diff --git a/src/app.css b/src/app.css index 8be4e1e..a28ea1d 100644 --- a/src/app.css +++ b/src/app.css @@ -1,6 +1,5 @@ -@tailwind base; -@tailwind components; -@tailwind utilities; +@import './styles/base.css'; +@import './styles/publications.css'; @layer components { /* General */ @@ -30,7 +29,8 @@ /* Card */ div.card-leather { - @apply bg-primary-0 dark:bg-primary-1000 border-gray-200 has-[:hover]:border-primary-800 dark:border-gray-800 dark:has-[:hover]:border-primary-500; + @apply shadow-none text-primary-1000 border-s-4 bg-highlight border-primary-200 has-[:hover]:border-primary-700; + @apply dark:bg-primary-1000 dark:border-primary-800 dark:has-[:hover]:border-primary-500; } div.card-leather h1, @@ -64,64 +64,6 @@ @apply hover:bg-primary-100 dark:hover:bg-primary-800; } - /* AsciiDoc content */ - .note-leather p a { - @apply underline hover:text-primary-500 dark:hover:text-primary-400; - } - - .note-leather section p { - @apply w-full; - } - - .note-leather section p table { - @apply w-full table-fixed space-x-2 space-y-2; - } - - .note-leather section p table td { - @apply p-2; - } - - .note-leather section p table td .content:has(> .imageblock) { - @apply flex flex-col items-center; - } - - .note-leather .imageblock { - @apply flex flex-col space-y-2; - } - - .note-leather .imageblock .content { - @apply flex justify-center; - } - .note-leather .imageblock .title { - @apply text-center; - } - - .note-leather .imageblock.left .content { - @apply justify-start; - } - .note-leather .imageblock.left .title { - @apply text-left; - } - - .note-leather .imageblock.right .content { - @apply justify-end; - } - .note-leather .imageblock.right .title { - @apply text-right; - } - - .note-leather section p table td .literalblock { - @apply my-2 p-2 border rounded border-gray-400 dark:border-gray-600; - } - - .note-leather .literalblock pre { - @apply text-wrap break-words; - } - - .note-leather .listingblock pre { - @apply overflow-x-auto; - } - /* Heading */ h1.h-leather, h2.h-leather, @@ -248,6 +190,7 @@ @apply fill-[#d6c1a8]; } } + @layer components { .leather-legend { @apply flex-shrink-0 p-4 bg-primary-0 dark:bg-primary-1000 rounded-lg shadow diff --git a/src/styles/base.css b/src/styles/base.css new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bd6213e --- /dev/null +++ b/src/styles/base.css @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +@tailwind base; +@tailwind components; +@tailwind utilities; \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/src/styles/publications.css b/src/styles/publications.css new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e242fb8 --- /dev/null +++ b/src/styles/publications.css @@ -0,0 +1,215 @@ +@layer components { + /* AsciiDoc content */ + .note-leather p a { + @apply underline hover:text-primary-500 dark:hover:text-primary-400; + } + + .note-leather section p { + @apply w-full; + } + + .note-leather section p table { + @apply w-full table-fixed space-x-2 space-y-2; + } + + .note-leather section p table td { + @apply p-2; + } + + .note-leather section p table td .content:has(> .imageblock) { + @apply flex flex-col items-center; + } + + .note-leather .imageblock { + @apply flex flex-col space-y-2; + } + + .note-leather .imageblock .content { + @apply flex justify-center; + } + .note-leather .imageblock .title { + @apply text-center; + } + + .note-leather .imageblock.left .content { + @apply justify-start; + } + .note-leather .imageblock.left .title { + @apply text-left; + } + + .note-leather .imageblock.right .content { + @apply justify-end; + } + .note-leather .imageblock.right .title { + @apply text-right; + } + + .note-leather section p table td .literalblock { + @apply my-2 p-2 border rounded border-gray-400 dark:border-gray-600; + } + + .note-leather .literalblock pre { + @apply p-3 text-wrap break-words; + } + + .note-leather .listingblock pre { + @apply overflow-x-auto; + } + + /* lists */ + .note-leather .ulist ul { + @apply space-y-1 list-disc list-inside; + } + + .note-leather .olist ol { + @apply space-y-1 list-inside; + } + + .note-leather ol.arabic { + @apply list-decimal; + } + + .note-leather ol.loweralpha { + @apply list-lower-alpha; + } + + .note-leather ol.upperalpha { + @apply list-upper-alpha; + } + + .note-leather li ol, + .note-leather li ul { + @apply ps-5 my-2; + } + + .audioblock .title, + .imageblock .title, + .literalblock .title, + .tableblock .title, + .videoblock .title, + .olist .title, + .ulist .title { + @apply my-2; + } + + .note-leather li p { + @apply inline; + } + + /* blockquote; prose and poetry quotes */ + .note-leather .quoteblock, + .note-leather .verseblock { + @apply p-4 my-4 border-s-4 rounded border-primary-300 bg-primary-50 dark:border-primary-500 dark:bg-primary-700; + } + + .note-leather .verseblock pre.content { + @apply text-base font-sans; + } + + .note-leather .attribution { + @apply mt-3 italic clear-both; + } + + .note-leather cite { + @apply text-sm; + } + + /* admonition */ + .note-leather .admonitionblock .title { + @apply font-semibold; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock table { + @apply w-full border-collapse; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock tr { + @apply flex flex-col; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock { + @apply rounded overflow-hidden border; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock .icon, + .note-leather .admonitionblock .content { + @apply p-4; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock .content { + @apply pt-0; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock.tip { + @apply rounded overflow-hidden border border-success-100 dark:border-success-800; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock.tip .icon, + .note-leather .admonitionblock.tip .content { + @apply bg-success-100 dark:bg-success-800; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock.note { + @apply rounded overflow-hidden border border-info-100 dark:border-info-700; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock.note .icon, + .note-leather .admonitionblock.note .content { + @apply bg-info-100 dark:bg-info-800; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock.important { + @apply rounded overflow-hidden border border-primary-200 dark:border-primary-700; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock.important .icon, + .note-leather .admonitionblock.important .content { + @apply bg-primary-200 dark:bg-primary-700; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock.caution { + @apply rounded overflow-hidden border border-warning-200 dark:border-warning-700; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock.caution .icon, + .note-leather .admonitionblock.caution .content { + @apply bg-warning-200 dark:bg-warning-700; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock.warning { + @apply rounded overflow-hidden border border-danger-200 dark:border-danger-800; + } + + .note-leather .admonitionblock.warning .icon, + .note-leather .admonitionblock.warning .content { + @apply bg-danger-200 dark:bg-danger-800; + } + + /* listingblock, literalblock */ + .note-leather .listingblock, + .note-leather .literalblock { + @apply p-4 rounded bg-highlight dark:bg-primary-900; + } + + .note-leather .sidebarblock .title, + .note-leather .listingblock .title, + .note-leather .literalblock .title { + @apply font-semibold mb-1; + } + + /* sidebar */ + .note-leather .sidebarblock { + @apply p-4 rounded bg-info-100 dark:bg-info-800; + } + + /* video */ + .videoblock .content { + @apply w-full aspect-video; + } + + .videoblock .content iframe, + .videoblock .content video { + @apply w-full h-full; + } +} \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/tailwind.config.cjs b/tailwind.config.cjs index bc16b37..e9f0183 100644 --- a/tailwind.config.cjs +++ b/tailwind.config.cjs @@ -11,6 +11,7 @@ const config = { theme: { extend: { colors: { + highlight: '#f9f6f1', primary: { 0: '#efe6dc', 50: '#decdb9', @@ -25,6 +26,58 @@ const config = { 900: '#231a10', 1000: '#110d08', }, + success: { + 50: '#e3f2e7', + 100: '#c7e6cf', + 200: '#a2d4ae', + 300: '#7dbf8e', + 400: '#5ea571', + 500: '#4e8e5f', + 600: '#3e744c', + 700: '#305b3b', + 800: '#22412a', + 900: '#15281b', + }, + info: { + 50: '#e7eff6', + 100: '#c5d9ea', + 200: '#9fbfdb', + 300: '#7aa5cc', + 400: '#5e90be', + 500: '#4779a5', + 600: '#365d80', + 700: '#27445d', + 800: '#192b3a', + 900: '#0d161f', + }, + warning: { + 50: '#fef4e6', + 100: '#fde4bf', + 200: '#fcd18e', + 300: '#fbbc5c', + 400: '#f9aa33', + 500: '#f7971b', + 600: '#c97a14', + 700: '#9a5c0e', + 800: '#6c3e08', + 900: '#3e2404', + }, + danger: { + 50: '#fbeaea', + 100: '#f5cccc', + 200: '#eba5a5', + 300: '#e17e7e', + 400: '#d96060', + 500: '#c94848', + 600: '#a53939', + 700: '#7c2b2b', + 800: '#521c1c', + 900: '#2b0e0e', + }, + }, + listStyleType: { + 'upper-alpha': 'upper-alpha', // Uppercase letters + 'lower-alpha': 'lower-alpha', // Lowercase letters } }, }, diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/21lessons.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/21lessons.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5474d83 --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/21lessons.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,1497 @@ += 21 Lessons + +== Title Page + +[.text-center] +*21 Lessons, by Gigi* +[.text-center] +What I've Learned from Falling Down the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole +[.text-center] +Independently published 18. Dezember 2019. + +[quote] +"Oh, you foolish Alice!" she said again, "how can you learn lessons in here? Why, there's hardly room for you, and no room at all for any lesson-books!" + +== License + +Unless otherwise noted, all my writings are published under the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/[Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International] (CC BY-SA 4.0) license and provided on a https://dergigi.com/value[V4V] basis. + +This means that you are free to share and adapt the material as you see fit. + +*The only requirement is that you must give attribution and distribute your contributions under the same license.* + +[NOTE] +==== +This edition of "21 Lessons" has been produced for publication on Nostr, with expressed permission by the author nostr:npub1dergggklka99wwrs92yz8wdjs952h2ux2ha2ed598ngwu9w7a6fsh9xzpc, who goes by the Nostr handle Der Gigi. + +You can support the author's efforts, at educating the public about the importance and necessity of Bitcoin, by https://nostree.me/npub1dergggklka99wwrs92yz8wdjs952h2ux2ha2ed598ngwu9w7a6fsh9xzpc[zapping his Nostr profile] or his lightning wallet: + +image::https://dergigi.com/assets/images/bitcoin/bolt12.png[lightning wallet, 300, align="center"] + +`lno1zrxq8pjw7qjlm68mtp7e3yvxee4y5xrgjhhyf2fxhlphpckrvevh50u0qfdq0py8fu308448hm6eqvc5d8p82fg077wgs45zd64qx6gplv66uqsz2j4zmyh3akkv5p2upsru9spjmk52kflevpuawzjzg7qp27apqdxqqvewrayeh06nj3t8ymq4l97ef2cf670j7sw0kffhf6vrjzqr7u823tvkv246cn6czjtdkzsp6j6d5u8a7fwpqg2v3ed96cv2jftsg08waexw2pwycp8fyny59mtgvdnvepss5l2egqqs628487l8dskakc9sfunelwvwr5` + +-- The editor + +==== + +== Preface + +[quote] +____ + +Little Alice fell + +d + +o + +w + +n + +the hOle, + +bumped her head + +and bruised her soul. +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/0-00.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Falling down the Bitcoin rabbit hole is a strange experience. Like many others, I feel like I have learned more in the last couple of years studying Bitcoin than I have during two decades of formal education. + +The following lessons are a distillation of what I’ve learned. First published as an article series titled https://dergigi.com/2018/12/21/philosophical-teachings-of-bitcoin/["What I’ve Learned From Bitcoin,”] what follows can be seen as a second edition of the original series. + +Like Bitcoin, these lessons aren’t a static thing. I plan to work on them periodically, releasing updated versions and additional material in the future. + +Unlike Bitcoin, future versions of this project do not have to be backward compatible. Some lessons might be extended, others might be reworked or replaced. I hope that a future version will be something you can hold in your hands, but I don’t want to promise anything just yet. + +Bitcoin is an inexhaustible teacher, which is why I do not claim that these lessons are all-encompassing or complete. They are a reflection of my personal journey down the rabbit hole. There are many more lessons to be learned, and every person will learn something different from entering the world of Bitcoin. + +I hope that you will find these lessons useful and that the process of learning them by reading won’t be as arduous and painful as learning them firsthand. + +== Table of Contents + +[quote] +____ + +"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" + +"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to." + +"I don't much care where –" + +"Then it doesn't matter which way you go." +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/0-01.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +.Table of Contents + +* Title Page +* License +* Preface +* Introduction +* Chapter I : Philosophy +** Lesson 1 : Immutability and change +** Lesson 2 : The scarcity of scarcity +** Lesson 3 : Replication and locality +** Lesson 4 : The problem of identity +** Lesson 5 : An immaculate conception +** Lesson 6 : The power of free speech +** Lesson 7 : The limits of knowledge +* Chapter II : Economics +** Lesson 8 : Financial ignorance +** Lesson 9 : Inflation +** Lesson 10 : Value +** Lesson 11 : Money +** Lesson 12 : The history and downfall of money +** Lesson 13 : Fractional Reserve Insanity +** Lesson 14 : Sound money +* Chapter III : Technology +** Lesson 15 : Strength in numbers +** Lesson 16 : Reflections on "Don't Trust, Verify" +** Lesson 17 : Telling time takes work +** Lesson 18 : Move slowly and don't break things +** Lesson 19 : Privacy is not dead +** Lesson 20 : Cypherpunks write code +** Lesson 21 : Metaphors for Bitcoin's future +* Conclusion +* Acknowledgments +* Thank You +* Translations +* Readings and Commentary +* Down the Rabbit Hole + +== Introduction +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ + +"But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. + +"Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." + +"How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. + +"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here." +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/0-02.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +In October 2018, Arjun Balaji asked the innocuous question, https://twitter.com/arjunblj/status/1050073234719293440["What have you learned from Bitcoin?"] After trying to answer this question in a short tweet, and failing miserably, I realized that the things I’ve learned are far too numerous to answer quickly, if at all. + +The things I’ve learned are, obviously, about Bitcoin - or at least related to it. However, while some of the inner workings of Bitcoin are explained, the following lessons are not an explanation of how Bitcoin works or what it is, they might, however, help to explore some of the things Bitcoin touches: philosophical questions, economic realities, and technological innovations. + +The 21 lessons are structured in bundles of seven, resulting in three chapters. Each chapter looks at Bitcoin through a different lens, extracting what lessons can be learned by inspecting this strange network from a different angle. + +*Chapter 1* explores the philosophical teachings of Bitcoin. The interplay of immutability and change, the concept of true scarcity, Bitcoin’s immaculate conception, the problem of identity, the contradiction of replication and locality, the power of free speech, and the limits of knowledge. + +*Chapter 2* explores the economic teachings of Bitcoin. Lessons about financial ignorance, inflation, value, money and the history of money, fractional reserve banking, and how Bitcoin is re-introducing sound money in a sly, roundabout way. + +*Chapter 3* explores some of the lessons learned by examining the technology of Bitcoin. Why there is strength in numbers, reflections on trust, why telling time takes work, how moving slowly and not breaking things is a feature and not a bug, what Bitcoin’s creation can tell us about privacy, why cypherpunks write code (and not laws), and what metaphors might be useful to explore Bitcoin’s future. + +Each lesson contains several quotes and links throughout the text. If I have explored an idea in more detail, you can find links to my related works in the “Through the Looking-Glass” section. If you like to go deeper, links to the most relevant material are listed in the “Down the Rabbit Hole” section. Both can be found at the end of each lesson. + +Even though some prior knowledge about Bitcoin is beneficial, I hope that these lessons can be digested by any curious reader. While some relate to each other, each lesson should be able to stand on its own and can be read independently. I did my best to shy away from technical jargon, even though some domain-specific vocabulary is unavoidable. + +I hope that my writing serves as inspiration for others to dig beneath the surface and examine some of the deeper questions Bitcoin raises. My own inspiration came from a multitude of authors and content creators to all of whom I am eternally grateful. + +Last but not least: my goal in writing this is not to convince you of anything. My goal is to make you think, and show you that there is way more to Bitcoin than meets the eye. I can’t even tell you what Bitcoin is or what Bitcoin will teach you. You will have to find that out for yourself. + +[quote, Morpheus, The Matrix] +“After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill  —  the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill  —  you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/bitcoin-orange-pill.jpg[red pill, 300, align="center"] + +== Chapter I - Philosophy +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +___ +The mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing. +___ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/1-00.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Looking at Bitcoin superficially, one might conclude that it is slow, wasteful, unnecessarily redundant, and overly paranoid. Looking at Bitcoin inquisitively, one might find out that things are not as they seem at first glance. + +Bitcoin has a way of taking your assumptions and turning them on their heads. After a while, just when you were about to get comfortable again, Bitcoin will smash through the wall like a bull in a china shop and shatter your assumptions once more. + +.Blind monks examining the Bitcoin bull + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/blind-monks.jpg[Blind monks examining the Bitcoin bull, 300, align="center"] + +Bitcoin is a child of many disciplines. Like blind monks examining an elephant, everyone who approaches this novel technology does so from a different angle. And everyone will come to different conclusions about the nature of the beast. + +The following lessons are about some of my assumptions which Bitcoin shattered, and the conclusions I arrived at. Philosophical questions of immutability, scarcity, locality, and identity are explored in the first four lessons. + +* Lesson 1: Immutability and change +* Lesson 2: The scarcity of scarcity +* Lesson 3: Replication and locality +* Lesson 4: The problem of identity +* Lesson 5: An immaculate conception +* Lesson 6: The power of free speech +* Lesson 7: The limits of knowledge + +Lesson 5 explores how Bitcoin’s origin story is not only fascinating but absolutely essential for a leaderless system. The last two lessons of this chapter explore the power of free speech and the limits of our individual knowledge, reflected by the surprising depth of the Bitcoin rabbit hole. + +I hope that you will find the world of Bitcoin as educational, fascinating and entertaining as I did and still do. I invite you to follow the white rabbit and explore the depths of this rabbit hole. Now hold on to your pocket watch, pop down, and enjoy the fall. + +== Lesson 1 - Immutability and change +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ + +I wonder if I've been changed in the night. Let me think. Was I the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember feeling a little different. But if I'm not the same, the next question is 'Who in the world am I?' Ah, that's the great puzzle! +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/1-01.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Bitcoin is inherently hard to describe. It is a _new thing_, and any attempt to draw a comparison to previous concepts  —  be it by calling it digital gold or the internet of money  —  is bound to fall short of the whole. Whatever your favorite analogy might be, two aspects of Bitcoin are absolutely essential: decentralization and immutability. + +One way to think about Bitcoin is as an https://medium.com/@hasufly/bitcoins-social-contract-1f8b05ee24a9[automated social contract]. The software is just one piece of the puzzle, and hoping to change Bitcoin by changing the software is an exercise in futility. One would have to convince the rest of the network to adopt the changes, which is more a psychological effort than a software engineering one. + +The following might sound absurd at first, like so many other things in this space, but I believe that it is profoundly true nonetheless: You won’t change Bitcoin, but Bitcoin will change you. + +[quote, Marty Bent] +“Bitcoin will change us more than we will change it.” + +It took me a long time to realize the profundity of this. Since Bitcoin is just software and all of it is open-source, you can simply change things at will, right? Wrong. _Very_ wrong. Unsurprisingly, Bitcoin’s creator knew this all too well. + +[quote, Satoshi Nakamoto] +“The nature of Bitcoin is such that once version 0.1 was released, the core design was set in stone for the rest of its lifetime.” + +Many people have attempted to change Bitcoin’s nature. So far all of them have failed. While there is an endless sea of forks and altcoins, the Bitcoin network still does its thing, just as it did when the first node went online. The altcoins won’t matter in the long run. The forks will eventually starve to death. Bitcoin is what matters. As long as our fundamental understanding of mathematics and/or physics doesn’t change, the Bitcoin honeybadger will continue to not care. + +[quote, Ralph Merle] +“Bitcoin is the first example of a new form of life. It lives and breathes on the internet. It lives because it can pay people to keep it alive. […] It can’t be changed. It can’t be argued with. It can’t be tampered with. It can’t be corrupted. It can’t be stopped. […] If nuclear war destroyed half of our planet, it would continue to live, uncorrupted.“ + +The heartbeat of the Bitcoin network will outlast all of ours. + +Realizing the above changed me way more than the past blocks of the Bitcoin blockchain ever will. It changed my time preference, my understanding of economics, my political views, and so much more. Hell, it is even https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne74nw/inside-the-world-of-the-bitcoin-carnivores[changing people’s diets]. If all of this sounds crazy to you, you’re in good company. All of this is crazy, and yet it is happening. + +Bitcoin taught me that it won’t change. I will. + +''' + +*Through the Looking-Glass 🔍* + +Follow-up articles that expand upon ideas discussed in this lesson: + +* https://dergigi.com/2020/06/15/the-bitcoin-journey/[🔍 The Bitcoin Journey] + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* http://www.contravex.com/2014/03/19/there-is-no-bitcoin-2-0[There is no Bitcoin 2.0], by Pete Dushenski +* https://alcor.org/cryonics/Cryonics2016-4.pdf#page=28[DAOs, Democracy and Governance], by Ralph C. Merkle +* https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/ne74nw/inside-the-world-of-the-bitcoin-carnivores[Inside the World of the Bitcoin Carnivores - Why a small community of Bitcoin users is eating meat exclusively], by Jordan Pearson +* https://medium.com/s/story/bitcoins-social-contract-1f8b05ee24a9[Unpacking Bitcoin’s Social Contract], by Hasu +* https://medium.com/@BrandonQuittem/bitcoin-is-a-decentralized-organism-mycelium-part-1-3-6ec58cdcfaa6[Bitcoin is a Decentralized Organism], by Brandon Quittem +* https://medium.com/@BrandonQuittem/bitcoin-is-a-social-creature-mushroom-part-2-3-6a05c3abe8f0[Bitcoin is a Social Creature], by Brandon Quittem +* https://hugonguyen.medium.com/bitcoin-two-parts-math-one-part-biology-b45ef48a0422[Bitcoin - Two Parts Math, One Part Biology], by Hugo Nguyen +* https://medium.com/@nic__carter/its-the-settlement-assurances-stupid-5dcd1c3f4e41[It’s the settlement assurances, stupid], by Nic Carter +* https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=195.msg1611#msg1611[Technical Discussion on Bitcoin’s Transactions and Scripts], by Satoshi Nakamoto, Gavin Andresen, and others +* https://tftc.io/martys-bent/[Marty’s Bent - A daily newsletter highlighting signal in Bitcoin], by Marty Bent +* 🎧 https://tftc.io/tales-from-the-crypt/[Tales From the Crypt], by Marty Bent +* 🎧 https://www.jordanbpeterson.com/podcast/s4e40/[John Vallis, Richard James, Gigi Der, Robert Breedlove on Bitcoin as The Future of Money], JBP#440 hosted by Jordan B. Peterson +* 📚 https://amzn.to/2w4MtRI[Antifragile - Things That Gain From Disorder], by Nassim Nicholas Taleb + +== Lesson 2 - The scarcity of scarcity +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ + +That's quite enough — I hope I sha'n't grow any more... +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/1-02.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +In general, the advance of technology seems to make things more abundant. More and more people are able to enjoy what previously have been luxurious goods. Soon, we will all live like kings. Most of us already do. As Peter Diamandis wrote in https://www.diamandis.com/abundance[Abundance]: “Technology is a resource-liberating mechanism. It can make the once scarce the now abundant.” Bitcoin, an advanced technology in itself, breaks this trend and creates a new commodity which is truly scarce. Some even argue that it is one of the scarcest things in the universe. The supply can’t be inflated, no matter how much effort one chooses to expend towards creating more. + +[quote, Saifedean Ammous] +“Only two things are genuinely scarce: time and bitcoin.” + +Paradoxically, it does so by a mechanism of copying. Transactions are broadcast, blocks are propagated, the distributed ledger is  —  well, you guessed it  —  distributed. All of these are just fancy words for copying. Heck, Bitcoin even copies itself onto as many computers as it can, by incentivizing individual people to run full nodes and mine new blocks. All of this duplication wonderfully works together in a concerted effort to produce scarcity. In a time of abundance, Bitcoin taught me what real scarcity is. + +''' + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://medium.com/@100trillionUSD/modeling-bitcoins-value-with-scarcity-91fa0fc03e25[Modeling Bitcoin’s Value with Scarcity] by PlanB +* https://www.unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-cant-be-copied/[Bitcoin Can’t Be Copied] by Parker Lewis +* https://www.bayernlb.de/internet/media/de/ir/downloads_1/bayernlb_research/sonderpublikationen_1/bitcoin_munich_may_28.pdf[Presentation on The Bitcoin Standard] by Saifedean Ammous +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/Tales-from-the-Crypt-60-Misir-Mahmudov-e3aibh[Misir Mahmudov on the Scarcity of Time and Bitcoin] TFTC#60 hosted by Marty Bent +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/podcast-8f267c0/episodes/Dollar-Cost-Average-with-BTCDCA-BEC020-e49o8b[BTCDCA on Dollar Cost Averaging Bitcoin] BEC#20 hosted by Collin +* 🎧 https://player.fm/series/off-the-chain-2428336/misir-mahmudov-analyst-at-adaptive-capital-why-bitcoin-is-stored-time[Misir Mahmudov on Bitcoin as Stored Time] OTC#126 hosted by Pomp +* 🎧 https://stephanlivera.com/episode/288/[Hass McCook on the importance of Auto-DCA]SLP#288 hosted by Stephan Livera +* 📚 https://amzn.to/2IJTb2y[Abundance - The Future is Better Than You Think] by Peter Diamandis +* 📚 https://amzn.to/2TLl5RP[The Bitcoin Standard - The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking] by Saifedean Ammous + +== Lesson 3 +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +Next came an angry voice—the rabbit's—"Pat, Pat! where are you?" +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/1-03.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Quantum mechanics aside, locality is a non-issue in the physical world. The question _“Where is X?”_ can be answered in a meaningful way, no matter if X is a person or an object. In the digital world, the question of _where_ is already a tricky one, but not impossible to answer. Where are your emails, really? A bad answer would be “the cloud”, which is just someone else’s computer. Still, if you wanted to track down every storage device which has your emails on it you could, in theory, locate them. With bitcoin, the question of “where” is _really_ tricky. Where, exactly, are your bitcoins? + +[quote, Daniel Dennet] +“I opened my eyes, looked around, and asked the inevitable, the traditional, the lamentably hackneyed postoperative question: ‘Where am l?’” + +The problem is twofold: First, the distributed ledger is distributed by full replication, meaning the ledger is everywhere. Second, there are no bitcoins. Not only physically, but _technically_. Bitcoin keeps track of a set of unspent transaction outputs, without ever having to refer to an entity which represents a bitcoin. The existence of a bitcoin is inferred by looking at the set of unspent transaction outputs and calling every entry with 100 million base units a bitcoin. + +[quote, Peter Van Valkenburgh] +“Where is it, at this moment, in transit? […] First, there are no bitcoins. There just aren’t. They don’t exist. There are ledger entries in a ledger that’s shared […] They don’t exist in any physical location. The ledger exists in every physical location, essentially. Geography doesn’t make sense here  —  it is not going to help you figuring out your policy here.” + +So, what do you actually own when you say _“I have a bitcoin”_ if there are no bitcoins? Well, remember all these strange words which you were forced to write down by the wallet you used? Turns out these magic words are what you own: https://dergigi.com/2018/08/17/the-magic-dust-of-cryptography/[a magic spell] which can be used to add some entries to the public ledger  —  the keys to “move” some bitcoins. This is why, for all intents and purposes, your private keys _are_ your bitcoins. If you think I’m making all of this up feel free to send me your private keys. Bitcoin taught me that locality is a tricky business. + +''' + +*Through the Looking-Glass 🔍* + +Follow-up articles that expand upon ideas discussed in this lesson: + +* https://dergigi.com/2018/08/17/the-magic-dust-of-cryptography/[🔍 The Magic Dust of Cryptography - How digital information is changing our society] + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://www.lehigh.edu/~mhb0/Dennett-WhereAmI.pdf[Where Am I?] by Daniel Dennett +* 🎧 https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/coin-centers-peter-van-valkenburg-on-preserving-the-freedom-to-innovate-with-public-blockchains[Peter Van Valkenburg on Preserving the Freedom to Innovate with Public Blockchains] WBD#49 hosted by Peter McCormack + +== Lesson 4 - The problem of identity +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ + +"Who are you?" said the caterpillar. +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/1-04.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Nic Carter, in an homage to Thomas Nagel’s treatment of the same question https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F[in regards to a bat], wrote an excellent piece which discusses the following question: https://medium.com/s/story/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bitcoin-56109f3e6753[What is it like to be a bitcoin?] He brilliantly shows that open, public blockchains in general, and Bitcoin in particular, suffer from the same conundrum as the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus[Ship of Theseus]: which Bitcoin is the real Bitcoin? + +[quote, Nic Carter] +“Consider just how little persistence Bitcoin’s components have. The entire codebase has been reworked, altered, and expanded such that it barely resembles its original version. […] The registry of who owns what, the ledger itself, is virtually the only persistent trait of the network […] To be considered truly leaderless, you must surrender the easy solution of having an entity that can designate one chain as the legitimate one.” + +It seems like the advancement of technology keeps forcing us to take these philosophical questions seriously. Sooner or later, self-driving cars will be faced with real-world versions of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem[trolley problem], forcing them to make ethical decisions about whose lives do matter and whose do not. Cryptocurrencies, especially since the first contentious hard-fork, force us to think about and agree upon the metaphysics of identity. Interestingly, the two biggest examples we have so far have led to two different answers. On August 1, 2017, Bitcoin split into two camps. The market decided that the unaltered chain is the original Bitcoin. One year earlier, on October 25, 2016, Ethereum split into two camps. The market decided that the _altered_ chain is the original Ethereum. If properly decentralized, the questions posed by the _Ship of Theseus_ will have to be answered in perpetuity for as long as these networks of value-transfer exist. Bitcoin taught me that decentralization contradicts identity. + +''' + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_Is_it_Like_to_Be_a_Bat%3F[What Is It Like to be a Bat?] by Thomas Nagel +* https://medium.com/s/story/what-is-it-like-to-be-a-bitcoin-56109f3e6753[Bitcoin’s Existential Crisis] by Nic Carter +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus[Ship of Theseus] by Wikipedia Authors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem[Trolley Problem] by Wikipedia Authors +* 🎧 https://stephanlivera.com/episode/75[Giacomo Zucco on Bitcoin's Identity and Copycats] SLP#75 hosted by Stephan Livera +* 📚 https://amzn.to/3d9cP7C[The Blocksize War - The Battle for Control over Bitcoin’s Protocol Rules] by Jonathan Bier + +== Lesson 5 - An immaculate conception +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ + +"Their heads are gone," the soldiers shouted in reply... +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/1-05.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Everyone loves a good origin story. The origin story of Bitcoin is a fascinating one, and the details of it are more important than one might think at first. Who is Satoshi Nakamoto? Was he one person or a group of people? Was he a she? Time-traveling alien, or advanced AI? Outlandish theories aside, we will probably never know. And this is important. Satoshi chose to be anonymous. He planted the seed of Bitcoin. He stuck around for long enough to make sure the network won’t die in its infancy. And then he vanished. What might look like a weird anonymity stunt is actually crucial for a truly decentralized system. No centralized control. No centralized authority. No inventor. No-one to prosecute, torture, blackmail, or extort. An immaculate conception of technology. + +[quote, Jimmy Song] +“One of the greatest things that Satoshi did was disappear.” + +Since the birth of Bitcoin, thousands of other cryptocurrencies were created. None of these clones share its origin story. If you want to supersede Bitcoin, you will have to transcend its origin story. In a war of ideas, narratives dictate survival. + +[quote, Gold: The Extraordinary Metal] +“Gold was first fashioned into jewelry and used for barter over 7,000 years ago. Gold’s captivating gleam led to it being considered a gift from the gods.” + +Like gold in ancient times, Bitcoin might be considered a gift from the gods. Unlike gold, Bitcoins origins are all too human. And this time, we know who the gods of development and maintenance are: people all over the world, anonymous or not. Bitcoin taught me that narratives are important. + +''' + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://medium.com/@francispouliot/catallaxy-the-origins-of-bitcoin-and-innovation-93dbc3190eac[Catallaxy - the origins of Bitcoin, innovation and spontaneous order] by Francis Pouliot +* https://medium.com/@jimmysong/why-bitcoin-is-different-e17b813fd947[Why Bitcoin is Different] by Jimmy Song +* https://www.uncerto.com/only-the-strong-survive[Only The Strong Survive] by Allen Farrington and Big Al +* https://www.forbes.com/sites/peterizzo/2021/09/29/against-cryptocurrency-the-ethical-argument-for-bitcoin-maximalism/[Against Cryptocurrency - The Ethical Argument for Bitcoin Maximalism] by Pete Rizzo +* https://www.muenzeoesterreich.at/eng/discover/for-investors/gold-the-extraordinary-metal[Gold - The Extraordinary Metal] by the Austrian Mint +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/162-Robert-Breedlove-ee9e6t[Robert Breedlove on Bitcoin and the Number Zero] TFTC#162 hosted by Marty Bent +* 🎧 https://youtu.be/FXvQcuIb5rU[Saifedean Ammous on Bitcoin's Immaculate Conception and the Fiat Standard] JBP#458 hosted by Jordan B. Peterson +* 📚 https://amzn.to/2vfz0Gn[The Black Swan - The Impact of the Highly Improbable] by Nassim Nicholas Taleb + +== Lesson 6 - The power of free speech +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ + +"I beg your pardon?" said the mouse, frowning, but very politely, "did you speak?" +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/1-06.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Bitcoin is an idea. An idea which, in its current form, is the manifestation of a machinery purely powered by text. Every aspect of Bitcoin is text: The whitepaper is text. The software which is run by its nodes is text. The ledger is text. Transactions are text. Public and private keys are text. Every aspect of Bitcoin is text, and thus equivalent to speech. + +[quote, First Amendment to the United States Constitution] +“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” + +Although the final battle of the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars[Crypto Wars] has not been fought yet, it will be very difficult to criminalize an idea, let alone an idea which is based on the exchange of text messages. Every time a government tries to outlaw text or speech, we slip down a path of absurdity which inevitably leads to abominations like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number[illegal numbers] and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime[illegal primes]. As long as there is a part of the world where speech is free as in _freedom_, Bitcoin is unstoppable. + +[quote, Beautyon] +“There is no point in any Bitcoin transaction that Bitcoin ceases to be _text_. It is _all text_, all the time. […] Bitcoin is *text.* Bitcoin is *speech.* It cannot be regulated in a free country like the USA with guaranteed inalienable rights and a First Amendment that explicitly excludes the act of publishing from government oversight.” + +Bitcoin taught me that in a free society, free speech and free software are unstoppable. + +''' + +*Through the Looking-Glass 🔍* + +Follow-up articles that expand upon ideas discussed in this lesson: + +* https://dergigi.com/2019/08/22/the-rise-of-the-sovereign-individual/[🔍 The Rise of the Sovereign Individual - How power is re-aligning itself in an internet-native world] +* https://dergigi.com/2019/10/03/how-to-kill-bitcoin/[🔍 How to Kill Bitcoin] +* https://dergigi.com/2020/03/01/bitcoin-s-habitats/[🔍 Bitcoin's Habitats - How Bitcoin is surviving and thriving between worlds] +* https://dergigi.com/2021/08/02/implications-of-outlawing-bitcoin/[🔍 Implications of Outlawing Bitcoin] +* https://dergigi.com/2022/04/03/inalienable-property-rights/[🔍 Inalienable Property Rights - The Law, Language, Money, and Morality of Bitcoin] + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://archive.is/yAOwZ[Why America Can’t Regulate Bitcoin] by Beautyon +* https://time.com/5486673/bitcoin-venezuela-authoritarian/?amp=true[Why Bitcoin Matters for Freedom] by Alex Gladstein +* https://medium.com/@nic__carter/a-most-peaceful-revolution-8b63b64c203e[A most peaceful revolution] by Nic Carter +* https://unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-cannot-be-banned/[Bitcoin Cannot Be Banned] by Parker Lewis +* https://quillette.com/2021/02/21/can-governments-stop-bitcoin/[Can Governments Stop Bitcoin?] by Alex Gladstein +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars[Crypto Wars] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_number[Illegal Numbers] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_prime[Illegal Primes] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution[First Amendment to the United States Constitution] by Wikipedia Contributors +* http://www.philsalin.com/patents.html[Freedom of Speech in Software] by Phil Salin +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/Tales-from-the-Crypt-29-Jameson-Lopp-e1qndr[Jameson Lopp on Freedom-Enabling Technologies like Bitcoin] TFTC#29 hosted by Marty Bent +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/Tales-from-the-Crypt-76-Alex-Gladstein-e46v9e[Alex Gladstein on Bitcoin’s Role in the Fight for Human Rights] TFTC#76 hosted by Marty Bent + +== Lesson 7 - The limits of knowledge +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/1-07.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Getting into Bitcoin is a humbling experience. I thought that I knew things. I thought that I was educated. I thought that I knew my computer science, at the very least. I studied it for years, so I have to know everything about digital signatures, hashes, encryption, operational security, and networks, right? + +Wrong. + +Learning all the fundamentals which make Bitcoin work is hard. Understanding all of them deeply is borderline impossible. + +[quote, Jameson Lopp] +“No one has found the bottom of the Bitcoin rabbit hole.” + +My list of books to read keeps expanding way quicker than I could possibly read them. The list of papers and articles to read is virtually endless. There are more podcasts on all of these topics than I could ever listen to. It truly is humbling. Further, Bitcoin is evolving and it’s almost impossible to stay up-to-date with the accelerating rate of innovation. The dust of the first layer hasn’t even settled yet, and people have already built the second layer and are working on the third. + +Bitcoin taught me that I know very little about almost anything. It taught me that this rabbit hole is bottomless. + +''' + +*Through the Looking-Glass 🔍* + +Follow-up articles that expand upon ideas discussed in this lesson: + +* https://dergigi.com/2019/12/22/bitcoin-s-eternal-struggle/[🔍 Bitcoin's Eternal Struggle - How Bitcoin Thrives on the Edge between Order and Chaos] + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://www.lopp.net/bitcoin-information.html[Bitcoin Information & Resources] by Jameson Lopp +* https://nakamotoinstitute.org/literature/[Bitcoin Literature] by Satoshi Nakamoto Institute +* https://bitcoin-only.com/#learning[Educational Resources] by Bitcoin Only +* https://bitcoin-intro.com/[Bitcoin Intro] by 6102bitcoin +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/Tales-from-the-Crypt-7-Matt-Corallo-Pt--II-e1qneh[Matt Corallo on how Everyone is Ignorant when it comes to Bitcoin] TFTC#7 hosted by Marty Bent +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/podcast-8f267c0/episodes/Bitcoin-Spectrum-with-Ben-Prentice-BEC014-e3q18t[Ben Prentice on the Bitcoin Spectrum] BEC#14 hosted by Collin + +== Chapter II - Economics +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +___ +A large rose tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red. This Alice thought a very curious thing... +___ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/2-00.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Money doesn’t grow on trees. To believe that it does is foolish, and our parents make sure that we know about that by repeating this saying like a mantra. We are encouraged to use money wisely, to not spend it frivolously, and to save it in good times to help us through the bad. Money, after all, does not grow on trees. + +Bitcoin taught me more about money than I ever thought I would need to know. Through it, I was forced to explore the history of money, banking, various schools of economic thought, and many other things. The quest to understand Bitcoin lead me down a plethora of paths, some of which I try to explore in this series. + +In the first seven lessons some of the philosophical questions Bitcoin touches on were discussed. The next seven lessons will take a closer look at money and economics. + +* Lesson 8: Financial ignorance +* Lesson 9: Inflation +* Lesson 10: Value +* Lesson 11: Money +* Lesson 12: The history and downfall of money +* Lesson 13: Fractional Reserve Insanity +* Lesson 14: Sound money + +Again, I will only be able to scratch the surface. Bitcoin is not only ambitious, but also broad and deep in scope, making it impossible to cover all relevant topics in a single lesson, essay, article, or book. I doubt if it is even possible at all. + +Bitcoin is a new form of money, which makes learning about economics paramount to understanding it. Dealing with the nature of human action and the interactions of economic agents, economics is probably one of the largest and fuzziest pieces of the Bitcoin puzzle. + +Again, these lessons are an exploration of the various things I have learned from Bitcoin. They are a personal reflection of my journey down the rabbit hole. Having no background in economics, I am definitely out of my comfort zone and especially aware that any understanding I might have is incomplete. I will do my best to outline what I have learned, even at the risk of making a fool out of myself. After all, I am still trying to answer the question: https://twitter.com/arjunblj/status/1050073234719293440[What have you learned from Bitcoin?] + +After seven lessons examined through the lens of philosophy, let’s use the lens of economics to look at seven more. Economy class is all I can offer this time. Final destination: *sound money*. + +== Lesson 8 - Financial ignorance +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +And what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere. +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/2-08.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +One of the most surprising things, to me, was the amount of finance, economics, and psychology required to get a grasp of what at first glance seems to be a purely _technical_ system  —  a computer network. To paraphrase a little guy with hairy feet: “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, stepping into Bitcoin. You read the whitepaper, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.” To understand a new monetary system, you have to get acquainted with the old one. I began to realize very soon that the amount of financial education I enjoyed in the educational system was essentially _zero_. Like a five-year-old, I began to ask myself a lot of questions: How does the banking system work? How does the stock market work? What is fiat money? What is _regular_ money? Why is there http://www.usdebtclock.org/[so much debt]? How much money is actually printed, and who decides that? After a mild panic about the sheer scope of my ignorance, I found reassurance in realizing that I was in good company. + +[quote, aarontaycc] +“Isn’t it ironic that Bitcoin has taught me more about money than all these years I’ve spent working for financial institutions? …including starting my career at a central bank” + +[quote, bitcoindunny] +“I’ve learned more about finance, economics, technology, cryptography, human psychology, politics, game theory, legislation, and myself in the last three months of crypto than the last three and a half years of college” + +These are just two of the https://twitter.com/search?q=bitcoin%20AND%20I%20AND%20%28learned%20OR%20taught%29&src=typd[many confessions] all over twitter. Bitcoin, as was explored in Lesson 1, is a living thing. Mises argued that economics also is a living thing. And as we all know from personal experience, living things are inherently difficult to understand. + +[quote, Ludwig von Mises] +“A scientific system is but one station in an endlessly progressing search for knowledge. It is necessarily affected by the insufficiency inherent in every human effort. But to acknowledge these facts does not mean that present-day economics is backward. It merely means that economics is a living thing  —  and to live implies both imperfection and change.” + +We all read about various financial crises in the news, wonder about how these big bailouts work and are puzzled over the fact that no one ever seems to be held accountable for damages which are in the trillions. I am still puzzled, but at least I am starting to get a glimpse of what is going on in the world of finance. Some people even go as far as to attribute the general ignorance on these topics to systemic, willful ignorance. While history, physics, biology, math, and languages are all part of our education, the world of money and finance surprisingly is only explored superficially, if at all. I wonder if people would still be willing to accrue as much debt as they currently do if everyone would be educated in personal finance and the workings of money and debt. Then I wonder how many layers of aluminum make an effective tinfoil hat. Probably three. + +[quote, Robert Kiyosaki] + +“Those crashes, these bailouts, are not accidents. And neither is it an accident that there is no financial education in school. […] It’s premeditated. Just as prior to the Civil War it was illegal to educate a slave, we are not allowed to learn about money in school.” + +Like in The Wizard of Oz, we are told to pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. Unlike in The Wizard of Oz, we now have https://external-preview.redd.it/8d03MWWOf2HIyKrT8ThBGO4WFv-u25JaYqhbEO9b1Sk.jpg?width=683&auto=webp&s=dc5922d84717c6a94527bafc0189fd4ca02a24bb[real wizardry]: a censorship-resistant, open, borderless network of value-transfer. There is no curtain, and the magic is https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin[visible to anyone]. Bitcoin taught me to look behind the curtain and face my financial ignorance. + +''' + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://youtu.be/abMQhaMdQu0[Why the Rich are Getting Richer] by Robert Kiyosaki +* 🎧 https://stephanlivera.com/episode/71[Stephan Livera - Intro to Bitcoin Austrian thought] SLP#71 hosted by Stephan Livera +* 📚 https://amzn.to/3cTv7YN[Economic Depressions - Their Cause and Cure] by Murray N. Rothbard +* 📚 https://amzn.to/33eXE6H[Human Action] by Ludwig von Mises + +== Lesson 9 - Inflation +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that. +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/2-09.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Trying to understand monetary inflation, and how a non-inflationary system like Bitcoin might change how we do things, was the starting point of my venture into economics. I knew that inflation was the rate at which new money was created, but I didn’t know too much beyond that. While some economists argue that inflation is a good thing, others argue that “hard” money which can’t be inflated easily — as we had in the days of the gold standard  —  is essential for a healthy economy. Bitcoin, having a fixed supply of 21 million, agrees with the latter camp. Usually, the effects of inflation are not immediately obvious. Depending on the inflation rate (as well as other factors) the time between cause and effect can be several years. Not only that, but inflation affects different groups of people more than others. As Henry Hazlitt points out in _Economics in One Lesson_: “The art of economics consists in looking not merely at the immediate but at the longer effects of any act or policy; it consists in tracing the consequences of that policy not merely for one group but for all groups.” One of my personal lightbulb moments was the realization that issuing new currency  —  printing more money  —  is a _completely_ different economic activity than all the other economic activities. While real goods and real services produce real value for real people, printing money effectively does the opposite: it takes away value from everyone who holds the currency which is being inflated. + +[quote] +“Mere inflation  —  that is, the mere issuance of more money, with the consequence of higher wages and prices  —  may look like the creation of more demand. But in terms of the actual production and exchange of real things it is not.” + +[quote] +https://mises.org/library/economics-one-lesson[Henry Hazlitt] + +The destructive force of inflation becomes obvious as soon as a little inflation turns into _a lot_. If money https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation[hyperinflates], things get ugly real quick. As the inflating currency falls apart, it will fail to store value over time and people will rush to get their hands on any goods which might do. Another consequence of hyperinflation is that all the money which people have saved over the course of their life will effectively vanish. The paper money in your wallet will still be there, of course. But it will be exactly that: worthless paper. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/children-playing-with-money.png[Hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic (1921-1923), 300, align="center"] + +Money declines in value with so-called “mild” inflation as well. It just happens slowly enough that most people don’t notice the diminishing of their purchasing power. And once the printing presses are running, currency can be easily inflated, and what used to be mild inflation might turn into a strong cup of inflation by the push of a button. As Friedrich Hayek pointed out in one of his essays, mild inflation usually leads to outright inflation. + +[quote] +"”Mild” steady inflation cannot help  —  it can lead only to outright inflation.” + +[quote] +https://books.google.com/books?id=zZu3AAAAIAAJ&dq=%22only+while+it+accelerates%22&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22steady+inflation+cannot+help%22[Friedrich Hayek] + +Inflation is particularly devious since it favors those who are closer to the printing presses. It takes time for the newly created money to circulate and prices to adjust, so if you are able to get your hands on more money before everyone else’s devaluates you are ahead of the inflationary curve. This is also why inflation can be seen as a hidden tax because in the end governments profit from it while everyone else ends up paying the price. + +[quote, Friedrich Hayek] +“I do not think it is an exaggeration to say history is largely a history of inflation, and usually of inflations engineered by governments for the gain of governments.” + +So far, all government-controlled currencies have eventually been replaced or have collapsed completely. No matter how small the rate of inflation, “steady” growth is just another way of saying exponential growth. In nature as in economics, all systems which grow exponentially will eventually have to level off or suffer from catastrophic collapse. “It can’t happen in my country,” is what you’re probably thinking. You don’t think that if you are from Venezuela, which is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_in_Venezuela#Economic_crisis[currently suffering] from hyperinflation. With an inflation rate of over 1 million percent, money is basically worthless. It might not happen in the next couple of years, or to the particular currency used in your country. But a glance at the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_currencies[list of historical currencies] shows that it will inevitably happen over a long enough period of time. I remember and used plenty of those listed: the Austrian schilling, the German mark, the Italian lira, the French franc, the Irish pound, the Croatian dinar, etc. My grandma even used the Austro-Hungarian Krone. As time moves on, the currencies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_currencies[currently in use] will slowly but surely move to their respective graveyards. They will hyperinflate or be replaced. They will soon be historical currencies. We will make them obsolete. + +[quote, Saifedean Ammous] +“History has shown that governments will inevitably succumb to the temptation of inflating the money supply.” + +Why is Bitcoin different? In contrast to currencies mandated by the government, monetary goods which are not regulated by governments, but https://dergigi.com/2018/06/10/bitcoin-s-energy-consumption/[by the laws of physics], tend to survive and even hold their respective value over time. The best example of this so far is gold, which, as the aptly-named https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20110819005774/en/History-Shows-Price-Ounce-Gold-Equals-Price[_Gold-to-Decent-Suit Ratio_] shows, is holding its value over hundreds and even thousands of years. It might not be perfectly “stable”  —  a questionable concept in the first place  —  but the value it holds will at least be in the same order of magnitude. If a monetary good or currency holds its value well over time and space, it is considered to be _hard_. If it can’t hold its value, because it easily deteriorates or inflates, it is considered a _soft_ currency. The concept of hardness is essential to understand Bitcoin and is worthy of a more thorough examination. We will return to it in the last economic lesson: sound money. As more and more countries suffer from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation[hyperinflation], more and more people will have to face the reality of hard and soft money. If we are lucky, maybe even some central bankers will be forced to re-evaluate their monetary policies. Whatever might happen, the insights I have gained thanks to Bitcoin will probably be invaluable, no matter the outcome. Bitcoin taught me about the hidden tax of inflation and the catastrophe of hyperinflation. + + +''' + +*Through the Looking-Glass 🔍* + +Follow-up articles that expand upon ideas discussed in this lesson: + +* https://dergigi.com/2019/11/21/bitcoin-boots-on-the-ground-venezuela/[🔍 Bitcoin Boots on the Ground - Venezuela] + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013%E2%80%93present_economic_crisis_in_Venezuela[Economic Crisis in Venezuela] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperinflation[Hyperinflation] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_currencies[List of Currencies] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_historical_currencies[List of Historical Currencies] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://trader2trader.wordpress.com/2012/11/28/list-of-590-dead-currencies-demonetized-r-i-p/[List of Dead Fiat Currencies] by Trader to Trader +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/157-Ben-Prentice--Heavily-Armed-Clown-edlfjb[Ben Prentice & Heavily Armed Clown on WTF Happened in 1971?] TFTC#157 hosted by Marty Bent +* 🎧 https://swansignalpodcast.com/episodes/saifedean-ammous-and-george-gammon-e23[Saifedean Ammous & George Gammon on Inflation, Deflation, and The Bitcoin Standard] SSL#23 hosted by Brady Swenson +* 📚 https://amzn.to/3aNWgui[1980S Unemployment And The Unions - Essays on the Impotent Price Structure of Britain and Monopoly in the Labour Market] by Friedrich von Hayek +* 📚 https://amzn.to/3aK2AD0[Economics In One Lesson] by Henry Hazlitt +* 📚 https://amzn.to/3pQF6Fo[Fiat Money Inflation In France - How It Came, What It Brought, and How It Ended] by Andrew Dickson White +* 📚 https://amzn.to/2IDF52u[Good Money, Part 2 - The Standard] by Friedrich von Hayek +* 📚 https://amzn.to/3EOBA4G[Hard-Boiled Egg Index - Surviving Zimbabwe’s Hyperinflation] by Kudzai Joseph Gumunyu +* 📚 https://amzn.to/3zlvoP4[When Money Dies - The Nightmare of Deficit Spending, Devaluation, and Hyperinflation in Weimar, Germany] by Adam Fergusson + +== Lesson 10 - Value +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +It was the white rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking anxiously about it as it went, as if it had lost something... +____ + +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/2-10.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Value is somewhat paradoxical, and there are https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_value_%28economics%29[multiple theories] which try to explain why we value certain things over other things. People have been aware of this paradox for thousands of years. As Plato wrote in his dialogue with Euthydemus, we value some things because they are rare, and not merely based on their necessity for our survival. + +[quote, Plato] +“And if you are prudent you will give this same counsel to your pupils also  —  that they are never to converse with anybody except you and each other. For it is the rare, Euthydemus, that is precious, while water is cheapest, though best, as Pindar said.” + +This https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value[paradox of value] shows something interesting about us humans: we seem to value things on a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value[subjective] basis, but do so with certain non-arbitrary criteria. Something might be _precious_ to us for a variety of reasons, but things we value do share certain characteristics. If we can copy something very easily, or if it is naturally abundant, we do not value it. It seems that we value something because it is scarce (gold, diamonds, time), difficult or labor-intensive to produce, can’t be replaced (an old photograph of a loved one), is useful in a way in which it enables us to do things which we otherwise couldn’t, or a combination of those, such as great works of art. Bitcoin is all of the above: it is extremely rare (21 million), increasingly hard to produce (reward halvening), can’t be replaced (a lost private key is lost forever), and enables us to do some quite useful things. It is arguably the best tool for value transfer across borders, virtually resistant to censorship and confiscation in the process, plus, it is a self-sovereign store of value, allowing individuals to store their wealth independent of banks and governments, just to name two. Bitcoin taught me that value is subjective but not arbitrary. + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://medium.com/coinmonks/bitcoin-has-no-intrinsic-value-and-thats-great-e6994adbfe0f[Bitcoin Has No Intrinsic Value — and That’s Great] by Conner Brown +* https://www.unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-is-not-too-volatile/[Bitcoin Is Not Too Volatile] by Parker Lewis +* https://unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-is-not-backed-by-nothing/[Bitcoin Is Not Backed By Nothing] by Parker Lewis +* http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0178:text=Euthyd.[Euthydemus] by Plato +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_value[Paradox of Value] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value[Subjective Theory of Value] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_value_%28economics%29[Theory of Value] by Wikipedia Contributors +* 📚 https://amzn.to/2TTYBNi[Skin In The Game - Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life] by Nassim Nicholas Taleb + +== Lesson 11 - Money +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +"In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his gray locks, "I kept all my limbs very supple, By the use of this ointment, five shillings the box— Allow me to sell you a couple." +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/2-11.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +What is money? We use it every day, yet this question is surprisingly difficult to answer. We are dependent on it in ways big and small, and if we have too little of it our lives become very difficult. Yet, we seldom think about the thing which supposedly makes the world go round. Bitcoin forced me to answer this question over and over again: What the hell is money? In our “modern” world, most people will probably think of pieces of paper when they talk about money, even though most of our money is just a number in a bank account. We are already using zeros and ones as our money, so how is Bitcoin different? Bitcoin is different because at its core it is a very different _type_ of money than the money we currently use. To understand this, we will have to take a closer look at what money is, how it came to be, and why gold and silver was used for most of commercial history. + +[quote, Satoshi Nakamoto] +“In this sense, it’s more typical of a precious metal. Instead of the supply changing to keep the value the same, the supply is predetermined and the value changes.” + +Seashells, gold, silver, paper, bitcoin. In the end, *money is whatever people use as money*, no matter its shape and form, or lack thereof. Money, as an invention, is ingenious. A world without money is insanely complicated: How many fish will buy me new shoes? How many cows will buy me a house? What if I don’t need anything right now but I need to get rid of my soon-to-be rotten apples? You don’t need a lot of imagination to realize that a barter economy is maddeningly inefficient. The great thing about money is that it can be exchanged for _anything else_  —  that’s quite the invention! As http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/[Nick Szabo] brilliantly summarizes in _https://nakamotoinstitute.org/shelling-out/[Shelling Out: The Origins of Money]_, we humans have used all kinds of things as money: beads made of rare materials like ivory, shells, or special bones, various kinds of jewelry, and later on rare metals like silver and gold. Being the lazy creatures we are, we don’t think too much about things which just work. Money, for most of us, works just fine. Like with our cars or our computers, most of us are only forced to think about the inner workings of these things if they break down. People who saw their life-savings vanish because of hyperinflation know the value of hard money, just like people who saw their friends and family vanish because of the atrocities of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia know the value of privacy. The thing about money is that it is all-encompassing. Money is half of every transaction, which imbues the ones who are in charge with creating money with enormous power. + +[quote, Ron Paul] +“Given that money is one half of every commercial transaction and that whole civilizations literally rise and fall based on the quality of their money, we are talking about an awesome power, one that flies under the cover of night. It is the power to weave illusions that appear real as long as they last. That is the very core of the Fed’s power.” + +Bitcoin peacefully removes this power, since it does away with money creation and it does so without the use of force. Money went through multiple iterations. Most iterations were good. They improved our money in one way or another. Very recently, however, the inner workings of our money got corrupted. Today, almost all of our money is simply created _out of thin air_ by the powers that be. To understand how this came to be I had to learn about the history and subsequent downfall of money. If it will take a series of catastrophes or simply a monumental educational effort to correct this corruption remains to be seen. I pray to the gods of sound money that it will be the latter. Bitcoin taught me what money is. + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://nakamotoinstitute.org/shelling-out/[Shelling Out - The Origins of Money] by Nick Szabo +* http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2017/02/money-blockchains-and-social-scalability.html[Money, blockchains, and social scalability] by Nick Szabo +* https://medium.com/@vijayboyapati/the-bullish-case-for-bitcoin-6ecc8bdecc1[The Bullish Case for Bitcoin] by Vijay Boyapati +* https://www.unchained-capital.com/blog/dollar-crisis-to-bitcoin/[Gradually, Then Suddenly] by Parker Lewis +* https://medium.com/@breedlove22/masters-and-slaves-of-money-255ecc93404f[Masters and Slaves of Money] by Robert Breedlove +* 🎧 https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/episodes/tip244-bitcoin-101-tuur-demeester/[Tuur Demeester - Bitcoin 101] TIP#244 hosted by Preston Pysh and Stig Brodersen +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/Tales-from-the-Crypt-87-Conner-Brown-e4n9pg[Conner Brown on the intersubjective nature of Bitcoin] TFTC#87 hosted by Marty Bent +* 🎧 https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/the-beginners-guide-to-bitcoin-part-2-what-is-money-with-parker-lewis[Parker Lewis - What is Money?] WBD#183 hosted by Peter McCormack +* 📚 https://amzn.to/31huozJ[Argentarius - Letters of a Bankdirektor to his Son] by Alfred Lansburgh +* 📚 https://amzn.to/39K1dnK[End The Fed] by Ron Paul +* 📚 https://amzn.to/38PySLn[What Has Government Done To Our Money] by Murray Rothbard + +== Lesson 12 - The history and downfall of money +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +They would not remember the simple rules their friends had given them, such as, that, if you get into the fire, it will burn you, and that, if you cut your finger very deeply with a knife, it generally bleeds, and she had never forgotten that, if you drink a bottle marked "poison," it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later. +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/2-12.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Many people think that money is backed by gold, which is locked away in big vaults, protected by thick walls. This ceased to be true many decades ago. I am not sure what I thought, since I was in much deeper trouble, having virtually no understanding of gold, paper money, or why it would need to be backed by something in the first place. One part of learning about Bitcoin is learning about fiat money: what it means, how it came to be, and why it might not be the best idea we ever had. So, what exactly is fiat money? And how did we end up using it? If something is imposed by _fiat_, it simply means that it is imposed by formal authorization or proposition. Thus, fiat money is money simply because _someone_ says that it is money. Since all governments use fiat currency today, this someone is _your_ government. Unfortunately, you are not _free_ to disagree with this value proposition. You will quickly feel that this proposition is everything but non-violent. If you refuse to use this paper currency to do business and pay taxes the only people you will be able to discuss economics with will be your cellmates. The value of fiat money does not stem from its inherent properties. How good a certain type of fiat money is, is only correlated to the political and fiscal (in)stability of those who dream it into existence. Its value is imposed by decree, arbitrarily. + +.fi·at /ˈfēˌät,ˈfēət/ --- 'Let it be done' +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/fiat-definition.png[fi·at /ˈfēˌät,ˈfēət/ --- 'Let it be done', 300, align="center"] + +Until recently, two types of money were used: *commodity money*, made out of precious _things_, and *representative money*, which simply _represents_ the precious thing, mostly in writing. We already touched on commodity money above. People used special bones, seashells, and precious metals as money. Later on, mainly coins made out of precious metals like gold and silver were used as money. The https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_coins[oldest coin] found so far is made of a natural gold-and-silver mix and was made more than 2700 years ago. If something is new in Bitcoin, the concept of a coin is not it. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/lydian-coin-stater.png[Lydian electrum coin. Picture cc-by-sa Classical Numismatic Group, Inc., 300, align="center"] + +Turns out that hoarding coins, or hodling, to use today’s parlance, is almost as old as coins. The earliest coin hodler was someone who put almost a hundred of these coins in a pot and buried it in the foundations of a temple, only to be found 2500 years later. Pretty good cold storage if you ask me. One of the downsides of using precious metal coins is that they can be clipped, effectively debasing the value of the coin. New coins can be minted from the clippings, inflating the money supply over time, devaluing every individual coin in the process. People were literally shaving off as much as they could get away with of their silver dollars. I wonder what kind of _Dollar Shave Club_ advertisements they had back in the day. Since governments are only cool with inflation if they are the ones doing it, efforts were made to stop this guerrilla debasement. In classic cops-and-robbers fashion, coin clippers got ever more creative with their techniques, forcing the ‘masters of the mint’ to get even more creative with their countermeasures. Isaac Newton, the world-renowned physicist of _Principia Mathematica_ fame, used to be one of these masters. He is attributed with adding the small stripes at the side of coins which are still present today. Gone were the days of easy coin shaving. + +.Coin debasement +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/clipped-coins.png[Coin debasement, 300, align="center"] + +Even with these methods of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_coin_debasement[coin debasement] kept in check, coins still suffer from other issues. They are bulky and not very convenient to transport, especially when large transfers of value need to happen. Showing up with a huge bag of silver dollars every time you want to buy a Mercedes isn’t very practical. Speaking of German things: How the United States _dollar_ got its name is another interesting story. The word “dollar” is derived from the German word _https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaler[Thaler]_, short for a _Joachimsthaler._ A Joachimsthaler was a coin minted in the town of _Sankt Joachimsthal_. Thaler is simply a shorthand for someone (or something) coming from the valley, and because Joachimsthal was _the_ valley for silver coin production, people simply referred to these silver coins as _Thaler._ Thaler (German) morphed into daalders (Dutch), and finally dollars (English). + +.The original 'dollar'. Saint Joachim is pictured with his robe and wizard hat. Picture cc-by-sa Berlin-George +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/joachimsthaler.png[The original 'dollar'. Saint Joachim is pictured with his robe and wizard hat. Picture cc-by-sa Berlin-George, 300, align="center"] + +The introduction of representative money heralded the downfall of hard money. Gold certificates were introduced in 1863, and about fifteen years later, the silver dollar was also slowly but surely being replaced by a paper proxy: the silver certificate. It took about 50 years from the introduction of the first https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_certificate_%28United_States%29[silver certificates] until these pieces of paper morphed into something that we would today recognize as one U.S. dollar. + +.A 1928 U.S. silver dollar. 'Payable to the bearer on demand.' Picture credit to the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/us-silver-dollar-note-smaller.png[A 1928 U.S. silver dollar. 'Payable to the bearer on demand.' Picture credit to the National Numismatic Collection at the Smithsonian Institution, 300, align="center"] + +Note that the 1928 U.S. silver dollar above still goes by the name of _silver certificate_, indicating that this is indeed simply a document stating that the bearer of this piece of paper is owed a piece of silver. It is interesting to see that the text which indicates this got smaller over time. The trace of “certificate” vanished completely after a while, being replaced by the reassuring statement that these are federal reserve notes. As mentioned above, the same thing happened to gold. Most of the world was on a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimetallism[bimetallic standard], meaning coins were made primarily of gold and silver. Having certificates for gold, redeemable in gold coins, was arguably a technological improvement. Paper is more convenient, lighter, and since it can be divided arbitrarily by simply printing a smaller number on it, it is easier to break into smaller units. To remind the bearers (users) that these certificates were representative for actual gold and silver, they were colored accordingly and stated this clearly on the certificate itself. You can fluently read the writing from top to bottom: + +[quote] +“This certifies that there have been deposited in the treasury of the United States of America one hundred dollars in gold coin payable to the bearer on demand.” + +.Picture credit to National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History. +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/us-gold-cert-100-smaller.png[Picture credit to National Numismatic Collection, National Museum of American History., 300, align="center"] + +In 1963, the words “PAYABLE TO THE BEARER ON DEMAND” were removed from all newly issued notes. Five years later, the redemption of paper notes for gold and silver ended. The words hinting on the origins and the idea behind paper money were removed. The golden color disappeared. All that was left was the paper and with it the ability of the government to print as much of it as it wishes. With the abolishment of the gold standard in 1971, this century-long sleight-of-hand was complete. Money became the illusion we all share to this day: fiat money. It is worth something because someone commanding an army and operating jails says it is worth something. As can be clearly read on every dollar note in circulation today, “THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER”. In other words: It is valuable because the note says so. + +.A 2004 series U.S. twenty dollar note used today. 'THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER' +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/us-dollar-2004.jpg[A 2004 series U.S. twenty dollar note used today. 'THIS NOTE IS LEGAL TENDER', 300, align="center"] + +By the way, there is another interesting lesson on today’s bank notes, hidden in plain sight. The second line reads that this is legal tender “FOR ALL DEBTS, PUBLIC AND PRIVATE”. What might be obvious to economists was surprising to me: All money is debt. My head is still hurting because of it, and I will leave the exploration of the relation of money and debt as an exercise to the reader. As we have seen, gold and silver were used as money for millennia. Over time, coins made from gold and silver were replaced by paper. Paper slowly became accepted as payment. This acceptance created an illusion  —  the illusion that the paper itself has value. The final move was to completely sever the link between the representation and the actual: abolishing the gold standard and convincing everyone that the paper in itself is precious. Bitcoin taught me about the history of money and the greatest sleight of hand in the history of economics: fiat currency. + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://unchained-capital.com/blog/enders-game/[Enders Game] by Parker Lewis +* https://unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-fixes-this/[Bitcoin Fixes This] by Parker Lewis +* https://unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-obsoletes-all-other-money/[Bitcoin Obsoletes All Other Money] by Parker Lewis +* https://unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-is-a-rally-cry/[Bitcoin Is a Rally Cry] by Parker Lewis +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bimetallism[Bimetallism] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_of_coin_debasement[Methods of Coin Debasement] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaler[Thaler] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_certificate_%28United_States%29[U.S. Silver Certificate] by Wikipedia Contributors +* 📚 https://amzn.to/2xqiEeL[How Is Fiat Money Possible] by Hans-Hermann Hoppe +* 📚 https://amzn.to/2Qauu3s[On The Origins Of Money] by Carl Menger + +== Lesson 13 - Fractional Reserve Insanity +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +Alas! it was too late: she went on growing and growing, and very soon had to kneel down: in another minute there was not room even for this, and she tried the effect of lying down, with one elbow against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still she went on growing, and as a last resource she put one arm out of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself "now I can do no more—what will become of me?" +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/2-13.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Value and money aren’t trivial topics, especially in today’s times. The process of money creation in our banking system is equally non-trivial, and I can’t shake the feeling that this is deliberately so. What I have previously only encountered in academia and legal texts seems to be common practice in the financial world as well: nothing is explained in simple terms, not because it is truly complex, but because the truth is hidden behind layers and layers of jargon and _apparent_ complexity. “Expansionary monetary policy, quantitative easing, fiscal stimulus to the economy.” The audience nods along in agreement, hypnotized by the fancy words. Fractional reserve banking and quantitative easing are two of those fancy words, obfuscating what is really happening by masking it as complex and difficult to understand. If you would explain them to a five-year-old, the insanity of both will become apparent quickly. Godfrey Bloom, addressing the European Parliament during a https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYzX3YZoMrs[joint debate], said it way better than I ever could: + +[quote] +“[…] you do not really understand the concept of banking. All the banks are broke. Bank Santander, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland  —  they’re all broke! And why are they broke? It isn’t an act of God. It isn’t some sort of tsunami. They’re broke because we have a system called ‘fractional reserve banking’ which means that banks can lend money that they don’t actually have! It’s a criminal scandal and it’s been going on for too long. […] We have counterfeiting  —  sometimes called quantitative easing  —  but counterfeiting by any other name. The artificial printing of money which, if any ordinary person did, they’d go to prison for a very long time […] and until we start sending bankers  —  and I include central bankers and politicians  —  to prison for this outrage it will continue.” + +[quote] +https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYzX3YZoMrs[Godfrey Bloom] + +Let me repeat the most important part: banks can lend money that they don’t actually have. Thanks to fractional reserve banking, a bank only has to keep a small _fraction_ of every dollar it gets. It’s somewhere between 0 and 10%, usually at the lower end, which makes things even worse. Let’s use a concrete example to better understand this crazy idea: A fraction of 10% will do the trick and we should be able to do all the calculations in our head. Win-win. So, if you take $100 to a bank  —  because you don’t want to store it under your mattress  —  they only have to keep the agreed upon _fraction_ of it. In our example that would be $10, because 10% of $100 is $10. Easy, right? So what do banks do with the rest of the money? What happens to your $90? They do what banks do, they lend it to other people. The result is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_multiplier[money multiplier] effect, which increases the money supply in the economy enormously. Your initial deposit of $100 will soon turn into $190. By lending a 90% fraction of the newly created $90, there will soon be $271 in the economy. And $343.90 after that. The money supply is recursively increasing, since banks are literally lending money they don’t have. Without a single Abracadabra, banks magically transform $100 into one thousand dollars or more. Turns out 10x is easy. It only takes a couple of lending rounds. + +.Money multiplier +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images//money-multiplier.png[Money multiplier, 300, align="center"] + +Don’t get me wrong: There is nothing wrong with lending. There is nothing wrong with interest. There isn’t even anything wrong with good old regular banks to store your wealth somewhere more secure than in your sock drawer. Central banks, however, are a different beast. Abominations of financial regulation, half public half private, playing god with something which affects everyone who is part of our global civilization, without a conscience, only interested in the immediate future, and seemingly without any accountability or https://i.imgur.com/O03TBuP.jpg[auditability]. While Bitcoin is still inflationary, it will cease to be so rather soon. The strictly limited supply of 21 million bitcoins will eventually do away with inflation completely. We now have two monetary worlds: an inflationary one where money is printed arbitrarily, and the world of Bitcoin, where final supply is fixed and easily auditable for everyone. One is forced upon us by violence, the other can be joined by anyone who wishes to do so. No barriers to entry, no one to ask for permission. Voluntary participation. That is the beauty of Bitcoin. I would argue that the argument between https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics[Keynesian] and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School[Austrian] economists is no longer purely academical. Satoshi managed to build a system for value transfer on steroids, creating the soundest money which ever existed in the process. One way or another, more and more people will learn about the scam which is fractional reserve banking. If they come to similar conclusions as most Austrians and Bitcoiners, they might join the ever-growing internet of money. Nobody can stop them if they choose to do so. Bitcoin taught me that fractional reserve banking is pure insanity. + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_School[Austrian School] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keynesian_economics[Keynesian Economics] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_multiplier[Money Multiplier] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYzX3YZoMrs[Why the whole banking system is a scam] by Godfrey Bloom +* 🎧 https://stephanlivera.com/episode/51[Jörg Guido Hülsmann on Fiat Money and Fractional Reserve Banking] SLP#51 hosted by Stephan Livera +* 📚 https://amzn.to/2U1w8VZ[The Creature From Jekyll Island] by G. Edward Griffin + +== Lesson 14 - Sound money +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +"The first thing I've got to do," said Alice to herself, as she wandered about in the wood, "is to grow to my right size, and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan." +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/2-14.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +The most important lesson I have learned from Bitcoin is that in the long run, hard money is superior to soft money. Hard money, also referred to as _sound money_, is any globally traded currency that serves as a reliable store of value. Granted, Bitcoin is still young and volatile. Critics will say that it does not store value reliably. The volatility argument is missing the point. Volatility is to be expected. The market will take a while to figure out the just price of this new money. Also, as is often jokingly pointed out, it is grounded in an error of measurement. If you think in dollars you will fail to see that one bitcoin will always be worth one bitcoin. + +[quote, Fr. Bernard W. Dempsey, S.J.] +“A fixed money supply, or a supply altered only in accord with objective and calculable criteria, is a necessary condition to a meaningful just price of money.” + +As a quick stroll through the graveyard of forgotten currencies has shown, money which can be printed will be printed. So far, no human in history was able to resist this temptation. Bitcoin does away with the temptation to print money in an ingenious way. Satoshi was aware of our greed and fallibility  —  this is why he chose something more reliable than human restraint: mathematics. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/supply-formula-white.png[Bitcoin's supply formula, 300, align="center"] + +While this formula is useful to describe Bitcoin’s supply, it is actually nowhere to be found in the code. Issuance of new bitcoin is done in an https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply[algorithmically controlled] fashion, by reducing the reward which is paid to miners every four years. The formula above is used to quickly sum up what is happening under the hood. What really happens can be best seen by looking at the change in block reward, the reward paid out to whoever finds a valid block, which roughly happens every 10 minutes. + +.You are here. +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/you-are-here.png[You are here., 300, align="center"] + +Formulas, logarithmic functions and exponentials are not exactly intuitive to understand. The concept of _soundness_ might be easier to understand if looked at in another way. Once we know how much there is of something, and once we know how hard this something is to produce or get our hands on, we immediately understand its value. What is true for Picasso’s paintings, Elvis Presley’s guitars, and Stradivarius violins is also true for fiat currency, gold, and bitcoins. The hardness of fiat currency depends on who is in charge of the respective printing presses. Some governments might be more willing to print large amounts of currency than others, resulting in a weaker currency. Other governments might be more restrictive in their money printing, resulting in harder currency. Before we had fiat currencies, the soundness of money was determined by the natural properties of the stuff which we used as money. The amount of gold on earth is limited by the laws of physics. Gold is rare because supernovae and neutron star collisions are rare. The “flow” of gold is limited because extracting it is quite an effort. Being a heavy element it is mostly buried deep underground. The abolishment of the gold standard gave way to a new reality: adding new money requires just a drop of ink. In our modern world adding a couple of zeros to the balance of a bank account requires even less effort: flipping a few bits in a bank computer is enough. + +[quote, Jörg Guido Hülsmann] +“One important aspect of this new reality is that institutions like the Fed cannot go bankrupt. They can print any amount of money that they might need for themselves at virtually zero cost.” + +The principle outlined above can be expressed more generally as the ratio of “stock” to “flow”. Simply put, the _stock_ is how much of something is currently there. For our purposes, the stock is a measure of the current money supply. The _flow_ is how much there is produced over a period of time (e.g. per year). The key to understanding sound money is in understanding this stock-to-flow ratio. Calculating the stock-to-flow ratio for fiat currency is difficult, because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply[how much money there is] depends on how you look at it. You could count only banknotes and coins (M0), add traveler checks and check deposits (M1), add saving accounts and mutual funds and some other things (M2), and even add certificates of deposit to all of that (M3). Further, how all of this is defined and measured varies from country to country and since the US Federal Reserve https://www.federalreserve.gov/Releases/h6/discm3.htm[stopped publishing] numbers for M3, we will have to make do with the M2 monetary supply. I would love to verify these numbers, but I guess we have to trust the fed for now. Gold, one of the rarest metals on earth, has the highest stock-to-flow ratio. According to the US Geological Survey, a little more than 190,000 tons have been mined. In the https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/2018/mcs2018.pdf[last few years], around 3100 tons of gold have been mined per year. Using these numbers, we can easily calculate the stock-to-flow ratio for gold: 190,000 tons / 3,100 tons = ~61. Nothing has a higher stock-to-flow ratio than gold. This is why gold, up to now, was the hardest, soundest money in existence. It is often said that all the gold mined so far would fit in two olympic-sized swimming pools. According to https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=volume+of+190000+metric+tons+gold+%2F+olympic+swimming+pool+volume[my calculations], we would need four. So maybe this needs updating, or Olympic-sized swimming pools got smaller. Enter Bitcoin. As you probably know, bitcoin mining was all the rage in the last couple of years. This is because we are still in the early phases of what is called the _reward era_, where mining nodes are rewarded with _a lot_ of bitcoin for their computational effort. We are currently in reward era number 4, which began in 2020 and will end in early 2024, probably in May. While the bitcoin supply is predetermined, the inner workings of Bitcoin only allow for approximate dates. Nevertheless, we can predict with certainty how high Bitcoin’s stock-to-flow ratio will be. Spoiler alert: it will be high. How high? Well, it turns out that Bitcoin will get infinitely hard. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/stock-to-flow-white-cc-by-sources.png[Visualization of stock and flow for USD, gold, and Bitcoin, 300, align="center"] + +Due to an exponential decrease of the mining reward, the flow of new bitcoin will diminish resulting in a sky-rocketing stock-to-flow ratio. It almost caught up to gold in 2020, only to surpass it four years later by doubling its soundness again. Such a doubling will occur 32 times in total. Thanks to the power of exponentials, the number of bitcoin mined per year will drop below 100 bitcoin in 50 years and below 1 bitcoin in 75 years. The global faucet which is the block reward will dry up somewhere around the year 2140, effectively stopping the production of bitcoin. This is a long game. If you are reading this, you are still early. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/soundness-over-time.png[Rising stock-to-flow ratio of bitcoin as compared to gold, 300, align="center"] + +As bitcoin approaches infinite stock to flow ratio it will be the soundest money in existence. Infinite soundness is hard to beat. Viewed through the lens of economics, Bitcoin’s _difficulty adjustment_ is probably its most important component. How hard it is to mine bitcoin depends on how quickly new bitcoins are mined*. It is the dynamic adjustment of the network’s mining difficulty which enables us to predict its future supply. _(* It actually depends on how quickly valid blocks are found, but for our purposes, this is the same thing as “mining bitcoins” and will be so for the next 120 years.)_ The simplicity of the difficulty adjustment algorithm might distract from its profundity, but the difficulty adjustment truly is a revolution of Einsteinian proportions. It ensures that, no matter how much or how little effort is spent on mining, Bitcoin’s controlled supply won’t be disrupted. As opposed to every other resource, no matter how https://dergigi.com/2018/06/10/bitcoin-s-energy-consumption/[much energy] someone will put into mining bitcoin, the total reward will not increase. Just like E=mc² dictates the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#Upper_limit_on_speeds[universal speed limit] in our universe, Bitcoin’s difficulty adjustment dictates the *universal money limit* in Bitcoin. If it weren’t for this difficulty adjustment, all bitcoins would have been mined already. If it weren’t for this difficulty adjustment, Bitcoin probably wouldn’t have survived in its infancy. It is what secures the network in its reward era. It is what ensures a steady and https://blog.picks.co/bitcoins-distribution-was-fair-e2ef7bbbc892[fair distribution] of new bitcoin. It is the thermostat which regulates Bitcoin’s monetary policy. Einstein showed us something novel: no matter how hard you push an object, at a certain point you won’t be able to get more speed out of it. Satoshi also showed us something novel: no matter how hard you dig for this digital gold, at a certain point you won’t be able to get more bitcoin out of it. For the first time in human history, we have a monetary good which, no matter how hard you try, you won’t be able to produce more of. Bitcoin taught me that sound money is essential. + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://blog.picks.co/bitcoins-distribution-was-fair-e2ef7bbbc892[Bitcoin’s distribution was fair] by Dan Held +* https://unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-is-common-sense/[Bitcoin is Common Sense] by Parker Lewis +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply[Bitcoin’s Controlled Supply] by Bitcoin Wiki Contributors +* https://www.usgs.gov/centers/nmic/mineral-commodity-summaries[Mineral Commodity Summaries 2019] by the United States Geological Survey +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_supply[Money Supply] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light#Upper_limit_on_speeds[Speed of Light] by Wikipedia Contributors +* 🎧 https://noded.org/podcast/noded-030-with-saifedean-ammous/[Saifedean Ammous on Bitcoin as Sound Money] Noded#3 hosted by Michael Goldstein and Pierre Rochard +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/Tales-from-the-Crypt-34-Murad-Mahmudov-e1qndn[Murad Mahmudov on Bitcoin as the World Reserve Currency] TFTC#34 hosted by Marty Bent +* 📚 https://amzn.to/3aRdPK8[Money, Sound And Unsound] by Joseph Salerno +* 📚 https://amzn.to/39LVVZ3[The Ethics Of Money Production] by Jörg Guido Hülsmann + +== Chapter III - Technology +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +___ +"Now, I'll manage better this time" she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key, and unlocking the door that led into the garden. +___ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/3-00.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Golden keys, clocks which only work by chance, races to solve strange riddles, and builders that don’t have faces or names. What sounds like fairy tales from Wonderland is daily business in the world of Bitcoin. + +As we explored in https://21lessons.com/economics[Chapter 2], large parts of the current financial system are systematically broken. Like Alice, we can only hope to manage better this time. But, thanks to a pseudonymous inventor, we have incredibly sophisticated technology to support us this time around: Bitcoin. + +Solving problems in a radically decentralized and adversarial environment requires unique solutions. What would otherwise be trivial problems to solve are everything but in this strange world of nodes. Bitcoin relies on strong cryptography for most solutions, at least if looked at through the lens of technology. Just how strong this cryptography is will be explored in one of the following lessons. + +Cryptography is what Bitcoin uses to remove trust in authorities. Instead of relying on centralized institutions, the system relies on the final authority of our universe: physics. Some grains of trust still remain, however. We will examine these grains in the second lesson of this chapter. + +* Lesson 15: Strength in numbers +* Lesson 16: Reflections on "Don't Trust, Verify" +* Lesson 17: Telling time takes work +* Lesson 18: Move slowly and don't break things +* Lesson 19: Privacy is not dead +* Lesson 20: Cypherpunks write code +* Lesson 21: Metaphors for Bitcoin's future + +The last couple of lessons explore the ethos of technological development in Bitcoin, which is arguably as important as the technology itself. Bitcoin is not the next shiny app on your phone. It is the foundation of a new economic reality, which is why Bitcoin should be treated as nuclear-grade financial software. + +Where are we in this financial, societal, and technological revolution? Networks and technologies of the past may serve as metaphors for Bitcoins future, which are explored in the last lesson of this chapter. + +Once more, strap in and enjoy the ride. Like all exponential technologies, we are about to go parabolic. + +== Lesson 15 - Strength in numbers +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is fourteen—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at this rate! +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/3-15.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Numbers are an essential part of our everyday life. Large numbers, however, aren’t something most of us are too familiar with. The largest numbers we might encounter in everyday life are in the range of millions, billions, or trillions. We might read about millions of people in poverty, billions of dollars spent on bank bailouts, and trillions of national debt. Even though it’s hard to make sense of these headlines, we are somewhat comfortable with the size of those numbers. Although we might seem comfortable with billions and trillions, our intuition already starts to fail with numbers of this magnitude. Do you have an intuition how long you would have to wait for a million/billion/trillion seconds to pass? If you are anything like me, you are lost without actually crunching the numbers. Let’s take a closer look at this example: the difference between each is an increase by three orders of magnitude: 10⁶, 10⁹, 10¹². Thinking about seconds is not very useful, so let’s translate this into something we can wrap our head around: + +* 10⁶: One million seconds was 1½ weeks ago. +* 10⁹: One billion seconds was almost 32 years ago. +* 10¹²: One trillion seconds ago Manhattan was covered under a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum[thick layer of ice]. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/xkcd-1225.png[About 1 trillion seconds ago. Source: xkcd #1225, 300, align="center"] + +As soon as we enter the beyond-astronomical realm of modern cryptography, our intuition fails catastrophically. Bitcoin is built around large numbers and the virtual impossibility of guessing them. These numbers are way, way larger than anything we might encounter in day-to-day life. Many orders of magnitude larger. Understanding how large these numbers truly are is essential to understanding Bitcoin as a whole. Let’s take https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2[SHA-256], one of the https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_hashing_algorithm[hash functions] used in Bitcoin, as a concrete example. It is only natural to think about 256 bits as “two hundred fifty-six,” which isn’t a large number at all. However, the number in SHA-256 is talking about orders of magnitude  —  something our brains are not well-equipped to deal with. While bit length is a convenient metric, the true meaning of 256-bit security is lost in translation. Similar to the millions (10⁶) and billions (10⁹) above, the number in SHA-256 is about orders of magnitude (2²⁵⁶). So, how strong is SHA-256, exactly? + +[quote, Satoshi Nakamoto] +“SHA-256 is very strong. It’s not like the incremental step from MD5 to SHA1. It can last several decades unless there’s some massive breakthrough attack.” + +Let’s spell things out. 2²⁵⁶ equals the following number: + +---- +115 quattuorvigintillion 792 trevigintillion 89 duovigintillion 237 unvigintillion 316 vigintillion 195 novemdecillion 423 octodecillion 570 septendecillion 985 sexdecillion 8 quindecillion 687 quattuordecillion 907 tredecillion 853 duodecillion 269 undecillion 984 decillion 665 nonillion 640 octillion 564 septillion 39 sextillion 457 quintillion 584 quadrillion 7 trillion 913 billion 129 million 639 thousand 936. +---- + +That’s a lot of nonillions! Wrapping your head around this number is pretty much impossible. There is nothing in the physical universe to compare it to. It is far larger than the number of atoms in the observable universe. The human brain simply isn’t made to make sense of it. One of the best visualizations of the true strength of SHA-256 is the following video by Grant Sanderson. Aptly named https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9JGmA5_unY[“How secure is 256 bit security?”] it beautifully shows how large a 256-bit space is. Do yourself a favor and take the five minutes to watch it. As all other https://twitter.com/3blue1brown[3Blue1Brown] videos it is not only fascinating but also exceptionally well made. Warning: You might fall down a math rabbit hole. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/youtube-vid.png[Answer: Pretty secure., 300, align="center"] + +https://www.schneier.com/[Bruce Schneier] used the physical limits of computation to put this number into perspective: even if we could build an optimal computer, which would use any provided energy to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle#Equation[flip bits perfectly], build a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere[Dyson sphere] around our sun, and let it run for 100 billion billion years, we would still only have a 25% chance to find a needle in a 256-bit haystack. + +[quote, Bruce Schneier] +“These numbers have nothing to do with the technology of the devices; they are the maximums that thermodynamics will allow. And they strongly imply that brute-force attacks against 256-bit keys will be infeasible until computers are built from something other than matter and occupy something other than space.” + +It is hard to overstate the profoundness of this. Strong cryptography inverts the power-balance of the physical world we are so used to. Unbreakable things do not exist in the real world. Apply enough force, and you will be able to open any door, box, or treasure chest. Bitcoin’s treasure chest is very different. It is secured by strong cryptography, which does not give way to brute force. And as long as the underlying mathematical assumptions hold, brute force is all we have. Granted, there is also the option of a global https://xkcd.com/538/[$5 wrench attack]. But torture won’t work for all Bitcoin addresses, and the cryptographic walls of Bitcoin will defeat brute force attacks. Even if you come at it with the force of a thousand suns. Literally. This fact and its implications were poignantly summarized in the https://cryptome.org/2012/12/assange-crypto-arms.htm[call to cryptographic arms]: +_“No amount of coercive force will ever solve a math problem.”_ + +[quote, Julian Assange] +“It isn’t obvious that the world had to work this way. But somehow the universe smiles on encryption.” + +Nobody yet knows for sure if the universe’s smile is genuine or not. It is possible that our assumption of mathematical asymmetries is wrong and we find that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem#P_=_NP[P actually equals NP], or we find surprisingly quick solutions to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_logarithm#Cryptography[specific problems] which we currently assume to be hard. If that should be the case, cryptography as we know it will cease to exist, and the implications would most likely change the world beyond recognition. + +[quote, epii] +“Vires in Numeris” = “Strength in Numbers” + +_Vires in numeris_ is not only a catchy motto used by bitcoiners. The realization that there is an unfathomable strength to be found in numbers is a profound one. Understanding this, and the inversion of existing power balances which it enables changed my view of the world and the future which lies ahead of us. One direct result of this is the fact that you don’t have to ask anyone for permission to participate in Bitcoin. There is no page to sign up, no company in charge, no government agency to send application forms to. Simply generate a large number and you are pretty much good to go. The central authority of account creation is mathematics. And God only knows who is in charge of that. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/elliptic-curve-examples.png[Elliptic curve examples (cc-by-sa Emmanuel Boutet), 300, align="center"] + +Bitcoin is built upon our best understanding of reality. While there are still many open problems in physics, computer science, and mathematics, we are pretty sure about some things. That there is an asymmetry between finding solutions and validating the correctness of these solutions is one such thing. That computation needs energy is another one. In other words: finding a needle in a haystack is harder than checking if the pointy thing in your hand is indeed a needle or not. And finding the needle takes work. The vastness of Bitcoin’s address space is truly mind-boggling. The number of private keys even more so. It is fascinating how much of our modern world boils down to the improbability of finding a needle in an unfathomably large haystack. I am now more aware of this fact than ever. Bitcoin taught me that there is strength in numbers. + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Block_hashing_algorithm[Block hashing algorithm] by Bitcoin Wiki Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrete_logarithm#Cryptography[Discrete Logarithm] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere[Dyson Sphere] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9JGmA5_unY[How secure is 256 bit security?] by 3Blue1Brown +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landauer%27s_principle#Equation[Landauer’s Principle] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_Glacial_Maximum[Last Glacial Maximum] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem#P_=_NP[P versus NP] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SHA-2[SHA-2] by Wikipedia Contributors +* 📚 https://amzn.to/2w18QHT[Fooled By Randomness - The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets] by Nassim Nicholas Taleb + +== Lesson 16 - Reflections on "Don't Trust, Verify" +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +"Now for the evidence," said the King, "and then the sentence." +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/3-16.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Bitcoin aims to replace, or at least provide an alternative to, conventional currency. Conventional currency is bound to a centralized authority, no matter if we are talking about legal tender like the US dollar or modern monopoly money like Fortnite’s V-Bucks. In both examples, you are bound to trust the central authority to issue, manage and circulate your money. Bitcoin unties this bound, and the main issue Bitcoin solves is the issue of _trust_. + +[quote, Satoshi] +“The root problem with conventional currency is all the trust that’s required to make it work. […] What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust” + +Bitcoin solves the problem of trust by being completely decentralized, with no central server or trusted parties. Not even trusted _third_ parties, but trusted parties, period. When there is no central authority, there simply _is_ no-one to trust. Complete decentralization is the innovation. It is the root of Bitcoin’s resilience, the reason why it is still alive. Decentralization is also why we have mining, nodes, hardware wallets, and yes, the blockchain. The only thing you have to “trust” is that our understanding of mathematics and physics isn’t totally off and that the https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-guide#term-51-attack[majority] of miners act honestly (which they are incentivized to do). While the regular world operates under the assumption of _“trust, but verify,”_ Bitcoin operates under the assumption of _“don’t trust, verify.”_ Satoshi made the importance of removing trust very clear in both the introduction as well as the conclusion of the https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf[Bitcoin whitepaper]. + +[quote, Satoshi Nakamoto] +“Conclusion: We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust.” + +Note that “without relying on trust” is used in a very specific context here. We are talking about trusted third parties, i.e. other entities which you trust to produce, hold, and process your money. It is assumed, for example, that you can trust your computer. As Ken Thompson showed in his Turing Award lecture, trust is an extremely tricky thing in the computational world. When running a program, you have to trust all kinds of software (and hardware) which, in theory, could alter the program you are trying to run in a malicious way. As Thompson summarized in his https://www.archive.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf[_Reflections on Trusting Trust_]: “The moral is obvious. You can’t trust code that you did not totally create yourself.” + +.Ken Thompson Hack +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/ken-thompson-hack.png[Ken Thompson Hack, 300, align="center"] + +Thompson demonstrated that even if you have access to the source code, your compiler  —  or any other program-handling program or hardware  —  could be compromised and detecting this backdoor would be very difficult. Thus, in practice, a truly _trustless_ system does not exist. You would have to create all your software _and_ all your hardware (assemblers, compilers, linkers, etc.) from scratch, without the aid of any external software or software-aided machinery. + +[quote, Carl Sagan] +“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.” + +The Ken Thompson Hack is a particularly ingenious and hard-to-detect backdoor, so let’s take a quick look at a hard-to-detect backdoor which works without modifying any software. Researchers https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Stealthy+Dopant-Level+Hardware+Trojans&btnG=[found a way] to compromise security-critical hardware by altering the polarity of silicon impurities. Just by changing the physical properties of the stuff that computer chips are made of they were able to compromise a cryptographically secure random number generator. Since this change can’t be seen, the backdoor can’t be detected by optical inspection, which is one of the most important tamper-detection mechanism for chips like these. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/stealthy-hardware-trojan.png[Stealthy Dopant-Level Hardware Trojans by Becker, Regazzoni, Paar, Burleson, 300, align="center"] + +Sounds scary? Well, even if you would be able to build everything from scratch, you would still have to trust the underlying mathematics. You would have to trust that https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Secp256k1[secp256k1] is an elliptic curve without backdoors. Yes, malicious backdoors can be inserted in the mathematical foundations of cryptographic functions and arguably this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG[has already happened] at least once. There are good reasons to be paranoid, and the fact that everything from your hardware, to your software, to the elliptic curves used can have https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic-curve_cryptography#Backdoors[backdoors] are some of them. + +[quote] +“Don’t trust. Verify.” The above examples should illustrate that _trustless_ computing is utopic. Bitcoin is probably the one system which comes closest to this utopia, but still, it is _trust-minimized_  — aiming to remove trust wherever possible. Arguably, the chain-of-trust is neverending, since you will also have to trust that computation requires energy, that P does not equal NP, and that you are actually in base reality and not imprisoned in a simulation by malicious actors. Developers are working on tools and procedures to minimize any remaining trust even further. For example, Bitcoin developers created https://gitian.org/[Gitian], which is a software distribution method to create deterministic builds. The idea is that if multiple developers are able to reproduce identical binaries, the chance of malicious tampering is reduced. Fancy backdoors aren’t the only attack vector. Simple blackmail or extortion are real threats as well. As in the main protocol, decentralization is used to minimize trust. Various efforts are being made to improve upon the chicken-and-egg problem of https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Bootstrapping.html[bootstrapping] which Ken Thompson’s hack so brilliantly pointed out. One such effort is https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/[Guix] (pronounced _geeks_), which uses functionally declared package management leading to bit-for-bit reproducible builds by design. The result is that you don’t have to trust any software-providing servers anymore since you can verify that the served binary was not tampered with by rebuilding it from scratch. Recently, a https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/15277[pull-request] was merged to integrate Guix into the Bitcoin build process. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/guix-bootstrap-dependencies.png[Which came first, the chicken or the egg?, 300, align="center"] + +Luckily, Bitcoin doesn’t rely on a single algorithm or piece of hardware. One effect of Bitcoin’s radical decentralization is a distributed security model. Although the backdoors described above are not to be taken lightly, it is unlikely that every software wallet, every hardware wallet, every cryptographic library, every node implementation, and every compiler of every language is compromised. Possible, but highly unlikely. Note that you can generate a private key without relying on any computational hardware or software. You can https://github.com/bitcoinbook/bitcoinbook/blob/develop/ch04.asciidoc#private-keys[flip a coin] a couple of times, although depending on your coin and tossing style this source of randomness might not be sufficiently random. There is a reason why storage protocols like https://glacierprotocol.org/[Glacier] advise to use casino-grade dice as one of two sources of entropy. Bitcoin forced me to reflect on what trusting nobody actually entails. It raised my awareness of the bootstrapping problem, and the implicit chain-of-trust in developing and running software. It also raised my awareness of the many ways in which software and hardware can be compromised. Bitcoin taught me not to trust, but to verify. + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://www.archive.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf[Reflections on Trusting Trust] by Ken Thompson +* https://nakamotoinstitute.org/trusted-third-parties/[Trusted Third Parties Are Security Holes] by Nick Szabo +* https://bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf[The Bitcoin Whitepaper] by Satoshi Nakamoto +* https://bitcoin.org/en/developer-guide#term-51-attack[51% Attack] by Bitcoin Developer Guide Contributors +* https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/manual/en/html_node/Bootstrapping.html[Bootstrapping] by Guix Manual Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_EC_DRBG[Dual EC DRBG] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptic-curve_cryptography#Backdoors[ECC Backdoors] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Secp256k1[Secp256k1] by Bitcoin Wiki Contributors + +== Lesson 17 - Telling time takes work +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +"Dear, dear! I shall be too late!" +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/3-17.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +It is often said that bitcoins are mined because thousands of computers work on solving _very complex_ mathematical problems. Certain problems are to be solved, and if you compute the right answer, you “produce” a bitcoin. While this simplified view of bitcoin mining might be easier to convey, it does miss the point somewhat. Bitcoins aren’t produced or created, and the whole ordeal is not really about solving particular math problems. Also, the math isn’t particularly complex. What is complex is _telling the time_ in a decentralized system. As outlined in the whitepaper, the proof-of-work system (aka mining) is a way to implement a distributed timestamp server. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/bitcoin-whitepaper-timestamp-wide.png[Excerpts from the whitepaper. Did someone say timechain?, 300, align="center"] + +When I first learned how Bitcoin works I also thought that proof-of-work is inefficient and wasteful. After a while, I started to https://dergigi.com/2018/06/10/bitcoin-s-energy-consumption/[shift my perspective on Bitcoin’s energy consumption]. It seems that proof-of-work is still widely misunderstood today, in the year 13 AB (after Bitcoin). Since the problems to be solved in proof-of-work are made up, many people seem to believe that it is _useless_ work. If the focus is purely on the computation, this is an understandable conclusion. But Bitcoin isn’t about computation. It is about _independently agreeing on the order of things._ Proof- of-work is a system in which everyone can validate what happened and in what order it happened. This independent validation is what leads to consensus, an individual agreement by multiple parties about who owns what. In a radically decentralized environment, we don’t have the luxury of absolute time. Any clock would introduce a trusted third party, a central point in the system which had to be relied upon and could be attacked. “Timing is the root problem,” as Grisha Trubetskoy https://grisha.org/blog/2018/01/23/explaining-proof-of-work/[points out]. And Satoshi brilliantly solved this problem by implementing a decentralized clock via a proof-of-work blockchain. Everyone agrees beforehand that the chain with the most cumulative work is the source of truth. It is per definition what actually happened. This agreement is what is now known as Nakamoto consensus. + +[quote, Satoshi Nakamoto] +“The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain which serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed” + +Without a consistent way to tell the time, there is no consistent way to tell before from after. Reliable ordering is impossible. As mentioned above, Nakamoto consensus is Bitcoin’s way to consistently tell the time. The system’s incentive structure produces a probabilistic, decentralized clock, by utilizing both greed and self-interest of competing participants. The fact that this clock is imprecise is irrelevant because the order of events is eventually unambiguous and can be verified by anyone. Thanks to proof-of-work, both the work _and_ the validation of the work are radically decentralized. Everyone can join and leave at will, and everyone can validate everything at all times. Not only that, but everyone can validate the state of the system _individually_, without having to rely on anyone else for validation. Understanding proof-of-work takes time. It is often counter-intuitive, and while the rules are simple, they lead to quite complex phenomena. For me, shifting my perspective on mining helped. Useful, not useless. Validation, not computation. Time, not blocks. Bitcoin taught me that telling the time is tricky, especially if you are decentralized. + + +''' + +*Through the Looking-Glass 🔍* + +Follow-up articles that expand upon ideas discussed in this lesson: + +* https://dergigi.com/2018/06/10/bitcoin-s-energy-consumption/[🔍 Bitcoin's Energy Consumption - A shift in perspective] +* https://dergigi.com/2021/01/14/bitcoin-is-time/[🔍 Bitcoin Is Time] + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/[Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work] by Paul Sztorc +* https://archive.is/3IpA4[Bitcoin Doesn’t Waste Electricity] by Beautyon +* https://grisha.org/blog/2018/01/23/explaining-proof-of-work/[Blockchain Proof-of-Work Is a Decentralized Clock] by Gregory Trubetskoy +* https://bitcointechtalk.com/the-anatomy-of-proof-of-work-98c85b6f6667[The Anatomy of Proof-of-Work] by Hugo Nguyen +* https://medium.com/@hugonguyen/work-is-timeless-stake-is-not-554c4450ce18[Work is Timeless, Stake is Not] by Hugo Nguyen +* https://www.unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-does-not-waste-energy/[Bitcoin Does Not Waste Energy] by Parker Lewis +* https://unchained-capital.com/blog/law-of-hash-horizons/[Bitcoin Astronomy] by Dhruv Bansal +* https://www.coindesk.com/the-last-word-on-bitcoins-energy-consumption[The Last Word on Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption] by Nic Carter +* https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-hidden-costs-of-the-petrodollar[Uncovering The Hidden Costs Of The Petrodollar] by Alex Gladstein +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply[Controlled Supply] by Bitcoin Wiki Contributors +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining[Mining] by Bitcoin Wiki Contributors +* 🎧 https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/episodes/trace-mayer-bitcoin/[Trace Mayer on Bitcoin Valuation, Trust, and Energy Consumption] TIP#252 hosted by Breston Pysh and Stig Brodersen +* 🎧 https://citizenbitcoin.world/episodes/robert-breedlove-understanding-time-money-and-bitcoin-from-first-principles[Robert Breedlove on Understanding Bitcoin from First Principles] CB#52 hosted by Brady Swenson + +== Lesson 17 - Telling time takes work +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +"Dear, dear! I shall be too late!" +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/3-17.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +It is often said that bitcoins are mined because thousands of computers work on solving _very complex_ mathematical problems. Certain problems are to be solved, and if you compute the right answer, you “produce” a bitcoin. While this simplified view of bitcoin mining might be easier to convey, it does miss the point somewhat. Bitcoins aren’t produced or created, and the whole ordeal is not really about solving particular math problems. Also, the math isn’t particularly complex. What is complex is _telling the time_ in a decentralized system. As outlined in the whitepaper, the proof-of-work system (aka mining) is a way to implement a distributed timestamp server. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/bitcoin-whitepaper-timestamp-wide.png[Excerpts from the whitepaper. Did someone say timechain?, 300, align="center"] + +When I first learned how Bitcoin works I also thought that proof-of-work is inefficient and wasteful. After a while, I started to https://dergigi.com/2018/06/10/bitcoin-s-energy-consumption/[shift my perspective on Bitcoin’s energy consumption]. It seems that proof-of-work is still widely misunderstood today, in the year 13 AB (after Bitcoin). Since the problems to be solved in proof-of-work are made up, many people seem to believe that it is _useless_ work. If the focus is purely on the computation, this is an understandable conclusion. But Bitcoin isn’t about computation. It is about _independently agreeing on the order of things._ Proof- of-work is a system in which everyone can validate what happened and in what order it happened. This independent validation is what leads to consensus, an individual agreement by multiple parties about who owns what. In a radically decentralized environment, we don’t have the luxury of absolute time. Any clock would introduce a trusted third party, a central point in the system which had to be relied upon and could be attacked. “Timing is the root problem,” as Grisha Trubetskoy https://grisha.org/blog/2018/01/23/explaining-proof-of-work/[points out]. And Satoshi brilliantly solved this problem by implementing a decentralized clock via a proof-of-work blockchain. Everyone agrees beforehand that the chain with the most cumulative work is the source of truth. It is per definition what actually happened. This agreement is what is now known as Nakamoto consensus. + +[quote, Satoshi Nakamoto] +“The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain which serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed” + +Without a consistent way to tell the time, there is no consistent way to tell before from after. Reliable ordering is impossible. As mentioned above, Nakamoto consensus is Bitcoin’s way to consistently tell the time. The system’s incentive structure produces a probabilistic, decentralized clock, by utilizing both greed and self-interest of competing participants. The fact that this clock is imprecise is irrelevant because the order of events is eventually unambiguous and can be verified by anyone. Thanks to proof-of-work, both the work _and_ the validation of the work are radically decentralized. Everyone can join and leave at will, and everyone can validate everything at all times. Not only that, but everyone can validate the state of the system _individually_, without having to rely on anyone else for validation. Understanding proof-of-work takes time. It is often counter-intuitive, and while the rules are simple, they lead to quite complex phenomena. For me, shifting my perspective on mining helped. Useful, not useless. Validation, not computation. Time, not blocks. Bitcoin taught me that telling the time is tricky, especially if you are decentralized. + + +''' + +*Through the Looking-Glass 🔍* + +Follow-up articles that expand upon ideas discussed in this lesson: + +* https://dergigi.com/2018/06/10/bitcoin-s-energy-consumption/[🔍 Bitcoin's Energy Consumption - A shift in perspective] +* https://dergigi.com/2021/01/14/bitcoin-is-time/[🔍 Bitcoin Is Time] + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* http://www.truthcoin.info/blog/pow-cheapest/[Nothing is Cheaper than Proof of Work] by Paul Sztorc +* https://archive.is/3IpA4[Bitcoin Doesn’t Waste Electricity] by Beautyon +* https://grisha.org/blog/2018/01/23/explaining-proof-of-work/[Blockchain Proof-of-Work Is a Decentralized Clock] by Gregory Trubetskoy +* https://bitcointechtalk.com/the-anatomy-of-proof-of-work-98c85b6f6667[The Anatomy of Proof-of-Work] by Hugo Nguyen +* https://medium.com/@hugonguyen/work-is-timeless-stake-is-not-554c4450ce18[Work is Timeless, Stake is Not] by Hugo Nguyen +* https://www.unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-does-not-waste-energy/[Bitcoin Does Not Waste Energy] by Parker Lewis +* https://unchained-capital.com/blog/law-of-hash-horizons/[Bitcoin Astronomy] by Dhruv Bansal +* https://www.coindesk.com/the-last-word-on-bitcoins-energy-consumption[The Last Word on Bitcoin’s Energy Consumption] by Nic Carter +* https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-hidden-costs-of-the-petrodollar[Uncovering The Hidden Costs Of The Petrodollar] by Alex Gladstein +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Controlled_supply[Controlled Supply] by Bitcoin Wiki Contributors +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Mining[Mining] by Bitcoin Wiki Contributors +* 🎧 https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/episodes/trace-mayer-bitcoin/[Trace Mayer on Bitcoin Valuation, Trust, and Energy Consumption] TIP#252 hosted by Breston Pysh and Stig Brodersen +* 🎧 https://citizenbitcoin.world/episodes/robert-breedlove-understanding-time-money-and-bitcoin-from-first-principles[Robert Breedlove on Understanding Bitcoin from First Principles] CB#52 hosted by Brady Swenson + +== Lesson 18 - Move slowly and don't break things +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +So the boat wound slowly along, beneath the bright summer-day, with its merry crew and its music of voices and laughter... +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/3-18.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +It might be a dead mantra, but “move fast and break things” is still how much of the tech world operates. The idea that it doesn’t matter if you get things right the first time is a basic pillar of the _fail early, fail often_ mentality. Success is measured in growth, so as long as you are growing everything is fine. If something doesn’t work at first you simply pivot and iterate. In other words: throw enough shit against the wall and see what sticks. Bitcoin is very different. It is different by design. It is different out of necessity. As Satoshi http://p2pfoundation.ning.com/forum/topics/bitcoin-open-source?commentId=2003008%3AComment%3A9493[pointed out], e-currency has been tried many times before, and all previous attempts have failed because there was a head which could be cut off. The novelty of Bitcoin is that it is a beast without heads. + +[quote, Satoshi Nakamoto] +“A lot of people automatically dismiss e-currency as a lost cause because of all the companies that failed since the 1990’s. I hope it’s obvious it was only the centrally controlled nature of those systems that doomed them.” + +One consequence of this radical decentralization is an inherent resistance to change. “Move fast and break things” does not and will never work on the Bitcoin base layer. Even if it would be desirable, it wouldn’t be possible without convincing _everyone_ to change their ways. That’s distributed consensus. That’s the nature of Bitcoin. + +[quote, Satoshi Nakamoto] +“The nature of Bitcoin is such that once version 0.1 was released, the core design was set in stone for the rest of its lifetime.” + +This is one of the many paradoxical properties of Bitcoin. We all came to believe that anything which is software can be changed easily. But the nature of the beast makes changing it bloody hard. As Hasu beautifully shows in https://uncommoncore.co/unpacking-bitcoins-social-contract/[Unpacking Bitcoin’s Social Contract], changing the rules of Bitcoin is only possible by _proposing_ a change, and consequently _convincing_ all users of Bitcoin to adopt this change. This makes Bitcoin very resilient to change, even though it is software. This resilience is one of the most important properties of Bitcoin. Critical software systems have to be antifragile, which is what the interplay of Bitcoin’s social layer and its technical layer guarantees. Monetary systems are adversarial by nature, and as we have known for thousands of years solid foundations are essential in an adversarial environment. + +[quote, Matthew 7:25] +“The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat on that house; and it didn’t fall, for it was founded on the rock.” + +Arguably, in this parable of the wise and the foolish builders Bitcoin isn’t the house. It is the rock. Unchangeable, unmoving, providing the foundation for a new financial system. Just like geologists, who know that rock formations are always moving and evolving, one can see that Bitcoin is always moving and evolving as well. You just have to know where to look and how to look at it. The introduction of https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Pay_to_script_hash[pay to script hash] and https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segregated_Witness[segregated witness] are proof that Bitcoin’s rules can be changed if enough users are convinced that adopting said change is to the benefit of the network. The latter enabled the development of the https://lightning.network/[lightning network], which is one of the houses being built on Bitcoin’s solid foundation. Future upgrades like https://github.com/sipa/bips/blob/bip-taproot/bip-0340.mediawiki#Applications[Schnorr signatures] will enhance efficiency and privacy, as well as scripts (read: smart contracts) which will be indistinguishable from regular transactions thanks to https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2018-January/015614.html[Taproot]. Wise builders do indeed build on solid foundations. Satoshi wasn’t only a wise builder technologically. He also understood that it would be necessary to make wise decisions ideologically. + +[quote, Satoshi Nakamoto] +“Being open source means anyone can independently review the code. If it was closed source, nobody could verify the security. I think it’s essential for a program of this nature to be open source.” + +Openness is paramount to security and inherent in open source and the free software movement. As Satoshi pointed out, secure protocols and the code which implements them have to be open  —  there is no security through obscurity. Another benefit is again related to decentralization: code which can be run, studied, modified, copied, and distributed freely ensures that it is spread far and wide. The radically decentralized nature of Bitcoin is what makes it move slowly and deliberately. A network of nodes, each run by a sovereign individual, is inherently resistant to change  —  malicious or not. With no way to force updates upon users the only way to introduce changes is by slowly convincing each and every one of those individuals to adopt a change. This non-central process of introducing and deploying changes is what makes the network incredibly resilient to malicious changes. It is also what makes fixing broken things more difficult than in a centralized environment, which is why everyone tries not to break things in the first place. Bitcoin taught me that moving slowly is one of its features, not a bug. + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://www.unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-is-not-too-slow/[Bitcoin Is Not Too Slow] by Parker Lewis +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_Wise_and_the_Foolish_Builders[Parable of the Wise and the Foolish Builders] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Segregated_Witness[Segregated Witness (SegWit)] by Bitcoin Wiki Contributors +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Pay_to_script_hash[Pay to Script Hash (P2SH)] by Bitcoin Wiki Contributors +* https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/bitcoin-dev/2018-January/015614.html[Taproot proposal] by Gregory Maxwell +* https://github.com/sipa/bips/blob/bip-schnorr/bip-schnorr.mediawiki#cite_ref-6-0[Schnorr signatures BIP] by Pieter Wuille + +== Lesson 19 - Privacy is not dead +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +The players all played at once without waiting for turns, and quarrelled all the while at the tops of their voices, and in a very few minutes the Queen was in a furious passion, and went stamping about and shouting "off with his head!" or "off with her head!" about once in a minute. +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/3-19.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +If pundits are to believed, privacy has been dead https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=privacy+is+dead&year_start=1970&year_end=2019&corpus=15&smoothing=3&share=&direct_url=t1%3B%2Cprivacy%20is%20dead%3B%2Cc0[since the 80ies]. The pseudonymous invention of Bitcoin and other events in recent history show that this is not the case. Privacy is alive, even though it is by no means easy to escape the surveillance state. Satoshi went through great lengths to cover up his tracks and conceal his identity. Thirteen years later, it is still unknown if Satoshi Nakamoto was a single person, a group of people, male, female, or a https://blockchain24-7.com/is-crypto-creator-a-time-travelling-ai/[time-traveling AI] which bootstrapped itself to take over the world. Conspiracy theories aside, Satoshi chose to identify himself to be a Japanese male, which is why I don’t assume but respect his chosen gender and refer to him as _he_. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/nope.png[I am not Dorian Nakamoto., 300, align="center"] + +Whatever his real identity might be, Satoshi was successful in hiding it. He set an encouraging example for everyone who wishes to remain anonymous: it is possible to have privacy online. + +[quote, Edward Snowden] +“Encryption works. Properly implemented strong crypto systems are one of the few things that you can rely on.” + +Satoshi wasn’t the first pseudonymous or anonymous inventor, and he won’t be the last. Some have directly imitated this pseudonymous publication style, like Tom Elvis Yedusor of https://github.com/mimblewimble/docs/wiki/MimbleWimble-Origin[MimbleWimble] fame, while others have published advanced mathematical proofs while remaining completely https://oeis.org/A180632/a180632.pdf[anonymous]. It is a strange new world we are living in. A world where identity is optional, contributions are accepted based on merit, and people can collaborate and transact freely. It will take some adjustment to get comfortable with these new paradigms, but I strongly believe that all of this has the potential to change the world for the better. We should all remember that privacy is a http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/[fundamental human right]. And as long as people exercise and defend these rights the battle for privacy is far from over. Bitcoin taught me that privacy is not dead. + + +''' + +*Through the Looking-Glass 🔍* + +Follow-up articles that expand upon ideas discussed in this lesson: + +* https://dergigi.com/2020/07/21/true-names-not-required/[🔍 True Names Not Required] + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://nakamotoinstitute.org/digital-cash-and-privacy/[Digital Cash & Privacy] by Hal Finney +* https://nakamotoinstitute.org/the-case-for-privacy/[The Case for Privacy] by David D. Friedman +* https://bitcoin.org/en/protect-your-privacy[Protect Your Privacy] by Bitcoin.org +* https://bitcoinmagazine.com/articles/how-the-lightning-network-layers-privacy-on-top-of-bitcoin-1482183775[How Lightning Layers Privacy on Top of Bitcoin] by Aaron van Wirdum +* https://medium.com/@thecryptoconomy/dandelions-and-a-bright-future-for-bitcoin-privacy-712dbc4b1ec5[Dandelions, and a Bright Future for Bitcoin Privacy] by Guy Swann +* https://www.coincenter.org/the-case-for-electronic-cash-in-an-open-and-free-society/[The Case for Electronic Cash] by Jerry Brito +* https://coincenter.org/entry/we-must-protect-our-ability-to-transact-privately-online[We Must Protect our Ability to Transact Privately Online] by Jerry Brito +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Privacy[Bitcoin Wiki’s Privacy Aritcle] by Chris Belcher +* https://medium.com/human-rights-foundation-hrf/privacy-and-cryptocurrency-part-i-how-private-is-bitcoin-e3a4071f8fff[How Private is Bitcoin?] by Eric Wall +* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDydB3z-6Y0[Bitcoin and Privacy] by Edward Snowden +* https://bitcoinmagazine.com/culture/the-hidden-costs-of-bitcoin-adoption[Bitcoin And The Hidden Costs Of Hyper-Adoption] by L0la L33tz +* https://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/[Universal Declaration of Human Rights] by the United Nations +* https://oeis.org/A180632/a180632.pdf[A lower bound on the length of the shortest superpattern] by Anonymous 4chan Poster, Robin Houston, Jay Pantone, and Vince Vatter +* 🎧 https://cryptoandgrill.podbean.com/e/bitcoin-privacy-security-and-personal-sovereignty-w-jameson-lopp/[Jameson Lopp on Privacy, Security, and Personal Sovereignty] C&G#35 hosted by CryptoDantes and Stigofthepump +* 🎧 https://stephanlivera.com/episode/178/[6102bitcoin on Bitcoin Privacy, Education, KYC, and Pseudonymity] SLP#178 hosted by Stephan Livera +* 📚 https://amzn.to/3ql8C6h[American Kingpin - The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road] by Nick Bilton + +== Lesson 20 - Cypherpunks write code +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +I see you're trying to invent something. +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/3-20.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +Like many great ideas, Bitcoin didn’t come out of nowhere. It was made possible by utilizing and combining many innovations and discoveries in mathematics, physics, computer science, and other fields. While undoubtedly a genius, Satoshi wouldn’t have been able to invent Bitcoin without the giants on whose shoulders he was standing on. + +[quote, Ludwig Von Mises] +“He who only wishes and hopes does not interfere actively with the course of events and with the shaping of his own destiny.” + +One of these giants is Eric Hughes, one of the founders of the cypherpunk movement and author of the https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html[cypherpunk manifesto]. It’s hard to imagine that Satoshi wasn’t influenced by this manifesto. It speaks of many things which Bitcoin enables and utilizes, such as direct and private transactions, electronic money and cash, anonymous systems, and defending privacy with cryptography and digital signatures. + +[quote, Eric Hughes] +“Privacy is necessary for an open society in the electronic age. […] Since we desire privacy, we must ensure that each party to a transaction have knowledge only of that which is directly necessary for that transaction. […] Therefore, privacy in an open society requires anonymous transaction systems. Until now, cash has been the primary such system. An anonymous transaction system is not a secret transaction system. […] We the Cypherpunks are dedicated to building anonymous systems. We are defending our privacy with cryptography, with anonymous mail forwarding systems, with digital signatures, and with electronic money. Cypherpunks write code.” + +Cypherpunks do not find comfort in hopes and wishes. They actively interfere with the course of events and shape their own destiny. Cypherpunks write code. Thus, in true cypherpunk fashion, Satoshi sat down and started to write code. Code which took an abstract idea and proved to the world that it actually worked. Code which planted the seed of a new economic reality. Thanks to this code, everyone can verify that this novel system actually works, and every 10 minutes or so Bitcoin proofs to the world that it is still living. + +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/bitcoin-v0.1-code.png[Code excerpts from Bitcoin version 0.1.0, 300, align="center"] + +To make sure that his innovation transcends fantasy and becomes reality, Satoshi wrote code to implement his idea before he wrote the whitepaper. He also made sure https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=199.msg1670#msg1670[not to delay] any release forever. After all, “there’s always going to be one more thing to do.” + +[quote, Satoshi Nakamoto] +“I had to write all the code before I could convince myself that I could solve every problem, then I wrote the paper.” + +In today’s world of endless promises and doubtful execution, an exercise in dedicated building was desperately needed. Be deliberate, convince yourself that you can actually solve the problems, and implement the solutions. We should all aim to be a bit more cypherpunk. Bitcoin taught me that cypherpunks write code. + + +''' + +*Through the Looking-Glass 🔍* + +Follow-up articles that expand upon ideas discussed in this lesson: + +* https://dergigi.com/2021/06/13/bitcoin-is-an-idea/[🔍 Bitcoin Is an Idea] + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* http://groups.csail.mit.edu/mac/classes/6.805/articles/crypto/cypherpunks/may-crypto-manifesto.html[The Crypto Anarchist Manifesto] by Timothy C. May +* https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html[A Cypherpunk’s Manifesto] by Eric Hughes +* https://ia600208.us.archive.org/10/items/cyphernomicon/cyphernomicon.txt[The Cyphernomicon] by Timothy C. May +* http://www.metzdowd.com/pipermail/cryptography/2008-October/014810.html[Bitcoin P2P e-cash paper announcement] by Satoshi Nakamoto +* https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68121.0[Bitcoin version 0.1.0 announcement] by Satoshi Nakamoto +* https://youtu.be/9vM0oIEhMag[Cypherpunks Write Code] by ReasonTV +* 📚 https://amzn.to/3wSQdzT[Cypherpunks - Freedom and the Future of the Internet] by Jacob Appelbaum Julian Assange Andy Zimmermann +* 📚 https://amzn.to/39KNltn[The Book Of Satoshi - The Collected Writings of Bitcoin Creator Satoshi Nakamoto] by Phil Champagne + +== Lesson 21 - Metaphors for Bitcoin's future +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +____ +I know something interesting is sure to happen... +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/3-21.