick’s face. “I know when I am out of the running. But what struck me as being extremely ludicrous was her including Count de Morny in the wager. I was the only one to appreciate the humor of it.” “I fail to see any particular humor in the situation,” retorted Dick, warmly. “De Morny has as great a right to win Peggy as any man; far more than I, in fact.” And he sighed as he bitterly thought of his small bank account. “Tut! I wasn’t thinking of your rivalry, but of de Morny’s putting himself out to revenge Mrs. Trevor’s death. Why, man alive, they hated each other like poison.” Dick looked curiously at Tom. “What makes you think so?” “I don’t think--I _know_. De Morny told me so himself. He said she affected him as a cat does some people; simply couldn’t stand being in the same room with her, and yet they were constantly thrown together at bridge parties. I thought it simply one of his over-charged Latin speeches; but one day at the Macallisters I inadvertently overheard them talking. They were in a bay window concealed by the curtain, and I stood with my back to them waiting for the crowd to thin so I could go and speak to Mrs. Macallister.” “And what did you overhear?” asked Dick, with growing interest. “At first I paid no attention to the few words I caught; but finally I heard a woman’s voice say: ‘Indeed, Count, I will not agree....’ “‘You must. If you do not, disaster will overtake you. Be warned in time.’ “His voice was so threatening that I involuntarily turned to interrupt them just as Mrs. Trevor parted the curtains and walked out. Until then I had not known for certain who they were. They spoke in French. From that moment Mrs. Trevor won my admiration. There was no trace of excitement or embarrassment in her manner. Jove! she carried off the situation with a high hand, and de Morny followed her lead.” “Probably they didn’t know they had been overheard,” suggested Dick. “That must have been it,” answered Tom. “Come to think of it, the last time I saw Mrs. Trevor was on Wednesday about noon. She was sitting in her limousine in front of de Morny’s small house on K Street.” “Considering their dislike was mutual, it’s strange she should drive up to his door. Was the Attorney General with her?” “No, she was alone; probably she stopped to leave a note. They played auction a great deal. De Morny told me the other day, though, that he would have to give up playing as his losses had been very heavy this winter. Here’s Galt’s, come on in.” It did not take Tom long to select a present. He picked out an after-dinner coffee service, and gave directions as to its marking and delivery. Dick glanced impatiently at the clock. He had barely time to keep his appointment if he left at once. As he turned to speak to Tom he heard a man standing next him say: “My mastaire wishes it repaired and returned at once, Monsieur.” Dick’s eyes traveled over the speaker, obviously by the cut of his clothes a foreigner, then on to the piece of jewelry which the man laid on the counter as he spoke. It was a long, heavily linked, red-gold watch chain. Dick waited for the valet to go before addressing the clerk, who had often waited on him. “May I look at this chain?” “Why, yes, Mr. Tillinghast.” Dick took it up in his left hand. The outer sides of the links were covered with intricate scroll work. One link was missing. With trembling fingers, he took the coin out of his pocket and placed the link in the broken chain. It fitted exactly! Dick’s heart was beating nearly to suffocation as he asked, in little more than a whisper: “Can you tell me to whom this chain belongs?” “Certainly, sir. Count de Morny.” CHAPTER XXII AT THE TIME APPOINTED DICK leaned limply against the high, glass counter, his cold fingers holding fast to the telltale chain. “Mr. Tillinghast.” He whirled around and found Hardy standing by his side. “I tried to see you at your office, but Colonel Byrd said you were at Stoneleigh Court. On going there, Mr. Blake’s servant told me I might catch you here. Chief Conner has received word that Clark was arrested this morning in New York on board an outgoing tramp steamer. He was disguised as an Italian stoker. Two Secret Service men are bringing him back on the six ten train to-night. Chief Conner sent me word to look you up at once, as he--” “Just a moment, Hardy,” Dick interrupted. He had done some rapid thinking, and a daring plan had occurred to him, which he decided to put into instant execution. “Are you a good bluffer?” “You bet; try me.” “Then go to the head clerk and tell him you need this chain,” picking it up, “as a piece of evidence in a murder. Do that, then come with me, and by night you will have the real murderer of Mrs. Trevor under lock and key. Be quick.” Hardy did exactly as Dick suggested, meeting with but little opposition from the head clerk after he had convinced that individual that he was a properly accredited representative of the law. “Come on, Tom,” called Dick, as his friend stopped for a moment to examine a tray filled with cigarette cases. “What’s up?” he inquired, joining the two men at the door. “Another clew,” answered Dick, briefly. “In with you both,” bundling them unceremoniously into the waiting motor. “I want half an hour’s uninterrupted talk with you and Hardy, Tom.” Tom looked keenly at Dick’s serious face. “Drive to the Mall,” he ordered, and the chauffeur started slowly off in that direction. “Out with your story, Dick.” The latter took the broken link out of his pocket and handed it to Tom. “I found this link in the Trevor house under the armor in the front hall. No member of that household can identify it. Wilkins, their butler, declares it was not there on the morning of the murder, as he and the footman oiled the floor then. Clark, according to the butler, wears a fob. Swarms of people called and left cards at the Trevors’ but they go no further than the front door. I am telling you all this to prove that that broken link was not where I found it _before_ the murder, nor could it have been dropped there after the finding of the body. Now, that broken link is exactly the same design and fits in this chain which Hardy has just received from the clerk at Galt’s.” “Well, what then?” demanded Hardy, eagerly. “Just this.” Dick spoke slowly and distinctly so as to be heard by the deeply interested men. “This chain belongs to Count de Morny.” “Hold on--hold on,” exclaimed Tom, recovering from his surprise. “Perhaps some person attending the inquest dropped it?” “That part of the house was roped off and guarded by policemen.” “You are right,” agreed Hardy. “I remember the careful arrangements we made to keep the crowd to the left as they entered the house. Besides,” examining the chain closely, “it must have taken a tremendous wrench