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +In the last couple of decades, it became apparent that technological innovation does not follow a linear trend. Whether you believe in the technological singularity or not, it is undeniable that progress is exponential in many fields. Not only that, but the rate at which technologies are being adopted is accelerating, and before you know it the bush in the local schoolyard is gone and your kids are using Snapchat instead. Exponential curves have the tendency to slap you in the face way before you see them coming. Bitcoin is an exponential technology built upon exponential technologies. https://ourworldindata.org/[Our World in Data] beautifully shows https://www.visualcapitalist.com/rising-speed-technological-adoption/[the rising speed of technological adoption], starting in 1903 with the introduction of landlines. Landlines, electricity, computers, the internet, smartphones; all follow exponential trends in price-performance and adoption. Bitcoin does too. + +.Bitcoin is literally off the charts. +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/tech-adoption.png[Bitcoin is literally off the charts., 300, align="center"] + +Bitcoin has not one but https://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/the-seven-network-effects-of-bitcoin/[multiple network effects], all of which resulting in exponential growth patterns in their respective area: price, users, security, developers, market share, and adoption as global money. Having survived its infancy, Bitcoin is continuing to grow every day in more aspects than one. Granted, the technology has not reached maturity yet. It might be in its adolescence. But if the technology is exponential, the path from obscurity to ubiquity is short. + +.Mobile phone, ca 1965 vs 2019. +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/mobile-phone.png[Mobile phone, ca 1965 vs 2019., 300, align="center"] + +In his 2003 https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_on_the_next_web_innovation[TED talk], Jeff Bezos chose to use electricity as a metaphor for the web’s future. All three phenomena  —  electricity, the internet, Bitcoin  —  are _enabling_ technologies, networks which enable other things. They are infrastructure to be built upon, foundational in nature. Electricity has been around for a while now. We take it for granted. The internet is quite a bit younger, but most people already take it for granted as well. Bitcoin is ten years old and has entered public consciousness during the last hype cycle. Only the earliest of adopters take it for granted. As https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect[more time] passes, more and more people will recognize Bitcoin as something which simply is. In 1994, the internet was still confusing and unintuitive. Watching this old https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg[recording of the Today Show] makes it obvious that what feels natural and intuitive now actually wasn’t back then. Bitcoin is still confusing and alien to most, but just like the internet is second nature for digital natives, spending and https://twitter.com/hashtag/stackingsats[stacking] sats will be second nature to the bitcoin natives of the future. + +[quote, William Gibson] +“The future is already here  —  it’s just not very evenly distributed.” + +In 1995, about 15% of American adults used the internet. Historical https://www.pewinternet.org/2014/02/27/part-1-how-the-internet-has-woven-itself-into-american-life/[data from the Pew Research Center] shows how the internet has woven itself into all our lives. According to a https://www.kaspersky.com/blog/money-report-2018/[consumer survey] by Kaspersky Lab, 13% of respondents have used Bitcoin and its clones to pay for goods in 2018. While payments aren’t the only use-case of bitcoin, it is some indication of where we are in Internet time: in the early- to mid-90s. In 1997, Jeff Bezos stated in a http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/97/97664/reports/Shareholderletter97.pdf[letter to shareholders] that “this is Day 1 for the Internet,” recognizing the great untapped potential for the internet and, by extension, his company. Whatever day this is for Bitcoin, the vast amounts of untapped potential are clear to all but the most casual observer. + +.The internet, 1982 vs 2005. Source: cc-by Merit Network, Inc. and Barrett Lyon, Opte Project +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/internet-evolution-black-dates.png[The internet, 1982 vs 2005. Source: cc-by Merit Network, Inc. and Barrett Lyon, Opte Project, 300, align="center"] + +Bitcoin’s first node went online in 2009 after Satoshi mined the https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block[genesis block] and released the software into the wild. His node wasn’t alone for long. Hal Finney was one of the first people to pick up on the idea and join the network. Ten years later, as of this writing, more than https://luke.dashjr.org/programs/bitcoin/files/charts/software.html[75.000] nodes are https://twitter.com/halfin/status/1110302988?lang=en[running bitcoin]. The protocol’s base layer isn’t the only thing growing exponentially. The lightning network, a second layer technology, is growing at an even faster rate. In January 2018, the lightning network had https://bitcoinist.com/bitcoin-lightning-network-mainnet-nodes/[40 nodes] and 60 channels. In April 2019, the network grew to more than 4000 nodes and around 40.000 channels. Keep in mind that this is still experimental technology where loss of funds can and does occur. Yet the https://twitter.com/lopp/status/1077200836072296449[trend is clear]: thousands of people are https://twitter.com/hashtag/reckless[reckless] and eager to use it. + +.Lightning Network, January 2018 vs December 2018. Source: Jameson Lopp +image::https://21lessons.com/assets/images/lnd-growth-lopp-black.png[Lightning Network, January 2018 vs December 2018. Source: Jameson Lopp, 300, align="center"] + +To me, having lived through the meteoric rise of the web, the parallels between the internet and Bitcoin are obvious. Both are networks, both are exponential technologies, and both enable new possibilities, new industries, new ways of life. Just like electricity was the best metaphor to understand where the internet is heading, the internet might be the best metaphor to understand where Bitcoin is heading. Or, in the words of Andreas Antonopoulos, Bitcoin is https://theinternetofmoney.info/[_The Internet of Money_]. These metaphors are a great reminder that while history doesn’t repeat itself, it often rhymes. Exponential technologies are hard to grasp and often underestimated. Even though I have a great interest in such technologies, I am constantly surprised by the pace of progress and innovation. Watching the Bitcoin ecosystem grow is like watching the rise of the internet in fast-forward. It is exhilarating. My quest of trying to make sense of Bitcoin has led me down the pathways of history in more ways than one. Understanding ancient societal structures, past monies, and how communication networks evolved were all part of the journey. From the handaxe to the smartphone, technology has undoubtedly changed our world many times over. Networked technologies are especially transformational: writing, roads, electricity, the internet. All of them changed the world. Bitcoin has changed mine and will continue to change the minds and hearts of those who dare to use it. Bitcoin taught me that understanding the past is essential to understanding its future. A future which is just beginning. + + +''' + +*Through the Looking-Glass 🔍* + +Follow-up articles that expand upon ideas discussed in this lesson: + +* https://dergigi.com/2019/07/23/the-world-is-waking-up-to-bitcoin/[🔍 The World is Waking Up to Bitcoin] +* https://dergigi.com/2020/03/20/dear-legacy-people/[🔍 Dear Legacy People] +* https://dergigi.com/2020/03/31/dear-bitcoiners/[🔍 Dear Bitcoiners - An optimistic letter to friends and foes around the globe] +* https://dergigi.com/2020/04/27/dear-family-dear-friends/[🔍 Dear Family, Dear Friends] +* https://dergigi.com/2020/09/20/on-bitcoin-s-ux/[🔍 On Bitcoin's UX] + +*Down the Rabbit Hole* + +* https://www.ted.com/talks/jeff_bezos_on_the_next_web_innovation[The Electricity Metaphor for the Web’s Future] by Jeff Bezos +* https://www.pewinternet.org/2014/02/27/part-1-how-the-internet-has-woven-itself-into-american-life/[How the internet has woven itself into American life] by Susannah Fox and Lee Rainie +* https://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/hyperbitcoinization/[Hyperbitcoinization] by Daniel Krawisz +* https://nakamotoinstitute.org/mempool/speculative-attack/[Speculative Attack] by Pierre Rochard +* https://www.thrivenotes.com/the-7-network-effects-of-bitcoin/[The 7 Network Effects of Bitcoin] by Trace Mayer +* https://www.visualcapitalist.com/rising-speed-technological-adoption/[The Rising Speed of Technological Adoption] by Jeff Desjardins +* https://medium.com/coinmonks/hyperbitcoinization-winner-takes-all-69ab59f9695f[Hyperbitcoinization - Winner Takes All] by ObiWan Kenobit +* https://unchained-capital.com/blog/bitcoin-not-blockchain/[Bitcoin, Not Blockchain] by Parker Lewis +* https://www.citadel21.com/you-are-not-prepared[You Are Not Prepared] by Knut Svanholm +* https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block[Genesis Block] by Bitcoin Wiki Contributors +* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect[Lindy Effect] by Wikipedia Contributors +* https://twitter.com/Croesus_BTC/status/1271165665236246529[Bitcoin and Technology Adoption S-Curves] by Bitcoin Croesus +* 🎧 https://player.fm/series/off-the-chain-2428336/murad-mahmudov-the-ultimate-bitcoin-argument[Murad Mahmudov on The Ultimate Bitcoin Argument] OTC#25 hosted by Pomp +* 🎧 https://anchor.fm/tales-from-the-crypt/episodes/Tales-from-the-Crypt-55-BitcoinTINA-aka-Rick-Flex-e2vpt9[Bitcoin Tina on Why he is Bullish on Bitcoin] TFTC#55 hosted by Marty Bent +* 🎧 https://www.hiddenforces.io/podcast/hyperbitcoinization-bitcoin-maximalist-pierre-rochard[Pierre Rochard on Hyperbitcoinization and Bitcoin Maximalism] HF#75 hosted by Demetri Kofinas +* 🎧 https://www.theinvestorspodcast.com/bitcoin-fundamentals/btc007-bitcoin-disrupting-payment-clearing-houses-w-jack-mallers/[Jack Mallers on how Bitcoin Disrupts Payment Clearing Houses] TIP#BTC007 hosted by Preston Pysh +* 🎧 https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast/el-salvador-the-whole-story[Jack Mallers on El Salvador's Bitcoin Standard] WBD#362 hosted by Peter McCormack + +== Conclusion +:figure-caption!: + +[quote] +___ +"Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop." +___ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/4-00.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +As mentioned in the beginning, I think that any answer to the question _“What have you learned from Bitcoin?”_ will always be incomplete. The symbiosis of what can be seen as multiple living systems  —  Bitcoin, the technosphere, and economics  —  is too intertwined, the topics too numerous, and things are moving too fast to ever be fully understood by a single person. + +Even without understanding it fully, and even with all its quirks and seeming shortcomings, Bitcoin undoubtedly works. It keeps producing blocks roughly every ten minutes and does so beautifully. The longer Bitcoin continues to work, the more people will opt-in to use it. + +[quote, Giannina Braschi, Empire of Dreams] +“It’s true that things are beautiful when they work. Art is function.” + +Bitcoin is a child of the internet. It is growing exponentially, blurring the lines between disciplines. It isn’t clear, for example, where the realm of pure technology ends and where another realm begins. Even though Bitcoin requires computers to function efficiently, computer science is not sufficient to understand it. Bitcoin is not only borderless in regards to its inner workings but also boundaryless in respect to academic disciplines. + +Economics, politics, game theory, monetary history, network theory, finance, cryptography, information theory, censorship, law and regulation, human organization, psychology  —  all these and more are areas of expertise which might help in the quest of understanding how Bitcoin works and what Bitcoin is. + +No single invention is responsible for its success. It is the combination of multiple, previously unrelated pieces, glued together by game theoretical incentives, which make up the revolution that is Bitcoin. The beautiful blend of many disciplines is what makes Satoshi a genius. + +Like every complex system, Bitcoin has to make tradeoffs in terms of efficiency, cost, security, and many other properties. Just like there is no perfect solution to deriving a square from a circle, any solution to the problems which Bitcoin tries to solve will always be imperfect as well. + +[quote, Friedrich Hayek] +“I don’t believe we shall ever have a good money again before we take the thing out of the hands of government, that is, we can’t take it violently out of the hands of government, all we can do is by some sly roundabout way introduce something that they can’t stop.” + +Bitcoin is the sly, roundabout way to re-introduce good money to the world. It does so by placing a sovereign individual behind each node, just like Da Vinci tried to solve the intractable problem of squaring a circle by placing the Vitruvian Man in its center. Nodes effectively remove any concept of a center, creating a system which is astonishingly antifragile and extremely hard to shut down. Bitcoin lives, and its heartbeat will probably outlast all of ours. + +I hope you have enjoyed these twenty-one lessons. Maybe the most important lesson is that Bitcoin should be examined holistically, from multiple angles, if one would like to have something approximating a complete picture. Just like removing one part from a complex system destroys the whole, examining parts of Bitcoin in isolation seems to taint the understanding of it. If only one person strikes “blockchain” from her vocabulary and replaces it with “a chain of blocks” I will die a happy man. + +In any case, my journey continues. I plan to venture further down into the depths of this https://21lessons.com/rabbithole[rabbit hole], and I invite you to https://patreon.com/dergigi[tag along] for the ride. + +== Acknowledgements + +[quote] +"Thank you," said Alice + +Thanks to the countless authors and content producers who influenced my thinking on Bitcoin and the topics it touches. There are too many to list them all, but I’ll do my best to name a few. + +* Thanks to https://twitter.com/arjunblj[Arjun Balaji] for https://twitter.com/arjunblj/status/1050073234719293440[the tweet] which motivated me to write this. +*Thanks to https://twitter.com/martybent[Marty Bent] for providing endless food for thought and entertainment. If you are not subscribed to http://eepurl.com/cROArD[Marty’s Ƀent] and https://talesfromthecrypt.libsyn.com/[Tales From The Crypt], you are missing out. Cheers https://twitter.com/matt_odell[Matt] and Marty for guiding us through the rabbit hole. +*Thanks to https://twitter.com/bitstein[Michael Goldstein] and https://twitter.com/pierre_rochard[Pierre Rochard] for curating and providing the greatest Bitcoin literature via the http://nakamotoinstitute.org[Nakamoto Institute]. And thank you for creating the https://noded.org/[Noded Podcast] which influenced my philosophical views on Bitcoin substantially. +*Thanks to https://twitter.com/whatbitcoindid[Peter McCormack] for his https://twitter.com/PeterMcCormack/status/1073196778705559553[honest tweets] and the https://www.whatbitcoindid.com/podcast[What Bitcoin Did] podcast, which keeps providing great insights from many areas of the space. +*Thanks to https://twitter.com/aantonop[Andreas M. Antonopoulos] for all the https://antonopoulos.com/[educational material] he has put out over the years. +*Thanks to https://twitter.com/saifedean[Saifedean Ammous] for his convictions, savage tweets, and writing The Bitcoin Standard +*Thanks to https://twitter.com/francispouliot_[Francis Pouliot] for sharing his excitement about finding out about the https://twitter.com/francispouliot_/status/1106028072799744002[timechain]. +*Thanks to https://twitter.com/jnnksbrt[Jannik], https://twitter.com/bquittem[Brandon], https://twitter.com/matt_odell[Matt], https://twitter.com/CamiloJdL[Camilo], https://twitter.com/dnlggr[Daniel], https://twitter.com/michael_rogger[Michael], and https://twitter.com/dinemuatta[Raphael] for providing feedback to early drafts of some lessons. Special thanks to https://twitter.com/jnnksbrt[Jannik] who proofread multiple drafts multiple times. +*Thanks to https://twitter.com/dhruvbansal[Dhruv Bansal] and https://twitter.com/matt_odell[Matt Odell] for taking the time to discuss some of these ideas with me. +*Thanks to https://twitter.com/TheCryptoconomy[Guy Swann] for producing an audio version of 21lessons.com. + +Last but not least, thanks to all the bitcoin maximalists, shitcoin minimalists, shills, bots, and shitposters which reside in the beautiful garden that is Bitcoin twitter. And finally, thank _you_ for reading this. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did enjoy writing it. + +Feel free to reach out to me https://twitter.com/dergigi[on X] or https://njump.me/npub1dergggklka99wwrs92yz8wdjs952h2ux2ha2ed598ngwu9w7a6fsh9xzpc[on Nostr] nostr:npub1dergggklka99wwrs92yz8wdjs952h2ux2ha2ed598ngwu9w7a6fsh9xzpc. My DMs are open. + +== Thank You + +...for reading, for being here, for trying to understand. + +[quote] +____ + +"It seems very pretty," she said when she had finished it, "but it’s rather hard to understand!" +____ + +Thank you for reading 21 Lessons. If you enjoyed the book, please https://amzn.to/2VXmQgp[buy a copy], https://amzn.to/2VXmQgp[leave a review], or share it with your friends. You can also https://dergigi.shop[buy a signed copy]. If you have any suggestions for improvements, please reach out to me https://dergigi.com/contact/[here]. https://amzn.to/2Wa4qJo[Buy the book!] (...or https://dergigi.com/support/[support me] directly) + +I am currently working on a second, more ambitious project: http://21waysbook.com[21 Ways]. You can https://www.patreon.com/dergigi[support me on Patreon] to get an exclusive glimpse and early access to current drafts, artwork, and other things. You can also https://dergigi.com/support/[support me directly] via bitcoin. + +Your support allows me to allocate more time to writing and creating free, open-source education. It’s what I love to do. I hope that I will be able to dedicate all my time to it one day. To all of you who support me already: thank you. From the bottom of my heart. + +Thank you. 🙏🧡 + +== Translations بيتكوين + +[quote] +____ + +These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only by an occasional exclamation of "hjckrrh!" +____ + +.Print +* 🇺🇸 https://amzn.to/2Wa4qJo[English: 21 Lessons] - What I’ve Learned from Falling Down the Bitcoin Rabbit Hole (https://amzn.to/2Wa4qJo[Paperback], https://amzn.to/3bvM49P[Kindle]) +* 🇩🇪 https://amzn.to/2AtlfWZ[German: 21 Lektionen] - Meine Reise in den Bitcoin Kaninchenbau (https://amzn.to/2AtlfWZ[Paperback], https://amzn.to/2Z2zts3[Kindle]) +* 🇪🇸 https://amzn.to/41G4AHG[Spanish: 21 Lecciones] - Lo Que He Aprendido Al Caer En La Madriguera De Bitcoin (https://amzn.to/41G4AHG[Paperback], https://amzn.to/3Zvh6Ic[Kindle]) +* 🇪🇸 https://prometeabtc.com/libros/[Spanish: 21 Lecciones (by Prometea)] - Lo Que He Aprendido Al Caer En La Madriguera De Bitcoin (https://prometeabtc.com/libros/[ebook]) +* 🇫🇮 https://amzn.to/2WYYkKL[Finnish: 21 Oppituntia] - Mitä olen oppinut pudottuani Bitcoinin kaninkoloon (https://amzn.to/2WYYkKL[Paperback]) +* 🇳🇱 https://konsensus.network/product/21-lessen/[Dutch: 21 Lessen] - Wat Ik Heb Geleerd Door Mijn Val In Het Bitcoinkonijnenhol (https://konsensus.network/product/21-lessen/[Paperback]) +* 🇫🇷 https://amzn.to/3DUxs1O[French: 21 Leçons] - Enseignements tirés de ma chute dans le terrier du lapin Bitcoin (https://amzn.to/3DUxs1O[Paperback], https://amzn.to/3DZ9ouK[Kindle]) +* 🇮🇹 https://amzn.to/3mBu6KW[Italian: 21 Lezioni] - Cosa ho imparato nel cadere dentro la tana del Bianconiglio (https://amzn.to/3mBu6KW[Paperback], https://amzn.to/3NPMgEY[Kindle]) +* 🇧🇷 https://monsterabooks.com/products/21-licoes[Brazilian Portuguese: 21 Lições] - O que aprendi ao cair da toca do coelho do Bitcoin (https://monsterabooks.com/products/21-licoes[Paperback]) +* 🇪🇪 https://liigalihtne.ee/pood/index.php/toode/21oppetundi/[Estonian: 21 õppetundi] - Mida ma õppisin Bitcoini jäneseurgu kukkumisest (https://liigalihtne.ee/pood/index.php/toode/21oppetundi/[Paperback]) +* 📗 https://www.lulu.com/shop/gigi-and-daniel-araque-acosta/21-lecionoj-kion-mi-lernis-falante-la-bitmono-kuniklotruon/paperback/product-d5v5d9.html?page=1&pageSize=4[Esperanto: 21 lecionoj] - Kion mi lernis falante la Bitmono-kuniklotruon (https://www.lulu.com/shop/gigi-and-daniel-araque-acosta/21-lecionoj-kion-mi-lernis-falante-la-bitmono-kuniklotruon/paperback/product-d5v5d9.html?page=1&pageSize=4[Paperback]) +* 🇷🇴 https://iblock.ro/sp/bitcoin-21-lectii/[Romanian: 21 de lecții] - Ce am invățat despre bani, libertate si prosperitate din căzătura în vizuina iepurașului (https://iblock.ro/sp/bitcoin-21-lectii/[Paperback]) +* 🇨🇿 https://shop.bitperia.cz/products/21-lekci-co-me-naucil-pad-do-bitcoinove-kralici-nory[Czech: 21 lekcí] - Co mě naučil pád do bitcoinové králičí nory (https://shop.bitperia.cz/products/21-lekci-co-me-naucil-pad-do-bitcoinove-kralici-nory[Paperback], https://drive.google.com/file/d/1R2VAoa-ctq6CBg9Zs_1pvT9Q489I5Eaa/view?usp=sharing[ePub]) +* 🇩🇰 https://shop21.dk/?product=21-lektioner[Danish: 21 Lektioner] - Hvad jeg lærte af at falde ned i Bitcoin-kaninhullet (https://shop21.dk/?product=21-lektioner[Paperback]) + +.PDF +* 🇧🇷 https://github.com/KoreaComK/21lessons-book[Brazilian Portuguese: 21 Lições] - O que aprendi ao cair da toca do coelho do Bitcoin (https://github.com/KoreaComK/21lessons-book[LaTeX], https://github.com/KoreaComK/21lessons-book/raw/master/pdf/As%2021%20Li%C3%A7%C3%B5es.pdf[PDF]) +* 🇫🇷 https://github.com/prplsknk/21lessons-book[French: 21 Leçons] - Enseignements tirés de ma chute dans le terrier du lapin Bitcoin (https://github.com/prplsknk/21lessons-book[LaTeX], https://github.com/prplsknk/21lessons-book/raw/master/21%20Le%C3%A7ons.pdf[PDF]) +* 🇷🇸 http://files.suritranslations.com/Serbian/21LekcijaLatinica.pdf[Serbian: 21 Lekcija] - Šta sam naučio padajući u zečju rupu - (http://files.suritranslations.com/Serbian/21LekcijaLatinica.pdf[Latin PDF], http://files.suritranslations.com/Serbian/21LekcijaCyrillica.pdf[Cyrillic PDF]) +* 🇨🇿 https://shop.bitperia.cz/products/21-lekci-co-me-naucil-pad-do-bitcoinove-kralici-nory[Czech: 21 lekcí] - Co mě naučil pád do bitcoinové králičí nory (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kFgftYGMJ00F8JZRq5S_vT6WawENagE7/view?usp=share_link[PDF]) +* 🇩🇰 https://github.com/Shop21DK/21-Lektioner[Danish: 21 Lektioner] - Hvad jeg lærte af at falde ned i Bitcoin-kaninhullet (https://github.com/Shop21DK/21-Lektioner/blob/master/21%20Lektioner%20-%20latest%20version.pdf[PDF]) + +.Audio versions +See https://21lessons.com/audio[/audio] for audiobooks, audio versions, commentary, and podcast episodes. + +.Online versions +* 🇮🇹 The https://gabridome.github.io/21-lezioni/[Italian version] of the website is available thanks to https://twitter.com/gabridome[gabridome] +* 🇸🇰 The https://1lubo.github.io/byzantine_general/[Slovak version] of the website is available thanks to https://twitter.com/LuboD5[LuboD] +* 🇨🇿 The https://sifrant.github.io/21lekci/[Czech version] of the website is available thanks to https://twitter.com/nekonecnik[sifrant] + +.Chapter translations +* 🇪🇸 https://medium.com/@dergigi/ense%C3%B1anzas-filos%C3%B3ficas-de-bitcoin-8ae1357357f9[Chapter I], https://telegra.ph/Cap%C3%ADtulo-II--Econom%C3%ADa-11-01[Chapter II], and https://telegra.ph/Cap%C3%ADtulo-III--Tecnolog%C3%ADa-11-01[Chapter III] is available in Spanish thanks to https://twitter.com/CamiloJdL[@CamiloJdL] and https://t.me/ur_Entropy[Ξntropy]. +* 🇹🇷 https://medium.com/@denizozzgur/bitcoinin-felsefi-%C3%B6%C4%9Fretileri-e7df2338a2fc[Chapter I], https://medium.com/@denizozzgur/bitcoinin-ekonomi-%C3%B6%C4%9Fretileri-a3e87dcff525[Chapter II], and https://medium.com/@denizozzgur/blockchainin-teknolojik-%C3%B6%C4%9Fretileri-34ae5a6949a7[Chapter III] is available in Turkish thanks to https://twitter.com/deniz_zgur[@deniz_zgur]. Note that the order of the chapters is different in the Turkish translation. +* 🇨🇳 https://mirror.xyz/andywan.eth/xdQ6YAzyfg44Lnlrv1l29jF218Ds4S44plR2WN0mvzA[Chapter I], https://mirror.xyz/andywan.eth/xdQ6YAzyfg44Lnlrv1l29jF218Ds4S44plR2WN0mvzA[Chapter II], and https://mirror.xyz/andywan.eth/xdQ6YAzyfg44Lnlrv1l29jF218Ds4S44plR2WN0mvzA[Chapter III] is available in Chinese thanks to https://twitter.com/andywan[@andywan]. Some additional images and figures were added. +* 🇩🇪 https://medium.com/@cryptomulde/122bcc603afb[Chapter I], https://medium.com/@cryptomulde/78f38793e17a[Chapter II], and https://medium.com/@cryptomulde/26b86c456dc[Chapter III] is available in German thanks to https://twitter.com/CryptoMulde[@CryptoMulde]. +* 🇩🇪 https://www.blocktrainer.de/bitcoin-21-lektionen/[Another German translation] was done by https://www.blocktrainer.de/author/rene/[Rene] from blocktrainer. +* 🇫🇮 https://medium.com/brandin-kirjasto/21-oppituntia-82db42069528[Chapter I], https://medium.com/brandin-kirjasto/21-oppituntia-7e3433fecc58[Chapter II], and https://medium.com/brandin-kirjasto/21-oppituntia-1d9f343eafea[Chapter III] are available in Finnish thanks to https://twitter.com/thlbr[Thomas Brand]. The entry point of the Finnish rabbit hole is https://medium.com/brandin-kirjasto/21-oppituntia-110265683fce[here]. +* 🇧🇷 https://youtu.be/XV2bxmA1EXA?list=PLgcVYwONyxmgRqmVN3dl87waF-EvyULHe[Chapter I], https://youtu.be/0B9pzGt06Z0?list=PLgcVYwONyxmgRqmVN3dl87waF-EvyULHe[Chapter II], and https://youtu.be/IrEk97349dk?list=PLgcVYwONyxmgRqmVN3dl87waF-EvyULHe[Chapter III] are available in Brazilian Portuguese thanks to https://twitter.com/bitdov[Bit Dov]. The entry point of the Brazilian rabbit hole is https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLgcVYwONyxmgRqmVN3dl87waF-EvyULHe[here]. +* 🇯🇵 https://alischool.me/magazines/katakoto/21lessons[Chapter I], https://alis.to/katakoto/articles/aZqz5LorA0Z9[Chapter II], and https://alis.to/katakoto/articles/365Q0JGyp9PZ[Chapter III] is available in Japanese thanks to https://twitter.com/katakoto[katakoto]. +* 🇬🇷 https://niclick.org/philosophy[Chapter I], https://niclick.org/economics[Chapter II], and https://niclick.org/technology[Chapter III] is available in Greek thanks to https://twitter.com/niclick[nikos]. +* 🇮🇷 https://arzdigital.com/bitcoin-21-lessons/[Chapter I, Chapter II, and Chapter III] is available in Persian thanks to https://twitter.com/Gorfist[Nima]. Also available https://bitcoind.me/blobs/books/21Lessons_ArzDigital.pdf[as a PDF]. +* 🇮🇩 https://medium.com/@hazmitri/21-pelajaran-dari-bitcoin-bagian-pertama-filosofi-86ba0b39e0c[Chapter I] and https://medium.com/@hazmitri/21-pelajaran-dari-bitcoin-bagian-kedua-ekonomi-e6ba6d9a7a70[Chapter II] is available in Indonesian thanks to https://twitter.com/hazmithril[Hazmi Tri Laksono] +* 🇭🇺 https://coincrumb.com/2021/10/15/21-lecke/[Chapter I, Chapter II, and Chapter III] is available in Hungarian thanks to https://twitter.com/CoinCrumb[CoinCrumb]. It’s also available as a https://coincrumb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/21-Lecke-PDF-Gigi.zip[PDF] and as an https://coincrumb.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/21-Lecke-EPUBMOBI-Gigi.zip[epub & mobi]. +* 🇸🇦 https://bitcoinarabic.org/21-lessons-dergigi/[Chapter I, Chapter II, and Chapter III] is available in Arabic thanks to https://twitter.com/BTCTranslator[BTCTranslator]. +* 🇮🇳 https://memebadger.com/lesson-1-immutability-and-change/[Lesson 1], https://gandhifamily.in/lesson-2-the-scarcity-of-scarcity/[Lesson 2], https://gandhifamily.in/lesson-3-replication-and-locality/[Lesson 3], and https://gandhifamily.in/lesson-4-the-problem-of-identity/[Lesson 4] is available in Hindi thanks to https://memebadger.com/[Badger] +* 🇵🇱 https://telegra.ph/21-LEKCJI-01-23[Chapter I] is available in Polish thanks to https://twitter.com/fkenfkg2fjsks[MF] + +.Remixes +* 🎮 https://21lessons.com/vr[21 Lessons VR] by BITPAINT + +.Reviews +* https://youtu.be/Dfa89zx6D3o[🇹🇷 Turkish video review] by Stackmore + +== Readings and Commentary + +[quote] +____ + +She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last came a rumbling of little cart-wheels, and the sound of a good many voices all talking together. +____ + +.Audio. Read by Guy Swan +audio::https://21lessons.com/assets/audio/21lessons/21-lessons.m4a[Audio. Read by Guy Swan] + +.Audiobook +* 🇺🇸 The https://amzn.to/2ZeUsYX[English audiobook] is available on https://amzn.to/2ZeUsYX[Audible] and https://anchor.fm/thecryptoconomy/episodes/CryptoQuikRead_256---21-Lessons-of-the-Bitcoin-Rabbit-Hole---Chapter-1-e47u83[Bitcoin Audible] +* 🇩🇪 The https://amzn.to/3khg7Z3[German audiobook] is available on https://aprycot.media/blog/gigis-21-lektionen-hoerbuch/[Aprycot], https://amzn.to/3khg7Z3[Audible], and https://youtu.be/36zfTwKDcLM[YouTube] +* 🇧🇷 The https://youtu.be/B2-yU3IfAi8[Brazilian Portuguese audiobook] is available on https://youtu.be/B2-yU3IfAi8[YouTube] + +.Reading +* 🇺🇸 🎧 https://anchor.fm/thecryptoconomy/episodes/CryptoQuikRead_256---21-Lessons-of-the-Bitcoin-Rabbit-Hole---Chapter-1-e47u83[Chapter I], https://anchor.fm/thecryptoconomy/episodes/CryptoQuikRead_257---21-Lessons-of-the-Bitcoin-Rabbit-Hole---Chapter-2-e489f9[Chapter II], and https://anchor.fm/thecryptoconomy/episodes/CryptoQuikRead_258---21-Lessons-of-the-Bitcoin-Rabbit-Hole---Chapter-3-e48kao[Chapter III] are available as an audio version thanks to https://twitter.com/TheCryptoconomy[Guy Swann] from https://cryptoconomy.life/[The Cryptoconomy] podcast. +* 🇩🇪 🎧 The https://pod.link/1611020042/episode/959dbb77d4d2d032b29e9e814aac94f6[German book] was read on the https://pod.link/1611020042/[Bitcoin Bibliothek] podcast and is available on all podcasting platforms. + +.Commentary +Below are recordings of thoughts, discussions, and commentary on 21 Lessons, thanks to the fine folks who were kind enough to interview me: + +*English* + +* https://citizenbitcoin.world/episodes/gigi-21-lessons-from-down-the-bitcoin[21 Lessons] on Citizen Bitcoin + +*German* + +* https://media.zencast.fm/bitcoin-im-turm/episodes/8[21 Lessons, Chapter 1] on Bitcoin im Turm +* https://media.zencast.fm/bitcoin-im-turm/episodes/9[21 Lessons, Chapter 2] on Bitcoin im Turm +* https://media.zencast.fm/bitcoin-im-turm/episodes/10[21 Lessons, Chapter 3] on Bitcoin im Turm + +You can find more podcast interviews and discussions at my https://dergigi.com/media/[media archive]. + +== Down the Rabbit Hole + +[quote] +I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole, and yet, and yet - it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life. + +THE END \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/Asciidoctest_basic.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/Asciidoctest_basic.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6da25a2 --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/Asciidoctest_basic.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,66 @@ += Document Test + +== First level heading + +This is a paragraph with a *bold* word and an _italicized_ word. + +.Image caption +image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Test-Logo.svg[I am the image alt text.] + +This is another paragraph.footnote:[I am footnote text and will be displayed at the bottom of the article.] + +.Unordered list title +* list item 1 +** nested list item +*** nested nested list item 1 +*** nested nested list item 2 +* list item 2 + +This is a paragraph. + +.Example block title +.... +Content in an example block is subject to normal substitutions. +.... + +.Sidebar title +**** +Sidebars contain aside text and are subject to normal substitutions. +**** + +[#id-for-listing-block] +.Listing block title +---- +Content in a listing block is subject to verbatim substitutions. +Listing block content is commonly used to preserve code input. +---- + +== Another first-level heading + +[quote, firstname lastname, movie title] +____ +I am a block quote or a prose excerpt. +I am subject to normal substitutions. +____ + +[verse, firstname lastname, poem title and more] +____ +I am a verse block. + Indents and endlines are preserved in verse blocks. +____ + + +TIP: There are five admonition labels: Tip, Note, Important, Caution and Warning. + +// I am a comment and won't be rendered. + +. ordered list item +.. nested ordered list item +. ordered list item + +The text at the end of this sentence is cross referenced to <<_third_level_heading,the third level heading>> + +== A third first-level heading + +This is a link to the https://asciidoctor.org/docs/user-manual/[Asciidoctor User Manual]. +This is an attribute reference {quick-uri}[which links this text to the Asciidoctor Quick Reference Guide]. diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/Asciidoctest_full.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/Asciidoctest_full.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..094ec23 --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/Asciidoctest_full.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ += Document Test +Firstname Lastname +1.0, July 29, 2014, Asciidoctor 1.5 article template +:toc: +:icons: font +:quick-uri: https://asciidoctor.org/docs/asciidoc-syntax-quick-reference/ + +Content entered directly below the header but before the first section heading is called the preamble. + +== First level heading + +This is a paragraph with a *bold* word and an _italicized_ word. + +.Image caption +image::https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Test-Logo.svg[I am the image alt text.] + +This is another paragraph.footnote:[I am footnote text and will be displayed at the bottom of the article.] + +.Unordered list title +* list item 1 +** nested list item +*** nested nested list item 1 +*** nested nested list item 2 +* list item 2 + +This is a paragraph. + +.Example block title +==== +Content in an example block is subject to normal substitutions. +==== + +.Example different block title +.... +Content in an example block is subject to normal substitutions. +.... + +.Sidebar title +**** +Sidebars contain aside text and are subject to normal substitutions. +**** + +[#id-for-listing-block] +.Listing block title +---- +Content in a listing block is subject to verbatim substitutions. +Listing block content is commonly used to preserve code input. +---- + +.Table title +|=== +|Column heading 1 |Column heading 2 + +|Column 1, row 1 +|Column 2, row 1 + +|Column 1, row 2 +|Column 2, row 2 +|=== + +== Another first-level heading + +[quote, firstname lastname, movie title] +____ +I am a block quote or a prose excerpt. +I am subject to normal substitutions. +____ + +[verse, firstname lastname, poem title and more] +____ +I am a verse block. + Indents and endlines are preserved in verse blocks. +____ + + +TIP: There are five admonition labels: Tip, Note, Important, Caution and Warning. + +// I am a comment and won't be rendered. + +. ordered list item +.. nested ordered list item +. ordered list item + +The text at the end of this sentence is cross referenced to <<_third_level_heading,the third level heading>> + +== A third first-level heading + +This is a link to the https://asciidoctor.org/docs/user-manual/[Asciidoctor User Manual]. +This is an attribute reference {quick-uri}[which links this text to the Asciidoctor Quick Reference Guide]. diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/HelsinkiBirths.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/HelsinkiBirths.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d17fc74 --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/HelsinkiBirths.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,548 @@ += Less Partnering, Less Children, or Both? + +== Paper Overview + +Analysis of the Drivers of First Birth Decline in Finland Since 2010 + +image::https://i.nostr.build/1cQxSiM34VPoFT3k.png[cover, 300] + +https://helda.helsinki.fi + +Hellstrand, Julia Ingrid Sofia + +2022-05 + +Hellstrand, J I S, Nisén, J & Myrskylä, M 2022, 'Less Partnering, Less Children, or Both? Analysis of the Drivers of First Birth Decline in Finland Since 2010', European Journal of Population, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 191-221. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-022-09605-8 + +http://hdl.handle.net/10138/344264 + +https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-022-09605-8 + +cc_by + +publishedVersion + +Downloaded from Helda, University of Helsinki institutional repository. + +This is an electronic reprint of the original article. + +This reprint may differ from the original in pagination and typographic detail. + +Please cite the original version. + +European Journal of Population (2022) 38:191–221 +https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-022-09605-8 + +NOTE: This Nostr publication is an edited version of https://core.ac.uk/download/534015729.pdf, as viewed on 11 January 2025. + +== Less Partnering, Less Children, or Both? Analysis of the Drivers of First Birth Decline in Finland Since 2010 + +Julia Hellstrandfootnote:Helsinki[Centre for Social Data Science and Population Research Unit, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, +Finland]footnote:Rostock[Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany] · Jessica Nisénfootnote:Rostock[]footnote:[INVEST Research Flagship, University of Turku, Turku, Finland +] · Mikko Myrskyläfootnote:Helsinki[]footnote:Rostock[] + +Received: 30 April 2021 / Accepted: 17 January 2022 / Published online: 14 February 2022 + +© The Author(s) 2022 + +mailto:julia.hellstrand@helsinki.fi[Contact Julia Hellstrand, Concerning your research paper on Finnish birthrates] + +== Abstract + +In the 2010s, fertility has declined in the Nordic countries, most strikingly in Finland, and first births drive the decline. It remains unclear whether this decline results from decreased fertility within unions, changing union dynamics, or both. Thus, we investigated changes in the union–first birth dynamics from 2000 through 2018 in Finland using full-coverage population register data and an incidence-based multi-state model. To do so, we calculated the yearly age-specific transition probabilities across states of single, cohabitation, marriage, and first births among 15 to 45-year-old childless men and women. We found lower fertility rates in unions after 2010, increasing dissolution rates amongst cohabiting couples, and long-term declines in the transition to marriage. Counterfactual simulations showed that, for the decline in first births since 2010, fertility within unions matters more (three-quarters) than union dynamics (one-quarter): that is, lower fertility in cohabitating and married individuals explained 42% and 13% of the decline, respectively, and decreasing fertility rates among couples entering cohabitation explained a further 17%. Decreasing marriage (19%) and cohabitation rates (2–4%) as well as higher union dissolution rates (6%) explained a smaller share of the first birth decline. The decline in first births was somewhat sharper among the lower social strata, but across strata the decreasing first birth transitions in unions explained most of the decline. To conclude, while changing union dynamics provide a partial explanation, postponing or foregoing fertility within unions represents the primary reason for the fertility decline. + +*Keywords* First births · Union formation · Union dissolution · Finland · Incidence-based multistate model · Counterfactual approach + +== 1 Introduction + +In the 2010s, fertility sharply declined in many parts of Europe, particularly in the Nordic countries. The steepest of these declines occurred in Finland, where the total fertility rate (TFR) fell from 1.87 in 2010 to an all-time low of 1.35 in 2019 (Fig. 1; Official Statistics of Finland (OSF), 2019; Human Fertility Database, 2019). The Nordic fertility decline likely reflects declining lifetime fertility given that completed cohort fertility is projected to decline substantially for the first time in decades (Hellstrand et al., 2020, 2021). This projected decline is surprising, since the Nordic region previously featured a relatively high and stable cohort fertility, partly enabled by extensive social policy support provided by these countries intended to reconcile work and family life (Esping-Andersen, 2009; McDonald, 2000). Important findings identified first births as the main driver of the Nordic fertility decline (Hellstrand et al., 2020, 2021). In Finland, for instance, 75% of the decline is attributable to first births (Hellstrand et al., 2020, 2021). Therefore, a better understanding of why first births continue to decline should allow us to understand the general fertility decline. + +Since most first births occur within unions (Jalovaara & Fasang, 2017; Kiernan, 1999), changes in union formation and union stability represent important factors in explaining fertility changes (Hiilamo, 2020). Finland and other Nordic countries serve as forerunners in shifting family formation patterns, such as lengthened single living during young adulthood, an increased progression to premarital cohabitation, and childbearing among cohabiting couples (Lesthaeghe, 2010; Surkyn & Lesthaeghe, 2004). The long-term increase in the share of the population living alone accelerated in more recent years in Finland. Specifically, in the 15to 29-year-old age group, the share living alone rose from 21.0% in 2015 to 25.9% in 2019 among men and from 18.8 to 23.9% among women Fig. 1. Simultaneously, the number of childless cohabiting couples at older reproductive ages continues to increase. However, it remains unclear how the transitions into + +.The total fertility rate (TFR) and the share living alone by age group and gender in Finland, 1990– 2019. Source: Statistics Finland 2020, authors’ own calculations +image::https://i.nostr.build/QBJGPWNIL94SwV9I.png[Figure 1, 300] + +and out of unions and from unions to first births have changed over time, and whether these changes vary based on socioeconomic status. + +The recent fertility decline occurred after the onset of the Great Recession, yet recession indicators insufficiently explain the fertility decline (Comolli et al., 2020). The fundamental reasons for the fertility decline remain unknown, but are hypothesised to be linked to broader uncertainty beyond the actual own circumstances (Vignoli et al., 2020a, 2020b) as well as to lifestyle factors (Rotkirch, 2020). Important questions as yet unaddressed include whether and how the decline in first birth rates since 2010 relates to changes in unions. That is, first births may be decreasing due to increasing difficulties related to forming or maintaining unions, due to decreasing tendency to transition to parenthood among couples, or due to a combination of these factors. By analysing whether the decline is driven by changes in unions versus changes in fertility within unions, we can also indirectly shed light on the pertinence of the reasons hypothesised to drive the decline. Investigating trends by socioeconomic status (SES) may be helpful here, as different SES groups may change their behaviour for different reasons. Previous research shows that first birth rates have declined across all female educational groups in the Nordic countries, albeit slightly faster among the least educated (Comolli et al., 2020). Yet, the role of unions was not taken into account in these analyses. + +This study aims to examine the extent to which the decline in first birth rates in Finland results from changes in transitions between union states (single, cohabitating, and married) and changes in first birth rates within these states. We are particularly interested in changes in union formation (the transition from single to cohabitating and from cohabitating to married), union dissolution (the transition from cohabitating or married to single), and first birth rates within unions (the transition from cohabitating or married to first birth). Our research questions are as follows: + +1. How have union–first birth dynamics changed over time? +2. Is the decline in first births driven by lower fertility in unions or by changes in union patterns? +3. How do these changes vary by socioeconomic status? + +To answer these questions, we estimate the age-structured transition probabilities (single, cohabiting, married, and first births) among both men and women using full-coverage Finnish population register data, and work with the probabilities within the Markov chain multistate framework. We use an incidencebased multistate model and a counterfactual approach to estimate the impact of changes in unions and first birth transitions on declining first births in Finland from 2000 through 2018. By investigating union–first birth patterns for men and women at childbearing age, our study contributes to understanding the recent fertility decline in Finland. Because Finland is often viewed as a demographic forerunner (Andersson et al., 2009), trends here might provide insights into current fertility trends more broadly. Furthermore, the Finnish population registers are exceptional even within the Nordic context in that they include detailed, longterm information on nonmarital cohabitation. + +== 2 Background + +2.1 Union Dynamics and First Births: Theoretical Perspectives + +Family demographic patterns have substantially changed in high-income countries in recent decades. Since the 1960s, fertility and marriage rates have decreased from high levels, divorce rates have increased from low levels, and nonmarital cohabitation and childbearing in cohabitation have become widespread (Lesthaeghe, 2010). Furthermore, childlessness is becoming more important in shaping fertility developments in high-income countries (Kreyenfeld & Konietzka, 2017; Miettinen et al., 2015), although much of the variation across countries in total fertility currently still depends on variation in second and higher-order births (Frejka, 2008; Zeman et al., 2018). In addition to the increased availability of efficient contraception fuelling early fertility declines beginning in the 1960s (Goldin, 2006), these changes have often been attributed to changes in gender roles and shifts in attitudes and norms. More recently, broader economic uncertainty was also put forth as playing a role in fertility and marriage declines. + +The shift from a negative to a positive relationship between female employment and fertility in the late twentieth century (Ahn & Mira, 2002; Brewster & Rindfuss, 2000) gave rise to theories predicting a U-shaped trend in fertility levels over time (Myrskylä et al., 2009, 2011; Esping-Andersen & Billari, 2015). According to these theories, improvements in gender equality would cause fertility to recover and would also strengthen the family in terms of increasing union formation and decreasing union dissolution (Goldscheider et al., 2015). As long as traditional gender roles prevail within families, the increase in women’s labour force participation is expected to increase work–family conflict among women, thereby potentially depressing fertility, increasing the risk of union dissolution, and even discouraging union formation. By contrast, when men’s involvement in the family increases, resulting in less unequal sharing of domestic chores, women’s work–family conflicts are expected to decrease, with potentially strengthening effects on families, including increased fertility (Anderson & Kohler, 2015). + +This U-shaped prediction linking gender equality and fertility, however, is largely fuelled by cross-sectional evidence, and longitudinal analyses do not provide strong support for the prediction (Kolk, 2019). Although the gender revolution may have helped to prevent cohort fertility from decreasing to very low levels, there is little evidence that it would have increased cohort fertility (Frejka et al., 2018). One reason for the lack of a strong positive association may be that increasing gender equality could change men’s incentives for having children in ways that are poorly understood, and some of these forces may be negative. At present, cohort fertility in the Nordic countries is predicted to decline for the first time in decades, further challenging these predictions of a positive relationship (Hellstrand et al., 2020, 2021). Since there have been no signs of weakening gender equality in families or significant changes in family policies in the recent decade, the Nordic fertility decline calls for alternative explanations. + +The second demographic transition (SDT) theory represents another central theory to explain family changes in recent decades. While theories linking gender equality and fertility predict a reversal towards ‘more family’, SDT predicts sustained low fertility and a continuously weakening role of the family. According to SDT, changes to family formation patterns associate with shifts in attitudes and norms towards greater individual autonomy and self-actualisation (Surkyn & Lesthaeghe, 2004). The central idea is that the departure from institutional control and authority paves the way for greater individual autonomy in decision-making, whereby the emergence of ‘higher-order needs’ drives fertility decisions (Mills et al., 2011). Hence, the importance of marriage decreases, alongside the rearing of a child increasingly becoming a conscious choice taken to achieve greater personal self-fulfilment (Van De Kaa, 1987). Childbearing can be viewed as a competing event against other life goals, with women more likely postponing childbearing if they associate children with impeding their individual autonomy (Liefbroer, 2005). Changes in values are considered to result in both increased childlessness and decreases in higher parity births, given that the latter can result in further obstacles for self-fulfilment (Lesthaeghe, 2014). Additionally, greater emphasis is placed on the quality of relationships, consequently leading to the postponement of commitments and increasing tendency for unions to dissolve. According to SDT theory, shifts in demographic behaviours are first adopted by the more highly educated who possess more advanced post-materialist values, which then spread to the rest of society (Lesthaeghe & Surkyn, 1988). + +Finally, economic constraints and economic uncertainty serve as important factors explaining trends in family formation. According to microeconomic theories, couples with greater socioeconomic resources at their disposal are more likely to have (more) children given the direct costs associated with children, when such costs are not counterbalanced by higher opportunity costs (Becker, 1993). In advanced societies, individuals tend to postpone childbearing during economically uncertain times and favour it during times of economic growth (Sobotka et al., 2011). Of all parities especially first births have been affected negatively by rising economic uncertainties (Blossfeld & Hofmeister, 2006). Economic uncertainty may also have negative effects on union formation and stability (Mills & Blossfeld, 2003). + +However, the fact that the fertility decline continued in the Nordic countries during the 2010s despite macro-economic recovery has been argued to highlight the need for a broader framework of perceived uncertainty to explain fertility changes (Comolli et al., 2020). Some hypothesise that uncertainty in people’s lives stemming from globalisation dynamics, new technologies, and media channels since the onset of the Great Recession may have increased in the 2010s (Vignoli et al., 2020a, 2020b). In the narrative framework, expectations and imaginings about the future, which arise from individuals’ past experiences and shared narratives (from peers, social media, or others) and extend beyond actual economic and labour market indicators, may importantly influence fertility decision-making (Vignoli et al., 2020a, 2020b) and marriage intensions, while forming a cohabitation appears to be more compatible with such uncertainties (Guetto et al., 2020; Mills & Blossfeld, 2013). The reason why cohabitation is expected to differ from marriage and childbearing in this respect is that a cohabitation requires much less commitment than a child or a marriage, as a cohabitation can be fairly easily ended. + +In this study, we compare the trends in union patterns and first births in Finland within a conceptual framework built on these different lines of theory. Although this study does not aim at providing direct evidence to test these theories, it may provide some insights that are also theoretically interesting: some explanations of the fertility decline may more strongly operate through suppressing union formation or marriage, or inciting union dissolution than suppressing fertility in unions, and different SES trends may give some further hints on the mechanisms behind the fertility decline. Based on the SDT narrative, we would expect to observe a decrease in childbearing within unions and/or changing partnership dynamics (delayed unions, increasing cohabitation with a lower probability of a first birth compared to marriage, and increasing union dissolution), which are more strongly prevalent among the more highly educated. This stems from the assumption that new demographic behaviours are adopted first by the more highly educated (Lesthaeghe & Surkyn, 1988). However, although many of the changes predicted by SDT have been observed over the past five decades, currently childlessness, never partnering, union dissolution, and childbearing in cohabitation are all more strongly prevalent in lower SES groups (Jalovaara & Fasang, 2017; Jalovaara et al., 2019; Perelli-Harris et al., 2010). It can thus be debated that how relevant the SDT framework is for explaining the current fertility patterns. + +A decline in first births primarily explained by decreasing fertility and marriage intensities—rather than by shifting cohabitation patterns—would be in line with the uncertainty theory, as cohabitation may not be affected by uncertainty to the same extent as marriage and the entry into parenthood. There is little consensus on how perceived uncertainty can be expected to affect union dissolution (Bastianelli & Vignoli, 2021). Actual economic constraints may increase the risk of separation due to economic stress, and similarly, perceived uncertainty could also bring forth stress that strains the relationship. The reluctance to progress to a more binding relationship (i.e. marriage or parenthood) due to uncertainty could be reflected in the dissolution of cohabitation especially if the partners’ disagree on the issue. On the other hand, marriage brings predictability to the future, and hence, perceived uncertainty may not affect divorce risks. Changes in family formation patterns more strongly driven by lower SES groups may reflect obstacles to family formation due to economic constraints or uncertainty. As lower SES groups face more difficulties in finding a partner (Jalovaara & Fasang, 2017), their union formation and consequently first births may be delayed as compared to the high SES groups. They may also have a lower first birth rate because they are more likely to experience union dissolution once they have entered a union (Jalovaara, 2013). However, economic uncertainty may arise in spite of the actual own economic situation (Vignoli et al., 2020a), and consequently, a homogenous change among the SES groups is not necessarily evidence against uncertainty as an explanation for the decline. + +2.2 Union Dynamics and First Births: Empirical Observations in Finland + +Cohabitation currently represents a common first step in family formation in Finland. The vast majority of all first unions (over 90%) begin as cohabiting unions (Jalovaara, 2012), and Finland’s proportion of 20 + year-old people living in cohabiting unions is among the highest in Europe (Corselli-Nordblad & Gereoffy, 2015). Cohabiting couples exhibit much higher separation rates than married couples, but the separation rate decreases with cohabitation length, and most cohabiting couples which do not separate eventually marry (Jalovaara, 2013). When it comes to divorce, the crude divorce rate has slowly declined after reaching its peak of 2.9 in 1989 (Eurostat, 2021). + +First births are becoming increasingly disconnected from marriage, as first births are increasingly more likely to occur within cohabitation (Kennedy & Bumpass, 2008; Thomson & Eriksson, 2013). The share of births to unmarried women in Finland increased from 33% in 1995 to 45% in 2018, consequently placing Finland currently above the average of 42% across 28 OECD countries, but clearly lower than in other Nordic countries (OECD, 2021b). By 2018, the mean age at first birth reached 29.4 years and the mean age at first marriage 31.7 years among Finnish women (Official Statistics of Finland (OSF), 2018a, 2018b). Although first births are increasingly born to cohabiting couples, marriage and childbearing are still interconnected so that cohabiting couples who have children often marry (Rotkirch & Miettinen, 2017). A study from Iceland concludes that the order of events accounts for this change: marriage now takes place after rather than before childbearing, although marriage does not seem to be declining (Jónsson, 2020). However, married couples still have stronger childbearing intentions (Miettinen & Rotkirch, 2008) and higher first birth rates than cohabiting couples (Jalovaara & Miettinen, 2013). + +Compared to other high-income countries, Finland exhibits high rates of ultimate childlessness (Sobotka, 2017), and most Finns without children of their own have never lived in a stable, long-term cohabitating union (Jalovaara & Fasang, 2017; Saarela & Skirbekk, 2019). Hence, difficulties encountered in finding a partner represent one likely factor explaining high rates of childlessness in Finland. Furthermore, the contemporary gender imbalance in education, such that women are better educated than men, is particularly pronounced in Finland (OECD, 2021a). This new gender imbalance in education limits the opportunities of finding a suitable partner particularly among the least educated men who now largely outnumber women without a degree, since historically women have formed unions with men at least as well educated as themselves (Mäenpää & Jalovaara, 2015; Van Bavel, 2012). A stable partnership continues to be a strong prerequisite to childbearing also in Finland (Jalovaara & Fasang, 2017). Marriage serves as an indicator of greater union stability as opposed to cohabitation and proof of a commitment, and married men and women are much less likely to remain childless than cohabiting men and women (Saarela & Skirbekk, 2019). + +There are pronounced differences in union histories and the transition to parenthood between educational groups in Finland. The lower educated tend to form unions and have their first birth at younger ages than the higher educated (Jalovaara & Fasang, 2020; Nisén et al., 2014). Socioeconomic resources of both genders promote cohabitation and particularly marriage, and lower the risk of union dissolution (Jalovaara, 2012, 2013). For instance, over one third of Finns with a tertiary education had married their first cohabiting partner and were still in that marriage at age 39, while the corresponding share was 13% for those with only compulsory education (Jalovaara & Fasang, 2017). Ultimate childlessness has recently sharply increased among the less educated, and consequently, the educational gradient in childlessness among women has reversed (Jalovaara et al., 2019). Currently, both the least educated men and women are most likely to remain childless: in a late 1960s Finnish cohort consisting of individuals who completed only a basic education, over 30% of women and over 40% of men remained childless at age 40–41 (Rotkirch & Miettinen, 2017). This negative relationship between educational attainment and ultimate childlessness appears strongly driven by lower chances of the less educated to form stable unions (Nisén et al., 2018; Saarela & Skirbekk, 2019). Further, the least educated are more likely to have children in cohabitating unions while the more highly educated tend to exhibit higher first birth rates within marriage (Jalovaara & Andersson, 2018). Still, little is known about how fertility declines in the 2010s are associated with changes in unions and whether these potential changes vary based on SES. + +== 3 Data and Methods + +3.1 Data + +In this study, we used Finnish national longitudinal population register data compiled at Statistics Finland (permission no. TK-52-1119-17). The register data were linked to different register sources such as information on childbirths, housing and educational attainment through personal identification numbers, offering full-coverage of the entire Finnish population. The study population consists of all childless men and women aged 15–45-years-old permanently living in Finland on the last day of each year from 2000 through 2018. Individuals were followed until they had a first biological child or until they reached the age of 45. In total, the study population consists of 2 532 375 individuals and 23 847 070 person-years. Less than 0.06% of all first births were linked to two biological mothers/fathers. Consequently, the true parent for these children remained unknown. We excluded from our study 388 individuals linked to such a first birth. + +For each individual, data include personal information on family status (single, cohabiting, or married) at the end of each calendar year. Statistics Finland defines cohabitation as a union of two unmarried adults of the opposite sex aged 18 or older who have been living in the same dwelling for at least three months, who are not siblings or differ in age by 16 or more years (Official Statistics of Finland (OSF), 2021). An individual is considered single if s/he is not living in a cohabiting or married union. Among the study population, 2.1% of men and 1.5% of women (446 787 observations) had missing information for family status (institutionalised population and/or otherwise unclassified) and were thus excluded from the study. + +We formed yearly transitions for all individuals in the study population for whom personal information was available for two consecutive years. Information for two consecutive years was missing for all first entries into the study population (2 517 735 observations) and for individuals absent from the Finnish population during some period from 2000 through 2018 (130 467 observations). Furthermore, to avoid challenges related to incomplete educational data and an unknown number of unregistered first births to non-native Finns, we excluded individuals born abroad 1 (1 280 473 observations for 229 670 individuals). In total, we identified 19 468 815 yearly transitions between states (single, cohabitating, married, and first birth) for 2 125 172 individuals beginning in 2000. Among these, 740 537 were transitions to first births2, and 2 911 543 were transitions between partnership states. Appendix Table 1 provides descriptive information about first births and partnership transitions in more detail. + +We also estimated the transition probabilities based on SES. We considered four categories of educational attainment—primary, secondary, lower tertiary, and higher tertiary. Primary-level includes those who completed at most a lower secondary level of education (ISCED 0–2), while secondary level refers to those who completed upper secondary and post-secondary non-tertiary levels of education (ISCED 3–4). Lower tertiary includes short-cycle tertiary education and a Bachelor’s degree or the equivalent level (ISCED 5–6), while higher tertiary refers to those who completed a Master’s degree, doctoral degree or the equivalent level of education (ISCED 7–8). We used income as a complement to education as a robustness check to overcome the limitations related to using educational attainment as an explanatory variable in the period analysis—that is, currently, less educated groups include those who will later attain more advanced degrees. The income variable refers to each individual’s annual income subject to state taxation and includes both earnings and social-security benefits. Four income groups were formed based on income quartiles stratified by age, year, and gender. Because those enrolled in educational programmes in particular are known to exhibit lower birth risks (e.g. Kravdal, 1994), we performed a sensitivity analysis which excluded students (shown in the appendix). + +3.2 Methods + +We used a Markov chain multistate approach, which describes the transitions between a given set of states using transition probabilities (Briggs & Sculpher, 1998). A Markov chain evolves in discrete time and moves step-by-step from state i to state j , with the property of being memoryless. That is, the probability of each transition depends only on the state attained in the previous step and not on the history of events (Kemeny & Snell, 1971). The transition probabilities from state i to state j at a specific age and time are defined as + +.State transition diagram for the Markov chain +image::https://i.nostr.build/sFlRaApoHqolB7hS.png[Figure 2, 300] + +_Formula 1 as Asciimath_ +[stem] +++++ +p_(ij)(ag\e, t) = pr(State_t = j|State_(t−1) = i; ag\e_(t−1)) +++++ + +image::https://i.nostr.build/rRkC2LZrPEOjWZqJ.png[Formula 1, 300] + +The step size in our analyses is one year.footnote:[When we refer to a specific year, we refer to the end of that specific year.] Our state space includes the states of ‘single’, ‘cohabitating’, ‘married’, and ‘first birth. An illustration of the state space and the transitions between these states appears in Fig. 2. In our analysis, we distinguish between the transitions from ‘single’ to ‘first birth and single’ and ‘first birth and union’ in order to distinguish single parents from couples who begin cohabitating closer to the first birth event. The first birth event represents an absorbing state, meaning that once entered it cannot be left. All other states are nonabsorbing (transient) states. We estimated the yearly age-specific transition probabilities for each of the given set of states between the ages of 15 and 45 from 2000 through 2018 as + +_Formula 2 as Asciimath_ +[stem] +++++ +p_(ij)(x, t) = frac{"#individuals in state "j " in year " t " aged " x " and in state " i " in year "t − 1 }{"#individuals aged " x " in state " i " in year "t − 1} +++++ + +image::https://i.nostr.build/CngNXtCcNthAaO62.png[Formula 2, 300] + +using simple cross tabulations.footnote:[Fitting multinomial logistic regression models to the data would be an alternative, but the results +would not differ.] The probabilities were estimated separately for men and women, as well as for educational and income groups, respectively. + +We used the estimated transition probabilities and counterfactual simulation[Related methodological approaches have been applied only in few prior studies: hazard ratios were +implemented in microsimulation models to link fertility to marital behaviours in Canada (Bélange et al., +2010), and a counterfactual approach was employed to examine the impact of union dissolution on fertil- +ity in Uruguay (Fernández Soto & Laplante, 2020).] to calculate what proportion of the decline in first births was attributable to changes in union dynamics versus the decline in fertility within unions.footnote:[Our counterfactual design does not necessarily take into account (changes in) the order of events. For +instance, if we were to observe a first birth decline attributed to changes in declining marriage rates, it +could in part reflect a tendency to marry increasingly after the first birth.] (For specific details, see the Technical appendix.) First, we calculated the age-specific first birth rates that would have been observed if the population in 2010 would have experienced the 2010 transition rates in the period from 2010 through 2018. We labelled this scenario ‘constant probability births’. Using the age-specific first birth rates, we calculated the proportion ever having a first birth according to a life-table approach. Second, we calculated the age-specific first birth rate and the proportion ever having a first birth that we expect to have observed if the population in 2010 would have experienced the observed changes in transition rates in the period from 2010 through 2018. We labelled this scenario ‘natural course births’. We decompose the difference between these two scenarios by changing the transition probabilities one at a time. For education groups, we adjusted the procedure to take into account that the study population progresses to higher education levels over time. Additional details appear in the Technical appendix. + +== 4 Results + +4.1 Age‑Specific Transition Probabilities Between States + +First, we explored how the age-specific transition probabilities have changed over time. The selected yearly age-specific transition probabilities between single, cohabitating, and married individuals, and first births for childless men and women in Finland from 2000 through 2018 appear in Fig. 3. We show the developments for two selected age groups, 25 and 35, which represent the patterns among younger and older age groups, respectively. The age-specific transition probabilities for all events appear in Appendix Fig. 7. + +4.1.1 Union Formation + +Since the early 2000s, the probability of forming unmarried, cohabitating unions has remained relatively stable across all ages. However, we observed a drop for the most recent years (2015–2018) among the younger ages, that is, at age 25 when the transition probability fell from 14 to 12% for men. Among women, a drop was observed only among those younger than 25. Thus, the yearly probability of remaining single has recently increased among younger individuals. The probability of marrying has exhibited a more long-term decline at nearly all ages. For instance, the yearly probability of marrying at age 25 among cohabiting women has, since the early 2000s, decreased from 11 to 6% in 2018, peaking in 2008 at 8% for age 35, and then falling to 5% in 2018. Additionally, the low probability of (directly) marrying among single individuals has decreased. + +4.1.2 Union Dissolution + +Married couples exhibited a lower rate of union dissolution compared to cohabiting individuals at all ages. The rate of union dissolution among married couples remains similar across all age groups, remaining relatively stable over the period of interest. Among cohabiting couples, the rate of union dissolution was higher in the younger age groups. In recent years, the probability of a union dissolving among cohabiting + +.Transition probabilities for single, cohabitating, and married individuals, and the first birth for childless women and men aged 25 and 35 in Finland, 2001–2018 +image::https://i.nostr.build/uBdypLpjQM1Hezyy.png[Figure 3, 300] + +men and women increased slightly at younger ages. That is, at age 25, the transition probability increased from 11 to 13% among women and from 14 to 15% among men from 2010 to 2018. Furthermore, the transition from marriage to cohabitation remains rare. + +4.1.3 Transition to First Births + +The age pattern in the transition to first births differs widely for cohabiting and married couples. First birth rates within cohabitating couples were highest during the early 30 s when around 10% of men and women who were cohabiting in 2017 experienced their first births in 2018. First birth rates among married men and women where highest at very young ages. Thus, first birth rates were several times higher at younger ages among married versus cohabiting couples, a difference that persisted + +.Transition probabilities for single, cohabitating, and married individuals, and for first births among childless women and men in 2001–2018 by level of education at ages 25 and 35 +image::https://i.nostr.build/kuB6esNcMRElqAWt.png[Figure 4, 300] + +until the mid to late 30 s. Since 2010, first birth rates have decreased among both cohabiting and married couples for nearly all ages, but more distinctly at younger ages. The decrease was, however, less pronounced among married women. For instance, from 2010 through 2018, the first birth rate at age 25 decreased from 0.27 to 0.21 among married women and from 0.09 to 0.06 among cohabiting women. Furthermore, the low probability of transitioning from single to first birth—specifically the transition from single to first birth and entering a union—has decreased. We observed a sharp increase in the probability of remaining either as a cohabiting or a married couple without transitioning to a first birth. + +4.2 Transition Probabilities by Socioeconomic Status (SES) Groups + +We further explored whether changes in partnering and first birth transitions were more pronounced in some SES groups than others (Fig. 4). We show the results for the lowest and highest SES groups. + +The decrease in the transition to cohabitation observed at younger ages in the general population was visible primarily among less educated grosups of women and men. Over years 2010—2018, the probability of forming a cohabiting union at age 25 declined for primary educated men and women by 5 and 3 percentage points, respectively. This is a 45% (men) and a 27% Fig. 5 Contributions of declining first births, changes in union formations, and changes in union dissolutions to the decline in the percentage experiencing first births based on the first birth rates in 2010–2018. The black solid line indicates the percentage experiencing a first birth that would have been observed if the population in 2010 would have experienced the 2010 transition rates in the years 2010 through 2018. Shaded areas indicate how much the decline in first births would have been dampened if the corresponding transition probabilities would not have changed (women) decline of the levels observed in year 2010. We observed no change in cohabitation rates among women + +.Contributions of declining first births, changes in union formations, and changes in union dissolutions to the decline in the percentage experiencing first births based on the first birth rates in 2010–2018. The black solid line indicates the percentage experiencing a first birth that would have been observed if the population in 2010 would have experienced the 2010 transition rates in the years 2010 through 2018. Shaded areas indicate how much the decline in first births would have been dampened if the corresponding transition probabilities would not have changed +image::https://i.nostr.build/q2xoB3Jnk6UPkHnH.png[Figure 5, 300] + +with tertiary-level education, but found a decline (6 percentage point which is 30% of the level in 2010) for the relatively small group of higher tertiary-level educated 25-year-old men. Furthermore, a long-term decreasing trend in the transition from cohabitation to marriage was observed across all SES groups, but appeared somewhat stronger among the more highly educated. For instance, the transition probability from cohabitation to marriage at age 25 remained low at around 0.05 for primary educated women, but fell from 0.18 to 0.10 for higher tertiary educated women. + +We also observed a slight increase in the transition from cohabitation to being single primarily among the least educated men and women. Moreover, we observed no change in the transition from marriage to being single in any of the educational groups, except for a small potential increase among the least educated at younger ages. + +Finally, we find that first birth rates have decreased both among cohabiting and married men and women across all SES groups. However, the decrease was less pronounced in the small group of married women in the lowest educational group. + +4.3 Contributions to Declining First Births, 2010–2018 + +Figure 5 shows the contributions of the changes in first birth transitions, union formations, and union dissolutions to the decline in the number of first births from 2010 through 2018. We use the percentage experiencing a first birth, a synthetic age-standardised measurement indicating the proportion that expected to experience a first birth based on the observed rates. The observed changes in the transition probabilities led to a decline in the share experiencing a first birth to 68.1% for women and to 58.4% for men. This natural course scenario matches well with the true observed first birth rates (Appendix Fig. 10). If the transition probabilities remained stable (i.e. as observed in 2010) across years, the share experiencing a first birth based on the age-specific first birth rates in 2018 would have reached 78.6% for women and 71.2% for men. + +If first birth transitions (whether among single, cohabitating, or married individuals) had not decreased, 76% of the observed decline in the share experiencing a first birth among women would have been dampened. The largest contributions originated from cohabiting women (42%), followed by women who were single at the end of the year, but who experienced their first birth and lived in a union at the end of the following year (17%) and married women (13%). The decrease in single motherhood also insubstantially contributed (4%). Furthermore, if union formation had remained stable, the decrease would have been dampened by 21%. Decreasing marriage rates appeared vastly more important (19%) than decreasing cohabitating rates (2%). In addition, the small increase in dissolution rates contributed modestly (6%). It is also possible that the couple did not marry because they did not have the first birth in the first place. Among men, the results were largely similar, but, the decrease in cohabitation rates, for instance, was slightly more important among men than among women. + +4.3.1 Contribution by Socioeconomic Status Groups + +The results of the decomposition are affected by both the probabilities of transitioning between different states, as well as the population composition, which both differ between SES groups and contribute partially to findings between groups. In order to more intuitively grasp the compositional effects of transitions between states in the counterfactual simulation, we show the distribution of union states in 2009 and 2017 for the lowest and highest educational groups in (Appendix Fig. 8). Notably, the proportion single is much higher among the lower educated, and more people are cohabitating and married among the higher educated, throughout the study period. When it comes to changes in the last decade, we observe that among the lower educated, the proportion single has increased while the proportion in unions (both cohabiting and married) has decreased. Among the higher educated, the proportion single has remained relatively stable, but the proportion married decreased and the proportion cohabiting increased. + +Figure 6 shows the contributions to the first birth decline based on education. The total decline was larger in the lower SES groups. Specifically, the share ever experiencing a first birth fell from 2010 through 2018 from 65 to 48% for women with primary education and from 82 to 75% for women with higher tertiary education. In addition, we noted that the contribution associated with changes in first birth transitions versus changes in unions to the declining first birth rate is, in general, similar across all SES groups. However, some differences emerged. First, the decline in first birth transitions among married individuals explained a larger share of the total first birth decline among women with a higher level of education. That is, the share + +.Contributions of declining first births, changes in union formations, and changes in union dissolutions to the decline in th percentage experiencing first births based on the first birth rates in 2010–2018 by education groups. The top curve shows the results for the higher tertiary education groups, while the bottom curve shows the results for the primary-level education groups +image::https://i.nostr.build/F6K02I9QC7ONbUh9.png[Figure 6, 300] + +explained is almost four times higher among those with a tertiary-level education (27%) than among those who completed primary education alone (7%). This reflects both the fact that the first birth transition probabilities for married individuals with primary-level education declined less as well as the difference in the population composition: a much higher proportion of more highly educated individuals were married (Appendix Fig. 8). In turn, the declining transition to single motherhood appeared more important for women with the least education. + +Turning to union formation, declining cohabitation rates appear more important among women with the least education. The contribution of changes in cohabitation rates negatively (although slightly) associated with a tertiary level of education among women, meaning that cohabitation rates have, in fact, increased among this group. If such rates remained unchanged, first birth rates would have decreased slightly faster. This also results from the low number of more highly educated individuals at ages coinciding with decreases in the cohabitation rates. Here, again, the results for men are, in general, rather similar, yet some differences exist. For instance, the declining cohabitation rates among the least educated were slightly more important among men. In addition, the contribution of decreasing single parenthood did not concentrate within any educational group as they did among women. + +4.4 Summary of the Results + +We observed a lower fertility in unions after 2010, a long-term decline in marriage rates and increasing dissolution rates among cohabiting couples. Lower fertility in unions explained around three-quarters of the total decline in first births, and the decreasing first birth transitions appeared more important among cohabiting couples than among married individuals. Consequently, changes in unions explained around one-quarter of the total decline in first births. Furthermore, lower marriage rates were more important than changes in cohabitation formation and cohabitation dissolution, and increases in cohabitation dissolution were more important than declining figures in cohabitation formation in explaining the first birth decline. Results were similar for both men and women. + +Our findings were largely consistent across SES groups, whereby first births declined and childbearing within unions explained most of this decline in all groups. In agreement with the study by Comolli et al. (2020), the total decline in first births was stronger among less educated groups. Nevertheless, the decrease in the transition from cohabitation to marriage explained more of the decline among the most highly educated, while the decrease in the transition from single to cohabitation explained more of the decline among the least educated. We also compared the findings among income quartile groups as a robustness check (Appendix Figs. 9, 11): results remained relatively consistent regardless of whether education or income was used as an indicator of socioeconomic position. We note, however, that some differences between income groups were not as strong as those that emerged between educational groups. Moreover, while the probability of experiencing a first birth among cohabiting couples declined rather consistently across SES groups regardless of the measure, among married couples the decline was weaker among the least educated, potentially reflecting the selection of this small group. + +== 5 Discussion + +This study investigated how the fertility decline in the 2010s in Finland associated with changes in fertility in unions and with changes in union formation and dissolution. Fertility mainly occurs in unions (Jalovaara & Fasang, 2017; Kiernan, 1999), and pinning down whether the fertility decline occurs within unions or because lack of unions is to zoom on the potential causes of the fertility decline. Using full-coverage Finnish register data, an incidence-based multistate model, and a counterfactual approach, we analysed the changes in the transition probabilities between relationship states among single, cohabitating, and married individuals, and in the transition to first birth among each relationship state in Finland from 2000 through 2018, and estimated the impact of these changes on the first birth decline in Finland during the 2010s. While patterns in unions explained some of the decline, the decreased transition to the first birth within unions mattered more. + +First births in contemporary Finland have increasingly been born to cohabiting couples, whereby marriage has increasingly followed childbearing. In this current trend, however, the declining marriage rates since 2010 are not followed by increasing nonmarital births, as the decreases in first births among cohabiting couples represent the primary driver of declines in total first births. Instead, the tendency to remain cohabiting without transitioning to either marriage or the first birth has increased rapidly, accompanied by a slight increase in the risk of separation among younger cohabiting couples. A slower decline in the first birth transition among married as compared to cohabiting couples was expected, since marriage reflects a stronger commitment and promotes childbearing more strongly than cohabitation (Jalovaara & Miettinen, 2013; Miettinen & Rotkirch, 2008). It may be that childbearing intentions have declined among cohabiting and married couples in Finland. Finnish surveys indicate that the proportion voluntary childless has risen in Finland: the probability of having childfree ideals at age 25 was around 5% for the 1975–79 female cohort and around 20% for the 1990–1994 female cohort (Savelieva et al., 2021a, 2021b). + +It also seems plausible that weaker childbearing intentions may have contributed to declining rates of union formation: hence, it might be that the lack of a first birth itself contributed to the decline in marriage. Marriage is strongly related to the family formation process so that couples who (wish to) have children often marry, and vice versa, marriage promotes the first birth (Brien et al., 1999; Steele et al., 2005). Consequently, the first birth decline attributed to declining marriage rates does not necessarily reflect a tendency to eventually marry less (unless the couples remain childless). Given that in the Nordic countries marriage increasingly occurs after the first birth rather than before (Jónsson, 2020), to better understand the causality of declining marriage and declining first births, future studies could investigate marriage patterns among parents as well. + +The changes in family formation witnessed since the 1960s in the Nordic and other countries, such as postponing and declining fertility and the rise in alternative living arrangements compared to marriage, have often been explained by the second demographic transition theory (SDT), where the weakening of traditional family values gives rise to individual autonomy and self-actualisation (Lesthaeghe, 2014). Contrary to the predictions of SDT, the recent new family demographic developments in Finland were not necessarily driven by more highly educated individuals. Perhaps in Finland—a country with a long history of individualistic values (Sobotka, 2008)—these values have already spread from the higher social strata to the whole population by the 2010s. Interestingly, a characteristic SDT feature, voluntary childlessness, seems to have gained ground in Finland only in the last decade (Savelieva et al., 2021b) and may explain some of the fertility decline. + +Increasing uncertainty that goes beyond the actual own economic circumstances has been suggested to drive the recent declining fertility trends in the Nordic (Comolli et al., 2020) and other European countries (Vignoli et al., 2020a, 2020b). The patterns we observed in Finland agree to some extent with this view. First, the declining fertility rates in unions explained the lion’s share of the decline in first births. This could be viewed as in line with the reasoning on uncertainty, given that uncertainty is less likely to be an obstacle to forming a cohabiting union than it is for more permanent and irreversible life decision like childbearing or marriage (Guetto et al., 2020). Also Finnish surveys suggest that perceived uncertainty is considered the most important subjective reason to postpone childbearing in the 2010s (Savelieva et al., 2021a). Second, the patterns remained largely consistent across SES groups, which would be generally not discrepant with the view of uncertainty. The sharper decline among the lower SES groups, as found in this study, however, suggests that actual economic constraints may not be completely irrelevant for the recent changes. + +Although the decrease in the transition to cohabitation did not strongly explain the total decline in first births, its role should not be dismissed. First births remained rather unaffected by decreased cohabitation rates at younger ages, much due to the fact that first birth rates among young cohabitating couples are low. Moreover, a declining trend towards entering a cohabiting union remained notable primarily among the lower SES groups. Cohabitation rates have been stable in Finland for quite some time, but began declining at younger ages after 2015, a departure from the previous long-term trend. It is still unclear whether this merely reflects postponement or if we are also observing an increase in the share of individuals who never partner in the near future. The sharper decline in cohabitation rates among the lower SES groups, particularly among men, may imply that these groups are experiencing greater difficulties in the mating market. We agree with previous views arguing that the increase in the availability of dating partners through online dating sites and its effect on (un)stable union formation is an avenue for further investigation (Hiilamo, 2020). + +If future transition probabilities remain at current levels and no catching up occurs, an inevitable consequence of the current first birth decline will result in increasing levels of ultimate childlessness. The expected proportion of childless individuals in Finland based on the first birth rates in 2010 and 2018, respectively, increased from 21.0% to 31.5% among women and from 28.7% to 41.5% among men. Given the sharp decline in childbearing within unions, future ultimate childlessness could potentially be related less to the absence of unions. Previously, ultimate childlessness in Finland has been linked to never partnering and to short or unstable spells of cohabitation (Jalovaara & Fasang, 2017), and rates of ultimate childlessness are low among married couples (Saarela & Skirbekk, 2019). Our findings suggest that all educational groups may witness increases in the rates of ultimate childlessness due to a declining progression to first births within unions alongside greater union instability, and the lower SES groups additionally due to the increasing difficulties in forming unions. + +The primary strength of this study lies in our use of full-population Finnish register data, which distinguished nonmarital cohabitation from marriage. This distinction is crucial for understanding family-specific demographic changes within a context where cohabitation typically represents the first step in the family formation process and where first births are increasingly concentrated within cohabitating unions. A further strength lies in our analyses of data for both men and women, since analyses on men’s fertility remain rare. We also acknowledge several limitations in studying family formation based on educational attainment in the current period perspective, where the share enrolled (and in the decomposition analysis also the age structure) varies between groups with varying levels of attainment. Our sensitivity analysis (Appendix Fig. 12) revealed that the primary results regarding changes over time were quite similar regardless of whether we included currently enrolled or not. Reassuringly, the analysis by income group also indicated largely similar socioeconomic patterns in recent declines as those found from our analysis based on education. + +Our model utilises annual transitions, given that it represents a straightforward way of proceeding and because personal information is available at the end of each calendar year. Potentially, using shorter transition periods for cohabitation, such as every three months, might prove appropriate, since that is the minimum time within which to capture unions in the registers. But, such short transitions may not be more informative vis-à-vis first birth transitions. An important question arises regarding whether we missed short-term changes in our approach. For instance, it is possible to observe a decline in the annual transition to cohabitation simply if the formation of cohabiting unions lasting shorter than one year increases while the total number of new cohabitations remains constant. Additional analyses revealed that the formation of unions lasting shorter than one year has also decreased in recent years (Appendix Table 2). In addition, our model did not take into account the duration of unions (Hoem et al., 2013; Jalovaara & Kulu, 2018). That said, additional analyses revealed that first birth rates have decreased, and separation rates have increased rather similarly regardless of union length (Appendix Fig. 13). + +In conclusion, this study demonstrated that the sharp decline in first birth rates in the 2010s in Finland is associated with changes in partnering. However, the declining tendency to experience a first birth within unions is most important in explaining the fertility decline. Future studies should specifically focus on the declining tendency to transition to parenthood among cohabiting couples, as well as to the increasing instability of such unions. + +== Appendix + +See Figs. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 and Tables 1 and 2. + +image::https://i.nostr.build/hk9f6K8nJsIbe51b.png[Figure 7-1, 300] +.Age-specific transition probabilities for single, cohabitating, and married individuals, and the first birth among childless women and men in Finland, 2001–2018 +image::https://i.nostr.build/uzUGdpxaviBtjQ80.png[Figure 7-2, 300] + +.First birth rates (births per childless woman) based on the Human Fertility Database (HFD) and the natural course in 2010 and 2018 +image::https://i.nostr.build/j9GSlPz6e7RbPaQX.png[Figure 8, 300] + +.The population by partnership state in 2009 and 2017, for men and women with primary and higher tertiary education +image::https://i.nostr.build/AB6lepAt4cp9rGCU.png[Figure 9, 300] + +.Transition probabilities for single, cohabitating, and married individuals, and first births among childless women and men in 2001–2018 by income quartile group at ages 25 and 35 +image::https://i.nostr.build/SOFrUTSM1oyJ4vJ7.png[Figure 10, 300] + +image::https://i.nostr.build/H1JoftCfVic50vgp.png[Figure 11-1, 300] +image::https://i.nostr.build/iN9gSeNpyBooqTpN.png[Figure 11-2, 300] +.Contributions of declining first births, changes in union formations, and changes in union dissolutions to the decline in the percentage experiencing first births based on the first birth rates in 2010– 2018 by income quartile groups. The top curve shows the results for the highest income group, while the bottom curve shows the results for the lowest income group +image::https://i.nostr.build/2XENJrAEb8MAB3zD.png[Figure 11-3, 150] + +image::https://i.nostr.build/mHe0PJHGqUkMhQmc.png[Figure 12-1, 300] +image::https://i.nostr.build/LScumIjd0TI4QiBS.png[Figure 12-2, 300] +.Contributions of declining first births, changes in union formations, and changes in union dissolutions to the decline in the percentage experiencing first births based on the first birth rates in 2010– 2017 by education groups, excluding students. (Information regarding education enrolment was incomplete in 2018). The top curve shows the results for the most educated, whilst the bottom curve shows the results for the least educated +image::https://i.nostr.build/2XENJrAEb8MAB3zD.png[Figure 12-3, 150] + +.Transition probabilities by length of union for women aged < 25, 25–29 and 30–34, in 2010 and 2018. Length of union measured at the end of the previous year +image::https://i.nostr.build/TEJwnLyLrOuTkT1r.png[Figure 13, 300] + +.Table 1 Number of first births, person-years of exposures, and partnership status transitions among the childless population, ages 15 to 44 among women and men, 2000–2018 +[cols="2,>1,>1,>1", stripes] +|=== +|Description|All|Women|Men + +|Characteristic|(n = 2 125 172)|(n = 993 024)|(n = 1 132 148) + +|First births, number|740 537|379 051|361 486 + +|Person-years of follow-up|19 468 815|8 806 785|10 662 030 + +4+e|Partnership transitions, number + +|Single to single|12 419 504|5 232 453|7 187 051 + +|Single to cohabitating|1 206 555|604 671|601 884 + +|Single to married|102 370|51 424|50 946 + +|Single to first birth & single|47 249|31 398|15 851 + +|Single to first birth & union|86 883|40 965|45 918 + +|Cohabitating to single|536 569|268 414|268 155 + +|Cohabitating to cohabitating|3 018 824|1 532 222|1 486 602 + +|Cohabitating to married|269 197|136 150|133 047 + +|Cohabitating to first birth|334 546|168 932|165 614 + +|Married to single|47 898|24 330|23 568 + +|Married to cohabitating|8 417|4 670|3 747 + +|Married to married|1 118 944|573 400|545 544 + +|Married to first birth|271 859|137 756|134 103 +|=== + +.Table 2 Number of unions by starting year and union length, women aged < 25, 2000–2018 +[cols="1,>1,>1,>1,>1,>1", stripes] +|=== +|Year|>=1 year|[274–365) days|[183–274) days|[90–183) days|Total + +|2000|20,014|1191|1051|927|23,183 + +|2001|20,755|1213|1095|838|23,901 + +|2002|19,937|1215|1040|835|23,027 + +|2003|19,827|1254|1035|857|22,973 + +|2004|20,672|1143|1098|821|23,734 + +|2005|20,543|1219|1071|838|23,671 + +|2006|20,298|1247|1082|782|23,409 + +|2007|20,001|1239|1041|765|23,046 + +|2008|20,334|1273|1047|778|23,432 + +|2009|20,526|1215|1108|745|23,594 + +|2010|19,942|1267|1073|789|23,071 + +|2011|20,243|1363|1092|801|23,499 + +|2012|20,392|1296|1119|866|23,673 + +|2013|20,115|1341|1095|804|23,355 + +|2014|19,211|1260|1104|832|22,407 + +|2015|19,042|1237|1069|829|22,177 + +|2016|18,038|1326|1128|734|21,226 + +|2017|15,886|1095|859|652|18,492 + +|2018|15,969|1074|889|643|18,575 +|=== + +== Supplementary Information + +The online version contains supplementary material available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10680-022-09605-8. + +Acknowledgements + +This research was funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC), FLUX consortium, decision numbers: 345130 and 345131. The Academy of Finland supported the contributions of Julia Hellstrand (Project No. 294861) and Jessica Nisén (Project No. 332863 and 320162). The authors would like to acknowledge Tim Riffe and Christian Dudel for help with the methods. + +Authors’ contributions + +All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Data analysis was performed by Julia Hellstrand. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Julia Hellstrand, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. + +Funding + +Open Access funding provided by University of Helsinki including Helsinki University Central Hospital. + +Data Availability + +Individual level register data from Statistics Finland are not freely available. + +Code Availability + +The code is available upon request. + +Declarations + +Conflicts of interest + +The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest. + +Open Access + +This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. 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Demographic Research, 38, 651–690. \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/JaneEyre.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/JaneEyre.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c359fae --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/JaneEyre.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,8227 @@ += Jane Eyre, an Autobiography + +== Preface + +A preface to the first edition of “Jane Eyre” being unnecessary, I gave none: this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark. + +My thanks are due in three quarters. + +To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale with few pretensions. + +To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an obscure aspirant. + +To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended Author. + +The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them, i.e., to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially, Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart. + +Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as “Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against bigotry—that parent of crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would remind them of certain simple truths. + +Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of Thorns. + +These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is—I repeat it—a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them. + +The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show pass for sterling worth—to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose—to rase the gilding, and show base metal under it—to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him. + +Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaanah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel. + +There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital—a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of “Vanity Fair” admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time—they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Rimoth-Gilead. + +Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day—as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent. They say he is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humour, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to him—if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger—I have dedicated this second edition of “JANE EYRE.” + +CURRER BELL. + +December 21st, 1847. + +== Note to the Third Edition + +I avail myself of the opportunity which a third edition of “Jane Eyre” affords me, of again addressing a word to the Public, to explain that my claim to the title of novelist rests on this one work alone. If, therefore, the authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed to me, an honour is awarded where it is not merited; and consequently, denied where it is justly due. + +This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already have been made, and to prevent future errors. + +CURRER BELL. + +April 13th, 1848. + +== CHAPTER I +There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further outdoor exercise was now out of the question. + +I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed. + +The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, “She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner—something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were—she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.” + +“What does Bessie say I have done?” I asked. + +“Jane, I don’t like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.” + +A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement. + +Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast. + +I returned to my book—Bewick’s History of British Birds: the letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of “the solitary rocks and promontories” by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape— + +“Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls, +Boils round the naked, melancholy isles +Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge +Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.” + +Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with “the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,—that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.” Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children’s brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking. + +I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the hour of eventide. + +The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms. + +The fiend pinning down the thief’s pack behind him, I passed over quickly: it was an object of terror. + +So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows. + +Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed’s lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland. + +With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast-room door opened. + +“Boh! Madam Mope!” cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty. + +“Where the dickens is she!” he continued. “Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain—bad animal!” + +“It is well I drew the curtain,” thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once— + +“She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.” + +And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack. + +“What do you want?” I asked, with awkward diffidence. + +“Say, ‘What do you want, Master Reed?’” was the answer. “I want you to come here;” and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him. + +John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two, “on account of his delicate health.” Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother’s heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John’s sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after home. + +John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back. + +Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair. + +“That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since,” said he, “and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!” + +Accustomed to John Reed’s abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult. + +“What were you doing behind the curtain?” he asked. + +“I was reading.” + +“Show the book.” + +I returned to the window and fetched it thence. + +“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen’s children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama’s expense. Now, I’ll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows.” + +I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded. + +“Wicked and cruel boy!” I said. “You are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!” + +I had read Goldsmith’s History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to have declared aloud. + +“What! what!” he cried. “Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana? Won’t I tell mama? but first—” + +He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort. I don’t very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me “Rat! Rat!” and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words— + +“Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!” + +“Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!” + +Then Mrs. Reed subjoined— + +“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.” Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs. + +== CHAPTER II +I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather out of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment’s mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths. + +“Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she’s like a mad cat.” + +“For shame! for shame!” cried the lady’s-maid. “What shocking conduct, Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress’s son! Your young master.” + +“Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?” + +“No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep. There, sit down, and think over your wickedness.” + +They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed, and had thrust me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it like a spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly. + +“If you don’t sit still, you must be tied down,” said Bessie. “Miss Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly.” + +Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a little of the excitement out of me. + +“Don’t take them off,” I cried; “I will not stir.” + +In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands. + +“Mind you don’t,” said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that I was really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as incredulous of my sanity. + +“She never did so before,” at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail. + +“But it was always in her,” was the reply. “I’ve told Missis often my opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me. She’s an underhand little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover.” + +Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said— + +“You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse.” + +I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible. Miss Abbot joined in— + +“And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to them.” + +“What we tell you is for your good,” added Bessie, in no harsh voice, “you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will send you away, I am sure.” + +“Besides,” said Miss Abbot, “God will punish her: He might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn’t have her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don’t repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away.” + +They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them. + +The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne. + +This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week’s quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room—the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur. + +Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the undertaker’s men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration had guarded it from frequent intrusion. + +My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie’s evening stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my stool. + +Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present. + +All John Reed’s violent tyrannies, all his sisters’ proud indifference, all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned? Why could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one’s favour? Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage, was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls, seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase indemnity for every fault. John no one thwarted, much less punished; though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks, set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit, and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called his mother “old girl,” too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin, similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still “her own darling.” I dared commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to night. + +My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with general opprobrium. + +“Unjust!—unjust!” said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up, instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable oppression—as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never eating or drinking more, and letting myself die. + +What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question—why I thus suffered; now, at the distance of—I will not say how many years, I see it clearly. + +I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. They were not bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome, romping child—though equally dependent and friendless—Mrs. Reed would have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery. + +Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o’clock, and the beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire. All said I was wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought had I been but just conceiving of starving myself to death? That certainly was a crime: and was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church an inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it with gathering dread. I could not remember him; but I knew that he was my own uncle—my mother’s brother—that he had taken me when a parentless infant to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children. Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had, I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her; but how could she really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with her, after her husband’s death, by any tie? It must have been most irksome to find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial alien permanently intruded on her own family group. + +A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not—never doubted—that if Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls—occasionally also turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaming mirror—I began to recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed’s spirit, harassed by the wrongs of his sister’s child, might quit its abode—whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the departed—and rise before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed face, bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in theory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I endeavoured to stifle it—I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room; at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this streak of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some one across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort. Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and Abbot entered. + +“Miss Eyre, are you ill?” said Bessie. + +“What a dreadful noise! it went quite through me!” exclaimed Abbot. + +“Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!” was my cry. + +“What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?” again demanded Bessie. + +“Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come.” I had now got hold of Bessie’s hand, and she did not snatch it from me. + +“She has screamed out on purpose,” declared Abbot, in some disgust. “And what a scream! If she had been in great pain one would have excused it, but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her naughty tricks.” + +“What is all this?” demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling stormily. “Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left in the red-room till I came to her myself.” + +“Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma’am,” pleaded Bessie. + +“Let her go,” was the only answer. “Loose Bessie’s hand, child: you cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured. I abhor artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show you that tricks will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is only on condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall liberate you then.” + +“O aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it—let me be punished some other way! I shall be killed if—” + +“Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:” and so, no doubt, she felt it. I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous duplicity. + +Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now frantic anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me in, without farther parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was gone, I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed the scene. + +== CHAPTER III +The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had a frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation, uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me; lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I rested my head against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy. + +In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved: I knew quite well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glare was the nursery fire. It was night: a candle burnt on the table; Bessie stood at the bed-foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near my pillow, leaning over me. + +I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed. Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised the face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary, sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for herself and the children she employed a physician. + +“Well, who am I?” he asked. + +I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand: he took it, smiling and saying, “We shall do very well by-and-by.” Then he laid me down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful that I was not disturbed during the night. Having given some further directions, and intimated that he should call again the next day, he departed; to my grief: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all the room darkened and my heart again sank: inexpressible sadness weighed it down. + +“Do you feel as if you should sleep, Miss?” asked Bessie, rather softly. + +Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might be rough. “I will try.” + +“Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?” + +“No, thank you, Bessie.” + +“Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o’clock; but you may call me if you want anything in the night.” + +Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question. + +“Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill?” + +“You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-room with crying; you’ll be better soon, no doubt.” + +Bessie went into the housemaid’s apartment, which was near. I heard her say— + +“Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren’t for my life be alone with that poor child to-night: she might die; it’s such a strange thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was rather too hard.” + +Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering together for half-an-hour before they fell asleep. I caught scraps of their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer the main subject discussed. + +“Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished”—“A great black dog behind him”—“Three loud raps on the chamber door”—“A light in the churchyard just over his grave,” &c., &c. + +At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out. For me, the watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; ear, eye, and mind were alike strained by dread: such dread as children only can feel. + +No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did: while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my bad propensities. + +Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl by the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down: but my worse ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness which kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt drop from my cheek than another followed. Yet, I thought, I ought to have been happy, for none of the Reeds were there, they were all gone out in the carriage with their mama. Abbot, too, was sewing in another room, and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither, putting away toys and arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of unwonted kindness. This state of things should have been to me a paradise of peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably. + +Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a tart on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of paradise, nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir in me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had often petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it more closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a privilege. This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it. Vain favour! coming, like most other favours long deferred and often wished for, too late! I could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded: I put both plate and tart away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver’s Travels from the library. This book I had again and again perused with delight. I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves, having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid parts of the earth’s surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other. Yet, when this cherished volume was now placed in my hand—when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find—all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart. + +Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having washed her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana’s doll. Meantime she sang: her song was— + +“In the days when we went gipsying, + A long time ago.” + +I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice,—at least, I thought so. But now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, very lingeringly; “A long time ago” came out like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful one. + +“My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary; + Long is the way, and the mountains are wild; +Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary + Over the path of the poor orphan child. + +Why did they send me so far and so lonely, + Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled? +Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only + Watch o’er the steps of a poor orphan child. + +Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing, + Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild, +God, in His mercy, protection is showing, + Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child. + +Ev’n should I fall o’er the broken bridge passing, + Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled, +Still will my Father, with promise and blessing, + Take to His bosom the poor orphan child. + +There is a thought that for strength should avail me, + Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled; +Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me; + God is a friend to the poor orphan child.” + +“Come, Miss Jane, don’t cry,” said Bessie as she finished. She might as well have said to the fire, “don’t burn!” but how could she divine the morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In the course of the morning Mr. Lloyd came again. + +“What, already up!” said he, as he entered the nursery. “Well, nurse, how is she?” + +Bessie answered that I was doing very well. + +“Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Jane: your name is Jane, is it not?” + +“Yes, sir, Jane Eyre.” + +“Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what about? Have you any pain?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with Missis in the carriage,” interposed Bessie. + +“Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness.” + +I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge, I answered promptly, “I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable.” + +“Oh fie, Miss!” said Bessie. + +The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and grey; not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a hard-featured yet good-natured looking face. Having considered me at leisure, he said— + +“What made you ill yesterday?” + +“She had a fall,” said Bessie, again putting in her word. + +“Fall! why, that is like a baby again! Can’t she manage to walk at her age? She must be eight or nine years old.” + +“I was knocked down,” was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by another pang of mortified pride; “but that did not make me ill,” I added; while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff. + +As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang for the servants’ dinner; he knew what it was. “That’s for you, nurse,” said he; “you can go down; I’ll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back.” + +Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall. + +“The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?” pursued Mr. Lloyd when Bessie was gone. + +“I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark.” + +I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time. + +“Ghost! What, you are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?” + +“Of Mr. Reed’s ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out there. Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night, if they can help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle,—so cruel that I think I shall never forget it.” + +“Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in daylight?” + +“No: but night will come again before long: and besides,—I am unhappy,—very unhappy, for other things.” + +“What other things? Can you tell me some of them?” + +How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know not how to express the result of the process in words. Fearful, however, of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a meagre, though, as far as it went, true response. + +“For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters.” + +“You have a kind aunt and cousins.” + +Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced— + +“But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red-room.” + +Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff-box. + +“Don’t you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?” asked he. “Are you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?” + +“It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here than a servant.” + +“Pooh! you can’t be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?” + +“If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman.” + +“Perhaps you may—who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?” + +“I think not, sir.” + +“None belonging to your father?” + +“I don’t know: I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew nothing about them.” + +“If you had such, would you like to go to them?” + +I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes, scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty for me was synonymous with degradation. + +“No; I should not like to belong to poor people,” was my reply. + +“Not even if they were kind to you?” + +I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at the price of caste. + +“But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?” + +“I cannot tell; Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly set: I should not like to go a begging.” + +“Would you like to go to school?” + +Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie sometimes spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: John Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed’s tastes were no rule for mine, and if Bessie’s accounts of school-discipline (gathered from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were, I thought, equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could play, of purses they could net, of French books they could translate; till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened. Besides, school would be a complete change: it implied a long journey, an entire separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life. + +“I should indeed like to go to school,” was the audible conclusion of my musings. + +“Well, well! who knows what may happen?” said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up. “The child ought to have change of air and scene,” he added, speaking to himself; “nerves not in a good state.” + +Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling up the gravel-walk. + +“Is that your mistress, nurse?” asked Mr. Lloyd. “I should like to speak to her before I go.” + +Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast-room, and led the way out. In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume, from after-occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to recommend my being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject with Bessie when both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was in bed, and, as they thought, asleep, “Missis was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always looked as if she were watching everybody, and scheming plots underhand.” Abbot, I think, gave me credit for being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes. + +On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot’s communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prevalent: that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month of each other. + +Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, “Poor Miss Jane is to be pitied, too, Abbot.” + +“Yes,” responded Abbot; “if she were a nice, pretty child, one might compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a little toad as that.” + +“Not a great deal, to be sure,” agreed Bessie: “at any rate, a beauty like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition.” + +“Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!” cried the fervent Abbot. “Little darling!—with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet colour as she has; just as if she were painted!—Bessie, I could fancy a Welsh rabbit for supper.” + +“So could I—with a roast onion. Come, we’ll go down.” They went. + +== CHAPTER IV +From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported conference between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to suffice as a motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near,—I desired and waited it in silence. It tarried, however: days and weeks passed: I had regained my normal state of health, but no new allusion was made to the subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed surveyed me at times with a severe eye, but seldom addressed me: since my illness, she had drawn a more marked line of separation than ever between me and her own children; appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to take my meals alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins were constantly in the drawing-room. Not a hint, however, did she drop about sending me to school: still I felt an instinctive certainty that she would not long endure me under the same roof with her; for her glance, now more than ever, when turned on me, expressed an insuperable and rooted aversion. + +Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as little as possible: John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he saw me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly turned against him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and desperate revolt which had stirred my corruption before, he thought it better to desist, and ran from me uttering execrations, and vowing I had burst his nose. I had indeed levelled at that prominent feature as hard a blow as my knuckles could inflict; and when I saw that either that or my look daunted him, I had the greatest inclination to follow up my advantage to purpose; but he was already with his mama. I heard him in a blubbering tone commence the tale of how “that nasty Jane Eyre” had flown at him like a mad cat: he was stopped rather harshly— + +“Don’t talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she is not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or your sisters should associate with her.” + +Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and without at all deliberating on my words— + +“They are not fit to associate with me.” + +Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange and audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me like a whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of my crib, dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place, or utter one syllable during the remainder of the day. + +“What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?” was my scarcely voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed as if my tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance: something spoke out of me over which I had no control. + +“What?” said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold composed grey eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took her hand from my arm, and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child or fiend. I was now in for it. + +“My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you wish me dead.” + +Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly, she boxed both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie supplied the hiatus by a homily of an hour’s length, in which she proved beyond a doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed only bad feelings surging in my breast. + +November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer; presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given. From every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of Eliza and Georgiana, and seeing them descend to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringletted; and afterwards, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken hum of conversation as the drawing-room door opened and closed. When tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the solitary and silent nursery: there, though somewhat sad, I was not miserable. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company, for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had but been kind and companionable, I should have deemed it a treat to spend the evenings quietly with her, instead of passing them under the formidable eye of Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies and gentlemen. But Bessie, as soon as she had dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off to the lively regions of the kitchen and housekeeper’s room, generally bearing the candle along with her. I then sat with my doll on my knee till the fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sank to a dull red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings as I best might, and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib. To this crib I always took my doll; human beings must love something, and, in the dearth of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I doated on this little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my night-gown; and when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it to be happy likewise. + +Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, and listened for the sound of Bessie’s step on the stairs: sometimes she would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors, or perhaps to bring me something by way of supper—a bun or a cheese-cake—then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I had finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed me, and said, “Good night, Miss Jane.” When thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; and I wished most intensely that she would always be so pleasant and amiable, and never push me about, or scold, or task me unreasonably, as she was too often wont to do. Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good natural capacity, for she was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative; so, at least, I judge from the impression made on me by her nursery tales. She was pretty too, if my recollections of her face and person are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear complexion; but she had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas of principle or justice: still, such as she was, I preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall. + +It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o’clock in the morning: Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been summoned to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to go and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was fond: and not less so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and hoarding up the money she thus obtained. She had a turn for traffic, and a marked propensity for saving; shown not only in the vending of eggs and chickens, but also in driving hard bargains with the gardener about flower-roots, seeds, and slips of plants; that functionary having orders from Mrs. Reed to buy of his young lady all the products of her parterre she wished to sell: and Eliza would have sold the hair off her head if she could have made a handsome profit thereby. As to her money, she first secreted it in odd corners, wrapped in a rag or an old curl-paper; but some of these hoards having been discovered by the housemaid, Eliza, fearful of one day losing her valued treasure, consented to intrust it to her mother, at a usurious rate of interest—fifty or sixty per cent.; which interest she exacted every quarter, keeping her accounts in a little book with anxious accuracy. + +Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers, of which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was making my bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to get it arranged before she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed me as a sort of under-nurserymaid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs, &c.). Having spread the quilt and folded my night-dress, I went to the window-seat to put in order some picture-books and doll’s house furniture scattered there; an abrupt command from Georgiana to let her playthings alone (for the tiny chairs and mirrors, the fairy plates and cups, were her property) stopped my proceedings; and then, for lack of other occupation, I fell to breathing on the frost-flowers with which the window was fretted, and thus clearing a space in the glass through which I might look out on the grounds, where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard frost. + +From this window were visible the porter’s lodge and the carriage-road, and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver-white foliage veiling the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown open and a carriage roll through. I watched it ascending the drive with indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, the door-bell rang loudly, the new-comer was admitted. All this being nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier attraction in the spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and chirruped on the twigs of the leafless cherry-tree nailed against the wall near the casement. The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the table, and having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash to put out the crumbs on the window-sill, when Bessie came running upstairs into the nursery. + +“Miss Jane, take off your pinafore; what are you doing there? Have you washed your hands and face this morning?” I gave another tug before I answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread: the sash yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill, some on the cherry-tree bough, then, closing the window, I replied— + +“No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting.” + +“Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now? You look quite red, as if you had been about some mischief: what were you opening the window for?” + +I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great a hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand, inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands with soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a bristly brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to the top of the stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in the breakfast-room. + +I would have asked who wanted me: I would have demanded if Mrs. Reed was there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed the nursery-door upon me. I slowly descended. For nearly three months, I had never been called to Mrs. Reed’s presence; restricted so long to the nursery, the breakfast, dining, and drawing-rooms were become for me awful regions, on which it dismayed me to intrude. + +I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast-room door, and I stopped, intimidated and trembling. What a miserable little poltroon had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of me in those days! I feared to return to the nursery, and feared to go forward to the parlour; ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation; the vehement ringing of the breakfast-room bell decided me; I must enter. + +“Who could want me?” I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned the stiff door-handle, which, for a second or two, resisted my efforts. “What should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment?—a man or a woman?” The handle turned, the door unclosed, and passing through and curtseying low, I looked up at—a black pillar!—such, at least, appeared to me, at first sight, the straight, narrow, sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug: the grim face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft by way of capital. + +Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stony stranger with the words: “This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to you.” + +He, for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood, and having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking grey eyes which twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in a bass voice, “Her size is small: what is her age?” + +“Ten years.” + +“So much?” was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny for some minutes. Presently he addressed me—“Your name, little girl?” + +“Jane Eyre, sir.” + +In uttering these words I looked up: he seemed to me a tall gentleman; but then I was very little; his features were large, and they and all the lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim. + +“Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?” + +Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world held a contrary opinion: I was silent. Mrs. Reed answered for me by an expressive shake of the head, adding soon, “Perhaps the less said on that subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst.” + +“Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk;” and bending from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the arm-chair opposite Mrs. Reed’s. “Come here,” he said. + +I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him. What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! what a great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth! + +“No sight so sad as that of a naughty child,” he began, “especially a naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?” + +“They go to hell,” was my ready and orthodox answer. + +“And what is hell? Can you tell me that?” + +“A pit full of fire.” + +“And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for ever?” + +“No, sir.” + +“What must you do to avoid it?” + +I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable: “I must keep in good health, and not die.” + +“How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die daily. I buried a little child of five years old only a day or two since,—a good little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared the same could not be said of you were you to be called hence.” + +Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes down on the two large feet planted on the rug, and sighed, wishing myself far enough away. + +“I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever having been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress.” + +“Benefactress! benefactress!” said I inwardly: “they all call Mrs. Reed my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable thing.” + +“Do you say your prayers night and morning?” continued my interrogator. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Do you read your Bible?” + +“Sometimes.” + +“With pleasure? Are you fond of it?” + +“I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job and Jonah.” + +“And the Psalms? I hope you like them?” + +“No, sir.” + +“No? oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a gingerbread-nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: ‘Oh! the verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;’ says he, ‘I wish to be a little angel here below;’ he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant piety.” + +“Psalms are not interesting,” I remarked. + +“That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to change it: to give you a new and clean one: to take away your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.” + +I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which that operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs. Reed interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to carry on the conversation herself. + +“Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite the character and disposition I could wish: should you admit her into Lowood school, I should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to keep a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst fault, a tendency to deceit. I mention this in your hearing, Jane, that you may not attempt to impose on Mr. Brocklehurst.” + +Well might I dread, well might I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was her nature to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence; however carefully I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my efforts were still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as the above. Now, uttered before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart; I dimly perceived that she was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst’s eye into an artful, noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury? + +“Nothing, indeed,” thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob, and hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent evidences of my anguish. + +“Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child,” said Mr. Brocklehurst; “it is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the lake burning with fire and brimstone; she shall, however, be watched, Mrs. Reed. I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers.” + +“I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects,” continued my benefactress; “to be made useful, to be kept humble: as for the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at Lowood.” + +“Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam,” returned Mr. Brocklehurst. “Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that especial care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them. I have studied how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment of pride; and, only the other day, I had a pleasing proof of my success. My second daughter, Augusta, went with her mama to visit the school, and on her return she exclaimed: ‘Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all the girls at Lowood look, with their hair combed behind their ears, and their long pinafores, and those little holland pockets outside their frocks—they are almost like poor people’s children! and,’ said she, ‘they looked at my dress and mama’s, as if they had never seen a silk gown before.’” + +“This is the state of things I quite approve,” returned Mrs. Reed; “had I sought all England over, I could scarcely have found a system more exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre. Consistency, my dear Mr. Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things.” + +“Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment of Lowood: plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations, hardy and active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and its inhabitants.” + +“Quite right, sir. I may then depend upon this child being received as a pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her position and prospects?” + +“Madam, you may: she shall be placed in that nursery of chosen plants, and I trust she will show herself grateful for the inestimable privilege of her election.” + +“I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for, I assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility that was becoming too irksome.” + +“No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good morning. I shall return to Brocklehurst Hall in the course of a week or two: my good friend, the Archdeacon, will not permit me to leave him sooner. I shall send Miss Temple notice that she is to expect a new girl, so that there will be no difficulty about receiving her. Good-bye.” + +“Good-bye, Mr. Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss Brocklehurst, and to Augusta and Theodore, and Master Broughton Brocklehurst.” + +“I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the ‘Child’s Guide’; read it with prayer, especially that part containing ‘An account of the awfully sudden death of Martha G——, a naughty child addicted to falsehood and deceit.’” + +With these words Mr. Brocklehurst put into my hand a thin pamphlet sewn in a cover, and having rung for his carriage, he departed. + +Mrs. Reed and I were left alone: some minutes passed in silence; she was sewing, I was watching her. Mrs. Reed might be at that time some six or seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame, square-shouldered and strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not obese: she had a somewhat large face, the under jaw being much developed and very solid; her brow was low, her chin large and prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently regular; under her light eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her skin was dark and opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was sound as a bell—illness never came near her; she was an exact, clever manager; her household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control; her children only at times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn; she dressed well, and had a presence and port calculated to set off handsome attire. + +Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm-chair, I examined her figure; I perused her features. In my hand I held the tract containing the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative my attention had been pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had just passed; what Mrs. Reed had said concerning me to Mr. Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of their conversation, was recent, raw, and stinging in my mind; I had felt every word as acutely as I had heard it plainly, and a passion of resentment fomented now within me. + +Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers at the same time suspended their nimble movements. + +“Go out of the room; return to the nursery,” was her mandate. My look or something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with extreme though suppressed irritation. I got up, I went to the door; I came back again; I walked to the window, across the room, then close up to her. + +Speak I must: I had been trodden on severely, and must turn: but how? What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I gathered my energies and launched them in this blunt sentence— + +“I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to your girl, Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I.” + +Mrs. Reed’s hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice continued to dwell freezingly on mine. + +“What more have you to say?” she asked, rather in the tone in which a person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily used to a child. + +That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued— + +“I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with miserable cruelty.” + +“How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?” + +“How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth. You think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember how you thrust me back—roughly and violently thrust me back—into the red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony; though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, ‘Have mercy! Have mercy, Aunt Reed!’ And that punishment you made me suffer because your wicked boy struck me—knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman, but you are bad, hard-hearted. You are deceitful!” + +How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth +Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-for liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs. Reed looked frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting up her hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as if she would cry. + +“Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you? Why do you tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?” + +“No, Mrs. Reed.” + +“Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I desire to be your friend.” + +“Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a deceitful disposition; and I’ll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and what you have done.” + +“Jane, you don’t understand these things: children must be corrected for their faults.” + +“Deceit is not my fault!” I cried out in a savage, high voice. + +“But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now return to the nursery—there’s a dear—and lie down a little.” + +“I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs. Reed, for I hate to live here.” + +“I will indeed send her to school soon,” murmured Mrs. Reed sotto voce; and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment. + +I was left there alone—winner of the field. It was the hardest battle I had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood awhile on the rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror’s solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction. A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when half-an-hour’s silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position. + +Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned. Willingly would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed’s pardon; but I knew, partly from experience and partly from instinct, that was the way to make her repulse me with double scorn, thereby re-exciting every turbulent impulse of my nature. + +I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking; fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation. I took a book—some Arabian tales; I sat down and endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my own thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found fascinating. I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was quite sequestrated; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. I leaned against a gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was a very grey day; a most opaque sky, “onding on snaw,” canopied all; thence flakes fell at intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea without melting. I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to myself over and over again, “What shall I do?—what shall I do?” + +All at once I heard a clear voice call, “Miss Jane! where are you? Come to lunch!” + +It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light step came tripping down the path. + +“You naughty little thing!” she said. “Why don’t you come when you are called?” + +Bessie’s presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat cross. The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs. Reed, I was not disposed to care much for the nursemaid’s transitory anger; and I was disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of heart. I just put my two arms round her and said, “Come, Bessie! don’t scold.” + +The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated to indulge in: somehow it pleased her. + +“You are a strange child, Miss Jane,” she said, as she looked down at me; “a little roving, solitary thing: and you are going to school, I suppose?” + +I nodded. + +“And won’t you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?” + +“What does Bessie care for me? She is always scolding me.” + +“Because you’re such a queer, frightened, shy little thing. You should be bolder.” + +“What! to get more knocks?” + +“Nonsense! But you are rather put upon, that’s certain. My mother said, when she came to see me last week, that she would not like a little one of her own to be in your place.—Now, come in, and I’ve some good news for you.” + +“I don’t think you have, Bessie.” + +“Child! what do you mean? What sorrowful eyes you fix on me! Well, but Missis and the young ladies and Master John are going out to tea this afternoon, and you shall have tea with me. I’ll ask cook to bake you a little cake, and then you shall help me to look over your drawers; for I am soon to pack your trunk. Missis intends you to leave Gateshead in a day or two, and you shall choose what toys you like to take with you.” + +“Bessie, you must promise not to scold me any more till I go.” + +“Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don’t be afraid of me. Don’t start when I chance to speak rather sharply; it’s so provoking.” + +“I don’t think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because I have got used to you, and I shall soon have another set of people to dread.” + +“If you dread them they’ll dislike you.” + +“As you do, Bessie?” + +“I don’t dislike you, Miss; I believe I am fonder of you than of all the others.” + +“You don’t show it.” + +“You little sharp thing! you’ve got quite a new way of talking. What makes you so venturesome and hardy?” + +“Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides”—I was going to say something about what had passed between me and Mrs. Reed, but on second thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on that head. + +“And so you’re glad to leave me?” + +“Not at all, Bessie; indeed, just now I’m rather sorry.” + +“Just now! and rather! How coolly my little lady says it! I dare say now if I were to ask you for a kiss you wouldn’t give it me: you’d say you’d rather not.” + +“I’ll kiss you and welcome: bend your head down.” Bessie stooped; we mutually embraced, and I followed her into the house quite comforted. That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the evening Bessie told me some of her most enchanting stories, and sang me some of her sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine. + +== CHAPTER V +Five o’clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th of January, when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me already up and nearly dressed. I had risen half-an-hour before her entrance, and had washed my face, and put on my clothes by the light of a half-moon just setting, whose rays streamed through the narrow window near my crib. I was to leave Gateshead that day by a coach which passed the lodge gates at six A.M. Bessie was the only person yet risen; she had lit a fire in the nursery, where she now proceeded to make my breakfast. Few children can eat when excited with the thoughts of a journey; nor could I. Bessie, having pressed me in vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled milk and bread she had prepared for me, wrapped up some biscuits in a paper and put them into my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse and bonnet, and wrapping herself in a shawl, she and I left the nursery. As we passed Mrs. Reed’s bedroom, she said, “Will you go in and bid Missis good-bye?” + +“No, Bessie: she came to my crib last night when you were gone down to supper, and said I need not disturb her in the morning, or my cousins either; and she told me to remember that she had always been my best friend, and to speak of her and be grateful to her accordingly.” + +“What did you say, Miss?” + +“Nothing: I covered my face with the bedclothes, and turned from her to the wall.” + +“That was wrong, Miss Jane.” + +“It was quite right, Bessie. Your Missis has not been my friend: she has been my foe.” + +“O Miss Jane! don’t say so!” + +“Good-bye to Gateshead!” cried I, as we passed through the hall and went out at the front door. + +The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern, whose light glanced on wet steps and gravel road sodden by a recent thaw. Raw and chill was the winter morning: my teeth chattered as I hastened down the drive. There was a light in the porter’s lodge: when we reached it, we found the porter’s wife just kindling her fire: my trunk, which had been carried down the evening before, stood corded at the door. It wanted but a few minutes of six, and shortly after that hour had struck, the distant roll of wheels announced the coming coach; I went to the door and watched its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom. + +“Is she going by herself?” asked the porter’s wife. + +“Yes.” + +“And how far is it?” + +“Fifty miles.” + +“What a long way! I wonder Mrs. Reed is not afraid to trust her so far alone.” + +The coach drew up; there it was at the gates with its four horses and its top laden with passengers: the guard and coachman loudly urged haste; my trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie’s neck, to which I clung with kisses. + +“Be sure and take good care of her,” cried she to the guard, as he lifted me into the inside. + +“Ay, ay!” was the answer: the door was slapped to, a voice exclaimed “All right,” and on we drove. Thus was I severed from Bessie and Gateshead; thus whirled away to unknown, and, as I then deemed, remote and mysterious regions. + +I remember but little of the journey; I only know that the day seemed to me of a preternatural length, and that we appeared to travel over hundreds of miles of road. We passed through several towns, and in one, a very large one, the coach stopped; the horses were taken out, and the passengers alighted to dine. I was carried into an inn, where the guard wanted me to have some dinner; but, as I had no appetite, he left me in an immense room with a fireplace at each end, a chandelier pendent from the ceiling, and a little red gallery high up against the wall filled with musical instruments. Here I walked about for a long time, feeling very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having frequently figured in Bessie’s fireside chronicles. At last the guard returned; once more I was stowed away in the coach, my protector mounted his own seat, sounded his hollow horn, and away we rattled over the “stony street” of L——. + +The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty: as it waned into dusk, I began to feel that we were getting very far indeed from Gateshead: we ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; great grey hills heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we descended a valley, dark with wood, and long after night had overclouded the prospect, I heard a wild wind rushing amongst trees. + +Lulled by the sound, I at last dropped asleep; I had not long slumbered when the sudden cessation of motion awoke me; the coach-door was open, and a person like a servant was standing at it: I saw her face and dress by the light of the lamps. + +“Is there a little girl called Jane Eyre here?” she asked. I answered “Yes,” and was then lifted out; my trunk was handed down, and the coach instantly drove away. + +I was stiff with long sitting, and bewildered with the noise and motion of the coach: gathering my faculties, I looked about me. Rain, wind, and darkness filled the air; nevertheless, I dimly discerned a wall before me and a door open in it; through this door I passed with my new guide: she shut and locked it behind her. There was now visible a house or houses—for the building spread far—with many windows, and lights burning in some; we went up a broad pebbly path, splashing wet, and were admitted at a door; then the servant led me through a passage into a room with a fire, where she left me alone. + +I stood and warmed my numbed fingers over the blaze, then I looked round; there was no candle, but the uncertain light from the hearth showed, by intervals, papered walls, carpet, curtains, shining mahogany furniture: it was a parlour, not so spacious or splendid as the drawing-room at Gateshead, but comfortable enough. I was puzzling to make out the subject of a picture on the wall, when the door opened, and an individual carrying a light entered; another followed close behind. + +The first was a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and large forehead; her figure was partly enveloped in a shawl, her countenance was grave, her bearing erect. + +“The child is very young to be sent alone,” said she, putting her candle down on the table. She considered me attentively for a minute or two, then further added— + +“She had better be put to bed soon; she looks tired: are you tired?” she asked, placing her hand on my shoulder. + +“A little, ma’am.” + +“And hungry too, no doubt: let her have some supper before she goes to bed, Miss Miller. Is this the first time you have left your parents to come to school, my little girl?” + +I explained to her that I had no parents. She inquired how long they had been dead: then how old I was, what was my name, whether I could read, write, and sew a little: then she touched my cheek gently with her forefinger, and saying, “She hoped I should be a good child,” dismissed me along with Miss Miller. + +The lady I had left might be about twenty-nine; the one who went with me appeared some years younger: the first impressed me by her voice, look, and air. Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in complexion, though of a careworn countenance; hurried in gait and action, like one who had always a multiplicity of tasks on hand: she looked, indeed, what I afterwards found she really was, an under-teacher. Led by her, I passed from compartment to compartment, from passage to passage, of a large and irregular building; till, emerging from the total and somewhat dreary silence pervading that portion of the house we had traversed, we came upon the hum of many voices, and presently entered a wide, long room, with great deal tables, two at each end, on each of which burnt a pair of candles, and seated all round on benches, a congregation of girls of every age, from nine or ten to twenty. Seen by the dim light of the dips, their number to me appeared countless, though not in reality exceeding eighty; they were uniformly dressed in brown stuff frocks of quaint fashion, and long holland pinafores. It was the hour of study; they were engaged in conning over their to-morrow’s task, and the hum I had heard was the combined result of their whispered repetitions. + +Miss Miller signed to me to sit on a bench near the door, then walking up to the top of the long room she cried out— + +“Monitors, collect the lesson-books and put them away!” + +Four tall girls arose from different tables, and going round, gathered the books and removed them. Miss Miller again gave the word of command— + +“Monitors, fetch the supper-trays!” + +The tall girls went out and returned presently, each bearing a tray, with portions of something, I knew not what, arranged thereon, and a pitcher of water and mug in the middle of each tray. The portions were handed round; those who liked took a draught of the water, the mug being common to all. When it came to my turn, I drank, for I was thirsty, but did not touch the food, excitement and fatigue rendering me incapable of eating: I now saw, however, that it was a thin oaten cake shared into fragments. + +The meal over, prayers were read by Miss Miller, and the classes filed off, two and two, upstairs. Overpowered by this time with weariness, I scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bedroom was, except that, like the schoolroom, I saw it was very long. To-night I was to be Miss Miller’s bed-fellow; she helped me to undress: when laid down I glanced at the long rows of beds, each of which was quickly filled with two occupants; in ten minutes the single light was extinguished, and amidst silence and complete darkness I fell asleep. + +The night passed rapidly: I was too tired even to dream; I only once awoke to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain fall in torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place by my side. When I again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell was ringing; the girls were up and dressing; day had not yet begun to dawn, and a rushlight or two burned in the room. I too rose reluctantly; it was bitter cold, and I dressed as well as I could for shivering, and washed when there was a basin at liberty, which did not occur soon, as there was but one basin to six girls, on the stands down the middle of the room. Again the bell rang: all formed in file, two and two, and in that order descended the stairs and entered the cold and dimly lit schoolroom: here prayers were read by Miss Miller; afterwards she called out— + +“Form classes!” + +A great tumult succeeded for some minutes, during which Miss Miller repeatedly exclaimed, “Silence!” and “Order!” When it subsided, I saw them all drawn up in four semicircles, before four chairs, placed at the four tables; all held books in their hands, and a great book, like a Bible, lay on each table, before the vacant seat. A pause of some seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of numbers; Miss Miller walked from class to class, hushing this indefinite sound. + +A distant bell tinkled: immediately three ladies entered the room, each walked to a table and took her seat; Miss Miller assumed the fourth vacant chair, which was that nearest the door, and around which the smallest of the children were assembled: to this inferior class I was called, and placed at the bottom of it. + +Business now began: the day’s Collect was repeated, then certain texts of Scripture were said, and to these succeeded a protracted reading of chapters in the Bible, which lasted an hour. By the time that exercise was terminated, day had fully dawned. The indefatigable bell now sounded for the fourth time: the classes were marshalled and marched into another room to breakfast: how glad I was to behold a prospect of getting something to eat! I was now nearly sick from inanition, having taken so little the day before. + +The refectory was a great, low-ceiled, gloomy room; on two long tables smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to my dismay, sent forth an odour far from inviting. I saw a universal manifestation of discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils of those destined to swallow it; from the van of the procession, the tall girls of the first class, rose the whispered words— + +“Disgusting! The porridge is burnt again!” + +“Silence!” ejaculated a voice; not that of Miss Miller, but one of the upper teachers, a little and dark personage, smartly dressed, but of somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top of one table, while a more buxom lady presided at the other. I looked in vain for her I had first seen the night before; she was not visible: Miss Miller occupied the foot of the table where I sat, and a strange, foreign-looking, elderly lady, the French teacher, as I afterwards found, took the corresponding seat at the other board. A long grace was said and a hymn sung; then a servant brought in some tea for the teachers, and the meal began. + +Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my portion without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger blunted, I perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt porridge is almost as bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over it. The spoons were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and try to swallow it; but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished. Breakfast was over, and none had breakfasted. Thanks being returned for what we had not got, and a second hymn chanted, the refectory was evacuated for the schoolroom. I was one of the last to go out, and in passing the tables, I saw one teacher take a basin of the porridge and taste it; she looked at the others; all their countenances expressed displeasure, and one of them, the stout one, whispered— + +“Abominable stuff! How shameful!” + +A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again began, during which the schoolroom was in a glorious tumult; for that space of time it seemed to be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and they used their privilege. The whole conversation ran on the breakfast, which one and all abused roundly. Poor things! it was the sole consolation they had. Miss Miller was now the only teacher in the room: a group of great girls standing about her spoke with serious and sullen gestures. I heard the name of Mr. Brocklehurst pronounced by some lips; at which Miss Miller shook her head disapprovingly; but she made no great effort to check the general wrath; doubtless she shared in it. + +A clock in the schoolroom struck nine; Miss Miller left her circle, and standing in the middle of the room, cried— + +“Silence! To your seats!” + +Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was resolved into order, and comparative silence quelled the Babel clamour of tongues. The upper teachers now punctually resumed their posts: but still, all seemed to wait. Ranged on benches down the sides of the room, the eighty girls sat motionless and erect; a quaint assemblage they appeared, all with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl visible; in brown dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow tucker about the throat, with little pockets of holland (shaped something like a Highlander’s purse) tied in front of their frocks, and destined to serve the purpose of a work-bag: all, too, wearing woollen stockings and country-made shoes, fastened with brass buckles. Above twenty of those clad in this costume were full-grown girls, or rather young women; it suited them ill, and gave an air of oddity even to the prettiest. + +I was still looking at them, and also at intervals examining the teachers—none of whom precisely pleased me; for the stout one was a little coarse, the dark one not a little fierce, the foreigner harsh and grotesque, and Miss Miller, poor thing! looked purple, weather-beaten, and over-worked—when, as my eye wandered from face to face, the whole school rose simultaneously, as if moved by a common spring. + +What was the matter? I had heard no order given: I was puzzled. Ere I had gathered my wits, the classes were again seated: but as all eyes were now turned to one point, mine followed the general direction, and encountered the personage who had received me last night. She stood at the bottom of the long room, on the hearth; for there was a fire at each end; she surveyed the two rows of girls silently and gravely. Miss Miller approaching, seemed to ask her a question, and having received her answer, went back to her place, and said aloud— + +“Monitor of the first class, fetch the globes!” + +While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved slowly up the room. I suppose I have a considerable organ of veneration, for I retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her steps. Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; brown eyes with a benignant light in their irids, and a fine pencilling of long lashes round, relieved the whiteness of her large front; on each of her temples her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in round curls, according to the fashion of those times, when neither smooth bands nor long ringlets were in vogue; her dress, also in the mode of the day, was of purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet; a gold watch (watches were not so common then as now) shone at her girdle. Let the reader add, to complete the picture, refined features; a complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately air and carriage, and he will have, at least, as clearly as words can give it, a correct idea of the exterior of Miss Temple—Maria Temple, as I afterwards saw the name written in a prayer-book intrusted to me to carry to church. + +The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken her seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables, summoned the first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson on geography; the lower classes were called by the teachers: repetitions in history, grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing and arithmetic succeeded, and music lessons were given by Miss Temple to some of the elder girls. The duration of each lesson was measured by the clock, which at last struck twelve. The superintendent rose— + +“I have a word to address to the pupils,” said she. + +The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it sank at her voice. She went on— + +“You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you must be hungry:—I have ordered that a lunch of bread and cheese shall be served to all.” + +The teachers looked at her with a sort of surprise. + +“It is to be done on my responsibility,” she added, in an explanatory tone to them, and immediately afterwards left the room. + +The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to the high delight and refreshment of the whole school. The order was now given “To the garden!” Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with strings of coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze. I was similarly equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into the open air. + +The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to exclude every glimpse of prospect; a covered verandah ran down one side, and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into scores of little beds: these beds were assigned as gardens for the pupils to cultivate, and each bed had an owner. When full of flowers they would doubtless look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January, all was wintry blight and brown decay. I shuddered as I stood and looked round me: it was an inclement day for outdoor exercise; not positively rainy, but darkened by a drizzling yellow fog; all under foot was still soaking wet with the floods of yesterday. The stronger among the girls ran about and engaged in active games, but sundry pale and thin ones herded together for shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense mist penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard frequently the sound of a hollow cough. + +As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of me; I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed; it did not oppress me much. I leant against a pillar of the verandah, drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying to forget the cold which nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within, delivered myself up to the employment of watching and thinking. My reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit record: I hardly yet knew where I was; Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to an immeasurable distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the future I could form no conjecture. I looked round the convent-like garden, and then up at the house—a large building, half of which seemed grey and old, the other half quite new. The new part, containing the schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed windows, which gave it a church-like aspect; a stone tablet over the door bore this inscription:— + +LOWOOD INSTITUTION. + +This portion was rebuilt A.D. ——, by Naomi Brocklehurst, +of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county. + +“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”—St. Matt. v. 16. + +I read these words over and over again: I felt that an explanation belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate their import. I was still pondering the signification of “Institution,” and endeavouring to make out a connection between the first words and the verse of Scripture, when the sound of a cough close behind me made me turn my head. I saw a girl sitting on a stone bench near; she was bent over a book, on the perusal of which she seemed intent: from where I stood I could see the title—it was “Rasselas;” a name that struck me as strange, and consequently attractive. In turning a leaf she happened to look up, and I said to her directly— + +“Is your book interesting?” I had already formed the intention of asking her to lend it to me some day. + +“I like it,” she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during which she examined me. + +“What is it about?” I continued. I hardly know where I found the hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious or substantial. + +“You may look at it,” replied the girl, offering me the book. + +I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were less taking than the title: “Rasselas” looked dull to my trifling taste; I saw nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety seemed spread over the closely-printed pages. I returned it to her; she received it quietly, and without saying anything she was about to relapse into her former studious mood: again I ventured to disturb her— + +“Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means? What is Lowood Institution?” + +“This house where you are come to live.” + +“And why do they call it Institution? Is it in any way different from other schools?” + +“It is partly a charity-school: you and I, and all the rest of us, are charity-children. I suppose you are an orphan: are not either your father or your mother dead?” + +“Both died before I can remember.” + +“Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and this is called an institution for educating orphans.” + +“Do we pay no money? Do they keep us for nothing?” + +“We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each.” + +“Then why do they call us charity-children?” + +“Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and the deficiency is supplied by subscription.” + +“Who subscribes?” + +“Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this neighbourhood and in London.” + +“Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?” + +“The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet records, and whose son overlooks and directs everything here.” + +“Why?” + +“Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment.” + +“Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a watch, and who said we were to have some bread and cheese?” + +“To Miss Temple? Oh, no! I wish it did: she has to answer to Mr. Brocklehurst for all she does. Mr. Brocklehurst buys all our food and all our clothes.” + +“Does he live here?” + +“No—two miles off, at a large hall.” + +“Is he a good man?” + +“He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good.” + +“Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?” + +“Yes.” + +“And what are the other teachers called?” + +“The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the work, and cuts out—for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and pelisses, and everything; the little one with black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she teaches history and grammar, and hears the second class repetitions; and the one who wears a shawl, and has a pocket-handkerchief tied to her side with a yellow ribband, is Madame Pierrot: she comes from Lisle, in France, and teaches French.” + +“Do you like the teachers?” + +“Well enough.” + +“Do you like the little black one, and the Madame ——?—I cannot pronounce her name as you do.” + +“Miss Scatcherd is hasty—you must take care not to offend her; Madame Pierrot is not a bad sort of person.” + +“But Miss Temple is the best—isn’t she?” + +“Miss Temple is very good and very clever; she is above the rest, because she knows far more than they do.” + +“Have you been long here?” + +“Two years.” + +“Are you an orphan?” + +“My mother is dead.” + +“Are you happy here?” + +“You ask rather too many questions. I have given you answers enough for the present: now I want to read.” + +But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner; all re-entered the house. The odour which now filled the refectory was scarcely more appetising than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast: the dinner was served in two huge tin-plated vessels, whence rose a strong steam redolent of rancid fat. I found the mess to consist of indifferent potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked together. Of this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was apportioned to each pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered within myself whether every day’s fare would be like this. + +After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons recommenced, and were continued till five o’clock. + +The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with whom I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace by Miss Scatcherd from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the large schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree ignominious, especially for so great a girl—she looked thirteen or upwards. I expected she would show signs of great distress and shame; but to my surprise she neither wept nor blushed: composed, though grave, she stood, the central mark of all eyes. “How can she bear it so quietly—so firmly?” I asked of myself. “Were I in her place, it seems to me I should wish the earth to open and swallow me up. She looks as if she were thinking of something beyond her punishment—beyond her situation: of something not round her nor before her. I have heard of day-dreams—is she in a day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure they do not see it—her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart: she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not at what is really present. I wonder what sort of a girl she is—whether good or naughty.” + +Soon after five P.M. we had another meal, consisting of a small mug of coffee, and half-a-slice of brown bread. I devoured my bread and drank my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad of as much more—I was still hungry. Half-an-hour’s recreation succeeded, then study; then the glass of water and the piece of oat-cake, prayers, and bed. Such was my first day at Lowood. + +== CHAPTER VI +The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by rushlight; but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the ceremony of washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change had taken place in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen north-east wind, whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windows all night long, had made us shiver in our beds, and turned the contents of the ewers to ice. + +Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible-reading was over, I felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast-time came at last, and this morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality was eatable, the quantity small. How small my portion seemed! I wished it had been doubled. + +In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the fourth class, and regular tasks and occupations were assigned me: hitherto, I had only been a spectator of the proceedings at Lowood; I was now to become an actor therein. At first, being little accustomed to learn by heart, the lessons appeared to me both long and difficult; the frequent change from task to task, too, bewildered me; and I was glad when, about three o’clock in the afternoon, Miss Smith put into my hands a border of muslin two yards long, together with needle, thimble, &c., and sent me to sit in a quiet corner of the schoolroom, with directions to hem the same. At that hour most of the others were sewing likewise; but one class still stood round Miss Scatcherd’s chair reading, and as all was quiet, the subject of their lessons could be heard, together with the manner in which each girl acquitted herself, and the animadversions or commendations of Miss Scatcherd on the performance. It was English history: among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: at the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention to stops, she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. Even in that obscure position, Miss Scatcherd continued to make her an object of constant notice: she was continually addressing to her such phrases as the following:— + +“Burns” (such it seems was her name: the girls here were all called by their surnames, as boys are elsewhere), “Burns, you are standing on the side of your shoe; turn your toes out immediately.” “Burns, you poke your chin most unpleasantly; draw it in.” “Burns, I insist on your holding your head up; I will not have you before me in that attitude,” &c. &c. + +A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and the girls examined. The lesson had comprised part of the reign of Charles I., and there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage and ship-money, which most of them appeared unable to answer; still, every little difficulty was solved instantly when it reached Burns: her memory seemed to have retained the substance of the whole lesson, and she was ready with answers on every point. I kept expecting that Miss Scatcherd would praise her attention; but, instead of that, she suddenly cried out— + +“You dirty, disagreeable girl! you have never cleaned your nails this morning!” + +Burns made no answer: I wondered at her silence. + +“Why,” thought I, “does she not explain that she could neither clean her nails nor wash her face, as the water was frozen?” + +My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a skein of thread: while she was winding it, she talked to me from time to time, asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether I could mark, stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me, I could not pursue my observations on Miss Scatcherd’s movements. When I returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order of which I did not catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one end. This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful curtesy; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to Burns’ eye; and, while I paused from my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle with a sentiment of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face altered its ordinary expression. + +“Hardened girl!” exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; “nothing can correct you of your slatternly habits: carry the rod away.” + +Burns obeyed: I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into her pocket, and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek. + +The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction of the day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the draught of coffee swallowed at five o’clock had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger: the long restraint of the day was slackened; the schoolroom felt warmer than in the morning—its fires being allowed to burn a little more brightly, to supply, in some measure, the place of candles, not yet introduced: the ruddy gloaming, the licensed uproar, the confusion of many voices gave one a welcome sense of liberty. + +On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and laughing groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I passed the windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out; it snowed fast, a drift was already forming against the lower panes; putting my ear close to the window, I could distinguish from the gleeful tumult within, the disconsolate moan of the wind outside. + +Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure chaos would have disturbed my peace! as it was, I derived from both a strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise to clamour. + +Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of the fire-places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found Burns, absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the companionship of a book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers. + +“Is it still ‘Rasselas’?” I asked, coming behind her. + +“Yes,” she said, “and I have just finished it.” + +And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this. + +“Now,” thought I, “I can perhaps get her to talk.” I sat down by her on the floor. + +“What is your name besides Burns?” + +“Helen.” + +“Do you come a long way from here?” + +“I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of Scotland.” + +“Will you ever go back?” + +“I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future.” + +“You must wish to leave Lowood?” + +“No! why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it would be of no use going away until I have attained that object.” + +“But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?” + +“Cruel? Not at all! She is severe: she dislikes my faults.” + +“And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her. If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should break it under her nose.” + +“Probably you would do nothing of the sort: but if you did, Mr. Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great grief to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the Bible bids us return good for evil.” + +“But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl: I am far younger than you, and I could not bear it.” + +“Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is weak and silly to say you cannot bear what it is your fate to be required to bear.” + +I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with the forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected she might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter deeply; like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season. + +“You say you have faults, Helen: what are they? To me you seem very good.” + +“Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss Scatcherd said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things in order; I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my lessons; I have no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot bear to be subjected to systematic arrangements. This is all very provoking to Miss Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and particular.” + +“And cross and cruel,” I added; but Helen Burns would not admit my addition: she kept silence. + +“Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?” + +At the utterance of Miss Temple’s name, a soft smile flitted over her grave face. + +“Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any one, even the worst in the school: she sees my errors, and tells me of them gently; and, if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me my meed liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to cure me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most highly, cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight.” + +“That is curious,” said I, “it is so easy to be careful.” + +“For you I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this morning, and saw you were closely attentive: your thoughts never seemed to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you. Now, mine continually rove away; when I should be listening to Miss Scatcherd, and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I lose the very sound of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think I am in Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the bubbling of a little brook which runs through Deepden, near our house;—then, when it comes to my turn to reply, I have to be awakened; and having heard nothing of what was read for listening to the visionary brook, I have no answer ready.” + +“Yet how well you replied this afternoon.” + +“It was mere chance; the subject on which we had been reading had interested me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity it was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no farther than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age was tending! Still, I like Charles—I respect him—I pity him, poor murdered king! Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!” + +Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not very well understand her—that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject she discussed. I recalled her to my level. + +“And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?” + +“No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is singularly agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just what I wished to gain.” + +“Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?” + +“Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides me. There is no merit in such goodness.” + +“A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way: they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should strike back again very hard; I am sure we should—so hard as to teach the person who struck us never to do it again.” + +“You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are but a little untaught girl.” + +“But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved.” + +“Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and civilised nations disown it.” + +“How? I don’t understand.” + +“It is not violence that best overcomes hate—nor vengeance that most certainly heals injury.” + +“What then?” + +“Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts; make His word your rule, and His conduct your example.” + +“What does He say?” + +“Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you and despitefully use you.” + +“Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her son John, which is impossible.” + +In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments. Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or softening. + +Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make a remark, but she said nothing. + +“Well,” I asked impatiently, “is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad woman?” + +“She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes your cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the spark of the spirit will remain,—the impalpable principle of light and thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being higher than man—perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest—a mighty home, not a terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end.” + +Helen’s head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk to me, but rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not allowed much time for meditation: a monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up, exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent— + +“Helen Burns, if you don’t go and put your drawer in order, and fold up your work this minute, I’ll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at it!” + +Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor without reply as without delay. + +== CHAPTER VII +My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age either; it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot; though these were no trifles. + +During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring beyond the garden walls, except to go to church; but within these limits we had to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient to protect us from the severe cold: we had no boots, the snow got into our shoes and melted there: our ungloved hands became numbed and covered with chilblains, as were our feet: I remember well the distracting irritation I endured from this cause every evening, when my feet inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes into my shoes in the morning. Then the scanty supply of food was distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half the contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger. + +Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two miles to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set out cold, we arrived at church colder: during the morning service we became almost paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of cold meat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in our ordinary meals, was served round between the services. + +At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and hilly road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy summits to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces. + +I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, gathered close about her, and encouraging us, by precept and example, to keep up our spirits, and march forward, as she said, “like stalwart soldiers.” The other teachers, poor things, were generally themselves too much dejected to attempt the task of cheering others. + +How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got back! But, to the little ones at least, this was denied: each hearth in the schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores. + +A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of bread—a whole, instead of a half, slice—with the delicious addition of a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally contrived to reserve a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself; but the remainder I was invariably obliged to part with. + +The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew; and in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of these performances was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some half-dozen of little girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall down, if not out of the third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead. The remedy was, to thrust them forward into the centre of the schoolroom, and oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their feet failed them, and they sank together in a heap; they were then propped up with the monitors’ high stools. + +I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed that gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first month after my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the archdeacon: his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had my own reasons for dreading his coming: but come he did at last. + +One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes, raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline; and when, two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose en masse, it was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain whose entrance they thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black column which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer, narrower, and more rigid than ever. + +I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too well I remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my disposition, &c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise Miss Temple and the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been dreading the fulfilment of this promise,—I had been looking out daily for the “Coming Man,” whose information respecting my past life and conversation was to brand me as a bad child for ever: now there he was. + +He stood at Miss Temple’s side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did not doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her eye with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as I happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension. + +“I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do; it struck me that it would be just of the quality for the calico chemises, and I sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith that I forgot to make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have some papers sent in next week; and she is not, on any account, to give out more than one at a time to each pupil: if they have more, they are apt to be careless and lose them. And, O ma’am! I wish the woollen stockings were better looked to!—when I was here last, I went into the kitchen-garden and examined the clothes drying on the line; there was a quantity of black hose in a very bad state of repair: from the size of the holes in them I was sure they had not been well mended from time to time.” + +He paused. + +“Your directions shall be attended to, sir,” said Miss Temple. + +“And, ma’am,” he continued, “the laundress tells me some of the girls have two clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules limit them to one.” + +“I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Catherine Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton last Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for the occasion.” + +Mr. Brocklehurst nodded. + +“Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance occur too often. And there is another thing which surprised me; I find, in settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of bread and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the past fortnight. How is this? I looked over the regulations, and I find no such meal as lunch mentioned. Who introduced this innovation? and by what authority?” + +“I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir,” replied Miss Temple: “the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly eat it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinner-time.” + +“Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence, but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any little accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the incident ought not to be neutralised by replacing with something more delicate the comfort lost, thus pampering the body and obviating the aim of this institution; it ought to be improved to the spiritual edification of the pupils, by encouraging them to evince fortitude under the temporary privation. A brief address on those occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judicious instructor would take the opportunity of referring to the sufferings of the primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His disciples to take up their cross and follow Him; to His warnings that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; to His divine consolations, ‘If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy are ye.’ Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt porridge, into these children’s mouths, you may indeed feed their vile bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!” + +Mr. Brocklehurst again paused—perhaps overcome by his feelings. Miss Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; but she now gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble, appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material; especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required a sculptor’s chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified severity. + +Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands behind his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. Suddenly his eye gave a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled or shocked its pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents than he had hitherto used— + +“Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what—what is that girl with curled hair? Red hair, ma’am, curled—curled all over?” And extending his cane he pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so. + +“It is Julia Severn,” replied Miss Temple, very quietly. + +“Julia Severn, ma’am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why, in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she conform to the world so openly—here in an evangelical, charitable establishment—as to wear her hair one mass of curls?” + +“Julia’s hair curls naturally,” returned Miss Temple, still more quietly. + +“Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these girls to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance? I have again and again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, modestly, plainly. Miss Temple, that girl’s hair must be cut off entirely; I will send a barber to-morrow: and I see others who have far too much of the excrescence—that tall girl, tell her to turn round. Tell all the first form to rise up and direct their faces to the wall.” + +Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth away the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order, however, and when the first class could take in what was required of them, they obeyed. Leaning a little back on my bench, I could see the looks and grimaces with which they commented on this manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr. Brocklehurst could not see them too; he would perhaps have felt that, whatever he might do with the outside of the cup and platter, the inside was further beyond his interference than he imagined. + +He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes, then pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom— + +“All those top-knots must be cut off.” + +Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate. + +“Madam,” he pursued, “I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the young persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the time wasted, of—” + +Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now entered the room. They ought to have come a little sooner to have heard his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk, and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled; the elder lady was enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and she wore a false front of French curls. + +These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. and the Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the top of the room. It seems they had come in the carriage with their reverend relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the room upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper, questioned the laundress, and lectured the superintendent. They now proceeded to address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who was charged with the care of the linen and the inspection of the dormitories: but I had no time to listen to what they said; other matters called off and enchanted my attention. + +Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to secure my personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if I could only elude observation. To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and while seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to conceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my treacherous slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling with an obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I knew it was all over now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of slate, I rallied my forces for the worst. It came. + +“A careless girl!” said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after—“It is the new pupil, I perceive.” And before I could draw breath, “I must not forget I have a word to say respecting her.” Then aloud: how loud it seemed to me! “Let the child who broke her slate come forward!” + +Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but the two great girls who sat on each side of me, set me on my legs and pushed me towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently assisted me to his very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel— + +“Don’t be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be punished.” + +The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger. + +“Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite,” thought I; and an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in my pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns. + +“Fetch that stool,” said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought. + +“Place the child upon it.” + +And I was placed there, by whom I don’t know: I was in no condition to note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the height of Mr. Brocklehurst’s nose, that he was within a yard of me, and that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a cloud of silvery plumage extended and waved below me. + +Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed. + +“Ladies,” said he, turning to his family, “Miss Temple, teachers, and children, you all see this girl?” + +Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses against my scorched skin. + +“You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form of childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He has given to all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character. Who would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case.” + +A pause—in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked, must be firmly sustained. + +“My dear children,” pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos, “this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn you, that this girl, who might be one of God’s own lambs, is a little castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and an alien. You must be on your guard against her; you must shun her example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports, and shut her out from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her: keep your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions, punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation be possible, for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut—this girl is—a liar!” + +Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in perfect possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts produce their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, while the elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two younger ones whispered, “How shocking!” + +Mr. Brocklehurst resumed. + +“This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable lady who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own daughter, and whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid by an ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious example should contaminate their purity: she has sent her here to be healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the waters to stagnate round her.” + +With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button of his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed to Miss Temple, and then all the great people sailed in state from the room. Turning at the door, my judge said— + +“Let her stand half-an-hour longer on that stool, and let no one speak to her during the remainder of the day.” + +There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my sensations were, no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath and constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in passing, she lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What an extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me! How the new feeling bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim, and imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the rising hysteria, lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm “the untidy badge;” scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she had blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such is the imperfect nature of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes like Miss Scatcherd’s can only see those minute defects, and are blind to the full brightness of the orb. + +== CHAPTER VIII +Ere the half-hour ended, five o’clock struck; school was dismissed, and all were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ventured to descend: it was deep dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on the floor. The spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction took place, and soon, so overwhelming was the grief that seized me, I sank prostrate with my face to the ground. Now I wept: Helen Burns was not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and my tears watered the boards. I had meant to be so good, and to do so much at Lowood: to make so many friends, to earn respect and win affection. Already I had made visible progress: that very morning I had reached the head of my class; Miss Miller had praised me warmly; Miss Temple had smiled approbation; she had promised to teach me drawing, and to let me learn French, if I continued to make similar improvement two months longer: and then I was well received by my fellow-pupils; treated as an equal by those of my own age, and not molested by any; now, here I lay again crushed and trodden on; and could I ever rise more? + +“Never,” I thought; and ardently I wished to die. While sobbing out this wish in broken accents, some one approached: I started up—again Helen Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her coming up the long, vacant room; she brought my coffee and bread. + +“Come, eat something,” she said; but I put both away from me, feeling as if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present condition. Helen regarded me, probably with surprise: I could not now abate my agitation, though I tried hard; I continued to weep aloud. She sat down on the ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms, and rested her head upon them; in that attitude she remained silent as an Indian. I was the first who spoke— + +“Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a liar?” + +“Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions.” + +“But what have I to do with millions? The eighty I know despise me.” + +“Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises or dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity you much.” + +“How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?” + +“Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man: he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies, declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would offer you sympathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly on you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression. Besides, Jane”—she paused. + +“Well, Helen?” said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my fingers gently to warm them, and went on— + +“If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends.” + +“No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if others don’t love me I would rather die than live—I cannot bear to be solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest—” + +“Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your frame, and put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know you are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why, then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness—to glory?” + +I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she imparted there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. I felt the impression of woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whence it came; and when, having done speaking, she breathed a little fast and coughed a short cough, I momentarily forgot my own sorrows to yield to a vague concern for her. + +Resting my head on Helen’s shoulder, I put my arms round her waist; she drew me to her, and we reposed in silence. We had not sat long thus, when another person came in. Some heavy clouds, swept from the sky by a rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming in through a window near, shone full both on us and on the approaching figure, which we at once recognised as Miss Temple. + +“I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre,” said she; “I want you in my room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too.” + +We went; following the superintendent’s guidance, we had to thread some intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached her apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful. Miss Temple told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair on one side of the hearth, and herself taking another, she called me to her side. + +“Is it all over?” she asked, looking down at my face. “Have you cried your grief away?” + +“I am afraid I never shall do that.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma’am, and everybody else, will now think me wicked.” + +“We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us.” + +“Shall I, Miss Temple?” + +“You will,” said she, passing her arm round me. “And now tell me who is the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?” + +“Mrs. Reed, my uncle’s wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to her care.” + +“Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?” + +“No, ma’am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as I have often heard the servants say, got her to promise before he died that she would always keep me.” + +“Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own defence. You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as you can. Say whatever your memory suggests is true; but add nothing and exaggerate nothing.” + +I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most moderate—most correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order to arrange coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story of my sad childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued than it generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of Helen’s warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused into the narrative far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus restrained and simplified, it sounded more credible: I felt as I went on that Miss Temple fully believed me. + +In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to see me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful episode of the red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some degree, to break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recollection the spasm of agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark and haunted chamber. + +I had finished: Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in silence; she then said— + +“I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his reply agrees with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from every imputation; to me, Jane, you are clear now.” + +She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was well contented to stand, for I derived a child’s pleasure from the contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her white forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark eyes), she proceeded to address Helen Burns. + +“How are you to-night, Helen? Have you coughed much to-day?” + +“Not quite so much, I think, ma’am.” + +“And the pain in your chest?” + +“It is a little better.” + +Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; then she returned to her own seat: as she resumed it, I heard her sigh low. She was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said cheerfully— + +“But you two are my visitors to-night; I must treat you as such.” She rang her bell. + +“Barbara,” she said to the servant who answered it, “I have not yet had tea; bring the tray and place cups for these two young ladies.” + +And a tray was soon brought. How pretty, to my eyes, did the china cups and bright teapot look, placed on the little round table near the fire! How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the scent of the toast! of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was beginning to be hungry) discerned only a very small portion: Miss Temple discerned it too. + +“Barbara,” said she, “can you not bring a little more bread and butter? There is not enough for three.” + +Barbara went out: she returned soon— + +“Madam, Mrs. Harden says she has sent up the usual quantity.” + +Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper: a woman after Mr. Brocklehurst’s own heart, made up of equal parts of whalebone and iron. + +“Oh, very well!” returned Miss Temple; “we must make it do, Barbara, I suppose.” And as the girl withdrew she added, smiling, “Fortunately, I have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this once.” + +Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before each of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, she got up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in paper, disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake. + +“I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you,” said she, “but as there is so little toast, you must have it now,” and she proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand. + +We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the delicate fare she liberally supplied. + +Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire; we sat one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed between her and Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear. + +Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in her mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded deviation into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which chastened the pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, by a controlling sense of awe; and such was my feeling now: but as to Helen Burns, I was struck with wonder. + +The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, something in her own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, they kindled: first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which till this hour I had never seen but pale and bloodless; then they shone in the liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more singular than that of Miss Temple’s—a beauty neither of fine colour nor long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what source I cannot tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart large enough, vigorous enough, to hold the swelling spring of pure, full, fervid eloquence? Such was the characteristic of Helen’s discourse on that, to me, memorable evening; her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very brief span as much as many live during a protracted existence. + +They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times past; of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or guessed at: they spoke of books: how many they had read! What stores of knowledge they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with French names and French authors: but my amazement reached its climax when Miss Temple asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin her father had taught her, and taking a book from a shelf, bade her read and construe a page of Virgil; and Helen obeyed, my organ of veneration expanding at every sounding line. She had scarcely finished ere the bell announced bedtime! no delay could be admitted; Miss Temple embraced us both, saying, as she drew us to her heart— + +“God bless you, my children!” + +Helen she held a little longer than me: she let her go more reluctantly; it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her she a second time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from her cheek. + +On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd: she was examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns’s, and when we entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told that to-morrow she should have half-a-dozen of untidily folded articles pinned to her shoulder. + +“My things were indeed in shameful disorder,” murmured Helen to me, in a low voice: “I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot.” + +Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece of pasteboard the word “Slattern,” and bound it like a phylactery round Helen’s large, mild, intelligent, and benign-looking forehead. She wore it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of which she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of her sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart. + +About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss Temple, who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared that what he said went to corroborate my account. Miss Temple, having assembled the whole school, announced that inquiry had been made into the charges alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most happy to be able to pronounce her completely cleared from every imputation. The teachers then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a murmur of pleasure ran through the ranks of my companions. + +Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work afresh, resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I toiled hard, and my success was proportionate to my efforts; my memory, not naturally tenacious, improved with practice; exercise sharpened my wits; in a few weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in less than two months I was allowed to commence French and drawing. I learned the first two tenses of the verb Etre, and sketched my first cottage (whose walls, by-the-bye, outrivalled in slope those of the leaning tower of Pisa), on the same day. That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in imagination the Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white bread and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings: I feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the dark; all the work of my own hands: freely pencilled houses and trees, picturesque rocks and ruins, Cuyp-like groups of cattle, sweet paintings of butterflies hovering over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe cherries, of wren’s nests enclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed about with young ivy sprays. I examined, too, in thought, the possibility of my ever being able to translate currently a certain little French story which Madame Pierrot had that day shown me; nor was that problem solved to my satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep. + +Well has Solomon said—“Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” + +I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for Gateshead and its daily luxuries. + +== CHAPTER IX +But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased; its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet, flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden: sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning brighter traces of her steps. Flowers peeped out amongst the leaves; snow-drops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden-eyed pansies. On Thursday afternoons (half-holidays) we now took walks, and found still sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges. + +I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the horizon only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls of our garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits girdling a great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a bright beck, full of dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different had this scene looked when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, stiffened in frost, shrouded with snow!—when mists as chill as death wandered to the impulse of east winds along those purple peaks, and rolled down “ing” and holm till they blended with the frozen fog of the beck! That beck itself was then a torrent, turbid and curbless: it tore asunder the wood, and sent a raving sound through the air, often thickened with wild rain or whirling sleet; and for the forest on its banks, that showed only ranks of skeletons. + +April advanced to May: a bright serene May it was; days of blue sky, placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled up its duration. And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood shook loose its tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and oak skeletons were restored to majestic life; woodland plants sprang up profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of moss filled its hollows, and it made a strange ground-sunshine out of the wealth of its wild primrose plants: I have seen their pale gold gleam in overshadowed spots like scatterings of the sweetest lustre. All this I enjoyed often and fully, free, unwatched, and almost alone: for this unwonted liberty and pleasure there was a cause, to which it now becomes my task to advert. + +Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak of it as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a stream? Assuredly, pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is another question. + +That forest-dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and fog-bred pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept into the Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the seminary into an hospital. + +Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils to receive infection: forty-five out of the eighty girls lay ill at one time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few who continued well were allowed almost unlimited license; because the medical attendant insisted on the necessity of frequent exercise to keep them in health: and had it been otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain them. Miss Temple’s whole attention was absorbed by the patients: she lived in the sick-room, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours’ rest at night. The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and willing to remove them from the seat of contagion. Many, already smitten, went home only to die: some died at the school, and were buried quietly and quickly, the nature of the malady forbidding delay. + +While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls; while its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug and the pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality, that bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful woodland out of doors. Its garden, too, glowed with flowers: hollyhocks had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opened, tulips and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars gave out, morning and evening, their scent of spice and apples; and these fragrant treasures were all useless for most of the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now and then a handful of herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin. + +But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the beauties of the scene and season; they let us ramble in the wood, like gipsies, from morning till night; we did what we liked, went where we liked: we lived better too. Mr. Brocklehurst and his family never came near Lowood now: household matters were not scrutinised into; the cross housekeeper was gone, driven away by the fear of infection; her successor, who had been matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to the ways of her new abode, provided with comparative liberality. Besides, there were fewer to feed; the sick could eat little; our breakfast-basins were better filled; when there was no time to prepare a regular dinner, which often happened, she would give us a large piece of cold pie, or a thick slice of bread and cheese, and this we carried away with us to the wood, where we each chose the spot we liked best, and dined sumptuously. + +My favourite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and dry from the very middle of the beck, and only to be got at by wading through the water; a feat I accomplished barefoot. The stone was just broad enough to accommodate, comfortably, another girl and me, at that time my chosen comrade—one Mary Ann Wilson; a shrewd, observant personage, whose society I took pleasure in, partly because she was witty and original, and partly because she had a manner which set me at my ease. Some years older than I, she knew more of the world, and could tell me many things I liked to hear: with her my curiosity found gratification: to my faults also she gave ample indulgence, never imposing curb or rein on anything I said. She had a turn for narrative, I for analysis; she liked to inform, I to question; so we got on swimmingly together, deriving much entertainment, if not much improvement, from our mutual intercourse. + +And where, meantime, was Helen Burns? Why did I not spend these sweet days of liberty with her? Had I forgotten her? or was I so worthless as to have grown tired of her pure society? Surely the Mary Ann Wilson I have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance: she could only tell me amusing stories, and reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I chose to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, she was qualified to give those who enjoyed the privilege of her converse a taste of far higher things. + +True, reader; and I knew and felt this: and though I am a defective being, with many faults and few redeeming points, yet I never tired of Helen Burns; nor ever ceased to cherish for her a sentiment of attachment, as strong, tender, and respectful as any that ever animated my heart. How could it be otherwise, when Helen, at all times and under all circumstances, evinced for me a quiet and faithful friendship, which ill-humour never soured, nor irritation never troubled? But Helen was ill at present: for some weeks she had been removed from my sight to I knew not what room upstairs. She was not, I was told, in the hospital portion of the house with the fever patients; for her complaint was consumption, not typhus: and by consumption I, in my ignorance, understood something mild, which time and care would be sure to alleviate. + +I was confirmed in this idea by the fact of her once or twice coming downstairs on very warm sunny afternoons, and being taken by Miss Temple into the garden; but, on these occasions, I was not allowed to go and speak to her; I only saw her from the schoolroom window, and then not distinctly; for she was much wrapped up, and sat at a distance under the verandah. + +One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late with Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as usual, separated ourselves from the others, and had wandered far; so far that we lost our way, and had to ask it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman lived, who looked after a herd of half-wild swine that fed on the mast in the wood. When we got back, it was after moonrise: a pony, which we knew to be the surgeon’s, was standing at the garden door. Mary Ann remarked that she supposed some one must be very ill, as Mr. Bates had been sent for at that time of the evening. She went into the house; I stayed behind a few minutes to plant in my garden a handful of roots I had dug up in the forest, and which I feared would wither if I left them till the morning. This done, I lingered yet a little longer: the flowers smelt so sweet as the dew fell; it was such a pleasant evening, so serene, so warm; the still glowing west promised so fairly another fine day on the morrow; the moon rose with such majesty in the grave east. I was noting these things and enjoying them as a child might, when it entered my mind as it had never done before:— + +“How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of dying! This world is pleasant—it would be dreary to be called from it, and to have to go who knows where?” + +And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the first time it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind, on each side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it felt the one point where it stood—the present; all the rest was formless cloud and vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering, and plunging amid that chaos. While pondering this new idea, I heard the front door open; Mr. Bates came out, and with him was a nurse. After she had seen him mount his horse and depart, she was about to close the door, but I ran up to her. + +“How is Helen Burns?” + +“Very poorly,” was the answer. + +“Is it her Mr. Bates has been to see?” + +“Yes.” + +“And what does he say about her?” + +“He says she’ll not be here long.” + +This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only conveyed the notion that she was about to be removed to Northumberland, to her own home. I should not have suspected that it meant she was dying; but I knew instantly now! It opened clear on my comprehension that Helen Burns was numbering her last days in this world, and that she was going to be taken to the region of spirits, if such region there were. I experienced a shock of horror, then a strong thrill of grief, then a desire—a necessity to see her; and I asked in what room she lay. + +“She is in Miss Temple’s room,” said the nurse. + +“May I go up and speak to her?” + +“Oh no, child! It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come in; you’ll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling.” + +The nurse closed the front door; I went in by the side entrance which led to the schoolroom: I was just in time; it was nine o’clock, and Miss Miller was calling the pupils to go to bed. + +It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when I—not having been able to fall asleep, and deeming, from the perfect silence of the dormitory, that my companions were all wrapt in profound repose—rose softly, put on my frock over my night-dress, and, without shoes, crept from the apartment, and set off in quest of Miss Temple’s room. It was quite at the other end of the house; but I knew my way; and the light of the unclouded summer moon, entering here and there at passage windows, enabled me to find it without difficulty. An odour of camphor and burnt vinegar warned me when I came near the fever room: and I passed its door quickly, fearful lest the nurse who sat up all night should hear me. I dreaded being discovered and sent back; for I must see Helen,—I must embrace her before she died,—I must give her one last kiss, exchange with her one last word. + +Having descended a staircase, traversed a portion of the house below, and succeeded in opening and shutting, without noise, two doors, I reached another flight of steps; these I mounted, and then just opposite to me was Miss Temple’s room. A light shone through the keyhole and from under the door; a profound stillness pervaded the vicinity. Coming near, I found the door slightly ajar; probably to admit some fresh air into the close abode of sickness. Indisposed to hesitate, and full of impatient impulses—soul and senses quivering with keen throes—I put it back and looked in. My eye sought Helen, and feared to find death. + +Close by Miss Temple’s bed, and half covered with its white curtains, there stood a little crib. I saw the outline of a form under the clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings: the nurse I had spoken to in the garden sat in an easy-chair asleep; an unsnuffed candle burnt dimly on the table. Miss Temple was not to be seen: I knew afterwards that she had been called to a delirious patient in the fever-room. I advanced; then paused by the crib side: my hand was on the curtain, but I preferred speaking before I withdrew it. I still recoiled at the dread of seeing a corpse. + +“Helen!” I whispered softly, “are you awake?” + +She stirred herself, put back the curtain, and I saw her face, pale, wasted, but quite composed: she looked so little changed that my fear was instantly dissipated. + +“Can it be you, Jane?” she asked, in her own gentle voice. + +“Oh!” I thought, “she is not going to die; they are mistaken: she could not speak and look so calmly if she were.” + +I got on to her crib and kissed her: her forehead was cold, and her cheek both cold and thin, and so were her hand and wrist; but she smiled as of old. + +“Why are you come here, Jane? It is past eleven o’clock: I heard it strike some minutes since.” + +“I came to see you, Helen: I heard you were very ill, and I could not sleep till I had spoken to you.” + +“You came to bid me good-bye, then: you are just in time probably.” + +“Are you going somewhere, Helen? Are you going home?” + +“Yes; to my long home—my last home.” + +“No, no, Helen!” I stopped, distressed. While I tried to devour my tears, a fit of coughing seized Helen; it did not, however, wake the nurse; when it was over, she lay some minutes exhausted; then she whispered— + +“Jane, your little feet are bare; lie down and cover yourself with my quilt.” + +I did so: she put her arm over me, and I nestled close to her. After a long silence, she resumed, still whispering— + +“I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have been continually at fault.” + +“But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?” + +“I believe; I have faith: I am going to God.” + +“Where is God? What is God?” + +“My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count the hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him, reveal Him to me.” + +“You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven, and that our souls can get to it when we die?” + +“I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me.” + +“And shall I see you again, Helen, when I die?” + +“You will come to the same region of happiness: be received by the same mighty, universal Parent, no doubt, dear Jane.” + +Again I questioned, but this time only in thought. “Where is that region? Does it exist?” And I clasped my arms closer round Helen; she seemed dearer to me than ever; I felt as if I could not let her go; I lay with my face hidden on her neck. Presently she said, in the sweetest tone— + +“How comfortable I am! That last fit of coughing has tired me a little; I feel as if I could sleep: but don’t leave me, Jane; I like to have you near me.” + +“I’ll stay with you, dear Helen: no one shall take me away.” + +“Are you warm, darling?” + +“Yes.” + +“Good-night, Jane.” + +“Good-night, Helen.” + +She kissed me, and I her, and we both soon slumbered. + +When I awoke it was day: an unusual movement roused me; I looked up; I was in somebody’s arms; the nurse held me; she was carrying me through the passage back to the dormitory. I was not reprimanded for leaving my bed; people had something else to think about; no explanation was afforded then to my many questions; but a day or two afterwards I learned that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had found me laid in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns’s shoulder, my arms round her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was—dead. + +Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard: for fifteen years after her death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a grey marble tablet marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word “Resurgam.” + +== CHAPTER X +Hitherto I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificant existence: to the first ten years of my life I have given almost as many chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography: I am only bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses will possess some degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years almost in silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links of connection. + +When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at Lowood, it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its virulence and the number of its victims had drawn public attention on the school. Inquiry was made into the origin of the scourge, and by degrees various facts came out which excited public indignation in a high degree. The unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and quality of the children’s food; the brackish, fetid water used in its preparation; the pupils’ wretched clothing and accommodations—all these things were discovered, and the discovery produced a result mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst, but beneficial to the institution. + +Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribed largely for the erection of a more convenient building in a better situation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet and clothing introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to the management of a committee. Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealth and family connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the post of treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his duties by gentlemen of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: his office of inspector, too, was shared by those who knew how to combine reason with strictness, comfort with economy, compassion with uprightness. The school, thus improved, became in time a truly useful and noble institution. I remained an inmate of its walls, after its regeneration, for eight years: six as pupil, and two as teacher; and in both capacities I bear my testimony to its value and importance. + +During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy, because it was not inactive. I had the means of an excellent education placed within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a desire to excel in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my teachers, especially such as I loved, urged me on: I availed myself fully of the advantages offered me. In time I rose to be the first girl of the first class; then I was invested with the office of teacher; which I discharged with zeal for two years: but at the end of that time I altered. + +Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best part of my acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace; she had stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and, latterly, companion. At this period she married, removed with her husband (a clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy of such a wife) to a distant county, and consequently was lost to me. + +From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone every settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree a home to me. I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much of her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed better regulated feelings had become the inmates of my mind. I had given in allegiance to duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the eyes of others, usually even to my own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued character. + +But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between me and Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a post-chaise, shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise mount the hill and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my own room, and there spent in solitude the greatest part of the half-holiday granted in honour of the occasion. + +I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myself only to be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; but when my reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the afternoon was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned on me, namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming process; that my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple—or rather that she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been breathing in her vicinity—and that now I was left in my natural element, and beginning to feel the stirring of old emotions. It did not seem as if a prop were withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquillity was no more. My world had for some years been in Lowood: my experience had been of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils. + +I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the two wings of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts of Lowood; there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other objects to rest on those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I longed to surmount; all within their boundary of rock and heath seemed prison-ground, exile limits. I traced the white road winding round the base of one mountain, and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I longed to follow it farther! I recalled the time when I had travelled that very road in a coach; I remembered descending that hill at twilight; an age seemed to have elapsed since the day which brought me first to Lowood, and I had never quitted it since. My vacations had all been spent at school: Mrs. Reed had never sent for me to Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had ever been to visit me. I had had no communication by letter or message with the outer world: school-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and antipathies—such was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus: that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space: “Then,” I cried, half desperate, “grant me at least a new servitude!” + +Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs. + +I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till bedtime: even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me kept me from the subject to which I longed to recur, by a prolonged effusion of small talk. How I wished sleep would silence her. It seemed as if, could I but go back to the idea which had last entered my mind as I stood at the window, some inventive suggestion would rise for my relief. + +Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and till now her habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes with satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half-effaced thought instantly revived. + +“A new servitude! There is something in that,” I soliloquised (mentally, be it understood; I did not talk aloud). “I know there is, because it does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty, Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of fact. Any one may serve: I have served here eight years; now all I want is to serve elsewhere. Can I not get so much of my own will? Is not the thing feasible? Yes—yes—the end is not so difficult; if I had only a brain active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it.” + +I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chilly night; I covered my shoulders with a shawl, and then I proceeded to think again with all my might. + +“What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under new circumstances: I want this because it is of no use wanting anything better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to friends, I suppose: I have no friends. There are many others who have no friends, who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers; and what is their resource?” + +I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to find a response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster: I felt the pulses throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos; and no result came of its efforts. Feverish with vain labour, I got up and took a turn in the room; undrew the curtain, noted a star or two, shivered with cold, and again crept to bed. + +A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required suggestion on my pillow; for as I lay down, it came quietly and naturally to my mind:—“Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the ——shire Herald.” + +“How? I know nothing about advertising.” + +Replies rose smooth and prompt now:— + +“You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a cover directed to the editor of the Herald; you must put it, the first opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers must be addressed to J.E., at the post-office there; you can go and inquire in about a week after you send your letter, if any are come, and act accordingly.” + +This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in my mind; I had it in a clear practical form: I felt satisfied, and fell asleep. + +With earliest day, I was up: I had my advertisement written, enclosed, and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school; it ran thus:— + +“A young lady accustomed to tuition” (had I not been a teacher two years?) “is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private family where the children are under fourteen” (I thought that as I was barely eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils nearer my own age). “She is qualified to teach the usual branches of a good English education, together with French, Drawing, and Music” (in those days, reader, this now narrow catalogue of accomplishments, would have been held tolerably comprehensive). “Address, J.E., Post-office, Lowton, ——shire.” + +This document remained locked in my drawer all day: after tea, I asked leave of the new superintendent to go to Lowton, in order to perform some small commissions for myself and one or two of my fellow-teachers; permission was readily granted; I went. It was a walk of two miles, and the evening was wet, but the days were still long; I visited a shop or two, slipped the letter into the post-office, and came back through heavy rain, with streaming garments, but with a relieved heart. + +The succeeding week seemed long: it came to an end at last, however, like all sublunary things, and once more, towards the close of a pleasant autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton. A picturesque track it was, by the way; lying along the side of the beck and through the sweetest curves of the dale: but that day I thought more of the letters, that might or might not be awaiting me at the little burgh whither I was bound, than of the charms of lea and water. + +My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when it was done, I stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker’s to the post-office: it was kept by an old dame, who wore horn spectacles on her nose, and black mittens on her hands. + +“Are there any letters for J.E.?” I asked. + +She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer and fumbled among its contents for a long time, so long that my hopes began to falter. At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly five minutes, she presented it across the counter, accompanying the act by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance—it was for J.E. + +“Is there only one?” I demanded. + +“There are no more,” said she; and I put it in my pocket and turned my face homeward: I could not open it then; rules obliged me to be back by eight, and it was already half-past seven. + +Various duties awaited me on my arrival: I had to sit with the girls during their hour of study; then it was my turn to read prayers; to see them to bed: afterwards I supped with the other teachers. Even when we finally retired for the night, the inevitable Miss Gryce was still my companion: we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick, and I dreaded lest she should talk till it was all burnt out; fortunately, however, the heavy supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect: she was already snoring before I had finished undressing. There still remained an inch of candle: I now took out my letter; the seal was an initial F.; I broke it; the contents were brief. + +“If J.E., who advertised in the ——shire Herald of last Thursday, possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to give satisfactory references as to character and competency, a situation can be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little girl, under ten years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per annum. J.E. is requested to send references, name, address, and all particulars to the direction:— + +“Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote, ——shire.” + +I examined the document long: the writing was old-fashioned and rather uncertain, like that of an elderly lady. This circumstance was satisfactory: a private fear had haunted me, that in thus acting for myself, and by my own guidance, I ran the risk of getting into some scrape; and, above all things, I wished the result of my endeavours to be respectable, proper, en règle. I now felt that an elderly lady was no bad ingredient in the business I had on hand. Mrs. Fairfax! I saw her in a black gown and widow’s cap; frigid, perhaps, but not uncivil: a model of elderly English respectability. Thornfield! that, doubtless, was the name of her house: a neat orderly spot, I was sure; though I failed in my efforts to conceive a correct plan of the premises. Millcote, ——shire; I brushed up my recollections of the map of England; yes, I saw it; both the shire and the town. ——shire was seventy miles nearer London than the remote county where I now resided: that was a recommendation to me. I longed to go where there was life and movement: Millcote was a large manufacturing town on the banks of the A——: a busy place enough, doubtless: so much the better; it would be a complete change at least. Not that my fancy was much captivated by the idea of long chimneys and clouds of smoke—“but,” I argued, “Thornfield will, probably, be a good way from the town.” + +Here the socket of the candle dropped, and the wick went out. + +Next day new steps were to be taken; my plans could no longer be confined to my own breast; I must impart them in order to achieve their success. Having sought and obtained an audience of the superintendent during the noontide recreation, I told her I had a prospect of getting a new situation where the salary would be double what I now received (for at Lowood I only got £15 per annum); and requested she would break the matter for me to Mr. Brocklehurst, or some of the committee, and ascertain whether they would permit me to mention them as references. She obligingly consented to act as mediatrix in the matter. The next day she laid the affair before Mr. Brocklehurst, who said that Mrs. Reed must be written to, as she was my natural guardian. A note was accordingly addressed to that lady, who returned for answer, that “I might do as I pleased: she had long relinquished all interference in my affairs.” This note went the round of the committee, and at last, after what appeared to me most tedious delay, formal leave was given me to better my condition if I could; and an assurance added, that as I had always conducted myself well, both as teacher and pupil, at Lowood, a testimonial of character and capacity, signed by the inspectors of that institution, should forthwith be furnished me. + +This testimonial I accordingly received in about a month, forwarded a copy of it to Mrs. Fairfax, and got that lady’s reply, stating that she was satisfied, and fixing that day fortnight as the period for my assuming the post of governess in her house. + +I now busied myself in preparations: the fortnight passed rapidly. I had not a very large wardrobe, though it was adequate to my wants; and the last day sufficed to pack my trunk,—the same I had brought with me eight years ago from Gateshead. + +The box was corded, the card nailed on. In half-an-hour the carrier was to call for it to take it to Lowton, whither I myself was to repair at an early hour the next morning to meet the coach. I had brushed my black stuff travelling-dress, prepared my bonnet, gloves, and muff; sought in all my drawers to see that no article was left behind; and now having nothing more to do, I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too much excited. A phase of my life was closing to-night, a new one opening to-morrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly while the change was being accomplished. + +“Miss,” said a servant who met me in the lobby, where I was wandering like a troubled spirit, “a person below wishes to see you.” + +“The carrier, no doubt,” I thought, and ran downstairs without inquiry. I was passing the back-parlour or teachers’ sitting-room, the door of which was half open, to go to the kitchen, when some one ran out— + +“It’s her, I am sure!—I could have told her anywhere!” cried the individual who stopped my progress and took my hand. + +I looked: I saw a woman attired like a well-dressed servant, matronly, yet still young; very good-looking, with black hair and eyes, and lively complexion. + +“Well, who is it?” she asked, in a voice and with a smile I half recognised; “you’ve not quite forgotten me, I think, Miss Jane?” + +In another second I was embracing and kissing her rapturously: “Bessie! Bessie! Bessie!” that was all I said; whereat she half laughed, half cried, and we both went into the parlour. By the fire stood a little fellow of three years old, in plaid frock and trousers. + +“That is my little boy,” said Bessie directly. + +“Then you are married, Bessie?” + +“Yes; nearly five years since to Robert Leaven, the coachman; and I’ve a little girl besides Bobby there, that I’ve christened Jane.” + +“And you don’t live at Gateshead?” + +“I live at the lodge: the old porter has left.” + +“Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them, Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee, will you?” but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother. + +“You’re not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout,” continued Mrs. Leaven. “I dare say they’ve not kept you too well at school: Miss Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and Miss Georgiana would make two of you in breadth.” + +“Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?” + +“Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: but his relations were against the match; and—what do you think?—he and Miss Georgiana made it up to run away; but they were found out and stopped. It was Miss Reed that found them out: I believe she was envious; and now she and her sister lead a cat and dog life together; they are always quarrelling—” + +“Well, and what of John Reed?” + +“Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to college, and he got—plucked, I think they call it: and then his uncles wanted him to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a dissipated young man, they will never make much of him, I think.” + +“What does he look like?” + +“He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man; but he has such thick lips.” + +“And Mrs. Reed?” + +“Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she’s not quite easy in her mind: Mr. John’s conduct does not please her—he spends a deal of money.” + +“Did she send you here, Bessie?” + +“No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard that there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to another part of the country, I thought I’d just set off, and get a look at you before you were quite out of my reach.” + +“I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie.” I said this laughing: I perceived that Bessie’s glance, though it expressed regard, did in no shape denote admiration. + +“No, Miss Jane, not exactly: you are genteel enough; you look like a lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you: you were no beauty as a child.” + +I smiled at Bessie’s frank answer: I felt that it was correct, but I confess I was not quite indifferent to its import: at eighteen most people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an exterior likely to second that desire brings anything but gratification. + +“I dare say you are clever, though,” continued Bessie, by way of solace. “What can you do? Can you play on the piano?” + +“A little.” + +There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then asked me to sit down and give her a tune: I played a waltz or two, and she was charmed. + +“The Miss Reeds could not play as well!” said she exultingly. “I always said you would surpass them in learning: and can you draw?” + +“That is one of my paintings over the chimney-piece.” It was a landscape in water colours, of which I had made a present to the superintendent, in acknowledgment of her obliging mediation with the committee on my behalf, and which she had framed and glazed. + +“Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture as any Miss Reed’s drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies themselves, who could not come near it: and have you learnt French?” + +“Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it.” + +“And you can work on muslin and canvas?” + +“I can.” + +“Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane! I knew you would be: you will get on whether your relations notice you or not. There was something I wanted to ask you. Have you ever heard anything from your father’s kinsfolk, the Eyres?” + +“Never in my life.” + +“Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quite despicable: and they may be poor; but I believe they are as much gentry as the Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said you were at school fifty miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay: he was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail from London in a day or two. He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your father’s brother.” + +“What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?” + +“An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine—the butler did tell me—” + +“Madeira?” I suggested. + +“Yes, that is it—that is the very word.” + +“So he went?” + +“Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house: Missis was very high with him; she called him afterwards a ‘sneaking tradesman.’ My Robert believes he was a wine-merchant.” + +“Very likely,” I returned; “or perhaps clerk or agent to a wine-merchant.” + +Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and then she was obliged to leave me: I saw her again for a few minutes the next morning at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach. We parted finally at the door of the Brocklehurst Arms there: each went her separate way; she set off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to take her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote. + +== CHAPTER XI +A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of George the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen hours’ exposure to the rawness of an October day: I left Lowton at four o’clock A.M., and the Millcote town clock is now just striking eight. + +Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in my mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the “boots” placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced, and to see some description of carriage waiting to convey me to Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are troubling my thoughts. + +It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when half-an-hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring the bell. + +“Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?” I asked of the waiter who answered the summons. + +“Thornfield? I don’t know, ma’am; I’ll inquire at the bar.” He vanished, but reappeared instantly— + +“Is your name Eyre, Miss?” + +“Yes.” + +“Person here waiting for you.” + +I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the inn-passage: a man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit street I dimly saw a one-horse conveyance. + +“This will be your luggage, I suppose?” said the man rather abruptly when he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage. + +“Yes.” He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and then I got in; before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to Thornfield. + +“A matter of six miles.” + +“How long shall we be before we get there?” + +“Happen an hour and a half.” + +He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated much at my ease. + +“I suppose,” thought I, “judging from the plainness of the servant and carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better; I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her; I will do my best; it is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to stay with her! let the worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. How far are we on our road now, I wonder?” + +I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude, much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort of common; but there were houses scattered all over the district; I felt we were in a different region to Lowood, more populous, less picturesque; more stirring, less romantic. + +The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two hours; at last he turned in his seat and said— + +“You’re noan so far fro’ Thornfield now.” + +Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went in. + +“Will you walk this way, ma’am?” said the girl; and I followed her across a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture presented itself to my view. + +A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high-backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little elderly lady, in widow’s cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron; exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a new governess could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to overwhelm, no stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady got up and promptly and kindly came forward to meet me. + +“How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John drives so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire.” + +“Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?” said I. + +“Yes, you are right: do sit down.” + +She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much trouble. + +“Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with cold. Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are the keys of the storeroom.” + +And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and delivered them to the servant. + +“Now, then, draw nearer to the fire,” she continued. “You’ve brought your luggage with you, haven’t you, my dear?” + +“Yes, ma’am.” + +“I’ll see it carried into your room,” she said, and bustled out. + +“She treats me like a visitor,” thought I. “I little expected such a reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult too soon.” + +She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but as she did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her place, I thought it better to take her civilities quietly. + +“Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?” I asked, when I had partaken of what she offered me. + +“What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf,” returned the good lady, approaching her ear to my mouth. + +I repeated the question more distinctly. + +“Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your future pupil.” + +“Indeed! Then she is not your daughter?” + +“No,—I have no family.” + +I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time. + +“I am so glad,” she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took the cat on her knee; “I am so glad you are come; it will be quite pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say alone—Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can’t converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due distance, for fear of losing one’s authority. I’m sure last winter (it was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me sometimes; but I don’t think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt it confining. In spring and summer one got on better: sunshine and long days make such a difference; and then, just at the commencement of this autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes a house alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay.” + +My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated. + +“But I’ll not keep you sitting up late to-night,” said she; “it is on the stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you must feel tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I’ll show you your bedroom. I’ve had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is only a small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one of the large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but they are so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself.” + +I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery, suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was glad, when finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and furnished in ordinary, modern style. + +When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart, and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my further path, and the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night; my solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I slept soon and soundly: when I awoke it was broad day. + +The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood, that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effect on the young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils. My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely define what they expected, but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at an indefinite future period. + +I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain—for I had no article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity—I was still by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer; I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in figure; I felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so irregular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too. However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black frock—which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to a nicety—and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and neat on the toilet table, I ventured forth. + +Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. Everything appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though considerable: a gentleman’s manor-house, not a nobleman’s seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at once explained the etymology of the mansion’s designation. Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the house and gates. + +I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was for one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady appeared at the door. + +“What! out already?” said she. “I see you are an early riser.” I went up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand. + +“How do you like Thornfield?” she asked. I told her I liked it very much. + +“Yes,” she said, “it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come and reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor.” + +“Mr. Rochester!” I exclaimed. “Who is he?” + +“The owner of Thornfield,” she responded quietly. “Did you not know he was called Rochester?” + +Of course I did not—I had never heard of him before; but the old lady seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with which everybody must be acquainted by instinct. + +“I thought,” I continued, “Thornfield belonged to you.” + +“To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the housekeeper—the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the Rochesters by the mother’s side, or at least my husband was; he was a clergyman, incumbent of Hay—that little village yonder on the hill—and that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester’s mother was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on the connection—in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and I expect nothing more.” + +“And the little girl—my pupil!” + +“She is Mr. Rochester’s ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for her. He intended to have her brought up in ——shire, I believe. Here she comes, with her ‘bonne,’ as she calls her nurse.” The enigma then was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; but a dependent like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on the contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so much the better—my position was all the freer. + +As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist. + +“Good morning, Miss Adela,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Come and speak to the lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day.” She approached. + +“C’est là ma gouvernante!” said she, pointing to me, and addressing her nurse; who answered— + +“Mais oui, certainement.” + +“Are they foreigners?” I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language. + +“The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she first came here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a little: I don’t understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you will make out her meaning very well, I dare say.” + +Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt a portion of French by heart daily—applying myself to take pains with my accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle Adela. She came and shook hands with me when she heard that I was her governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently. + +“Ah!” cried she, in French, “you speak my language as well as Mr. Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English. Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a chimney that smoked—how it did smoke!—and I was sick, and so was Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf. And Mademoiselle—what is your name?” + +“Eyre—Jane Eyre.” + +“Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning, before it was quite daylight, at a great city—a huge city, with very dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land, and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I fed with crumbs.” + +“Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?” asked Mrs. Fairfax. + +I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent tongue of Madame Pierrot. + +“I wish,” continued the good lady, “you would ask her a question or two about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?” + +“Adèle,” I inquired, “with whom did you live when you were in that pretty clean town you spoke of?” + +“I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them, or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you hear me sing now?” + +She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her, shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady, who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid; desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has affected her. + +The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was: at least I thought so. + +Adèle sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the naïveté of her age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, “Now, Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry.” + +Assuming an attitude, she began, “La Ligue des Rats: fable de La Fontaine.” She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had been carefully trained. + +“Was it your mama who taught you that piece?” I asked. + +“Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: ‘Qu’avez vous donc? lui dit un de ces rats; parlez!’ She made me lift my hand—so—to remind me to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you?” + +“No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you say, with whom did you live then?” + +“With Madame Frédéric and her husband: she took care of me, but she is nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr. Rochester before I knew Madame Frédéric, and he was always kind to me and gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his word, for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself, and I never see him.” + +After breakfast, Adèle and I withdrew to the library, which room, it appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom. Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the way of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, poetry, biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and, indeed, they contented me amply for the present; compared with the scanty pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information. In this room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite new and of superior tone; also an easel for painting and a pair of globes. + +I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning had advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her use. + +As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax called to me: “Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose,” said she. She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast window rich in stained glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs. Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a sideboard. + +“What a beautiful room!” I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never before seen any half so imposing. + +“Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault.” + +She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it with a Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers; both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath which glowed in rich contrast crimson couches and ottomans; while the ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors repeated the general blending of snow and fire. + +“In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!” said I. “No dust, no canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they were inhabited daily.” + +“Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester’s visits here are rare, they are always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness.” + +“Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?” + +“Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman’s tastes and habits, and he expects to have things managed in conformity to them.” + +“Do you like him? Is he generally liked?” + +“Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the Rochesters time out of mind.” + +“Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he liked for himself?” + +“I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never lived much amongst them.” + +“But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?” + +“Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar, perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much conversation with him.” + +“In what way is he peculiar?” + +“I don’t know—it is not easy to describe—nothing striking, but you feel it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don’t thoroughly understand him, in short—at least, I don’t: but it is of no consequence, he is a very good master.” + +This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor—nothing more: she inquired and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish to gain a more definite notion of his identity. + +When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I thought especially grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and cherubs’ heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs, high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these relics gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the past: a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night’s repose on one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and strangest human beings,—all which would have looked strange, indeed, by the pallid gleam of moonlight. + +“Do the servants sleep in these rooms?” I asked. + +“No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt.” + +“So I think: you have no ghost, then?” + +“None that I ever heard of,” returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling. + +“Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?” + +“I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now.” + +“Yes—‘after life’s fitful fever they sleep well,’” I muttered. “Where are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?” for she was moving away. + +“On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?” I followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on a level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road, the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day’s sun; the horizon bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and over which I had been gazing with delight. + +Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by dint of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow, low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking, with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some Bluebeard’s castle. + +While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct, formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed out the door whence the accents issued. + +“Mrs. Fairfax!” I called out: for I now heard her descending the great stairs. “Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?” + +“Some of the servants, very likely,” she answered: “perhaps Grace Poole.” + +“Did you hear it?” I again inquired. + +“Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms. Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together.” + +The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an odd murmur. + +“Grace!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax. + +I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic, as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise. + +The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,—a woman of between thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard, plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely be conceived. + +“Too much noise, Grace,” said Mrs. Fairfax. “Remember directions!” Grace curtseyed silently and went in. + +“She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid’s work,” continued the widow; “not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but she does well enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new pupil this morning?” + +The conversation, thus turned on Adèle, continued till we reached the light and cheerful region below. Adèle came running to meet us in the hall, exclaiming— + +“Mesdames, vous êtes servies!” adding, “J’ai bien faim, moi!” + +We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. + +== CHAPTER XII +The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintance with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to be what she appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of competent education and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively child, who had been spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes wayward; but as she was committed entirely to my care, and no injudicious interference from any quarter ever thwarted my plans for her improvement, she soon forgot her little freaks, and became obedient and teachable. She had no great talents, no marked traits of character, no peculiar development of feeling or taste which raised her one inch above the ordinary level of childhood; but neither had she any deficiency or vice which sunk her below it. She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious, though perhaps not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay prattle, and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other’s society. + +This, par parenthèse, will be thought cool language by persons who entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a conscientious solicitude for Adèle’s welfare and progress, and a quiet liking for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for me, and the moderation of her mind and character. + +Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then, when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adèle played with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and along dim sky-line—that then I longed for a power of vision which might overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions full of life I had heard of but never seen—that then I desired more of practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind, of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach. I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adèle; but I believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and what I believed in I wished to behold. + +Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and solitude of the spot, and allow my mind’s eye to dwell on whatever bright visions rose before it—and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward ear to a tale that was never ended—a tale my imagination created, and narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire, feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence. + +It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex. + +When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole’s laugh: the same peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I saw her: she would come out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a tray in her hand, go down to the kitchen and shortly return, generally (oh, romantic reader, forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing a pot of porter. Her appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to which interest could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into conversation, but she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short every effort of that sort. + +The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah the housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in no respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and sometimes I asked her questions about her native country; but she was not of a descriptive or narrative turn, and generally gave such vapid and confused answers as were calculated rather to check than encourage inquiry. + +October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in January, Mrs. Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adèle, because she had a cold; and, as Adèle seconded the request with an ardour that reminded me how precious occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it, deeming that I did well in showing pliability on the point. It was a fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the library through a whole long morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a pleasant winter afternoon walk. Having seen Adèle comfortably seated in her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax’s parlour fireside, and given her her best wax doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a drawer) to play with, and a story-book for change of amusement; and having replied to her “Revenez bientôt, ma bonne amie, ma chère Mdlle. Jeannette,” with a kiss, I set out. + +The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was three o’clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path. Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop. + +This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the middle, I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field. Gathering my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel the cold, though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering the causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since. From my seat I could look down on Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the principal object in the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose against the west. I lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and clear behind them. I then turned eastward. + +On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in trees, sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile distant, but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life. My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote. + +A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong on the foreground, efface the aërial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon, and blended clouds where tint melts into tint. + +The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the lane yet hid it, but it approached. I was just leaving the stile; yet, as the path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In those days I was young, and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what childhood could give. As this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie’s tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a “Gytrash,” which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me. + +It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp, tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie’s Gytrash—a lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however, quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes, in my face, as I half expected it would. The horse followed,—a tall steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human being, broke the spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form. No Gytrash was this,—only a traveller taking the short cut to Millcote. He passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a sliding sound and an exclamation of “What the deuce is to do now?” and a clattering tumble, arrested my attention. Man and horse were down; they had slipped on the sheet of ice which glazed the causeway. The dog came bounding back, and seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing the horse groan, barked till the evening hills echoed the sound, which was deep in proportion to his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate group, and then he ran up to me; it was all he could do,—there was no other help at hand to summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the traveller, by this time struggling himself free of his steed. His efforts were so vigorous, I thought he could not be much hurt; but I asked him the question— + +“Are you injured, sir?” + +I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was pronouncing some formula which prevented him from replying to me directly. + +“Can I do anything?” I asked again. + +“You must just stand on one side,” he answered as he rose, first to his knees, and then to his feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving, stamping, clattering process, accompanied by a barking and baying which removed me effectually some yards’ distance; but I would not be driven quite away till I saw the event. This was finally fortunate; the horse was re-established, and the dog was silenced with a “Down, Pilot!” The traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and leg, as if trying whether they were sound; apparently something ailed them, for he halted to the stile whence I had just risen, and sat down. + +I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think, for I now drew near him again. + +“If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either from Thornfield Hall or from Hay.” + +“Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,—only a sprain;” and again he stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an involuntary “Ugh!” + +Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I could see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest. He had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth, but had not reached middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, heroic-looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one. I had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry, fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape, I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would fire, lightning, or anything else that is bright but antipathetic. + +If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go, and announced— + +“I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse.” + +He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my direction before. + +“I should think you ought to be at home yourself,” said he, “if you have a home in this neighbourhood: where do you come from?” + +“From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it is moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if you wish it: indeed, I am going there to post a letter.” + +“You live just below—do you mean at that house with the battlements?” pointing to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a hoary gleam, bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods that, by contrast with the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Whose house is it?” + +“Mr. Rochester’s.” + +“Do you know Mr. Rochester?” + +“No, I have never seen him.” + +“He is not resident, then?” + +“No.” + +“Can you tell me where he is?” + +“I cannot.” + +“You are not a servant at the hall, of course. You are—” He stopped, ran his eye over my dress, which, as usual, was quite simple: a black merino cloak, a black beaver bonnet; neither of them half fine enough for a lady’s-maid. He seemed puzzled to decide what I was; I helped him. + +“I am the governess.” + +“Ah, the governess!” he repeated; “deuce take me, if I had not forgotten! The governess!” and again my raiment underwent scrutiny. In two minutes he rose from the stile: his face expressed pain when he tried to move. + +“I cannot commission you to fetch help,” he said; “but you may help me a little yourself, if you will be so kind.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You have not an umbrella that I can use as a stick?” + +“No.” + +“Try to get hold of my horse’s bridle and lead him to me: you are not afraid?” + +I should have been afraid to touch a horse when alone, but when told to do it, I was disposed to obey. I put down my muff on the stile, and went up to the tall steed; I endeavoured to catch the bridle, but it was a spirited thing, and would not let me come near its head; I made effort on effort, though in vain: meantime, I was mortally afraid of its trampling fore-feet. The traveller waited and watched for some time, and at last he laughed. + +I was mortally afraid of its trampling forefeet +“I see,” he said, “the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must beg of you to come here.” + +I came. “Excuse me,” he continued: “necessity compels me to make you useful.” He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and leaning on me with some stress, limped to his horse. Having once caught the bridle, he mastered it directly and sprang to his saddle; grimacing grimly as he made the effort, for it wrenched his sprain. + +“Now,” said he, releasing his under lip from a hard bite, “just hand me my whip; it lies there under the hedge.” + +I sought it and found it. + +“Thank you; now make haste with the letter to Hay, and return as fast as you can.” + +A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear, and then bound away; the dog rushed in his traces; all three vanished, + +“Like heath that, in the wilderness, + The wild wind whirls away.” + +I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and was gone for me: it was an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest in a sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life. My help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have done something; trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was yet an active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive. The new face, too, was like a new picture introduced to the gallery of memory; and it was dissimilar to all the others hanging there: firstly, because it was masculine; and, secondly, because it was dark, strong, and stern. I had it still before me when I entered Hay, and slipped the letter into the post-office; I saw it as I walked fast down-hill all the way home. When I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked round and listened, with an idea that a horse’s hoofs might ring on the causeway again, and that a rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland dog, might be again apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard willow before me, rising up still and straight to meet the moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft of wind roaming fitful among the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant; and when I glanced down in the direction of the murmur, my eye, traversing the hall-front, caught a light kindling in a window: it reminded me that I was late, and I hurried on. + +I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only, was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk,—to slip again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have done me at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain struggling life, and to have been taught by rough and bitter experience to long for the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes, just as much good as it would do a man tired of sitting still in a “too easy chair” to take a long walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances, as it would be under his. + +I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and forwards on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door were closed; I could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed drawn from the gloomy house—from the grey hollow filled with rayless cells, as it appeared to me—to that sky expanded before me,—a blue sea absolved from taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; her orb seeming to look up as she left the hill-tops, from behind which she had come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the zenith, midnight dark in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for those trembling stars that followed her course; they made my heart tremble, my veins glow when I viewed them. Little things recall us to earth; the clock struck in the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon and stars, opened a side-door, and went in. + +The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung bronze lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak staircase. This ruddy shine issued from the great dining-room, whose two-leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate, glancing on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing purple draperies and polished furniture, in the most pleasant radiance. It revealed, too, a group near the mantelpiece: I had scarcely caught it, and scarcely become aware of a cheerful mingling of voices, amongst which I seemed to distinguish the tones of Adèle, when the door closed. + +I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax’s room; there was a fire there too, but no candle, and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting upright on the rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a great black and white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the lane. It was so like it that I went forward and said—“Pilot,” and the thing got up and came to me and snuffed me. I caressed him, and he wagged his great tail; but he looked an eerie creature to be alone with, and I could not tell whence he had come. I rang the bell, for I wanted a candle; and I wanted, too, to get an account of this visitant. Leah entered. + +“What dog is this?” + +“He came with master.” + +“With whom?” + +“With master—Mr. Rochester—he is just arrived.” + +“Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?” + +“Yes, and Miss Adèle; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone for a surgeon; for master has had an accident; his horse fell and his ankle is sprained.” + +“Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?” + +“Yes, coming down-hill; it slipped on some ice.” + +“Ah! Bring me a candle will you Leah?” + +Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who repeated the news; adding that Mr. Carter the surgeon was come, and was now with Mr. Rochester: then she hurried out to give orders about tea, and I went upstairs to take off my things. + +== CHAPTER XIII +Mr. Rochester, it seems, by the surgeon’s orders, went to bed early that night; nor did he rise soon next morning. When he did come down, it was to attend to business: his agent and some of his tenants were arrived, and waiting to speak with him. + +Adèle and I had now to vacate the library: it would be in daily requisition as a reception-room for callers. A fire was lit in an apartment upstairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for the future schoolroom. I discerned in the course of the morning that Thornfield Hall was a changed place: no longer silent as a church, it echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door, or a clang of the bell; steps, too, often traversed the hall, and new voices spoke in different keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing through it; it had a master: for my part, I liked it better. + +Adèle was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library, where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her “ami, Monsieur Edouard Fairfax de Rochester,” as she dubbed him (I had not before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that when his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found amongst it a little box in whose contents she had an interest. + +“Et cela doit signifier,” said she, “qu’il y aura là dedans un cadeau pour moi, et peut-être pour vous aussi, mademoiselle. Monsieur a parlé de vous: il m’a demandé le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n’était pas une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pâle. J’ai dit qu’oui: car c’est vrai, n’est-ce pas, mademoiselle?” + +I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax’s parlour; the afternoon was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the schoolroom. At dark I allowed Adèle to put away books and work, and to run downstairs; for, from the comparative silence below, and from the cessation of appeals to the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr. Rochester was now at liberty. Left alone, I walked to the window; but nothing was to be seen thence: twilight and snowflakes together thickened the air, and hid the very shrubs on the lawn. I let down the curtain and went back to the fireside. + +In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I remembered to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine, when Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I had been piercing together, and scattering too some heavy unwelcome thoughts that were beginning to throng on my solitude. + +“Mr. Rochester would be glad if you and your pupil would take tea with him in the drawing-room this evening,” said she: “he has been so much engaged all day that he could not ask to see you before.” + +“When is his tea-time?” I inquired. + +“Oh, at six o’clock: he keeps early hours in the country. You had better change your frock now; I will go with you and fasten it. Here is a candle.” + +“Is it necessary to change my frock?” + +“Yes, you had better: I always dress for the evening when Mr. Rochester is here.” + +This additional ceremony seemed somewhat stately; however, I repaired to my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax’s aid, replaced my black stuff dress by one of black silk; the best and the only additional one I had, except one of light grey, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilette, I thought too fine to be worn, except on first-rate occasions. + +“You want a brooch,” said Mrs. Fairfax. I had a single little pearl ornament which Miss Temple gave me as a parting keepsake: I put it on, and then we went downstairs. Unused as I was to strangers, it was rather a trial to appear thus formally summoned in Mr. Rochester’s presence. I let Mrs. Fairfax precede me into the dining-room, and kept in her shade as we crossed that apartment; and, passing the arch, whose curtain was now dropped, entered the elegant recess beyond. + +Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the mantelpiece; basking in the light and heat of a superb fire, lay Pilot—Adèle knelt near him. Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester, his foot supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adèle and the dog: the fire shone full on his face. I knew my traveller with his broad and jetty eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of his black hair. I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler; his grim mouth, chin, and jaw—yes, all three were very grim, and no mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose it was a good figure in the athletic sense of the term—broad chested and thin flanked, though neither tall nor graceful. + +Mr. Rochester must have been aware of the entrance of Mrs. Fairfax and myself; but it appeared he was not in the mood to notice us, for he never lifted his head as we approached. + +“Here is Miss Eyre, sir,” said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way. He bowed, still not taking his eyes from the group of the dog and child. + +“Let Miss Eyre be seated,” said he: and there was something in the forced stiff bow, in the impatient yet formal tone, which seemed further to express, “What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not? At this moment I am not disposed to accost her.” + +I sat down quite disembarrassed. A reception of finished politeness would probably have confused me: I could not have returned or repaid it by answering grace and elegance on my part; but harsh caprice laid me under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence, under the freak of manner, gave me the advantage. Besides, the eccentricity of the proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see how he would go on. + +He went on as a statue would, that is, he neither spoke nor moved. Mrs. Fairfax seemed to think it necessary that some one should be amiable, and she began to talk. Kindly, as usual—and, as usual, rather trite—she condoled with him on the pressure of business he had had all day; on the annoyance it must have been to him with that painful sprain: then she commended his patience and perseverance in going through with it. + +“Madam, I should like some tea,” was the sole rejoinder she got. She hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded to arrange the cups, spoons, &c., with assiduous celerity. I and Adèle went to the table; but the master did not leave his couch. + +“Will you hand Mr. Rochester’s cup?” said Mrs. Fairfax to me; “Adèle might perhaps spill it.” + +I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adèle, thinking the moment propitious for making a request in my favour, cried out— + +“N’est-ce pas, monsieur, qu’il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre dans votre petit coffre?” + +“Who talks of cadeaux?” said he gruffly. “Did you expect a present, Miss Eyre? Are you fond of presents?” and he searched my face with eyes that I saw were dark, irate, and piercing. + +“I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are generally thought pleasant things.” + +“Generally thought? But what do you think?” + +“I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer worthy of your acceptance: a present has many faces to it, has it not? and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion as to its nature.” + +“Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adèle: she demands a ‘cadeau,’ clamorously, the moment she sees me: you beat about the bush.” + +“Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adèle has: she can prefer the claim of old acquaintance, and the right too of custom; for she says you have always been in the habit of giving her playthings; but if I had to make out a case I should be puzzled, since I am a stranger, and have done nothing to entitle me to an acknowledgment.” + +“Oh, don’t fall back on over-modesty! I have examined Adèle, and find you have taken great pains with her: she is not bright, she has no talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement.” + +“Sir, you have now given me my ‘cadeau;’ I am obliged to you: it is the meed teachers most covet—praise of their pupils’ progress.” + +“Humph!” said Mr. Rochester, and he took his tea in silence. + +“Come to the fire,” said the master, when the tray was taken away, and Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting; while Adèle was leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful books and ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnières. We obeyed, as in duty bound; Adèle wanted to take a seat on my knee, but she was ordered to amuse herself with Pilot. + +“You have been resident in my house three months?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And you came from—?” + +“From Lowood school, in ——shire.” + +“Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?” + +“Eight years.” + +“Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder you have rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?” + +“I have none.” + +“Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?” + +“No.” + +“I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on that stile?” + +“For whom, sir?” + +“For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did I break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on the causeway?” + +I shook my head. “The men in green all forsook England a hundred years ago,” said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. “And not even in Hay Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them. I don’t think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their revels more.” + +Mrs. Fairfax had dropped her knitting, and, with raised eyebrows, seemed wondering what sort of talk this was. + +“Well,” resumed Mr. Rochester, “if you disown parents, you must have some sort of kinsfolk: uncles and aunts?” + +“No; none that I ever saw.” + +“And your home?” + +“I have none.” + +“Where do your brothers and sisters live?” + +“I have no brothers or sisters.” + +“Who recommended you to come here?” + +“I advertised, and Mrs. Fairfax answered my advertisement.” + +“Yes,” said the good lady, who now knew what ground we were upon, “and I am daily thankful for the choice Providence led me to make. Miss Eyre has been an invaluable companion to me, and a kind and careful teacher to Adèle.” + +“Don’t trouble yourself to give her a character,” returned Mr. Rochester: “eulogiums will not bias me; I shall judge for myself. She began by felling my horse.” + +“Sir?” said Mrs. Fairfax. + +“I have to thank her for this sprain.” + +The widow looked bewildered. + +“Miss Eyre, have you ever lived in a town?” + +“No, sir.” + +“Have you seen much society?” + +“None but the pupils and teachers of Lowood, and now the inmates of Thornfield.” + +“Have you read much?” + +“Only such books as came in my way; and they have not been numerous or very learned.” + +“You have lived the life of a nun: no doubt you are well drilled in religious forms;—Brocklehurst, who I understand directs Lowood, is a parson, is he not?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And you girls probably worshipped him, as a convent full of religieuses would worship their director.” + +“Oh, no.” + +“You are very cool! No! What! a novice not worship her priest! That sounds blasphemous.” + +“I disliked Mr. Brocklehurst; and I was not alone in the feeling. He is a harsh man; at once pompous and meddling; he cut off our hair; and for economy’s sake bought us bad needles and thread, with which we could hardly sew.” + +“That was very false economy,” remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again caught the drift of the dialogue. + +“And was that the head and front of his offending?” demanded Mr. Rochester. + +“He starved us when he had the sole superintendence of the provision department, before the committee was appointed; and he bored us with long lectures once a week, and with evening readings from books of his own inditing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which made us afraid to go to bed.” + +“What age were you when you went to Lowood?” + +“About ten.” + +“And you stayed there eight years: you are now, then, eighteen?” + +I assented. + +“Arithmetic, you see, is useful; without its aid, I should hardly have been able to guess your age. It is a point difficult to fix where the features and countenance are so much at variance as in your case. And now what did you learn at Lowood? Can you play?” + +“A little.” + +“Of course: that is the established answer. Go into the library—I mean, if you please.—(Excuse my tone of command; I am used to say, ‘Do this,’ and it is done: I cannot alter my customary habits for one new inmate.)—Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you; leave the door open; sit down to the piano, and play a tune.” + +I departed, obeying his directions. + +“Enough!” he called out in a few minutes. “You play a little, I see; like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some, but not well.” + +I closed the piano and returned. Mr. Rochester continued— + +“Adèle showed me some sketches this morning, which she said were yours. I don’t know whether they were entirely of your doing; probably a master aided you?” + +“No, indeed!” I interjected. + +“Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can vouch for its contents being original; but don’t pass your word unless you are certain: I can recognise patchwork.” + +“Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir.” + +I brought the portfolio from the library. + +“Approach the table,” said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adèle and Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the pictures. + +“No crowding,” said Mr. Rochester: “take the drawings from my hand as I finish with them; but don’t push your faces up to mine.” + +He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him. + +“Take them off to the other table, Mrs. Fairfax,” said he, “and look at them with Adèle;—you” (glancing at me) “resume your seat, and answer my questions. I perceive those pictures were done by one hand: was that hand yours?” + +“Yes.” + +“And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and some thought.” + +“I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no other occupation.” + +“Where did you get your copies?” + +“Out of my head.” + +“That head I see now on your shoulders?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Has it other furniture of the same kind within?” + +“I should think it may have: I should hope—better.” + +He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately. + +While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had, indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye, before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale portrait of the thing I had conceived. + +These pictures were in water-colours. The first represented clouds low and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse; so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched with as brilliant tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering distinctness as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the bird and mast, a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was the only limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or torn. + +The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a hill, with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze. Beyond and above spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into the sky was a woman’s shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dusk and soft as I could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the lineaments below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm or by electric travail. On the neck lay a pale reflection like moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star. + +The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter sky: a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close serried, along the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the foreground, a head,—a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and resting against it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and supporting it, drew up before the lower features a sable veil; a brow quite bloodless, white as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of meaning but for the glassiness of despair, alone were visible. Above the temples, amidst wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was “the likeness of a kingly crown;” what it diademed was “the shape which shape had none.” + +“Were you happy when you painted these pictures?” asked Mr. Rochester presently. + +“I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, was to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known.” + +“That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have been few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist’s dreamland while you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you sit at them long each day?” + +“I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at them from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length of the midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply.” + +“And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?” + +“Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite powerless to realise.” + +“Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought; but no more, probably. You had not enough of the artist’s skill and science to give it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school-girl, peculiar. As to the thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the Evening Star you must have seen in a dream. How could you make them look so clear, and yet not at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays. And what meaning is that in their solemn depth? And who taught you to paint wind? There is a high gale in that sky, and on this hill-top. Where did you see Latmos? For that is Latmos. There! put the drawings away!” + +I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio, when, looking at his watch, he said abruptly— + +“It is nine o’clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adèle sit up so long? Take her to bed.” + +Adèle went to kiss him before quitting the room: he endured the caress, but scarcely seemed to relish it more than Pilot would have done, nor so much. + +“I wish you all good-night, now,” said he, making a movement of the hand towards the door, in token that he was tired of our company, and wished to dismiss us. Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting: I took my portfolio: we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in return, and so withdrew. + +“You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax,” I observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adèle to bed. + +“Well, is he?” + +“I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt.” + +“True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed to his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities of temper, allowance should be made.” + +“Why?” + +“Partly because it is his nature—and we can none of us help our nature; and partly because he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to harass him, and make his spirits unequal.” + +“What about?” + +“Family troubles, for one thing.” + +“But he has no family.” + +“Not now, but he has had—or, at least, relatives. He lost his elder brother a few years since.” + +“His elder brother?” + +“Yes. The present Mr. Rochester has not been very long in possession of the property; only about nine years.” + +“Nine years is a tolerable time. Was he so very fond of his brother as to be still inconsolable for his loss?” + +“Why, no—perhaps not. I believe there were some misunderstandings between them. Mr. Rowland Rochester was not quite just to Mr. Edward; and perhaps he prejudiced his father against him. The old gentleman was fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together. He did not like to diminish the property by division, and yet he was anxious that Mr. Edward should have wealth, too, to keep up the consequence of the name; and, soon after he was of age, some steps were taken that were not quite fair, and made a great deal of mischief. Old Mr. Rochester and Mr. Rowland combined to bring Mr. Edward into what he considered a painful position, for the sake of making his fortune: what the precise nature of that position was I never clearly knew, but his spirit could not brook what he had to suffer in it. He is not very forgiving: he broke with his family, and now for many years he has led an unsettled kind of life. I don’t think he has ever been resident at Thornfield for a fortnight together, since the death of his brother without a will left him master of the estate; and, indeed, no wonder he shuns the old place.” + +“Why should he shun it?” + +“Perhaps he thinks it gloomy.” + +The answer was evasive. I should have liked something clearer; but Mrs. Fairfax either could not, or would not, give me more explicit information of the origin and nature of Mr. Rochester’s trials. She averred they were a mystery to herself, and that what she knew was chiefly from conjecture. It was evident, indeed, that she wished me to drop the subject, which I did accordingly. + +== CHAPTER XIV +For several subsequent days I saw little of Mr. Rochester. In the mornings he seemed much engaged with business, and, in the afternoon, gentlemen from Millcote or the neighbourhood called, and sometimes stayed to dine with him. When his sprain was well enough to admit of horse exercise, he rode out a good deal; probably to return these visits, as he generally did not come back till late at night. + +During this interval, even Adèle was seldom sent for to his presence, and all my acquaintance with him was confined to an occasional rencontre in the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery, when he would sometimes pass me haughtily and coldly, just acknowledging my presence by a distant nod or a cool glance, and sometimes bow and smile with gentlemanlike affability. His changes of mood did not offend me, because I saw that I had nothing to do with their alternation; the ebb and flow depended on causes quite disconnected with me. + +One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio; in order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents: the gentlemen went away early, to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs. Fairfax informed me; but the night being wet and inclement, Mr. Rochester did not accompany them. Soon after they were gone he rang the bell: a message came that I and Adèle were to go downstairs. I brushed Adèle’s hair and made her neat, and having ascertained that I was myself in my usual Quaker trim, where there was nothing to retouch—all being too close and plain, braided locks included, to admit of disarrangement—we descended, Adèle wondering whether the petit coffre was at length come; for, owing to some mistake, its arrival had hitherto been delayed. She was gratified: there it stood, a little carton, on the table when we entered the dining-room. She appeared to know it by instinct. + +“Ma boite! ma boite!” exclaimed she, running towards it. + +“Yes, there is your ‘boite’ at last: take it into a corner, you genuine daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it,” said the deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside. “And mind,” he continued, “don’t bother me with any details of the anatomical process, or any notice of the condition of the entrails: let your operation be conducted in silence: tiens-toi tranquille, enfant; comprends-tu?” + +Adèle seemed scarcely to need the warning; she had already retired to a sofa with her treasure, and was busy untying the cord which secured the lid. Having removed this impediment, and lifted certain silvery envelopes of tissue paper, she merely exclaimed— + +“Oh ciel! Que c’est beau!” and then remained absorbed in ecstatic contemplation. + +“Is Miss Eyre there?” now demanded the master, half rising from his seat to look round to the door, near which I still stood. + +“Ah! well, come forward; be seated here.” He drew a chair near his own. “I am not fond of the prattle of children,” he continued; “for, old bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations connected with their lisp. It would be intolerable to me to pass a whole evening tête-à-tête with a brat. Don’t draw that chair farther off, Miss Eyre; sit down exactly where I placed it—if you please, that is. Confound these civilities! I continually forget them. Nor do I particularly affect simple-minded old ladies. By-the-bye, I must have mine in mind; it won’t do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to one; and blood is said to be thicker than water.” + +He rang, and despatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon arrived, knitting-basket in hand. + +“Good evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose. I have forbidden Adèle to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting with repletion; have the goodness to serve her as auditress and interlocutrice; it will be one of the most benevolent acts you ever performed.” + +Adèle, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax, than she summoned her to her sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with the porcelain, the ivory, the waxen contents of her “boite;” pouring out, meantime, explanations and raptures in such broken English as she was mistress of. + +“Now I have performed the part of a good host,” pursued Mr. Rochester, “put my guests into the way of amusing each other, I ought to be at liberty to attend to my own pleasure. Miss Eyre, draw your chair still a little farther forward: you are yet too far back; I cannot see you without disturbing my position in this comfortable chair, which I have no mind to do.” + +I did as I was bid, though I would much rather have remained somewhat in the shade; but Mr. Rochester had such a direct way of giving orders, it seemed a matter of course to obey him promptly. + +We were, as I have said, in the dining-room: the lustre, which had been lit for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of light; the large fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and ample before the lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, save the subdued chat of Adèle (she dared not speak loud), and, filling up each pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes. + +Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different to what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern—much less gloomy. There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether with wine or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable. He was, in short, in his after-dinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also more self-indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite-hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too—not without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling. + +He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze fastened on his physiognomy. + +“You examine me, Miss Eyre,” said he: “do you think me handsome?” + +I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped from my tongue before I was aware—“No, sir.” + +“Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you,” said he: “you have the air of a little nonnette; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face; as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder, which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you mean by it?” + +“Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied that it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little consequence, or something of that sort.” + +“You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence, indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under my ear! Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have all my limbs and all my features like any other man?” + +“Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no pointed repartee: it was only a blunder.” + +“Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise me: does my forehead not please you?” + +He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen. + +“Now, ma’am, am I a fool?” + +“Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in return whether you are a philanthropist?” + +“There again! Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended to pat my head: and that is because I said I did not like the society of children and old women (low be it spoken!). No, young lady, I am not a general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience;” and he pointed to the prominences which are said to indicate that faculty, and which, fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving, indeed, a marked breadth to the upper part of his head: “and, besides, I once had a kind of rude tenderness of heart. When I was as old as you, I was a feeling fellow enough; partial to the unfledged, unfostered, and unlucky; but Fortune has knocked me about since: she has even kneaded me with her knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am hard and tough as an India-rubber ball; pervious, though, through a chink or two still, and with one sentient point in the middle of the lump. Yes: does that leave hope for me?” + +“Hope of what, sir?” + +“Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?” + +“Decidedly he has had too much wine,” I thought; and I did not know what answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether he was capable of being re-transformed? + +“You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night.” + +With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his arm on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen plainly as well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, disproportionate almost to his length of limb. I am sure most people would have thought him an ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the confidence. + +“I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night,” he repeated, “and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier were not sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these can talk. Adèle is a degree better, but still far below the mark; Mrs. Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will: you puzzled me the first evening I invited you down here. I have almost forgotten you since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but to-night I am resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what pleases. It would please me now to draw you out—to learn more of you—therefore speak.” + +Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive smile either. + +“Speak,” he urged. + +“What about, sir?” + +“Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the manner of treating it entirely to yourself.” + +Accordingly I sat and said nothing: “If he expects me to talk for the mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed himself to the wrong person,” I thought. + +“You are dumb, Miss Eyre.” + +I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with a single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes. + +“Stubborn?” he said, “and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don’t wish to treat you like an inferior: that is” (correcting himself), “I claim only such superiority as must result from twenty years’ difference in age and a century’s advance in experience. This is legitimate, et j’y tiens, as Adèle would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, that I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and divert my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one point—cankering as a rusty nail.” + +He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so. + +“I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir—quite willing; but I cannot introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you? Ask me questions, and I will do my best to answer them.” + +“Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right to be a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on the grounds I stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and that I have battled through a varied experience with many men of many nations, and roamed over half the globe, while you have lived quietly with one set of people in one house?” + +“Do as you please, sir.” + +“That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a very evasive one. Reply clearly.” + +“I don’t think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.” + +“Humph! Promptly spoken. But I won’t allow that, seeing that it would never suit my case, as I have made an indifferent, not to say a bad, use of both advantages. Leaving superiority out of the question, then, you must still agree to receive my orders now and then, without being piqued or hurt by the tone of command. Will you?” + +I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester is peculiar—he seems to forget that he pays me £30 per annum for receiving his orders. + +“The smile is very well,” said he, catching instantly the passing expression; “but speak too.” + +“I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by their orders.” + +“Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes, I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary ground, will you agree to let me hector a little?” + +“No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget it, and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in his dependency, I agree heartily.” + +“And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?” + +“I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one I rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a salary.” + +“Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary; therefore, keep to yourself, and don’t venture on generalities of which you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands with you for your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary, affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of one’s meaning are the usual rewards of candour. Not three in three thousand raw school-girl-governesses would have answered me as you have just done. But I don’t mean to flatter you: if you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it. And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions: for what I yet know, you may be no better than the rest; you may have intolerable defects to counterbalance your few good points.” + +“And so may you,” I thought. My eye met his as the idea crossed my mind: he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been spoken as well as imagined— + +“Yes, yes, you are right,” said he; “I have plenty of faults of my own: I know it, and I don’t wish to palliate them, I assure you. God wot I need not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself. I started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as good as you—wiser—almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of mind, your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure—an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?” + +“How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?” + +“All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned it to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen—quite your equal. Nature meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the better kind, and you see I am not so. You would say you don’t see it; at least I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, by-the-bye, what you express with that organ; I am quick at interpreting its language). Then take my word for it,—I am not a villain: you are not to suppose that—not to attribute to me any such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put on life. Do you wonder that I avow this to you? Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances’ secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations.” + +“How do you know?—how can you guess all this, sir?” + +“I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were writing my thoughts in a diary. You would say, I should have been superior to circumstances; so I should—so I should; but you see I was not. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton excites my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level. I wish I had stood firm—God knows I do! Dread remorse when you are tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life.” + +“Repentance is said to be its cure, sir.” + +“It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform—I have strength yet for that—if—but where is the use of thinking of it, hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and I will get it, cost what it may.” + +“Then you will degenerate still more, sir.” + +“Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure? And I may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the moor.” + +“It will sting—it will taste bitter, sir.” + +“How do you know?—you never tried it. How very serious—how very solemn you look: and you are as ignorant of the matter as this cameo head” (taking one from the mantelpiece). “You have no right to preach to me, you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are absolutely unacquainted with its mysteries.” + +“I only remind you of your own words, sir: you said error brought remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of existence.” + +“And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flittered across my brain was an error. I believe it was an inspiration rather than a temptation: it was very genial, very soothing—I know that. Here it comes again! It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put on the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit so fair a guest when it asks entrance to my heart.” + +“Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel.” + +“Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the eternal throne—between a guide and a seducer?” + +“I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more misery if you listen to it.” + +“Not at all—it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don’t make yourself uneasy. Here, come in, bonny wanderer!” + +He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own; then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, he seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being. + +“Now,” he continued, again addressing me, “I have received the pilgrim—a disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine.” + +“To speak truth, sir, I don’t understand you at all: I cannot keep up the conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing, I know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that you regretted your own imperfection;—one thing I can comprehend: you intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to which you might revert with pleasure.” + +“Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am paving hell with energy.” + +“Sir?” + +“I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint. Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have been.” + +“And better?” + +“And better—so much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You seem to doubt me; I don’t doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes and Persians, that both are right.” + +“They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise them.” + +“They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute: unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules.” + +“That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it is liable to abuse.” + +“Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not to abuse it.” + +“You are human and fallible.” + +“I am: so are you—what then?” + +“The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine and perfect alone can be safely intrusted.” + +“What power?” + +“That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,—‘Let it be right.’” + +“‘Let it be right’—the very words: you have pronounced them.” + +“May it be right then,” I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides, sensible that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my penetration; at least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the uncertainty, the vague sense of insecurity, which accompanies a conviction of ignorance. + +“Where are you going?” + +“To put Adèle to bed: it is past her bedtime.” + +“You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx.” + +“Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I am certainly not afraid.” + +“You are afraid—your self-love dreads a blunder.” + +“In that sense I do feel apprehensive—I have no wish to talk nonsense.” + +“If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre? Don’t trouble yourself to answer—I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious. The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear in the presence of a man and a brother—or father, or master, or what you will—to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now. I see at intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but free, it would soar cloud-high. You are still bent on going?” + +“It has struck nine, sir.” + +“Never mind,—wait a minute: Adèle is not ready to go to bed yet. My position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the room, favours observation. While talking to you, I have also occasionally watched Adèle (I have my own reasons for thinking her a curious study,—reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you some day). She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones. ‘Il faut que je l’essaie!’ cried she, ‘et à l’instant même!’ and she rushed out of the room. She is now with Sophie, undergoing a robing process: in a few minutes she will re-enter; and I know what I shall see,—a miniature of Céline Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the rising of—But never mind that. However, my tenderest feelings are about to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether it will be realised.” + +Ere long, Adèle’s little foot was heard tripping across the hall. She entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could be gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath of rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk stockings and small white satin sandals. + +“Est-ce que ma robe va bien?” cried she, bounding forwards; “et mes souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!” + +And spreading out her dress, she chasséed across the room till, having reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him on tip-toe, then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming— + +“Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonté;” then rising, she added, “C’est comme cela que maman faisait, n’est-ce pas, monsieur?” + +“Pre-cise-ly!” was the answer; “and, ‘comme cela,’ she charmed my English gold out of my British breeches’ pocket. I have been green, too, Miss Eyre,—ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you now than once freshened me. My Spring is gone, however, but it has left me that French floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I would fain be rid of. Not valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that it was of a sort which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but half a liking to the blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as just now. I keep it and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous sins, great or small, by one good work. I’ll explain all this some day. Good-night.” + +== CHAPTER XV +Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adèle in the grounds: and while she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up and down a long beech avenue within sight of her. + +He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer, Céline Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a “grande passion.” This passion Céline had professed to return with even superior ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he believed, as he said, that she preferred his “taille d’athlète” to the elegance of the Apollo Belvidere. + +“And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the Gallic sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an hotel; gave her a complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, diamonds, dentelles, &c. In short, I began the process of ruining myself in the received style, like any other spoony. I had not, it seems, the originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the beaten centre. I had—as I deserved to have—the fate of all other spoonies. Happening to call one evening when Céline did not expect me, I found her out; but it was a warm night, and I was tired with strolling through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air consecrated so lately by her presence. No,—I exaggerate; I never thought there was any consecrating virtue about her: it was rather a sort of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of musk and amber, than an odour of sanctity. I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself to open the window and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight and gaslight besides, and very still and serene. The balcony was furnished with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,—I will take one now, if you will excuse me.” + +Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a cigar; having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah incense on the freezing and sunless air, he went on— + +“I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was croquant—(overlook the barbarism)—croquant chocolate comfits, and smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in an elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, and distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the ‘voiture’ I had given Céline. She was returning: of course my heart thumped with impatience against the iron rails I leant upon. The carriage stopped, as I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that is the very word for an opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a cloak—an unnecessary encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June evening—I knew her instantly by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to murmur ‘Mon ange’—in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the ear of love alone—when a figure jumped from the carriage after her; cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement, and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched porte cochère of the hotel. + +“You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell you—and you may mark my words—you will come some day to a craggy pass in the channel, where the whole of life’s stream will be broken up into whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer current—as I am now. + +“I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its grey façade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a great plague-house? How I do still abhor—” + +He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have him in its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance. + +We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before us. Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare such as I never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust, detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the large pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which should be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed: something hard and cynical: self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified his countenance: he went on— + +“During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk—a hag like one of those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. ‘You like Thornfield?’ she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the air a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the house-front, between the upper and lower row of windows, ‘Like it if you can! Like it if you dare!’ + +“‘I will like it,’ said I; ‘I dare like it;’ and” (he subjoined moodily) “I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to goodness—yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been, than I am; as Job’s leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will esteem but straw and rotten wood.” + +Adèle here ran before him with her shuttlecock. “Away!” he cried harshly; “keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!” Continuing then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the point whence he had abruptly diverged— + +“Did you leave the balcony, sir,” I asked, “when Mdlle. Varens entered?” + +I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. “Oh, I had forgotten Céline! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart’s core. Strange!” he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the point. “Strange that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, young lady; passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were the most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before: you, with your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection: it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me.” After this digression he proceeded— + +“I remained in the balcony. ‘They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,’ thought I: ‘let me prepare an ambush.’ So putting my hand in through the open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, all but a chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to lovers’ whispered vows: then I stole back to my chair; and as I resumed it the pair came in. My eye was quickly at the aperture. Céline’s chamber-maid entered, lit a lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew. The couple were thus revealed to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there was ‘the Varens,’ shining in satin and jewels,—my gifts of course,—and there was her companion in an officer’s uniform; and I knew him for a young roué of a vicomte—a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so absolutely. On recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy was instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Céline sank under an extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such a rival was not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, however, than I, who had been her dupe. + +“They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous, mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on the table; this being perceived, brought my name under discussion. Neither of them possessed energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but they insulted me as coarsely as they could in their little way: especially Céline, who even waxed rather brilliant on my personal defects—deformities she termed them. Now it had been her custom to launch out into fervent admiration of what she called my ‘beauté mâle:’ wherein she differed diametrically from you, who told me point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think me handsome. The contrast struck me at the time and—” + +Adèle here came running up again. + +“Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and wishes to see you.” + +“Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in upon them; liberated Céline from my protection; gave her notice to vacate her hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded screams, hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an appointment with the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne. Next morning I had the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in one of his poor etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the pip, and then thought I had done with the whole crew. But unluckily the Varens, six months before, had given me this filette Adèle, who, she affirmed, was my daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more like me than she. Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child, and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no natural claim on Adèle’s part to be supported by me, nor do I now acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite destitute, I e’en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris, and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now you know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera-girl, you will perhaps think differently of your post and protégée: you will be coming to me some day with notice that you have found another place—that you beg me to look out for a new governess, &c.—Eh?” + +“No: Adèle is not answerable for either her mother’s faults or yours: I have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense, parentless—forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir—I shall cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?” + +“Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; and you too: it darkens.” + +But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adèle and Pilot—ran a race with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an English mind. Still she had her merits; and I was disposed to appreciate all that was good in her to the utmost. I sought in her countenance and features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: no trait, no turn of expression announced relationship. It was a pity: if she could but have been proved to resemble him, he would have thought more of her. + +It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night, that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As he had said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman’s passion for a French dancer, and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in society; but there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of emotion which had suddenly seized him when he was in the act of expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly revived pleasure in the old hall and its environs. I meditated wonderingly on this incident; but gradually quitting it, as I found it for the present inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my master’s manner to myself. The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a tribute to my discretion: I regarded and accepted it as such. His deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform towards me than at the first. I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits of chilling hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the encounter seemed welcome; he had always a word and sometimes a smile for me: when summoned by formal invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a cordiality of reception that made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that these evening conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my benefit. + +I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with relish. It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a mind unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do not mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion. + +The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master: yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength. + +And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could not, for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud, sardonic, harsh to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others. He was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when sent for to read to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl blackened his features. But I believed that his moodiness, his harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say former, for now he seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate. I believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles, and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education instilled, or destiny encouraged. I thought there were excellent materials in him; though for the present they hung together somewhat spoiled and tangled. I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief, whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it. + +Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, and told how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be happy at Thornfield. + +“Why not?” I asked myself. “What alienates him from the house? Will he leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer than a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight weeks. If he does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent spring, summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!” + +I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate, I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious, which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had kept my candle burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were depressed. I rose and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed. + +I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two. Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had swept the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside. I said, “Who is there?” Nothing answered. I was chilled with fear. + +All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchen-door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up to the threshold of Mr. Rochester’s chamber: I had seen him lying there myself in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down. Silence composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again through the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it was not fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely approached my ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing incident enough. + +This was a demoniac laugh—low, suppressed, and deep—uttered, as it seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my bedside—or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural sound was reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, “Who is there?” + +Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still. + +“Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?” thought I. Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax. I hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the door with a trembling hand. There was a candle burning just outside, and on the matting in the gallery. I was surprised at this circumstance: but still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and left, to find whence these blue wreaths issued, I became further aware of a strong smell of burning. + +Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. Rochester’s, and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no more of Mrs. Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh: in an instant, I was within the chamber. Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr. Rochester lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep. + +“Wake! wake!” I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved them up, deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God’s aid, succeeded in extinguishing the flames which were devouring it. + +The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I flung from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of the shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last. Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of water. + +“Is there a flood?” he cried. + +“No, sir,” I answered; “but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are quenched now; I will fetch you a candle.” + +“In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?” he demanded. “What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?” + +“I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven’s name, get up. Somebody has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and what it is.” + +“There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait two minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be—yes, here is my dressing-gown. Now run!” + +I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened and scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water. + +“What is it? and who did it?” he asked. + +I briefly related to him what had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery: the step ascending to the third storey; the smoke,—the smell of fire which had conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on. + +“What is it and who did it?” he asked +He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more concern than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had concluded. + +“Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?” I asked. + +“Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What can she do? Let her sleep unmolested.” + +“Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife.” + +“Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not warm enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and sit down in the arm-chair: there,—I will put it on. Now place your feet on the stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave you a few minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are till I return; be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the second storey. Don’t move, remember, or call any one.” + +He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible, shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A very long time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the cloak; and then I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to rouse the house. I was on the point of risking Mr. Rochester’s displeasure by disobeying his orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery wall, and I heard his unshod feet tread the matting. “I hope it is he,” thought I, “and not something worse.” + +He re-entered, pale and very gloomy. “I have found it all out,” said he, setting his candle down on the washstand; “it is as I thought.” + +“How, sir?” + +He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the ground. At the end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar tone— + +“I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your chamber door.” + +“No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground.” + +“But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should think, or something like it?” + +“Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,—she laughs in that way. She is a singular person.” + +“Just so. Grace Poole—you have guessed it. She is, as you say, singular—very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the precise details of to-night’s incident. You are no talking fool: say nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs” (pointing to the bed): “and now return to your own room. I shall do very well on the sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It is near four:—in two hours the servants will be up.” + +“Good-night, then, sir,” said I, departing. + +He seemed surprised—very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to go. + +“What!” he exclaimed, “are you quitting me already, and in that way?” + +“You said I might go, sir.” + +“But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion. Why, you have saved my life!—snatched me from a horrible and excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual strangers! At least shake hands.” + +He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, then in both his own. + +“You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: but you: it is different;—I feel your benefits no burden, Jane.” + +He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,—but his voice was checked. + +“Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation, in the case.” + +“I knew,” he continued, “you would do me good in some way, at some time;—I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression and smile did not”—(again he stopped)—“did not” (he proceeded hastily) “strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, good-night!” + +Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look. + +“I am glad I happened to be awake,” I said: and then I was going. + +“What! you will go?” + +“I am cold, sir.” + +“Cold? Yes,—and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!” But he still retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an expedient. + +“I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir,” said I. + +“Well, leave me:” he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone. + +I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale, wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I could not reach it, even in fancy—a counteracting breeze blew off land, and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium: judgment would warn passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned. + +== CHAPTER XVI +I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed this sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to meet his eye. During the early part of the morning, I momentarily expected his coming; he was not in the frequent habit of entering the schoolroom, but he did step in for a few minutes sometimes, and I had the impression that he was sure to visit it that day. + +But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt the quiet course of Adèle’s studies; only soon after breakfast, I heard some bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester’s chamber, Mrs. Fairfax’s voice, and Leah’s, and the cook’s—that is, John’s wife—and even John’s own gruff tones. There were exclamations of “What a mercy master was not burnt in his bed!” “It is always dangerous to keep a candle lit at night.” “How providential that he had presence of mind to think of the water-jug!” “I wonder he waked nobody!” “It is to be hoped he will not take cold with sleeping on the library sofa,” &c. + +To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to rights; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I saw through the open door that all was again restored to complete order; only the bed was stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in the window-seat, rubbing the panes of glass dimmed with smoke. I was about to address her, for I wished to know what account had been given of the affair: but, on advancing, I saw a second person in the chamber—a woman sitting on a chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to new curtains. That woman was no other than Grace Poole. + +There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as usual, in her brown stuff gown, her check apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was intent on her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her hard forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either of the paleness or desperation one would have expected to see marking the countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I believed), charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I was amazed—confounded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start, no increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion, consciousness of guilt, or fear of detection. She said “Good morning, Miss,” in her usual phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more tape, went on with her sewing. + +“I will put her to some test,” thought I: “such absolute impenetrability is past comprehension.” + +“Good morning, Grace,” I said. “Has anything happened here? I thought I heard the servants all talking together a while ago.” + +“Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with his candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he awoke before the bed-clothes or the wood-work caught, and contrived to quench the flames with the water in the ewer.” + +“A strange affair!” I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her fixedly—“Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?” + +She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of consciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; then she answered— + +“The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be likely to hear. Mrs. Fairfax’s room and yours are the nearest to master’s; but Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get elderly, they often sleep heavy.” She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed indifference, but still in a marked and significant tone—“But you are young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: perhaps you may have heard a noise?” + +“I did,” said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing the panes, could not hear me, “and at first I thought it was Pilot: but Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one.” + +She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure— + +“It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he was in such danger: You must have been dreaming.” + +“I was not dreaming,” I said, with some warmth, for her brazen coolness provoked me. Again she looked at me; and with the same scrutinising and conscious eye. + +“Have you told master that you heard a laugh?” she inquired. + +“I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this morning.” + +“You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the gallery?” she further asked. + +She appeared to be cross-questioning me, attempting to draw from me information unawares. The idea struck me that if she discovered I knew or suspected her guilt, she would be playing of some of her malignant pranks on me; I thought it advisable to be on my guard. + +“On the contrary,” said I, “I bolted my door.” + +“Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night before you get into bed?” + +“Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans accordingly!” Indignation again prevailed over prudence: I replied sharply, “Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did not think it necessary. I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to be dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future” (and I laid marked stress on the words) “I shall take good care to make all secure before I venture to lie down.” + +“It will be wise so to do,” was her answer: “this neighbourhood is as quiet as any I know, and I never heard of the hall being attempted by robbers since it was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds’ worth of plate in the plate-closet, as is well known. And you see, for such a large house, there are very few servants, because master has never lived here much; and when he does come, being a bachelor, he needs little waiting on: but I always think it best to err on the safe side; a door is soon fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn bolt between one and any mischief that may be about. A deal of people, Miss, are for trusting all to Providence; but I say Providence will not dispense with the means, though He often blesses them when they are used discreetly.” And here she closed her harangue: a long one for her, and uttered with the demureness of a Quakeress. + +I still stood absolutely dumfoundered at what appeared to me her miraculous self-possession and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the cook entered. + +“Mrs. Poole,” said she, addressing Grace, “the servants’ dinner will soon be ready: will you come down?” + +“No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and I’ll carry it upstairs.” + +“You’ll have some meat?” + +“Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that’s all.” + +“And the sago?” + +“Never mind it at present: I shall be coming down before teatime: I’ll make it myself.” + +The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for me: so I departed. + +I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax’s account of the curtain conflagration during dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my brains over the enigmatical character of Grace Poole, and still more in pondering the problem of her position at Thornfield and questioning why she had not been given into custody that morning, or, at the very least, dismissed from her master’s service. He had almost as much as declared his conviction of her criminality last night: what mysterious cause withheld him from accusing her? Why had he enjoined me, too, to secrecy? It was strange: a bold, vindictive, and haughty gentleman seemed somehow in the power of one of the meanest of his dependents; so much in her power, that even when she lifted her hand against his life, he dared not openly charge her with the attempt, much less punish her for it. + +Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to think that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester in her behalf; but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was, the idea could not be admitted. “Yet,” I reflected, “she has been young once; her youth would be contemporary with her master’s: Mrs. Fairfax told me once, she had lived here many years. I don’t think she can ever have been pretty; but, for aught I know, she may possess originality and strength of character to compensate for the want of personal advantages. Mr. Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric: Grace is eccentric at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to a nature so sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him into her power, and she now exercises over his actions a secret influence, the result of his own indiscretion, which he cannot shake off, and dare not disregard?” But, having reached this point of conjecture, Mrs. Poole’s square, flat figure, and uncomely, dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my mind’s eye, that I thought, “No; impossible! my supposition cannot be correct. Yet,” suggested the secret voice which talks to us in our own hearts, “you are not beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves you: at any rate, you have often felt as if he did; and last night—remember his words; remember his look; remember his voice!” + +I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment vividly renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adèle was drawing; I bent over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start. + +“Qu’avez-vous, mademoiselle?” said she. “Vos doigts tremblent comme la feuille, et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises!” + +“I am hot, Adèle, with stooping!” She went on sketching; I went on thinking. + +I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been conceiving respecting Grace Poole; it disgusted me. I compared myself with her, and found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a lady; and she spoke truth—I was a lady. And now I looked much better than I did when Bessie saw me; I had more colour and more flesh, more life, more vivacity, because I had brighter hopes and keener enjoyments. + +“Evening approaches,” said I, as I looked towards the window. “I have never heard Mr. Rochester’s voice or step in the house to-day; but surely I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the morning; now I desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown impatient.” + +When dusk actually closed, and when Adèle left me to go and play in the nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester’s own tread, and I turned to the door, expecting it to open and admit him. The door remained shut; darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late; he often sent for me at seven and eight o’clock, and it was yet but six. Surely I should not be wholly disappointed to-night, when I had so many things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if he really believed it was she who had made last night’s hideous attempt; and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little mattered whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure instinct always prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every propriety of my station, I could still meet him in argument without fear or uneasy restraint; this suited both him and me. + +A tread creaked on the stairs at last. Leah made her appearance; but it was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. Thither I repaired, glad at least to go downstairs; for that brought me, I imagined, nearer to Mr. Rochester’s presence. + +“You must want your tea,” said the good lady, as I joined her; “you ate so little at dinner. I am afraid,” she continued, “you are not well to-day: you look flushed and feverish.” + +“Oh, quite well! I never felt better.” + +“Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you fill the teapot while I knit off this needle?” Having completed her task, she rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now fast deepening into total obscurity. + +“It is fair to-night,” said she, as she looked through the panes, “though not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a favourable day for his journey.” + +“Journey!—Is Mr. Rochester gone anywhere? I did not know he was out.” + +“Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted! He is gone to the Leas, Mr. Eshton’s place, ten miles on the other side Millcote. I believe there is quite a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and others.” + +“Do you expect him back to-night?” + +“No—nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a week or more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they are so surrounded by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all that can please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate. Gentlemen especially are often in request on such occasions; and Mr. Rochester is so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is a general favourite: the ladies are very fond of him; though you would not think his appearance calculated to recommend him particularly in their eyes: but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his wealth and good blood, make amends for any little fault of look.” + +“Are there ladies at the Leas?” + +“There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters—very elegant young ladies indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanche and Mary Ingram, most beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche, six or seven years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen the dining-room that day—how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lit up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen present—all of the first county families; and Miss Ingram was considered the belle of the evening.” + +“You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax: what was she like?” + +“Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors were thrown open; and, as it was Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall, to hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have me to come in, and I sat down in a quiet corner and watched them. I never saw a more splendid scene: the ladies were magnificently dressed; most of them—at least most of the younger ones—looked handsome; but Miss Ingram was certainly the queen.” + +“And what was she like?” + +“Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr. Rochester’s: large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then she had such a fine head of hair; raven-black and so becomingly arranged: a crown of thick plaits behind, and in front the longest, the glossiest curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an amber-coloured scarf was passed over her shoulder and across her breast, tied at the side, and descending in long, fringed ends below her knee. She wore an amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair: it contrasted well with the jetty mass of her curls.” + +“She was greatly admired, of course?” + +“Yes, indeed: and not only for her beauty, but for her accomplishments. She was one of the ladies who sang: a gentleman accompanied her on the piano. She and Mr. Rochester sang a duet.” + +“Mr. Rochester? I was not aware he could sing.” + +“Oh! he has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music.” + +“And Miss Ingram: what sort of a voice had she?” + +“A very rich and powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a treat to listen to her;—and she played afterwards. I am no judge of music, but Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably good.” + +“And this beautiful and accomplished lady, she is not yet married?” + +“It appears not: I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large fortunes. Old Lord Ingram’s estates were chiefly entailed, and the eldest son came in for everything almost.” + +“But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to her: Mr. Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?” + +“Oh! yes. But you see there is a considerable difference in age: Mr. Rochester is nearly forty; she is but twenty-five.” + +“What of that? More unequal matches are made every day.” + +“True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an idea of the sort. But you eat nothing: you have scarcely tasted since you began tea.” + +“No: I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?” + +I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr. Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adèle came in, and the conversation was turned into another channel. + +When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination’s boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense. + +Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes, wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night—of the general state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason having come forward and told, in her own quiet way, a plain, unvarnished tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the ideal;—I pronounced judgment to this effect:— + +That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life; that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies, and swallowed poison as if it were nectar. + +“You,” I said, “a favourite with Mr. Rochester? You gifted with the power of pleasing him? You of importance to him in any way? Go! your folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens of preference—equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man of the world to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid dupe!—Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to yourself this morning the brief scene of last night?—Cover your face and be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior, who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and responded to, must lead, ignis-fatuus-like, into miry wilds whence there is no extrication. + +“Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: to-morrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write under it, ‘Portrait of a Governess, disconnected, poor, and plain.’ + +“Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory—you have one prepared in your drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate carefully the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest shades and sweetest lines, according to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental eye;—What! you revert to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!—no sentiment!—no regret! I will endure only sense and resolution. Recall the august yet harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust; let the round and dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit neither diamond ring nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire, aërial lace and glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call it ‘Blanche, an accomplished lady of rank.’ + +“Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them: say, ‘Mr. Rochester might probably win that noble lady’s love, if he chose to strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this indigent and insignificant plebeian?’” + +“I’ll do it,” I resolved: and having framed this determination, I grew calm, and fell asleep. + +I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face enough, and when compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was as great as self-control could desire. I derived benefit from the task: it had kept my head and hands employed, and had given force and fixedness to the new impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my heart. + +Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of wholesome discipline to which I had thus forced my feelings to submit. Thanks to it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a decent calm, which, had they found me unprepared, I should probably have been unequal to maintain, even externally. + +== CHAPTER XVII +A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days, and still he did not come. Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be surprised if he were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the Continent, and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to come; he had not unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt and unexpected. When I heard this, I was beginning to feel a strange chill and failing at the heart. I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense of disappointment; but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles, I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got over the temporary blunder—how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr. Rochester’s movements a matter in which I had any cause to take a vital interest. Not that I humbled myself by a slavish notion of inferiority: on the contrary, I just said— + +“You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protégée, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don’t make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your order: keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised.” + +I went on with my day’s business tranquilly; but ever and anon vague suggestions kept wandering across my brain of reasons why I should quit Thornfield; and I kept involuntarily framing advertisements and pondering conjectures about new situations: these thoughts I did not think to check; they might germinate and bear fruit if they could. + +Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight, when the post brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter. + +“It is from the master,” said she, as she looked at the direction. “Now I suppose we shall know whether we are to expect his return or not.” + +And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on taking my coffee (we were at breakfast): it was hot, and I attributed to that circumstance a fiery glow which suddenly rose to my face. Why my hand shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into my saucer, I did not choose to consider. + +“Well, I sometimes think we are too quiet; but we run a chance of being busy enough now: for a little while at least,” said Mrs. Fairfax, still holding the note before her spectacles. + +Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string of Adèle’s pinafore, which happened to be loose: having helped her also to another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said, nonchalantly— + +“Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon, I suppose?” + +“Indeed he is—in three days, he says: that will be next Thursday; and not alone either. I don’t know how many of the fine people at the Leas are coming with him: he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to be prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; I am to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the gentlemen their valets: so we shall have a full house of it.” And Mrs. Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away to commence operations. + +The three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough. I had thought all the rooms at Thornfield beautifully clean and well arranged; but it appears I was mistaken. Three women were got to help; and such scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets, such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since. Adèle ran quite wild in the midst of it: the preparations for company and the prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies. She would have Sophie to look over all her “toilettes,” as she called frocks; to furbish up any that were “passées,” and to air and arrange the new. For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys. From school duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her service, and I was all day in the storeroom, helping (or hindering) her and the cook; learning to make custards and cheese-cakes and French pastry, to truss game and garnish desert-dishes. + +The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time for dinner at six. During the intervening period I had no time to nurse chimeras; and I believe I was as active and gay as anybody—Adèle excepted. Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the region of doubts and portents, and dark conjectures. This was when I chanced to see the third-storey staircase door (which of late had always been kept locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form of Grace Poole, in prim cap, white apron, and handkerchief; when I watched her glide along the gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a list slipper; when I saw her look into the bustling, topsy-turvy bedrooms,—just say a word, perhaps, to the charwoman about the proper way to polish a grate, or clean a marble mantelpiece, or take stains from papered walls, and then pass on. She would thus descend to the kitchen once a day, eat her dinner, smoke a moderate pipe on the hearth, and go back, carrying her pot of porter with her, for her private solace, in her own gloomy, upper haunt. Only one hour in the twenty-four did she pass with her fellow-servants below; all the rest of her time was spent in some low-ceiled, oaken chamber of the second storey: there she sat and sewed—and probably laughed drearily to herself,—as companionless as a prisoner in his dungeon. + +The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house, except me, noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel at them: no one discussed her position or employment; no one pitied her solitude or isolation. I once, indeed, overheard part of a dialogue between Leah and one of the charwomen, of which Grace formed the subject. Leah had been saying something I had not caught, and the charwoman remarked— + +“She gets good wages, I guess?” + +“Yes,” said Leah; “I wish I had as good; not that mine are to complain of,—there’s no stinginess at Thornfield; but they’re not one fifth of the sum Mrs. Poole receives. And she is laying by: she goes every quarter to the bank at Millcote. I should not wonder but she has saved enough to keep her independent if she liked to leave; but I suppose she’s got used to the place; and then she’s not forty yet, and strong and able for anything. It is too soon for her to give up business.” + +“She is a good hand, I daresay,” said the charwoman. + +“Ah!—she understands what she has to do,—nobody better,” rejoined Leah significantly; “and it is not every one could fill her shoes—not for all the money she gets.” + +“That it is not!” was the reply. “I wonder whether the master—” + +The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived me, and she instantly gave her companion a nudge. + +“Doesn’t she know?” I heard the woman whisper. + +Leah shook her head, and the conversation was of course dropped. All I had gathered from it amounted to this,—that there was a mystery at Thornfield; and that from participation in that mystery I was purposely excluded. + +Thursday came: all work had been completed the previous evening; carpets were laid down, bed-hangings festooned, radiant white counterpanes spread, toilet tables arranged, furniture rubbed, flowers piled in vases: both chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright as hands could make them. The hall, too, was scoured; and the great carved clock, as well as the steps and banisters of the staircase, were polished to the brightness of glass; in the dining-room, the sideboard flashed resplendent with plate; in the drawing-room and boudoir, vases of exotics bloomed on all sides. + +Afternoon arrived: Mrs. Fairfax assumed her best black satin gown, her gloves, and her gold watch; for it was her part to receive the company,—to conduct the ladies to their rooms, &c. Adèle, too, would be dressed: though I thought she had little chance of being introduced to the party that day at least. However, to please her, I allowed Sophie to apparel her in one of her short, full muslin frocks. For myself, I had no need to make any change; I should not be called upon to quit my sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now become to me,—“a very pleasant refuge in time of trouble.” + +It had been a mild, serene spring day—one of those days which, towards the end of March or the beginning of April, rise shining over the earth as heralds of summer. It was drawing to an end now; but the evening was even warm, and I sat at work in the schoolroom with the window open. + +“It gets late,” said Mrs. Fairfax, entering in rustling state. “I am glad I ordered dinner an hour after the time Mr. Rochester mentioned; for it is past six now. I have sent John down to the gates to see if there is anything on the road: one can see a long way from thence in the direction of Millcote.” She went to the window. “Here he is!” said she. “Well, John” (leaning out), “any news?” + +“They’re coming, ma’am,” was the answer. “They’ll be here in ten minutes.” + +Adèle flew to the window. I followed, taking care to stand on one side, so that, screened by the curtain, I could see without being seen. + +The ten minutes John had given seemed very long, but at last wheels were heard; four equestrians galloped up the drive, and after them came two open carriages. Fluttering veils and waving plumes filled the vehicles; two of the cavaliers were young, dashing-looking gentlemen; the third was Mr. Rochester, on his black horse, Mesrour, Pilot bounding before him; at his side rode a lady, and he and she were the first of the party. Her purple riding-habit almost swept the ground, her veil streamed long on the breeze; mingling with its transparent folds, and gleaming through them, shone rich raven ringlets. + +“Miss Ingram!” exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax, and away she hurried to her post below. + +The cavalcade, following the sweep of the drive, quickly turned the angle of the house, and I lost sight of it. Adèle now petitioned to go down; but I took her on my knee, and gave her to understand that she must not on any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies, either now or at any other time, unless expressly sent for: that Mr. Rochester would be very angry, &c. “Some natural tears she shed” on being told this; but as I began to look very grave, she consented at last to wipe them. + +A joyous stir was now audible in the hall: gentlemen’s deep tones and ladies’ silvery accents blent harmoniously together, and distinguishable above all, though not loud, was the sonorous voice of the master of Thornfield Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant guests under its roof. Then light steps ascended the stairs; and there was a tripping through the gallery, and soft cheerful laughs, and opening and closing doors, and, for a time, a hush. + +“Elles changent de toilettes,” said Adèle; who, listening attentively, had followed every movement; and she sighed. + +“Chez maman,” said she, “quand il y avait du monde, je le suivais partout, au salon et à leurs chambres; souvent je regardais les femmes de chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c’était si amusant: comme cela on apprend.” + +“Don’t you feel hungry, Adèle?” + +“Mais oui, mademoiselle: voilà cinq ou six heures que nous n’avons pas mangé.” + +“Well now, while the ladies are in their rooms, I will venture down and get you something to eat.” + +And issuing from my asylum with precaution, I sought a back-stairs which conducted directly to the kitchen. All in that region was fire and commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection, and the cook hung over her crucibles in a frame of mind and body threatening spontaneous combustion. In the servants’ hall two coachmen and three gentlemen’s gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had been hired from Millcote, were bustling about everywhere. Threading this chaos, I at last reached the larder; there I took possession of a cold chicken, a roll of bread, some tarts, a plate or two and a knife and fork: with this booty I made a hasty retreat. I had regained the gallery, and was just shutting the back-door behind me, when an accelerated hum warned me that the ladies were about to issue from their chambers. I could not proceed to the schoolroom without passing some of their doors, and running the risk of being surprised with my cargo of victualage; so I stood still at this end, which, being windowless, was dark: quite dark now, for the sun was set and twilight gathering. + +Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another: each came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous through the dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at the other extremity of the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued vivacity: they then descended the staircase almost as noiselessly as a bright mist rolls down a hill. Their collective appearance had left on me an impression of high-born elegance, such as I had never before received. + +I found Adèle peeping through the schoolroom door, which she held ajar. “What beautiful ladies!” cried she in English. “Oh, I wish I might go to them! Do you think Mr. Rochester will send for us by-and-by, after dinner?” + +“No, indeed, I don’t; Mr. Rochester has something else to think about. Never mind the ladies to-night; perhaps you will see them to-morrow: here is your dinner.” + +She was really hungry, so the chicken and tarts served to divert her attention for a time. It was well I secured this forage, or both she, I, and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of our repast, would have run a chance of getting no dinner at all: every one downstairs was too much engaged to think of us. The dessert was not carried out till after nine; and at ten footmen were still running to and fro with trays and coffee-cups. I allowed Adèle to sit up much later than usual; for she declared she could not possibly go to sleep while the doors kept opening and shutting below, and people bustling about. Besides, she added, a message might possibly come from Mr. Rochester when she was undressed; “et alors quel dommage!” + +I told her stories as long as she would listen to them; and then for a change I took her out into the gallery. The hall lamp was now lit, and it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants passing backwards and forwards. When the evening was far advanced, a sound of music issued from the drawing-room, whither the piano had been removed; Adèle and I sat down on the top step of the stairs to listen. Presently a voice blent with the rich tones of the instrument; it was a lady who sang, and very sweet her notes were. The solo over, a duet followed, and then a glee: a joyous conversational murmur filled up the intervals. I listened long: suddenly I discovered that my ear was wholly intent on analysing the mingled sounds, and trying to discriminate amidst the confusion of accents those of Mr. Rochester; and when it caught them, which it soon did, it found a further task in framing the tones, rendered by distance inarticulate, into words. + +The clock struck eleven. I looked at Adèle, whose head leant against my shoulder; her eyes were waxing heavy, so I took her up in my arms and carried her off to bed. It was near one before the gentlemen and ladies sought their chambers. + +The next day was as fine as its predecessor: it was devoted by the party to an excursion to some site in the neighbourhood. They set out early in the forenoon, some on horseback, the rest in carriages; I witnessed both the departure and the return. Miss Ingram, as before, was the only lady equestrian; and, as before, Mr. Rochester galloped at her side; the two rode a little apart from the rest. I pointed out this circumstance to Mrs. Fairfax, who was standing at the window with me— + +“You said it was not likely they should think of being married,” said I, “but you see Mr. Rochester evidently prefers her to any of the other ladies.” + +“Yes, I daresay: no doubt he admires her.” + +“And she him,” I added; “look how she leans her head towards him as if she were conversing confidentially; I wish I could see her face; I have never had a glimpse of it yet.” + +“You will see her this evening,” answered Mrs. Fairfax. “I happened to remark to Mr. Rochester how much Adèle wished to be introduced to the ladies, and he said: ‘Oh! let her come into the drawing-room after dinner; and request Miss Eyre to accompany her.’” + +“Yes; he said that from mere politeness: I need not go, I am sure,” I answered. + +“Well, I observed to him that as you were unused to company, I did not think you would like appearing before so gay a party—all strangers; and he replied, in his quick way—‘Nonsense! If she objects, tell her it is my particular wish; and if she resists, say I shall come and fetch her in case of contumacy.’” + +“I will not give him that trouble,” I answered. “I will go, if no better may be; but I don’t like it. Shall you be there, Mrs. Fairfax?” + +“No; I pleaded off, and he admitted my plea. I’ll tell you how to manage so as to avoid the embarrassment of making a formal entrance, which is the most disagreeable part of the business. You must go into the drawing-room while it is empty, before the ladies leave the dinner-table; choose your seat in any quiet nook you like; you need not stay long after the gentlemen come in, unless you please: just let Mr. Rochester see you are there and then slip away—nobody will notice you.” + +“Will these people remain long, do you think?” + +“Perhaps two or three weeks, certainly not more. After the Easter recess, Sir George Lynn, who was lately elected member for Millcote, will have to go up to town and take his seat; I daresay Mr. Rochester will accompany him: it surprises me that he has already made so protracted a stay at Thornfield.” + +It was with some trepidation that I perceived the hour approach when I was to repair with my charge to the drawing-room. Adèle had been in a state of ecstasy all day, after hearing she was to be presented to the ladies in the evening; and it was not till Sophie commenced the operation of dressing her that she sobered down. Then the importance of the process quickly steadied her, and by the time she had her curls arranged in well-smoothed, drooping clusters, her pink satin frock put on, her long sash tied, and her lace mittens adjusted, she looked as grave as any judge. No need to warn her not to disarrange her attire: when she was dressed, she sat demurely down in her little chair, taking care previously to lift up the satin skirt for fear she should crease it, and assured me she would not stir thence till I was ready. This I quickly was: my best dress (the silver-grey one, purchased for Miss Temple’s wedding, and never worn since) was soon put on; my hair was soon smoothed; my sole ornament, the pearl brooch, soon assumed. We descended. + +Fortunately there was another entrance to the drawing-room than that through the saloon where they were all seated at dinner. We found the apartment vacant; a large fire burning silently on the marble hearth, and wax candles shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite flowers with which the tables were adorned. The crimson curtain hung before the arch: slight as was the separation this drapery formed from the party in the adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that nothing of their conversation could be distinguished beyond a soothing murmur. + +Adèle, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most solemnising impression, sat down, without a word, on the footstool I pointed out to her. I retired to a window-seat, and taking a book from a table near, endeavoured to read. Adèle brought her stool to my feet; ere long she touched my knee. + +“What is it, Adèle?” + +“Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendre une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques, mademoiselle? Seulement pour completer ma toilette.” + +“You think too much of your ‘toilette,’ Adèle: but you may have a flower.” And I took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her sash. She sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of happiness were now full. I turned my face away to conceal a smile I could not suppress: there was something ludicrous as well as painful in the little Parisienne’s earnest and innate devotion to matters of dress. + +A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept back from the arch; through it appeared the dining-room, with its lit lustre pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent dessert-service covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them. + +There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave the impression of a much larger number. Some of them were very tall; many were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon. I rose and curtseyed to them: one or two bent their heads in return, the others only stared at me. + +They dispersed about the room, reminding me, by the lightness and buoyancy of their movements, of a flock of white plumy birds. Some of them threw themselves in half-reclining positions on the sofas and ottomans: some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and books: the rest gathered in a group round the fire: all talked in a low but clear tone which seemed habitual to them. I knew their names afterwards, and may as well mention them now. + +First, there was Mrs. Eshton and two of her daughters. She had evidently been a handsome woman, and was well preserved still. Of her daughters, the eldest, Amy, was rather little: naïve, and child-like in face and manner, and piquant in form; her white muslin dress and blue sash became her well. The second, Louisa, was taller and more elegant in figure; with a very pretty face, of that order the French term minois chiffoné: both sisters were fair as lilies. + +Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage of about forty, very erect, very haughty-looking, richly dressed in a satin robe of changeful sheen: her dark hair shone glossily under the shade of an azure plume, and within the circlet of a band of gems. + +Mrs. Colonel Dent was less showy; but, I thought, more lady-like. She had a slight figure, a pale, gentle face, and fair hair. Her black satin dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl ornaments, pleased me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled dame. + +But the three most distinguished—partly, perhaps, because the tallest figures of the band—were the Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters, Blanche and Mary. They were all three of the loftiest stature of women. The Dowager might be between forty and fifty: her shape was still fine; her hair (by candle-light at least) still black; her teeth, too, were still apparently perfect. Most people would have termed her a splendid woman of her age: and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking; but then there was an expression of almost insupportable haughtiness in her bearing and countenance. She had Roman features and a double chin, disappearing into a throat like a pillar: these features appeared to me not only inflated and darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the chin was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost preternatural erectness. She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it reminded me of Mrs. Reed’s; she mouthed her words in speaking; her voice was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical,—very intolerable, in short. A crimson velvet robe, and a shawl turban of some gold-wrought Indian fabric, invested her (I suppose she thought) with a truly imperial dignity. + +Blanche and Mary were of equal stature,—straight and tall as poplars. Mary was too slim for her height, but Blanche was moulded like a Dian. I regarded her, of course, with special interest. First, I wished to see whether her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax’s description; secondly, whether it at all resembled the fancy miniature I had painted of her; and thirdly—it will out!—whether it were such as I should fancy likely to suit Mr. Rochester’s taste. + +As far as person went, she answered point for point, both to my picture and Mrs. Fairfax’s description. The noble bust, the sloping shoulders, the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets were all there;—but her face? Her face was like her mother’s; a youthful unfurrowed likeness: the same low brow, the same high features, the same pride. It was not, however, so saturnine a pride! she laughed continually; her laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual expression of her arched and haughty lip. + +Genius is said to be self-conscious. I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram was a genius, but she was self-conscious—remarkably self-conscious indeed. She entered into a discourse on botany with the gentle Mrs. Dent. It seemed Mrs. Dent had not studied that science: though, as she said, she liked flowers, “especially wild ones;” Miss Ingram had, and she ran over its vocabulary with an air. I presently perceived she was (what is vernacularly termed) trailing Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on her ignorance; her trail might be clever, but it was decidedly not good-natured. She played: her execution was brilliant; she sang: her voice was fine; she talked French apart to her mamma; and she talked it well, with fluency and with a good accent. + +Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer features too, and a skin some shades fairer (Miss Ingram was dark as a Spaniard)—but Mary was deficient in life: her face lacked expression, her eye lustre; she had nothing to say, and having once taken her seat, remained fixed like a statue in its niche. The sisters were both attired in spotless white. + +And did I now think Miss Ingram such a choice as Mr. Rochester would be likely to make? I could not tell—I did not know his taste in female beauty. If he liked the majestic, she was the very type of majesty: then she was accomplished, sprightly. Most gentlemen would admire her, I thought; and that he did admire her, I already seemed to have obtained proof: to remove the last shade of doubt, it remained but to see them together. + +You are not to suppose, reader, that Adèle has all this time been sitting motionless on the stool at my feet: no; when the ladies entered, she rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence, and said with gravity— + +“Bon jour, mesdames.” + +And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and exclaimed, “Oh, what a little puppet!” + +Lady Lynn had remarked, “It is Mr. Rochester’s ward, I suppose—the little French girl he was speaking of.” + +Mrs. Dent had kindly taken her hand, and given her a kiss. Amy and Louisa Eshton had cried out simultaneously— + +“What a love of a child!” + +And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat, ensconced between them, chattering alternately in French and broken English; absorbing not only the young ladies’ attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton and Lady Lynn, and getting spoilt to her heart’s content. + +At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned. I sit in the shade—if any shade there be in this brilliantly-lit apartment; the window-curtain half hides me. Again the arch yawns; they come. The collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is very imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of them are tall, some young. Henry and Frederick Lynn are very dashing sparks indeed; and Colonel Dent is a fine soldierly man. Mr. Eshton, the magistrate of the district, is gentleman-like: his hair is quite white, his eyebrows and whiskers still dark, which gives him something of the appearance of a “père noble de théâtre.” Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall; like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary’s apathetic and listless look: he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of blood or vigour of brain. + +And where is Mr. Rochester? + +He comes in last: I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him enter. I try to concentrate my attention on those netting-needles, on the meshes of the purse I am forming—I wish to think only of the work I have in my hands, to see only the silver beads and silk threads that lie in my lap; whereas, I distinctly behold his figure, and I inevitably recall the moment when I last saw it; just after I had rendered him, what he deemed, an essential service, and he, holding my hand, and looking down on my face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed a heart full and eager to overflow; in whose emotions I had a part. How near had I approached him at that moment! What had occurred since, calculated to change his and my relative positions? Yet now, how distant, how far estranged we were! So far estranged, that I did not expect him to come and speak to me. I did not wonder, when, without looking at me, he took a seat at the other side of the room, and began conversing with some of the ladies. + +No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn involuntarily to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: they would rise, and the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had an acute pleasure in looking,—a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and drinks divine draughts nevertheless. + +Most true is it that “beauty is in the eye of the gazer.” My master’s colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows, deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth,—all energy, decision, will,—were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite mastered me,—that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them in his. I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now, at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and strong! He made me love him without looking at me. + +I compared him with his guests. What was the gallant grace of the Lynns, the languid elegance of Lord Ingram,—even the military distinction of Colonel Dent, contrasted with his look of native pith and genuine power? I had no sympathy in their appearance, their expression: yet I could imagine that most observers would call them attractive, handsome, imposing; while they would pronounce Mr. Rochester at once harsh-featured and melancholy-looking. I saw them smile, laugh—it was nothing; the light of the candles had as much soul in it as their smile; the tinkle of the bell as much significance as their laugh. I saw Mr. Rochester smile:—his stern features softened; his eye grew both brilliant and gentle, its ray both searching and sweet. He was talking, at the moment, to Louisa and Amy Eshton. I wondered to see them receive with calm that look which seemed to me so penetrating: I expected their eyes to fall, their colour to rise under it; yet I was glad when I found they were in no sense moved. “He is not to them what he is to me,” I thought: “he is not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;—I am sure he is—I feel akin to him—I understand the language of his countenance and movements: though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did I say, a few days since, that I had nothing to do with him but to receive my salary at his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other light than as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true, vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must, then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:—and yet, while I breathe and think, I must love him.” + +Coffee is handed. The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have become lively as larks; conversation waxes brisk and merry. Colonel Dent and Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen. The two proud dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together. Sir George—whom, by-the-bye, I have forgotten to describe,—a very big, and very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands before their sofa, coffee-cup in hand, and occasionally puts in a word. Mr. Frederick Lynn has taken a seat beside Mary Ingram, and is showing her the engravings of a splendid volume: she looks, smiles now and then, but apparently says little. The tall and phlegmatic Lord Ingram leans with folded arms on the chair-back of the little and lively Amy Eshton; she glances up at him, and chatters like a wren: she likes him better than she does Mr. Rochester. Henry Lynn has taken possession of an ottoman at the feet of Louisa: Adèle shares it with him: he is trying to talk French with her, and Louisa laughs at his blunders. With whom will Blanche Ingram pair? She is standing alone at the table, bending gracefully over an album. She seems waiting to be sought; but she will not wait too long: she herself selects a mate. + +Mr. Rochester, having quitted the Eshtons, stands on the hearth as solitary as she stands by the table: she confronts him, taking her station on the opposite side of the mantelpiece. + +“Mr. Rochester, I thought you were not fond of children?” + +“Nor am I.” + +“Then, what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that?” (pointing to Adèle). “Where did you pick her up?” + +“I did not pick her up; she was left on my hands.” + +“You should have sent her to school.” + +“I could not afford it: schools are so dear.” + +“Why, I suppose you have a governess for her: I saw a person with her just now—is she gone? Oh, no! there she is still, behind the window-curtain. You pay her, of course; I should think it quite as expensive,—more so; for you have them both to keep in addition.” + +I feared—or should I say, hoped?—the allusion to me would make Mr. Rochester glance my way; and I involuntarily shrank farther into the shade: but he never turned his eyes. + +“I have not considered the subject,” said he indifferently, looking straight before him. + +“No, you men never do consider economy and common sense. You should hear mama on the chapter of governesses: Mary and I have had, I should think, a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the rest ridiculous, and all incubi—were they not, mama?” + +“Did you speak, my own?” + +The young lady thus claimed as the dowager’s special property, reiterated her question with an explanation. + +“My dearest, don’t mention governesses; the word makes me nervous. I have suffered a martyrdom from their incompetency and caprice. I thank Heaven I have now done with them!” + +Mrs. Dent here bent over to the pious lady and whispered something in her ear; I suppose, from the answer elicited, it was a reminder that one of the anathematised race was present. + +“Tant pis!” said her Ladyship, “I hope it may do her good!” Then, in a lower tone, but still loud enough for me to hear, “I noticed her; I am a judge of physiognomy, and in hers I see all the faults of her class.” + +“What are they, madam?” inquired Mr. Rochester aloud. + +“I will tell you in your private ear,” replied she, wagging her turban three times with portentous significancy. + +“But my curiosity will be past its appetite; it craves food now.” + +“Ask Blanche; she is nearer you than I.” + +“Oh, don’t refer him to me, mama! I have just one word to say of the whole tribe; they are a nuisance. Not that I ever suffered much from them; I took care to turn the tables. What tricks Theodore and I used to play on our Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame Jouberts! Mary was always too sleepy to join in a plot with spirit. The best fun was with Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose and low-spirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and Mrs. Grey was coarse and insensible; no blow took effect on her. But poor Madame Joubert! I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had driven her to extremities—spilt our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, tossed our books up to the ceiling, and played a charivari with the ruler and desk, the fender and fire-irons. Theodore, do you remember those merry days?” + +“Yaas, to be sure I do,” drawled Lord Ingram; “and the poor old stick used to cry out, ‘Oh you villains childs!’—and then we sermonised her on the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we were, when she was herself so ignorant.” + +“We did; and, Tedo, you know, I helped you in prosecuting (or persecuting) your tutor, whey-faced Mr. Vining—the parson in the pip, as we used to call him. He and Miss Wilson took the liberty of falling in love with each other—at least Tedo and I thought so; we surprised sundry tender glances and sighs which we interpreted as tokens of ‘la belle passion,’ and I promise you the public soon had the benefit of our discovery; we employed it as a sort of lever to hoist our dead-weights from the house. Dear mama, there, as soon as she got an inkling of the business, found out that it was of an immoral tendency. Did you not, my lady-mother?” + +“Certainly, my best. And I was quite right: depend on that: there are a thousand reasons why liaisons between governesses and tutors should never be tolerated a moment in any well-regulated house; firstly—” + +“Oh, gracious, mama! Spare us the enumeration! Au reste, we all know them: danger of bad example to innocence of childhood; distractions and consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attached—mutual alliance and reliance; confidence thence resulting—insolence accompanying—mutiny and general blow-up. Am I right, Baroness Ingram, of Ingram Park?” + +“My lily-flower, you are right now, as always.” + +“Then no more need be said: change the subject.” + +Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in with her soft, infantine tone: “Louisa and I used to quiz our governess too; but she was such a good creature, she would bear anything: nothing put her out. She was never cross with us; was she, Louisa?” + +“No, never: we might do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her workbox, and turn her drawers inside out; and she was so good-natured, she would give us anything we asked for.” + +“I suppose, now,” said Miss Ingram, curling her lip sarcastically, “we shall have an abstract of the memoirs of all the governesses extant: in order to avert such a visitation, I again move the introduction of a new topic. Mr. Rochester, do you second my motion?” + +“Madam, I support you on this point, as on every other.” + +“Then on me be the onus of bringing it forward. Signior Eduardo, are you in voice to-night?” + +“Donna Bianca, if you command it, I will be.” + +“Then, signior, I lay on you my sovereign behest to furbish up your lungs and other vocal organs, as they will be wanted on my royal service.” + +“Who would not be the Rizzio of so divine a Mary?” + +“A fig for Rizzio!” cried she, tossing her head with all its curls, as she moved to the piano. “It is my opinion the fiddler David must have been an insipid sort of fellow; I like black Bothwell better: to my mind a man is nothing without a spice of the devil in him; and history may say what it will of James Hepburn, but I have a notion, he was just the sort of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to gift with my hand.” + +“Gentlemen, you hear! Now which of you most resembles Bothwell?” cried Mr. Rochester. + +“I should say the preference lies with you,” responded Colonel Dent. + +“On my honour, I am much obliged to you,” was the reply. + +Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the piano, spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced a brilliant prelude; talking meantime. She appeared to be on her high horse to-night; both her words and her air seemed intended to excite not only the admiration, but the amazement of her auditors: she was evidently bent on striking them as something very dashing and daring indeed. + +“Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!” exclaimed she, rattling away at the instrument. “Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a step beyond papa’s park gates: nor to go even so far without mama’s permission and guardianship! Creatures so absorbed in care about their pretty faces, and their white hands, and their small feet; as if a man had anything to do with beauty! As if loveliness were not the special prerogative of woman—her legitimate appanage and heritage! I grant an ugly woman is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the gentlemen, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valour: let their motto be:—Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a fillip. Such should be my device, were I a man.” + +“Whenever I marry,” she continued after a pause which none interrupted, “I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me. I will suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided homage: his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he sees in his mirror. Mr. Rochester, now sing, and I will play for you.” + +“I am all obedience,” was the response. + +“Here then is a Corsair-song. Know that I doat on Corsairs; and for that reason, sing it con spirito.” + +“Commands from Miss Ingram’s lips would put spirit into a mug of milk and water.” + +“Take care, then: if you don’t please me, I will shame you by showing how such things should be done.” + +“That is offering a premium on incapacity: I shall now endeavour to fail.” + +“Gardez-vous en bien! If you err wilfully, I shall devise a proportionate punishment.” + +“Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she has it in her power to inflict a chastisement beyond mortal endurance.” + +“Ha! explain!” commanded the lady. + +“Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute for capital punishment.” + +“Sing!” said she, and again touching the piano, she commenced an accompaniment in spirited style. + +“Now is my time to slip away,” thought I: but the tones that then severed the air arrested me. Mrs. Fairfax had said Mr. Rochester possessed a fine voice: he did—a mellow, powerful bass, into which he threw his own feeling, his own force; finding a way through the ear to the heart, and there waking sensation strangely. I waited till the last deep and full vibration had expired—till the tide of talk, checked an instant, had resumed its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and made my exit by the side-door, which was fortunately near. Thence a narrow passage led into the hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stopped to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the staircase. I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman came out; rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was Mr. Rochester. + +“How do you do?” he asked. + +“I am very well, sir.” + +“Why did you not come and speak to me in the room?” + +I thought I might have retorted the question on him who put it: but I would not take that freedom. I answered— + +“I did not wish to disturb you, as you seemed engaged, sir.” + +“What have you been doing during my absence?” + +“Nothing particular; teaching Adèle as usual.” + +“And getting a good deal paler than you were—as I saw at first sight. What is the matter?” + +“Nothing at all, sir.” + +“Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?” + +“Not the least.” + +“Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early.” + +“I am tired, sir.” + +He looked at me for a minute. + +“And a little depressed,” he said. “What about? Tell me.” + +“Nothing—nothing, sir. I am not depressed.” + +“But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would bring tears to your eyes—indeed, they are there now, shining and swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the flag. If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, to-night I excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don’t neglect it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adèle. Good-night, my—” He stopped, bit his lip, and abruptly left me. + +== CHAPTER XVIII +Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and solitude I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemed now driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there was life everywhere, movement all day long. You could not now traverse the gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers, once so tenantless, without encountering a smart lady’s-maid or a dandy valet. + +The kitchen, the butler’s pantry, the servants’ hall, the entrance hall, were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void and still when the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring weather called their occupants out into the grounds. Even when that weather was broken, and continuous rain set in for some days, no damp seemed cast over enjoyment: indoor amusements only became more lively and varied, in consequence of the stop put to outdoor gaiety. + +I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change of entertainment was proposed: they spoke of “playing charades,” but in my ignorance I did not understand the term. The servants were called in, the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lights otherwise disposed, the chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the arch. While Mr. Rochester and the other gentlemen directed these alterations, the ladies were running up and down stairs ringing for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to give information respecting the resources of the house in shawls, dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain wardrobes of the third storey were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, &c., were brought down in armfuls by the abigails; then a selection was made, and such things as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the drawing-room. + +Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him, and was selecting certain of their number to be of his party. “Miss Ingram is mine, of course,” said he: afterwards he named the two Misses Eshton, and Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happened to be near him, as I had been fastening the clasp of Mrs. Dent’s bracelet, which had got loose. + +“Will you play?” he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist, which I rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to return quietly to my usual seat. + +He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party, which was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs. One of the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose that I should be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly negatived the notion. + +“No,” I heard her say: “she looks too stupid for any game of the sort.” + +Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the arch, the bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewise chosen, was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on a table, lay open a large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton, draped in Mr. Rochester’s cloak, and holding a book in her hand. Somebody, unseen, rang the bell merrily; then Adèle (who had insisted on being one of her guardian’s party), bounded forward, scattering round her the contents of a basket of flowers she carried on her arm. Then appeared the magnificent figure of Miss Ingram, clad in white, a long veil on her head, and a wreath of roses round her brow; by her side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they drew near the table. They knelt; while Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton, dressed also in white, took up their stations behind them. A ceremony followed, in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognise the pantomime of a marriage. At its termination, Colonel Dent and his party consulted in whispers for two minutes, then the Colonel called out— + +“Bride!” Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell. + +A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its second rising displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last. The drawing-room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps above the dining-room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a yard or two back within the room, appeared a large marble basin, which I recognised as an ornament of the conservatory—where it usually stood, surrounded by exotics, and tenanted by gold fish—and whence it must have been transported with some trouble, on account of its size and weight. + +Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr. Rochester, costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. His dark eyes and swarthy skin and Paynim features suited the costume exactly: he looked the very model of an Eastern emir, an agent or a victim of the bowstring. Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram. She, too, was attired in oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the waist: an embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her beautifully-moulded arms bare, one of them upraised in the act of supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head. Both her cast of form and feature, her complexion and her general air, suggested the idea of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was doubtless the character she intended to represent. + +She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now seemed to accost her; to make some request:—“She hasted, let down her pitcher on her hand, and gave him to drink.” From the bosom of his robe he then produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and the rings in her ears. It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were wanting. + +The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they could not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated. Colonel Dent, their spokesman, demanded “the tableau of the whole;” whereupon the curtain again descended. + +On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; the rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and coarse drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place, stood a deal table and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible by a very dim light proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles being all extinguished. + +Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting on his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester; though the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose from one arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a scuffle), the desperate and scowling countenance, the rough, bristling hair might well have disguised him. As he moved, a chain clanked; to his wrists were attached fetters. + +“Bridewell!” exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved. + +A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester led in Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting. + +“Do you know,” said she, “that, of the three characters, I liked you in the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what a gallant gentleman-highwayman you would have made!” + +“Is all the soot washed from my face?” he asked, turning it towards her. + +“Alas! yes: the more’s the pity! Nothing could be more becoming to your complexion than that ruffian’s rouge.” + +“You would like a hero of the road then?” + +“An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate.” + +“Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour since, in the presence of all these witnesses.” She giggled, and her colour rose. + +“Now, Dent,” continued Mr. Rochester, “it is your turn.” And as the other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats. Miss Ingram placed herself at her leader’s right hand; the other diviners filled the chairs on each side of him and her. I did not now watch the actors; I no longer waited with interest for the curtain to rise; my attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on the arch, were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs. What charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word they chose, how they acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see the consultation which followed each scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards him, till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his cheek; I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged glances; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle returns in memory at this moment. + +I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice me—because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once turn his eyes in my direction—because I saw all his attentions appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to merit observation. I could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would soon marry this very lady—because I read daily in her a proud security in his intentions respecting her—because I witnessed hourly in him a style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to be sought than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its very pride, irresistible. + +There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though much to create despair. Much too, you will think, reader, to engender jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be jealous of a woman in Miss Ingram’s. But I was not jealous: or very rarely;—the nature of the pain I suffered could not be explained by that word. Miss Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too inferior to excite the feeling. Pardon the seeming paradox; I mean what I say. She was very showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used to repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were not in her. Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adèle: pushing her away with some contumelious epithet if she happened to approach her; sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with coldness and acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched these manifestations of character—watched them closely, keenly, shrewdly. Yes; the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this sagacity—this guardedness of his—this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one’s defects—this obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her, that my ever-torturing pain arose. + +I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons, because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had not given her his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted to win from him that treasure. This was the point—this was where the nerve was touched and teased—this was where the fever was sustained and fed: she could not charm him. + +If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and sincerely laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face, turned to the wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss Ingram had been a good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour, kindness, sense, I should have had one vital struggle with two tigers—jealousy and despair: then, my heart torn out and devoured, I should have admired her—acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days: and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper would have been my admiration—the more truly tranquil my quiescence. But as matters really stood, to watch Miss Ingram’s efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to witness their repeated failure—herself unconscious that they did fail; vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled further and further what she wished to allure—to witness this, was to be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint. + +Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester’s breast and fell harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have quivered keen in his proud heart—have called love into his stern eye, and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons a silent conquest might have been won. + +“Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so near to him?” I asked myself. “Surely she cannot truly like him, or not like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin her smiles so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems to me that she might, by merely sitting quietly at his side, saying little and looking less, get nigher his heart. I have seen in his face a far different expression from that which hardens it now while she is so vivaciously accosting him; but then it came of itself: it was not elicited by meretricious arts and calculated manoeuvres; and one had but to accept it—to answer what he asked without pretension, to address him when needful without grimace—and it increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed one like a fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when they are married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might be managed; and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest woman the sun shines on.” + +I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester’s project of marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when I first discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a man unlikely to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice of a wife; but the longer I considered the position, education, &c., of the parties, the less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss Ingram for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them, doubtless, from their childhood. All their class held these principles: I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not fathom. It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of the advantages to the husband’s own happiness offered by this plan convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption of which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all the world would act as I wished to act. + +But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid. And as for the vague something—was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a desponding expression?