to break off that link, and the few pieces of furniture on the way to the library and parlor were moved to make room for the people passing back and forth.” “Exactly,” said Dick. “My theory is that de Morny, after committing the murder, concealed himself behind the armor in the corner by the chimney. In getting up, his chain must have caught and wrenched off the link.” “But the motive?” demanded Hardy. “Count de Morny is a member of the Diplomatic Corps; there will be an awful howl and international complications unless we have absolute proof of his guilt before we arrest him.” “Mr. Blake can tell you that Mrs. Trevor and the Count hated each other.” “Yes, he told me so,” corroborated Tom, as the detective looked at him. “I also overheard the Count threaten her.” “Gordon was not the only man late in arriving at the Bachelors’ Cotillion that night,” went on Dick. “De Morny never got there until after midnight. He gave very evasive answers to Miss Macallister when she asked what had detained him. We all teased him about his unusual solemnity; and then towards the end of the ball he astonished us by sudden outbursts of hilarity. At the time I attributed them to too many convivial glasses of champagne. But a more sinister cause may have been responsible for his conduct. “To sum up--we know de Morny hated Mrs. Trevor; we know he threatened her; we know this chain belongs to him; we know one link from it was found in the Trevor house; we know he could have killed Mrs. Trevor that night and have gone afterwards to the ball--it is what Gordon is accused of doing. “Now, I propose we go to de Morny and demand an explanation. If he cannot give a satisfactory one, Hardy, here, as a representative of the law, can threaten to arrest him.” “I can--” Hardy looked troubled--“but you gentlemen have got to stand by me, for I may get into a devil of a row by exceeding my authority.” “Don’t worry,” said Tom. “I am convinced de Morny is the murderer, and that our bluff will work.” “I must speak to Captain Brown first, sir,” objected the detective. Tom wasted no time in words, he leaned across and spoke to his chauffeur. “Police Headquarters,” he ordered, “as fast as you can get there.” About an hour later the big car purred softly up K Street and stopped before a modest red-brick house. Tom led the way up the short flagged walk and rang the bell. A Union Transfer baggage wagon drove up to the curb, and Hardy nodded toward it, whispering to Dick: “Making a quick get-away.” “Take my card to Monsieur le Comte,” said Tom to the attendant who answered the door. “I will detain him but a moment.” His air of authority had its effect on the servant, and he promptly showed them into the small parlor, saying he would summon his master. Too nervous to sit down, Dick wandered around the cozy room, looking at first one ornament and then another. The place spoke of wealth and good taste. A Corot and a Millet hung on the walls. The rich coloring of the oriental hangings and rugs gave out an air of comfort and warmth which was added to by the cannel coal fire burning cheerfully in the grate. It had grown bitterly cold outside, and the men, grateful for the warmth, stood grouped about the fireplace as Count de Morny entered. “Ah! Monsieur Blake, most welcome; and you, too, Monsieur,” shaking Dick warmly by the hand, “and--” looking at the detective. “Detective Hardy,” supplemented Tom, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable; but the Frenchman apparently did not notice the air of constraint in each man’s attitude, but greeted Hardy with all the courtesy of his nation. “Won’t you seet?” he asked, pulling the lounging chairs nearer the fire. “Eet ees cold outside, _n’est-ce pas_?” “Thanks. We have only come for a moment,” answered Dick, “just to ask you--” He hesitated, glancing at Hardy. “To ask you,” said Hardy, stepping forward, “what took place between you and Mrs. Trevor on the night of Wednesday, February third?” A look of blank astonishment crossed de Morny’s face. “Ze night of ze sird!” he exclaimed. “But I do not see Madame zen. I do not remembaire--one moment--” As he spoke, he drew a small Morocco-bound memorandum book from his vest pocket, and rapidly turned its leaves. “_Mais, oui_--I was at ze Bachelors’ zat night,” he added, triumphantly. “You did not go there until after midnight,” said Dick. “_Oui_, Monsieur,” said de Morny. He eyed the men sharply. It just occurred to him that their behavior was somewhat peculiar. “And what then?” haughtily. “We wish to know where you were between the hours of ten o’clock and one in the morning on the night of the third.” “Why should you question me, Monsieur Hardy?” turning squarely on the detective. “Because I want to know when you killed Mrs. Trevor,” he bluntly replied. The detective’s meaning dawned slowly upon de Moray’s mind; then he leaped to his feet with an oath, his handsome eyes flashing with fury. “_Pardieu!_” he cried. “You dare--you dare--” Not able to express his indignation in his limited English, he burst into French. Tom tried to stem the torrent of his words by addressing him in his native tongue, while Dick and Hardy stood hopelessly looking on, but de Morny would not be appeased. “I--I--” he began, lapsing into broken English, “I--a de Morny--am accused by a pig of an Americaine of a crime so foul! Bah!” Then, mastering his rage by a great effort, he asked more calmly, “May I ask Monsieur for his reasons of a charge so monstrous?” “Certainly,” said Hardy. “You were heard to threaten her--” “_I_, Monsieur?” in great astonishment. “Yes; I overheard you do so at Mrs. Macallister’s,” interrupted Tom. De Morny looked at him with an enigmatic smile. “So!” was his only comment. “You cannot give a satisfactory account of your whereabouts on February third between the hours of ten and one in the morning; at least you haven’t yet.” “So!” Again the Frenchman smiled. “Now, Count--” Hardy spoke slowly, to make sure that de Morny understood him--“we have irrefutable evidence that you were in the Trevor house on that night. A piece of your property was found there.” “What is eet?” questioned de Morny, with a rising inflection. “This--” taking the watch chain out of his pocket. “_Mais c’est impossible!