—that opened upon a careful observer, now and then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something, I, at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare—to divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their nature. + +Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride—saw only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only their movements of importance—the rest of the party were occupied with their own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn and Ingram continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded their two turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets. Mild Mrs. Dent talked with good-natured Mrs. Eshton; and the two sometimes bestowed a courteous word or smile on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr. Eshton discussed politics, or county affairs, or justice business. Lord Ingram flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang to and with one of the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly to the gallant speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with one consent, suspended their by-play to observe and listen to the principal actors: for, after all, Mr. Rochester and—because closely connected with him—Miss Ingram were the life and soul of the party. If he was absent from the room an hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal over the spirits of his guests; and his re-entrance was sure to give a fresh impulse to the vivacity of conversation. + +The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was not likely to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the gentlemen were gone to the stables: the younger ones, together with the younger ladies, were playing billiards in the billiard-room. The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought solace in a quiet game at cards. Blanche Ingram, after having repelled, by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of absence. The room and the house were silent: only now and then the merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above. + +It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of the hour to dress for dinner, when little Adèle, who knelt by me in the drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed— + +“Voilà Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!” + +I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the others, too, looked up from their several occupations; for at the same time a crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became audible on the wet gravel. A post-chaise was approaching. + +“What can possess him to come home in that style?” said Miss Ingram. “He rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went out? and Pilot was with him:—what has he done with the animals?” + +As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments so near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the breaking of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at first, but when she did, she curled her lip and moved to another casement. The post-chaise stopped; the driver rang the door-bell, and a gentleman alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not Mr. Rochester; it was a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger. + +“How provoking!” exclaimed Miss Ingram: “you tiresome monkey!” (apostrophising Adèle), “who perched you up in the window to give false intelligence?” and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in fault. + +Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer entered. He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady present. + +“It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam,” said he, “when my friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns.” + +His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being somewhat unusual,—not precisely foreign, but still not altogether English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester’s,—between thirty and forty; his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was a fine-looking man, at first sight especially. On closer examination, you detected something in his face that displeased, or rather that failed to please. His features were regular, but too relaxed: his eye was large and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a tame, vacant life—at least so I thought. + +The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party. It was not till after dinner that I saw him again: he then seemed quite at his ease. But I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as being at the same time unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and had no meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such as I never remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an unamiable-looking man, he repelled me exceedingly: there was no power in that smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in that aquiline nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye. + +As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full over him—for he occupied an arm-chair drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as if he were cold, I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with deference be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between a sleek gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and the rough-coated keen-eyed dog, its guardian. + +He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious friendship theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage that “extremes meet.” + +Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make much sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that reached me at intervals. These last were discussing the stranger; they both called him “a beautiful man.” Louisa said he was “a love of a creature,” and she “adored him;” and Mary instanced his “pretty little mouth, and nice nose,” as her ideal of the charming. + +“And what a sweet-tempered forehead he has!” cried Louisa,—“so smooth—none of those frowning irregularities I dislike so much; and such a placid eye and smile!” + +And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned them to the other side of the room, to settle some point about the deferred excursion to Hay Common. + +I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, and I presently gathered that the new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then I learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came from some hot country: which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the house. Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and become acquainted with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend’s dislike of the burning heats, the hurricanes, and rainy seasons of that region. I knew Mr. Rochester had been a traveller: Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought the continent of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had never heard a hint given of visits to more distant shores. + +I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as some one chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire, which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near Mr. Eshton’s chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I heard only the words, “old woman,”—“quite troublesome.” + +“Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take herself off,” replied the magistrate. + +“No—stop!” interrupted Colonel Dent. “Don’t send her away, Eshton; we might turn the thing to account; better consult the ladies.” And speaking aloud, he continued—“Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common to visit the gipsy camp; Sam here says that one of the old Mother Bunches is in the servants’ hall at this moment, and insists upon being brought in before ‘the quality,’ to tell them their fortunes. Would you like to see her?” + +“Surely, colonel,” cried Lady Ingram, “you would not encourage such a low impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!” + +“But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady,” said the footman; “nor can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and says nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to come in here.” + +“What does she want?” asked Mrs. Eshton. + +“‘To tell the gentry their fortunes,’ she says, ma’am; and she swears she must and will do it.” + +“What is she like?” inquired the Misses Eshton, in a breath. + +“A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock.” + +“Why, she’s a real sorceress!” cried Frederick Lynn. “Let us have her in, of course.” + +“To be sure,” rejoined his brother; “it would be a thousand pities to throw away such a chance of fun.” + +“My dear boys, what are you thinking about?” exclaimed Mrs. Lynn. + +“I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding,” chimed in the Dowager Ingram. + +“Indeed, mama, but you can—and will,” pronounced the haughty voice of Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool; where till now she had sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. “I have a curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame forward.” + +“My darling Blanche! recollect—” + +“I do—I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will—quick, Sam!” + +“Yes—yes—yes!” cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. “Let her come—it will be excellent sport!” + +The footman still lingered. “She looks such a rough one,” said he. + +“Go!” ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went. + +Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery and jests was proceeding when Sam returned. + +“She won’t come now,” said he. “She says it’s not her mission to appear before the ‘vulgar herd’ (them’s her words). I must show her into a room by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by one.” + +“You see now, my queenly Blanche,” began Lady Ingram, “she encroaches. Be advised, my angel girl—and—” + +“Show her into the library, of course,” cut in the “angel girl.” “It is not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either: I mean to have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?” + +“Yes, ma’am—but she looks such a tinkler.” + +“Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding.” + +Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full flow once more. + +“She’s ready now,” said the footman, as he reappeared. “She wishes to know who will be her first visitor.” + +“I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go,” said Colonel Dent. + +“Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming.” + +Sam went and returned. + +“She says, sir, that she’ll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble themselves to come near her; nor,” he added, with difficulty suppressing a titter, “any ladies either, except the young, and single.” + +“By Jove, she has taste!” exclaimed Henry Lynn. + +Miss Ingram rose solemnly: “I go first,” she said, in a tone which might have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in the van of his men. + +“Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause—reflect!” was her mama’s cry; but she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library. + +A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it “le cas” to wring her hands: which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered under their breath, and looked a little frightened. + +The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the library-door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch. + +Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with a glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to her seat, and took it in silence. + +“Well, Blanche?” said Lord Ingram. + +“What did she say, sister?” asked Mary. + +“What did you think? How do you feel? Is she a real fortune-teller?” demanded the Misses Eshton. + +“Now, now, good people,” returned Miss Ingram, “don’t press upon me. Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you seem, by the importance of you all—my good mama included—ascribe to this matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the house, who is in close alliance with the old gentleman. I have seen a gipsy vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is gratified; and now I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in the stocks to-morrow morning, as he threatened.” + +Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined further conversation. I watched her for nearly half-an-hour: during all that time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, more dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She had obviously not heard anything to her advantage: and it seemed to me, from her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself, notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to whatever revelations had been made her. + +During all that time she never turned a page +Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was opened through the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro, till, I think, the said Sam’s calves must have ached with the exercise, permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body. + +Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram’s had been: we heard hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their wits. + +“I am sure she is something not right!” they cried, one and all. “She told us such things! She knows all about us!” and they sank breathless into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them. + +Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of things they had said and done when they were mere children; described books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of what they most wished for. + +Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes, ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. The matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger urged their services on the agitated fair ones. + +In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I turned, and saw Sam. + +“If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be you: there is no one else for it. What shall I tell her?” + +“Oh, I will go by all means,” I answered: and I was glad of the unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped out of the room, unobserved by any eye—for the company were gathered in one mass about the trembling trio just returned—and I closed the door quietly behind me. + +“If you like, miss,” said Sam, “I’ll wait in the hall for you; and if she frightens you, just call and I’ll come in.” + +“No, Sam, return to the kitchen: I am not in the least afraid.” Nor was I; but I was a good deal interested and excited. + +== CHAPTER XIX +The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl—if Sibyl she were—was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney-corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a broad-brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin. An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending over the fire, and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer-book, by the light of the blaze: she muttered the words to herself, as most old women do, while she read; she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it appeared she wished to finish a paragraph. + +I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as composed as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the gipsy’s appearance to trouble one’s calm. She shut her book and slowly looked up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elf-locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin, and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at once, with a bold and direct gaze. + +“Well, and you want your fortune told?” she said, in a voice as decided as her glance, as harsh as her features. + +“I don’t care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to warn you, I have no faith.” + +“It’s like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I heard it in your step as you crossed the threshold.” + +“Did you? You’ve a quick ear.” + +“I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain.” + +“You need them all in your trade.” + +“I do; especially when I’ve customers like you to deal with. Why don’t you tremble?” + +“I’m not cold.” + +“Why don’t you turn pale?” + +“I am not sick.” + +“Why don’t you consult my art?” + +“I’m not silly.” + +The old crone “nichered” a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to smoke. Having indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body, took the pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire, said very deliberately— + +“You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly.” + +“Prove it,” I rejoined. + +“I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no contact strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick; because the best of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it waits you.” + +She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking with vigour. + +“You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a solitary dependent in a great house.” + +“I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost any one?” + +“In my circumstances.” + +“Yes; just so, in your circumstances: but find me another precisely placed as you are.” + +“It would be easy to find you thousands.” + +“You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The materials are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them. Chance laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss results.” + +“I don’t understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my life.” + +“If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm.” + +“And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?” + +“To be sure.” + +I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which she took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned it, she told me to hold out my hand. I did. She approached her face to the palm, and pored over it without touching it. + +“It is too fine,” said she. “I can make nothing of such a hand as that; almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not written there.” + +“I believe you,” said I. + +“No,” she continued, “it is in the face: on the forehead, about the eyes, in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head.” + +“Ah! now you are coming to reality,” I said, as I obeyed her. “I shall begin to put some faith in you presently.” + +I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that a ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however, as she sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it illumined. + +“I wonder with what feelings you came to me to-night,” she said, when she had examined me a while. “I wonder what thoughts are busy in your heart during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people flitting before you like shapes in a magic-lantern: just as little sympathetic communion passing between you and them as if they were really mere shadows of human forms, and not the actual substance.” + +“I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad.” + +“Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with whispers of the future?” + +“Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my earnings to set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself.” + +“A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that window-seat (you see I know your habits)—” + +“You have learned them from the servants.” + +“Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak truth, I have an acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole—” + +I started to my feet when I heard the name. + +“You have—have you?” thought I; “there is diablerie in the business after all, then!” + +“Don’t be alarmed,” continued the strange being; “she’s a safe hand is Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her. But, as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of nothing but your future school? Have you no present interest in any of the company who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not one face you study? one figure whose movements you follow with at least curiosity?” + +“I like to observe all the faces and all the figures.” + +“But do you never single one from the rest—or it may be, two?” + +“I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a tale: it amuses me to watch them.” + +“What tale do you like best to hear?” + +“Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same theme—courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe—marriage.” + +“And do you like that monotonous theme?” + +“Positively, I don’t care about it: it is nothing to me.” + +“Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health, charming with beauty and endowed with the gifts of rank and fortune, sits and smiles in the eyes of a gentleman you—” + +“I what?” + +“You know—and perhaps think well of.” + +“I don’t know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I consider some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others young, dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty to be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me.” + +“You don’t know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a syllable with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the house!” + +“He is not at home.” + +“A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance—blot him, as it were, out of existence?” + +“No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the theme you had introduced.” + +“I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of late so many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester’s eyes that they overflow like two cups filled above the brim: have you never remarked that?” + +“Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests.” + +“No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured with the most lively and the most continuous?” + +“The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator.” I said this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk, voice, manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One unexpected sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for weeks by my heart watching its workings and taking record of every pulse. + +“Eagerness of a listener!” repeated she: “yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such delight in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have noticed this?” + +“Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face.” + +“Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if not gratitude?” + +I said nothing. + +“You have seen love: have you not?—and, looking forward, you have seen him married, and beheld his bride happy?” + +“Humph! Not exactly. Your witch’s skill is rather at fault sometimes.” + +“What the devil have you seen, then?” + +“Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that Mr. Rochester is to be married?” + +“Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram.” + +“Shortly?” + +“Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt (though, with an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem to question it), they will be a superlatively happy pair. He must love such a handsome, noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she loves him, or, if not his person, at least his purse. I know she considers the Rochester estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her something on that point about an hour ago which made her look wondrous grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an inch. I would advise her blackaviced suitor to look out: if another comes, with a longer or clearer rent-roll,—he’s dished—” + +“But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester’s fortune: I came to hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it.” + +“Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness: that I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid it carefully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends on yourself to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you will do so, is the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug.” + +“Don’t keep me long; the fire scorches me.” + +She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair +I knelt. She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair. She began muttering,— + +“The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made,—to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only confirm me in my opinion. The eye is favourable. + +“As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be silent on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of solitude: it is a mouth which should speak much and smile often, and have human affection for its interlocutor. That feature too is propitious. + +“I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow professes to say,—‘I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford to give.’ The forehead declares, ‘Reason sits firm and holds the reins, and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in every decision. Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the dictates of conscience.’ + +“Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have formed my plans—right plans I deem them—and in them I have attended to the claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know how soon youth would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution—such is not my taste. I wish to foster, not to blight—to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood—no, nor of brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet—That will do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish now to protract this moment ad infinitum; but I dare not. So far I have governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as I inwardly swore I would act; but further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leave me; ‘the play is played out.’” + +Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I dream still? The old woman’s voice had changed: her accent, her gesture, and all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass—as the speech of my own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred the fire, and I looked again: but she drew her bonnet and her bandage closer about her face, and again beckoned me to depart. The flame illuminated her hand stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at once noticed that hand. It was no more the withered limb of eld than my own; it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping forward, I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times before. Again I looked at the face; which was no longer turned from me—on the contrary, the bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the head advanced. + +“Well, Jane, do you know me?” asked the familiar voice. + +“Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then—” + +“But the string is in a knot—help me.” + +“Break it, sir.” + +“There, then—‘Off, ye lendings!’” And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his disguise. + +“Now, sir, what a strange idea!” + +“But well carried out, eh? Don’t you think so?” + +“With the ladies you must have managed well.” + +“But not with you?” + +“You did not act the character of a gipsy with me.” + +“What character did I act? My own?” + +“No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you have been trying to draw me out—or in; you have been talking nonsense to make me talk nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir.” + +“Do you forgive me, Jane?” + +“I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on reflection, I find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive you; but it was not right.” + +“Oh, you have been very correct—very careful, very sensible.” + +I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had. It was a comfort; but, indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the interview. Something of masquerade I suspected. I knew gipsies and fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman had expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her anxiety to conceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace Poole—that living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I considered her. I had never thought of Mr. Rochester. + +“Well,” said he, “what are you musing about? What does that grave smile signify?” + +“Wonder and self-congratulation, sir. I have your permission to retire now, I suppose?” + +“No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room yonder are doing.” + +“Discussing the gipsy, I daresay.” + +“Sit down!—Let me hear what they said about me.” + +“I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o’clock. Oh, are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since you left this morning?” + +“A stranger!—no; who can it be? I expected no one; is he gone?” + +“No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty of installing himself here till you returned.” + +“The devil he did! Did he give his name?” + +“His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from Spanish Town, in Jamaica, I think.” + +Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if to lead me to a chair. As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath. + +“Mason!—the West Indies!” he said, in the tone one might fancy a speaking automaton to enounce its single words; “Mason!—the West Indies!” he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times, growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly seemed to know what he was doing. + +“Do you feel ill, sir?” I inquired. + +“Jane, I’ve got a blow; I’ve got a blow, Jane!” He staggered. + +“Oh, lean on me, sir.” + +“Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now.” + +“Yes, sir, yes; and my arm.” + +He sat down, and made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both his own, he chafed it; gazing on me, at the same time, with the most troubled and dreary look. + +“My little friend!” said he, “I wish I were in a quiet island with only you; and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections removed from me.” + +“Can I help you, sir?—I’d give my life to serve you.” + +“Jane, if aid is wanted, I’ll seek it at your hands; I promise you that.” + +“Thank you, sir. Tell me what to do,—I’ll try, at least, to do it.” + +“Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the dining-room: they will be at supper there; and tell me if Mason is with them, and what he is doing.” + +I went. I found all the party in the dining-room at supper, as Mr. Rochester had said; they were not seated at table,—the supper was arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they stood about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in their hands. Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and conversation were general and animated. Mr. Mason stood near the fire, talking to Colonel and Mrs. Dent, and appeared as merry as any of them. I filled a wine-glass (I saw Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did so: she thought I was taking a liberty, I daresay), and I returned to the library. + +Mr. Rochester’s extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more firm and stern. He took the glass from my hand. + +“Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!” he said. He swallowed the contents and returned it to me. “What are they doing, Jane?” + +“Laughing and talking, sir.” + +“They don’t look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard something strange?” + +“Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety.” + +“And Mason?” + +“He was laughing too.” + +“If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you do, Jane?” + +“Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could.” + +He half smiled. “But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at me coldly, and whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and then dropped off and left me one by one, what then? Would you go with them?” + +“I rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with you.” + +“To comfort me?” + +“Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could.” + +“And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?” + +“I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I should care nothing about it.” + +“Then, you could dare censure for my sake?” + +“I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; as you, I am sure, do.” + +“Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in his ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show him in here and then leave me.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight among them. I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went upstairs. + +At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester’s voice, and heard him say, “This way, Mason; this is your room.” + +He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was soon asleep. + +== CHAPTER XX +I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to let down my window-blind. The consequence was, that when the moon, which was full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course to that space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me through the unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awaking in the dead of night, I opened my eyes on her disk—silver-white and crystal clear. It was beautiful, but too solemn: I half rose, and stretched my arm to draw the curtain. + +Good God! What a cry! + +The night—its silence—its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp, a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall. + +My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed. The cry died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being uttered that fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the widest-winged condor on the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the cloud shrouding his eyrie. The thing delivering such utterance must rest ere it could repeat the effort. + +It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And overhead—yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling—I now heard a struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered voice shouted— + +“Help! help! help!” three times rapidly. + +“Will no one come?” it cried; and then, while the staggering and stamping went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:— + +“Rochester! Rochester! for God’s sake, come!” + +A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery. Another step stamped on the flooring above and something fell; and there was silence. + +I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations, terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and ladies alike had quitted their beds; and “Oh! what is it?”—“Who is hurt?”—“What has happened?”—“Fetch a light!”—“Is it fire?”—“Are there robbers?”—“Where shall we run?” was demanded confusedly on all hands. But for the moonlight they would have been in complete darkness. They ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the confusion was inextricable. + +“Where the devil is Rochester?” cried Colonel Dent. “I cannot find him in his bed.” + +“Here! here!” was shouted in return. “Be composed, all of you: I’m coming.” + +And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey. One of the ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss Ingram. + +“What awful event has taken place?” said she. “Speak! let us know the worst at once!” + +“But don’t pull me down or strangle me,” he replied: for the Misses Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail. + +“All’s right!—all’s right!” he cried. “It’s a mere rehearsal of Much Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous.” + +And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself by an effort, he added— + +“A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She’s an excitable, nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or something of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright. Now, then, I must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is settled, she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the goodness to set the ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in evincing superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your nests like a pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames” (to the dowagers), “you will take cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill gallery any longer.” + +And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived to get them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories. I did not wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as unnoticed I had left it. + +Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed myself carefully. The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the words that had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for they had proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it was not a servant’s dream which had thus struck horror through the house; and that the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention framed to pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready for emergencies. When dressed, I sat a long time by the window looking out over the silent grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew not what. It seemed to me that some event must follow the strange cry, struggle, and call. + +No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and in about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as a desert. It seemed that sleep and night had resumed their empire. Meantime the moon declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in the cold and darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed as I was. I left the window, and moved with little noise across the carpet; as I stooped to take off my shoes, a cautious hand tapped low at the door. + +“Am I wanted?” I asked. + +“Are you up?” asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my master’s. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And dressed?” + +“Yes.” + +“Come out, then, quietly.” + +I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light. + +“I want you,” he said: “come this way: take your time, and make no noise.” + +My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a cat. He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the dark, low corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and stood at his side. + +“Have you a sponge in your room?” he asked in a whisper. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Have you any salts—volatile salts?” + +“Yes.” + +“Go back and fetch both.” + +I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer, and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a key in his hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock; he paused, and addressed me again. + +“You don’t turn sick at the sight of blood?” + +“I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet.” + +I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no faintness. + +“Just give me your hand,” he said: “it will not do to risk a fainting fit.” + +I put my fingers into his. “Warm and steady,” was his remark: he turned the key and opened the door. + +I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of the room within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, “Wait a minute,” and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of laughter greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole’s own goblin ha! ha! She then was there. He made some sort of arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him: he came out and closed the door behind him. + +“Here, Jane!” he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it, dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face—the stranger, Mason: I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in blood. + +“Hold the candle,” said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a basin of water from the washstand: “Hold that,” said he. I obeyed. He took the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he asked for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils. Mr. Mason shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester opened the shirt of the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged away blood, trickling fast down. + +“Is there immediate danger?” murmured Mr. Mason. + +“Pooh! No—a mere scratch. Don’t be so overcome, man: bear up! I’ll fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you’ll be able to be removed by morning, I hope. Jane,” he continued. + +“Sir?” + +“I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an hour, or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when it returns: if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that stand to his lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to him on any pretext—and—Richard, it will be at the peril of your life if you speak to her: open your lips—agitate yourself—and I’ll not answer for the consequences.” + +Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear, either of death or of something else, appeared almost to paralyse him. Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded to use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then saying, “Remember!—No conversation,” he left the room. I experienced a strange feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating step ceased to be heard. + +Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes—that was appalling—the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of Grace Poole bursting out upon me. + +I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly countenance—these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose—these eyes now shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, and ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand again and again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling gore. I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment; the shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round me, and grow black under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver strangely over the doors of a great cabinet opposite—whose front, divided into twelve panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each enclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; while above them at the top rose an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ. + +According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here or glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that bent his brow; now St. John’s long hair that waved; and anon the devilish face of Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed gathering life and threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor—of Satan himself—in his subordinate’s form. + +Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den. But since Mr. Rochester’s visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I heard but three sounds at three long intervals,—a step creak, a momentary renewal of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan. + +Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this, that lived incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor subdued by the owner?—what mystery, that broke out now in fire and now in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it, that, masked in an ordinary woman’s face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey? + +And this man I bent over—this commonplace, quiet stranger—how had he become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at him? What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely season, when he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr. Rochester assign him an apartment below—what brought him here! And why, now, was he so tame under the violence or treachery done him? Why did he so quietly submit to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced? Why did Mr. Rochester enforce this concealment? His guest had been outraged, his own life on a former occasion had been hideously plotted against; and both attempts he smothered in secrecy and sank in oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was submissive to Mr. Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held complete sway over the inertness of the former: the few words which had passed between them assured me of this. It was evident that in their former intercourse, the passive disposition of the one had been habitually influenced by the active energy of the other: whence then had arisen Mr. Rochester’s dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason’s arrival? Why had the mere name of this unresisting individual—whom his word now sufficed to control like a child—fallen on him, a few hours since, as a thunderbolt might fall on an oak? + +Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered: “Jane, I have got a blow—I have got a blow, Jane.” I could not forget how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester. + +“When will he come? When will he come?” I cried inwardly, as the night lingered and lingered—as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened: and neither day nor aid arrived. I had, again and again, held the water to Mason’s white lips; again and again offered him the stimulating salts: my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or mental suffering, or loss of blood, or all three combined, were fast prostrating his strength. He moaned so, and looked so weak, wild, and lost, I feared he was dying; and I might not even speak to him. + +The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived streaks of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then approaching. Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his distant kennel in the courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted: in five minutes more the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me my watch was relieved. It could not have lasted more than two hours: many a week has seemed shorter. + +Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to fetch. + +“Now, Carter, be on the alert,” he said to this last: “I give you but half-an-hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages, getting the patient downstairs and all.” + +“But is he fit to move, sir?” + +“No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his spirits must be kept up. Come, set to work.” + +Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland blind, let in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and cheered to see how far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were beginning to brighten the east. Then he approached Mason, whom the surgeon was already handling. + +“Now, my good fellow, how are you?” he asked. + +“She’s done for me, I fear,” was the faint reply. + +“Not a whit!—courage! This day fortnight you’ll hardly be a pin the worse of it: you’ve lost a little blood; that’s all. Carter, assure him there’s no danger.” + +“I can do that conscientiously,” said Carter, who had now undone the bandages; “only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would not have bled so much—but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there have been teeth here!” + +“She bit me,” he murmured. “She worried me like a tigress, when Rochester got the knife from her.” + +“You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at once,” said Mr. Rochester. + +“But under such circumstances, what could one do?” returned Mason. “Oh, it was frightful!” he added, shuddering. “And I did not expect it: she looked so quiet at first.” + +“I warned you,” was his friend’s answer; “I said—be on your guard when you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-morrow, and had me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the interview to-night, and alone.” + +“I thought I could have done some good.” + +“You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear you: but, however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer enough for not taking my advice; so I’ll say no more. Carter—hurry!—hurry! The sun will soon rise, and I must have him off.” + +“Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this other wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think.” + +“She sucked the blood: she said she’d drain my heart,” said Mason. + +I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust, horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he only said— + +“Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don’t repeat it.” + +“I wish I could forget it,” was the answer. + +“You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish Town, you may think of her as dead and buried—or rather, you need not think of her at all.” + +“Impossible to forget this night!” + +“It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you were as dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and talking now. There!—Carter has done with you or nearly so; I’ll make you decent in a trice. Jane” (he turned to me for the first time since his re-entrance), “take this key: go down into my bedroom, and walk straight forward into my dressing-room: open the top drawer of the wardrobe and take out a clean shirt and neck-handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble.” + +I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles named, and returned with them. + +“Now,” said he, “go to the other side of the bed while I order his toilet; but don’t leave the room: you may be wanted again.” + +I retired as directed. + +“Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?” inquired Mr. Rochester presently. + +“No, sir; all was very still.” + +“We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both for your sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have striven long to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at last. Here, Carter, help him on with his waist-coat. Where did you leave your furred cloak? You can’t travel a mile without that, I know, in this damned cold climate. In your room?—Jane, run down to Mr. Mason’s room,—the one next mine,—and fetch a cloak you will see there.” + +Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined and edged with fur. + +“Now, I’ve another errand for you,” said my untiring master; “you must away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!—a clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a little glass you will find there,—quick!” + +I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels. + +“That’s well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of an Italian charlatan—a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not a thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as now, for instance. Jane, a little water.” + +He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on the washstand. + +“That will do;—now wet the lip of the phial.” + +I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it to Mason. + +“Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so.” + +“But will it hurt me?—is it inflammatory?” + +“Drink! drink! drink!” + +Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied. Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the liquid; he then took his arm— + +“Now I am sure you can get on your feet,” he said—“try.” + +The patient rose. + +“Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard; step out—that’s it!” + +“I do feel better,” remarked Mr. Mason. + +“I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the backstairs; unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the post-chaise you will see in the yard—or just outside, for I told him not to drive his rattling wheels over the pavement—to be ready; we are coming: and, Jane, if any one is about, come to the foot of the stairs and hem.” + +It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The side-passage door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as possible: all the yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there was a post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box, stationed outside. I approached him, and said the gentlemen were coming; he nodded: then I looked carefully round and listened. The stillness of early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet drawn over the servants’ chamber windows; little birds were just twittering in the blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped like white garlands over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped from time to time in their closed stables: all else was still. + +The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him into the chaise; Carter followed. + +“Take care of him,” said Mr. Rochester to the latter, “and keep him at your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two to see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?” + +“The fresh air revives me, Fairfax.” + +“Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind—good-bye, Dick.” + +“Fairfax—” + +“Well what is it?” + +“Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: let her—” he stopped and burst into tears. + +“I do my best; and have done it, and will do it,” was the answer: he shut up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away. + +“Yet would to God there was an end of all this!” added Mr. Rochester, as he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates. + +This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a door in the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done with me, prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call “Jane!” He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for me. + +“Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments,” he said; “that house is a mere dungeon: don’t you feel it so?” + +“It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir.” + +“The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes,” he answered; “and you see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate, and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now here” (he pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) “all is real, sweet, and pure.” + +He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, and cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all sorts of old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies, mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant herbs. They were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a lovely spring morning, could make them: the sun was just entering the dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and dewy orchard trees and shone down the quiet walks under them. + +“Jane, will you have a flower?” + +He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to me. + +“Thank you, sir.” + +“Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light clouds which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm—this placid and balmly atmosphere?” + +“I do, very much.” + +“You have passed a strange night, Jane.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And it has made you look pale—were you afraid when I left you alone with Mason?” + +“I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room.” + +“But I had fastened the door—I had the key in my pocket: I should have been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb—my pet lamb—so near a wolf’s den, unguarded: you were safe.” + +“Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?” + +“Oh yes! don’t trouble your head about her—put the thing out of your thoughts.” + +“Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays.” + +“Never fear—I will take care of myself.” + +“Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?” + +“I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. To live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and spue fire any day.” + +“But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or wilfully injure you.” + +“Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me—but, unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me, if not of life, yet for ever of happiness.” + +“Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show him how to avert the danger.” + +He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it from him. + +“If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only had to say to him ‘Do that,’ and the thing has been done. But I cannot give him orders in this case: I cannot say ‘Beware of harming me, Richard;’ for it is imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is possible. Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you further. You are my little friend, are you not?” + +“I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right.” + +“Precisely: I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait and mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing me—working for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say, ‘all that is right:’ for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there would be no light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no lively glance and animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, quiet and pale, and would say, ‘No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot do it, because it is wrong;’ and would become immutable as a fixed star. Well, you too have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare not show you where I am vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you are, you should transfix me at once.” + +“If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me, sir, you are very safe.” + +“God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down.” + +The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me: but I stood before him. + +“Sit,” he said; “the bench is long enough for two. You don’t hesitate to take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane?” + +I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been unwise. + +“Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew—while all the flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their young ones’ breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do their first spell of work—I’ll put a case to you, which you must endeavour to suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you are at ease, and not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you err in staying.” + +“No, sir; I am content.” + +“Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:—suppose you were no longer a girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life and taint all your existence. Mind, I don’t say a crime; I am not speaking of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is error. The results of what you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel will not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base associations have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there, seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure—I mean in heartless, sensual pleasure—such as dulls intellect and blights feeling. Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary banishment: you make a new acquaintance—how or where no matter: you find in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives, regenerates: you feel better days come back—higher wishes, purer feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom—a mere conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your judgment approves?” + +He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good spirit to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain aspiration! The west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their song, however sweet, was inarticulate. + +Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query: + +“Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant, man justified in daring the world’s opinion, in order to attach to him for ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own peace of mind and regeneration of life?” + +“Sir,” I answered, “a wanderer’s repose or a sinner’s reformation should never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; philosophers falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to amend and solace to heal.” + +“But the instrument—the instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the instrument. I have myself—I tell it you without parable—been a worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the instrument for my cure in—” + +He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling. I almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch the suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many minutes—so long was the silence protracted. At last I looked up at the tardy speaker: he was looking eagerly at me. + +“Little friend,” said he, in quite a changed tone—while his face changed too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh and sarcastic—“you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: don’t you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a vengeance?” + +He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and when he came back he was humming a tune. + +“Jane, Jane,” said he, stopping before me, “you are quite pale with your vigils: don’t you curse me for disturbing your rest?” + +“Curse you? No, sir.” + +“Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers! They were warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?” + +“Whenever I can be useful, sir.” + +“For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall not be able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company? To you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have seen her and know her.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“She’s a rare one, is she not, Jane?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“A strapper—a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with hair just such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me! there’s Dent and Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery, through that wicket.” + +As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard, saying cheerfully— + +“Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before sunrise: I rose at four to see him off.” + +== CHAPTER XXI +Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life, because I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist (for instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension. And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies of Nature with man. + +When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble, either to one’s self or one’s kin. The saying might have worn out of my memory, had not a circumstance immediately followed which served indelibly to fix it there. The next day Bessie was sent for home to the deathbed of her little sister. + +Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed in my arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in running water. It was a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it nestled close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the apparition evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven successive nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber. + +I did not like this iteration of one idea—this strange recurrence of one image, and I grew nervous as bedtime approached and the hour of the vision drew near. It was from companionship with this baby-phantom I had been roused on that moonlight night when I heard the cry; and it was on the afternoon of the day following I was summoned downstairs by a message that some one wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax’s room. On repairing thither, I found a man waiting for me, having the appearance of a gentleman’s servant: he was dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he held in his hand was surrounded with a crape band. + +“I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss,” he said, rising as I entered; “but my name is Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were at Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live there still.” + +“Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well: you used to give me a ride sometimes on Miss Georgiana’s bay pony. And how is Bessie? You are married to Bessie?” + +“Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me another little one about two months since—we have three now—and both mother and child are thriving.” + +“And are the family well at the house, Robert?” + +“I am sorry I can’t give you better news of them, Miss: they are very badly at present—in great trouble.” + +“I hope no one is dead,” I said, glancing at his black dress. He too looked down at the crape round his hat and replied— + +“Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London.” + +“Mr. John?” + +“Yes.” + +“And how does his mother bear it?” + +“Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has been very wild: these last three years he gave himself up to strange ways, and his death was shocking.” + +“I heard from Bessie he was not doing well.” + +“Doing well! He could not do worse: he ruined his health and his estate amongst the worst men and the worst women. He got into debt and into jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free he returned to his old companions and habits. His head was not strong: the knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever heard. He came down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted missis to give up all to him. Missis refused: her means have long been much reduced by his extravagance; so he went back again, and the next news was that he was dead. How he died, God knows!—they say he killed himself.” + +I was silent: the tidings were frightful. Robert Leaven resumed— + +“Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got very stout, but was not strong with it; and the loss of money and fear of poverty were quite breaking her down. The information about Mr. John’s death and the manner of it came too suddenly: it brought on a stroke. She was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she seemed rather better: she appeared as if she wanted to say something, and kept making signs to my wife and mumbling. It was only yesterday morning, however, that Bessie understood she was pronouncing your name; and at last she made out the words, ‘Bring Jane—fetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to her.’ Bessie is not sure whether she is in her right mind, or means anything by the words; but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana, and advised them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but their mother grew so restless, and said, ‘Jane, Jane,’ so many times, that at last they consented. I left Gateshead yesterday: and if you can get ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with me early to-morrow morning.” + +“Yes, Robert, I shall be ready: it seems to me that I ought to go.” + +“I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse: but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get off?” + +“Yes; and I will do it now;” and having directed him to the servants’ hall, and recommended him to the care of John’s wife, and the attentions of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester. + +He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the stables, or the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him;—yes: she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram. To the billiard-room I hastened: the click of balls and the hum of voices resounded thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton, and their admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some courage to disturb so interesting a party; my errand, however, was one I could not defer, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss Ingram’s side. She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily: her eyes seemed to demand, “What can the creeping creature want now?” and when I said, in a low voice, “Mr. Rochester,” she made a movement as if tempted to order me away. I remember her appearance at the moment—it was very graceful and very striking: she wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure scarf was twisted in her hair. She had been all animation with the game, and irritated pride did not lower the expression of her haughty lineaments. + +“Does that person want you?” she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr. Rochester turned to see who the “person” was. He made a curious grimace—one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations—threw down his cue and followed me from the room. + +“Well, Jane?” he said, as he rested his back against the schoolroom door, which he had shut. + +“If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two.” + +“What to do?—where to go?” + +“To see a sick lady who has sent for me.” + +“What sick lady?—where does she live?” + +“At Gateshead; in ——shire.” + +“-shire? That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends for people to see her that distance?” + +“Her name is Reed, sir—Mrs. Reed.” + +“Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate.” + +“It is his widow, sir.” + +“And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?” + +“Mr. Reed was my uncle—my mother’s brother.” + +“The deuce he was! You never told me that before: you always said you had no relations.” + +“None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me off.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me.” + +“But Reed left children?—you must have cousins? Sir George Lynn was talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of the veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season or two ago in London.” + +“John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined his family, and is supposed to have committed suicide. The news so shocked his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack.” + +“And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never think of running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps, be dead before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off.” + +“Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now.” + +“How long will you stay?” + +“As short a time as possible, sir.” + +“Promise me only to stay a week—” + +“I had better not pass my word: I might be obliged to break it.” + +“At all events you will come back: you will not be induced under any pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?” + +“Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well.” + +“And who goes with you? You don’t travel a hundred miles alone.” + +“No, sir, she has sent her coachman.” + +“A person to be trusted?” + +“Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family.” + +Mr. Rochester meditated. “When do you wish to go?” + +“Early to-morrow morning, sir.” + +“Well, you must have some money; you can’t travel without money, and I daresay you have not much: I have given you no salary yet. How much have you in the world, Jane?” he asked, smiling. + +I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. “Five shillings, sir.” He took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over it as if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his pocket-book: “Here,” said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds, and he owed me but fifteen. I told him I had no change. + +“I don’t want change; you know that. Take your wages.” + +I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first; then, as if recollecting something, he said— + +“Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps, stay away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is it not plenty?” + +“Yes, sir, but now you owe me five.” + +“Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds.” + +“Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you while I have the opportunity.” + +“Matter of business? I am curious to hear it.” + +“You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be married?” + +“Yes; what then?” + +“In that case, sir, Adèle ought to go to school: I am sure you will perceive the necessity of it.” + +“To get her out of my bride’s way, who might otherwise walk over her rather too emphatically? There’s sense in the suggestion; not a doubt of it. Adèle, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must march straight to—the devil?” + +“I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere.” + +“In course!” he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some minutes. + +“And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be solicited by you to seek a place, I suppose?” + +“No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify me in asking favours of them—but I shall advertise.” + +“You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!” he growled. “At your peril you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I’ve a use for it.” + +“And so have I, sir,” I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind me. “I could not spare the money on any account.” + +“Little niggard!” said he, “refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me five pounds, Jane.” + +“Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence.” + +“Just let me look at the cash.” + +“No, sir; you are not to be trusted.” + +“Jane!” + +“Sir?” + +“Promise me one thing.” + +“I’ll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to perform.” + +“Not to advertise: and to trust this quest of a situation to me. I’ll find you one in time.” + +“I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise that I and Adèle shall be both safe out of the house before your bride enters it.” + +“Very well! very well! I’ll pledge my word on it. You go to-morrow, then?” + +“Yes, sir; early.” + +“Shall you come down to the drawing-room after dinner?” + +“No, sir, I must prepare for the journey.” + +“Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?” + +“I suppose so, sir.” + +“And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; I’m not quite up to it.” + +“They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer.” + +“Then say it.” + +“Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present.” + +“What must I say?” + +“The same, if you like, sir.” + +“Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?” + +“Yes.” + +“It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should like something else: a little addition to the rite. If one shook hands, for instance; but no—that would not content me either. So you’ll do no more than say Farewell, Jane?” + +“It is enough, sir: as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty word as in many.” + +“Very likely; but it is blank and cool—‘Farewell.’” + +“How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?” I asked myself; “I want to commence my packing.” The dinner-bell rang, and suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I saw him no more during the day, and was off before he had risen in the morning. + +I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o’clock in the afternoon of the first of May: I stepped in there before going up to the hall. It was very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung with little white curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and fire-irons were burnished bright, and the fire burnt clear. Bessie sat on the hearth, nursing her last-born, and Robert and his sister played quietly in a corner. + +“Bless you!—I knew you would come!” exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I entered. + +“Yes, Bessie,” said I, after I had kissed her; “and I trust I am not too late. How is Mrs. Reed?—Alive still, I hope.” + +“Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was. The doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks she will finally recover.” + +“Has she mentioned me lately?” + +“She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would come, but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up at the house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and wakes up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself here an hour, Miss, and then I will go up with you?” + +Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the cradle and went to welcome him: afterwards she insisted on my taking off my bonnet and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and tired. I was glad to accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be relieved of my travelling garb just as passively as I used to let her undress me when a child. + +Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about—setting out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and butter, toasting a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in former days. Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light foot and good looks. + +Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit still, quite in her old peremptory tones. I must be served at the fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled and obeyed her as in bygone days. + +She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of a person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a master, whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told her he was rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me kindly, and I was content. Then I went on to describe to her the gay company that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details Bessie listened with interest: they were precisely of the kind she relished. + +In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me my bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the hall. It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years ago, walked down the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty, raw morning in January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered heart—a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation—to seek the chilly harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored. The same hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet; and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished. + +“You shall go into the breakfast-room first,” said Bessie, as she preceded me through the hall; “the young ladies will be there.” + +In another moment I was within that apartment. There was every article of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was first introduced to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still covered the hearth. Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I could distinguish the two volumes of Bewick’s British Birds occupying their old place on the third shelf, and Gulliver’s Travels and the Arabian Nights ranged just above. The inanimate objects were not changed; but the living things had altered past recognition. + +Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as tall as Miss Ingram—very thin too, with a sallow face and severe mien. There was something ascetic in her look, which was augmented by the extreme plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress, a starched linen collar, hair combed away from the temples, and the nun-like ornament of a string of ebony beads and a crucifix. This I felt sure was Eliza, though I could trace little resemblance to her former self in that elongated and colourless visage. + +The other was as certainly Georgiana: but not the Georgiana I remembered—the slim and fairy-like girl of eleven. This was a full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome and regular features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair. The hue of her dress was black too; but its fashion was so different from her sister’s—so much more flowing and becoming—it looked as stylish as the other’s looked puritanical. + +In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother—and only one; the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent’s Cairngorm eye: the blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and chin—perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom. + +Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both addressed me by the name of “Miss Eyre.” Eliza’s greeting was delivered in a short, abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she sat down again, fixed her eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me. Georgiana added to her “How d’ye do?” several commonplaces about my journey, the weather, and so on, uttered in rather a drawling tone: and accompanied by sundry side-glances that measured me from head to foot—now traversing the folds of my drab merino pelisse, and now lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage bonnet. Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they think you a “quiz” without actually saying the words. A certain superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone, express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing them by any positive rudeness in word or deed. + +A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I was surprised to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one and the semi-sarcastic attentions of the other—Eliza did not mortify, nor Georgiana ruffle me. The fact was, I had other things to think about; within the last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent than any they could raise—pains and pleasures so much more acute and exquisite had been excited than any it was in their power to inflict or bestow—that their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad. + +“How is Mrs. Reed?” I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana, who thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an unexpected liberty. + +“Mrs. Reed? Ah! mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt if you can see her to-night.” + +“If,” said I, “you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come, I should be much obliged to you.” + +Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and wide. “I know she had a particular wish to see me,” I added, “and I would not defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely necessary.” + +“Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening,” remarked Eliza. I soon rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and said I would just step out to Bessie—who was, I dared say, in the kitchen—and ask her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to receive me or not to-night. I went, and having found Bessie and despatched her on my errand, I proceeded to take further measures. It had heretofore been my habit always to shrink from arrogance: received as I had been to-day, I should, a year ago, have resolved to quit Gateshead the very next morning; now, it was disclosed to me all at once that that would be a foolish plan. I had taken a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt, and I must stay with her till she was better—or dead: as to her daughters’ pride or folly, I must put it on one side, make myself independent of it. So I addressed the housekeeper; asked her to show me a room, told her I should probably be a visitor here for a week or two, had my trunk conveyed to my chamber, and followed it thither myself: I met Bessie on the landing. + +“Missis is awake,” said she; “I have told her you are here: come and let us see if she will know you.” + +I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I had so often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former days. I hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded light stood on the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the great four-post bed with amber hangings as of old; there the toilet-table, the armchair, and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been sentenced to kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted. I looked into a certain corner near, half-expecting to see the slim outline of a once dreaded switch which used to lurk there, waiting to leap out imp-like and lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened the curtains and leant over the high-piled pillows. + +Well did I remember Mrs. Reed’s face, and I eagerly sought the familiar image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left this woman in bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong yearning to forget and forgive all injuries—to be reconciled and clasp hands in amity. + +The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever—there was that peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised, imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and hate! and how the recollection of childhood’s terrors and sorrows revived as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped down and kissed her: she looked at me. + +“Is this Jane Eyre?” she said. + +“Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?” + +I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought it no sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened on her hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine kindly, I should at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and, turning her face rather from me, she remarked that the night was warm. Again she regarded me so icily, I felt at once that her opinion of me—her feeling towards me—was unchanged and unchangeable. I knew by her stony eye—opaque to tenderness, indissoluble to tears—that she was resolved to consider me bad to the last; because to believe me good would give her no generous pleasure: only a sense of mortification. + +I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination to subdue her—to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and her will. My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them back to their source. I brought a chair to the bed-head: I sat down and leaned over the pillow. + +“You sent for me,” I said, “and I am here; and it is my intention to stay till I see how you get on.” + +“Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?” + +“Yes.” + +“Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some things over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is too late, and I have a difficulty in recalling them. But there was something I wished to say—let me see—” + +The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken place in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew the bedclothes round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt, fixed it down: she was at once irritated. + +“Sit up!” said she; “don’t annoy me with holding the clothes fast. Are you Jane Eyre?” + +“I am Jane Eyre.” + +“I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe. Such a burden to be left on my hands—and so much annoyance as she caused me, daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition, and her sudden starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural watchings of one’s movements! I declare she talked to me once like something mad, or like a fiend—no child ever spoke or looked as she did; I was glad to get her away from the house. What did they do with her at Lowood? The fever broke out there, and many of the pupils died. She, however, did not die: but I said she did—I wish she had died!” + +“A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?” + +“I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband’s only sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family’s disowning her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her death, he wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby; though I entreated him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its maintenance. I hated it the first time I set my eyes on it—a sickly, whining, pining thing! It would wail in its cradle all night long—not screaming heartily like any other child, but whimpering and moaning. Reed pitied it; and he used to nurse it and notice it as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than he ever noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and he was angry with them when they showed their dislike. In his last illness, he had it brought continually to his bedside; and but an hour before he died, he bound me by vow to keep the creature. I would as soon have been charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse: but he was weak, naturally weak. John does not at all resemble his father, and I am glad of it: John is like me and like my brothers—he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish he would cease tormenting me with letters for money! I have no more money to give him: we are getting poor. I must send away half the servants and shut up part of the house; or let it off. I can never submit to do that—yet how are we to get on? Two-thirds of my income goes in paying the interest of mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and always loses—poor boy! He is beset by sharpers: John is sunk and degraded—his look is frightful—I feel ashamed for him when I see him.” + +She was getting much excited. “I think I had better leave her now,” said I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed. + +“Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards night—in the morning she is calmer.” + +I rose. “Stop!” exclaimed Mrs. Reed, “there is another thing I wished to say. He threatens me—he continually threatens me with his own death, or mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with a great wound in his throat, or with a swollen and blackened face. I am come to a strange pass: I have heavy troubles. What is to be done? How is the money to be had?” + +Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative draught: she succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more composed, and sank into a dozing state. I then left her. + +More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with her. She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor forbade everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I got on as well as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very cold, indeed, at first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing, reading, or writing, and scarcely utter a word either to me or her sister. Georgiana would chatter nonsense to her canary bird by the hour, and take no notice of me. But I was determined not to seem at a loss for occupation or amusement: I had brought my drawing materials with me, and they served me for both. + +Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to take a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in sketching fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened momentarily to shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of imagination: a glimpse of sea between two rocks; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disk; a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad’s head, crowned with lotus-flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow’s nest, under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom. + +One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was to be, I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it a broad point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features. Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that brow; then followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a straight ridge and full nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no means narrow; then a firm chin, with a decided cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black whiskers were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had left them to the last, because they required the most careful working. I drew them large; I shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the irids lustrous and large. “Good! but not quite the thing,” I thought, as I surveyed the effect: “they want more force and spirit;” and I wrought the shades blacker, that the lights might flash more brilliantly—a happy touch or two secured success. There, I had a friend’s face under my gaze; and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs on me? I looked at it; I smiled at the speaking likeness: I was absorbed and content. + +“Is that a portrait of some one you know?” asked Eliza, who had approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy head, and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied: it was, in fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But what was that to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also advanced to look. The other drawings pleased her much, but she called that “an ugly man.” They both seemed surprised at my skill. I offered to sketch their portraits; and each, in turn, sat for a pencil outline. Then Georgiana produced her album. I promised to contribute a water-colour drawing: this put her at once into good humour. She proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we had been out two hours, we were deep in a confidential conversation: she had favoured me with a description of the brilliant winter she had spent in London two seasons ago—of the admiration she had there excited—the attention she had received; and I even got hints of the titled conquest she had made. In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints were enlarged on: various soft conversations were reported, and sentimental scenes represented; and, in short, a volume of a novel of fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit. The communications were renewed from day to day: they always ran on the same theme—herself, her loves, and woes. It was strange she never once adverted either to her mother’s illness, or her brother’s death, or the present gloomy state of the family prospects. Her mind seemed wholly taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety, and aspirations after dissipations to come. She passed about five minutes each day in her mother’s sick-room, and no more. + +Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I never saw a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was difficult to say what she did: or rather, to discover any result of her diligence. She had an alarm to call her up early. I know not how she occupied herself before breakfast, but after that meal she divided her time into regular portions, and each hour had its allotted task. Three times a day she studied a little book, which I found, on inspection, was a Common Prayer Book. I asked her once what was the great attraction of that volume, and she said, “the Rubric.” Three hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread, the border of a square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a carpet. In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article, she informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church lately erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her diary; two to working by herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the regulation of her accounts. She seemed to want no company; no conversation. I believe she was happy in her way: this routine sufficed for her; and nothing annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her to vary its clockwork regularity. + +She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative than usual, that John’s conduct, and the threatened ruin of the family, had been a source of profound affliction to her: but she had now, she said, settled her mind, and formed her resolution. Her own fortune she had taken care to secure; and when her mother died—and it was wholly improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either recover or linger long—she would execute a long-cherished project: seek a retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured from disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous world. I asked if Georgiana would accompany her. + +“Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common: they never had had. She would not be burdened with her society for any consideration. Georgiana should take her own course; and she, Eliza, would take hers.” + +Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her time in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house, and wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send her an invitation up to town. “It would be so much better,” she said, “if she could only get out of the way for a month or two, till all was over.” I did not ask what she meant by “all being over,” but I suppose she referred to the expected decease of her mother and the gloomy sequel of funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more notice of her sister’s indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring, lounging object had been before her. One day, however, as she put away her account-book and unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus— + +“Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person’s strength: if no one can be found willing to burden her or himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence for you must be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be flattered—you must have music, dancing, and society—or you languish, you die away. Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day; share it into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five minutes—include all; do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid regularity. The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun; and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant moment: you have had to seek no one’s company, conversation, sympathy, forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to do. Take this advice: the first and last I shall offer you; then you will not want me or any one else, happen what may. Neglect it—go on as heretofore, craving, whining, and idling—and suffer the results of your idiocy, however bad and insufferable they may be. I tell you this plainly; and listen: for though I shall no more repeat what I am now about to say, I shall steadily act on it. After my mother’s death, I wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is carried to the vault in Gateshead Church, you and I will be as separate as if we had never known each other. You need not think that because we chanced to be born of the same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me down by even the feeblest claim: I can tell you this—if the whole human race, ourselves excepted, were swept away, and we two stood alone on the earth, I would leave you in the old world, and betake myself to the new.” + +She closed her lips. + +“You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade,” answered Georgiana. “Everybody knows you are the most selfish, heartless creature in existence: and I know your spiteful hatred towards me: I have had a specimen of it before in the trick you played me about Lord Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to be raised above you, to have a title, to be received into circles where you dare not show your face, and so you acted the spy and informer, and ruined my prospects for ever.” Georgiana took out her handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassable, and assiduously industrious. + +True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a washy draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition. + +It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on the sofa over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a saint’s-day service at the new church—for in matters of religion she was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or foul, she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on week-days as there were prayers. + +I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped, who lay there almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a remittent attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after, would slip out of the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful; but she had her own family to mind, and could only come occasionally to the hall. I found the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse was there; the patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid face sunk in the pillows: the fire was dying in the grate. I renewed the fuel, re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could not now gaze on me, and then I moved away to the window. + +The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew tempestuously: “One lies there,” I thought, “who will soon be beyond the war of earthly elements. Whither will that spirit—now struggling to quit its material tenement—flit when at length released?” + +In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns, recalled her dying words—her faith—her doctrine of the equality of disembodied souls. I was still listening in thought to her well-remembered tones—still picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her wasted face and sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed, and whispered her longing to be restored to her divine Father’s bosom—when a feeble voice murmured from the couch behind: “Who is that?” + +I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days: was she reviving? I went up to her. + +“It is I, Aunt Reed.” + +“Who—I?” was her answer. “Who are you?” looking at me with surprise and a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. “You are quite a stranger to me—where is Bessie?” + +“She is at the lodge, aunt.” + +“Aunt,” she repeated. “Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the Gibsons; and yet I know you—that face, and the eyes and forehead, are quiet familiar to me: you are like—why, you are like Jane Eyre!” + +I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring my identity. + +“Yet,” said she, “I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts deceive me. I wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where none exists: besides, in eight years she must be so changed.” I now gently assured her that I was the person she supposed and desired me to be: and seeing that I was understood, and that her senses were quite collected, I explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield. + +“I am very ill, I know,” she said ere long. “I was trying to turn myself a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as well I should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in health, burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the nurse here? or is there no one in the room but you?” + +I assured her we were alone. + +“Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own child; the other—” she stopped. “After all, it is of no great importance, perhaps,” she murmured to herself: “and then I may get better; and to humble myself so to her is painful.” + +She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face changed; she seemed to experience some inward sensation—the precursor, perhaps, of the last pang. + +“Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better tell her.—Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you will see there.” + +I obeyed her directions. “Read the letter,” she said. + +It was short, and thus conceived:— + +“MADAM,— +“Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my intention to write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence has blessed my endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am unmarried and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at my death whatever I may have to leave. + +I am, Madam, &c., &c., +“JOHN EYRE, Madeira.” + +It was dated three years back. + +“Why did I never hear of this?” I asked. + +“Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me, Jane—the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations when you thus started up and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear as if an animal that I had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in a man’s voice.—Bring me some water! Oh, make haste!” + +“Dear Mrs. Reed,” said I, as I offered her the draught she required, “think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind. Forgive me for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine years have passed since that day.” + +She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water and drawn breath, she went on thus— + +“I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you to be adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died of typhus fever at Lowood. Now act as you please: write and contradict my assertion—expose my falsehood as soon as you like. You were born, I think, to be my torment: my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but for you, I should never have been tempted to commit.” + +“If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to regard me with kindness and forgiveness——” + +“You have a very bad disposition,” said she, “and one to this day I feel it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be patient and quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and violence, I can never comprehend.” + +“My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but not vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been glad to love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to be reconciled to you now: kiss me, aunt.” + +I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She said I oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water. As I laid her down—for I raised her and supported her on my arm while she drank—I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine: the feeble fingers shrank from my touch—the glazing eyes shunned my gaze. + +“Love me, then, or hate me, as you will,” I said at last, “you have my full and free forgiveness: ask now for God’s, and be at peace.” + +Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the effort to change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever hated me—dying, she must hate me still. + +The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half-an-hour longer, hoping to see some sign of amity: but she gave none. She was fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally: at twelve o’clock that night she died. I was not present to close her eyes, nor were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the next morning that all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza and I went to look at her: Georgiana, who had burst out into loud weeping, said she dared not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed’s once robust and active frame, rigid and still: her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid; her brow and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul. A strange and solemn object was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and pain: nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or subduing did it inspire; only a grating anguish for her woes—not my loss—and a sombre tearless dismay at the fearfulness of death in such a form. + +Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes she observed— + +“With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her life was shortened by trouble.” And then a spasm constricted her mouth for an instant: as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so did I. Neither of us had dropt a tear. + +== CHAPTER XXII +Mr. Rochester had given me but one week’s leave of absence: yet a month elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who had come down to direct his sister’s interment and settle the family affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor aid in her preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded wailings and selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for her and packing her dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would idle; and I thought to myself, “If you and I were destined to live always together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing. I should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I should assign you your share of labour, and compel you to accomplish it, or else it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your keeping some of those drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so patient and compliant on my part.” + +At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza’s turn to request me to stay another week. Her plans required all her time and attention, she said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day long she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling trunks, emptying drawers, burning papers, and holding no communication with any one. She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, and answer notes of condolence. + +One morning she told me I was at liberty. “And,” she added, “I am obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct! There is some difference between living with such an one as you and with Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no one. To-morrow,” she continued, “I set out for the Continent. I shall take up my abode in a religious house near Lisle—a nunnery you would call it; there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a time to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the veil.” + +I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade her from it. “The vocation will fit you to a hair,” I thought: “much good may it do you!” + +When we parted, she said: “Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well: you have some sense.” + +I then returned: “You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don’t much care.” + +“You are in the right,” said she; and with these words we each went our separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or her sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana made an advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and that Eliza actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of the convent where she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she endowed with her fortune. + +How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings was very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point, increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return to Thornfield was yet to be tried. + +My journey seemed tedious—very tedious: fifty miles one day, a night spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first twelve hours I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her disfigured and discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered voice. I mused on the funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and servants—few was the number of relatives—the gaping vault, the silent church, the solemn service. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the other the inmate of a convent cell; and I dwelt on and analysed their separate peculiarities of person and character. The evening arrival at the great town of —— scattered these thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: laid down on my traveller’s bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation. + +I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there? Not long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make arrangements for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage: she said the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strange to her; but from what everybody said, and from what she had herself seen, she could no longer doubt that the event would shortly take place. “You would be strangely incredulous if you did doubt it,” was my mental comment. “I don’t doubt it.” + +The question followed, “Where was I to go?” I dreamt of Miss Ingram all the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. Rochester looked on with his arms folded—smiling sardonically, as it seemed, at both her and me. + +I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return; for I did not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed to walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly, after leaving my box in the ostler’s care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about six o’clock of a June evening, and take the old road to Thornfield: a road which lay chiefly through fields, and was now little frequented. + +It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: the haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky, though far from cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its blue—where blue was visible—was mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin. The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam chilled it—it seemed as if there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen of marbled vapour, and out of apertures shone a golden redness. + +I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped once to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it was not to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to a place where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. “Mrs. Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure,” said I; “and little Adèle will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know very well you are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking of you.” + +But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience? These affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of again looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they added—“Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a few more days or weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for ever!” And then I strangled a new-born agony—a deformed thing which I could not persuade myself to own and rear—and ran on. + +They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the labourers are just quitting their work, and returning home with their rakes on their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates. How full the hedges are of roses! But I have no time to gather any; I want to be at the house. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches across the path; I see the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see—Mr. Rochester sitting there, a book and a pencil in his hand; he is writing. + +Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir: I need not make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way to the house. It does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has seen me. + +“Hillo!” he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. “There you are! Come on, if you please.” + +I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being scarcely cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; and, above all, to control the working muscles of my face—which I feel rebel insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved to conceal. But I have a veil—it is down: I may make shift yet to behave with decent composure. + +“And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot? Yes—just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and come clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to steal into the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with yourself this last month?” + +“I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead.” + +“A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other world—from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I’d touch you, to see if you are substance or shadow, you elf!—but I’d as soon offer to take hold of a blue ignis fatuus light in a marsh. Truant! truant!” he added, when he had paused an instant. “Absent from me a whole month, and forgetting me quite, I’ll be sworn!” + +I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr. Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially. His last words were balm: they seemed to imply that it imported something to him whether I forgot him or not. And he had spoken of Thornfield as my home—would that it were my home! + +He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I inquired soon if he had not been to London. + +“Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight.” + +“Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter.” + +“And did she inform you what I went to do?” + +“Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand.” + +“You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don’t think it will suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won’t look like Queen Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now, fairy as you are—can’t you give me a charm, or a philter, or something of that sort, to make me a handsome man?” + +“It would be past the power of magic, sir;” and, in thought, I added, “A loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty.” + +Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think it too good for common purposes: it was the real sunshine of feeling—he shed it over me now. + +“Pass, Janet,” said he, making room for me to cross the stile: “go up home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend’s threshold.” + +All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant to leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast—a force turned me round. I said—or something in me said for me, and in spite of me— + +“Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home—my only home.” + +I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he tried. Little Adèle was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs. Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and even Sophie bid me “bon soir” with glee. This was very pleasant; there is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort. + +I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and coming grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I had assumed a low seat near her, and Adèle, kneeling on the carpet, had nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr. Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable—when he said he supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted daughter back again, and added that he saw Adèle was “prête à croquer sa petite maman Anglaise”—I half ventured to hope that he would, even after his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence. + +A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall. Nothing was said of the master’s marriage, and I saw no preparation going on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the negative. Once she said she had actually put the question to Mr. Rochester as to when he was going to bring his bride home; but he had answered her only by a joke and one of his queer looks, and she could not tell what to make of him. + +One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no journeyings backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure it was twenty miles off, on the borders of another county; but what was that distance to an ardent lover? To so practised and indefatigable a horseman as Mr. Rochester, it would be but a morning’s ride. I began to cherish hopes I had no right to conceive: that the match was broken off; that rumour had been mistaken; that one or both parties had changed their minds. I used to look at my master’s face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I could not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear of clouds or evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil spent with him, I lacked spirits and sank into inevitable dejection, he became even gay. Never had he called me more frequently to his presence; never been kinder to me when there—and, alas! never had I loved him so well. + +== CHAPTER XXIII +A splendid Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even singly, our wave-girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South, like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between. + +On Midsummer-eve, Adèle, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden. + +It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:—“Day its fervid fires had wasted,” and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit. Where the sun had gone down in simple state—pure of the pomp of clouds—spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a rising and solitary star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the horizon. + +I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent—that of a cigar—stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a handbreadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall shut it out from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech avenue screened it from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation from lonely fields: a winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such shade for ever; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising moon cast on this more open quarter, my step is stayed—not by sound, not by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance. + +Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of shrub nor flower; it is—I know it well—it is Mr. Rochester’s cigar. I look round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee. I make for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester entering. I step aside into the ivy recess; he will not stay long: he will soon return whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me. + +But no—eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are laden; now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on their petals. A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at Mr. Rochester’s foot: he sees it, and bends to examine it. + +“Now, he has his back towards me,” thought I, “and he is occupied too; perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed.” + +I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly gravel might not betray me: he was standing among the beds at a yard or two distant from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged him. “I shall get by very well,” I meditated. As I crossed his shadow, thrown long over the garden by the moon, not yet risen high, he said quietly, without turning— + +“Jane, come and look at this fellow.” + +I had made no noise: he had not eyes behind—could his shadow feel? I started at first, and then I approached him. + +“Look at his wings,” said he, “he reminds me rather of a West Indian insect; one does not often see so large and gay a night-rover in England; there! he is flown.” + +The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr. Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said— + +“Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house; and surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at meeting with moonrise.” + +It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour alone with Mr. Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a reason to allege for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and thoughts busily bent on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself looked so composed and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any confusion: the evil—if evil existent or prospective there was—seemed to lie with me only; his mind was unconscious and quiet. + +“Jane,” he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly strayed down in the direction of the sunk fence and the horse-chestnut, “Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“You must have become in some degree attached to the house,—you, who have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ of Adhesiveness?” + +“I am attached to it, indeed.” + +“And though I don’t comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a degree of regard for that foolish little child Adèle, too; and even for simple dame Fairfax?” + +“Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both.” + +“And would be sorry to part with them?” + +“Yes.” + +“Pity!” he said, and sighed and paused. “It is always the way of events in this life,” he continued presently: “no sooner have you got settled in a pleasant resting-place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move on, for the hour of repose is expired.” + +“Must I move on, sir?” I asked. “Must I leave Thornfield?” + +“I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet, but I believe indeed you must.” + +This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me. + +“Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes.” + +“It is come now—I must give it to-night.” + +“Then you are going to be married, sir?” + +“Ex-act-ly—pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail straight on the head.” + +“Soon, sir?” + +“Very soon, my—that is, Miss Eyre: and you’ll remember, Jane, the first time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my intention to put my old bachelor’s neck into the sacred noose, to enter into the holy estate of matrimony—to take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short (she’s an extensive armful: but that’s not to the point—one can’t have too much of such a very excellent thing as my beautiful Blanche): well, as I was saying—listen to me, Jane! You’re not turning your head to look after more moths, are you? That was only a lady-clock, child, ‘flying away home.’ I wish to remind you that it was you who first said to me, with that discretion I respect in you—with that foresight, prudence, and humility which befit your responsible and dependent position—that in case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adèle had better trot forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur conveyed in this suggestion on the character of my beloved; indeed, when you are far away, Janet, I’ll try to forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; which is such that I have made it my law of action. Adèle must go to school; and you, Miss Eyre, must get a new situation.” + +“Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose—” I was going to say, “I suppose I may stay here, till I find another shelter to betake myself to:” but I stopped, feeling it would not do to risk a long sentence, for my voice was not quite under command. + +“In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom,” continued Mr. Rochester; “and in the interim, I shall myself look out for employment and an asylum for you.” + +“Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give—” + +“Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependent does her duty as well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim upon her employer for any little assistance he can conveniently render her; indeed I have already, through my future mother-in-law, heard of a place that I think will suit: it is to undertake the education of the five daughters of Mrs. Dionysius O’Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland. You’ll like Ireland, I think: they’re such warm-hearted people there, they say.” + +“It is a long way off, sir.” + +“No matter—a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or the distance.” + +“Not the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier—” + +“From what, Jane?” + +“From England and from Thornfield: and—” + +“Well?” + +“From you, sir.” + +I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of free will, my tears gushed out. I did not cry so as to be heard, however; I avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O’Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck cold to my heart; and colder the thought of all the brine and foam, destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and the master at whose side I now walked, and coldest the remembrance of the wider ocean—wealth, caste, custom intervened between me and what I naturally and inevitably loved. + +“It is a long way,” I again said. + +“It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jane: that’s morally certain. I never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of a fancy for the country. We have been good friends, Jane; have we not?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the little time that remains to them close to each other. Come! we’ll talk over the voyage and the parting quietly half-an-hour or so, while the stars enter into their shining life up in heaven yonder: here is the chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old roots. Come, we will sit there in peace to-night, though we should never more be destined to sit there together.” He seated me and himself. + +“It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little friend on such weary travels: but if I can’t do better, how is it to be helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?” + +I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still. + +“Because,” he said, “I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly. As for you,—you’d forget me.” + +“That I never should, sir: you know—” Impossible to proceed. + +“Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!” + +In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I endured no longer; I was obliged to yield, and I was shaken from head to foot with acute distress. When I did speak, it was only to express an impetuous wish that I had never been born, or never come to Thornfield. + +“Because you are sorry to leave it?” + +The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a right to predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last: yes,—and to speak. + +“I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:—I love it, because I have lived in it a full and delightful life,—momentarily at least. I have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion with what is bright and energetic and high. I have talked, face to face, with what I reverence, with what I delight in,—with an original, a vigorous, an expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester; and it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.” + +“Where do you see the necessity?” he asked suddenly. + +“Where? You, sir, have placed it before me.” + +“In what shape?” + +“In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman,—your bride.” + +“My bride! What bride? I have no bride!” + +“But you will have.” + +“Yes;—I will!—I will!” He set his teeth. + +“Then I must go:—you have said it yourself.” + +“No: you must stay! I swear it—and the oath shall be kept.” + +“I tell you I must go!” I retorted, roused to something like passion. “Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automaton?—a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong!—I have as much soul as you,—and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;—it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal,—as we are!” + +“As we are!” repeated Mr. Rochester—“so,” he added, enclosing me in his arms, gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips: “so, Jane!” + +“Yes, so, sir,” I rejoined: “and yet not so; for you are a married man—or as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you—to one with whom you have no sympathy—whom I do not believe you truly love; for I have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union: therefore I am better than you—let me go!” + +“Where, Jane? To Ireland?” + +“Yes—to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now.” + +“Jane, be still; don’t struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is rending its own plumage in its desperation.” + +“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.” + +Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him. + +“And your will shall decide your destiny,” he said: “I offer you my hand, my heart, and a share of all my possessions.” + +“You play a farce, which I merely laugh at.” + +“I ask you to pass through life at my side—to be my second self, and best earthly companion.” + +“For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by it.” + +“Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be still too.” + +A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away—away—to an indefinite distance—it died. The nightingale’s song was then the only voice of the hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat quiet, looking at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before he spoke; he at last said— + +“Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another.” + +“I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and cannot return.” + +“But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to marry.” + +I was silent: I thought he mocked me. + +“Come, Jane—come hither.” + +“Your bride stands between us.” + +He rose, and with a stride reached me. + +“My bride is here,” he said, again drawing me to him, “because my equal is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?” + +Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp: for I was still incredulous. + +“Do you doubt me, Jane?” + +“Entirely.” + +“You have no faith in me?” + +“Not a whit.” + +“Am I a liar in your eyes?” he asked passionately. “Little sceptic, you shall be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains to prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a third of what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see the result; it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would not—I could not—marry Miss Ingram. You—you strange, you almost unearthly thing!—I love as my own flesh. You—poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are—I entreat to accept me as a husband.” + +“What, me!” I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness—and especially in his incivility—to credit his sincerity: “me who have not a friend in the world but you—if you are my friend: not a shilling but what you have given me?” + +“You, Jane, I must have you for my own—entirely my own. Will you be mine? Say yes, quickly.” + +“Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight.” + +“Why?” + +“Because I want to read your countenance—turn!” + +“There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled, scratched page. Read on: only make haste, for I suffer.” + +His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there were strong workings in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes. + +“Oh, Jane, you torture me!” he exclaimed. “With that searching and yet faithful and generous look, you torture me!” + +“How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion—they cannot torture.” + +“Gratitude!” he ejaculated; and added wildly—“Jane accept me quickly. Say, Edward—give me my name—Edward—I will marry you.” + +“Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to be your wife?” + +“I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it.” + +“Then, sir, I will marry you.” + +“Edward—my little wife!” + +“Dear Edward!” + +“Come to me—come to me entirely now,” said he; and added, in his deepest tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, “Make my happiness—I will make yours.” + +“God pardon me!” he subjoined ere long; “and man meddle not with me: I have her, and will hold her.” + +“There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no kindred to interfere.” + +“No—that is the best of it,” he said. And if I had loved him less I should have thought his accent and look of exultation savage; but, sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting—called to the paradise of union—I thought only of the bliss given me to drink in so abundant a flow. Again and again he said, “Are you happy, Jane?” And again and again I answered, “Yes.” After which he murmured, “It will atone—it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her? Is there not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It will expiate at God’s tribunal. I know my Maker sanctions what I do. For the world’s judgment—I wash my hands thereof. For man’s opinion—I defy it.” + +But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we were all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master’s face, near as I was. And what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while wind roared in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us. + +“We must go in,” said Mr. Rochester: “the weather changes. I could have sat with thee till morning, Jane.” + +“And so,” thought I, “could I with you.” I should have said so, perhaps, but a livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud at which I was looking, and there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling peal; and I thought only of hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr. Rochester’s shoulder. + +The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the grounds, and into the house; but we were quite wet before we could pass the threshold. He was taking off my shawl in the hall, and shaking the water out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged from her room. I did not observe her at first, nor did Mr. Rochester. The lamp was lit. The clock was on the stroke of twelve. + +“Hasten to take off your wet things,” said he; “and before you go, good-night—good-night, my darling!” + +He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms, there stood the widow, pale, grave, and amazed. I only smiled at her, and ran upstairs. “Explanation will do for another time,” thought I. Still, when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But joy soon effaced every other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as the rain fell during a storm of two hours’ duration, I experienced no fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my door in the course of it, to ask if I was safe and tranquil: and that was comfort, that was strength for anything. + +Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adèle came running in to tell me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away. + +== CHAPTER XXIV +As I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and wondered if it were a dream. I could not be certain of the reality till I had seen Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words of love and promise. + +While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt it was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect and life in its colour; and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, and borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often been unwilling to look at my master, because I feared he could not be pleased at my look; but I was sure I might lift my face to his now, and not cool his affection by its expression. I took a plain but clean and light summer dress from my drawer and put it on: it seemed no attire had ever so well become me, because none had I ever worn in so blissful a mood. + +I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the night; and to feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh and fragrant breeze. Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy. A beggar-woman and her little boy—pale, ragged objects both—were coming up the walk, and I ran down and gave them all the money I happened to have in my purse—some three or four shillings: good or bad, they must partake of my jubilee. The rooks cawed, and blither birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so musical as my own rejoicing heart. + +Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad countenance, and saying gravely—“Miss Eyre, will you come to breakfast?” During the meal she was quiet and cool: but I could not undeceive her then. I must wait for my master to give explanations; and so must she. I ate what I could, and then I hastened upstairs. I met Adèle leaving the schoolroom. + +“Where are you going? It is time for lessons.” + +“Mr. Rochester has sent me away to the nursery.” + +“Where is he?” + +“In there,” pointing to the apartment she had left; and I went in, and there he stood. + +“Come and bid me good-morning,” said he. I gladly advanced; and it was not merely a cold word now, or even a shake of the hand that I received, but an embrace and a kiss. It seemed natural: it seemed genial to be so well loved, so caressed by him. + +“Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty,” said he: “truly pretty this morning. Is this my pale, little elf? Is this my mustard-seed? This little sunny-faced girl with the dimpled cheek and rosy lips; the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel eyes?” (I had green eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake: for him they were new-dyed, I suppose.) + +“It is Jane Eyre, sir.” + +“Soon to be Jane Rochester,” he added: “in four weeks, Janet; not a day more. Do you hear that?” + +I did, and I could not quite comprehend it: it made me giddy. The feeling, the announcement sent through me, was something stronger than was consistent with joy—something that smote and stunned: it was, I think, almost fear. + +“You blushed, and now you are white, Jane: what is that for?” + +“Because you gave me a new name—Jane Rochester; and it seems so strange.” + +“Yes, Mrs. Rochester,” said he; “young Mrs. Rochester—Fairfax Rochester’s girl-bride.” + +“It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is a fairy tale—a day-dream.” + +“Which I can and will realise. I shall begin to-day. This morning I wrote to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in his keeping,—heirlooms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I hope to pour them into your lap: for every privilege, every attention shall be yours that I would accord a peer’s daughter, if about to marry her.” + +“Oh, sir!—never rain jewels! I don’t like to hear them spoken of. Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would rather not have them.” + +“I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the circlet on your forehead,—which it will become: for nature, at least, has stamped her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will clasp the bracelets on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like fingers with rings.” + +“No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things, and in another strain. Don’t address me as if I were a beauty; I am your plain, Quakerish governess.” + +“You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my heart,—delicate and aërial.” + +“Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir,—or you are sneering. For God’s sake, don’t be ironical!” + +“I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too,” he went on, while I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because I felt he was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. “I will attire my Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair; and I will cover the head I love best with a priceless veil.” + +“And then you won’t know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre any longer, but an ape in a harlequin’s jacket—a jay in borrowed plumes. I would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in stage-trappings, as myself clad in a court-lady’s robe; and I don’t call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. Don’t flatter me.” + +He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my deprecation. “This very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you must choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we shall be married in four weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the church down below yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to town. After a brief stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions nearer the sun: to French vineyards and Italian plains; and she shall see whatever is famous in old story and in modern record: she shall taste, too, of the life of cities; and she shall learn to value herself by just comparison with others.” + +“Shall I travel?—and with you, sir?” + +“You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice, and Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph’s foot shall step also. Ten years since, I flew through Europe half mad; with disgust, hate, and rage as my companions: now I shall revisit it healed and cleansed, with a very angel as my comforter.” + +I laughed at him as he said this. “I am not an angel,” I asserted; “and I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me—for you will not get it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all anticipate.” + +“What do you anticipate of me?” + +“For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now,—a very little while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be capricious; and then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to please you: but when you get well used to me, you will perhaps like me again,—like me, I say, not love me. I suppose your love will effervesce in six months, or less. I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned as the farthest to which a husband’s ardour extends. Yet, after all, as a friend and companion, I hope never to become quite distasteful to my dear master.” + +“Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again, and yet again: and I will make you confess I do not only like, but love you—with truth, fervour, constancy.” + +“Yet are you not capricious, sir?” + +“To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I find out they have neither souls nor hearts—when they open to me a perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness, and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break—at once supple and stable, tractable and consistent—I am ever tender and true.” + +“Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever love such an one?” + +“I love it now.” + +“But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your difficult standard?” + +“I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me—you seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up my arm to my heart. I am influenced—conquered; and the influence is sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile, Jane? What does that inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?” + +“I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary), I was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charmers—” + +“You were, you little elfish—” + +“Hush, sir! You don’t talk very wisely just now; any more than those gentlemen acted very wisely. However, had they been married, they would no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for their softness as suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how you will answer me a year hence, should I ask a favour it does not suit your convenience or pleasure to grant.” + +“Ask me something now, Janet,—the least thing: I desire to be entreated—” + +“Indeed I will, sir; I have my petition all ready.” + +“Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of me.” + +“Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don’t send for the jewels, and don’t crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold lace round that plain pocket handkerchief you have there.” + +“I might as well ‘gild refined gold.’ I know it: your request is granted then—for the time. I will remand the order I despatched to my banker. But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed a gift to be withdrawn: try again.” + +“Well then, sir, have the goodness to gratify my curiosity, which is much piqued on one point.” + +He looked disturbed. “What? what?” he said hastily. “Curiosity is a dangerous petition: it is well I have not taken a vow to accord every request—” + +“But there can be no danger in complying with this, sir.” + +“Utter it, Jane: but I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into, perhaps, a secret, it was a wish for half my estate.” + +“Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do you think I am a Jew-usurer, seeking good investment in land? I would much rather have all your confidence. You will not exclude me from your confidence if you admit me to your heart?” + +“You are welcome to all my confidence that is worth having, Jane; but for God’s sake, don’t desire a useless burden! Don’t long for poison—don’t turn out a downright Eve on my hands!” + +“Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you liked to be conquered, and how pleasant over-persuasion is to you. Don’t you think I had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and coax and entreat—even cry and be sulky if necessary—for the sake of a mere essay of my power?” + +“I dare you to any such experiment. Encroach, presume, and the game is up.” + +“Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your eyebrows have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead resembles what, in some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled, ‘a blue-piled thunderloft.’ That will be your married look, sir, I suppose?” + +“If that will be your married look, I, as a Christian, will soon give up the notion of consorting with a mere sprite or salamander. But what had you to ask, thing,—out with it?” + +“There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great deal better than flattery. I had rather be a thing than an angel. This is what I have to ask,—Why did you take such pains to make me believe you wished to marry Miss Ingram?” + +“Is that all? Thank God it is no worse!” And now he unknit his black brows; looked down, smiling at me, and stroked my hair, as if well pleased at seeing a danger averted. “I think I may confess,” he continued, “even although I should make you a little indignant, Jane—and I have seen what a fire-spirit you can be when you are indignant. You glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you mutinied against fate, and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet, by-the-bye, it was you who made me the offer.” + +“Of course I did. But to the point if you please, sir—Miss Ingram?” + +“Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to render you as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew jealousy would be the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of that end.” + +“Excellent! Now you are small—not one whit bigger than the end of my little finger. It was a burning shame and a scandalous disgrace to act in that way. Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram’s feelings, sir?” + +“Her feelings are concentrated in one—pride; and that needs humbling. Were you jealous, Jane?” + +“Never mind, Mr. Rochester: it is in no way interesting to you to know that. Answer me truly once more. Do you think Miss Ingram will not suffer from your dishonest coquetry? Won’t she feel forsaken and deserted?” + +“Impossible!—when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted me: the idea of my insolvency cooled, or rather extinguished, her flame in a moment.” + +“You have a curious, designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid your principles on some points are eccentric.” + +“My principles were never trained, Jane: they may have grown a little awry for want of attention.” + +“Once again, seriously; may I enjoy the great good that has been vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any one else is suffering the bitter pain I myself felt a while ago?” + +“That you may, my good little girl: there is not another being in the world has the same pure love for me as yourself—for I lay that pleasant unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection.” + +I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him very much—more than I could trust myself to say—more than words had power to express. + +“Ask something more,” he said presently; “it is my delight to be entreated, and to yield.” + +I was again ready with my request. “Communicate your intentions to Mrs. Fairfax, sir: she saw me with you last night in the hall, and she was shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again. It pains me to be misjudged by so good a woman.” + +“Go to your room, and put on your bonnet,” he replied. “I mean you to accompany me to Millcote this morning; and while you prepare for the drive, I will enlighten the old lady’s understanding. Did she think, Janet, you had given the world for love, and considered it well lost?” + +“I believe she thought I had forgotten my station, and yours, sir.” + +“Station! station!—your station is in my heart, and on the necks of those who would insult you, now or hereafter.