_” ejaculated the Frenchman. “I myself sent the chain to ze jeweler to be mended.” “Exactly, Count--_to be mended_. Here is the broken link you lost in the Trevor house on the night of February third.” Spellbound, de Morny gazed at the coin lying in Hardy’s broad palm. Then he reached over, took up the watch chain, laid it on the bare mahogany table, and fitted the broken link into place. In silence the three men watched him, as a cat watches a mouse, but they could learn nothing of the passion burning within him from his set face and brooding eyes. Finally, he broke the long pause to ask: “And you sink--” “That the owner of that chain is the murderer of Mrs. Trevor.” “You are right, sir,” said a low, clear voice back of the detective. “_I am he._” With a convulsive bound Hardy swung round; Dick and Tom being too petrified to move. “Ah, _non, non_, de Smirnoff, say not so,” cried de Morny, deep feeling in his shaking voice. The Russian had entered unnoticed some minutes before by a door communicating with an inner room. Too shocked for speech, and sick at heart, Dick gazed at him. This--this was the man who had saved him from a horrible death--and he had repaid the debt by hounding him to the gallows. But for his intervention the criminal would have gone undetected. “And why not, Henri?” asked de Smirnoff, quietly. “I cannot have you, _mon ami_, arrested for my crime. And so, Monsieur,” to Hardy, “you found my lucky piece and traced it here--I do not know how you did it, but it was clever work. I thought I had covered my tracks.” “Hold, sir,” said Hardy, his sense of fair play causing him to interrupt. “I must warn you that everything you say will be used against you.” De Smirnoff shrugged his shoulders. “It can make no difference.” Then, as Hardy pulled out a pair of handcuffs, his face flushed hotly. “Not that--my God!--not that; I will come quietly with you.” At a sign from Dick, Hardy reluctantly put them back in his pocket. “My warm thanks, Messieurs,” said de Smirnoff, slowly, “for the great kindness; and I have another favor to ask of you. My host, Count de Morny, knows nothing of this affair. I would like, if possible, to explain my share in it to him and to you. It was no sordid murder. Will you not sit a moment?” Dick held a whispered conversation with Tom and Hardy, and then turned to de Smirnoff. “We agree to listen, Count.” De Smirnoff bowed his head in grave acknowledgment, and then signed to the men to draw up their chairs. It was a scene Dick never forgot: the room, lighted only by the winter twilight and the bright blaze of the cannel coal, the five men seated in a circle around the hearth, the firelight flickering on their excited faces. De Smirnoff was by far the calmest of them all. “It will not take long in the telling,” he began; “but to make the present situation clear, I must speak first of the past. Hélène de Beaupré’s mother, Olga Weletsky, was a Russian. She married Claude de Beaupré, and they lived first in one country and then in another, finally returning to St. Petersburg. There they lived in comparative poverty and obscurity, having spent most of their patrimony in their wanderings about the world. “About five years later they both died within a very short time of each other, leaving their only child, a girl of twenty-three, in the care of an uncle, Colonel Weletsky. I saw her often before the death of her parents. She was very beautiful then--the beauty of the devil--the beauty that destroys men’s souls. “My only son, Sacha de Smirnoff, met her frequently at a friend’s house, and fell madly in love with her. She returned his passion, but she would not consent to a marriage ceremony being performed, as she said she did not believe in the solemn rites of the church. I think she simply did not wish to bind herself legally to one man. They lived together for two years.” He paused, then resumed his story. “While this was going on, I was in Persia looking after some mining interests, which I inherited from an uncle. News travels but slowly in that country of no telegraphs, telephones, or railroads, and during those two years and more I heard but seldom from Sacha. Therefore, you can understand my horror and my agony when, on my return to St. Petersburg, I found that my son had been arrested as a nihilist, secretly tried, and sent God knows where.” His voice shook with feeling. “Hélène had also vanished. I joined the Secret Police as a political spy. For nearly four despairing years I searched Siberia for my boy, visiting every penal settlement in that vast land. “There is no need of recounting the humiliation and suffering I endured during that time; the worst agony being my anxiety for my son. Finally, I found him in the worst settlement of all, broken in health and in spirit, a physical and almost mental wreck. Remembering him as I did in the glory of his young manhood, tall, handsome, brave, it was a fearful shock to me to find him crippled, scarred, and cringing. Shortly after my arrival Sacha fell ill with brain fever, and for days I nursed him, fearing he would never recover. He rallied finally, and slowly day by day regained his strength. I did everything I could to lighten his confinement, while all the time planning his escape. “One day a fresh batch of political prisoners arrived, among them an old friend of Sacha’s. When he found who I was, he told me that he himself after Sacha’s arrest, had gone to Hélène and given her proofs of Sacha’s innocence of the crime he was charged with, thinking that of course she would use the papers to clear him. But the Vampire was already tired of Sacha. She disappeared with the papers, believing that safe in the wilds of Siberia Sacha would never trouble her again, and she could live her own life untroubled by the past. “Boris advised me to recover those papers, give them to the proper authorities, and secure my son’s release. It seemed the only thing to do, as Sacha’s health was such that to try and escape in the rigors of that climate was courting certain death. Therefore, I left Siberia, first arranging with one of the Cossack officials at the settlement to send me word every month of my son’s physical condition, care of my Paris bankers.” He stopped and sighed deeply, then drew out his cigar case. “Will you not join me, I speak more calmly when I smoke? “I will not weary you with a detailed account of my search for Hélène. My connection with the Secret Police helped me, and I was of great use to the Bureau, as few suspected that I belonged to the force. Finally I traced Hélène to Italy, Paris, England, and then here. I knew of the Grand Duke’s proposed visit, and asked permission to accompany him; and I was sent on as special agent to guard him against the Camorra, as you already know,” to Dick. “I came on to Washington before the Grand Duke, however, and meeting Henri,” placing his hand affectionately on de Morny’s shoulder, “an old friend of Sacha’s, accepted his invitation to visit him during my stay here. That was on the second of February. “On Wednesday morning as I was going out of the front door, I was astounded to see Hélène sitting in her automobile by the curb. I believe her chauffeur was in the vestibule waiting to deliver a note. I paid no attention to him but went straight to the limousine and opened the door. I have altered little, and Hélène knew me at once. She shrank back in her seat. “‘You have nothing to fear,’ I said, quickly. ‘I simply want those papers which will clear Sacha. Have you kept them?’ “My one terror had been that she might have destroyed them, and my heart leaped with joy when she told me she had the papers, but she also said she had no intention of giving them up. “‘I am not here to haggle with you,’ I answered. ‘What is your price?’ “‘Twenty thousand.’ “‘Roubles?’ “‘No, dollars.’ “Her ruling passion was gambling. It was an inherited vice. She would sell her soul for money to lose over the gaming tables.” “It ees so,” interrupted de Morny. “I was warning her, Monsieur Blake, when you overheard me. She was my cousin, but yes, and I did not want the name disgraced. I hated and despised her for her treatment of my friend, Sacha; and it was I, Messieurs, who first notified Count de Smirnoff that she was in Washington.” The Frenchman’s eyes sparkled vindictively. “Hélène leaned back in her car, thinking, thinking,” continued de Smirnoff. “Finally she said, speaking low that the chauffeur should not hear: “‘Come to my house to-night at one o’clock. I can see you alone then; the others will be at the ball. Knock very softly on the front door.’ “I nodded understandingly, saying: ‘I will bring the money, do not fail me,’ and closed the door of the car as the chauffeur cranked the engine. “The rest of the day was taken up with arranging my affairs. I produced my letters of credit and drew out the money without difficulty from different banks until I had the requisite amount. It was a quarter of my fortune, but no sum was too great to spend in rescuing my son from his living death. After helping me Henri went to Baltimore on business connected with his Embassy--” “_Oui_, I did,” again interrupted de Morny, “and I only return by ze midnight train.” “I was sitting here by the fire about eight o’clock,” went on de Smirnoff, “thinking and planning for the future--the happy future--when Sacha and I could go to sunny Italy and in that ideal climate, he would regain his shattered health. We would take a villa on Lake Como-- Just then the housekeeper brought in a cablegram. I tore it open--my son was dead! “In letters of fire the message burned into my brain. How long I sat here I do not know; but when I rose my soul was frozen, my mind made up. She who was blood guilty should answer for her crime. I would keep my appointment, get the letters, and forward them to Russia, thus making certain that Sacha should sleep in no unhallowed grave, but be brought to the old vault in St. Petersburg to rest at last with honor unblemished by the side of his illustrious ancestors. “At the time appointed I was in the Trevors’ vestibule, and I tapped softly on the door. In a few minutes Hélène admitted me, and we tiptoed softly into what was apparently a private office. The light was on and I glanced about the room to see if we were alone; the open safe attracted my attention. Hélène noticed my glance in that direction. “‘My papers are there with my jewelry. I had to get the combination before I could see you. Have you the money?’ “I nodded. She went to the safe and picked up a small bundle. As I watched her my hand closed over a hat-pin lying on the top of the desk I was standing by; I glanced down at it--the long, sharp-pointed steel caught my attention. It was an ideal weapon for my purpose; far better than a revolver shot which might arouse the household. As it happened the pin broke in the wound--” There was not a trace of feeling in his voice. “Hélène returned, and in silence I handed the money to her and watched her count it. Beautiful as ever, living in the lap of luxury--while he, Sacha, her devoted lover always, had experienced the dregs of life in that hell upon earth. Merciful God! Could such things be? “In silence she handed me the papers; in silence I took them. She was about to speak when her eye caught the glitter of a ring on the floor. She dropped on one knee to pick it up, resting her left hand against my thigh to balance herself. “Quickly I seized my chance; and with one strong, straight stroke drove the hat-pin into her heart, putting out my left hand to catch and steady her body. And I held her until her head fell back and I saw her eyes glazing. Thus died Hélène--the Vampire!” No one spoke. In the terrible silence the ticking of the small clock sounded clear and distinct. De Smirnoff roused himself. “My tale is soon finished. I carried the body to the safe and fastened the door; but first I put the twenty thousand dollar gold certificates, wrapped in her handkerchief, by her side. She had paid the price, I had no further use for the money.” A gasp came from Hardy. “Good God! Clark must have stolen the money,” he cried, “he found the handkerchief.” “What matter?” said de Smirnoff, indifferently. “It is blood money, ill-gotten gains! To continue; I put out the lights in the room and went into the hall, but just as I started for the door I heard someone coming downstairs, so I hid behind a suit of old armor. The man, whom I judged to be Mr. Trevor, went straight to the front door and admitted a woman. They went immediately into the room I had just left. Just as I started to go, Mr. Trevor returned into the hall and went upstairs. He came down at once, and in a few seconds I heard him talking at the telephone. This was my opportunity. I rose up hurriedly; but in my haste I caught my watch chain in some sharp part of the iron stand which supported the armor. I heard something snap, but dared not stop to investigate. I slipped out of the front door and down the front steps as noiselessly as I could,--but dropped the head of the hat-pin in opening the door. “With a supreme effort, I took up my everyday life the next morning, attending to my duties in safe-guarding the person of the Grand Duke, and accepting the invitations I received as Henri’s guest. It has given me infinite satisfaction to see Hélène’s wicked past revealed gradually to the world she had fooled so long. “Monsieur Tillinghast--” he turned directly to Dick--“I am glad, glad I was of service to you the other night, for you remind me of Sacha.” His voice quivered on his son’s name. “Count--Count--what can I say,” faltered Dick. “Say nothing. It is Kismet. In my grief for my son I have never given the loss of my lucky coin another thought; but I hated to be without my chain, a present from Sacha when a lad; so I asked Henri to send it to a jeweler’s to be mended. That--is--all--I--think--Messieurs--” For some time his voice had grown husky from weariness and emotion; now he could hardly articulate. None of his listeners cared to break the painful pause. Suddenly, Hardy, the most callous of the four men, rose and turned on the lights. As he did so a cry escaped de Morny: “Look--look!” he shouted pointing to de Smirnoff. With a bound Dick was by the Russian’s side, his hand on his heart. De Smirnoff’s head was thrown back, his body, unnoticed in the dimly lighted room, had twisted slightly, and his eyes were fixed in a dreadful stare. There was no need for Dick to speak. Each man in the room knew de Smirnoff was dead. Tom leaned over and took the half-burnt cigar from the nerveless fingers. “The poison was here,” he said. Dick’s pitying gaze fell on the livid face. “Better so,” he said softly. CHAPTER XXIII THE LIFTING OF THE CLOUD “DURLEY, fill up Miss Beatrice’s champagne glass. I insist, my dear,” as Beatrice protested. “Your health needs such a tonic, and it can do you no harm. I promised your father that I would take good care of you, so you must prepare to do exactly as I say,” and Mrs. Macallister shook a warning finger at her guest. Peggy had called for Beatrice that afternoon and carried her home in the Macallisters’ landaulet. And already their tender but unobtrusive sympathy, and the cheery atmosphere of the house had had a beneficial effect on her over-wrought nerves. Intuitively, Mrs. Macallister knew that Beatrice was silently grieving her heart out, too proud to complain even to those dear friends, as each day added its burden to those which her sensitive woman’s soul was bearing so bravely. As her handsome dark eyes, filled with unshed tears, encountered Mrs. Macallister’s piercing ones, that astute dame, deeply touched by their wistful appeal, then and there registered a vow to do everything within her power to help her. “There’s some man in the case,” thought she, watching Beatrice covertly. “And what on earth ails Peggy? She hasn’t been herself since the night I found her in a dead faint.” All through dinner Peggy had eaten nothing. She sat, pale and preoccupied, making bread balls and leaving her grandmother to entertain Beatrice. The hat-pin was weighing heavily on Peggy’s mind, taking away both appetite and sleep. She was trying to screw up her courage to ask Beatrice to explain its presence in her box, but each time she looked at her friend’s sad face her heart misgave her. What--what if she couldn’t explain? Peggy sighed drearily. “For goodness’ sake, Peggy,” exclaimed Mrs. Macallister thoroughly exasperated. “You are very depressing to-night. What is the matter?” “Nothing, nothing,” she hastily declared, suddenly waking up to the fact that she had not taken any part in the conversation for some time. “I was thinking of a story Mr. Sinclair told me this morning when I was in the bank about Mrs. Wheeler. He said his bookkeeper sent word to Mrs. Wheeler that she had overdrawn her bank account. She promptly wrote a note to him saying she was so sorry the mistake had happened, and she enclosed her check on them to cover the overdraw!” “Poor Mrs. Wheeler,” said Beatrice, as they rose from the table and strolled into the library. “I wonder what Washington would do without her, her blunders are so numerous?” “Their name is legion,” agreed Mrs. Macallister, helping herself to coffee. “Is that the door bell, Hurley?” “Yes, ma’am.” “I think it is probably Dick Tillinghast,” exclaimed Beatrice rising in her agitation. “I took the liberty of asking him to call here, Mrs. Macallister. I hope you won’t mind, but I--I--” she broke off. “It was imperative that I see him at once.” “My dear, of course not. I am always glad to see Dick,” answered Mrs. Macallister, concealing her surprise. Could it be that he was the man in the case! Why, good gracious, _she_ had other plans for him. “Ask Mr. Tillinghast to come in here, Hurley.” Her usually tranquil tones were so emphatic that the well-trained servant positively jumped as he hastened out of the room. Mrs. Macallister looked at the two girls very sharply. Surely she had not been mistaken? Dick had seemed to have only ears and eyes for Peggy; and yet--Beatrice’s very evident excitement; Peggy’s open-eyed wonder. “Oh, these men!” thought Mrs. Macallister, disgustedly, “you can’t tell by the looks of a toad how far he’ll jump. If that young man has played fast and loose with my Peggy, I’ll--” And in growing anger she waited. The silence was unbroken by the two girls. They could hear the front door opened, and Hurley’s raised voice; then steps sounded down the hall and stopped when they reached the library. Hurley threw open the door and announced: “Mr. Gordon.” Too astounded to move, Peggy and her grandmother sat gazing at the young officer, thinking they saw an apparition. As he crossed the threshold, one wild scream of agony burst from Beatrice, and she swayed forward a dead weight into his arms. “Beatrice--Beatrice--my darling--my dear, dear wife!” he cried, distractedly. Then, seeing no answering gleam of recognition in her dazed eyes, he turned appealingly to Mrs. Macallister. “Merciful God! have I killed her?” “Nonsense!” cried Mrs. Macallister, her active mind instantly grasping the significance of the situation. “Joy never kills. Quick, Hurley,” to the butler who was standing by with mouth agape, “some champagne.” And, as he darted out of the room to obey her order, she bade Gordon lift the limp form on to the wide lounge. With Peggy’s assistance, he chafed her cold hands, and watched with anxious eyes while Mrs. Macallister forced Beatrice to swallow some foaming champagne. The stimulant had instant effect, a little color crept up into the wan cheeks, and she made a feeble attempt to sit up, all the time keeping her eyes fixed on Gordon as if she feared he would vanish from her sight. “Donald--Donald--is it you?” she gasped, the pent-up longing of days finding voice at last. Then, as recollection gradually returned to her, her features were distorted with agony. “Don--Don--how could you?” “Hush, my darling, you are wrong, wrong--I am innocent!” Her eyes distended with dawning hope as she glanced from one anxious face to the other. “Here, take another glass of this,” insisted Mrs. Macallister, who firmly believed that a sip in time often saved many ills. “You will need all your strength, for I judge there are many things which will have to be explained to-night.” “You are right, Madam,” exclaimed Gordon. “And the one to begin is right behind you.” Mrs. Macallister wheeled around with such energy that she knocked a cherished vase off the center table, to find Dick Tillinghast just within the door. “Mercy on us, Dick,” she said, divided between vexation over the fate of the vase, and anxiety to hear what extraordinary events had transpired. “Come in and tell us at once what has happened.” Dick took the chair Peggy pushed toward him, and reading the agonized question in Beatrice’s pleading eyes, he said briefly: “The real murderer, Count de Smirnoff, has confessed.” A cry of surprise broke from Mrs. Macallister and Peggy, but Beatrice’s feelings were too deep for words. She bowed her face in her hands, and only Gordon caught the fervid whisper: “God, I thank Thee,” while hot scalding tears trickled through her fingers. Regardless of the others’ presence, he threw himself on his knees beside her. “My best beloved, can you ever forgive me for doubting you; I, who am most unworthy--” Beatrice raised a radiant face. “Hush!” she said. “Do not let me hear you say such a thing again. I, too, am greatly to blame.” “Pardon me,” interrupted Dick. “Neither of you have any cause for self-reproach. You were simply the victims of circumstances. But it strikes me that you two have played at cross-purposes long enough. If it isn’t too painful,” addressing Beatrice, “would you mind straightening out some of the kinks in the rope?” “Gladly,” she answered. “Where shall I begin?” “Suppose you start with the marriage ceremony,” suggested Dick, smiling covertly. “What!” exclaimed Beatrice, astonished. “You know of our marriage?” “Yes. As it happened, my brother performed the ceremony.” Gordon’s amazement was evident. “I never connected him with you; but go on, dearest--” and he touched her hand lovingly. “Last November I went to visit my aunt, Mrs John Dundas, my mother’s sister, in Philadelphia. At that time I was very unhappy at home. Alfred Clark wanted me to marry him, and Mrs. Trevor encouraged his suit. Mr. Clark,” coloring vividly, “did not behave well. If I wanted to live in peace and tranquillity I had to be nice to him. Every time he thought I slighted or neglected him, he would complain to her, and between them they would hatch up all sorts of stories to tell Father. He believed my stepmother’s lies, and often bitterly reproached me for making disagreeable scenes. If Mrs. Trevor stopped tormenting me, Mr. Clark always egged her on to more deviltry. They were not always good friends, though, and I hoped one of their numerous quarrels would lead to his dismissal. But I think he must have had some hold over her, for she apparently feared to break with him altogether.” “He had,” interrupted Dick. “I have just seen Clark. Under Chief Connor’s severe examination, he has made a complete confession. It seems--” Dick hesitated for words. It was not a pleasant tale he had to tell; he would have to expurgate it as best he could. “It seems that Mrs. Trevor, while living in Naples, had a desperate affair with Giovanni Savelli. In about a year he found she was unfaithful to him. I suspect Clark was the other man in question, but he wouldn’t admit it. Anyway, Giovanni threatened to kill her when he turned her out in the streets; he was so violent in his anger that, in desperate fear, she fled the city at night. “Some time after her marriage to your father, Clark came to Washington, and through her influence secured his secretaryship. To terrorize Mrs. Trevor, he told her that Giovanni was planning to revenge himself on her, and that if she did not do exactly as he, Clark, wished, he would inform Giovanni of her whereabouts. “Now comes his devilish ingenuity. While in Naples, both Clark and Mrs. Trevor joined the Camorra. Clark, desiring at last to get Mrs. Trevor out of his way as he feared she would speak of his disreputable past in one of her violent rages, sent word to Giovanni six weeks ago that she was betraying secrets of the Camorra to the Italian Embassy here. To further involve her, he himself sent information to the Ambassador in Mrs. Trevor’s name. The Camorra leaders promptly investigated Clark’s charges, found they were apparently true, and decreed her death.” “What a fiend!” ejaculated Mrs. Macallister, horrified. “He will have plenty of time to repent in one of our penitentiaries,” said Dick, dryly. “Won’t you continue your story, Miss Beatrice?” “Right after my arrival in Philadelphia, I met Don at a hop at the League Island Navy Yard, where he was stationed. On Christmas day we became engaged--” Gordon caught her hand in his and kissed it passionately. “I was very, very happy. On the 29th of December I received a long letter from Father saying Mr. Clark had asked formally for my hand in marriage, and that, after due consideration, he had given his consent. Then he enumerated the advantages of the match. Through the whole letter I could perceive my stepmother’s fine Italian hand. I knew the great influence she had over him, and while he said he would never force me to take anyone I disliked; still, he hoped, and so forth. “The letter frightened me, Mrs. Macallister; and so when Don, after reading it, suggested that we marry secretly and at once, I agreed. We told my aunt, and she, also knowing that Father always sided with Mrs. Trevor, said that it would probably come to an elopement sooner or later. Therefore, liking and trusting Don as she did, she consented to arrange the affair for us. I returned to Washington with my aunt immediately after the ceremony, and Don came down the following day to report for duty at the White House. “Ah, Don!” she broke off, turning towards him, “you should not have asked me to postpone the announcement of our marriage on the flimsy excuse that you found on your arrival only unmarried officers were to be the President’s aides. You should have given me your full confidence then.” “I was wrong,” admitted Gordon gravely. “But you do not know the tangle I found myself in. Go on, dearest.” “I was cruelly hurt,” said Beatrice, slowly; “though I tried to convince myself that everything you did was for the best. And so things drifted until the evening of the third.” She stopped and drew a long breath. “As I came downstairs dressed for the Bachelors’ that night, I was surprised when Mrs. Trevor called me into the library. While outwardly civil, we usually saw as little of each other as possible. She asked me if it was true that I had definitely refused Mr. Clark, and when I said it was, she flew into a terrible rage. When her anger had spent itself, she begged and implored me to change my mind and marry him, saying that I would bitterly rue the day if I did not. “I laughed the idea to scorn; and told her I was pledged to another, better man. ‘His name?’ she asked. ‘Donald Gordon,’ I replied. Without a word she leaned over and took out several notes from the drawer of her secretary, saying: ‘I am afraid your chevalier--_sans_ _peur et sans reproche_--is but human. Here is a letter from him to me; read it.’ “Startled, my eyes fell on the handwriting I knew so well, and I read the first few lines--words of endearment and love were written there, Donald--” A fierce exclamation broke from him, and he started to interrupt. “Wait,” she said. “Your turn will come later. To go back: for a moment the room swam round me, and the black demons of jealousy and despair conquered. Remember, I thought I already had cause to doubt you. Mrs. Trevor’s beauty had proved irresistible to others; why not to you? But I was determined not to give in; so I told her I did not believe her, and she laughed, oh, a laugh of pure deviltry. At least, it seemed so to me. She handed me another note from you, which said that you would be there that night, and would rap on the door for her to admit you. “It was damning evidence, and my hope and faith crumbled away. In a few passionate words I renounced you; and then, tearing off your signet ring, which I always carried concealed since our wedding, I gave it to her and bade her return it to you. “As I started to leave the room, she said: ‘I will stop urging your marriage to Alfred Clark on one condition.’ “‘And that is?’ I asked. “‘That you give me your mother’s pearls.’ “For a moment I stared at my stepmother, thinking she had taken leave of her senses. My dear mother’s rope of pearls! They are worth about twenty thousand dollars. Grandfather Trowbridge had collected them from all parts of the world, and their great value lay in their wonderful match. Therefore, I thought my ears had played me false, and I asked unbelievingly: ‘And your price?’ ‘You know it,’ she answered. By that time I was wrought up beyond endurance, and cried out: ‘You devil, get out of my way, or I may forget myself and strike you!’ That is the part overheard by Wilkins--” her voice trailed off in a sob. Dick broke the pause that followed. “Clark also told me that Mrs. Trevor was trying to raise a large sum of money, hoping to buy his silence,” he said. “She must have realized that she was nearly at the end of her resources.” “‘Whoso diggeth a Pit shall fall therein,’” quoted Mrs. Macallister, softly. CHAPTER XXIV JOURNEYS END IN LOVERS’ MEETING “BEATRICE, dear, why did you secrete your broken hat-pin, and where did you get it after the murder?” demanded Peggy, finding courage at last to ask the question which had worried her so much. Then, seeing Beatrice’s open-eyed surprise, she added: “Your box caught when I opened my secret drawer on Friday night, and your cat’s-eye fell out. I instantly recognized it. But believe me, dear, I never for one moment thought you were connected with Mrs. Trevor’s death.” “She never did,” affirmed Dick. “In fact, it was Peggy’s desire to clear you from suspicion which urged me on in my efforts to find the real murderer.” “Peggy, dear Peggy; you best of friends.” Beatrice leaned forward and kissed her warmly. “Did you open the box?” “No, indeed!” indignantly. “The cat’s-eye fell out of the broken end, and I simply thrust it back again without investigating further.” “I wish you had, dear; you would have understood then the dilemma I was placed in. I put our marriage certificate in the bottom of the box under the cotton, and then dropped the cat’s-eye on top. Father told me, after Don’s arrest, that the police would have great difficulty in proving his guilt because they could find no motive for the crime,” she went on to explain. “He himself was as puzzled as they. I instantly thought of our marriage certificate, and fearing its discovery might injure Don, I made plans to hide it. “As to the broken pin--I never found it until after Mrs. Trevor’s funeral. When I put on black I decided to send all my dresses to a dear friend in New York. It was Suzanne’s afternoon out, but I was in a great hurry to send the express package, so I took down my dresses myself and laid them on the bed. On folding the ball dress I had worn at the Bachelors’ Cotillion I found the cat’s-eye securely caught by the gold setting in the lace underflounce of the train. “I was simply horrified. I had no doubt whatever that the pin had been used to murder my stepmother. I knew I had left it in the private office on that Wednesday afternoon when I took off my coat and hat there. I went to the office to write a note to Peggy, which I gave to Mrs. Macallister in the parlor later on. I thought,” she glanced appealingly at Gordon, “that the guilty man had dropped the pin in the vestibule; for it must have caught in my dress when I let go of my train to insert my latch key and open the front door. “I reasoned that the police would never believe my explanation if they found the pin in my possession, unless I told them the story of my quarrel with Mrs. Trevor, and of our marriage, Don. I knew Peggy was coming to see me, and made up my mind to ask her to keep the pasteboard box for me. You already know what took place on my return from the ball by my testimony at the inquest,” continued Beatrice. “When I heard Mrs. Trevor had been murdered, I thought Don had come to the house that night and had killed her in a moment of ungovernable rage. Can you ever forgive me, dear?” clasping his hand in both of hers. “There can be no question of that,” said Gordon passionately. “You had every cause to doubt me. Mine was the fault. I have acted like a blind, crazy idiot. Listen: when in London some four years ago, I met Hélène de Beaupré and became very much infatuated with her. Well, she made a fool of me, as she did of others. One day, tired of having me around, she dismissed me. That ended the affair as far as I was concerned.” “Just a moment,” interrupted Dick. “Did Alfred Clark see you and Hélène at the Home Office applying for a special license?” If he had exploded a bomb under their noses, he could not have created a greater disturbance. Gordon sat up as if he had been shot, gazing incredulously at Dick. “Great Heavens!” he ejaculated. “What an accomplished liar Clark is! And yet, this fabrication has a foundation of truth. He did see us in the Home Office talking to the clerk in charge of special licenses. We were waiting there for Sam Peters. You remember him, don’t you?” Dick nodded. “Sam was to be married at noon. He knew no one in London, nor did his American bride-elect, except Hélène and myself. He asked me to be his best man, and Hélène to act as a witness. He had to procure his special license, so we agreed to meet him at the Home Office and go with him to the church. Sam will verify what I am telling you, if you care to ask him.” “No, no, Don, I’ll take your word for it,” said Dick, hastily. “Beatrice has just told you of our marriage,” continued Gordon. “I never knew until your theater party, Dick, which you gave on the night of my arrival here, that Beatrice’s stepmother and Hélène de Beaupré were one and the same person. Beatrice always spoke of her as ‘Mrs. Trevor.’ Mrs. Trevor greeted me that night as a stranger, and of course I took my cue from her. In the days that followed she must have seen how deeply and passionately I loved Beatrice, for she hinted as much to me. Then she told me that she had a package of my foolish, extravagant letters written years ago. “‘I never throw anything away that might be of possible use,’ she went on. ‘Do you think the Attorney General would look with favor on your suit for his daughter’s hand if he saw those letters?’ “I stared at her aghast, as the whole horrible situation flashed over me. What in Heaven’s name was I to do? I should have confided everything to you then, my darling, but no man likes to speak of past love affairs, no matter how innocent, to his bride. “For days Hélène played with me as a cat does with a mouse, keeping me on tenter-hooks. But on the morning of the third I received a note from her, asking me to go and see her that night about eleven thirty, and saying that she had decided to return my letters. Overjoyed, I gladly kept the appointment, and she admitted me after I had given the signal agreed on. We went at once to the private office. “Here are the letters,” she said, speaking in a low voice. “I return them to you freely. But first you must pledge me your word as an officer and a gentleman never to mention them to either my husband or Beatrice.” “Of course, I willingly promised, and after a few words of thanks I left the house as silently as I had entered. I went directly to the Benedict, destroyed the letters, then on to the ball.” “Good Heavens! did she not give you my message--my ring?” gasped Beatrice. “No; neither of them.” “Clever woman,” commented Mrs. Macallister. “She arranged it so you were in honor bound never to speak of the letters to Beatrice; and the latter, believing you false, would never refer to them either. Of course, she reckoned without the knowledge of your secret marriage. Mrs. Trevor was a shrewd judge of human nature. It was a pretty scheme she hatched to separate you two, and not get caught herself.” “You have summed it up exactly, Mrs. Macallister,” agreed Gordon. “The first letter she showed Beatrice was probably one written years ago. I was bitterly hurt and angry, Beatrice, when you refused to speak to me at the hall. Then you returned my letter, unopened, which I wrote as soon as I heard of Mrs. Trevor’s death. “I was much surprised, at being summoned as a witness at the inquest. But when the coroner showed me my signet ring, which you, my dearest, had said you would never part with, and told me it had been found in the dead woman’s hand, I was bewildered--horrified. I jumped to the conclusion that you two had met, quarreled and--God forgive me--” Gordon could not continue; and Beatrice, with shining eyes bent toward him. “And so,” she said, “you took the crime upon yourself that I might be spared. It was noble of you, dear heart,” and before them all, she kissed him passionately. Mrs. Macallister swallowed a suspicious lump in her throat, while Peggy buried her nose in a convenient pillow. “Tell us, Dick, how the real criminal came to confess,” she said as soon as she could speak clearly. With bated breath they listened to his thrilling account of de Smirnoff’s vengeance. “Some of the unfortunate story has to come out in the papers,” ended Dick. “It cannot be hushed up, altogether, as justice has to be done the living.” “My poor father!” cried Beatrice. “Where is he!” “At his house completely prostrated by the news.” “I must go to him at once.” Beatrice sprang to her feet. “Will you call a cab, Don?” “Mine is waiting; but, dearest, you cannot go without a coat,” as Beatrice, forgetful of everything, hastened to the door. Quickly Peggy ran upstairs to collect her belongings. “Miss Beatrice,” Dick asked, “did you leave a handkerchief of yours in the private office that Wednesday?” “I don’t remember. I may have dropped one in the library just before Peggy called for me in the carriage. I burst out crying on the way to the ball, and she had to lend me one of hers. Thanks, dear,” as Peggy returned with her wraps. Hurley ran down the steps and put her suit case in the waiting vehicle. “Here is your box, Beatrice,” and Peggy handed it back to her. Beatrice looked at it with great distaste. “Except that it has my marriage certificate in it, I could not bear to touch it,” she said. “Give it to me.” Gordon took the box and slipped it into his overcoat pocket. “I will return you the certificate, dearest; but to-morrow I intend to go over the Aqueduct Bridge and throw the cat’s-eye into the Potomac.” “Good night, dear Mrs. Macallister.” Beatrice’s eyes were bright with tears as she kissed her. “How can I thank you all for what you have done for me? Good night, dear, dear Peggy,” and shaking hands warmly with Dick, she ran lightly down the steps, as Mrs. Macallister closed her front door. Gordon helped her into the cab, gave the address to the driver; then hesitated. Beatrice leaned forward and touched the empty seat beside her. “Donald--my husband--come home.” And even in the dim illumination of the street lamp, Gordon saw in her glorious eyes the light that never was on land or sea, and he gathered her in his arms with a sigh of deep happiness as the cab started homeward. * * * * * Dick followed Peggy back into the library with a fast-beating heart. Now or never! Mrs. Macallister had discreetly disappeared. “Peggy,” he said, standing back of her as she faced the open fire, “there’s something I want to say to you--” “Well, say it,” provokingly; but catching sight of Dick’s determined face in the mirror over the mantel, she took fright. “I wonder where Granny is?” “Oh, bother Granny! Peggy, darling--no, you sha’n’t dodge,” as Peggy moved slightly away and stood with head half averted. “I’ve always adored you, always. The first, the very first encouragement you ever gave me was that challenge. I have won, thank God! I know I am not half worthy of you; but I want you so, my darling.” There was no doubting the passionate longing in his low, tense voice. “Peggy--I have come for my reward.” No answer. A log broke in half in the glowing fire, casting sparks in every direction. Dick drew a long breath and squared his shoulders--so be it, he would go. As he moved slightly, Peggy turned her blushing face, and the alluring eyes twinkled at him for a second. “Why don’t you take your reward?” she whispered. THE END TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: On page 39, the word “be” has been added to the phrase “will used against you.” On page 70, half-past has been changed to half past. On page 157, hatpin has been changed to hat-pin. On page 159, door jamb has been changed to door-jamb. On page 235, everyone has been changed to every one. On page 253, watch-chain has been changed to watch chain. 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