—Go.” + +I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs. Fairfax’s parlour, I hurried down to it. The old lady had been reading her morning portion of Scripture—the Lesson for the day; her Bible lay open before her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her occupation, suspended by Mr. Rochester’s announcement, seemed now forgotten: her eyes, fixed on the blank wall opposite, expressed the surprise of a quiet mind stirred by unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she roused herself: she made a sort of effort to smile, and framed a few words of congratulation; but the smile expired, and the sentence was abandoned unfinished. She put up her spectacles, shut the Bible, and pushed her chair back from the table. + +“I feel so astonished,” she began, “I hardly know what to say to you, Miss Eyre. I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes I half fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have never happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in a doze, that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since, has come in and sat down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by my name, Alice, as he used to do. Now, can you tell me whether it is actually true that Mr. Rochester has asked you to marry him? Don’t laugh at me. But I really thought he came in here five minutes ago, and said that in a month you would be his wife.” + +“He has said the same thing to me,” I replied. + +“He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?” + +“Yes.” + +She looked at me bewildered. + +“I could never have thought it. He is a proud man: all the Rochesters were proud: and his father, at least, liked money. He, too, has always been called careful. He means to marry you?” + +“He tells me so.” + +She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had there found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma. + +“It passes me!” she continued; “but no doubt it is true since you say so. How it will answer, I cannot tell: I really don’t know. Equality of position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and there are twenty years of difference in your ages. He might almost be your father.” + +“No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!” exclaimed I, nettled; “he is nothing like my father! No one, who saw us together, would suppose it for an instant. Mr. Rochester looks as young, and is as young, as some men at five-and-twenty.” + +“Is it really for love he is going to marry you?” she asked. + +I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism, that the tears rose to my eyes. + +“I am sorry to grieve you,” pursued the widow; “but you are so young, and so little acquainted with men, I wished to put you on your guard. It is an old saying that ‘all is not gold that glitters;’ and in this case I do fear there will be something found to be different to what either you or I expect.” + +“Why?—am I a monster?” I said: “is it impossible that Mr. Rochester should have a sincere affection for me?” + +“No: you are very well; and much improved of late; and Mr. Rochester, I daresay, is fond of you. I have always noticed that you were a sort of pet of his. There are times when, for your sake, I have been a little uneasy at his marked preference, and have wished to put you on your guard: but I did not like to suggest even the possibility of wrong. I knew such an idea would shock, perhaps offend you; and you were so discreet, and so thoroughly modest and sensible, I hoped you might be trusted to protect yourself. Last night I cannot tell you what I suffered when I sought all over the house, and could find you nowhere, nor the master either; and then, at twelve o’clock, saw you come in with him.” + +“Well, never mind that now,” I interrupted impatiently; “it is enough that all was right.” + +“I hope all will be right in the end,” she said: “but believe me, you cannot be too careful. Try and keep Mr. Rochester at a distance: distrust yourself as well as him. Gentlemen in his station are not accustomed to marry their governesses.” + +I was growing truly irritated: happily, Adèle ran in. + +“Let me go,—let me go to Millcote too!” she cried. “Mr. Rochester won’t: though there is so much room in the new carriage. Beg him to let me go, mademoiselle.” + +“That I will, Adèle;” and I hastened away with her, glad to quit my gloomy monitress. The carriage was ready: they were bringing it round to the front, and my master was pacing the pavement, Pilot following him backwards and forwards. + +“Adèle may accompany us, may she not, sir?” + +“I told her no. I’ll have no brats!—I’ll have only you.” + +“Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you please: it would be better.” + +“Not it: she will be a restraint.” + +He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice. The chill of Mrs. Fairfax’s warnings, and the damp of her doubts were upon me: something of unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes. I half lost the sense of power over him. I was about mechanically to obey him, without further remonstrance; but as he helped me into the carriage, he looked at my face. + +“What is the matter?” he asked; “all the sunshine is gone. Do you really wish the bairn to go? Will it annoy you if she is left behind?” + +“I would far rather she went, sir.” + +“Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!” cried he to Adèle. + +She obeyed him with what speed she might. + +“After all, a single morning’s interruption will not matter much,” said he, “when I mean shortly to claim you—your thoughts, conversation, and company—for life.” + +Adèle, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing her gratitude for my intercession: she was instantly stowed away into a corner on the other side of him. She then peeped round to where I sat; so stern a neighbour was too restrictive: to him, in his present fractious mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any information. + +“Let her come to me,” I entreated: “she will, perhaps, trouble you, sir: there is plenty of room on this side.” + +He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog. “I’ll send her to school yet,” he said, but now he was smiling. + +Adèle heard him, and asked if she was to go to school “sans mademoiselle?” + +“Yes,” he replied, “absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to take mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and only me.” + +“She will have nothing to eat: you will starve her,” observed Adèle. + +“I shall gather manna for her morning and night: the plains and hillsides in the moon are bleached with manna, Adèle.” + +“She will want to warm herself: what will she do for a fire?” + +“Fire rises out of the lunar mountains: when she is cold, I’ll carry her up to a peak, and lay her down on the edge of a crater.” + +“Oh, qu’elle y sera mal—peu comfortable! And her clothes, they will wear out: how can she get new ones?” + +Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled. “Hem!” said he. “What would you do, Adèle? Cudgel your brains for an expedient. How would a white or a pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could cut a pretty enough scarf out of a rainbow.” + +“She is far better as she is,” concluded Adèle, after musing some time: “besides, she would get tired of living with only you in the moon. If I were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you.” + +“She has consented: she has pledged her word.” + +“But you can’t get her there; there is no road to the moon: it is all air; and neither you nor she can fly.” + +“Adèle, look at that field.” We were now outside Thornfield gates, and bowling lightly along the smooth road to Millcote, where the dust was well laid by the thunderstorm, and, where the low hedges and lofty timber trees on each side glistened green and rain-refreshed. + +“In that field, Adèle, I was walking late one evening about a fortnight since—the evening of the day you helped me to make hay in the orchard meadows; and, as I was tired with raking swaths, I sat down to rest me on a stile; and there I took out a little book and a pencil, and began to write about a misfortune that befell me long ago, and a wish I had for happy days to come: I was writing away very fast, though daylight was fading from the leaf, when something came up the path and stopped two yards off me. I looked at it. It was a little thing with a veil of gossamer on its head. I beckoned it to come near me; it stood soon at my knee. I never spoke to it, and it never spoke to me, in words; but I read its eyes, and it read mine; and our speechless colloquy was to this effect— + +“It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand was to make me happy: I must go with it out of the common world to a lonely place—such as the moon, for instance—and it nodded its head towards her horn, rising over Hay-hill: it told me of the alabaster cave and silver vale where we might live. I said I should like to go; but reminded it, as you did me, that I had no wings to fly. + +“‘Oh,’ returned the fairy, ‘that does not signify! Here is a talisman will remove all difficulties;’ and she held out a pretty gold ring. ‘Put it,’ she said, ‘on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I am yours, and you are mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own heaven yonder.’ She nodded again at the moon. The ring, Adèle, is in my breeches-pocket, under the disguise of a sovereign: but I mean soon to change it to a ring again.” + +“But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don’t care for the fairy: you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon?” + +“Mademoiselle is a fairy,” he said, whispering mysteriously. Whereupon I told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced a fund of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr. Rochester “un vrai menteur,” and assuring him that she made no account whatever of his “contes de fée,” and that “du reste, il n’y avait pas de fées, et quand même il y en avait:” she was sure they would never appear to him, nor ever give him rings, or offer to live with him in the moon. + +The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me. Mr. Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse: there I was ordered to choose half-a-dozen dresses. I hated the business, I begged leave to defer it: no—it should be gone through with now. By dint of entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the half-dozen to two: these however, he vowed he would select himself. With anxiety I watched his eye rove over the gay stores: he fixed on a rich silk of the most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink satin. I told him in a new series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a gold gown and a silver bonnet at once: I should certainly never venture to wear his choice. With infinite difficulty, for he was stubborn as a stone, I persuaded him to make an exchange in favour of a sober black satin and pearl-grey silk. “It might pass for the present,” he said; “but he would yet see me glittering like a parterre.” + +Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of a jeweller’s shop: the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a sense of annoyance and degradation. As we re-entered the carriage, and I sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in the hurry of events, dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten—the letter of my uncle, John Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt me and make me his legatee. “It would, indeed, be a relief,” I thought, “if I had ever so small an independency; I never can bear being dressed like a doll by Mr. Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae with the golden shower falling daily round me. I will write to Madeira the moment I get home, and tell my uncle John I am going to be married, and to whom: if I had but a prospect of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I could better endure to be kept by him now.” And somewhat relieved by this idea (which I failed not to execute that day), I ventured once more to meet my master’s and lover’s eye, which most pertinaciously sought mine, though I averted both face and gaze. He smiled; and I thought his smile was such as a sultan might, in a blissful and fond moment, bestow on a slave his gold and gems had enriched: I crushed his hand, which was ever hunting mine, vigorously, and thrust it back to him red with the passionate pressure. + +“You need not look in that way,” I said; “if you do, I’ll wear nothing but my old Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I’ll be married in this lilac gingham: you may make a dressing-gown for yourself out of the pearl-grey silk, and an infinite series of waistcoats out of the black satin.” + +He chuckled; he rubbed his hands. “Oh, it is rich to see and hear her!” he exclaimed. “Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not exchange this one little English girl for the Grand Turk’s whole seraglio, gazelle-eyes, houri forms, and all!” + +The Eastern allusion bit me again. “I’ll not stand you an inch in the stead of a seraglio,” I said; “so don’t consider me an equivalent for one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line, away with you, sir, to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and lay out in extensive slave-purchases some of that spare cash you seem at a loss to spend satisfactorily here.” + +“And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many tons of flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?” + +“I’ll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach liberty to them that are enslaved—your harem inmates amongst the rest. I’ll get admitted there, and I’ll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw as you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered amongst our hands: nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds till you have signed a charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred.” + +“I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane.” + +“I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it with an eye like that. While you looked so, I should be certain that whatever charter you might grant under coercion, your first act, when released, would be to violate its conditions.” + +“Why, Jane, what would you have? I fear you will compel me to go through a private marriage ceremony, besides that performed at the altar. You will stipulate, I see, for peculiar terms—what will they be?” + +“I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations. Do you remember what you said of Céline Varens?—of the diamonds, the cashmeres you gave her? I will not be your English Céline Varens. I shall continue to act as Adèle’s governess; by that I shall earn my board and lodging, and thirty pounds a year besides. I’ll furnish my own wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give me nothing but—” + +“Well, but what?” + +“Your regard; and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be quit.” + +“Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven’t your equal,” said he. We were now approaching Thornfield. “Will it please you to dine with me to-day?” he asked, as we re-entered the gates. + +“No, thank you, sir.” + +“And what for, ‘no, thank you?’ if one may inquire.” + +“I never have dined with you, sir: and I see no reason why I should now: till—” + +“Till what? You delight in half-phrases.” + +“Till I can’t help it.” + +“Do you suppose I eat like an ogre or a ghoul, that you dread being the companion of my repast?” + +“I have formed no supposition on the subject, sir; but I want to go on as usual for another month.” + +“You will give up your governessing slavery at once.” + +“Indeed, begging your pardon, sir, I shall not. I shall just go on with it as usual. I shall keep out of your way all day, as I have been accustomed to do: you may send for me in the evening, when you feel disposed to see me, and I’ll come then; but at no other time.” + +“I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all this, ‘pour me donner une contenance,’ as Adèle would say; and unfortunately I have neither my cigar-case, nor my snuff-box. But listen—whisper. It is your time now, little tyrant, but it will be mine presently; and when once I have fairly seized you, to have and to hold, I’ll just—figuratively speaking—attach you to a chain like this” (touching his watch-guard). “Yes, bonny wee thing, I’ll wear you in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne.” + +He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage, and while he afterwards lifted out Adèle, I entered the house, and made good my retreat upstairs. + +He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had prepared an occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend the whole time in a tête-à-tête conversation. I remembered his fine voice; I knew he liked to sing—good singers generally do. I was no vocalist myself, and, in his fastidious judgment, no musician, either; but I delighted in listening when the performance was good. No sooner had twilight, that hour of romance, began to lower her blue and starry banner over the lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and entreated him, for the love of heaven, to give me a song. He said I was a capricious witch, and that he would rather sing another time; but I averred that no time was like the present. + +“Did I like his voice?” he asked. + +“Very much.” I was not fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of his; but for once, and from motives of expediency, I would e’en soothe and stimulate it. + +“Then, Jane, you must play the accompaniment.” + +“Very well, sir, I will try.” + +I did try, but was presently swept off the stool and denominated “a little bungler.” Being pushed unceremoniously to one side—which was precisely what I wished—he usurped my place, and proceeded to accompany himself: for he could play as well as sing. I hied me to the window-recess. And while I sat there and looked out on the still trees and dim lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones the following strain:— + +“The truest love that ever heart +Felt at its kindled core, +Did through each vein, in quickened start, +The tide of being pour. + +Her coming was my hope each day, +Her parting was my pain; +The chance that did her steps delay +Was ice in every vein. + +I dreamed it would be nameless bliss, +As I loved, loved to be; +And to this object did I press +As blind as eagerly. + +But wide as pathless was the space +That lay our lives between, +And dangerous as the foamy race +Of ocean-surges green. + +And haunted as a robber-path +Through wilderness or wood; +For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath, +Between our spirits stood. + +I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned; +I omens did defy: +Whatever menaced, harassed, warned, +I passed impetuous by. + +On sped my rainbow, fast as light; +I flew as in a dream; +For glorious rose upon my sight +That child of Shower and Gleam. + +Still bright on clouds of suffering dim +Shines that soft, solemn joy; +Nor care I now, how dense and grim +Disasters gather nigh. + +I care not in this moment sweet, +Though all I have rushed o’er +Should come on pinion, strong and fleet, +Proclaiming vengeance sore: + +Though haughty Hate should strike me down, +Right, bar approach to me, +And grinding Might, with furious frown, +Swear endless enmity. + +My love has placed her little hand +With noble faith in mine, +And vowed that wedlock’s sacred band +Our nature shall entwine. + +My love has sworn, with sealing kiss, +With me to live—to die; +I have at last my nameless bliss. +As I love—loved am I!” + +He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and his full falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every lineament. I quailed momentarily—then I rallied. Soft scene, daring demonstration, I would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a weapon of defence must be prepared—I whetted my tongue: as he reached me, I asked with asperity, “whom he was going to marry now?” + +“That was a strange question to be put by his darling Jane.” + +“Indeed! I considered it a very natural and necessary one: he had talked of his future wife dying with him. What did he mean by such a pagan idea? I had no intention of dying with him—he might depend on that.” + +“Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was that I might live with him! Death was not for such as I.” + +“Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as he had: but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a suttee.” + +“Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a reconciling kiss?” + +“No: I would rather be excused.” + +Here I heard myself apostrophised as a “hard little thing;” and it was added, “any other woman would have been melted to marrow at hearing such stanzas crooned in her praise.” + +I assured him I was naturally hard—very flinty, and that he would often find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show him divers rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks elapsed: he should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made, while there was yet time to rescind it. + +“Would I be quiet and talk rationally?” + +“I would be quiet if he liked, and as to talking rationally, I flattered myself I was doing that now.” + +He fretted, pished, and pshawed. “Very good,” I thought; “you may fume and fidget as you please: but this is the best plan to pursue with you, I am certain. I like you more than I can say; but I’ll not sink into a bathos of sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I’ll keep you from the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its pungent aid that distance between you and myself most conducive to our real mutual advantage.” + +From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation; then, after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to the other end of the room, I got up, and saying, “I wish you good-night, sir,” in my natural and wonted respectful manner, I slipped out by the side-door and got away. + +The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of probation; and with the best success. He was kept, to be sure, rather cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was excellently entertained, and that a lamb-like submission and turtle-dove sensibility, while fostering his despotism more, would have pleased his judgment, satisfied his common-sense, and even suited his taste less. + +In other people’s presence I was, as formerly, deferential and quiet; any other line of conduct being uncalled for: it was only in the evening conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He continued to send for me punctually the moment the clock struck seven; though when I appeared before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as “love” and “darling” on his lips: the best words at my service were “provoking puppet,” “malicious elf,” “sprite,” “changeling,” &c. For caresses, too, I now got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch on the arm; for a kiss on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear. It was all right: at present I decidedly preferred these fierce favours to anything more tender. Mrs. Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her anxiety on my account vanished; therefore I was certain I did well. Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I was wearing him to skin and bone, and threatened awful vengeance for my present conduct at some period fast coming. I laughed in my sleeve at his menaces. “I can keep you in reasonable check now,” I reflected; “and I don’t doubt to be able to do it hereafter: if one expedient loses its virtue, another must be devised.” + +Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather have pleased than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol. + +== CHAPTER XXV +The month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced—the bridal day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. I, at least, had nothing more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked, corded, ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber; to-morrow, at this time, they would be far on their road to London: and so should I (D.V.),—or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet I knew not. The cards of address alone remained to nail on: they lay, four little squares, in the drawer. Mr. Rochester had himself written the direction, “Mrs. Rochester, —— Hotel, London,” on each: I could not persuade myself to affix them, or to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester! She did not exist: she would not be born till to-morrow, some time after eight o’clock A.M.; and I would wait to be assured she had come into the world alive before I assigned to her all that property. It was enough that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet: for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped portmanteau. I shut the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour—nine o’clock—gave out certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. “I will leave you by yourself, white dream,” I said. “I am feverish: I hear the wind blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it.” + +It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not only the anticipation of the great change—the new life which was to commence to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share, doubtless, in producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me forth at this late hour into the darkening grounds: but a third cause influenced my mind more than they. + +I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had happened which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen the event but myself: it had taken place the preceding night. Mr. Rochester that night was absent from home; nor was he yet returned: business had called him to a small estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty miles off—business it was requisite he should settle in person, previous to his meditated departure from England. I waited now his return; eager to disburthen my mind, and to seek of him the solution of the enigma that perplexed me. Stay till he comes, reader; and, when I disclose my secret to him, you shall share the confidence. + +I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which all day had blown strong and full from the south, without, however, bringing a speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it seemed to augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew steadfastly one way, never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back their boughs once in an hour; so continuous was the strain bending their branchy heads northward—the clouds drifted from pole to pole, fast following, mass on mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been visible that July day. + +It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind, delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of the chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk, split down the centre, gasped ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below; though community of vitality was destroyed—the sap could flow no more: their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter’s tempests would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might be said to form one tree—a ruin, but an entire ruin. + +“You did right to hold fast to each other,” I said: as if the monster-splinters were living things, and could hear me. “I think, scathed as you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots: you will never have green leaves more—never more see birds making nests and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over with you: but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to sympathise with him in his decay.” As I looked up at them, the moon appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure; her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to throw on me one bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far away over wood and water, poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to listen to, and I ran off again. + +Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the apples with which the grass round the tree roots was thickly strewn; then I employed myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried them into the house and put them away in the store-room. Then I repaired to the library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for, though summer, I knew on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would like to see a cheerful hearth when he came in: yes, the fire had been kindled some time, and burnt well. I placed his arm-chair by the chimney-corner: I wheeled the table near it: I let down the curtain, and had the candles brought in ready for lighting. More restless than ever, when I had completed these arrangements I could not sit still, nor even remain in the house: a little time-piece in the room and the old clock in the hall simultaneously struck ten. + +“How late it grows!” I said. “I will run down to the gates: it is moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road. He may be coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense.” + +The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the gates; but the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the left, was all still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds crossing it at intervals as the moon looked out, it was but a long pale line, unvaried by one moving speck. + +A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked—a tear of disappointment and impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away. I lingered; the moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of dense cloud: the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale. + +“I wish he would come! I wish he would come!” I exclaimed, seized with hypochondriac foreboding. I had expected his arrival before tea; now it was dark: what could keep him? Had an accident happened? The event of last night again recurred to me. I interpreted it as a warning of disaster. I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its meridian, and must now decline. + +“Well, I cannot return to the house,” I thought; “I cannot sit by the fireside, while he is abroad in inclement weather: better tire my limbs than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him.” + +I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere I had measured a quarter of a mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a horseman came on, full gallop; a dog ran by his side. Away with evil presentiment! It was he: here he was, mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot. He saw me; for the moon had opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright: he took his hat off, and waved it round his head. I now ran to meet him. + +“There!” he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from the saddle: “You can’t do without me, that is evident. Step on my boot-toe; give me both hands: mount!” + +I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him. A hearty kissing I got for a welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I swallowed as well as I could. He checked himself in his exultation to demand, “But is there anything the matter, Janet, that you come to meet me at such an hour? Is there anything wrong?” + +“No, but I thought you would never come. I could not bear to wait in the house for you, especially with this rain and wind.” + +“Rain and wind, indeed! Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid; pull my cloak round you: but I think you are feverish, Jane: both your cheek and hand are burning hot. I ask again, is there anything the matter?” + +“Nothing now; I am neither afraid nor unhappy.” + +“Then you have been both?” + +“Rather: but I’ll tell you all about it by-and-by, sir; and I daresay you will only laugh at me for my pains.” + +“I’ll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I dare not: my prize is not certain. This is you, who have been as slippery as an eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose? I could not lay a finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to have gathered up a stray lamb in my arms. You wandered out of the fold to seek your shepherd, did you, Jane?” + +“I wanted you: but don’t boast. Here we are at Thornfield: now let me get down.” + +He landed me on the pavement. As John took his horse, and he followed me into the hall, he told me to make haste and put something dry on, and then return to him in the library; and he stopped me, as I made for the staircase, to extort a promise that I would not be long: nor was I long; in five minutes I rejoined him. I found him at supper. + +“Take a seat and bear me company, Jane: please God, it is the last meal but one you will eat at Thornfield Hall for a long time.” + +I sat down near him, but told him I could not eat. + +“Is it because you have the prospect of a journey before you, Jane? Is it the thoughts of going to London that takes away your appetite?” + +“I cannot see my prospects clearly to-night, sir; and I hardly know what thoughts I have in my head. Everything in life seems unreal.” + +“Except me: I am substantial enough—touch me.” + +“You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream.” + +He held out his hand, laughing. “Is that a dream?” said he, placing it close to my eyes. He had a rounded, muscular, and vigorous hand, as well as a long, strong arm. + +“Yes; though I touch it, it is a dream,” said I, as I put it down from before my face. “Sir, have you finished supper?” + +“Yes, Jane.” + +I rang the bell and ordered away the tray. When we were again alone, I stirred the fire, and then took a low seat at my master’s knee. + +“It is near midnight,” I said. + +“Yes: but remember, Jane, you promised to wake with me the night before my wedding.” + +“I did; and I will keep my promise, for an hour or two at least: I have no wish to go to bed.” + +“Are all your arrangements complete?” + +“All, sir.” + +“And on my part likewise,” he returned, “I have settled everything; and we shall leave Thornfield to-morrow, within half-an-hour after our return from church.” + +“Very well, sir.” + +“With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word—‘very well,’ Jane! What a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek! and how strangely your eyes glitter! Are you well?” + +“I believe I am.” + +“Believe! What is the matter? Tell me what you feel.” + +“I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next may come charged?” + +“This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited, or over-fatigued.” + +“Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?” + +“Calm?—no: but happy—to the heart’s core.” + +I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was ardent and flushed. + +“Give me your confidence, Jane,” he said: “relieve your mind of any weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?—that I shall not prove a good husband?” + +“It is the idea farthest from my thoughts.” + +“Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?—of the new life into which you are passing?” + +“No.” + +“You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex and pain me. I want an explanation.” + +“Then, sir, listen. You were from home last night?” + +“I was: I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something which had happened in my absence:—nothing, probably, of consequence; but, in short, it has disturbed you. Let me hear it. Mrs. Fairfax has said something, perhaps? or you have overheard the servants talk?—your sensitive self-respect has been wounded?” + +“No, sir.” It struck twelve—I waited till the time-piece had concluded its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating stroke, and then I proceeded. + +“All day yesterday I was very busy, and very happy in my ceaseless bustle; for I am not, as you seem to think, troubled by any haunting fears about the new sphere, et cetera: I think it a glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, because I love you. No, sir, don’t caress me now—let me talk undisturbed. Yesterday I trusted well in Providence, and believed that events were working together for your good and mine: it was a fine day, if you recollect—the calmness of the air and sky forbade apprehensions respecting your safety or comfort on your journey. I walked a little while on the pavement after tea, thinking of you; and I beheld you in imagination so near me, I scarcely missed your actual presence. I thought of the life that lay before me—your life, sir—an existence more expansive and stirring than my own: as much more so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows of its own strait channel. I wondered why moralists call this world a dreary wilderness: for me it blossomed like a rose. Just at sunset, the air turned cold and the sky cloudy: I went in, Sophie called me upstairs to look at my wedding-dress, which they had just brought; and under it in the box I found your present—the veil which, in your princely extravagance, you sent for from London: resolved, I suppose, since I would not have jewels, to cheat me into accepting something as costly. I smiled as I unfolded it, and devised how I would tease you about your aristocratic tastes, and your efforts to masque your plebeian bride in the attributes of a peeress. I thought how I would carry down to you the square of unembroidered blond I had myself prepared as a covering for my low-born head, and ask if that was not good enough for a woman who could bring her husband neither fortune, beauty, nor connections. I saw plainly how you would look; and heard your impetuous republican answers, and your haughty disavowal of any necessity on your part to augment your wealth, or elevate your standing, by marrying either a purse or a coronet.” + +“How well you read me, you witch!” interposed Mr. Rochester: “but what did you find in the veil besides its embroidery? Did you find poison, or a dagger, that you look so mournful now?” + +“No, no, sir; besides the delicacy and richness of the fabric, I found nothing save Fairfax Rochester’s pride; and that did not scare me, because I am used to the sight of the demon. But, sir, as it grew dark, the wind rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows now—wild and high—but ‘with a sullen, moaning sound’ far more eerie. I wished you were at home. I came into this room, and the sight of the empty chair and fireless hearth chilled me. For some time after I went to bed, I could not sleep—a sense of anxious excitement distressed me. The gale still rising seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful under-sound; whether in the house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it recurred, doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made out it must be some dog howling at a distance. I was glad when it ceased. On sleeping, I continued in dreams the idea of a dark and gusty night. I continued also the wish to be with you, and experienced a strange, regretful consciousness of some barrier dividing us. During all my first sleep, I was following the windings of an unknown road; total obscurity environed me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with the charge of a little child: a very small creature, too young and feeble to walk, and which shivered in my cold arms, and wailed piteously in my ear. I thought, sir, that you were on the road a long way before me; and I strained every nerve to overtake you, and made effort on effort to utter your name and entreat you to stop—but my movements were fettered, and my voice still died away inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew farther and farther every moment.” + +“And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am close to you? Little nervous subject! Forget visionary woe, and think only of real happiness! You say you love me, Janet: yes—I will not forget that; and you cannot deny it. Those words did not die inarticulate on your lips. I heard them clear and soft: a thought too solemn perhaps, but sweet as music—‘I think it is a glorious thing to have the hope of living with you, Edward, because I love you.’ Do you love me, Jane?—repeat it.” + +“I do, sir—I do, with my whole heart.” + +“Well,” he said, after some minutes’ silence, “it is strange; but that sentence has penetrated my breast painfully. Why? I think because you said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your upward gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and devotion: it is too much as if some spirit were near me. Look wicked, Jane: as you know well how to look: coin one of your wild, shy, provoking smiles; tell me you hate me—tease me, vex me; do anything but move me: I would rather be incensed than saddened.” + +“I will tease you and vex you to your heart’s content, when I have finished my tale: but hear me to the end.” + +“I thought, Jane, you had told me all. I thought I had found the source of your melancholy in a dream.” + +I shook my head. “What! is there more? But I will not believe it to be anything important. I warn you of incredulity beforehand. Go on.” + +The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of his manner, surprised me: but I proceeded. + +“I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, the retreat of bats and owls. I thought that of all the stately front nothing remained but a shell-like wall, very high and very fragile-looking. I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the grass-grown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble hearth, and there over a fallen fragment of cornice. Wrapped up in a shawl, I still carried the unknown little child: I might not lay it down anywhere, however tired were my arms—however much its weight impeded my progress, I must retain it. I heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on the road; I was sure it was you; and you were departing for many years and for a distant country. I climbed the thin wall with frantic perilous haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top: the stones rolled from under my feet, the ivy branches I grasped gave way, the child clung round my neck in terror, and almost strangled me; at last I gained the summit. I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening every moment. The blast blew so strong I could not stand. I sat down on the narrow ledge; I hushed the scared infant in my lap: you turned an angle of the road: I bent forward to take a last look; the wall crumbled; I was shaken; the child rolled from my knee, I lost my balance, fell, and woke.” + +“Now, Jane, that is all.” + +“All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come. On waking, a gleam dazzled my eyes; I thought—Oh, it is daylight! But I was mistaken; it was only candlelight. Sophie, I supposed, had come in. There was a light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet, where, before going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open; I heard a rustling there. I asked, ‘Sophie, what are you doing?’ No one answered; but a form emerged from the closet; it took the light, held it aloft, and surveyed the garments pendent from the portmanteau. ‘Sophie! Sophie!’ I again cried: and still it was silent. I had risen up in bed, I bent forward: first surprise, then bewilderment, came over me; and then my blood crept cold through my veins. Mr. Rochester, this was not Sophie, it was not Leah, it was not Mrs. Fairfax: it was not—no, I was sure of it, and am still—it was not even that strange woman, Grace Poole.” + +“It must have been one of them,” interrupted my master. + +“No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the contrary. The shape standing before me had never crossed my eyes within the precincts of Thornfield Hall before; the height, the contour were new to me.” + +“Describe it, Jane.” + +“It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell.” + +“Did you see her face?” + +“Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass.” + +“And how were they?” + +“Fearful and ghastly to me—oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was a discoloured face—it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!” + +“Ghosts are usually pale, Jane.” + +“This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes. Shall I tell you of what it reminded me?” + +“You may.” + +“Of the foul German spectre—the Vampyre.” + +“Ah!—what did it do?” + +“Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them.” + +It removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them +“Afterwards?” + +“It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door. Just at my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me—she thrust up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my eyes. I was aware her lurid visage flamed over mine, and I lost consciousness: for the second time in my life—only the second time—I became insensible from terror.” + +“Who was with you when you revived?” + +“No one, sir, but the broad day. I rose, bathed my head and face in water, drank a long draught; felt that though enfeebled I was not ill, and determined that to none but you would I impart this vision. Now, sir, tell me who and what that woman was?” + +“The creature of an over-stimulated brain; that is certain. I must be careful of you, my treasure: nerves like yours were not made for rough handling.” + +“Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was real: the transaction actually took place.” + +“And your previous dreams, were they real too? Is Thornfield Hall a ruin? Am I severed from you by insuperable obstacles? Am I leaving you without a tear—without a kiss—without a word?” + +“Not yet.” + +“Am I about to do it? Why, the day is already commenced which is to bind us indissolubly; and when we are once united, there shall be no recurrence of these mental terrors: I guarantee that.” + +“Mental terrors, sir! I wish I could believe them to be only such: I wish it more now than ever; since even you cannot explain to me the mystery of that awful visitant.” + +“And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal.” + +“But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the cheerful aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there—on the carpet—I saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis,—the veil, torn from top to bottom in two halves!” + +I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms round me. “Thank God!” he exclaimed, “that if anything malignant did come near you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed. Oh, to think what might have happened!” + +He drew his breath short, and strained me so close to him, I could scarcely pant. After some minutes’ silence, he continued, cheerily— + +“Now, Janet, I’ll explain to you all about it. It was half dream, half reality. A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that woman was—must have been—Grace Poole. You call her a strange being yourself: from all you know, you have reason so to call her—what did she do to me? what to Mason? In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed her entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you were, you ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: the long dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated stature, were figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of the veil was real: and it is like her. I see you would ask why I keep such a woman in my house: when we have been married a year and a day, I will tell you; but not now. Are you satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my solution of the mystery?” + +I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible one: satisfied I was not, but to please him I endeavoured to appear so—relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered him with a contented smile. And now, as it was long past one, I prepared to leave him. + +“Does not Sophie sleep with Adèle in the nursery?” he asked, as I lit my candle. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And there is room enough in Adèle’s little bed for you. You must share it with her to-night, Jane: it is no wonder that the incident you have related should make you nervous, and I would rather you did not sleep alone: promise me to go to the nursery.” + +“I shall be very glad to do so, sir.” + +“And fasten the door securely on the inside. Wake Sophie when you go upstairs, under pretence of requesting her to rouse you in good time to-morrow; for you must be dressed and have finished breakfast before eight. And now, no more sombre thoughts: chase dull care away, Janet. Don’t you hear to what soft whispers the wind has fallen? and there is no more beating of rain against the window-panes: look here” (he lifted up the curtain)—“it is a lovely night!” + +It was. Half heaven was pure and stainless: the clouds, now trooping before the wind, which had shifted to the west, were filing off eastward in long, silvered columns. The moon shone peacefully. + +“Well,” said Mr. Rochester, gazing inquiringly into my eyes, “how is my Janet now?” + +“The night is serene, sir; and so am I.” + +“And you will not dream of separation and sorrow to-night; but of happy love and blissful union.” + +This prediction was but half fulfilled: I did not indeed dream of sorrow, but as little did I dream of joy; for I never slept at all. With little Adèle in my arms, I watched the slumber of childhood—so tranquil, so passionless, so innocent—and waited for the coming day: all my life was awake and astir in my frame: and as soon as the sun rose I rose too. I remember Adèle clung to me as I left her: I remember I kissed her as I loosened her little hands from my neck; and I cried over her with strange emotion, and quitted her because I feared my sobs would break her still sound repose. She seemed the emblem of my past life; and he, I was now to array myself to meet, the dread, but adored, type of my unknown future day. + +== CHAPTER XXVI +Sophie came at seven to dress me: she was very long indeed in accomplishing her task; so long that Mr. Rochester, grown, I suppose, impatient of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not come. She was just fastening my veil (the plain square of blond after all) to my hair with a brooch; I hurried from under her hands as soon as I could. + +“Stop!” she cried in French. “Look at yourself in the mirror: you have not taken one peep.” + +So I turned at the door: I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger. “Jane!” called a voice, and I hastened down. I was received at the foot of the stairs by Mr. Rochester. + +“Lingerer!” he said, “my brain is on fire with impatience, and you tarry so long!” + +He took me into the dining-room, surveyed me keenly all over, pronounced me “fair as a lily, and not only the pride of his life, but the desire of his eyes,” and then telling me he would give me but ten minutes to eat some breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately hired servants, a footman, answered it. + +“Is John getting the carriage ready?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Is the luggage brought down?” + +“They are bringing it down, sir.” + +“Go you to the church: see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the clerk are there: return and tell me.” + +The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the footman soon returned. + +“Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on his surplice.” + +“And the carriage?” + +“The horses are harnessing.” + +“We shall not want it to go to church; but it must be ready the moment we return: all the boxes and luggage arranged and strapped on, and the coachman in his seat.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Jane, are you ready?” + +I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives to wait for or marshal: none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax stood in the hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but my hand was held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I could hardly follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester’s face was to feel that not a second of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I wonder what other bridegroom ever looked as he did—so bent up to a purpose, so grimly resolute: or who, under such steadfast brows, ever revealed such flaming and flashing eyes. + +I know not whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the drive, I gazed neither on sky nor earth: my heart was with my eyes; and both seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester’s frame. I wanted to see the invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose force he seemed breasting and resisting. + +At the churchyard wicket he stopped: he discovered I was quite out of breath. “Am I cruel in my love?” he said. “Delay an instant: lean on me, Jane.” + +And now I can recall the picture of the grey old house of God rising calm before me, of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a ruddy morning sky beyond. I remember something, too, of the green grave-mounds; and I have not forgotten, either, two figures of strangers straying amongst the low hillocks and reading the mementoes graven on the few mossy head-stones. I noticed them, because, as they saw us, they passed round to the back of the church; and I doubted not they were going to enter by the side-aisle door and witness the ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not observed; he was earnestly looking at my face, from which the blood had, I daresay, momentarily fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips cold. When I rallied, which I soon did, he walked gently with me up the path to the porch. + +We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was still: two shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had been correct: the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault of the Rochesters, their backs towards us, viewing through the rails the old time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the remains of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the civil wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife. + +Our place was taken at the communion rails. Hearing a cautious step behind me, I glanced over my shoulder: one of the strangers—a gentleman, evidently—was advancing up the chancel. The service began. The explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then the clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly towards Mr. Rochester, went on. + +“I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed), that if either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well assured that so many as are coupled together otherwise than God’s Word doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful.” + +He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that sentence ever broken by reply? Not, perhaps, once in a hundred years. And the clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book, and had held his breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was already stretched towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to ask, “Wilt thou have this woman for thy wedded wife?”—when a distinct and near voice said— + +“The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment.” + +The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did the same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled under his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head or eyes, he said, “Proceed.” + +Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep but low intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said— + +“I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been asserted, and evidence of its truth or falsehood.” + +“The ceremony is quite broken off,” subjoined the voice behind us. “I am in a condition to prove my allegation: an insuperable impediment to this marriage exists.” + +Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid, making no movement but to possess himself of my hand. What a hot and strong grasp he had! and how like quarried marble was his pale, firm, massive front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful, and yet wild beneath! + +Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. “What is the nature of the impediment?” he asked. “Perhaps it may be got over—explained away?” + +“Hardly,” was the answer. “I have called it insuperable, and I speak advisedly.” + +The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, uttering each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly— + +“It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr. Rochester has a wife now living.” + +My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated to thunder—my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed nothing: he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, without smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a human being, he only twined my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side. + +“Who are you?” he asked of the intruder. + +“My name is Briggs, a solicitor of —— Street, London.” + +“And you would thrust on me a wife?” + +“I would remind you of your lady’s existence, sir, which the law recognises, if you do not.” + +“Favour me with an account of her—with her name, her parentage, her place of abode.” + +“Certainly.” Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read out in a sort of official, nasal voice:— + +“‘I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October A.D. —— (a date of fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in the county of ——, and of Ferndean Manor, in ——shire, England, was married to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant, and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at —— church, Spanish Town, Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be found in the register of that church—a copy of it is now in my possession. Signed, Richard Mason.’” + +“That—if a genuine document—may prove I have been married, but it does not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living.” + +“She was living three months ago,” returned the lawyer. + +“How do you know?” + +“I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir, will scarcely controvert.” + +“Produce him—or go to hell.” + +“I will produce him first—he is on the spot. Mr. Mason, have the goodness to step forward.” + +Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, a sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame. The second stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background, now drew near; a pale face looked over the solicitor’s shoulder—yes, it was Mason himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared at him. His eye, as I have often said, was a black eye: it had now a tawny, nay, a bloody light in its gloom; and his face flushed—olive cheek and hueless forehead received a glow as from spreading, ascending heart-fire: and he stirred, lifted his strong arm—he could have struck Mason, dashed him on the church-floor, shocked by ruthless blow the breath from his body—but Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, “Good God!” Contempt fell cool on Mr. Rochester—his passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he only asked—“What have you to say?” + +An inaudible reply escaped Mason’s white lips. + +“The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again demand, what have you to say?” + +“Sir—sir,” interrupted the clergyman, “do not forget you are in a sacred place.” Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently, “Are you aware, sir, whether or not this gentleman’s wife is still living?” + +“Courage,” urged the lawyer,—“speak out.” + +“She is now living at Thornfield Hall,” said Mason, in more articulate tones: “I saw her there last April. I am her brother.” + +“At Thornfield Hall!” ejaculated the clergyman. “Impossible! I am an old resident in this neighbourhood, sir, and I never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at Thornfield Hall.” + +I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester’s lips, and he muttered— + +“No, by God! I took care that none should hear of it—or of her under that name.” He mused—for ten minutes he held counsel with himself: he formed his resolve, and announced it— + +“Enough! all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the barrel. Wood, close your book and take off your surplice; John Green (to the clerk), leave the church: there will be no wedding to-day.” The man obeyed. + +Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: “Bigamy is an ugly word!—I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out-manoeuvred me, or Providence has checked me,—perhaps the last. I am little better than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the quenchless fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken up:—what this lawyer and his client say is true: I have been married, and the woman to whom I was married lives! You say you never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you have many a time inclined your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic kept there under watch and ward. Some have whispered to you that she is my bastard half-sister: some, my cast-off mistress. I now inform you that she is my wife, whom I married fifteen years ago,—Bertha Mason by name; sister of this resolute personage, who is now, with his quivering limbs and white cheeks, showing you what a stout heart men may bear. Cheer up, Dick!—never fear me!—I’d almost as soon strike a woman as you. Bertha Mason is mad; and she came of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard!—as I found out after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points. I had a charming partner—pure, wise, modest: you can fancy I was a happy man. I went through rich scenes! Oh! my experience has been heavenly, if you only knew it! But I owe you no further explanation. Briggs, Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come up to the house and visit Mrs. Poole’s patient, and my wife! You shall see what sort of a being I was cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not I had a right to break the compact, and seek sympathy with something at least human. This girl,” he continued, looking at me, “knew no more than you, Wood, of the disgusting secret: she thought all was fair and legal; and never dreamt she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted partner! Come all of you—follow!” + +Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage. + +“Take it back to the coach-house, John,” said Mr. Rochester coolly; “it will not be wanted to-day.” + +At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adèle, Sophie, Leah, advanced to meet and greet us. + +“To the right-about—every soul!” cried the master; “away with your congratulations! Who wants them? Not I!—they are fifteen years too late!” + +He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and still beckoning the gentlemen to follow him, which they did. We mounted the first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the third storey: the low, black door, opened by Mr. Rochester’s master-key, admitted us to the tapestried room, with its great bed and its pictorial cabinet. + +“You know this place, Mason,” said our guide; “she bit and stabbed you here.” + +He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door: this, too, he opened. In a room without a window, there burnt a fire guarded by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a chain. Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking something in a saucepan. In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being, one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a mane, hid its head and face. + +“Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!” said Mr. Rochester. “How are you? and how is your charge to-day?” + +“We’re tolerable, sir, I thank you,” replied Grace, lifting the boiling mess carefully on to the hob: “rather snappish, but not ’rageous.” + +A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the clothed hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet. + +“Ah! sir, she sees you!” exclaimed Grace: “you’d better not stay.” + +“Only a few moments, Grace: you must allow me a few moments.” + +“Take care then, sir!—for God’s sake, take care!” + +The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognised well that purple face,—those bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced. + +“Keep out of the way,” said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside: “she has no knife now, I suppose, and I’m on my guard.” + +“One never knows what she has, sir: she is so cunning: it is not in mortal discretion to fathom her craft.” + +“We had better leave her,” whispered Mason. + +“Go to the devil!” was his brother-in-law’s recommendation. + +“’Ware!” cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr. Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his throat viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She was a big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent besides: she showed virile force in the contest—more than once she almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her with a well-planted blow; but he would not strike: he would only wrestle. At last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a chair. The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the spectators: he looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate. + +“That is my wife,” said he. “Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am ever to know—such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure hours! And this is what I wished to have” (laying his hand on my shoulder): “this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon, I wanted her just as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder—this face with that mask—this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up my prize.” + +We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give some further order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed me as he descended the stair. + +“You, madam,” said he, “are cleared from all blame: your uncle will be glad to hear it—if, indeed, he should be still living—when Mr. Mason returns to Madeira.” + +“My uncle! What of him? Do you know him?” + +“Mr. Mason does. Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of his house for some years. When your uncle received your letter intimating the contemplated union between yourself and Mr. Rochester, Mr. Mason, who was staying at Madeira to recruit his health, on his way back to Jamaica, happened to be with him. Mr. Eyre mentioned the intelligence; for he knew that my client here was acquainted with a gentleman of the name of Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished and distressed as you may suppose, revealed the real state of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is now on a sick bed; from which, considering the nature of his disease—decline—and the stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will ever rise. He could not then hasten to England himself, to extricate you from the snare into which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to lose no time in taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He referred him to me for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful I was not too late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not morally certain that your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise you to accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had better remain in England till you can hear further, either from or of Mr. Eyre. Have we anything else to stay for?” he inquired of Mr. Mason. + +“No, no—let us be gone,” was the anxious reply; and without waiting to take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the hall door. The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of admonition or reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done, he too departed. + +I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room, to which I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in, fastened the bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded—not to weep, not to mourn, I was yet too calm for that, but—mechanically to take off the wedding dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn yesterday, as I thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt weak and tired. I leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them. And now I thought: till now I had only heard, seen, moved—followed up and down where I was led or dragged—watched event rush on event, disclosure open beyond disclosure: but now, I thought. + +The morning had been a quiet morning enough—all except the brief scene with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been noisy; there was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no dispute, no defiance or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words had been spoken, a calmly pronounced objection to the marriage made; some stern, short questions put by Mr. Rochester; answers, explanations given, evidence adduced; an open admission of the truth had been uttered by my master; then the living proof had been seen; the intruders were gone, and all was over. + +I was in my own room as usual—just myself, without obvious change: nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was the Jane Eyre of yesterday?—where was her life?—where were her prospects? + +Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman—almost a bride, was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and fragrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and white as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My hopes were all dead—struck with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could never revive. I looked at my love: that feeling which was my master’s—which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr. Rochester’s arms—it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted—confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was not what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice to him; I would not say he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea, and from his presence I must go: that I perceived well. When—how—whither, I could not yet discern; but he himself, I doubted not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real affection, it seemed, he could not have for me; it had been only fitful passion: that was balked; he would want me no more. I should fear even to cross his path now: my view must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind had been my eyes! How weak my conduct! + +My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow. Self-abandoned, relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength. I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only still throbbed life-like within me—a remembrance of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as something that should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them— + +“Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help.” + +It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it—as I had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips—it came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, “the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me.” + +== CHAPTER XXVII +Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked, “What am I to do?” + +But the answer my mind gave—“Leave Thornfield at once”—was so prompt, so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words now. “That I am not Edward Rochester’s bride is the least part of my woe,” I alleged: “that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it.” + +But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded depths of agony. + +“Let me be torn away, then” I cried. “Let another help me!” + +“No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it.” + +I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless a judge haunted,—at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My head swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from excitement and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for I had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I now reflected that, long as I had been shut up here, no message had been sent to ask how I was, or to invite me to come down: not even little Adèle had tapped at the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had sought me. “Friends always forget those whom fortune forsakes,” I murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed out. I stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was dim, and my limbs were feeble. I could not soon recover myself. I fell, but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up—I was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber threshold. + +“You come out at last,” he said. “Well, I have been waiting for you long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob: five minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced the lock like a burglar. So you shun me?—you shut yourself up and grieve alone! I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence. You are passionate: I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the hot rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I err: you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but no trace of tears. I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood? + +“Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter—nothing poignant? Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly where I have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look. + +“Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?” + +Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such deep remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look and mien—I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my heart’s core. + +“You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?” ere long he inquired wistfully—wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness, the result rather of weakness than of will. + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Then tell me so roundly and sharply—don’t spare me.” + +“I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water.” He heaved a sort of shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me downstairs. At first I did not know to what room he had borne me; all was cloudy to my glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving warmth of a fire; for, summer as it was, I had become icy cold in my chamber. He put wine to my lips; I tasted it and revived; then I ate something he offered me, and was soon myself. I was in the library—sitting in his chair—he was quite near. “If I could go out of life now, without too sharp a pang, it would be well for me,” I thought; “then I should not have to make the effort of cracking my heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester’s. I must leave him, it appears. I do not want to leave him—I cannot leave him.” + +“How are you now, Jane?” + +“Much better, sir; I shall be well soon.” + +“Taste the wine again, Jane.” + +I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before me, and looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an inarticulate exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind; he walked fast through the room and came back; he stooped towards me as if to kiss me; but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I turned my face away and put his aside. + +“What!—How is this?” he exclaimed hastily. “Oh, I know! you won’t kiss the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled and my embraces appropriated?” + +“At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir.” + +“Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will answer for you—Because I have a wife already, you would reply.—I guess rightly?” + +“Yes.” + +“If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must regard me as a plotting profligate—a base and low rake who has been simulating disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare deliberately laid, and strip you of honour and rob you of self-respect. What do you say to that? I see you can say nothing: in the first place, you are faint still, and have enough to do to draw your breath; in the second place, you cannot yet accustom yourself to accuse and revile me, and besides, the flood-gates of tears are opened, and they would rush out if you spoke much; and you have no desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene: you are thinking how to act—talking you consider is of no use. I know you—I am on my guard.” + +“Sir, I do not wish to act against you,” I said; and my unsteady voice warned me to curtail my sentence. + +“Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to destroy me. You have as good as said that I am a married man—as a married man you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have refused to kiss me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to me: to live under this roof only as Adèle’s governess; if ever I say a friendly word to you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to me, you will say,—‘That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must be ice and rock to him;’ and ice and rock you will accordingly become.” + +I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: “All is changed about me, sir; I must change too—there is no doubt of that; and to avoid fluctuations of feeling, and continual combats with recollections and associations, there is only one way—Adèle must have a new governess, sir.” + +“Oh, Adèle will go to school—I have settled that already; nor do I mean to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of Thornfield Hall—this accursed place—this tent of Achan—this insolent vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to the light of the open sky—this narrow stone hell, with its one real fiend, worse than a legion of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall not stay here, nor will I. I was wrong ever to bring you to Thornfield Hall, knowing as I did how it was haunted. I charged them to conceal from you, before I ever saw you, all knowledge of the curse of the place; merely because I feared Adèle never would have a governess to stay if she knew with what inmate she was housed, and my plans would not permit me to remove the maniac elsewhere—though I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even more retired and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement. Probably those damp walls would soon have eased me of her charge: but to each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect assassination, even of what I most hate. + +“Concealing the mad-woman’s neighbourhood from you, however, was something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near a upas-tree: that demon’s vicinage is poisoned, and always was. But I’ll shut up Thornfield Hall: I’ll nail up the front door and board the lower windows: I’ll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live here with my wife, as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for money, and she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to bear her company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when my wife is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at night, to stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on—” + +“Sir,” I interrupted him, “you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady: you speak of her with hate—with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel—she cannot help being mad.” + +“Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don’t know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?” + +“I do indeed, sir.” + +“Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait waistcoat—your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of recognition for me.—But why do I follow that train of ideas? I was talking of removing you from Thornfield. All, you know, is prepared for prompt departure: to-morrow you shall go. I only ask you to endure one more night under this roof, Jane; and then, farewell to its miseries and terrors for ever! I have a place to repair to, which will be a secure sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from unwelcome intrusion—even from falsehood and slander.” + +“And take Adèle with you, sir,” I interrupted; “she will be a companion for you.” + +“What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adèle to school; and what do I want with a child for a companion, and not my own child,—a French dancer’s bastard? Why do you importune me about her! I say, why do you assign Adèle to me for a companion?” + +“You spoke of a retirement, sir; and retirement and solitude are dull: too dull for you.” + +“Solitude! solitude!” he reiterated with irritation. “I see I must come to an explanation. I don’t know what sphynx-like expression is forming in your countenance. You are to share my solitude. Do you understand?” + +I shook my head: it required a degree of courage, excited as he was becoming, even to risk that mute sign of dissent. He had been walking fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted to one spot. He looked at me long and hard: I turned my eyes from him, fixed them on the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet, collected aspect. + +“Now for the hitch in Jane’s character,” he said at last, speaking more calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak. “The reel of silk has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and endless trouble! By God! I long to exert a fraction of Samson’s strength, and break the entanglement like tow!” + +He recommenced his walk, but soon again stopped, and this time just before me. + +“Jane! will you hear reason?” (he stooped and approached his lips to my ear); “because, if you won’t, I’ll try violence.” His voice was hoarse; his look that of a man who is just about to burst an insufferable bond and plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in another moment, and with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be able to do nothing with him. The present—the passing second of time—was all I had in which to control and restrain him: a movement of repulsion, flight, fear would have sealed my doom,—and his. But I was not afraid: not in the least. I felt an inward power; a sense of influence, which supported me. The crisis was perilous; but not without its charm: such as the Indian, perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe. I took hold of his clenched hand, loosened the contorted fingers, and said to him, soothingly— + +“Sit down; I’ll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you have to say, whether reasonable or unreasonable.” + +He sat down: but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been struggling with tears for some time: I had taken great pains to repress them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now, however, I considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long as they liked. If the flood annoyed him, so much the better. So I gave way and cried heartily. + +Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I could not while he was in such a passion. + +“But I am not angry, Jane: I only love you too well; and you had steeled your little pale face with such a resolute, frozen look, I could not endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your eyes.” + +His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn, became calm. Now he made an effort to rest his head on my shoulder, but I would not permit it. Then he would draw me to him: no. + +“Jane! Jane!” he said, in such an accent of bitter sadness it thrilled along every nerve I had; “you don’t love me, then? It was only my station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued? Now that you think me disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my touch as if I were some toad or ape.” + +These words cut me: yet what could I do or I say? I ought probably to have done or said nothing; but I was so tortured by a sense of remorse at thus hurting his feelings, I could not control the wish to drop balm where I had wounded. + +“I do love you,” I said, “more than ever: but I must not show or indulge the feeling: and this is the last time I must express it.” + +“The last time, Jane! What! do you think you can live with me, and see me daily, and yet, if you still love me, be always cold and distant?” + +“No, sir; that I am certain I could not; and therefore I see there is but one way: but you will be furious if I mention it.” + +“Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping.” + +“Mr. Rochester, I must leave you.” + +“For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair—which is somewhat dishevelled; and bathe your face—which looks feverish?” + +“I must leave Adèle and Thornfield. I must part with you for my whole life: I must begin a new existence among strange faces and strange scenes.” + +“Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about parting from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the new existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not married. You shall be Mrs. Rochester—both virtually and nominally. I shall keep only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to a place I have in the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the shores of the Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and guarded, and most innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you into error—to make you my mistress. Why did you shake your head? Jane, you must be reasonable, or in truth I shall again become frantic.” + +His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye blazed: still I dared to speak. + +“Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical—is false.” + +“Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man—you forget that: I am not long-enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me and yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and—beware!” + +He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking his cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all hands. To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was cruel: to yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do instinctively when they are driven to utter extremity—looked for aid to one higher than man: the words “God help me!” burst involuntarily from my lips. + +“I am a fool!” cried Mr. Rochester suddenly. “I keep telling her I am not married, and do not explain to her why. I forget she knows nothing of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances attending my infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree with me in opinion, when she knows all that I know! Just put your hand in mine, Janet—that I may have the evidence of touch as well as sight, to prove you are near me—and I will in a few words show you the real state of the case. Can you listen to me?” + +“Yes, sir; for hours if you will.” + +“I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear or know that I was not the eldest son of my house: that I had once a brother older than I?” + +“I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once.” + +“And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping man?” + +“I have understood something to that effect.” + +“Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property together; he could not bear the idea of dividing his estate and leaving me a fair portion: all, he resolved, should go to my brother, Rowland. Yet as little could he endure that a son of his should be a poor man. I must be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He sought me a partner betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and merchant, was his old acquaintance. He was certain his possessions were real and vast: he made inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a son and daughter; and he learned from him that he could and would give the latter a fortune of thirty thousand pounds: that sufficed. When I left college, I was sent out to Jamaica, to espouse a bride already courted for me. My father said nothing about her money; but he told me Miss Mason was the boast of Spanish Town for her beauty: and this was no lie. I found her a fine woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram: tall, dark, and majestic. Her family wished to secure me because I was of a good race; and so did she. They showed her to me in parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw her alone, and had very little private conversation with her. She flattered me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her charms and accomplishments. All the men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy me. I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience, the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its commission. Her relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she allured me: a marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. Oh, I have no respect for myself when I think of that act!—an agony of inward contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not even know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her nature: I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor refinement in her mind or manners—and, I married her:—gross, grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might have—But let me remember to whom I am speaking. + +“My bride’s mother I had never seen: I understood she was dead. The honeymoon over, I learned my mistake; she was only mad, and shut up in a lunatic asylum. There was a younger brother, too—a complete dumb idiot. The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate, whilst I abhor all his kindred, because he has some grains of affection in his feeble mind, shown in the continued interest he takes in his wretched sister, and also in a dog-like attachment he once bore me), will probably be in the same state one day. My father and my brother Rowland knew all this; but they thought only of the thirty thousand pounds, and joined in the plot against me. + +“These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife, even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger—when I found that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately received from her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile—when I perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory, exacting orders—even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt. + +“Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some strong words shall express what I have to say. I lived with that woman upstairs four years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her character ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices sprang up fast and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check them, and I would not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and what giant propensities! How fearful were the curses those propensities entailed on me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an infamous mother, dragged me through all the hideous and degrading agonies which must attend a man bound to a wife at once intemperate and unchaste. + +“My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four years my father died too. I was rich enough now—yet poor to hideous indigence: a nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was associated with mine, and called by the law and by society a part of me. And I could not rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the doctors now discovered that my wife was mad—her excesses had prematurely developed the germs of insanity. Jane, you don’t like my narrative; you look almost sick—shall I defer the rest to another day?” + +“No, sir, finish it now; I pity you—I do earnestly pity you.” + +“Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of tribute, which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of those who offer it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish hearts; it is a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed with ignorant contempt for those who have endured them. But that is not your pity, Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full at this moment—with which your eyes are now almost overflowing—with which your heart is heaving—with which your hand is trembling in mine. Your pity, my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is the very natal pang of the divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the daughter have free advent—my arms wait to receive her.” + +“Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?” + +“Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect was all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the world, I was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved to be clean in my own sight—and to the last I repudiated the contamination of her crimes, and wrenched myself from connection with her mental defects. Still, society associated my name and person with hers; I yet saw her and heard her daily: something of her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I breathed; and besides, I remembered I had once been her husband—that recollection was then, and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover, I knew that while she lived I could never be the husband of another and better wife; and, though five years my senior (her family and her father had lied to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live as long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus, at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless. + +“One night I had been awakened by her yells—(since the medical men had pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)—it was a fiery West Indian night; one of the description that frequently precede the hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in bed, I got up and opened the window. The air was like sulphur-steams—I could find no refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed sullenly round the room; the sea, which I could hear from thence, rumbled dull like an earthquake—black clouds were casting up over it; the moon was setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball—she threw her last bloody glance over a world quivering with the ferment of tempest. I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with such language!—no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she: though two rooms off, I heard every word—the thin partitions of the West India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish cries. + +“‘This life,’ said I at last, ‘is hell: this is the air—those are the sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself from it if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with the heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic’s burning eternity I have no fear: there is not a future state worse than this present one—let me break away, and go home to God!’ + +“I said this whilst I knelt down at and unlocked a trunk which contained a brace of loaded pistols: I meant to shoot myself. I only entertained the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the crisis of exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the wish and design of self-destruction, was past in a second. + +“A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the open casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and the air grew pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I walked under the dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst its drenched pomegranates and pine-apples, and while the refulgent dawn of the tropics kindled round me—I reasoned thus, Jane—and now listen; for it was true Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and showed me the right path to follow. + +“The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed leaves, and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart, dried up and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled with living blood—my being longed for renewal—my soul thirsted for a pure draught. I saw hope revive—and felt regeneration possible. From a flowery arch at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea—bluer than the sky: the old world was beyond; clear prospects opened thus:— + +“‘Go,’ said Hope, ‘and live again in Europe: there it is not known what a sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you. You may take the maniac with you to England; confine her with due attendance and precautions at Thornfield: then travel yourself to what clime you will, and form what new tie you like. That woman, who has so abused your long-suffering, so sullied your name, so outraged your honour, so blighted your youth, is not your wife, nor are you her husband. See that she is cared for as her condition demands, and you have done all that God and humanity require of you. Let her identity, her connection with yourself, be buried in oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being. Place her in safety and comfort: shelter her degradation with secrecy, and leave her.’ + +“I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had not made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very first letter I wrote to apprise them of the union—having already begun to experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me—I added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the infamous conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make him blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring to publish the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as myself. + +“To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such a monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield, and saw her safely lodged in that third-storey room, of whose secret inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast’s den—a goblin’s cell. I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as it was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be placed; for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret: besides, she had lucid intervals of days—sometimes weeks—which she filled up with abuse of me. At last I hired Grace Poole from the Grimbsy Retreat. She and the surgeon, Carter (who dressed Mason’s wounds that night he was stabbed and worried), are the only two I have ever admitted to my confidence. Mrs. Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she could have gained no precise knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it appears nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing profession, her vigilance has been more than once lulled and baffled. The lunatic is both cunning and malignant; she has never failed to take advantage of her guardian’s temporary lapses; once to secrete the knife with which she stabbed her brother, and twice to possess herself of the key of her cell, and issue therefrom in the night-time. On the first of these occasions, she perpetrated the attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid that ghastly visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you, that she then spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps brought back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what might have happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the thing which flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet visage over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles—” + +“And what, sir,” I asked, while he paused, “did you do when you had settled her here? Where did you go?” + +“What did I do, Jane? I transformed myself into a will-o’-the-wisp. Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the March-spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its lands. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent woman, whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at Thornfield—” + +“But you could not marry, sir.” + +“I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It was not my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I meant to tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly: and it appeared to me so absolutely rational that I should be considered free to love and be loved, I never doubted some woman might be found willing and able to understand my case and accept me, in spite of the curse with which I was burdened.” + +“Well, sir?” + +“When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open your eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless movement, as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you, and you wanted to read the tablet of one’s heart. But before I go on, tell me what you mean by your ‘Well, sir?’ It is a small phrase very frequent with you; and which many a time has drawn me on and on through interminable talk: I don’t very well know why.” + +“I mean,—What next? How did you proceed? What came of such an event?” + +“Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?” + +“Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to marry you; and what she said.” + +“I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I asked her to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in the book of Fate. For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, then another: sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in Paris; occasionally in Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with plenty of money and the passport of an old name, I could choose my own society: no circles were closed against me. I sought my ideal of a woman amongst English ladies, French countesses, Italian signoras, and German gräfinnen. I could not find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, I thought I caught a glance, heard a tone, beheld a form, which announced the realisation of my dream: but I was presently undeceived. You are not to suppose that I desired perfection, either of mind or person. I longed only for what suited me—for the antipodes of the Creole: and I longed vainly. Amongst them all I found not one whom, had I been ever so free, I—warned as I was of the risks, the horrors, the loathings of incongruous unions—would have asked to marry me. Disappointment made me reckless. I tried dissipation—never debauchery: that I hated, and hate. That was my Indian Messalina’s attribute: rooted disgust at it and her restrained me much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed to approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it. + +“Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of mistresses. The first I chose was Céline Varens—another of those steps which make a man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already know what she was, and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two successors: an Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered singularly handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks? Giacinta was unprincipled and violent: I tired of her in three months. Clara was honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless, and unimpressible: not one whit to my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set her up in a good line of business, and so get decently rid of her. But, Jane, I see by your face you are not forming a very favourable opinion of me just now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled rake: don’t you?” + +“I don’t like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir. Did it not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first with one mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of course.” + +“It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion of existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress is the next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with Céline, Giacinta, and Clara.” + +I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching that had ever been instilled into me, as—under any pretext—with any justification—through any temptation—to become the successor of these poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now in his mind desecrated their memory. I did not give utterance to this conviction: it was enough to feel it. I impressed it on my heart, that it might remain there to serve me as aid in the time of trial. + +“Now, Jane, why don’t you say ‘Well, sir?’ I have not done. You are looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses—in a harsh, bitter frame of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life—corroded with disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and especially against all womankind (for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual, faithful, loving woman as a mere dream), recalled by business, I came back to England. + +“On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield Hall. Abhorred spot! I expected no peace—no pleasure there. On a stile in Hay Lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I passed it as negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it: I had no presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning that the arbitress of my life—my genius for good or evil—waited there in humble guise. I did not know it, even when, on the occasion of Mesrour’s accident, it came up and gravely offered me help. Childish and slender creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed to bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly; but the thing would not go: it stood by me with strange perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort of authority. I must be aided, and by that hand: and aided I was. + +“When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new—a fresh sap and sense—stole into my frame. It was well I had learnt that this elf must return to me—that it belonged to my house down below—or I could not have felt it pass away from under my hand, and seen it vanish behind the dim hedge, without singular regret. I heard you come home that night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I thought of you or watched for you. The next day I observed you—myself unseen—for half-an-hour, while you played with Adèle in the gallery. It was a snowy day, I recollect, and you could not go out of doors. I was in my room; the door was ajar: I could both listen and watch. Adèle claimed your outward attention for a while; yet I fancied your thoughts were elsewhere: but you were very patient with her, my little Jane; you talked to her and amused her a long time. When at last she left you, you lapsed at once into deep reverie: you betook yourself slowly to pace the gallery. Now and then, in passing a casement, you glanced out at the thick-falling snow; you listened to the sobbing wind, and again you paced gently on and dreamed. I think those day visions were not dark: there was a pleasurable illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in your aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding: your look revealed rather the sweet musings of youth when its spirit follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal heaven. The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the hall, wakened you: and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself, Janet! There was much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd, and seemed to make light of your own abstraction. It seemed to say—‘My fine visions are all very well, but I must not forget they are absolutely unreal. I have a rosy sky and a green flowery Eden in my brain; but without, I am perfectly aware, lies at my feet a rough tract to travel, and around me gather black tempests to encounter.’ You ran downstairs and demanded of Mrs. Fairfax some occupation: the weekly house accounts to make up, or something of that sort, I think it was. I was vexed with you for getting out of my sight. + +“Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my presence. An unusual—to me—a perfectly new character I suspected was yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better. You entered the room with a look and air at once shy and independent: you were quaintly dressed—much as you are now. I made you talk: ere long I found you full of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by rule; your air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature, but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of making herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder; yet when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your interlocutor’s face: there was penetration and power in each glance you gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready and round answers. Very soon you seemed to get used to me: I believe you felt the existence of sympathy between you and your grim and cross master, Jane; for it was astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillised your manner: snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance, or displeasure at my moroseness; you watched me, and now and then smiled at me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot describe. I was at once content and stimulated with what I saw: I liked what I had seen, and wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I treated you distantly, and sought your company rarely. I was an intellectual epicure, and wished to prolong the gratification of making this novel and piquant acquaintance: besides, I was for a while troubled with a haunting fear that if I handled the flower freely its bloom would fade—the sweet charm of freshness would leave it. I did not then know that it was no transitory blossom, but rather the radiant resemblance of one, cut in an indestructible gem. Moreover, I wished to see whether you would seek me if I shunned you—but you did not; you kept in the schoolroom as still as your own desk and easel; if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon, and with as little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect. Your habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not despondent, for you were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had little hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of me, or if you ever thought of me, and resolved to find this out. + +“I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your glance, and genial in your manner, when you conversed: I saw you had a social heart; it was the silent schoolroom—it was the tedium of your life—that made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you; kindness stirred emotion soon: your face became soft in expression, your tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a grateful happy accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, at this time: there was a curious hesitation in your manner: you glanced at me with a slight trouble—a hovering doubt: you did not know what my caprice might be—whether I was going to play the master and be stern, or the friend and be benignant. I was now too fond of you often to simulate the first whim; and, when I stretched my hand out cordially, such bloom and light and bliss rose to your young, wistful features, I had much ado often to avoid straining you then and there to my heart.” + +“Don’t talk any more of those days, sir,” I interrupted, furtively dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was torture to me; for I knew what I must do—and do soon—and all these reminiscences, and these revelations of his feelings only made my work more difficult. + +“No, Jane,” he returned: “what necessity is there to dwell on the Past, when the Present is so much surer—the Future so much brighter?” + +I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion. + +“You see now how the case stands—do you not?” he continued. “After a youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love—I have found you. You are my sympathy—my better self—my good angel. I am bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely: a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you, draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you, and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one. + +“It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you. To tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now that I had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared early instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before hazarding confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your nobleness and magnanimity at first, as I do now—opened to you plainly my life of agony—described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier existence—shown to you, not my resolution (that word is weak), but my resistless bent to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and well loved in return. Then I should have asked you to accept my pledge of fidelity and to give me yours. Jane—give it me now.” + +A pause. + +“Why are you silent, Jane?” + +I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals. Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a human being that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable duty—“Depart!” + +“Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise—‘I will be yours, Mr. Rochester.’” + +“Mr. Rochester, I will not be yours.” + +Another long silence. + +“Jane!” recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with grief, and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror—for this still voice was the pant of a lion rising—“Jane, do you mean to go one way in the world, and to let me go another?” + +“I do.” + +“Jane” (bending towards and embracing me), “do you mean it now?” + +“I do.” + +“And now?” softly kissing my forehead and cheek. + +“I do,” extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely. + +“Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This—this is wicked. It would not be wicked to love me.” + +“It would to obey you.” + +A wild look raised his brows—crossed his features: he rose; but he forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I shook, I feared—but I resolved. + +“One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left? For a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer me to some corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for a companion and for some hope?” + +“Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet again there.” + +“Then you will not yield?” + +“No.” + +“Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?” His voice rose. + +“I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil.” + +“Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on lust for a passion—vice for an occupation?” + +“Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for myself. We were born to strive and endure—you as well as I: do so. You will forget me before I forget you.” + +“You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I declared I could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change soon. And what a distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in your ideas, is proved by your conduct! Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to transgress a mere human law, no man being injured by the breach? for you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend by living with me?” + +This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. “Oh, comply!” it said. “Think of his misery; think of his danger—look at his state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the recklessness following on despair—soothe him; save him; love him; tell him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for you? or who will be injured by what you do?” + +Still indomitable was the reply—“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not mad—as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth—so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane—quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.” + +I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so. His fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment, whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped my waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance: physically, I felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the draught and glow of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter—often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter—in the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and my over-taxed strength almost exhausted. + +“Never,” said he, as he ground his teeth, “never was anything at once so frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!” (And he shook me with the force of his hold.) “I could bend her with my finger and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing looking out of it, defying me, with more than courage—with a stern triumph. Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it—the savage, beautiful creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmate would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit—with will and energy, and virtue and purity—that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself you could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you would: seized against your will, you will elude the grasp like an essence—you will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!” + +As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at me. The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only an idiot, however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled his fury; I must elude his sorrow: I retired to the door. + +“You are going, Jane?” + +“I am going, sir.” + +“You are leaving me?” + +“Yes.” + +“You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?” + +What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to reiterate firmly, “I am going.” + +“Jane!” + +“Mr. Rochester!” + +“Withdraw, then,—I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish. Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a glance on my sufferings—think of me.” + +He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. “Oh, Jane! my hope—my love—my life!” broke in anguish from his lips. Then came a deep, strong sob. + +I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back—walked back as determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him; I turned his face from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his hair with my hand. + +“God bless you, my dear master!” I said. “God keep you from harm and wrong—direct you, solace you—reward you well for your past kindness to me.” + +“Little Jane’s love would have been my best reward,” he answered; “without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love: yes—nobly, generously.” + +Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes; erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace, and at once quitted the room. + +“Farewell!” was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added, “Farewell for ever!” + +That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as soon as I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the scenes of childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that the night was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The light that long ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this vision, seemed glidingly to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of the obscured ceiling. I lifted up my head to look: the roof resolved to clouds, high and dim; the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours she is about to sever. I watched her come—watched with the strangest anticipation; as though some word of doom were to be written on her disk. She broke forth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first penetrated the sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a white human form shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone, yet so near, it whispered in my heart— + +“My daughter, flee temptation.” + +“Mother, I will.” + +So I answered after I had waked from the trance-like dream. It was yet night, but July nights are short: soon after midnight, dawn comes. “It cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil,” thought I. I rose: I was dressed; for I had taken off nothing but my shoes. I knew where to find in my drawers some linen, a locket, a ring. In seeking these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr. Rochester had forced me to accept a few days ago. I left that; it was not mine: it was the visionary bride’s who had melted in air. The other articles I made up in a parcel; my purse, containing twenty shillings (it was all I had), I put in my pocket: I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl, took the parcel and my slippers, which I would not put on yet, and stole from my room. + +“Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!” I whispered, as I glided past her door. “Farewell, my darling Adèle!” I said, as I glanced towards the nursery. No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I had to deceive a fine ear: for aught I knew it might now be listening. + +I would have got past Mr. Rochester’s chamber without a pause; but my heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was walking restlessly from wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I listened. There was a heaven—a temporary heaven—in this room for me, if I chose: I had but to go in and to say— + +“Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till death,” and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of this. + +That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with impatience for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be gone. He would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself forsaken; his love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow desperate. I thought of this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I caught it back, and glided on. + +Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and I did it mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the kitchen; I sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the lock. I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I should have to walk far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must not break down. All this I did without one sound. I opened the door, passed out, shut it softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard. The great gates were closed and locked; but a wicket in one of them was only latched. Through that I departed: it, too, I shut; and now I was out of Thornfield. + +A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the contrary direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, but often noticed, and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps. No reflection was to be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet—so deadly sad—that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank: something like the world when the deluge was gone by. + +I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. I believe it was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had put on when I left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked neither to rising sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is taken out to pass through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge; of the disseverment of bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I thought of drear flight and homeless wandering—and oh! with agony I thought of what I left. I could not help it. I thought of him now—in his room—watching the sunrise; hoping I should soon come to say I would stay with him and be his. I longed to be his; I panted to return: it was not too late; I could yet spare him the bitter pang of bereavement. As yet my flight, I was sure, was undiscovered. I could go back and be his comforter—his pride; his redeemer from misery, perhaps from ruin. Oh, that fear of his self-abandonment—far worse than my abandonment—how it goaded me! It was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it farther in. Birds began singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their mates; birds were emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of my pain of heart and frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself. I had no solace from self-approbation: none even from self-respect. I had injured—wounded—left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. Still I could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me on. As to my own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one and stifled the other. I was weeping wildly as I walked along my solitary way: fast, fast I went like one delirious. A weakness, beginning inwardly, extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell: I lay on the ground some minutes, pressing my face to the wet turf. I had some fear—or hope—that here I should die: but I was soon up; crawling forwards on my hands and knees, and then again raised to my feet—as eager and as determined as ever to reach the road. + +When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge; and while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood up and lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going: the driver named a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had no connections. I asked for what sum he would take me there; he said thirty shillings; I answered I had but twenty; well, he would try to make it do. He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the vehicle was empty: I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way. + +Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the instrument of evil to what you wholly love. + +== CHAPTER XXVIII +Two days are passed. It is a summer evening; the coachman has set me down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no farther for the sum I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in the world. The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone. At this moment I discover that I forgot to take my parcel out of the pocket of the coach, where I had placed it for safety; there it remains, there it must remain; and now, I am absolutely destitute. + +Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar set up where four roads meet: whitewashed, I suppose, to be more obvious at a distance and in darkness. Four arms spring from its summit: the nearest town to which these point is, according to the inscription, distant ten miles; the farthest, above twenty. From the well-known names of these towns I learn in what county I have lighted; a north-midland shire, dusk with moorland, ridged with mountain: this I see. There are great moors behind and on each hand of me; there are waves of mountains far beyond that deep valley at my feet. The population here must be thin, and I see no passengers on these roads: they stretch out east, west, north, and south—white, broad, lonely; they are all cut in the moor, and the heather grows deep and wild to their very verge. Yet a chance traveller might pass by; and I wish no eye to see me now: strangers would wonder what I am doing, lingering here at the sign-post, evidently objectless and lost. I might be questioned: I could give no answer but what would sound incredible and excite suspicion. Not a tie holds me to human society at this moment—not a charm or hope calls me where my fellow-creatures are—none that saw me would have a kind thought or a good wish for me. I have no relative but the universal mother, Nature: I will seek her breast and ask repose. + +I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in a hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me; the crag protected my head: the sky was over that. + +Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague dread that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or poacher might discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man. Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and calmed by the deep silence that reigned as evening declined at nightfall, I took confidence. As yet I had not thought; I had only listened, watched, dreaded; now I regained the faculty of reflection. + +What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I could do nothing and go nowhere!—when a long way must yet be measured by my weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human habitation—when cold charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging: reluctant sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before my tale could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved! + +I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the summer day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star twinkled just above the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. To-night, at least, I would be her guest, as I was her child: my mother would lodge me without money and without price. I had one morsel of bread yet: the remnant of a roll I had bought in a town we passed through at noon with a stray penny—my last coin. I saw ripe bilberries gleaming here and there, like jet beads in the heath: I gathered a handful and ate them with the bread. My hunger, sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased by this hermit’s meal. I said my evening prayers at its conclusion, and then chose my couch. + +I said my evening prayers +Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet were buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow space for the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and spread it over me for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow. Thus lodged, I was not, at least at the commencement of the night, cold. + +My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it. It plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords. It trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain attempts to seek him. + +Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-way. Remembering what it was—what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light—I felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe: he was God’s, and by God would he be guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long in sleep forgot sorrow. + +But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little birds had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet prime of day to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried—when the long morning shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and sky—I got up, and I looked round me. + +What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that I might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here. But I was a human being, and had a human being’s wants: I must not linger where there was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked back at the bed I had left. Hopeless of the future, I wished but this—that my Maker had that night thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness. Life, however, was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled. I set out. + +Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now fervent and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my choice. I walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done enough, and might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost overpowered me—might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on a stone I saw near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged heart and limb—I heard a bell chime—a church bell. + +I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the romantic hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an hour ago, I saw a hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right hand was full of pasture-fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a glittering stream ran zig-zag through the varied shades of green, the mellowing grain, the sombre woodland, the clear and sunny lea. Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to the road before me, I saw a heavily-laden waggon labouring up the hill, and not far beyond were two cows and their drover. Human life and human labour were near. I must struggle on: strive to live and bend to toil like the rest. + +About two o’clock P.M. I entered the village. At the bottom of its one street there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the window. I coveted a cake of bread. With that refreshment I could perhaps regain a degree of energy: without it, it would be difficult to proceed. The wish to have some strength and some vigour returned to me as soon as I was amongst my fellow-beings. I felt it would be degrading to faint with hunger on the causeway of a hamlet. Had I nothing about me I could offer in exchange for one of these rolls? I considered. I had a small silk handkerchief tied round my throat; I had my gloves. I could hardly tell how men and women in extremities of destitution proceeded. I did not know whether either of these articles would be accepted: probably they would not; but I must try. + +I entered the shop: a woman was there. Seeing a respectably-dressed person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility. How could she serve me? I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter the request I had prepared. I dared not offer her the half-worn gloves, the creased handkerchief: besides, I felt it would be absurd. I only begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired. Disappointed in the expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to my request. She pointed to a seat; I sank into it. I felt sorely urged to weep; but conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be, I restrained it. Soon I asked her “if there were any dressmaker or plain-workwoman in the village?” + +“Yes; two or three. Quite as many as there was employment for.” + +I reflected. I was driven to the point now. I was brought face to face with Necessity. I stood in the position of one without a resource, without a friend, without a coin. I must do something. What? I must apply somewhere. Where? + +“Did she know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant was wanted?” + +“Nay; she couldn’t say.” + +“What was the chief trade in this place? What did most of the people do?” + +“Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver’s needle-factory, and at the foundry.” + +“Did Mr. Oliver employ women?” + +“Nay; it was men’s work.” + +“And what do the women do?” + +“I knawn’t,” was the answer. “Some does one thing, and some another. Poor folk mun get on as they can.” + +She seemed to be tired of my questions: and, indeed, what claim had I to importune her? A neighbour or two came in; my chair was evidently wanted. I took leave. + +I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to the right hand and to the left; but I could discover no pretext, nor see an inducement to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet, going sometimes to a little distance and returning again, for an hour or more. Much exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of food, I turned aside into a lane and sat down under the hedge. Ere many minutes had elapsed, I was again on my feet, however, and again searching something—a resource, or at least an informant. A pretty little house stood at the top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat and brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it. What business had I to approach the white door or touch the glittering knocker? In what way could it possibly be the interest of the inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me? Yet I drew near and knocked. A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young woman opened the door. In such a voice as might be expected from a hopeless heart and fainting frame—a voice wretchedly low and faltering—I asked if a servant was wanted here? + +“No,” said she; “we do not keep a servant.” + +“Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?” I continued. “I am a stranger, without acquaintance in this place. I want some work: no matter what.” + +But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for me: besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must have appeared my character, position, tale. She shook her head, she “was sorry she could give me no information,” and the white door closed, quite gently and civilly: but it shut me out. If she had held it open a little longer, I believe I should have begged a piece of bread; for I was now brought low. + +I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no prospect of aid was visible. I should have longed rather to deviate to a wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to offer inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with nature’s cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there was a chance of food. Solitude would be no solitude—rest no rest—while the vulture, hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side. + +I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I wandered away: always repelled by the consciousness of having no claim to ask—no right to expect interest in my isolated lot. Meantime, the afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and starving dog. In crossing a field, I saw the church spire before me: I hastened towards it. Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a garden, stood a well-built though small house, which I had no doubt was the parsonage. I remembered that strangers who arrive at a place where they have no friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply to the clergyman for introduction and aid. It is the clergyman’s function to help—at least with advice—those who wished to help themselves. I seemed to have something like a right to seek counsel here. Renewing then my courage, and gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed on. I reached the house, and knocked at the kitchen-door. An old woman opened: I asked was this the parsonage? + +“Yes.” + +“Was the clergyman in?” + +“No.” + +“Would he be in soon?” + +“No, he was gone from home.” + +“To a distance?” + +“Not so far—happen three mile. He had been called away by the sudden death of his father: he was at Marsh End now, and would very likely stay there a fortnight longer.” + +“Was there any lady of the house?” + +“Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper;” and of her, reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I was sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away. + +Once more I took off my handkerchief—once more I thought of the cakes of bread in the little shop. Oh, for but a crust! for but one mouthful to allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my face again to the village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and though others were there besides the woman I ventured the request—“Would she give me a roll for this handkerchief?” + +She looked at me with evident suspicion: “Nay, she never sold stuff i’ that way.” + +Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused. “How could she tell where I had got the handkerchief?” she said. + +“Would she take my gloves?” + +“No! what could she do with them?” + +Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say there is enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this day I can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed none of those who repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not be helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a well-dressed beggar inevitably so. To be sure, what I begged was employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment? Not, certainly, that of persons who saw me then for the first time, and who knew nothing about my character. And as to the woman who would not take my handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me condense now. I am sick of the subject. + +A little before dark I passed a farm-house, at the open door of which the farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese. I stopped and said— + +“Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry.” He cast on me a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick slice from his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I was a beggar, but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a fancy to his brown loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I sat down and ate it. + +I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the wood I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my rest broken: the ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed near me more than once, and I had again and again to change my quarters: no sense of safety or tranquillity befriended me. Towards morning it rained; the whole of the following day was wet. Do not ask me, reader, to give a minute account of that day; as before, I sought work; as before, I was repulsed; as before, I starved; but once did food pass my lips. At the door of a cottage I saw a little girl about to throw a mess of cold porridge into a pig trough. “Will you give me that?” I asked. + +“Will you give me that?” I asked +She stared at me. “Mother!” she exclaimed, “there is a woman wants me to give her these porridge.” + +“Well lass,” replied a voice within, “give it her if she’s a beggar. T’ pig doesn’t want it.” + +The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it ravenously. + +As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path, which I had been pursuing an hour or more. + +“My strength is quite failing me,” I said in a soliloquy. “I feel I cannot go much farther. Shall I be an outcast again this night? While the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched ground? I fear I cannot do otherwise: for who will receive me? But it will be very dreadful, with this feeling of hunger, faintness, chill, and this sense of desolation—this total prostration of hope. In all likelihood, though, I should die before morning. And why cannot I reconcile myself to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life? Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is living: and then, to die of want and cold is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively. Oh, Providence! sustain me a little longer! Aid!—direct me!” + +My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape. I saw I had strayed far from the village: it was quite out of sight. The very cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by cross-ways and by-paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and now, only a few fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the heath from which they were scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the dusky hill. + +“Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a frequented road,” I reflected. “And far better that crows and ravens—if any ravens there be in these regions—should pick my flesh from my bones, than that they should be prisoned in a workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper’s grave.” + +To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It remained now only to find a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden, if not secure. But all the surface of the waste looked level. It showed no variation but of tint: green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; black, where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was getting, I could still see these changes, though but as mere alternations of light and shade; for colour had faded with the daylight. + +My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge, vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in among the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. “That is an ignis fatuus,” was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish. It burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing. “Is it, then, a bonfire just kindled?” I questioned. I watched to see whether it would spread: but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not enlarge. “It may be a candle in a house,” I then conjectured; “but if so, I can never reach it. It is much too far away: and were it within a yard of me, what would it avail? I should but knock at the door to have it shut in my face.” + +And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the ground. I lay still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and over me, and died moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me afresh to the skin. Could I but have stiffened to the still frost—the friendly numbness of death—it might have pelted on; I should not have felt it; but my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling influence. I rose ere long. + +The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain. I tried to walk again: I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it. It led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have been impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in the height of summer. Here I fell twice; but as often I rose and rallied my faculties. This light was my forlorn hope: I must gain it. + +Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor. I approached it; it was a road or a track: it led straight up to the light, which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of trees—firs, apparently, from what I could distinguish of the character of their forms and foliage through the gloom. My star vanished as I drew near: some obstacle had intervened between me and it. I put out my hand to feel the dark mass before me: I discriminated the rough stones of a low wall—above it, something like palisades, and within, a high and prickly hedge. I groped on. Again a whitish object gleamed before me: it was a gate—a wicket; it moved on its hinges as I touched it. On each side stood a sable bush—holly or yew. + +Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house rose to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light shone nowhere. All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to rest? I feared it must be so. In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot out the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very small latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller by the growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick over the portion of the house wall in which it was set. The aperture was so screened and narrow, that curtain or shutter had been deemed unnecessary; and when I stooped down and put aside the spray of foliage shooting over it, I could see all within. I could see clearly a room with a sanded floor, clean scoured; a dresser of walnut, with pewter plates ranged in rows, reflecting the redness and radiance of a glowing peat-fire. I could see a clock, a white deal table, some chairs. The candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on the table; and by its light an elderly woman, somewhat rough-looking, but scrupulously clean, like all about her, was knitting a stocking. + +I noticed these objects cursorily only—in them there was nothing extraordinary. A group of more interest appeared near the hearth, sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two young, graceful women—ladies in every point—sat, one in a low rocking-chair, the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning of crape and bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair necks and faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of one girl—in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat. + +A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who were they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at the table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy and cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet, as I gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot call them handsome—they were too pale and grave for the word: as they each bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A stand between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to which they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the smaller books they held in their hands, like people consulting a dictionary to aid them in the task of translation. This scene was as silent as if all the figures had been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock tick in its obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the click-click of the woman’s knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me. + +“Listen, Diana,” said one of the absorbed students; “Franz and old Daniel are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream from which he has awakened in terror—listen!” And in a low voice she read something, of which not one word was intelligible to me; for it was in an unknown tongue—neither French nor Latin. Whether it were Greek or German I could not tell. + +“That is strong,” she said, when she had finished: “I relish it.” The other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated, while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read. At a later day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will here quote the line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on sounding brass to me—conveying no meaning:— + +“‘Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.’ Good! good!” she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. “There you have a dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is worth a hundred pages of fustian. ‘Ich wäge die Gedanken in der Schale meines Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.’ I like it!” + +Both were again silent. + +“Is there ony country where they talk i’ that way?” asked the old woman, looking up from her knitting. + +“Yes, Hannah—a far larger country than England, where they talk in no other way.” + +“Well, for sure case, I knawn’t how they can understand t’ one t’other: and if either o’ ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess?” + +“We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all—for we are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don’t speak German, and we cannot read it without a dictionary to help us.” + +“And what good does it do you?” + +“We mean to teach it some time—or at least the elements, as they say; and then we shall get more money than we do now.” + +“Varry like: but give ower studying; ye’ve done enough for to-night.” + +“I think we have: at least I’m tired. Mary, are you?” + +“Mortally: after all, it’s tough work fagging away at a language with no master but a lexicon.” + +“It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious Deutsch. I wonder when St. John will come home.” + +“Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a little gold watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah: will you have the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?” + +The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage: soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back. + +“Ah, childer!” said she, “it fair troubles me to go into yond’ room now: it looks so lonesome wi’ the chair empty and set back in a corner.” + +She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked sad now. + +“But he is in a better place,” continued Hannah: “we shouldn’t wish him here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had.” + +“You say he never mentioned us?” inquired one of the ladies. + +“He hadn’t time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father. He had been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and when Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o’ ye to be sent for, he fair laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his head the next day—that is, a fortnight sin’—and he went to sleep and niver wakened: he wor a’most stark when your brother went into t’ chamber and fand him. Ah, childer! that’s t’ last o’ t’ old stock—for ye and Mr. St. John is like of different soart to them ’at’s gone; for all your mother wor mich i’ your way, and a’most as book-learned. She wor the pictur’ o’ ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father.” + +I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing it; Mary’s pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana’s duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck ten. + +“Ye’ll want your supper, I am sure,” observed Hannah; “and so will Mr. St. John when he comes in.” + +And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so intent on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited in me so keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched position: now it recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than ever, it seemed from contrast. And how impossible did it appear to touch the inmates of this house with concern on my behalf; to make them believe in the truth of my wants and woes—to induce them to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As I groped out the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah opened. + +“What do you want?” she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she surveyed me by the light of the candle she held. + +“May I speak to your mistresses?” I said. + +“You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you come from?” + +“I am a stranger.” + +“What is your business here at this hour?” + +“I want a night’s shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel of bread to eat.” + +Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah’s face. “I’ll give you a piece of bread,” she said, after a pause; “but we can’t take in a vagrant to lodge. It isn’t likely.” + +“Do let me speak to your mistresses.” + +“No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about now; it looks very ill.” + +“But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?” + +“Oh, I’ll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don’t do wrong, that’s all. Here is a penny; now go—” + +“A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don’t shut the door:—oh, don’t, for God’s sake!” + +“I must; the rain is driving in—” + +“Tell the young ladies. Let me see them—” + +“Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn’t make such a noise. Move off.” + +“But I must die if I am turned away.” + +“Not you. I’m fear’d you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about folk’s houses at this time o’ night. If you’ve any followers—housebreakers or such like—anywhere near, you may tell them we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and guns.” Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and bolted it within. + +This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering—a throe of true despair—rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned—I wrung my hands—I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation—this banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of fortitude was gone—at least for a moment; but the last I soon endeavoured to regain. + +“I can but die,” I said, “and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His will in silence.” + +These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain there—dumb and still. + +“All men must die,” said a voice quite close at hand; “but all are not condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be if you perished here of want.” + +“Who or what speaks?” I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A form was near—what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock, the new-comer appealed to the door. + +“Is it you, Mr. St. John?” cried Hannah. + +“Yes—yes; open quickly.” + +“Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is! Come in—your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad folks about. There has been a beggar-woman—I declare she is not gone yet!—laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move off, I say!” + +“Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done your duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was near, and listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar case—I must at least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass before me into the house.” + +Hush, Hannah; I have a word to say to the woman +With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean, bright kitchen—on the very hearth—trembling, sickening; conscious of an aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten. The two ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing at me. + +“St. John, who is it?” I heard one ask. + +“I cannot tell: I found her at the door,” was the reply. + +“She does look white,” said Hannah. + +“As white as clay or death,” was responded. “She will fall: let her sit.” + +And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I still possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak. + +“Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some. But she is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!” + +“A mere spectre!” + +“Is she ill, or only famished?” + +“Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece of bread.” + +Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me and the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk, and put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it, and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words, too, the same balm-like emotion spoke: “Try to eat.” + +“Yes—try,” repeated Mary gently; and Mary’s hand removed my sodden bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me: feebly at first, eagerly soon. + +“Not too much at first—restrain her,” said the brother; “she has had enough.” And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread. + +“A little more, St. John—look at the avidity in her eyes.” + +“No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now—ask her her name.” + +I felt I could speak, and I answered—“My name is Jane Elliott.” Anxious as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an alias. + +“And where do you live? Where are your friends?” + +I was silent. + +“Can we send for any one you know?” + +I shook my head. + +“What account can you give of yourself?” + +Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer outcast, vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off the mendicant—to resume my natural manner and character. I began once more to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account—which at present I was far too weak to render—I said after a brief pause— + +“Sir, I can give you no details to-night.” + +“But what, then,” said he, “do you expect me to do for you?” + +“Nothing,” I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers. Diana took the word— + +“Do you mean,” she asked, “that we have now given you what aid you require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy night?” + +I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage. Answering her compassionate gaze with a smile, I said—“I will trust you. If I were a masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear. Do with me and for me as you like; but excuse me from much discourse—my breath is short—I feel a spasm when I speak.” All three surveyed me, and all three were silent. + +“Hannah,” said Mr. St. John, at last, “let her sit there at present, and ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the remainder of that milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the parlour and talk the matter over.” + +They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned—I could not tell which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere long, with the servant’s aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I thanked God—experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful joy—and slept. + +== CHAPTER XXIX +The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew I was in a small room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have been almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse of time—of the change from morning to noon, from noon to evening. I observed when any one entered or left the apartment: I could even tell who they were; I could understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible. Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed me. I had a feeling that she wished me away: that she did not understand me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me. Diana and Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day. They would whisper sentences of this sort at my bedside— + +“It is very well we took her in.” + +“Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the morning had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone through?” + +“Strange hardships, I imagine—poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer!” + +“She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off, though splashed and wet, were little worn and fine.” + +“She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy would be agreeable.” + +Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or aversion to, myself. I was comforted. + +Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he was sure, would manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve had been overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a while. There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would be rapid enough when once commenced. These opinions he delivered in a few words, in a quiet, low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of a man little accustomed to expansive comment, “Rather an unusual physiognomy; certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation.” + +“Far otherwise,” responded Diana. “To speak truth, St. John, my heart rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able to benefit her permanently.” + +“That is hardly likely,” was the reply. “You will find she is some young lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has probably injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in restoring her to them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines of force in her face which make me sceptical of her tractability.” He stood considering me some minutes; then added, “She looks sensible, but not at all handsome.” + +“She is so ill, St. John.” + +“Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of beauty are quite wanting in those features.” + +On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move, rise in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry toast, about, as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with relish: the food was good—void of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned what I had swallowed. When she left me, I felt comparatively strong and revived: ere long satiety of repose and desire for action stirred me. I wished to rise; but what could I put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed to appear before my benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation. + +On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was quite decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered presentable. There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb and brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting every five minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung loose on me; for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and once more, clean and respectable looking—no speck of the dirt, no trace of the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, left—I crept down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow low passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen. + +It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first: latterly she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled. + +“What, you have got up!” she said. “You are better, then. You may sit you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will.” + +She pointed to the rocking-chair: I took it. She bustled about, examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning to me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly— + +“Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?” + +I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of the question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness— + +“You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar; any more than yourself or your young ladies.” + +After a pause she said, “I dunnut understand that: you’ve like no house, nor no brass, I guess?” + +“The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money) does not make a beggar in your sense of the word.” + +“Are you book-learned?” she inquired presently. + +“Yes, very.” + +“But you’ve never been to a boarding-school?” + +“I was at a boarding-school eight years.” + +She opened her eyes wide. “Whatever cannot ye keep yourself for, then?” + +“I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What are you going to do with these gooseberries?” I inquired, as she brought out a basket of the fruit. + +“Mak’ ’em into pies.” + +“Give them to me and I’ll pick them.” + +“Nay; I dunnut want ye to do nought.” + +“But I must do something. Let me have them.” + +She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over my dress, “lest,” as she said, “I should mucky it.” + +“Ye’ve not been used to sarvant’s wark, I see by your hands,” she remarked. “Happen ye’ve been a dressmaker?” + +“No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been: don’t trouble your head further about me; but tell me the name of the house where we are.” + +“Some calls it Marsh End, and some calls it Moor House.” + +“And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?” + +“Nay; he doesn’t live here: he is only staying a while. When he is at home, he is in his own parish at Morton.” + +“That village a few miles off? + +“Aye.” + +“And what is he?” + +“He is a parson.” + +I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage, when I had asked to see the clergyman. “This, then, was his father’s residence?” + +“Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather, and gurt (great) grandfather afore him.” + +“The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?” + +“Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name.” + +“And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?” + +“Yes.” + +“Their father is dead?” + +“Dead three weeks sin’ of a stroke.” + +“They have no mother?” + +“The mistress has been dead this mony a year.” + +“Have you lived with the family long?” + +“I’ve lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three.” + +“That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I will say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a beggar.” + +She again regarded me with a surprised stare. “I believe,” she said, “I was quite mista’en in my thoughts of you: but there is so mony cheats goes about, you mun forgie me.” + +“And though,” I continued, rather severely, “you wished to turn me from the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog.” + +“Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o’ th’ childer nor of mysel: poor things! They’ve like nobody to tak’ care on ’em but me. I’m like to look sharpish.” + +I maintained a grave silence for some minutes. + +“You munnut think too hardly of me,” she again remarked. + +“But I do think hardly of you,” I said; “and I’ll tell you why—not so much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I had no ‘brass’ and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not to consider poverty a crime.” + +“No more I ought,” said she: “Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I see I wor wrang—but I’ve clear a different notion on you now to what I had. You look a raight down dacent little crater.” + +“That will do—I forgive you now. Shake hands.” + +She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier smile illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends. + +Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and she made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details about her deceased master and mistress, and “the childer,” as she called the young people. + +Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and of as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End had belonged to the Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed, “aboon two hundred year old—for all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to compare wi’ Mr. Oliver’s grand hall down i’ Morton Vale. But she could remember Bill Oliver’s father a journeyman needlemaker; and th’ Rivers wor gentry i’ th’ owd days o’ th’ Henrys, as onybody might see by looking into th’ registers i’ Morton Church vestry.” Still, she allowed, “the owd maister was like other folk—naught mich out o’ t’ common way: stark mad o’ shooting, and farming, and sich like.” The mistress was different. She was a great reader, and studied a deal; and the “bairns” had taken after her. There was nothing like them in these parts, nor ever had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time they could speak; and they had always been “of a mak’ of their own.” Mr. St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a parson; and the girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places as governesses: for they had told her their father had some years ago lost a great deal of money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt; and as he was now not rich enough to give them fortunes, they must provide for themselves. They had lived very little at home for a long while, and were only come now to stay a few weeks on account of their father’s death; but they did so like Marsh End and Morton, and all these moors and hills about. They had been in London, and many other grand towns; but they always said there was no place like home; and then they were so agreeable with each other—never fell out nor “threaped.” She did not know where there was such a family for being united. + +Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two ladies and their brother were now. + +“Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half-an-hour to tea.” + +They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they entered by the kitchen door. Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few words, kindly and calmly expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be able to come down; Diana took my hand: she shook her head at me. + +“You should have waited for my leave to descend,” she said. “You still look very pale—and so thin! Poor child!—poor girl!” + +Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove. She possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face seemed to me full of charm. Mary’s countenance was equally intelligent—her features equally pretty; but her expression was more reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority: she had a will, evidently. It was my nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers, and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active will. + +“And what business have you here?” she continued. “It is not your place. Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we like to be free, even to license—but you are a visitor, and must go into the parlour.” + +“I am very well here.” + +“Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour.” + +“Besides, the fire is too hot for you,” interposed Mary. + +“To be sure,” added her sister. “Come, you must be obedient.” And still holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner room. + +“Sit there,” she said, placing me on the sofa, “while we take our things off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we exercise in our little moorland home—to prepare our own meals when we are so inclined, or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing.” + +She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined, first, the parlour, and then its occupant. + +The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were very bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A few strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained some books and an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous ornament in the room—not one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of workboxes and a lady’s desk in rosewood, which stood on a side-table: everything—including the carpet and curtains—looked at once well worn and well saved. + +Mr. St. John—sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on the walls, keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips mutely sealed—was easy enough to examine. Had he been a statue instead of a man, he could not have been easier. He was young—perhaps from twenty-eight to thirty—tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight, classic nose; quite an Athenian mouth and chin. It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes so near the antique models as did his. He might well be a little shocked at the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being so harmonious. His eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead, colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks of fair hair. + +This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a yielding, an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as he now sat, there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to my perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor even direct to me one glance, till his sisters returned. Diana, as she passed in and out, in the course of preparing tea, brought me a little cake, baked on the top of the oven. + +“Eat that now,” she said: “you must be hungry. Hannah says you have had nothing but some gruel since breakfast.” + +I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr. Rivers now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a seat, fixed his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There was an unceremonious directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his gaze now, which told that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto kept it averted from the stranger. + +“You are very hungry,” he said. + +“I am, sir.” It is my way—it always was my way, by instinct—ever to meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness. + +“It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to the cravings of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though still not immoderately.” + +“I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir,” was my very clumsily-contrived, unpolished answer. + +“No,” he said coolly: “when you have indicated to us the residence of your friends, we can write to them, and you may be restored to home.” + +“That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being absolutely without home and friends.” + +The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was no suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak particularly of the young ladies. St. John’s eyes, though clear enough in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people’s thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than to encourage. + +“Do you mean to say,” he asked, “that you are completely isolated from every connection?” + +“I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess to admittance under any roof in England.” + +“A most singular position at your age!” + +Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on the table before me. I wondered what he sought there: his words soon explained the quest. + +“You have never been married? You are a spinster?” + +Diana laughed. “Why, she can’t be above seventeen or eighteen years old, St. John,” said she. + +“I am near nineteen: but I am not married. No.” + +I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all saw the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me by turning their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the colder and sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble he had excited forced out tears as well as colour. + +“Where did you last reside?” he now asked. + +“You are too inquisitive, St. John,” murmured Mary in a low voice; but he leaned over the table and required an answer by a second firm and piercing look. + +“The name of the place where, and of the person with whom I lived, is my secret,” I replied concisely. + +“Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both from St. John and every other questioner,” remarked Diana. + +“Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help you,” he said. “And you need help, do you not?” + +“I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist will put me in the way of getting work which I can do, and the remuneration for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries of life.” + +“I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to aid you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest. First, then, tell me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you can do.” + +I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the beverage; as much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my unstrung nerves, and enabled me to address this penetrating young judge steadily. + +“Mr. Rivers,” I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he looked at me, openly and without diffidence, “you and your sisters have done me a great service—the greatest man can do his fellow-being; you have rescued me, by your noble hospitality, from death. This benefit conferred gives you an unlimited claim on my gratitude, and a claim, to a certain extent, on my confidence. I will tell you as much of the history of the wanderer you have harboured, as I can tell without compromising my own peace of mind—my own security, moral and physical, and that of others. + +“I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died before I could know them. I was brought up a dependent; educated in a charitable institution. I will even tell you the name of the establishment, where I passed six years as a pupil, and two as a teacher—Lowood Orphan Asylum, ——shire: you will have heard of it, Mr. Rivers?—the Rev. Robert Brocklehurst is the treasurer.” + +“I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have seen the school.” + +“I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess. I obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was obliged to leave four days before I came here. The reason of my departure I cannot and ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and would sound incredible. No blame attached to me: I am as free from culpability as any one of you three. Miserable I am, and must be for a time; for the catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a paradise was of a strange and direful nature. I observed but two points in planning my departure—speed, secrecy: to secure these, I had to leave behind me everything I possessed except a small parcel; which, in my hurry and trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of the coach that brought me to Whitcross. To this neighbourhood, then, I came, quite destitute. I slept two nights in the open air, and wandered about two days without crossing a threshold: but twice in that space of time did I taste food; and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost to the last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to perish of want at your door, and took me under the shelter of your roof. I know all your sisters have done for me since—for I have not been insensible during my seeming torpor—and I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial compassion as large a debt as to your evangelical charity.” + +“Don’t make her talk any more now, St. John,” said Diana, as I paused; “she is evidently not yet fit for excitement. Come to the sofa and sit down now, Miss Elliott.” + +I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the alias: I had forgotten my new name. Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape, noticed it at once. + +“You said your name was Jane Elliott?” he observed. + +“I did say so; and it is the name by which I think it expedient to be called at present, but it is not my real name, and when I hear it, it sounds strange to me.” + +“Your real name you will not give?” + +“No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure would lead to it, I avoid.” + +“You are quite right, I am sure,” said Diana. “Now do, brother, let her be at peace a while.” + +But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as imperturbably and with as much acumen as ever. + +“You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality—you would wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters’ compassion, and, above all, with my charity (I am quite sensible of the distinction drawn, nor do I resent it—it is just): you desire to be independent of us?” + +“I do: I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to seek work: that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to the meanest cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread another essay of the horrors of homeless destitution.” + +“Indeed you shall stay here,” said Diana, putting her white hand on my head. “You shall,” repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative sincerity which seemed natural to her. + +“My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you,” said Mr. St. John, “as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen bird some wintry wind might have driven through their casement. I feel more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself, and shall endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is narrow. I am but the incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be of the humblest sort. And if you are inclined to despise the day of small things, seek some more efficient succour than such as I can offer.” + +“She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she can do,” answered Diana for me; “and you know, St. John, she has no choice of helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people as you.” + +“I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better,” I answered. + +“Right,” said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. “If such is your spirit, I promise to aid you, in my own time and way.” + +He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea. I soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my present strength would permit. + +== CHAPTER XXX +The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them. In a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all day, and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana and Mary in all their occupations; converse with them as much as they wished, and aid them when and where they would allow me. There was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time—the pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles. + +I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced. They loved their sequestered home. I, too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs—all grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with yew and holly—and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would bloom—found a charm both potent and permanent. They clung to the purple moors behind and around their dwelling—to the hollow vale into which the pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, and which wound between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy-faced lambs:—they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I could comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I saw the fascination of the locality. I felt the consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell and sweep—on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss, by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow granite crag. These details were just to me what they were to them—so many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the soft breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and sunset; the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions, the same attraction as for them—wound round my faculties the same spell that entranced theirs. + +Indoors we agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished and better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the path of knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books they lent me: then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening what I had perused during the day. Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion: we coincided, in short, perfectly. + +If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana. Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous. In her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of flow, such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension. I could talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of vivacity and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana’s feet, to rest my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and Mary, while they sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but touched. Diana offered to teach me German. I liked to learn of her: I saw the part of instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar pleased and suited me no less. Our natures dovetailed: mutual affection—of the strongest kind—was the result. They discovered I could draw: their pencils and colour-boxes were immediately at my service. My skill, greater in this one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them. Mary would sit and watch me by the hour together: then she would take lessons; and a docile, intelligent, assiduous pupil she made. Thus occupied, and mutually entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like days. + +As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly between me and his sisters did not extend to him. One reason of the distance yet observed between us was, that he was comparatively seldom at home: a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered population of his parish. + +No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain or fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over, take his hat, and, followed by his father’s old pointer, Carlo, go out on his mission of love or duty—I scarcely know in which light he regarded it. Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his sisters would expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than cheerful— + +“And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I propose to myself?” + +Diana and Mary’s general answer to this question was a sigh, and some minutes of apparently mournful meditation. + +But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even of a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist. Often, of an evening, when he sat at the window, his desk and papers before him, he would cease reading or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver himself up to I know not what course of thought; but that it was perturbed and exciting might be seen in the frequent flash and changeful dilation of his eye. + +I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight it was to his sisters. He expressed once, and but once in my hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home; but there was more of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which the sentiment was manifested; and never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their soothing silence—never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful delights they could yield. + +Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its calibre when I heard him preach in his own church at Morton. I wish I could describe that sermon: but it is past my power. I cannot even render faithfully the effect it produced on me. + +It began calm—and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language. This grew to force—compressed, condensed, controlled. The heart was thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher: neither were softened. Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic doctrines—election, predestination, reprobation—were frequent; and each reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom. When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to me—I know not whether equally so to others—that the eloquence to which I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of disappointment—where moved troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers—pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he was—had not yet found that peace of God which passeth all understanding: he had no more found it, I thought, than had I with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost elysium—regrets to which I have latterly avoided referring, but which possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly. + +Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House, and return to the far different life and scene which awaited them, as governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city, where each held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty members they were regarded only as humble dependents, and who neither knew nor sought out their innate excellences, and appreciated only their acquired accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their cook or the taste of their waiting-woman. Mr. St. John had said nothing to me yet about the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it became urgent that I should have a vocation of some kind. One morning, being left alone with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to approach the window-recess—which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of study—and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what words to frame my inquiry—for it is at all times difficult to break the ice of reserve glassing over such natures as his—when he saved me the trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue. + +Looking up as I drew near—“You have a question to ask of me?” he said. + +“Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer myself to undertake?” + +“I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed both useful and happy here—as my sisters had evidently become attached to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure—I deemed it inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their approaching departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary.” + +“And they will go in three days now?” I said. + +“Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton: Hannah will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up.” + +I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject first broached: but he seemed to have entered another train of reflection: his look denoted abstraction from me and my business. I was obliged to recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious interest to me. + +“What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this delay will not have increased the difficulty of securing it.” + +“Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to give, and you to accept.” + +He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue. I grew impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting glance fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as words could have done, and with less trouble. + +“You need be in no hurry to hear,” he said: “let me frankly tell you, I have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I explain, recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, it must be as the blind man would help the lame. I am poor; for I find that, when I have paid my father’s debts, all the patrimony remaining to me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, and the patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in front. I am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the three sole descendants of the race, two earn the dependent’s crust among strangers, and the third considers himself an alien from his native country—not only for life, but in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem, himself honoured by the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation from fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the Head of that church-militant of whose humblest members he is one, shall give the word, ‘Rise, follow Me!’” + +St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet, deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating radiance of glance. He resumed— + +“And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service of poverty and obscurity. You may even think it degrading—for I see now your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean to the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but I consider that no service degrades which can better our race. I hold that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian labourer’s task of tillage is appointed him—the scantier the meed his toil brings—the higher the honour. His, under such circumstances, is the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the Apostles—their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer, Himself.” + +“Well?” I said, as he again paused—“proceed.” + +He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to read my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a page. The conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his succeeding observations. + +“I believe you will accept the post I offer you,” said he, “and hold it for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I could permanently keep the narrow and narrowing—the tranquil, hidden office of English country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to repose as that in mine, though of a different kind.” + +“Do explain,” I urged, when he halted once more. + +“I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,—how trivial—how cramping. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead, and that I am my own master. I shall leave the place probably in the course of a twelve-month; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the utmost for its improvement. Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had no school: the children of the poor were excluded from every hope of progress. I established one for boys: I mean now to open a second school for girls. I have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of two rooms attached to it for the mistress’s house. Her salary will be thirty pounds a year: her house is already furnished, very simply, but sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only daughter of the sole rich man in my parish—Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle-factory and iron-foundry in the valley. The same lady pays for the education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her having time to discharge in person. Will you be this mistress?” + +He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer: not knowing all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell in what light the lot would appear to me. In truth it was humble—but then it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding—but then, compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent; and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron: it was not ignoble—not unworthy—not mentally degrading, I made my decision. + +“I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all my heart.” + +“But you comprehend me?” he said. “It is a village school: your scholars will be only poor girls—cottagers’ children—at the best, farmers’ daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will be all you will have to teach. What will you do with your accomplishments? What, with the largest portion of your mind—sentiments—tastes?” + +“Save them till they are wanted. They will keep.” + +“You know what you undertake, then?” + +“I do.” + +He now smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well pleased and deeply gratified. + +“And when will you commence the exercise of your function?” + +“I will go to my house to-morrow, and open the school, if you like, next week.” + +“Very well: so be it.” + +He rose and walked through the room. Standing still, he again looked at me. He shook his head. + +“What do you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers?” I asked. + +“You will not stay at Morton long: no, no!” + +“Why? What is your reason for saying so?” + +“I read it in your eye; it is not of that description which promises the maintenance of an even tenor in life.” + +“I am not ambitious.” + +He started at the word “ambitious.” He repeated, “No. What made you think of ambition? Who is ambitious? I know I am: but how did you find it out?” + +“I was speaking of myself.” + +“Well, if you are not ambitious, you are—” He paused. + +“What?” + +“I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have misunderstood the word, and been displeased. I mean, that human affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am sure you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude, and to devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of stimulus: any more than I can be content,” he added, with emphasis, “to live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains—my nature, that God gave me, contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed—made useless. You hear now how I contradict myself. I, who preached contentment with a humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers of water in God’s service—I, His ordained minister, almost rave in my restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by some means.” + +He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than in the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me. + +Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached for leaving their brother and their home. They both tried to appear as usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was one that could not be entirely conquered or concealed. Diana intimated that this would be a different parting from any they had ever yet known. It would probably, as far as St. John was concerned, be a parting for years: it might be a parting for life. + +“He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves,” she said: “natural affection and feelings more potent still. St. John looks quiet, Jane; but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think him gentle, yet in some things he is inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame him for it. It is right, noble, Christian: yet it breaks my heart!” And the tears gushed to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head low over her work. + +“We are now without father: we shall soon be without home and brother,” she murmured. + +At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by fate purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that “misfortunes never come singly,” and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip between the cup and the lip. St. John passed the window reading a letter. He entered. + +“Our uncle John is dead,” said he. + +Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the tidings appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting. + +“Dead?” repeated Diana. + +“Yes.” + +She riveted a searching gaze on her brother’s face. “And what then?” she demanded, in a low voice. + +“What then, Die?” he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of feature. “What then? Why—nothing. Read.” + +He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed it to Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother. All three looked at each other, and all three smiled—a dreary, pensive smile enough. + +“Amen! We can yet live,” said Diana at last. + +“At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before,” remarked Mary. + +“Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what might have been,” said Mr. Rivers, “and contrasts it somewhat too vividly with what is.” + +He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and again went out. + +For some minutes no one spoke. Diana then turned to me. + +“Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries,” she said, “and think us hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him. He was my mother’s brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago. It was by his advice that my father risked most of his property in the speculation that ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed between them: they parted in anger, and were never reconciled. My uncle engaged afterwards in more prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a fortune of twenty thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no near kindred but ourselves and one other person, not more closely related than we. My father always cherished the idea that he would atone for his error by leaving his possessions to us; that letter informs us that he has bequeathed every penny to the other relation, with the exception of thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers, for the purchase of three mourning rings. He had a right, of course, to do as he pleased: and yet a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the receipt of such news. Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been valuable, for the good it would have enabled him to do.” + +This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next day I left Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it for distant B——. In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage: and so the old grange was abandoned. + +== CHAPTER XXXI +My home, then, when I at last find a home,—is a cottage; a little room with whitewashed walls and a sanded floor, containing four painted chairs and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and dishes, and a set of tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber of the same dimensions as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and chest of drawers; small, yet too large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe: though the kindness of my gentle and generous friends has increased that, by a modest stock of such things as are necessary. + +It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth. This morning, the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But three of the number can read: none write or cipher. Several knit, and a few sew a little. They speak with the broadest accent of the district. At present, they and I have a difficulty in understanding each other’s language. Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as well as ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a disposition that pleases me. I must not forget that these coarsely-clad little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement, intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in those of the best-born. My duty will be to develop these germs: surely I shall find some happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment I do not expect in the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I regulate my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live on from day to day. + +Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to deceive myself, I must reply—No: I felt desolate to a degree. I felt—yes, idiot that I am—I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I was weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of all I heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself too much for these feelings; I know them to be wrong—that is a great step gained; I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, I shall get the better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will be quite subdued. In a few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing progress, and a change for the better in my scholars may substitute gratification for disgust. + +Meantime, let me ask myself one question—Which is better?—To have surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort—no struggle;—but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester’s mistress; delirious with his love half my time—for he would—oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He did love me—no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty, youth, and grace—for never to any one else shall I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me—it is what no man besides will ever be.—But where am I wandering, and what am I saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool’s paradise at Marseilles—fevered with delusive bliss one hour—suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next—or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? + +Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance! + +Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a mile from the village. The birds were singing their last strains— + +“The air was mild, the dew was balm.” + +While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself ere long weeping—and why? For the doom which had reft me from adhesion to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief and fatal fury—consequences of my departure—which might now, perhaps, be dragging him from the path of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate restoration thither. At this thought, I turned my face aside from the lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton—I say lonely, for in that bend of it visible to me there was no building apparent save the church and the parsonage, half-hid in trees, and, quite at the extremity, the roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived. I hid my eyes, and leant my head against the stone frame of my door; but soon a slight noise near the wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the meadow beyond it made me look up. A dog—old Carlo, Mr. Rivers’ pointer, as I saw in a moment—was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John himself leant upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave almost to displeasure, fixed on me. I asked him to come in. + +“No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters left for you. I think it contains a colour-box, pencils, and paper.” + +I approached to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my face, I thought, with austerity, as I came near: the traces of tears were doubtless very visible upon it. + +“Have you found your first day’s work harder than you expected?” he asked. + +“Oh, no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my scholars very well.” + +“But perhaps your accommodations—your cottage—your furniture—have disappointed your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty enough; but—” I interrupted— + +“My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a carpet, a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had nothing—I was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, a home, a business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of my friends; the bounty of my lot. I do not repine.” + +“But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you is dark and empty.” + +“I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less to grow impatient under one of loneliness.” + +“Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the vacillating fears of Lot’s wife. What you had left before I saw you, of course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every temptation which would incline you to look back: pursue your present career steadily, for some months at least.” + +“It is what I mean to do,” I answered. St. John continued— + +“It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get—when our will strains after a path we may not follow—we need neither starve from inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to taste—and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if rougher than it. + +“A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me to death. I burnt for the more active life of the world—for the more exciting toils of a literary career—for the destiny of an artist, author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a luster after power, beat under my curate’s surplice. I considered; my life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds—my powers heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to bear which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator, were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary. + +“A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving nothing of bondage but its galling soreness—which time only can heal. My father, indeed, imposed the determination, but since his death, I have not a legitimate obstacle to contend with; some affairs settled, a successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings broken through or cut asunder—a last conflict with human weakness, in which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed that I will overcome—and I leave Europe for the East.” + +He said this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice; looking, when he had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting sun, at which I looked too. Both he and I had our backs towards the path leading up the field to the wicket. We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the water running in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and scene; we might well then start when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell, exclaimed— + +“Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is quicker to recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his ears and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have your back towards me now.” + +It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he stood yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the speaker had surprised him—his arm resting on the gate, his face directed towards the west. He turned at last, with measured deliberation. A vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side. There appeared, within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white—a youthful, graceful form: full, yet fine in contour; and when, after bending to caress Carlo, it lifted up its head, and threw back a long veil, there bloomed under his glance a face of perfect beauty. Perfect beauty is a strong expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as ever the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified, in this instance, the term. No charm was wanting, no defect was perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark, and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the white smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh too, ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw; the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich, plenteous tresses—all advantages, in short, which, combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were fully hers. I wondered, as I looked at this fair creature: I admired her with my whole heart. Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood; and, forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed this, her darling, with a grand-dame’s bounty. + +What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her; and, as naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance. He had already withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was looking at a humble tuft of daisies which grew by the wicket. + +“A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone,” he said, as he crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot. + +“Oh, I only came home from S——” (she mentioned the name of a large town some twenty miles distant) “this afternoon. Papa told me you had opened your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this is she?” pointing to me. + +“It is,” said St. John. + +“Do you think you shall like Morton?” she asked of me, with a direct and naïve simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if child-like. + +“I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so.” + +“Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected?” + +“Quite.” + +“Do you like your house?” + +“Very much.” + +“Have I furnished it nicely?” + +“Very nicely, indeed.” + +“And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?” + +“You have indeed. She is teachable and handy.” (This then, I thought, is Miss Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it seems, in the gifts of fortune, as well as in those of nature! What happy combination of the planets presided over her birth, I wonder?) + +“I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes,” she added. “It will be a change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a change. Mr. Rivers, I have been so gay during my stay at S——. Last night, or rather this morning, I was dancing till two o’clock. The ——th regiment are stationed there since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable men in the world: they put all our young knife-grinders and scissor merchants to shame.” + +It seemed to me that Mr. St. John’s under lip protruded, and his upper lip curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed, and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze, too, from the daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh, and laughter well became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright eyes. + +As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. “Poor Carlo loves me,” said she. “He is not stern and distant to his friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent.” + +As she patted the dog’s head, bending with native grace before his young and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master’s face. I saw his solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion. Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she for a woman. His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But he curbed it, I think, as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed. He responded neither by word nor movement to the gentle advances made him. + +“Papa says you never come to see us now,” continued Miss Oliver, looking up. “You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this evening, and not very well: will you return with me and visit him?” + +“It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver,” answered St. John. + +“Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour when papa most wants company: when the works are closed and he has no business to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, do come. Why are you so very shy, and so very sombre?” She filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of her own. + +“I forgot!” she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if shocked at herself. “I am so giddy and thoughtless! Do excuse me. It had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is shut up, and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity you. Do come and see papa.” + +“Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night.” + +Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew the effort it cost him thus to refuse. + +“Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any longer: the dew begins to fall. Good evening!” + +She held out her hand. He just touched it. “Good evening!” he repeated, in a voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in a moment returned. + +“Are you well?” she asked. Well might she put the question: his face was blanched as her gown. + +“Quite well,” he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She went one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she tripped fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned at all. + +This spectacle of another’s suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts from exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated her brother “inexorable as death.” She had not exaggerated. + +== CHAPTER XXXII +I continued the labours of the village-school as actively and faithfully as I could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time elapsed before, with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature. Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but I soon found I was mistaken. There was a difference amongst them as amongst the educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my language, my rules, and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough. Many showed themselves obliging, and amiable too; and I discovered amongst them not a few examples of natural politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of excellent capacity, that won both my goodwill and my admiration. These soon took a pleasure in doing their work well, in keeping their persons neat, in learning their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly manners. The rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it: besides, I began personally to like some of the best girls; and they liked me. I had amongst my scholars several farmers’ daughters: young women grown, almost. These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I taught the elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of needlework. I found estimable characters amongst them—characters desirous of information and disposed for improvement—with whom I passed many a pleasant evening hour in their own homes. Their parents then (the farmer and his wife) loaded me with attentions. There was an enjoyment in accepting their simple kindness, and in repaying it by a consideration—a scrupulous regard to their feelings—to which they were not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which both charmed and benefited them; because, while it elevated them in their own eyes, it made them emulous to merit the deferential treatment they received. + +I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went out, I heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with friendly smiles. To live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of working people, is like “sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet;” serene inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this period of my life, my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than sank with dejection: and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of this calm, this useful existence—after a day passed in honourable exertion amongst my scholars, an evening spent in drawing or reading contentedly alone—I used to rush into strange dreams at night: dreams many-coloured, agitated, full of the ideal, the stirring, the stormy—dreams where, amidst unusual scenes, charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye, touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him—the hope of passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first force and fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how situated. Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering; and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and heard the burst of passion. By nine o’clock the next morning I was punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady duties of the day. + +Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at the school was generally made in the course of her morning ride. She would canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery servant. Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple habit, with her Amazon’s cap of black velvet placed gracefully above the long curls that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can scarcely be imagined: and it was thus she would enter the rustic building, and glide through the dazzled ranks of the village children. She generally came at the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving his daily catechising lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the visitress pierce the young pastor’s heart. A sort of instinct seemed to warn him of her entrance, even when he did not see it; and when he was looking quite away from the door, if she appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble-seeming features, though they refused to relax, changed indescribably, and in their very quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger than working muscle or darting glance could indicate. + +Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could not, conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly in his face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed to say, with his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, “I love you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair of success that keeps me dumb. If I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it. But that heart is already laid on a sacred altar: the fire is arranged round it. It will soon be no more than a sacrifice consumed.” + +And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic and so martyr-like. St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he would not give one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her love, one hope of the true, eternal Paradise. Besides, he could not bind all that he had in his nature—the rover, the aspirant, the poet, the priest—in the limits of a single passion. He could not—he would not—renounce his wild field of mission warfare for the parlours and the peace of Vale Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, despite his reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence. + +Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage. I had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise: she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she could not help it, when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness), but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth; ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively, and unthinking: she was very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex like me; but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive. A very different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters of St. John. Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adèle; except that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult acquaintance. + +She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers, only, certainly, she allowed, “not one-tenth so handsome, though I was a nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel.” I was, however, good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a lusus naturæ, she affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she was sure my previous history, if known, would make a delightful romance. + +One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books, a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then my drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views from nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors. She was first transfixed with surprise, and then electrified with delight. + +“Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a love—what a miracle I was! I drew better than her master in the first school in S——. Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa?” + +“With pleasure,” I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at the idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had then on a dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only ornament was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with all the wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine card-board, and drew a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of colouring it; and, as it was getting late then, I told her she must come and sit another day. + +She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself accompanied her next evening—a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright flower near a hoary turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud personage; but he was very kind to me. The sketch of Rosamond’s portrait pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished picture of it. He insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at Vale Hall. + +I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable; and when he entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong terms his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he only feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place, and would soon quit it for one more suitable. + +“Indeed,” cried Rosamond, “she is clever enough to be a governess in a high family, papa.” + +I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in the land. Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers—of the Rivers family—with great respect. He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood; that the ancestors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once belonged to them; that even now he considered the representative of that house might, if he liked, make an alliance with the best. He accounted it a pity that so fine and talented a young man should have formed the design of going out as a missionary; it was quite throwing a valuable life away. It appeared, then, that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of Rosamond’s union with St. John. Mr. Oliver evidently regarded the young clergyman’s good birth, old name, and sacred profession as sufficient compensation for the want of fortune. + +It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a penny for her aid. All about me was spotless and bright—scoured floor, polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs. I had also made myself neat, and had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would. + +The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got my palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver’s miniature. The head was finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery to shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips—a soft curl here and there to the tresses—a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the execution of these nice details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting St. John Rivers. + +“I am come to see how you are spending your holiday,” he said. “Not, I hope, in thought? No, that is well: while you draw you will not feel lonely. You see, I mistrust you still, though you have borne up wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening solace,” and he laid on the table a new publication—a poem: one of those genuine productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days—the golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era are less favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence, their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished? No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they not only live, but reign and redeem: and without their divine influence spread everywhere, you would be in hell—the hell of your own meanness. + +While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of “Marmion” (for “Marmion” it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall figure sprang erect again with a start: he said nothing. I looked up at him: he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well, and could read his heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he: I had then temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived an inclination to do him some good, if I could. + +“With all his firmness and self-control,” thought I, “he tasks himself too far: locks every feeling and pang within—expresses, confesses, imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to marry: I will make him talk.” + +I said first, “Take a chair, Mr. Rivers.” But he answered, as he always did, that he could not stay. “Very well,” I responded, mentally, “stand if you like; but you shall not go just yet, I am determined: solitude is at least as bad for you as it is for me. I’ll try if I cannot discover the secret spring of your confidence, and find an aperture in that marble breast through which I can shed one drop of the balm of sympathy.” + +“Is this portrait like?” I asked bluntly. + +“Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely.” + +“You did, Mr. Rivers.” + +He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at me astonished. “Oh, that is nothing yet,” I muttered within. “I don’t mean to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I’m prepared to go to considerable lengths.” I continued, “You observed it closely and distinctly; but I have no objection to your looking at it again,” and I rose and placed it in his hand. + +“A well-executed picture,” he said; “very soft, clear colouring; very graceful and correct drawing.” + +“Yes, yes; I know all that. But what of the resemblance? Who is it like?” + +Mastering some hesitation, he answered, “Miss Oliver, I presume.” + +“Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I will promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you. I don’t wish to throw away my time and trouble on an offering you would deem worthless.” + +He continued to gaze at the picture: the longer he looked, the firmer he held it, the more he seemed to covet it. “It is like!” he murmured; “the eye is well managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect. It smiles!” + +“Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting? Tell me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India, would it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession? or would the sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and distress?” + +He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute, disturbed: he again surveyed the picture. + +“That I should like to have it is certain: whether it would be judicious or wise is another question.” + +Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that her father was not likely to oppose the match, I—less exalted in my views than St. John—had been strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate their union. It seemed to me that, should he become the possessor of Mr. Oliver’s large fortune, he might do as much good with it as if he went and laid his genius out to wither, and his strength to waste, under a tropical sun. With this persuasion I now answered— + +“As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were to take to yourself the original at once.” + +By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table before him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over it. I discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity. I saw even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed unapproachable—to hear it thus freely handled—was beginning to be felt by him as a new pleasure—an unhoped-for relief. Reserved people often really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and to “burst” with boldness and good-will into “the silent sea” of their souls is often to confer on them the first of obligations. + +“She likes you, I am sure,” said I, as I stood behind his chair, “and her father respects you. Moreover, she is a sweet girl—rather thoughtless; but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself and her. You ought to marry her.” + +“Does she like me?” he asked. + +“Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you continually: there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so often.” + +“It is very pleasant to hear this,” he said—“very: go on for another quarter of an hour.” And he actually took out his watch and laid it upon the table to measure the time. + +“But where is the use of going on,” I asked, “when you are probably preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to fetter your heart?” + +“Don’t imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and with such labour prepared—so assiduously sown with the seeds of good intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a nectarous flood—the young germs swamped—delicious poison cankering them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver’s feet: she is talking to me with her sweet voice—gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has copied so well—smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine—I am hers—this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say nothing—my heart is full of delight—my senses are entranced—let the time I marked pass in peace.” + +I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood silent. Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth. + +“Now,” said he, “that little space was given to delirium and delusion. I rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck voluntarily under her yoke of flowers; I tasted her cup. The pillow was burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste: her promises are hollow—her offers false: I see and know all this.” + +I gazed at him in wonder. + +“It is strange,” pursued he, “that while I love Rosamond Oliver so wildly—with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating—I experience at the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months’ rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know.” + +“Strange indeed!” I could not help ejaculating. + +“While something in me,” he went on, “is acutely sensible to her charms, something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they are such that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to—co-operate in nothing I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle? Rosamond a missionary’s wife? No!” + +“But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme.” + +“Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their race—of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance—of substituting peace for war—freedom for bondage—religion for superstition—the hope of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to live for.” + +After a considerable pause, I said—“And Miss Oliver? Are her disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?” + +“Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than a month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me; and will marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I should do.” + +“You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are wasting away.” + +“No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet unsettled—my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this morning, I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been so long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months to come yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six.” + +“You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the schoolroom.” + +Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagined that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of confidence, and won a place by their heart’s very hearthstone. + +“You are original,” said he, “and not timid. There is something brave in your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to assure you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them more profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance of sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour, and when I shake before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I know it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the convulsion of the soul. That is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in the depths of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am—a cold hard man.” + +I smiled incredulously. + +“You have taken my confidence by storm,” he continued, “and now it is much at your service. I am simply, in my original state—stripped of that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity—a cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all the sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason, and not feeling, is my guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do more than others, insatiable. I honour endurance, perseverance, industry, talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and mount to lofty eminence. I watch your career with interest, because I consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman: not because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what you still suffer.” + +“You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher,” I said. + +“No. There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers: I believe; and I believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I am not a pagan, but a Christian philosopher—a follower of the sect of Jesus. As His disciple I adopt His pure, His merciful, His benignant doctrines. I advocate them: I am sworn to spread them. Won in youth to religion, she has cultivated my original qualities thus:—From the minute germ, natural affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy. From the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of the Divine justice. Of the ambition to win power and renown for my wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread my Master’s kingdom; to achieve victories for the standard of the cross. So much has religion done for me; turning the original materials to the best account; pruning and training nature. But she could not eradicate nature: nor will it be eradicated ‘till this mortal shall put on immortality.’” + +Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my palette. Once more he looked at the portrait. + +“She is lovely,” he murmured. “She is well named the Rose of the World, indeed!” + +“And may I not paint one like it for you?” + +“Cui bono? No.” + +He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard from being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye. He took it up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a glance at me, inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible: a glance that seemed to take and make note of every point in my shape, face, and dress; for it traversed all, quick, keen as lightning. His lips parted, as if to speak: but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was. + +“What is the matter?” I asked. + +“Nothing in the world,” was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It disappeared in his glove; and, with one hasty nod and “good-afternoon,” he vanished. + +“Well!” I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, “that caps the globe, however!” + +I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon forgot it. + +== CHAPTER XXXIII +When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable. I had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle, took down “Marmion,” and beginning— + +“Day set on Norham’s castled steep, +And Tweed’s fair river broad and deep, + And Cheviot’s mountains lone; +The massive towers, the donjon keep, +The flanking walls that round them sweep, + In yellow lustre shone”— + +I soon forgot storm in music. + +I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St. John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen hurricane—the howling darkness—and stood before me: the cloak that covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up vale that night. + +“Any ill news?” I demanded. “Has anything happened?” + +“No. How very easily alarmed you are!” he answered, removing his cloak and hanging it up against the door, towards which he again coolly pushed the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow from his boots. + +“I shall sully the purity of your floor,” said he, “but you must excuse me for once.” Then he approached the fire. “I have had hard work to get here, I assure you,” he observed, as he warmed his hands over the flame. “One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow is quite soft yet.” + +“But why are you come?” I could not forbear saying. + +“Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask it, I answer simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have experienced the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told, and who is impatient to hear the sequel.” + +He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane, however, his was a very cool and collected insanity: I had never seen that handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and let the firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where it grieved me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved. I waited, expecting he would say something I could at least comprehend; but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his lip: he was thinking. It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face. A perhaps uncalled-for gush of pity came over my heart: I was moved to say— + +“I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad that you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your own health.” + +“Not at all,” said he: “I care for myself when necessary. I am well now. What do you see amiss in me?” + +This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed that my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I was silenced. + +He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his eye dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say something, I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the door, which was behind him. + +“No, no!” he responded shortly and somewhat testily. + +“Well,” I reflected, “if you won’t talk, you may be still; I’ll let you alone now, and return to my book.” + +So I snuffed the candle and resumed the perusal of “Marmion.” He soon stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only took out a morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter, which he read in silence, folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation. It was vain to try to read with such an inscrutable fixture before me; nor could I, in impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if he liked, but talk I would. + +“Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?” + +“Not since the letter I showed you a week ago.” + +“There has not been any change made about your own arrangements? You will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?” + +“I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me.” Baffled so far, I changed my ground. I bethought myself to talk about the school and my scholars. + +“Mary Garrett’s mother is better, and Mary came back to the school this morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from the Foundry Close—they would have come to-day but for the snow.” + +“Indeed!” + +“Mr. Oliver pays for two.” + +“Does he?” + +“He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas.” + +“I know.” + +“Was it your suggestion?” + +“No.” + +“Whose, then?” + +“His daughter’s, I think.” + +“It is like her: she is so good-natured.” + +“Yes.” + +Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes. It aroused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me. + +“Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire,” he said. + +Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied. + +“Half-an-hour ago,” he pursued, “I spoke of my impatience to hear the sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be better managed by my assuming the narrator’s part, and converting you into a listener. Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you that the story will sound somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale details often regain a degree of freshness when they pass through new lips. For the rest, whether trite or novel, it is short. + +“Twenty years ago, a poor curate—never mind his name at this moment—fell in love with a rich man’s daughter; she fell in love with him, and married him, against the advice of all her friends, who consequently disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before two years passed, the rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by side under one slab. (I have seen their grave; it formed part of the pavement of a huge churchyard surrounding the grim, soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown manufacturing town in ——shire.) They left a daughter, which, at its very birth, Charity received in her lap—cold as that of the snow-drift I almost stuck fast in to-night. Charity carried the friendless thing to the house of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in-law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead. You start—did you hear a noise? I daresay it is only a rat scrambling along the rafters of the adjoining schoolroom: it was a barn before I had it repaired and altered, and barns are generally haunted by rats.—To proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years: whether it was happy or not with her, I cannot say, never having been told; but at the end of that time she transferred it to a place you know—being no other than Lowood School, where you so long resided yourself. It seems her career there was very honourable: from a pupil, she became a teacher, like yourself—really it strikes me there are parallel points in her history and yours—she left it to be a governess: there, again, your fates were analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr. Rochester.” + +“Mr. Rivers!” I interrupted. + +“I can guess your feelings,” he said, “but restrain them for a while: I have nearly finished; hear me to the end. Of Mr. Rochester’s character I know nothing, but the one fact that he professed to offer honourable marriage to this young girl, and that at the very altar she discovered he had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic. What his subsequent conduct and proposals were is a matter of pure conjecture; but when an event transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary, it was discovered she was gone—no one could tell when, where, or how. She had left Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had been vain: the country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of information could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should be found is become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been put in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr. Briggs, a solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted. Is it not an odd tale?” + +“Just tell me this,” said I, “and since you know so much, you surely can tell it me—what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is he? What is he doing? Is he well?” + +“I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never mentions him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to. You should rather ask the name of the governess—the nature of the event which requires her appearance.” + +“Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then? Did no one see Mr. Rochester?” + +“I suppose not.” + +“But they wrote to him?” + +“Of course.” + +“And what did he say? Who has his letters?” + +“Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from Mr. Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed ‘Alice Fairfax.’” + +I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true: he had in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation to some former haunt on the Continent. And what opiate for his severe sufferings—what object for his strong passions—had he sought there? I dared not answer the question. Oh, my poor master—once almost my husband—whom I had often called “my dear Edward!” + +“He must have been a bad man,” observed Mr. Rivers. + +“You don’t know him—don’t pronounce an opinion upon him,” I said, with warmth. + +“Very well,” he answered quietly: “and indeed my head is otherwise occupied than with him: I have my tale to finish. Since you won’t ask the governess’s name, I must tell it of my own accord. Stay! I have it here—it is always more satisfactory to see important points written down, fairly committed to black and white.” + +And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read, traced in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words “JANE EYRE”—the work doubtless of some moment of abstraction. + +“Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:” he said, “the advertisements demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott.—I confess I had my suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once resolved into certainty. You own the name and renounce the alias?” + +“Yes—yes; but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of Mr. Rochester than you do.” + +“Briggs is in London. I should doubt his knowing anything at all about Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested. Meantime, you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why Mr. Briggs sought after you—what he wanted with you.” + +“Well, what did he want?” + +“Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich—merely that—nothing more.” + +“I!—rich?” + +“Yes, you, rich—quite an heiress.” + +Silence succeeded. + +“You must prove your identity of course,” resumed St. John presently: “a step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on immediate possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the will and the necessary documents.” + +Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted in a moment from indigence to wealth—a very fine thing; but not a matter one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then there are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving: this is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it: all its associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same. One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business; on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow. + +Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words, Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard was dead—my only relative; ever since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of one day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this money came only to me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self. It was a grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious—yes, I felt that—that thought swelled my heart. + +“You unbend your forehead at last,” said Mr. Rivers. “I thought Medusa had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone. Perhaps now you will ask how much you are worth?” + +“How much am I worth?” + +“Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of—twenty thousand pounds, I think they say—but what is that?” + +“Twenty thousand pounds?” + +Here was a new stunner—I had been calculating on four or five thousand. This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr. St. John, whom I had never heard laugh before, laughed now. + +“Well,” said he, “if you had committed a murder, and I had told you your crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast.” + +“It is a large sum—don’t you think there is a mistake?” + +“No mistake at all.” + +“Perhaps you have read the figures wrong—it may be two thousand!” + +“It is written in letters, not figures,—twenty thousand.” + +I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions for a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on. + +“If it were not such a very wild night,” he said, “I would send Hannah down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable to be left alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as I: her legs are not quite so long: so I must e’en leave you to your sorrows. Good-night.” + +He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me. + +“Stop one minute!” I cried. + +“Well?” + +“It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way place, had the power to aid in my discovery.” + +“Oh! I am a clergyman,” he said; “and the clergy are often appealed to about odd matters.” Again the latch rattled. + +“No; that does not satisfy me!” I exclaimed: and indeed there was something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead of allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever. + +“It is a very strange piece of business,” I added; “I must know more about it.” + +“Another time.” + +“No; to-night!—to-night!” and as he turned from the door, I placed myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed. + +“You certainly shall not go till you have told me all,” I said. + +“I would rather not just now.” + +“You shall!—you must!” + +“I would rather Diana or Mary informed you.” + +Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified it must be, and that without delay; and I told him so. + +“But I apprised you that I was a hard man,” said he, “difficult to persuade.” + +“And I am a hard woman,—impossible to put off.” + +And I am a hard woman,—impossible to put off +“And then,” he pursued, “I am cold: no fervour infects me.” + +“Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has thawed all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to my floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you hope ever to be forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know.” + +“Well, then,” he said, “I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides, you must know some day,—as well now as later. Your name is Jane Eyre?” + +“Of course: that was all settled before.” + +“You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?—that I was christened St. John Eyre Rivers?” + +“No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely—” + +I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express, the thought that rushed upon me—that embodied itself,—that, in a second, stood out a strong, solid probability. Circumstances knit themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had been lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight,—every ring was perfect, the connection complete. I knew, by instinct, how the matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I cannot expect the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his explanation. + +“My mother’s name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq., merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre’s solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle’s death, and to say that he had left his property to his brother the clergyman’s orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never forgiven, between him and my father. He wrote again a few weeks since, to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking if we knew anything of her. A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to find her out. You know the rest.” Again he was going, but I set my back against the door. + +“Do let me speak,” I said; “let me have one moment to draw breath and reflect.” I paused—he stood before me, hat in hand, looking composed enough. I resumed— + +“Your mother was my father’s sister?” + +“Yes.” + +“My aunt, consequently?” + +He bowed. + +“My uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana, and Mary are his sister’s children, as I am his brother’s child?” + +“Undeniably.” + +“You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows from the same source?” + +“We are cousins; yes.” + +I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be proud of,—one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were such, that, when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine affection and admiration. The two girls, on whom, kneeling down on the wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest and despair, were my near kinswomen; and the young and stately gentleman who had found me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation. Glorious discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed!—wealth to the heart!—a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, bright, vivid, and exhilarating;—not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight. I now clapped my hands in sudden joy—my pulse bounded, my veins thrilled. + +“Oh, I am glad!—I am glad!” I exclaimed. + +St. John smiled. “Did I not say you neglected essential points to pursue trifles?” he asked. “You were serious when I told you you had got a fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited.” + +“What can you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters and don’t care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now three relations,—or two, if you don’t choose to be counted,—are born into my world full-grown. I say again, I am glad!” + +I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle them:—thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere long. I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending stars,—every one lit me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit. They were under a yoke,—I could free them: they were scattered,—I could reunite them: the independence, the affluence which was mine, might be theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally would be five thousand each, justice—enough and to spare: justice would be done,—mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me: now it was not a mere bequest of coin,—it was a legacy of life, hope, enjoyment. + +How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind me, and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He also advised me to be composed; I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again. + +“Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow,” I said, “and tell them to come home directly. Diana said they would both consider themselves rich with a thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well.” + +“Tell me where I can get you a glass of water,” said St. John; “you must really make an effort to tranquillise your feelings.” + +“Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you? Will it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and settle down like an ordinary mortal?” + +“You wander: your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt in communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength.” + +“Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience: I am rational enough; it is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to misunderstand.” + +“Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should comprehend better.” + +“Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that twenty thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between the nephew and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each? What I want is, that you should write to your sisters and tell them of the fortune that has accrued to them.” + +“To you, you mean.” + +“I have intimated my view of the case: I am incapable of taking any other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections. I like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and Mary, and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary. It would please and benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment and oppress me to have twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never be mine in justice, though it might in law. I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely superfluous to me. Let there be no opposition, and no discussion about it; let us agree amongst each other, and decide the point at once.” + +“This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider such a matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid.” + +“Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the justice of the case?” + +“I do see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom. Besides, the entire fortune is your right: my uncle gained it by his own efforts; he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left it to you. After all, justice permits you to keep it: you may, with a clear conscience, consider it absolutely your own.” + +“With me,” said I, “it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught a glimpse—that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning to myself lifelong friends.” + +“You think so now,” rejoined St. John, “because you do not know what it is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy wealth: you cannot form a notion of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the place it would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would open to you: you cannot—” + +“And you,” I interrupted, “cannot at all imagine the craving I have for fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers or sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to admit me and own me, are you?” + +“Jane, I will be your brother—my sisters will be your sisters—without stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights.” + +“Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes; slaving amongst strangers! I, wealthy—gorged with gold I never earned and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and fraternisation! Close union! Intimate attachment!” + +“But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness may be realised otherwise than by the means you contemplate: you may marry.” + +“Nonsense, again! Marry! I don’t want to marry, and never shall marry.” + +“That is saying too much: such hazardous affirmations are a proof of the excitement under which you labour.” + +“It is not saying too much: I know what I feel, and how averse are my inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would take me for love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money speculation. And I do not want a stranger—unsympathising, alien, different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I have full fellow-feeling. Say again you will be my brother: when you uttered the words I was satisfied, happy; repeat them, if you can, repeat them sincerely.” + +“I think I can. I know I have always loved my own sisters; and I know on what my affection for them is grounded,—respect for their worth and admiration of their talents. You too have principle and mind: your tastes and habits resemble Diana’s and Mary’s; your presence is always agreeable to me; in your conversation I have already for some time found a salutary solace. I feel I can easily and naturally make room in my heart for you, as my third and youngest sister.” + +“Thank you: that contents me for to-night. Now you had better go; for if you stay longer, you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some mistrustful scruple.” + +“And the school, Miss Eyre? It must now be shut up, I suppose?” + +“No. I will retain my post of mistress till you get a substitute.” + +He smiled approbation: we shook hands, and he took leave. + +I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and arguments I used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as I wished. My task was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely resolved—as my cousins saw at length that my mind was really and immutably fixed on making a just division of the property—as they must in their own hearts have felt the equity of the intention; and must, besides, have been innately conscious that in my place they would have done precisely what I wished to do—they yielded at length so far as to consent to put the affair to arbitration. The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able lawyer: both coincided in my opinion: I carried my point. The instruments of transfer were drawn out: St. John, Diana, Mary, and I, each became possessed of a competency. + +== CHAPTER XXXIV +It was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of general holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care that the parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens the hand as well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the sensations. I had long felt with pleasure that many of my rustic scholars liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness was confirmed: they manifested their affection plainly and strongly. Deep was my gratification to find I had really a place in their unsophisticated hearts: I promised them that never a week should pass in future that I did not visit them, and give them an hour’s teaching in their school. + +Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some half-dozen of my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest, and well-informed young women as could be found in the ranks of the British peasantry. And that is saying a great deal; for after all, the British peasantry are the best taught, best mannered, most self-respecting of any in Europe: since those days I have seen paysannes and Bäuerinnen; and the best of them seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton girls. + +“Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?” asked Mr. Rivers, when they were gone. “Does not the consciousness of having done some real good in your day and generation give pleasure?” + +“Doubtless.” + +“And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the task of regenerating your race be well spent?” + +“Yes,” I said; “but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy my own faculties as well as to cultivate those of other people. I must enjoy them now; don’t recall either my mind or body to the school; I am out of it and disposed for full holiday.” + +He looked grave. “What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince? What are you going to do?” + +“To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you.” + +“Do you want her?” + +“Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a week, and I want to have everything in order against their arrival.” + +“I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It is better so: Hannah shall go with you.” + +“Tell her to be ready by to-morrow then; and here is the schoolroom key: I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning.” + +He took it. “You give it up very gleefully,” said he; “I don’t quite understand your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what employment you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life have you now?” + +“My first aim will be to clean down (do you comprehend the full force of the expression?)—to clean down Moor House from chamber to cellar; my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table, bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go near to ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; and lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other culinary rites, as words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you. My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come.” + +St. John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied. + +“It is all very well for the present,” said he; “but seriously, I trust that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little higher than domestic endearments and household joys.” + +“The best things the world has!” I interrupted. + +“No, Jane, no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt to make it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful.” + +“I mean, on the contrary, to be busy.” + +“Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months’ grace I allow you for the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with this late-found charm of relationship; but then, I hope you will begin to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and the selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised affluence. I hope your energies will then once more trouble you with their strength.” + +I looked at him with surprise. “St. John,” I said, “I think you are almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as a queen, and you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?” + +“To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously—I warn you of that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don’t cling so tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do you hear, Jane?” + +“Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause to be happy, and I will be happy. Goodbye!” + +Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she was charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house turned topsy-turvy—how I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook. And really, after a day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had made. I had previously taken a journey to S—— to purchase some new furniture: my cousins having given me carte blanche to effect what alterations I pleased, and a sum having been set aside for that purpose. The ordinary sitting-room and bedrooms I left much as they were: for I knew Diana and Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables, and chairs, and beds, than from the spectacle of the smartest innovations. Still some novelty was necessary, to give to their return the piquancy with which I wished it to be invested. Dark handsome new carpets and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, answered the end: they looked fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I thought Moor House as complete a model of bright modest snugness within, as it was, at this season, a specimen of wintry waste and desert dreariness without. + +The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, and ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen was in perfect trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in readiness. + +St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the house till everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare idea of the commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its walls sufficed to scare him to estrangement. He found me in the kitchen, watching the progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking. Approaching the hearth, he asked, “If I was at last satisfied with housemaid’s work?” I answered by inviting him to accompany me on a general inspection of the result of my labours. With some difficulty, I got him to make the tour of the house. He just looked in at the doors I opened; and when he had wandered upstairs and downstairs, he said I must have gone through a great deal of fatigue and trouble to have effected such considerable changes in so short a time: but not a syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the improved aspect of his abode. + +This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed some old associations he valued. I inquired whether this was the case: no doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone. + +“Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously respected every association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed more thought on the matter than it was worth. How many minutes, for instance, had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this very room?—By-the-bye, could I tell him where such a book was?” + +I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and withdrawing to his accustomed window recess, he began to read it. + +Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold. The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him—its peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire—after what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead, still and pale as a white stone—at his fine lineaments fixed in study—I comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a good husband: that it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I understood, as by inspiration, the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he was of the material from which nature hews her heroes—Christian and Pagan—her lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous column, gloomy and out of place. + +“This parlour is not his sphere,” I reflected: “the Himalayan ridge or Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp would suit him better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his element: there his faculties stagnate—they cannot develop or appear to advantage. It is in scenes of strife and danger—where courage is proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked—that he will speak and move, the leader and superior. A merry child would have the advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a missionary’s career—I see it now.” + +“They are coming! they are coming!” cried Hannah, throwing open the parlour door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran. It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had a lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened the door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped out. In a minute I had my face under their bonnets, in contact first with Mary’s soft cheek, then with Diana’s flowing curls. They laughed—kissed me—then Hannah: patted Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked eagerly if all was well; and being assured in the affirmative, hastened into the house. + +They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah brought in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he advanced from the parlour. They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a while to be talked to, and then, intimating that he supposed they would soon rejoin him in the parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge. + +I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed me. They were delighted with the renovation and decorations of their rooms; with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich tinted china vases: they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I had the pleasure of feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly, and that what I had done added a vivid charm to their joyous return home. + +Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St. John’s taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in their glow of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise. The event of the day—that is, the return of Diana and Mary—pleased him; but the accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee of reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer morrow was come. In the very meridian of the night’s enjoyment, about an hour after tea, a rap was heard at the door. Hannah entered with the intimation that “a poor lad was come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see his mother, who was drawing away.” + +“Where does she live, Hannah?” + +“Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and moss all the way.” + +“Tell him I will go.” + +“I’m sure, sir, you had better not. It’s the worst road to travel after dark that can be: there’s no track at all over the bog. And then it is such a bitter night—the keenest wind you ever felt. You had better send word, sir, that you will be there in the morning.” + +But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without one objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o’clock: he did not return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was: but he looked happier than when he set out. He had performed an act of duty; made an exertion; felt his own strength to do and deny, and was on better terms with himself. + +I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a sort of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the freedom of home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary’s spirits like some life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning till noon, and from noon till night. They could always talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy, original, had such charms for me, that I preferred listening to, and sharing in it, to doing anything else. St. John did not rebuke our vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was seldom in the house; his parish was large, the population scattered, and he found daily business in visiting the sick and poor in its different districts. + +One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some minutes, asked him, “If his plans were yet unchanged.” + +“Unchanged and unchangeable,” was the reply. And he proceeded to inform us that his departure from England was now definitively fixed for the ensuing year. + +“And Rosamond Oliver?” suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her lips involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a gesture as if wishing to recall them. St. John had a book in his hand—it was his unsocial custom to read at meals—he closed it, and looked up. + +“Rosamond Oliver,” said he, “is about to be married to Mr. Granby, one of the best connected and most estimable residents in S——, grandson and heir to Sir Frederic Granby: I had the intelligence from her father yesterday.” + +His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at him: he was serene as glass. + +“The match must have been got up hastily,” said Diana: “they cannot have known each other long.” + +“But two months: they met in October at the county ball at S——. But where there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where the connection is in every point desirable, delays are unnecessary: they will be married as soon as S—— Place, which Sir Frederic gives up to them, can be refitted for their reception.” + +The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I felt tempted to inquire if the event distressed him: but he seemed so little to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing to offer him more, I experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had already hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him: his reserve was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed beneath it. He had not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters; he continually made little chilling differences between us, which did not at all tend to the development of cordiality: in short, now that I was acknowledged his kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the distance between us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the village schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been admitted to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present frigidity. + +Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said— + +“You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won.” + +Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a moment’s hesitation I answered— + +“But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin you?” + +“I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall never be called upon to contend for such another. The event of the conflict is decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!” So saying, he returned to his papers and his silence. + +As our mutual happiness (i.e., Diana’s, Mary’s, and mine) settled into a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and regular studies, St. John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the same room, sometimes for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course of encyclopædic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken, and I fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own: that of some Eastern tongue, the acquisition of which he thought necessary to his plans. + +Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and absorbed enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish-looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing upon us, his fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation: if caught, it would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it returned searchingly to our table. I wondered what it meant: I wondered, too, at the punctual satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me of small moment, namely, my weekly visit to Morton school; and still more was I puzzled when, if the day was unfavourable, if there was snow, or rain, or high wind, and his sisters urged me not to go, he would invariably make light of their solicitude, and encourage me to accomplish the task without regard to the elements. + +“Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her,” he would say: “she can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of us. Her constitution is both sound and elastic;—better calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust.” + +And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little weather-beaten, I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him: on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse was a special annoyance. + +One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really had a cold. His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exchanged a translation for an exercise, I happened to look his way: there I found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye. How long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I cannot tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious—as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny. + +“Jane, what are you doing?” + +“Learning German.” + +“I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee.” + +“You are not in earnest?” + +“In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why.” + +He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements, and so fix them thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for some time between me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do him this favour? I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his departure. + +St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and permanent. I consented. When Diana and Mary returned, the former found her scholar transferred from her to her brother: she laughed, and both she and Mary agreed that St. John should never have persuaded them to such a step. He answered quietly— + +“I know it.” + +I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master: he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his expectations, he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation. By degrees, he acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind: his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was distasteful to him. I was so fully aware that only serious moods and occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he said “go,” I went; “come,” I came; “do this,” I did it. But I did not love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me. + +One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to be in a frolicsome humour (she was not painfully controlled by his will; for hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed— + +“St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don’t treat her as such: you should kiss her too.” + +She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St. John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his eyes questioned my eyes piercingly—he kissed me. There are no such things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical cousin’s salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush; perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted the ceremony afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent it, seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm. + +As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt daily more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He wanted to train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was as impossible as to mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his own. + +Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of late it had been easy enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat at my heart and drained my happiness at its source—the evil of suspense. + +Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse, nor a sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving to know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at Morton, I re-entered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now at Moor House, I sought my bedroom each night to brood over it. + +In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester’s present residence and state of health; but, as St. John had conjectured, he was quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax, entreating information on the subject. I had calculated with certainty on this step answering my end: I felt sure it would elicit an early answer. I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but when two months wore away, and day after day the post arrived and brought nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety. + +I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed. Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word reached me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out, and then I felt dark indeed. + +A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer approached; Diana tried to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and wished to accompany me to the sea-side. This St. John opposed; he said I did not want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like a fool, never thought of resisting him—I could not resist him. + +One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had told me in the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take it, almost certain that the long-looked for tidings were vouchsafed me at last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on business. The bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring over the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my eyes filled again. + +St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice failed me: words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of the parlour: Diana was practising her music in the drawing-room, Mary was gardening—it was a very fine May day, clear, sunny, and breezy. My companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me as to its cause; he only said— + +“We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed.” And while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient, leaning on his desk, and looking like a physician watching with the eye of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient’s malady. Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something about not being very well that morning, I resumed my task, and succeeded in completing it. St. John put away my books and his, locked his desk, and said— + +“Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me.” + +“I will call Diana and Mary.” + +“No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put on your things; go out by the kitchen-door: take the road towards the head of Marsh Glen: I will join you in a moment.” + +I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute submission and determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic vehemence, into the other; and as neither present circumstances warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful obedience to St. John’s directions; and in ten minutes I was treading the wild track of the glen, side by side with him. + +The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with scents of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along plentiful and clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire tints from the firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a soft turf, mossy fine and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a tiny white flower, and spangled with a star-like yellow blossom: the hills, meantime, shut us quite in; for the glen, towards its head, wound to their very core. + +“Let us rest here,” said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers of a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck rushed down a waterfall; and where, still a little farther, the mountain shook off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment and crag for gem—where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exchanged the fresh for the frowning—where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, and a last refuge for silence. + +I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and down the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he removed his hat, let the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He seemed in communion with the genius of the haunt: with his eye he bade farewell to something. + +“And I shall see it again,” he said aloud, “in dreams when I sleep by the Ganges: and again in a more remote hour—when another slumber overcomes me—on the shore of a darker stream!” + +Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot’s passion for his fatherland! He sat down; for half-an-hour we never spoke; neither he to me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced— + +“Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman which sails on the 20th of June.” + +“God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work,” I answered. + +“Yes,” said he, “there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an infallible Master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject to the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my king, my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strange to me that all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner,—to join in the same enterprise.” + +“All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish to march with the strong.” + +“I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only such as are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it.” + +“Those are few in number, and difficult to discover.” + +“You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up—to urge and exhort them to the effort—to show them what their gifts are, and why they were given—to speak Heaven’s message in their ear,—to offer them, direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen.” + +“If they are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts be the first to inform them of it?” + +I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me: I trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and rivet the spell. + +“And what does your heart say?” demanded St. John. + +“My heart is mute,—my heart is mute,” I answered, struck and thrilled. + +“Then I must speak for it,” continued the deep, relentless voice. “Jane, come with me to India: come as my helpmeet and fellow-labourer.” + +The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had heard a summons from Heaven—as if a visionary messenger, like him of Macedonia, had enounced, “Come over and help us!” But I was no apostle,—I could not behold the herald,—I could not receive his call. + +“Oh, St. John!” I cried, “have some mercy!” + +I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty, knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued— + +“God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love. A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine: I claim you—not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.” + +“I am not fit for it: I have no vocation,” I said. + +He had calculated on these first objections: he was not irritated by them. Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his arms on his chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for a long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to last him to its close—resolved, however, that that close should be conquest for him. + +“Humility, Jane,” said he, “is the groundwork of Christian virtues: you say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or who, that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons? I, for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I acknowledge myself the chiefest of sinners; but I do not suffer this sense of my personal vileness to daunt me. I know my Leader: that He is just as well as mighty; and while He has chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great task, He will, from the boundless stores of His providence, supply the inadequacy of the means to the end. Think like me, Jane—trust like me. It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on: do not doubt but it will bear the weight of your human weakness.” + +“I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary labours.” + +“There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can set you your task from hour to hour; stand by you always; help you from moment to moment. This I could do in the beginning: soon (for I know your powers) you would be as strong and apt as myself, and would not require my help.” + +“But my powers—where are they for this undertaking? I do not feel them. Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light kindling—no life quickening—no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths—the fear of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!” + +“I have an answer for you—hear it. I have watched you ever since we first met: I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited? In the village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly, labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled. In the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a mind clear of the vice of Demas:—lucre had no undue power over you. In the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares, keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in the flame and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability with which, at my wish, you forsook a study in which you were interested, and adopted another because it interested me; in the untiring assiduity with which you have since persevered in it—in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with which you have met its difficulties—I acknowledge the complement of the qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease to mistrust yourself—I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will be to me invaluable.” + +My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure step. Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in making the way, which had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed itself as he proceeded, and assumed a definite form under his shaping hand. He waited for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an hour to think, before I again hazarded a reply. + +“Very willingly,” he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance up the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still. + +He threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still +“I can do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge that,” I meditated,—“that is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun. What then? He does not care for that: when my time came to die, he would resign me, in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me. The case is very plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty land—Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing so absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes—and yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: if I go to India, I go to premature death. And how will the interval between leaving England for India, and India for the grave, be filled? Oh, I know well! That, too, is very clear to my vision. By straining to satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I shall satisfy him—to the finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations. If I do go with him—if I do make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it absolutely: I will throw all on the altar—heart, vitals, the entire victim. He will never love me; but he shall approve me; I will show him energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never suspected. Yes, I can work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging. + +“Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item—one dreadful item. It is—that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a husband’s heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which the stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would a good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve me; but can I let him complete his calculations—coolly put into practice his plans—go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him—not as his wife: I will tell him so.” + +I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column; his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to his feet and approached me. + +“I am ready to go to India, if I may go free.” + +“Your answer requires a commentary,” he said; “it is not clear.” + +“You have hitherto been my adopted brother—I, your adopted sister: let us continue as such: you and I had better not marry.” + +He shook his head. “Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you were my real sister it would be different: I should take you, and seek no wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed by marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves to any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment—your strong sense will guide you.” + +I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should: and therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. “St. John,” I returned, “I regard you as a brother—you, me as a sister: so let us continue.” + +“We cannot—we cannot,” he answered, with short, sharp determination: “it would not do. You have said you will go with me to India: remember—you have said that.” + +“Conditionally.” + +“Well—well. To the main point—the departure with me from England, the co-operation with me in my future labours—you do not object. You have already as good as put your hand to the plough: you are too consistent to withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view—how the work you have undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests, feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all considerations in one purpose: that of fulfilling with effect—with power—the mission of your great Master. To do so, you must have a coadjutor: not a brother—that is a loose tie—but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister: a sister might any day be taken from me. I want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death.” + +I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow—his hold on my limbs. + +“Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you.” + +“One fitted to my purpose, you mean—fitted to my vocation. Again I tell you it is not the insignificant private individual—the mere man, with the man’s selfish senses—I wish to mate: it is the missionary.” + +“And I will give the missionary my energies—it is all he wants—but not myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For them he has no use: I retain them.” + +“You cannot—you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you. I cannot accept on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire.” + +“Oh! I will give my heart to God,” I said. “You do not want it.” + +I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now, because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this conference: the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his fallibilities: I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting there where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me, I sat at the feet of a man, erring as I. The veil fell from his hardness and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these qualities, I felt his imperfection and took courage. I was with an equal—one with whom I might argue—one whom, if I saw good, I might resist. + +He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently risked an upward glance at his countenance. His eye, bent on me, expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry. “Is she sarcastic, and sarcastic to me!” it seemed to say. “What does this signify?” + +“Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter,” he said ere long; “one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart to God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on your Maker, the advancement of that Maker’s spiritual kingdom on earth will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do at once whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be given to your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in marriage: the only union that gives a character of permanent conformity to the destinies and designs of human beings; and, passing over all minor caprices—all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling—all scruple about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal inclination—you will hasten to enter into that union at once.” + +“Shall I?” I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity; at his brow, commanding but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep and searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and fancied myself in idea his wife. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour; accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man: profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should suffer often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. There would be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came, and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which his austerity could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample down: but as his wife—at his side always, and always restrained, and always checked—forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame consumed vital after vital—this would be unendurable. + +“St. John!” I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation. + +“Well?” he answered icily. + +“I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you.” + +“A part of me you must become,” he answered steadily; “otherwise the whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we be for ever together—sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage tribes—and unwed?” + +“Very well,” I said shortly; “under the circumstances, quite as well as if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like yourself.” + +“It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such: to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And for the rest, though you have a man’s vigorous brain, you have a woman’s heart and—it would not do.” + +“It would do,” I affirmed with some disdain, “perfectly well. I have a woman’s heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a comrade’s constancy; a fellow-soldier’s frankness, fidelity, fraternity, if you like; a neophyte’s respect and submission to his hierophant: nothing more—don’t fear.” + +“It is what I want,” he said, speaking to himself; “it is just what I want. And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane, you would not repent marrying me—be certain of that; we must be married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your eyes.” + +“I scorn your idea of love,” I could not help saying, as I rose up and stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. “I scorn the counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you offer it.” + +He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so. Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell: he could command his countenance thoroughly. + +“I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you,” he said: “I think I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn.” + +I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien. + +“Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on which our natures are at variance—a topic we should never discuss: the very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin, abandon your scheme of marriage—forget it.” + +“No,” said he; “it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which can secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further at present. To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends there to whom I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight—take that space of time to consider my offer: and do not forget that if you reject it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens to you a noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered with those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels!” + +He had done. Turning from me, he once more + +“Looked to river, looked to hill.” + +But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an austere and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected submission—the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance. + +That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to forget even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I—who, though I had no love, had much friendship for him—was hurt by the marked omission: so much hurt that tears started to my eyes. + +“I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane,” said Diana, “during your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the passage expecting you—he will make it up.” + +I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be happy than dignified; and I ran after him—he stood at the foot of the stairs. + +“Good-night, St. John,” said I. + +“Good-night, Jane,” he replied calmly. + +“Then shake hands,” I added. + +What a cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers! He was deeply displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, nor tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him—no cheering smile or generous word: but still the Christian was patient and placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he was not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that he had nothing to forgive, not having been offended. + +And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me down. + +== CHAPTER XXXV +He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. He deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me feel what severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet implacable man can inflict on one who has offended him. Without one overt act of hostility, one upbraiding word, he contrived to impress me momently with the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his favour. + +Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness—not that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully in his power to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior to the mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for saying I scorned him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his look, when he turned to me, that they were always written on the air between me and him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and their echo toned every answer he gave me. + +He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as usual each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, in evincing with what skill he could, while acting and speaking apparently just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of interest and approval which had formerly communicated a certain austere charm to his language and manner. To me, he was in reality become no longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, blue gem; his tongue a speaking instrument—nothing more. + +All this was torture to me—refined, lingering torture. It kept up a slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief, which harassed and crushed me altogether. I felt how—if I were his wife, this good man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing from my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal conscience the faintest stain of crime. Especially I felt this when I made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth. He experienced no suffering from estrangement—no yearning after reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more effect on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal. To his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as if afraid that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how completely I was banished and banned, he added the force of contrast; and this I am sure he did not by malice, but on principle. + +The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that this man, alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were near relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his friendship. I went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the little gate; I spoke to the point at once. + +“St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us be friends.” + +“I hope we are friends,” was the unmoved reply; while he still watched the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I approached. + +“No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that.” + +“Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all good.” + +“I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing any one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more of affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere strangers.” + +“Of course,” he said. “Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from regarding you as a stranger.” + +This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my cousin’s talent and principle. His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it. + +“Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?” + +He now turned quite from the moon and faced me. + +“When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to India?” + +“You said I could not unless I married you.” + +“And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?” + +Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure? + +“No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution.” + +The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down. + +“Once more, why this refusal?” he asked. + +“Formerly,” I answered, “because you did not love me; now, I reply, because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me. You are killing me now.” + +His lips and cheeks turned white—quite white. + +“I should kill you—I am killing you? Your words are such as ought not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even until seventy-and-seven times.” + +I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious surface another and far deeper impression: I had burnt it in. + +“Now you will indeed hate me,” I said. “It is useless to attempt to conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you.” + +A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung. + +“You utterly misinterpret my words,” I said, at once seizing his hand: “I have no intention to grieve or pain you—indeed, I have not.” + +Most bitterly he smiled—most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine. “And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I presume?” said he, after a considerable pause. + +“Yes, I will, as your assistant,” I answered. + +A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only singular gleams scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He spoke at last. + +“I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your ever again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret—for your sake.” + +I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at once. “Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked: for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I will be your curate, if you like, but never your wife.” + +Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly— + +“A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me, then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society’s aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your promise and deserting the band you engaged to join.” + +Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard and much too despotic for the occasion. I replied— + +“There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the case. I am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire, confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am convinced that, go when and with whom I would, I should not live long in that climate.” + +“Ah! you are afraid of yourself,” he said, curling his lip. + +“I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide. Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting England, I will know for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by leaving it.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere till by some means that doubt is removed.” + +“I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest you cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr. Rochester?” + +It was true. I confessed it by silence. + +“Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?” + +“I must find out what is become of him.” + +“It remains for me, then,” he said, “to remember you in my prayers, and to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of the chosen. But God sees not as man sees: His will be done—” + +He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He was soon out of sight. + +On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, looking very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I: she put her hand on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face. + +“Jane,” she said, “you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure there is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you have on hands. I have watched you this half hour from the window; you must forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I hardly know what. St. John is a strange being—” + +She paused—I did not speak: soon she resumed— + +“That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest he never showed to any one else—to what end? I wish he loved you—does he, Jane?” + +I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; “No, Die, not one whit.” + +“Then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so frequently alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? Mary and I had both concluded he wished you to marry him.” + +“He does—he has asked me to be his wife.” + +Diana clapped her hands. “That is just what we hoped and thought! And you will marry him, Jane, won’t you? And then he will stay in England.” + +“Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils.” + +“What! He wishes you to go to India?” + +“Yes.” + +“Madness!” she exclaimed. “You would not live three months there, I am certain. You never shall go: you have not consented, have you, Jane?” + +“I have refused to marry him—” + +“And have consequently displeased him?” she suggested. + +“Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to accompany him as his sister.” + +“It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you undertook—one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the strong, and you are weak. St. John—you know him—would urge you to impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during the hot hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to refuse his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?” + +“Not as a husband.” + +“Yet he is a handsome fellow.” + +“And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit.” + +“Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good, to be grilled alive in Calcutta.” And again she earnestly conjured me to give up all thoughts of going out with her brother. + +“I must indeed,” I said; “for when just now I repeated the offer of serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing to accompany him unmarried: as if I had not from the first hoped to find in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such.” + +“What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?” + +“You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again explained that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. He has told me I am formed for labour—not for love: which is true, no doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Die, to be chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?” + +“Insupportable—unnatural—out of the question!” + +“And then,” I continued, “though I have only sisterly affection for him now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him, because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would become unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I showed the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity, unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would.” + +“And yet St. John is a good man,” said Diana. + +“He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, in his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes! I will leave you, Diana.” And I hastened upstairs as I saw him entering the garden. + +But I was forced to meet him again at supper. During that meal he appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly speak to me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial scheme: the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points. He addressed me precisely in his ordinary manner, or what had, of late, been his ordinary manner—one scrupulously polite. No doubt he had invoked the help of the Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in him, and now believed he had forgiven me once more. + +For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first chapter of Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to listen while from his lips fell the words of the Bible: never did his fine voice sound at once so sweet and full—never did his manner become so impressive in its noble simplicity, as when he delivered the oracles of God: and to-night that voice took a more solemn tone—that manner a more thrilling meaning—as he sat in the midst of his household circle (the May moon shining in through the uncurtained window, and rendering almost unnecessary the light of the candle on the table): as he sat there, bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page the vision of the new heaven and the new earth—told how God would come to dwell with men, how He would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and promised that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any more pain, because the former things were passed away. + +The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them: especially as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in sound, that in uttering them, his eye had turned on me. + +“He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son. But,” was slowly, distinctly read, “the fearful, the unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.” + +Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me. + +A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked his enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The reader believed his name was already written in the Lamb’s book of life, and he yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city to which the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour; which has no need of sun or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. + +In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered—all his stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted; guidance for wanderers from the fold: a return, even at the eleventh hour, for those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were luring from the narrow path. He asked, he urged, he claimed the boon of a brand snatched from the burning. Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it continued and rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed. He felt the greatness and goodness of his purpose so sincerely: others who heard him plead for it, could not but feel it too. + +The prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early hour in the morning. Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the room—in compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him: I tendered my hand, and wished him a pleasant journey. + +“Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a fortnight: that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I listened to human pride, I should say no more to you of marriage with me; but I listen to my duty, and keep steadily in view my first aim—to do all things to the glory of God. My Master was long-suffering: so will I be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath: repent—resolve, while there is yet time. Remember, we are bid to work while it is day—warned that ‘the night cometh when no man shall work.’ Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good things in this life. God give you strength to choose that better part which shall not be taken from you!” + +He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had spoken earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering sheep—or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is responsible. All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not; whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots—provided only they be sincere—have their sublime moments, when they subdue and rule. I felt veneration for St. John—veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me at once to the point I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease struggling with him—to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf of his existence, and there lose my own. I was almost as hard beset by him now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another. I was a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So I think at this hour, when I look back to the crisis through the quiet medium of time: I was unconscious of folly at the instant. + +I stood motionless under my hierophant’s touch. My refusals were forgotten—my fears overcome—my wrestlings paralysed. The Impossible—i.e., my marriage with St. John—was fast becoming the Possible. All was changing utterly with a sudden sweep. Religion called—Angels beckoned—God commanded—life rolled together like a scroll—death’s gates opening, showed eternity beyond: it seemed, that for safety and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second. The dim room was full of visions. + +“Could you decide now?” asked the missionary. The inquiry was put in gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how far more potent is it than force! I could resist St. John’s wrath: I grew pliant as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time, if I yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn prayer: it was only elevated. + +“I could decide if I were but certain,” I answered: “were I but convinced that it is God’s will I should marry you, I could vow to marry you here and now—come afterwards what would!” + +“My prayers are heard!” ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand firmer on my head, as if he claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm, almost as if he loved me (I say almost—I knew the difference—for I had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him, I had now put love out of the question, and thought only of duty). I contended with my inward dimness of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply, fervently longed to do what was right; and only that. “Show me, show me the path!” I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more than I had ever been; and whether what followed was the effect of excitement the reader shall judge. + +All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and myself, were now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out: the room was full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick: I heard its throb. Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it through, and passed at once to my head and extremities. The feeling was not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to wake. They rose expectant: eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered on my bones. + +“What have you heard? What do you see?” asked St. John. I saw nothing, but I heard a voice somewhere cry— + +“Jane! Jane! Jane!”—nothing more. + +“O God! what is it?” I gasped. + +I might have said, “Where is it?” for it did not seem in the room—nor in the house—nor in the garden; it did not come out of the air—nor from under the earth—nor from overhead. I had heard it—where, or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being—a known, loved, well-remembered voice—that of Edward Fairfax Rochester; and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently. + +“I am coming!” I cried. “Wait for me! Oh, I will come!” I flew to the door and looked into the passage: it was dark. I ran out into the garden: it was void. + +“Where are you?” I exclaimed. + +The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back—“Where are you?” I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland loneliness and midnight hush. + +“Down superstition!” I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the black yew at the gate. “This is not thy deception, nor thy witchcraft: it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did—no miracle—but her best.” + +I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained me. It was my time to assume ascendency. My powers were in play and in force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to leave me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy to command well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber; locked myself in; fell on my knees; and prayed in my way—a different way to St. John’s, but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate very near a Mighty Spirit; and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His feet. I rose from the thanksgiving—took a resolve—and lay down, unscared, enlightened—eager but for the daylight. + +== CHAPTER XXXVI +The daylight came. I rose at dawn. I busied myself for an hour or two with arranging my things in my chamber, drawers, and wardrobe, in the order wherein I should wish to leave them during a brief absence. Meantime, I heard St. John quit his room. He stopped at my door: I feared he would knock—no, but a slip of paper was passed under the door. I took it up. It bore these words— + +“You left me too suddenly last night. Had you stayed but a little longer, you would have laid your hand on the Christian’s cross and the angel’s crown. I shall expect your clear decision when I return this day fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation: the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see, is weak. I shall pray for you hourly.—Yours, ST. JOHN.” + +“My spirit,” I answered mentally, “is willing to do what is right; and my flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will of Heaven, when once that will is distinctly known to me. At any rate, it shall be strong enough to search—inquire—to grope an outlet from this cloud of doubt, and find the open day of certainty.” + +It was the first of June; yet the morning was overcast and chilly: rain beat fast on my casement. I heard the front-door open, and St. John pass out. Looking through the window, I saw him traverse the garden. He took the way over the misty moors in the direction of Whitcross—there he would meet the coach. + +“In a few more hours I shall succeed you in that track, cousin,” thought I: “I too have a coach to meet at Whitcross. I too have some to see and ask after in England, before I depart for ever.” + +It wanted yet two hours of breakfast-time. I filled the interval in walking softly about my room, and pondering the visitation which had given my plans their present bent. I recalled that inward sensation I had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in me—not in the external world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression—a delusion? I could not conceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas’s prison; it had opened the doors of the soul’s cell and loosed its bands—it had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, which neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success of one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of the cumbrous body. + +“Ere many days,” I said, as I terminated my musings, “I will know something of him whose voice seemed last night to summon me. Letters have proved of no avail—personal inquiry shall replace them.” + +At breakfast I announced to Diana and Mary that I was going a journey, and should be absent at least four days. + +“Alone, Jane?” they asked. + +“Yes; it was to see or hear news of a friend about whom I had for some time been uneasy.” + +They might have said, as I have no doubt they thought, that they had believed me to be without any friends save them: for, indeed, I had often said so; but, with their true natural delicacy, they abstained from comment, except that Diana asked me if I was sure I was well enough to travel. I looked very pale, she observed. I replied, that nothing ailed me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped soon to alleviate. + +It was easy to make my further arrangements; for I was troubled with no inquiries—no surmises. Having once explained to them that I could not now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely acquiesced in the silence with which I pursued them, according to me the privilege of free action I should under similar circumstances have accorded them. + +I left Moor House at three o’clock P.M., and soon after four I stood at the foot of the sign-post of Whitcross, waiting the arrival of the coach which was to take me to distant Thornfield. Amidst the silence of those solitary roads and desert hills, I heard it approach from a great distance. It was the same vehicle whence, a year ago, I had alighted one summer evening on this very spot—how desolate, and hopeless, and objectless! It stopped as I beckoned. I entered—not now obliged to part with my whole fortune as the price of its accommodation. Once more on the road to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home. + +It was a journey of six-and-thirty hours. I had set out from Whitcross on a Tuesday afternoon, and early on the succeeding Thursday morning the coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn, situated in the midst of scenery whose green hedges and large fields and low pastoral hills (how mild of feature and verdant of hue compared with the stern North-Midland moors of Morton!) met my eye like the lineaments of a once familiar face. Yes, I knew the character of this landscape: I was sure we were near my bourne. + +“How far is Thornfield Hall from here?” I asked of the ostler. + +“Just two miles, ma’am, across the fields.” + +“My journey is closed,” I thought to myself. I got out of the coach, gave a box I had into the ostler’s charge, to be kept till I called for it; paid my fare; satisfied the coachman, and was going: the brightening day gleamed on the sign of the inn, and I read in gilt letters, “The Rochester Arms.” My heart leapt up: I was already on my master’s very lands. It fell again: the thought struck it:— + +“Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught you know: and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which you hasten, who besides him is there? His lunatic wife: and you have nothing to do with him: you dare not speak to him or seek his presence. You have lost your labour—you had better go no farther,” urged the monitor. “Ask information of the people at the inn; they can give you all you seek: they can solve your doubts at once. Go up to that man, and inquire if Mr. Rochester be at home.” + +The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to act on it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To prolong doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the Hall under the ray of her star. There was the stile before me—the very fields through which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted with a revengeful fury tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield: ere I well knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of them. How fast I walked! How I ran sometimes! How I looked forward to catch the first view of the well-known woods! With what feelings I welcomed single trees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between them! + +At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing broke the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me: on I hastened. Another field crossed—a lane threaded—and there were the courtyard walls—the back offices: the house itself, the rookery still hid. “My first view of it shall be in front,” I determined, “where its bold battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can single out my master’s very window: perhaps he will be standing at it—he rises early: perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the pavement in front. Could I but see him!—but a moment! Surely, in that case, I should not be so mad as to run to him? I cannot tell—I am not certain. And if I did—what then? God bless him! What then? Who would be hurt by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me? I rave: perhaps at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on the tideless sea of the south.” + +I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard—turned its angle: there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between two stone pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I could peep round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I advanced my head with precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom window-blinds were yet drawn up: battlements, windows, long front—all from this sheltered station were at my command. + +The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this survey. I wonder what they thought. They must have considered I was very careful and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very bold and reckless. A peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure from my niche and a straying out into the meadow; and a sudden stop full in front of the great mansion, and a protracted, hardy gaze towards it. “What affectation of diffidence was this at first?” they might have demanded; “what stupid regardlessness now?” + +Hear an illustration, reader. + +A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals softly over the grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses—fancying she has stirred: he withdraws: not for worlds would he be seen. All is still: he again advances: he bends above her; a light veil rests on her features: he lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty—warm, and blooming, and lovely, in rest. How hurried was their first glance! But how they fix! How he starts! How he suddenly and vehemently clasps in both arms the form he dared not, a moment since, touch with his finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, and gazes on it wildly! He thus grasps and cries, and gazes, because he no longer fears to waken by any sound he can utter—by any movement he can make. He thought his love slept sweetly: he finds she is stone dead. + +I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened ruin. + +No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed!—to peep up at chamber lattices, fearing life was astir behind them! No need to listen for doors opening—to fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel-walk! The lawn, the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned void. The front was, as I had once seen it in a dream, but a shell-like wall, very high and very fragile-looking, perforated with paneless windows: no roof, no battlements, no chimneys—all had crashed in. + +And there was the silence of death about it: the solitude of a lonesome wild. No wonder that letters addressed to people here had never received an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault in a church aisle. The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had fallen—by conflagration: but how kindled? What story belonged to this disaster? What loss, besides mortar and marble and wood-work had followed upon it? Had life been wrecked as well as property? If so, whose? Dreadful question: there was no one here to answer it—not even dumb sign, mute token. + +In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amidst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters. And oh! where meantime was the hapless owner of this wreck? In what land? Under what auspices? My eye involuntarily wandered to the grey church tower near the gates, and I asked, “Is he with Damer de Rochester, sharing the shelter of his narrow marble house?” + +Some answer must be had to these questions. I could find it nowhere but at the inn, and thither, ere long, I returned. The host himself brought my breakfast into the parlour. I requested him to shut the door and sit down: I had some questions to ask him. But when he complied, I scarcely knew how to begin; such horror had I of the possible answers. And yet the spectacle of desolation I had just left prepared me in a measure for a tale of misery. The host was a respectable-looking, middle-aged man. + +“You know Thornfield Hall, of course?” I managed to say at last. + +“Yes, ma’am; I lived there once.” + +“Did you?” Not in my time, I thought: you are a stranger to me. + +“I was the late Mr. Rochester’s butler,” he added. + +The late! I seem to have received, with full force, the blow I had been trying to evade. + +“The late!” I gasped. “Is he dead?” + +“I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edward’s father,” he explained. I breathed again: my blood resumed its flow. Fully assured by these words that Mr. Edward—my Mr. Rochester (God bless him, wherever he was!)—was at least alive: was, in short, “the present gentleman.” Gladdening words! It seemed I could hear all that was to come—whatever the disclosures might be—with comparative tranquillity. Since he was not in the grave, I could bear, I thought, to learn that he was at the Antipodes. + +“Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now?” I asked, knowing, of course, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the direct question as to where he really was. + +“No, ma’am—oh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are a stranger in these parts, or you would have heard what happened last autumn,—Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down just about harvest-time. A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable property destroyed: hardly any of the furniture could be saved. The fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from Millcote, the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible spectacle: I witnessed it myself.” + +“At dead of night!” I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality at Thornfield. “Was it known how it originated?” I demanded. + +“They guessed, ma’am: they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware,” he continued, edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low, “that there was a lady—a—a lunatic, kept in the house?” + +“I have heard something of it.” + +“She was kept in very close confinement, ma’am; people even for some years was not absolutely certain of her existence. No one saw her: they only knew by rumour that such a person was at the Hall; and who or what she was it was difficult to conjecture. They said Mr. Edward had brought her from abroad, and some believed she had been his mistress. But a queer thing happened a year since—a very queer thing.” + +I feared now to hear my own story. I endeavoured to recall him to the main fact. + +“And this lady?” + +“This lady, ma’am,” he answered, “turned out to be Mr. Rochester’s wife! The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was a young lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in—” + +“But the fire,” I suggested. + +“I’m coming to that, ma’am—that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was after her continually. They used to watch him—servants will, you know, ma’am—and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, they say, almost like a child. I never saw her myself; but I’ve heard Leah, the house-maid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were bewitched. Well, he would marry her.” + +“You shall tell me this part of the story another time,” I said; “but now I have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about the fire. Was it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any hand in it?” + +“You’ve hit it, ma’am: it’s quite certain that it was her, and nobody but her, that set it going. She had a woman to take care of her called Mrs. Poole—an able woman in her line, and very trustworthy, but for one fault—a fault common to a deal of them nurses and matrons—she kept a private bottle of gin by her, and now and then took a drop over-much. It is excusable, for she had a hard life of it: but still it was dangerous; for when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep after the gin and water, the mad lady, who was as cunning as a witch, would take the keys out of her pocket, let herself out of her chamber, and go roaming about the house, doing any wild mischief that came into her head. They say she had nearly burnt her husband in his bed once: but I don’t know about that. However, on this night, she set fire first to the hangings of the room next her own, and then she got down to a lower storey, and made her way to the chamber that had been the governess’s—(she was like as if she knew somehow how matters had gone on, and had a spite at her)—and she kindled the bed there; but there was nobody sleeping in it, fortunately. The governess had run away two months before; and for all Mr. Rochester sought her as if she had been the most precious thing he had in the world, he never could hear a word of her; and he grew savage—quite savage on his disappointment: he never was a wild man, but he got dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. He sent Mrs. Fairfax, the housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance; but he did it handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her for life: and she deserved it—she was a very good woman. Miss Adèle, a ward he had, was put to school. He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and shut himself up like a hermit at the Hall.” + +“What! did he not leave England?” + +“Leave England? Bless you, no! He would not cross the door-stones of the house, except at night, when he walked just like a ghost about the grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his senses—which it is my opinion he had; for a more spirited, bolder, keener gentleman than he was before that midge of a governess crossed him, you never saw, ma’am. He was not a man given to wine, or cards, or racing, as some are, and he was not so very handsome; but he had a courage and a will of his own, if ever man had. I knew him from a boy, you see: and for my part, I have often wished that Miss Eyre had been sunk in the sea before she came to Thornfield Hall.” + +“Then Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out?” + +“Yes, indeed was he; and he went up to the attics when all was burning above and below, and got the servants out of their beds and helped them down himself, and went back to get his mad wife out of her cell. And then they called out to him that she was on the roof, where she was standing, waving her arms, above the battlements, and shouting out till they could hear her a mile off: I saw her and heard her with my own eyes. She was a big woman, and had long black hair: we could see it streaming against the flames as she stood. I witnessed, and several more witnessed, Mr. Rochester ascend through the sky-light on to the roof; we heard him call ‘Bertha!’ We saw him approach her; and then, ma’am, she yelled and gave a spring, and the next minute she lay smashed on the pavement.” + +The next minute she lay smashed on the pavement +“Dead?” + +“Dead! Ay, dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were scattered.” + +“Good God!” + +“You may well say so, ma’am: it was frightful!” + +He shuddered. + +“And afterwards?” I urged. + +“Well, ma’am, afterwards the house was burnt to the ground: there are only some bits of walls standing now.” + +“Were any other lives lost?” + +“No—perhaps it would have been better if there had.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“Poor Mr. Edward!” he ejaculated, “I little thought ever to have seen it! Some say it was a just judgment on him for keeping his first marriage secret, and wanting to take another wife while he had one living: but I pity him, for my part.” + +“You said he was alive?” I exclaimed. + +“Yes, yes: he is alive; but many think he had better be dead.” + +“Why? How?” My blood was again running cold. “Where is he?” I demanded. “Is he in England?” + +“Ay—ay—he’s in England; he can’t get out of England, I fancy—he’s a fixture now.” + +What agony was this! And the man seemed resolved to protract it. + +“He is stone-blind,” he said at last. “Yes, he is stone-blind, is Mr. Edward.” + +I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned strength to ask what had caused this calamity. + +“It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness, in a way, ma’am: he wouldn’t leave the house till every one else was out before him. As he came down the great staircase at last, after Mrs. Rochester had flung herself from the battlements, there was a great crash—all fell. He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly hurt: a beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly; but one eye was knocked out, and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed: he lost the sight of that also. He is now helpless, indeed—blind and a cripple.” + +“Where is he? Where does he now live?” + +“At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has, about thirty miles off: quite a desolate spot.” + +“Who is with him?” + +“Old John and his wife: he would have none else. He is quite broken down, they say.” + +“Have you any sort of conveyance?” + +“We have a chaise, ma’am, a very handsome chaise.” + +“Let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boy can drive me to Ferndean before dark this day, I’ll pay both you and him twice the hire you usually demand.” + +== CHAPTER XXXVII +The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity, moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood. I had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often spoke of it, and sometimes went there. His father had purchased the estate for the sake of the game covers. He would have let the house, but could find no tenant, in consequence of its ineligible and insalubrious site. Ferndean then remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the exception of some two or three rooms fitted up for the accommodation of the squire when he went there in the season to shoot. + +To this house I came just ere dark on an evening marked by the characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise and driver with the double remuneration I had promised. Even when within a very short distance of the manor-house, you could see nothing of it, so thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy wood about it. Iron gates between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and passing through them, I found myself at once in the twilight of close-ranked trees. There was a grass-grown track descending the forest aisle between hoar and knotty shafts and under branched arches. I followed it, expecting soon to reach the dwelling; but it stretched on and on, it wound far and farther: no sign of habitation or grounds was visible. + +I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The darkness of natural as well as of sylvan dusk gathered over me. I looked round in search of another road. There was none: all was interwoven stem, columnar trunk, dense summer foliage—no opening anywhere. + +I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently I beheld a railing, then the house—scarce, by this dim light, distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a semicircle. There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad gravel-walk girdling a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame of the forest. The house presented two pointed gables in its front; the windows were latticed and narrow: the front door was narrow too, one step led up to it. The whole looked, as the host of the Rochester Arms had said, “quite a desolate spot.” It was as still as a church on a week-day: the pattering rain on the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its vicinage. + +“Can there be life here?” I asked. + +Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement—that narrow front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the grange. + +It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to feel whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised him—it was my master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other. + +I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him—to examine him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible. It was a sudden meeting, and one in which rapture was kept well in check by pain. I had no difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my step from hasty advance. + +His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port was still erect, his hair was still raven black; nor were his features altered or sunk: not in one year’s space, by any sorrow, could his athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted. But in his countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and brooding—that reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to approach in his sullen woe. The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson. + +And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity?—if you do, you little know me. A soft hope blent with my sorrow that soon I should dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips so sternly sealed beneath it: but not yet. I would not accost him yet. + +He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards the grass-plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he paused, as if he knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and opened his eyelids; gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky, and toward the amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him was void darkness. He stretched his right hand (the left arm, the mutilated one, he kept hidden in his bosom); he seemed to wish by touch to gain an idea of what lay around him: he met but vacancy still; for the trees were some yards off where he stood. He relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and stood quiet and mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head. At this moment John approached him from some quarter. + +“Will you take my arm, sir?” he said; “there is a heavy shower coming on: had you not better go in?” + +“Let me alone,” was the answer. + +John withdrew without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried to walk about: vainly,—all was too uncertain. He groped his way back to the house, and, re-entering it, closed the door. + +I now drew near and knocked: John’s wife opened for me. “Mary,” I said, “how are you?” + +She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her hurried “Is it really you, miss, come at this late hour to this lonely place?” I answered by taking her hand; and then I followed her into the kitchen, where John now sat by a good fire. I explained to them, in few words, that I had heard all which had happened since I left Thornfield, and that I was come to see Mr. Rochester. I asked John to go down to the turn-pike-house, where I had dismissed the chaise, and bring my trunk, which I had left there: and then, while I removed my bonnet and shawl, I questioned Mary as to whether I could be accommodated at the Manor House for the night; and finding that arrangements to that effect, though difficult, would not be impossible, I informed her I should stay. Just at this moment the parlour-bell rang. + +“When you go in,” said I, “tell your master that a person wishes to speak to him, but do not give my name.” + +“I don’t think he will see you,” she answered; “he refuses everybody.” + +When she returned, I inquired what he had said. + +“You are to send in your name and your business,” she replied. She then proceeded to fill a glass with water, and place it on a tray, together with candles. + +“Is that what he rang for?” I asked. + +“Yes: he always has candles brought in at dark, though he is blind.” + +“Give the tray to me; I will carry it in.” + +I took it from her hand: she pointed me out the parlour door. The tray shook as I held it; the water spilt from the glass; my heart struck my ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me, and shut it behind me. + +This parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low in the grate; and, leaning over it, with his head supported against the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of the room. His old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the way, and coiled up as if afraid of being inadvertently trodden upon. Pilot pricked up his ears when I came in: then he jumped up with a yelp and a whine, and bounded towards me: he almost knocked the tray from my hands. I set it on the table; then patted him, and said softly, “Lie down!” Mr. Rochester turned mechanically to see what the commotion was: but as he saw nothing, he returned and sighed. + +“Give me the water, Mary,” he said. + +I approached him with the now only half-filled glass; Pilot followed me, still excited. + +“What is the matter?” he inquired. + +“Down, Pilot!” I again said. He checked the water on its way to his lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down. “This is you, Mary, is it not?” + +“Mary is in the kitchen,” I answered. + +He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood, he did not touch me. “Who is this? Who is this?” he demanded, trying, as it seemed, to see with those sightless eyes—unavailing and distressing attempt! “Answer me—speak again!” he ordered, imperiously and aloud. + +“Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was in the glass,” I said. + +“Who is it? What is it? Who speaks?” + +“Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this evening,” I answered. + +“Great God!—what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has seized me?” + +“No delusion—no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion, your health too sound for frenzy.” + +“And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I cannot see, but I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever—whoever you are—be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!” + +He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine. + +“Her very fingers!” he cried; “her small, slight fingers! If so there must be more of her.” + +The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my shoulder—neck—waist—I was entwined and gathered to him. + +“Is it Jane? What is it? This is her shape—this is her size—” + +“And this her voice,” I added. “She is all here: her heart, too. God bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again.” + +“Jane Eyre!—Jane Eyre,” was all he said. + +“My dear master,” I answered, “I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out—I am come back to you.” + +“In truth?—in the flesh? My living Jane?” + +“You touch me, sir,—you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold like a corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?” + +“My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a dream; such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus—and felt that she loved me, and trusted that she would not leave me.” + +“Which I never will, sir, from this day.” + +“Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned—my life dark, lonely, hopeless—my soul athirst and forbidden to drink—my heart famished and never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before you go—embrace me, Jane.” + +“There, sir—and there!”’ + +I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes—I swept his hair from his brow, and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to arouse himself: the conviction of the reality of all this seized him. + +“It is you—is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?” + +“I am.” + +“And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you are not a pining outcast amongst strangers?” + +“No, sir! I am an independent woman now.” + +“Independent! What do you mean, Jane?” + +“My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds.” + +“Ah! this is practical—this is real!” he cried: “I should never dream that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so animating and piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered heart; it puts life into it.—What, Janet! Are you an independent woman? A rich woman?” + +“Quite rich, sir. If you won’t let me live with you, I can build a house of my own close up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when you want company of an evening.” + +“But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will look after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind lameter like me?” + +“I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own mistress.” + +“And you will stay with me?” + +“Certainly—unless you object. I will be your neighbour, your nurse, your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your companion—to read to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not be left desolate, so long as I live.” + +He replied not: he seemed serious—abstracted; he sighed; he half-opened his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I felt a little embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped conventionalities; and he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness. I had indeed made my proposal from the idea that he wished and would ask me to be his wife: an expectation, not the less certain because unexpressed, had buoyed me up, that he would claim me at once as his own. But no hint to that effect escaping him and his countenance becoming more overcast, I suddenly remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps playing the fool unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from his arms—but he eagerly snatched me closer. + +“No—no—Jane; you must not go. No—I have touched you, heard you, felt the comfort of your presence—the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot give up these joys. I have little left in myself—I must have you. The world may laugh—may call me absurd, selfish—but it does not signify. My very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly vengeance on its frame.” + +“Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so.” + +“Yes—but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I understand another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be about my hand and chair—to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for you have an affectionate heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacrifices for those you pity), and that ought to suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you: do you think so? Come—tell me.” + +“I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your nurse, if you think it better.” + +“But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young—you must marry one day.” + +“I don’t care about being married.” + +“You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to make you care—but—a sightless block!” + +He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful, and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an insight as to where the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of conversation. + +“It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you,” said I, parting his thick and long uncut locks; “for I see you are being metamorphosed into a lion, or something of that sort. You have a ‘faux air’ of Nebuchadnezzar in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles’ feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds’ claws or not, I have not yet noticed.” + +“On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails,” he said, drawing the mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. “It is a mere stump—a ghastly sight! Don’t you think so, Jane?” + +“It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes—and the scar of fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you.” + +“I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my cicatrised visage.” + +“Did you? Don’t tell me so—lest I should say something disparaging to your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire, and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?” + +“Yes; with the right eye I see a glow—a ruddy haze.” + +“And you see the candles?” + +“Very dimly—each is a luminous cloud.” + +“Can you see me?” + +“No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you.” + +“When do you take supper?” + +“I never take supper.” + +“But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry: so are you, I daresay, only you forget.” + +Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I prepared him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were excited, and with pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him. Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature: in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine. Blind as he was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his lineaments softened and warmed. + +After supper, he began to ask me many questions, of where I had been, what I had been doing, how I had found him out; but I gave him only very partial replies: it was too late to enter into particulars that night. Besides, I wished to touch no deep-thrilling chord—to open no fresh well of emotion in his heart: my sole present aim was to cheer him. Cheered, as I have said, he was: and yet but by fits. If a moment’s silence broke the conversation, he would turn restless, touch me, then say, “Jane.” + +“You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?” + +You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that? +“I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester.” + +“Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise on my lone hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question, expecting John’s wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear.” + +“Because I had come in, in Mary’s stead, with the tray.” + +“And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you. Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day; feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her restoration I longed, far more than for that of my lost sight. How can it be that Jane is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as she came? To-morrow, I fear I shall find her no more.” + +A commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own disturbed ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for him in this frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and remarked that they were scorched, and that I would apply something which would make them grow as broad and black as ever. + +“Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when, at some fatal moment, you will again desert me—passing like a shadow, whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards undiscoverable?” + +“Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir?” + +“What for, Jane?” + +“Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather alarming, when I examine you close at hand: you talk of my being a fairy, but I am sure, you are more like a brownie.” + +“Am I hideous, Jane?” + +“Very, sir: you always were, you know.” + +“Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever you have sojourned.” + +“Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred times better people; possessed of ideas and views you never entertained in your life: quite more refined and exalted.” + +“Who the deuce have you been with?” + +“If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of your head; and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of my substantiality.” + +“Who have you been with, Jane?” + +“You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir; you must wait till to-morrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort of security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it. By the bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with only a glass of water then: I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing of fried ham.” + +“You mocking changeling—fairy-born and human-bred! You make me feel as I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had you for his David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without the aid of the harp.” + +“There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I’ll leave you: I have been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am tired. Good night.” + +“Just one word, Jane: were there only ladies in the house where you have been?” + +I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs. “A good idea!” I thought with glee. “I see I have the means of fretting him out of his melancholy for some time to come.” + +Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering from one room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the question: “Is Miss Eyre here?” Then: “Which room did you put her into? Was it dry? Is she up? Go and ask if she wants anything; and when she will come down.” + +I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast. Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he discovered my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the subjugation of that vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat in his chair—still, but not at rest: expectant evidently; the lines of now habitual sadness marking his strong features. His countenance reminded one of a lamp quenched, waiting to be re-lit—and alas! it was not himself that could now kindle the lustre of animated expression: he was dependent on another for that office! I had meant to be gay and careless, but the powerlessness of the strong man touched my heart to the quick: still I accosted him with what vivacity I could. + +“It is a bright, sunny morning, sir,” I said. “The rain is over and gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have a walk soon.” + +I had wakened the glow: his features beamed. + +“Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not gone: not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than the rising sun had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane’s tongue to my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent one): all the sunshine I can feel is in her presence.” + +The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence; just as if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to entreat a sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be lachrymose: I dashed off the salt drops, and busied myself with preparing breakfast. + +Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the wet and wild wood into some cheerful fields: I described to him how brilliantly green they were; how the flowers and hedges looked refreshed; how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a seat for him in a hidden and lovely spot, a dry stump of a tree; nor did I refuse to let him, when seated, place me on his knee. Why should I, when both he and I were happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside us: all was quiet. He broke out suddenly while clasping me in his arms— + +“Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered you had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you; and, after examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken no money, nor anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl necklace I had given you lay untouched in its little casket; your trunks were left corded and locked as they had been prepared for the bridal tour. What could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless? And what did she do? Let me hear now.” + +Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last year. I softened considerably what related to the three days of wandering and starvation, because to have told him all would have been to inflict unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated his faithful heart deeper than I wished. + +I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of making my way: I should have told him my intention. I should have confided in him: he would never have forced me to be his mistress. Violent as he had seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far too well and too tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he would have given me half his fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return, rather than I should have flung myself friendless on the wide world. I had endured, he was certain, more than I had confessed to him. + +“Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short,” I answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received at Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, &c. The accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in due order. Of course, St. John Rivers’ name came in frequently in the progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately taken up. + +“This St. John, then, is your cousin?” + +“Yes.” + +“You have spoken of him often: do you like him?” + +“He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him.” + +“A good man. Does that mean a respectable well-conducted man of fifty? Or what does it mean?” + +“St John was only twenty-nine, sir.” + +“‘Jeune encore,’ as the French say. Is he a person of low stature, phlegmatic, and plain? A person whose goodness consists rather in his guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue.” + +“He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives to perform.” + +“But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means well: but you shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?” + +“He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His brain is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous.” + +“Is he an able man, then?” + +“Truly able.” + +“A thoroughly educated man?” + +“St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar.” + +“His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste?—priggish and parsonic?” + +“I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste, they must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike.” + +“His appearance,—I forget what description you gave of his appearance;—a sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white neckcloth, and stilted up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?” + +“St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue eyes, and a Grecian profile.” + +(Aside.) “Damn him!”—(To me.) “Did you like him, Jane?” + +“Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before.” + +I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had got hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not, therefore, immediately charm the snake. + +“Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?” was the next somewhat unexpected observation. + +“Why not, Mr. Rochester?” + +“The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,—tall, fair, blue-eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan,—a real blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind and lame into the bargain.” + +“I never thought of it, before; but you certainly are rather like Vulcan, sir.” + +“Well, you can leave me, ma’am: but before you go” (and he retained me by a firmer grasp than ever), “you will be pleased just to answer me a question or two.” He paused. + +“What questions, Mr. Rochester?” + +Then followed this cross-examination. + +“St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were his cousin?” + +“Yes.” + +“You would often see him? He would visit the school sometimes?” + +“Daily.” + +“He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever, for you are a talented creature!” + +“He approved of them—yes.” + +“He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to find? Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary.” + +“I don’t know about that.” + +“You had a little cottage near the school, you say: did he ever come there to see you?” + +“Now and then.” + +“Of an evening?” + +“Once or twice.” + +A pause. + +“How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship was discovered?” + +“Five months.” + +“Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?” + +“Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near the window, and we by the table.” + +“Did he study much?” + +“A good deal.” + +“What?” + +“Hindostanee.” + +“And what did you do meantime?” + +“I learnt German, at first.” + +“Did he teach you?” + +“He did not understand German.” + +“Did he teach you nothing?” + +“A little Hindostanee.” + +“Rivers taught you Hindostanee?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“And his sisters also?” + +“No.” + +“Only you?” + +“Only me.” + +“Did you ask to learn?” + +“No.” + +“He wished to teach you?” + +“Yes.” + +A second pause. + +“Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?” + +“He intended me to go with him to India.” + +“Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him?” + +“He asked me to marry him.” + +“That is a fiction—an impudent invention to vex me.” + +“I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than once, and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be.” + +“Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee, when I have given you notice to quit?” + +“Because I am comfortable there.” + +“No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not with me: it is with this cousin—this St. John. Oh, till this moment, I thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she loved me even when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much bitter. Long as we have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our separation, I never thought that while I was mourning her, she was loving another! But it is useless grieving. Jane, leave me: go and marry Rivers.” + +“Shake me off, then, sir,—push me away, for I’ll not leave you of my own accord.” + +“Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it sounds so truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I forget that you have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool—go—” + +“Where must I go, sir?” + +“Your own way—with the husband you have chosen.” + +“Who is that?” + +“You know—this St. John Rivers.” + +“He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I do not love him. He loves (as he can love, and that is not as you love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary’s wife, which she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe; and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not happy at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence for me—no fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me; not even youth—only a few useful mental points.—Then I must leave you, sir, to go to him?” + +I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my blind but beloved master. He smiled. + +“What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters between you and Rivers?” + +“Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease you a little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better than grief. But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much I do love you, you would be proud and content. All my heart is yours, sir: it belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest of me from your presence for ever.” + +Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect. + +“My seared vision! My crippled strength!” he murmured regretfully. + +I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking, and wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his face a minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and trickle down the manly cheek. My heart swelled. + +“I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield orchard,” he remarked ere long. “And what right would that ruin have to bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?” + +“You are no ruin, sir—no lightning-struck tree: you are green and vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength offers them so safe a prop.” + +Again he smiled: I gave him comfort. + +“You speak of friends, Jane?” he asked. + +“Yes, of friends,” I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew I meant more than friends, but could not tell what other word to employ. He helped me. + +“Ah! Jane. But I want a wife.” + +“Do you, sir?” + +“Yes: is it news to you?” + +“Of course: you said nothing about it before.” + +“Is it unwelcome news?” + +“That depends on circumstances, sir—on your choice.” + +“Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision.” + +“Choose then, sir—her who loves you best.” + +“I will at least choose—her I love best. Jane, will you marry me?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to wait on?” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“Truly, Jane?” + +“Most truly, sir.” + +“Oh! my darling! God bless you and reward you!” + +“Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life—if ever I thought a good thought—if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer—if ever I wished a righteous wish,—I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth.” + +“Because you delight in sacrifice.” + +“Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value—to press my lips to what I love—to repose on what I trust: is that to make a sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice.” + +“And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to overlook my deficiencies.” + +“Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can really be useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence, when you disdained every part but that of the giver and protector.” + +“Hitherto I have hated to be helped—to be led: henceforth, I feel I shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into a hireling’s, but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane’s little fingers. I preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of servants; but Jane’s soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits me: do I suit her?” + +“To the finest fibre of my nature, sir.” + +“The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we must be married instantly.” + +He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising. + +“We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the licence to get—then we marry.” + +“Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from its meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me look at your watch.” + +“Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I have no use for it.” + +“It is nearly four o’clock in the afternoon, sir. Don’t you feel hungry?” + +“The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never mind fine clothes and jewels, now: all that is not worth a fillip.” + +“The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir. The breeze is still: it is quite hot.” + +“Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this moment fastened round my bronze scrag under my cravat? I have worn it since the day I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her.” + +“We will go home through the wood: that will be the shadiest way.” + +He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me. + +“Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart swells with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He sees not as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but far more wisely. I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flower—breathed guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it from me. I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation: instead of bending to the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for ever. You know I was proud of my strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane—only—only of late—I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I began sometimes to pray: very brief prayers they were, but very sincere. + +“Some days since: nay, I can number them—four; it was last Monday night, a singular mood came over me: one in which grief replaced frenzy—sorrow, sullenness. I had long had the impression that since I could nowhere find you, you must be dead. Late that night—perhaps it might be between eleven and twelve o’clock—ere I retired to my dreary rest, I supplicated God, that, if it seemed good to Him, I might soon be taken from this life, and admitted to that world to come, where there was still hope of rejoining Jane. + +“I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open: it soothed me to feel the balmy night-air; though I could see no stars and only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a moon. I longed for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul and flesh! I asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if I had not been long enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might not soon taste bliss and peace once more. That I merited all I endured, I acknowledged—that I could scarcely endure more, I pleaded; and the alpha and omega of my heart’s wishes broke involuntarily from my lips in the words—‘Jane! Jane! Jane!’” + +“Did you speak these words aloud?” + +“I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought me mad: I pronounced them with such frantic energy.” + +“And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?” + +“Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the strange point. You will think me superstitious,—some superstition I have in my blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true—true at least it is that I heard what I now relate. + +“As I exclaimed ‘Jane! Jane! Jane!’ a voice—I cannot tell whence the voice came, but I know whose voice it was—replied, ‘I am coming: wait for me;’ and a moment after, went whispering on the wind the words—‘Where are you?’ + +“I’ll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened to my mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to express. Ferndean is buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls dull, and dies unreverberating. ‘Where are you?’ seemed spoken amongst mountains; for I heard a hill-sent echo repeat the words. Cooler and fresher at the moment the gale seemed to visit my brow: I could have deemed that in some wild, lone scene, I and Jane were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must have met. You no doubt were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane: perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were your accents—as certain as I live—they were yours!” + +Reader, it was on Monday night—near midnight—that I too had received the mysterious summons: those were the very words by which I replied to it. I listened to Mr. Rochester’s narrative, but made no disclosure in return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my tale would be such as must necessarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer: and that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things then, and pondered them in my heart. + +“You cannot now wonder,” continued my master, “that when you rose upon me so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any other than a mere voice and vision, something that would melt to silence and annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted before. Now, I thank God! I know it to be otherwise. Yes, I thank God!” + +He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from his brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in mute devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible. + +“I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!” + +Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder: being so much lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We entered the wood, and wended homeward. + +== CHAPTER XXXVIII — CONCLUSION +Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went into the kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John cleaning the knives, and I said— + +“Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning.” The housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece of news without incurring the danger of having one’s ears pierced by some shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle with which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for some three minutes hang suspended in air; and for the same space of time John’s knives also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending again over the roast, said only— + +“Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!” + +A short time after she pursued—“I seed you go out with the master, but I didn’t know you were gone to church to be wed;” and she basted away. John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear. + +“I telled Mary how it would be,” he said: “I knew what Mr. Edward” (John was an old servant, and had known his master when he was the cadet of the house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian name)—“I knew what Mr. Edward would do; and I was certain he would not wait long neither: and he’s done right, for aught I know. I wish you joy, Miss!” and he politely pulled his forelock. + +“Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this.” I put into his hand a five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time after, I caught the words— + +“She’ll happen do better for him nor ony o’ t’ grand ladies.” And again, “If she ben’t one o’ th’ handsomest, she’s noan faâl and varry good-natured; and i’ his een she’s fair beautiful, onybody may see that.” + +I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I had done: fully explaining also why I had thus acted. Diana and Mary approved the step unreservedly. Diana announced that she would just give me time to get over the honeymoon, and then she would come and see me. + +“She had better not wait till then, Jane,” said Mr. Rochester, when I read her letter to him; “if she does, she will be too late, for our honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your grave or mine.” + +How St. John received the news, I don’t know: he never answered the letter in which I communicated it: yet six months after he wrote to me, without, however, mentioning Mr. Rochester’s name or alluding to my marriage. His letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind. He has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence ever since: he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who live without God in the world, and only mind earthly things. + +You have not quite forgotten little Adèle, have you, reader? I had not; I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr. Rochester, to go and see her at the school where he had placed her. Her frantic joy at beholding me again moved me much. She looked pale and thin: she said she was not happy. I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its course of study too severe for a child of her age: I took her home with me. I meant to become her governess once more, but I soon found this impracticable; my time and cares were now required by another—my husband needed them all. So I sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent system, and near enough to permit of my visiting her often, and bringing her home sometimes. I took care she should never want for anything that could contribute to her comfort: she soon settled in her new abode, became very happy there, and made fair progress in her studies. As she grew up, a sound English education corrected in a great measure her French defects; and when she left school, I found in her a pleasing and obliging companion: docile, good-tempered, and well-principled. By her grateful attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her. + +My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience of married life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose names have most frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have done. + +I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely blest—blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I know no weariness of my Edward’s society: he knows none of mine, any more than we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character—perfect concord is the result. + +Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union; perhaps it was that circumstance that drew us so very near—that knit us so very close: for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand. Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw nature—he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river, cloud, sunbeam—of the landscape before us; of the weather round us—and impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of conducting him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished to be done. And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most exquisite, even though sad—because he claimed these services without painful shame or damping humiliation. He loved me so truly, that he knew no reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt I loved him so fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes. + +One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to his dictation, he came and bent over me, and said—“Jane, have you a glittering ornament round your neck?” + +I had a gold watch-chain: I answered “Yes.” + +“And have you a pale blue dress on?” + +And have you a pale blue dress on? +I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense; and that now he was sure of it. + +He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculist; and he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot now see very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can find his way without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a blank to him—the earth no longer a void. When his first-born was put into his arms, he could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once were—large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with a full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy. + +My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so, because those we most love are happy likewise. Diana and Mary Rivers are both married: alternately, once every year, they come to see us, and we go to see them. Diana’s husband is a captain in the navy, a gallant officer and a good man. Mary’s is a clergyman, a college friend of her brother’s, and, from his attainments and principles, worthy of the connection. Both Captain Fitzjames and Mr. Wharton love their wives, and are loved by them. + +As to St. John Rivers, he left England: he went to India. He entered on the path he had marked for himself; he pursues it still. A more resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers. Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he labours for his race; he clears their painful way to improvement; he hews down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it. He may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who speaks but for Christ, when he says—“Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me.” His is the ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth—who stand without fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful. + +St. John is unmarried: he never will marry now. Himself has hitherto sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws near its close: his glorious sun hastens to its setting. The last letter I received from him drew from my eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart with divine joy: he anticipated his sure reward, his incorruptible crown. I know that a stranger’s hand will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been called at length into the joy of his Lord. And why weep for this? No fear of death will darken St. John’s last hour: his mind will be unclouded, his heart will be undaunted, his hope will be sure, his faith steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this— + +“My Master,” he says, “has forewarned me. Daily He announces more distinctly,—‘Surely I come quickly!’ and hourly I more eagerly respond,—‘Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!’” \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/JoanArc_Vol1.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/JoanArc_Vol1.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..331298c --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/JoanArc_Vol1.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,3137 @@ += Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc: Volume 1 + +== Title Page + +image::https://i.nostr.build/DLHYZjDXDRdCUMXX.jpg[Cover Art, 300] + + +[%hardbreaks] +Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, volumes 1 and 2 +by Mark Twain + +[quote, Louis Kossuth] +Consider this unique and imposing distinction. Since the writing of human history began, Joan of Arc is the only person, of either sex, who has ever held supreme command of the military forces of a nation at the age of seventeen. + +image::https://i.nostr.build/1nW9COJVw2gNxWbR.jpg[0010, 300] + + +== CONTENTS + +Volume 1 + +* PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC +* TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE +* A PECULIARITY OF JOAN OF ARC’S HISTORY +* THE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE +* BOOK I IN DOMREMY +** Chapter 1 When Wolves Ran Free in Paris +** Chapter 2 The Fairy Tree of Domremy +** Chapter 3 All Aflame with Love of France +** Chapter 4 Joan Tames the Mad Man +** Chapter 5 Domremy Pillaged and Burned +** Chapter 6 Joan and Archangel Michael +** Chapter 7 She Delivers the Divine Command +** Chapter 8 Why the Scorners Relented +* BOOK II IN COURT AND CAMP +** Chapter 1 Joan Says Good-By +** Chapter 2 The Governor Speeds Joan +** Chapter 3 The Paladin Groans and Boasts +** Chapter 4 Joan Leads Us Through the Enemy +** Chapter 5 We Pierce the Last Ambuscades +** Chapter 6 Joan Convinces the King +** Chapter 7 Our Paladin in His Glory +** Chapter 8 Joan Persuades Her Inquisitors +** Chapter 9 She Is Made General-in-Chief +** Chapter 10 The Maid’s Sword and Banner +** Chapter 11 The War March Is Begun +** Chapter 12 Joan Puts Heart in Her Army +** Chapter 13 Checked by the Folly of the Wise +** Chapter 14 What the English Answered +** Chapter 15 My Exquisite Poem Goes to Smash +** Chapter 16 The Finding of the Dwarf +** Chapter 17 Sweet Fruit of Bitter Truth +** Chapter 18 Joan’s First Battle-Field +** Chapter 19 We Burst In Upon Ghosts +** Chapter 20 Joan Makes Cowards Brave Victors +** Chapter 21 She Gently Reproves Her Dear Friend +** Chapter 22 The Fate of France Decided +** Chapter 23 Joan Inspires the Tawdry King +** Chapter 24 Tinsel Trappings of Nobility +** Chapter 25 At Last — Forward! +** Chapter 26 The Last Doubts Scattered +** Chapter 27 How Joan Took Jargeau + +== Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1 + +by Mark Twain + +[%hardbreaks] +PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC +by The Sieur Louis De Conte +(her page and secretary) + +[%hardbreaks] +Freely translated out of the ancient French into modern English from the original unpublished manuscript in the National Archives of France +By +Jean Francois Alden + +Authorities examined in verification of the truthfulness of this narrative: + +* J. E. J. QUICHERAT, Condamnation et Rehabilitation de Jeanne d’Arc. +* J. FABRE, Proces de Condamnation de Jeanne d’Arc. +* H. A. WALLON, Jeanne d’Arc. +* M. SEPET, Jeanne d’Arc. +* J. MICHELET, Jeanne d’Arc. +* BERRIAT DE SAINT-PRIX, La Famille de Jeanne d’Arc. +* La Comtesse A. DE CHABANNES, La Vierge Lorraine. +* Monseigneur RICARD, Jeanne d’Arc la Venerable. +* Lord RONALD GOWER, F.S.A., Joan of Arc. JOHN O’HAGAN, Joan of Arc. +* JANET TUCKEY, Joan of Arc the Maid. + +== TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE + +To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man’s character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours. Judged by the standards of one century, the noblest characters of an earlier one lose much of their luster; judged by the standards of to-day, there is probably no illustrious man of four or five centuries ago whose character could meet the test at all points. But the character of Joan of Arc is unique. It can be measured by the standards of all times without misgiving or apprehension as to the result. Judged by any of them, it is still flawless, it is still ideally perfect; it still occupies the loftiest place possible to human attainment, a loftier one than has been reached by any other mere mortal. + +When we reflect that her century was the brutalest, the wickedest, the rottenest in history since the darkest ages, we are lost in wonder at the miracle of such a product from such a soil. The contrast between her and her century is the contrast between day and night. She was truthful when lying was the common speech of men; she was honest when honesty was become a lost virtue; she was a keeper of promises when the keeping of a promise was expected of no one; she gave her great mind to great thoughts and great purposes when other great minds wasted themselves upon pretty fancies or upon poor ambitions; she was modest, and fine, and delicate when to be loud and coarse might be said to be universal; she was full of pity when a merciless cruelty was the rule; she was steadfast when stability was unknown, and honorable in an age which had forgotten what honor was; she was a rock of convictions in a time when men believed in nothing and scoffed at all things; she was unfailingly true to an age that was false to the core; she maintained her personal dignity unimpaired in an age of fawnings and servilities; she was of a dauntless courage when hope and courage had perished in the hearts of her nation; she was spotlessly pure in mind and body when society in the highest places was foul in both — she was all these things in an age when crime was the common business of lords and princes, and when the highest personages in Christendom were able to astonish even that infamous era and make it stand aghast at the spectacle of their atrocious lives black with unimaginable treacheries, butcheries, and beastialities. + +She was perhaps the only entirely unselfish person whose name has a place in profane history. No vestige or suggestion of self-seeking can be found in any word or deed of hers. When she had rescued her King from his vagabondage, and set his crown upon his head, she was offered rewards and honors, but she refused them all, and would take nothing. All she would take for herself — if the King would grant it — was leave to go back to her village home, and tend her sheep again, and feel her mother’s arms about her, and be her housemaid and helper. The selfishness of this unspoiled general of victorious armies, companion of princes, and idol of an applauding and grateful nation, reached but that far and no farther. + +The work wrought by Joan of Arc may fairly be regarded as ranking any recorded in history, when one considers the conditions under which it was undertaken, the obstacles in the way, and the means at her disposal. Caesar carried conquests far, but he did it with the trained and confident veterans of Rome, and was a trained soldier himself; and Napoleon swept away the disciplined armies of Europe, but he also was a trained soldier, and he began his work with patriot battalions inflamed and inspired by the miracle-working new breath of Liberty breathed upon them by the Revolution — eager young apprentices to the splendid trade of war, not old and broken men-at-arms, despairing survivors of an age-long accumulation of monotonous defeats; but Joan of Arc, a mere child in years, ignorant, unlettered, a poor village girl unknown and without influence, found a great nation lying in chains, helpless and hopeless under an alien domination, its treasury bankrupt, its soldiers disheartened and dispersed, all spirit torpid, all courage dead in the hearts of the people through long years of foreign and domestic outrage and oppression, their King cowed, resigned to its fate, and preparing to fly the country; and she laid her hand upon this nation, this corpse, and it rose and followed her. She led it from victory to victory, she turned back the tide of the Hundred Years’ War, she fatally crippled the English power, and died with the earned title of DELIVERER OF FRANCE, which she bears to this day. + +And for all reward, the French King, whom she had crowned, stood supine and indifferent, while French priests took the noble child, the most innocent, the most lovely, the most adorable the ages have produced, and burned her alive at the stake. + +== A PECULIARITY OF JOAN OF ARC’S HISTORY + +The details of the life of Joan of Arc form a biography which is unique among the world’s biographies in one respect: It is the only story of a human life which comes to us under oath, the only one which comes to us from the witness-stand. The official records of the Great Trial of 1431, and of the Process of Rehabilitation of a quarter of a century later, are still preserved in the National Archives of France, and they furnish with remarkable fullness the facts of her life. The history of no other life of that remote time is known with either the certainty or the comprehensiveness that attaches to hers. + +The Sieur Louis de Conte is faithful to her official history in his Personal Recollections, and thus far his trustworthiness is unimpeachable; but his mass of added particulars must depend for credit upon his word alone. +— THE TRANSLATOR. + +== THE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE + +_To his Great-Great-Grand Nephews and Nieces_ + +This is the year 1492. I am eighty-two years of age. The things I am going to tell you are things which I saw myself as a child and as a youth. + +In all the tales and songs and histories of Joan of Arc, which you and the rest of the world read and sing and study in the books wrought in the late invented art of printing, mention is made of me, the Sieur Louis de Conte — I was her page and secretary, I was with her from the beginning until the end. + +I was reared in the same village with her. I played with her every day, when we were little children together, just as you play with your mates. Now that we perceive how great she was, now that her name fills the whole world, it seems strange that what I am saying is true; for it is as if a perishable paltry candle should speak of the eternal sun riding in the heavens and say, “He was gossip and housemate to me when we were candles together.” And yet it is true, just as I say. I was her playmate, and I fought at her side in the wars; to this day I carry in my mind, fine and clear, the picture of that dear little figure, with breast bent to the flying horse’s neck, charging at the head of the armies of France, her hair streaming back, her silver mail plowing steadily deeper and deeper into the thick of the battle, sometimes nearly drowned from sight by tossing heads of horses, uplifted sword-arms, wind-blow plumes, and intercepting shields. I was with her to the end; and when that black day came whose accusing shadow will lie always upon the memory of the mitered French slaves of England who were her assassins, and upon France who stood idle and essayed no rescue, my hand was the last she touched in life. + +As the years and the decades drifted by, and the spectacle of the marvelous child’s meteor flight across the war firmament of France and its extinction in the smoke-clouds of the stake receded deeper and deeper into the past and grew ever more strange, and wonderful, and divine, and pathetic, I came to comprehend and recognize her at last for what she was — the most noble life that was ever born into this world save only One. + +== BOOK I + +IN DOMREMY + +== Chapter 1 When Wolves Ran Free in Paris + +I, THE SIEUR LOUIS DE CONTE, was born in Neufchateau, on the 6th of January, 1410; that is to say, exactly two years before Joan of Arc was born in Domremy. My family had fled to those distant regions from the neighborhood of Paris in the first years of the century. In politics they were Armagnacs — patriots; they were for our own French King, crazy and impotent as he was. The Burgundian party, who were for the English, had stripped them, and done it well. They took everything but my father’s small nobility, and when he reached Neufchateau he reached it in poverty and with a broken spirit. But the political atmosphere there was the sort he liked, and that was something. He came to a region of comparative quiet; he left behind him a region peopled with furies, madmen, devils, where slaughter was a daily pastime and no man’s life safe for a moment. In Paris, mobs roared through the streets nightly, sacking, burning, killing, unmolested, uninterrupted. The sun rose upon wrecked and smoking buildings, and upon mutilated corpses lying here, there, and yonder about the streets, just as they fell, and stripped naked by thieves, the unholy gleaners after the mob. None had the courage to gather these dead for burial; they were left there to rot and create plagues. + +And plagues they did create. Epidemics swept away the people like flies, and the burials were conducted secretly and by night, for public funerals were not allowed, lest the revelation of the magnitude of the plague’s work unman the people and plunge them into despair. Then came, finally, the bitterest winter which had visited France in five hundred years. Famine, pestilence, slaughter, ice, snow — Paris had all these at once. The dead lay in heaps about the streets, and wolves entered the city in daylight and devoured them. + +Ah, France had fallen low — so low! For more than three quarters of a century the English fangs had been bedded in her flesh, and so cowed had her armies become by ceaseless rout and defeat that it was said and accepted that the mere sight of an English army was sufficient to put a French one to flight. + +When I was five years old the prodigious disaster of Agincourt fell upon France; and although the English King went home to enjoy his glory, he left the country prostrate and a prey to roving bands of Free Companions in the service of the Burgundian party, and one of these bands came raiding through Neufchateau one night, and by the light of our burning roof-thatch I saw all that were dear to me in this world (save an elder brother, your ancestor, left behind with the court) butchered while they begged for mercy, and heard the butchers laugh at their prayers and mimic their pleadings. I was overlooked, and escaped without hurt. When the savages were gone I crept out and cried the night away watching the burning houses; and I was all alone, except for the company of the dead and the wounded, for the rest had taken flight and hidden themselves. + +I was sent to Domremy, to the priest, whose housekeeper became a loving mother to me. The priest, in the course of time, taught me to read and write, and he and I were the only persons in the village who possessed this learning. + +At the time that the house of this good priest, Guillaume Fronte, became my home, I was six years old. We lived close by the village church, and the small garden of Joan’s parents was behind the church. As to that family there were Jacques d’Arc the father, his wife Isabel Romee; three sons — Jacques, ten years old, Pierre, eight, and Jean, seven; Joan, four, and her baby sister Catherine, about a year old. I had these children for playmates from the beginning. I had some other playmates besides — particularly four boys: Pierre Morel, Etienne Roze, Noel Rainguesson, and Edmond Aubrey, whose father was maire at that time; also two girls, about Joan’s age, who by and by became her favorites; one was named Haumetter, the other was called Little Mengette. These girls were common peasant children, like Joan herself. When they grew up, both married common laborers. Their estate was lowly enough, you see; yet a time came, many years after, when no passing stranger, howsoever great he might be, failed to go and pay his reverence to those two humble old women who had been honored in their youth by the friendship of Joan of Arc. + +These were all good children, just of the ordinary peasant type; not bright, of course — you would not expect that — but good-hearted and companionable, obedient to their parents and the priest; and as they grew up they became properly stocked with narrowness and prejudices got at second hand from their elders, and adopted without reserve; and without examination also — which goes without saying. Their religion was inherited, their politics the same. John Huss and his sort might find fault with the Church, in Domremy it disturbed nobody’s faith; and when the split came, when I was fourteen, and we had three Popes at once, nobody in Domremy was worried about how to choose among them — the Pope of Rome was the right one, a Pope outside of Rome was no Pope at all. Every human creature in the village was an Armagnac — a patriot — and if we children hotly hated nothing else in the world, we did certainly hate the English and Burgundian name and polity in that way. + +== Chapter 2 The Fairy Tree of Domremy + +OUR DOMREMY was like any other humble little hamlet of that remote time and region. It was a maze of crooked, narrow lanes and alleys shaded and sheltered by the overhanging thatch roofs of the barnlike houses. The houses were dimly lighted by wooden-shuttered windows — that is, holes in the walls which served for windows. The floors were dirt, and there was very little furniture. Sheep and cattle grazing was the main industry; all the young folks tended flocks. + +The situation was beautiful. From one edge of the village a flowery plain extended in a wide sweep to the river — the Meuse; from the rear edge of the village a grassy slope rose gradually, and at the top was the great oak forest — a forest that was deep and gloomy and dense, and full of interest for us children, for many murders had been done in it by outlaws in old times, and in still earlier times prodigious dragons that spouted fire and poisonous vapors from their nostrils had their homes in there. In fact, one was still living in there in our own time. It was as long as a tree, and had a body as big around as a tierce, and scales like overlapping great tiles, and deep ruby eyes as large as a cavalier’s hat, and an anchor-fluke on its tail as big as I don’t know what, but very big, even unusually so for a dragon, as everybody said who knew about dragons. It was thought that this dragon was of a brilliant blue color, with gold mottlings, but no one had ever seen it, therefore this was not known to be so, it was only an opinion. It was not my opinion; I think there is no sense in forming an opinion when there is no evidence to form it on. If you build a person without any bones in him he may look fair enough to the eye, but he will be limber and cannot stand up; and I consider that evidence is the bones of an opinion. But I will take up this matter more at large at another time, and try to make the justness of my position appear. As to that dragon, I always held the belief that its color was gold and without blue, for that has always been the color of dragons. That this dragon lay but a little way within the wood at one time is shown by the fact that Pierre Morel was in there one day and smelt it, and recognized it by the smell. It gives one a horrid idea of how near to us the deadliest danger can be and we not suspect it. + +In the earliest times a hundred knights from many remote places in the earth would have gone in there one after another, to kill the dragon and get the reward, but in our time that method had gone out, and the priest had become the one that abolished dragons. Pere Guillaume Fronte did it in this case. He had a procession, with candles and incense and banners, and marched around the edge of the wood and exorcised the dragon, and it was never heard of again, although it was the opinion of many that the smell never wholly passed away. Not that any had ever smelt the smell again, for none had; it was only an opinion, like that other — and lacked bones, you see. I know that the creature was there before the exorcism, but whether it was there afterward or not is a thing which I cannot be so positive about. + +In a noble open space carpeted with grass on the high ground toward Vaucouleurs stood a most majestic beech tree with wide-reaching arms and a grand spread of shade, and by it a limpid spring of cold water; and on summer days the children went there — oh, every summer for more than five hundred years — went there and sang and danced around the tree for hours together, refreshing themselves at the spring from time to time, and it was most lovely and enjoyable. Also they made wreaths of flowers and hung them upon the tree and about the spring to please the fairies that lived there; for they liked that, being idle innocent little creatures, as all fairies are, and fond of anything delicate and pretty like wild flowers put together in that way. And in return for this attention the fairies did any friendly thing they could for the children, such as keeping the spring always full and clear and cold, and driving away serpents and insects that sting; and so there was never any unkindness between the fairies and the children during more than five hundred years — tradition said a thousand — but only the warmest affection and the most perfect trust and confidence; and whenever a child died the fairies mourned just as that child’s playmates did, and the sign of it was there to see; for before the dawn on the day of the funeral they hung a little immortelle over the place where that child was used to sit under the tree. I know this to be true by my own eyes; it is not hearsay. And the reason it was known that the fairies did it was this — that it was made all of black flowers of a sort not known in France anywhere. + +Now from time immemorial all children reared in Domremy were called the Children of the Tree; and they loved that name, for it carried with it a mystic privilege not granted to any others of the children of this world. Which was this: whenever one of these came to die, then beyond the vague and formless images drifting through his darkening mind rose soft and rich and fair a vision of the Tree — if all was well with his soul. That was what some said. Others said the vision came in two ways: once as a warning, one or two years in advance of death, when the soul was the captive of sin, and then the Tree appeared in its desolate winter aspect — then that soul was smitten with an awful fear. If repentance came, and purity of life, the vision came again, this time summer-clad and beautiful; but if it were otherwise with that soul the vision was withheld, and it passed from life knowing its doom. Still others said that the vision came but once, and then only to the sinless dying forlorn in distant lands and pitifully longing for some last dear reminder of their home. And what reminder of it could go to their hearts like the picture of the Tree that was the darling of their love and the comrade of their joys and comforter of their small griefs all through the divine days of their vanished youth? + +Now the several traditions were as I have said, some believing one and some another. One of them I knew to be the truth, and that was the last one. I do not say anything against the others; I think they were true, but I only know that the last one was; and it is my thought that if one keep to the things he knows, and not trouble about the things which he cannot be sure about, he will have the steadier mind for it — and there is profit in that. I know that when the Children of the Tree die in a far land, then — if they be at peace with God — they turn their longing eyes toward home, and there, far-shining, as through a rift in a cloud that curtains heaven, they see the soft picture of the Fairy Tree, clothed in a dream of golden light; and they see the bloomy mead sloping away to the river, and to their perishing nostrils is blown faint and sweet the fragrance of the flowers of home. And then the vision fades and passes — but they know, they know! and by their transfigured faces you know also, you who stand looking on; yes, you know the message that has come, and that it has come from heaven. + +Joan and I believed alike about this matter. But Pierre Morel and Jacques d’Arc, and many others believed that the vision appeared twice — to a sinner. In fact, they and many others said they knew it. Probably because their fathers had known it and had told them; for one gets most things at second hand in this world. + +Now one thing that does make it quite likely that there were really two apparitions of the Tree is this fact: From the most ancient times if one saw a villager of ours with his face ash-white and rigid with a ghastly fright, it was common for every one to whisper to his neighbor, “Ah, he is in sin, and has got his warning.” And the neighbor would shudder at the thought and whisper back, “Yes, poor soul, he has seen the Tree.” + +Such evidences as these have their weight; they are not to be put aside with a wave of the hand. A thing that is backed by the cumulative evidence of centuries naturally gets nearer and nearer to being proof all the time; and if this continue and continue, it will some day become authority — and authority is a bedded rock, and will abide. + +In my long life I have seen several cases where the tree appeared announcing a death which was still far away; but in none of these was the person in a state of sin. No; the apparition was in these cases only a special grace; in place of deferring the tidings of that soul’s redemption till the day of death, the apparition brought them long before, and with them peace — peace that might no more be disturbed — the eternal peace of God. I myself, old and broken, wait with serenity; for I have seen the vision of the Tree. I have seen it, and am content. + +Always, from the remotest times, when the children joined hands and danced around the Fairy Tree they sang a song which was the Tree’s song, the song of L’Arbre fee de Bourlemont. They sang it to a quaint sweet air — a solacing sweet air which has gone murmuring through my dreaming spirit all my life when I was weary and troubled, resting me and carrying me through night and distance home again. No stranger can know or feel what that song has been, through the drifting centuries, to exiled Children of the Tree, homeless and heavy of heart in countries foreign to their speech and ways. You will think it a simple thing, that song, and poor, perchance; but if you will remember what it was to us, and what it brought before our eyes when it floated through our memories, then you will respect it. And you will understand how the water wells up in our eyes and makes all things dim, and our voices break and we cannot sing the last lines: + +“And when, in Exile wand’ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, Oh, rise upon our sight!” + +And you will remember that Joan of Arc sang this song with us around the Tree when she was a little child, and always loved it. And that hallows it, yes, you will grant that: + +.... +L’ARBRE FEE DE BOURLEMONT + +SONG OF THE CHILDREN + +[%hardbreaks] +Now what has kept your leaves so green, +Arbre Fee de Bourlemont? + +[%hardbreaks] +The children’s tears! They brought each grief, +And you did comfort them and cheer +Their bruised hearts, and steal a tear +That, healed, rose a leaf. + +[%hardbreaks] +And what has built you up so strong, +Arbre Fee de Bourlemont? + +[%hardbreaks] +The children’s love! They’ve loved you long +Ten hundred years, in sooth, +They’ve nourished you with praise and song, +And warmed your heart and kept it young — +A thousand years of youth! + +[%hardbreaks] +Bide always green in our young hearts, +Arbre Fee de Bourlemont! +And we shall always youthful be, +Not heeding Time his flight; +And when, in exile wand’ring, we +Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, +Oh, rise upon our sight! +.... + +The fairies were still there when we were children, but we never saw them; because, a hundred years before that, the priest of Domremy had held a religious function under the tree and denounced them as being blood-kin to the Fiend and barred them from redemption; and then he warned them never to show themselves again, nor hang any more immortelles, on pain of perpetual banishment from that parish. + +All the children pleaded for the fairies, and said they were their good friends and dear to them and never did them any harm, but the priest would not listen, and said it was sin and shame to have such friends. The children mourned and could not be comforted; and they made an agreement among themselves that they would always continue to hang flower-wreaths on the tree as a perpetual sign to the fairies that they were still loved and remembered, though lost to sight. + +But late one night a great misfortune befell. Edmond Aubrey’s mother passed by the Tree, and the fairies were stealing a dance, not thinking anybody was by; and they were so busy, and so intoxicated with the wild happiness of it, and with the bumpers of dew sharpened up with honey which they had been drinking, that they noticed nothing; so Dame Aubrey stood there astonished and admiring, and saw the little fantastic atoms holding hands, as many as three hundred of them, tearing around in a great ring half as big as an ordinary bedroom, and leaning away back and spreading their mouths with laughter and song, which she could hear quite distinctly, and kicking their legs up as much as three inches from the ground in perfect abandon and hilarity — oh, the very maddest and witchingest dance the woman ever saw. + +But in about a minute or two minutes the poor little ruined creatures discovered her. They burst out in one heartbreaking squeak of grief and terror and fled every which way, with their wee hazel-nut fists in their eyes and crying; and so disappeared. + +The heartless woman — no, the foolish woman; she was not heartless, but only thoughtless — went straight home and told the neighbors all about it, whilst we, the small friends of the fairies, were asleep and not witting the calamity that was come upon us, and all unconscious that we ought to be up and trying to stop these fatal tongues. In the morning everybody knew, and the disaster was complete, for where everybody knows a thing the priest knows it, of course. We all flocked to Pere Fronte, crying and begging — and he had to cry, too, seeing our sorrow, for he had a most kind and gentle nature; and he did not want to banish the fairies, and said so; but said he had no choice, for it had been decreed that if they ever revealed themselves to man again, they must go. This all happened at the worst time possible, for Joan of Arc was ill of a fever and out of her head, and what could we do who had not her gifts of reasoning and persuasion? We flew in a swarm to her bed and cried out, “Joan, wake! Wake, there is no moment to lose! Come and plead for the fairies — come and save them; only you can do it!” + +But her mind was wandering, she did not know what we said nor what we meant; so we went away knowing all was lost. Yes, all was lost, forever lost; the faithful friends of the children for five hundred years must go, and never come back any more. + +It was a bitter day for us, that day that Pere Fronte held the function under the tree and banished the fairies. We could not wear mourning that any could have noticed, it would not have been allowed; so we had to be content with some poor small rag of black tied upon our garments where it made no show; but in our hearts we wore mourning, big and noble and occupying all the room, for our hearts were ours; they could not get at them to prevent that. + +The great tree — l’Arbre Fee de Bourlemont was its beautiful name — was never afterward quite as much to us as it had been before, but it was always dear; is dear to me yet when I go there now, once a year in my old age, to sit under it and bring back the lost playmates of my youth and group them about me and look upon their faces through my tears and break my heart, oh, my God! No, the place was not quite the same afterward. In one or two ways it could not be; for, the fairies’ protection being gone, the spring lost much of its freshness and coldness, and more than two-thirds of its volume, and the banished serpents and stinging insects returned, and multiplied, and became a torment and have remained so to this day. + +When that wise little child, Joan, got well, we realized how much her illness had cost us; for we found that we had been right in believing she could save the fairies. She burst into a great storm of anger, for so little a creature, and went straight to Pere Fronte, and stood up before him where he sat, and made reverence and said: + +“The fairies were to go if they showed themselves to people again, is it not so?” + +“Yes, that was it, dear.” + +“If a man comes prying into a person’s room at midnight when that person is half-naked, will you be so unjust as to say that that person is showing himself to that man?” + +“Well — no.” The good priest looked a little troubled and uneasy when he said it. + +“Is a sin a sin, anyway, even if one did not intend to commit it?” + +Pere Fronte threw up his hands and cried out: + +“Oh, my poor little child, I see all my fault,” and he drew her to his side and put an arm around her and tried to make his peace with her, but her temper was up so high that she could not get it down right away, but buried her head against his breast and broke out crying and said: + +“Then the fairies committed no sin, for there was no intention to commit one, they not knowing that any one was by; and because they were little creatures and could not speak for themselves and say the law was against the intention, not against the innocent act, because they had no friend to think that simple thing for them and say it, they have been sent away from their home forever, and it was wrong, wrong to do it!” + +The good father hugged her yet closer to his side and said: + +“Oh, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings the heedless and unthinking are condemned; would God I could bring the little creatures back, for your sake. And mine, yes, and mine; for I have been unjust. There, there, don’t cry — nobody could be sorrier than your poor old friend — don’t cry, dear.” + +“But I can’t stop right away, I’ve got to. And it is no little matter, this thing that you have done. Is being sorry penance enough for such an act?” + +Pere Fronte turned away his face, for it would have hurt her to see him laugh, and said: + +“Oh, thou remorseless but most just accuser, no, it is not. I will put on sackcloth and ashes; there — are you satisfied?” + +Joan’s sobs began to diminish, and she presently looked up at the old man through her tears, and said, in her simple way: + +“Yes, that will do — if it will clear you.” + +Pere Fronte would have been moved to laugh again, perhaps, if he had not remembered in time that he had made a contract, and not a very agreeable one. It must be fulfilled. So he got up and went to the fireplace, Joan watching him with deep interest, and took a shovelful of cold ashes, and was going to empty them on his old gray head when a better idea came to him, and he said: + +“Would you mind helping me, dear?” + +“How, father?” + +He got down on his knees and bent his head low, and said: + +“Take the ashes and put them on my head for me.” + +The matter ended there, of course. The victory was with the priest. One can imagine how the idea of such a profanation would strike Joan or any other child in the village. She ran and dropped upon her knees by his side and said: + +“Oh, it is dreadful. I didn’t know that that was what one meant by sackcloth and ashes — do please get up, father.” + +“But I can’t until I am forgiven. Do you forgive me?” + +“I? Oh, you have done nothing to me, father; it is yourself that must forgive yourself for wronging those poor things. Please get up, father, won’t you?” + +“But I am worse off now than I was before. I thought I was earning your forgiveness, but if it is my own, I can’t be lenient; it would not become me. Now what can I do? Find me some way out of this with your wise little head.” + +The Pere would not stir, for all Joan’s pleadings. She was about to cry again; then she had an idea, and seized the shovel and deluged her own head with the ashes, stammering out through her chokings and suffocations: + +“There — now it is done. Oh, please get up, father.” + +The old man, both touched and amused, gathered her to his breast and said: + +“Oh, you incomparable child! It’s a humble martyrdom, and not of a sort presentable in a picture, but the right and true spirit is in it; that I testify.” + +Then he brushed the ashes out of her hair, and helped her scour her face and neck and properly tidy herself up. He was in fine spirits now, and ready for further argument, so he took his seat and drew Joan to his side again, and said: + +“Joan, you were used to make wreaths there at the Fairy Tree with the other children; is it not so?” + +That was the way he always started out when he was going to corner me up and catch me in something — just that gentle, indifferent way that fools a person so, and leads him into the trap, he never noticing which way he is traveling until he is in and the door shut on him. He enjoyed that. I knew he was going to drop corn along in front of Joan now. Joan answered: + +“Yes, father.” + +“Did you hang them on the tree?” + +“No, father.” + +“Didn’t hang them there?” + +“No.” + +“Why didn’t you?” + +“I — well, I didn’t wish to.” + +“Didn’t wish to?” + +“No, father.” + +“What did you do with them?” + +“I hung them in the church.” + +“Why didn’t you want to hang them in the tree?” + +“Because it was said that the fairies were of kin to the Fiend, and that it was sinful to show them honor.” + +“Did you believe it was wrong to honor them so?” + +“Yes. I thought it must be wrong.” + +“Then if it was wrong to honor them in that way, and if they were of kin to the Fiend, they could be dangerous company for you and the other children, couldn’t they?” + +“I suppose so — yes, I think so.” + +He studied a minute, and I judged he was going to spring his trap, and he did. He said: + +“Then the matter stands like this. They were banned creatures, of fearful origin; they could be dangerous company for the children. Now give me a rational reason, dear, if you can think of any, why you call it a wrong to drive them into banishment, and why you would have saved them from it. In a word, what loss have you suffered by it?” + +How stupid of him to go and throw his case away like that! I could have boxed his ears for vexation if he had been a boy. He was going along all right until he ruined everything by winding up in that foolish and fatal way. What had she lost by it! Was he never going to find out what kind of a child Joan of Arc was? Was he never going to learn that things which merely concerned her own gain or loss she cared nothing about? Could he never get the simple fact into his head that the sure way and the only way to rouse her up and set her on fire was to show her where some other person was going to suffer wrong or hurt or loss? Why, he had gone and set a trap for himself — that was all he had accomplished. + +The minute those words were out of his mouth her temper was up, the indignant tears rose in her eyes, and she burst out on him with an energy and passion which astonished him, but didn’t astonish me, for I knew he had fired a mine when he touched off his ill-chosen climax. + +“Oh, father, how can you talk like that? Who owns France?” + +“God and the King.” + +“Not Satan?” + +“Satan, my child? This is the footstool of the Most High — Satan owns no handful of its soil.” + +“Then who gave those poor creatures their home? God. Who protected them in it all those centuries? God. Who allowed them to dance and play there all those centuries and found no fault with it? God. Who disapproved of God’s approval and put a threat upon them? A man. Who caught them again in harmless sports that God allowed and a man forbade, and carried out that threat, and drove the poor things away from the home the good God gave them in His mercy and His pity, and sent down His rain and dew and sunshine upon it five hundred years in token of His peace? It was their home — theirs, by the grace of God and His good heart, and no man had a right to rob them of it. And they were the gentlest, truest friends that children ever had, and did them sweet and loving service all these five long centuries, and never any hurt or harm; and the children loved them, and now they mourn for them, and there is no healing for their grief. And what had the children done that they should suffer this cruel stroke? The poor fairies could have been dangerous company for the children? Yes, but never had been; and could is no argument. Kinsmen of the Fiend? What of it? Kinsmen of the Fiend have rights, and these had; and children have rights, and these had; and if I had been there I would have spoken — I would have begged for the children and the fiends, and stayed your hand and saved them all. But now — oh, now, all is lost; everything is lost, and there is no help more!” + +Then she finished with a blast at that idea that fairy kinsmen of the Fiend ought to be shunned and denied human sympathy and friendship because salvation was barred against them. She said that for that very reason people ought to pity them, and do every humane and loving thing they could to make them forget the hard fate that had been put upon them by accident of birth and no fault of their own. “Poor little creatures!” she said. “What can a person’s heart be made of that can pity a Christian’s child and yet can’t pity a devil’s child, that a thousand times more needs it!” + +She had torn loose from Pere Fronte, and was crying, with her knuckles in her eyes, and stamping her small feet in a fury; and now she burst out of the place and was gone before we could gather our senses together out of this storm of words and this whirlwind of passion. + +The Pere had got upon his feet, toward the last, and now he stood there passing his hand back and forth across his forehead like a person who is dazed and troubled; then he turned and wandered toward the door of his little workroom, and as he passed through it I heard him murmur sorrowfully: + +“Ah, me, poor children, poor fiends, they have rights, and she said true — I never thought of that. God forgive me, I am to blame.” + +When I heard that, I knew I was right in the thought that he had set a trap for himself. It was so, and he had walked into it, you see. I seemed to feel encouraged, and wondered if mayhap I might get him into one; but upon reflection my heart went down, for this was not my gift. + +== Chapter 3 All Aflame with Love of France + +image::https://i.nostr.build/NpKZmpeIGSr04QWP.jpg[0045, 300] + + +SPEAKING of this matter reminds me of many incidents, many things that I could tell, but I think I will not try to do it now. It will be more to my present humor to call back a little glimpse of the simple and colorless good times we used to have in our village homes in those peaceful days — especially in the winter. In the summer we children were out on the breezy uplands with the flocks from dawn till night, and then there was noisy frolicking and all that; but winter was the cozy time, winter was the snug time. Often we gathered in old Jacques d’Arc’s big dirt-floored apartment, with a great fire going, and played games, and sang songs, and told fortunes, and listened to the old villagers tell tales and histories and lies and one thing and another till twelve o’clock at night. + +One winter’s night we were gathered there — it was the winter that for years afterward they called the hard winter — and that particular night was a sharp one. It blew a gale outside, and the screaming of the wind was a stirring sound, and I think I may say it was beautiful, for I think it is great and fine and beautiful to hear the wind rage and storm and blow its clarions like that, when you are inside and comfortable. And we were. We had a roaring fire, and the pleasant spit-spit of the snow and sleet falling in it down the chimney, and the yarning and laughing and singing went on at a noble rate till about ten o’clock, and then we had a supper of hot porridge and beans, and meal cakes with butter, and appetites to match. + +Little Joan sat on a box apart, and had her bowl and bread on another one, and her pets around her helping. She had more than was usual of them or economical, because all the outcast cats came and took up with her, and homeless or unlovable animals of other kinds heard about it and came, and these spread the matter to the other creatures, and they came also; and as the birds and the other timid wild things of the woods were not afraid of her, but always had an idea she was a friend when they came across her, and generally struck up an acquaintance with her to get invited to the house, she always had samples of those breeds in stock. She was hospitable to them all, for an animal was an animal to her, and dear by mere reason of being an animal, no matter about its sort or social station; and as she would allow of no cages, no collars, no fetters, but left the creatures free to come and go as they liked, that contented them, and they came; but they didn’t go, to any extent, and so they were a marvelous nuisance, and made Jacques d’Arc swear a good deal; but his wife said God gave the child the instinct, and knew what He was doing when He did it, therefore it must have its course; it would be no sound prudence to meddle with His affairs when no invitation had been extended. So the pets were left in peace, and here they were, as I have said, rabbits, birds, squirrels, cats, and other reptiles, all around the child, and full of interest in her supper, and helping what they could. There was a very small squirrel on her shoulder, sitting up, as those creatures do, and turning a rocky fragment of prehistoric chestnut-cake over and over in its knotty hands, and hunting for the less indurated places, and giving its elevated bushy tail a flirt and its pointed ears a toss when it found one — signifying thankfulness and surprise — and then it filed that place off with those two slender front teeth which a squirrel carries for that purpose and not for ornament, for ornamental they never could be, as any will admit that have noticed them. + +Everything was going fine and breezy and hilarious, but then there came an interruption, for somebody hammered on the door. It was one of those ragged road-stragglers — the eternal wars kept the country full of them. He came in, all over snow, and stamped his feet, and shook, and brushed himself, and shut the door, and took off his limp ruin of a hat, and slapped it once or twice against his leg to knock off its fleece of snow, and then glanced around on the company with a pleased look upon his thin face, and a most yearning and famished one in his eye when it fell upon the victuals, and then he gave us a humble and conciliatory salutation, and said it was a blessed thing to have a fire like that on such a night, and a roof overhead like this, and that rich food to eat, and loving friends to talk with — ah, yes, this was true, and God help the homeless, and such as must trudge the roads in this weather. + +Nobody said anything. The embarrassed poor creature stood there and appealed to one face after the other with his eyes, and found no welcome in any, the smile on his own face flickering and fading and perishing, meanwhile; then he dropped his gaze, the muscles of his face began to twitch, and he put up his hand to cover this womanish sign of weakness. + +“Sit down!” + +This thunder-blast was from old Jacques d’Arc, and Joan was the object of it. The stranger was startled, and took his hand away, and there was Joan standing before him offering him her bowl of porridge. The man said: + +“God Almighty bless you, my darling!” and then the tears came, and ran down his cheeks, but he was afraid to take the bowl. + +“Do you hear me? Sit down, I say!” + +There could not be a child more easy to persuade than Joan, but this was not the way. Her father had not the art; neither could he learn it. Joan said: + +“Father, he is hungry; I can see it.” + +“Let him work for food, then. We are being eaten out of house and home by his like, and I have said I would endure it no more, and will keep my word. He has the face of a rascal anyhow, and a villain. Sit down, I tell you!” + +“I know not if he is a rascal or no, but he is hungry, father, and shall have my porridge — I do not need it.” + +“If you don’t obey me I’ll — Rascals are not entitled to help from honest people, and no bite nor sup shall they have in this house. Joan!” + +She set her bowl down on the box and came over and stood before her scowling father, and said: + +“Father, if you will not let me, then it must be as you say; but I would that you would think — then you would see that it is not right to punish one part of him for what the other part has done; for it is that poor stranger’s head that does the evil things, but it is not his head that is hungry, it is his stomach, and it has done no harm to anybody, but is without blame, and innocent, not having any way to do a wrong, even if it was minded to it. Please let — ” + +“What an idea! It is the most idiotic speech I ever heard.” + +But Aubrey, the maire, broke in, he being fond of an argument, and having a pretty gift in that regard, as all acknowledged. Rising in his place and leaning his knuckles upon the table and looking about him with easy dignity, after the manner of such as be orators, he began, smooth and persuasive: + +“I will differ with you there, gossip, and will undertake to show the company” — here he looked around upon us and nodded his head in a confident way — “that there is a grain of sense in what the child has said; for look you, it is of a certainty most true and demonstrable that it is a man’s head that is master and supreme ruler over his whole body. Is that granted? Will any deny it?” He glanced around again; everybody indicated assent. “Very well, then; that being the case, no part of the body is responsible for the result when it carries out an order delivered to it by the head; ergo, the head is alone responsible for crimes done by a man’s hands or feet or stomach — do you get the idea? am I right thus far?” Everybody said yes, and said it with enthusiasm, and some said, one to another, that the maire was in great form to-night and at his very best — which pleased the maire exceedingly and made his eyes sparkle with pleasure, for he overheard these things; so he went on in the same fertile and brilliant way. “Now, then, we will consider what the term responsibility means, and how it affects the case in point. Responsibility makes a man responsible for only those things for which he is properly responsible” — and he waved his spoon around in a wide sweep to indicate the comprehensive nature of that class of responsibilities which render people responsible, and several exclaimed, admiringly, “He is right! — he has put that whole tangled thing into a nutshell — it is wonderful!” After a little pause to give the interest opportunity to gather and grow, he went on: “Very good. Let us suppose the case of a pair of tongs that falls upon a man’s foot, causing a cruel hurt. Will you claim that the tongs are punishable for that? The question is answered; I see by your faces that you would call such a claim absurd. Now, why is it absurd? It is absurd because, there being no reasoning faculty — that is to say, no faculty of personal command — in a pair of tongs, personal responsibility for the acts of the tongs is wholly absent from the tongs; and, therefore, responsibility being absent, punishment cannot ensue. Am I right?” A hearty burst of applause was his answer. “Now, then, we arrive at a man’s stomach. Consider how exactly, how marvelously, indeed, its situation corresponds to that of a pair of tongs. Listen — and take careful note, I beg you. Can a man’s stomach plan a murder? No. Can it plan a theft? No. Can it plan an incendiary fire? No. Now answer me — can a pair of tongs?” (There were admiring shouts of “No!” and “The cases are just exact!” and “Don’t he do it splendid!”) “Now, then, friends and neighbors, a stomach which cannot plan a crime cannot be a principal in the commission of it — that is plain, as you see. The matter is narrowed down by that much; we will narrow it further. Can a stomach, of its own motion, assist at a crime? The answer is no, because command is absent, the reasoning faculty is absent, volition is absent — as in the case of the tongs. We perceive now, do we not, that the stomach is totally irresponsible for crimes committed, either in whole or in part, by it?” He got a rousing cheer for response. “Then what do we arrive at as our verdict? Clearly this: that there is no such thing in this world as a guilty stomach; that in the body of the veriest rascal resides a pure and innocent stomach; that, whatever it’s owner may do, it at least should be sacred in our eyes; and that while God gives us minds to think just and charitable and honorable thoughts, it should be, and is, our privilege, as well as our duty, not only to feed the hungry stomach that resides in a rascal, having pity for its sorrow and its need, but to do it gladly, gratefully, in recognition of its sturdy and loyal maintenance of its purity and innocence in the midst of temptation and in company so repugnant to its better feelings. I am done.” + +Well, you never saw such an effect! They rose — the whole house rose — an clapped, and cheered, and praised him to the skies; and one after another, still clapping and shouting, they crowded forward, some with moisture in their eyes, and wrung his hands, and said such glorious things to him that he was clear overcome with pride and happiness, and couldn’t say a word, for his voice would have broken, sure. It was splendid to see; and everybody said he had never come up to that speech in his life before, and never could do it again. Eloquence is a power, there is no question of that. Even old Jacques d’Arc was carried away, for once in his life, and shouted out: + +“It’s all right, Joan — give him the porridge!” + +She was embarrassed, and did not seem to know what to say, and so didn’t say anything. It was because she had given the man the porridge long ago and he had already eaten it all up. When she was asked why she had not waited until a decision was arrived at, she said the man’s stomach was very hungry, and it would not have been wise to wait, since she could not tell what the decision would be. Now that was a good and thoughtful idea for a child. + +The man was not a rascal at all. He was a very good fellow, only he was out of luck, and surely that was no crime at that time in France. Now that his stomach was proved to be innocent, it was allowed to make itself at home; and as soon as it was well filled and needed nothing more, the man unwound his tongue and turned it loose, and it was really a noble one to go. He had been in the wars for years, and the things he told and the way he told them fired everybody’s patriotism away up high, and set all hearts to thumping and all pulses to leaping; then, before anybody rightly knew how the change was made, he was leading us a sublime march through the ancient glories of France, and in fancy we saw the titanic forms of the twelve paladins rise out of the mists of the past and face their fate; we heard the tread of the innumerable hosts sweeping down to shut them in; we saw this human tide flow and ebb, ebb and flow, and waste away before that little band of heroes; we saw each detail pass before us of that most stupendous, most disastrous, yet most adored and glorious day in French legendary history; here and there and yonder, across that vast field of the dead and dying, we saw this and that and the other paladin dealing his prodigious blows with weary arm and failing strength, and one by one we saw them fall, till only one remained — he that was without peer, he whose name gives name to the Song of Songs, the song which no Frenchman can hear and keep his feelings down and his pride of country cool; then, grandest and pitifulest scene of all, we saw his own pathetic death; and our stillness, as we sat with parted lips and breathless, hanging upon this man’s words, gave us a sense of the awful stillness that reigned in that field of slaughter when that last surviving soul had passed. + +And now, in this solemn hush, the stranger gave Joan a pat or two on the head and said: + +“Little maid — whom God keep! — you have brought me from death to life this night; now listen: here is your reward,” and at that supreme time for such a heart-melting, soul-rousing surprise, without another word he lifted up the most noble and pathetic voice that was ever heard, and began to pour out the great Song of Roland! + +Think of that, with a French audience all stirred up and ready. Oh, where was your spoken eloquence now! what was it to this! How fine he looked, how stately, how inspired, as he stood there with that mighty chant welling from his lips and his heart, his whole body transfigured, and his rags along with it. + +Everybody rose and stood while he sang, and their faces glowed and their eyes burned; and the tears came and flowed down their cheeks and their forms began to sway unconsciously to the swing of the song, and their bosoms to heave and pant; and moanings broke out, and deep ejaculations; and when the last verse was reached, and Roland lay dying, all alone, with his face to the field and to his slain, lying there in heaps and winrows, and took off and held up his gauntlet to God with his failing hand, and breathed his beautiful prayer with his paling pips, all burst out in sobs and wailings. But when the final great note died out and the song was done, they all flung themselves in a body at the singer, stark mad with love of him and love of France and pride in her great deeds and old renown, and smothered him with their embracings; but Joan was there first, hugged close to his breast, and covering his face with idolatrous kisses. + +The storm raged on outside, but that was no matter; this was the stranger’s home now, for as long as he might please. + +== Chapter 4 Joan Tames the Mad Man + +ALL CHILDREN have nicknames, and we had ours. We got one apiece early, and they stuck to us; but Joan was richer in this matter, for, as time went on, she earned a second, and then a third, and so on, and we gave them to her. First and last she had as many as half a dozen. Several of these she never lost. Peasant-girls are bashful naturally; but she surpassed the rule so far, and colored so easily, and was so easily embarrassed in the presence of strangers, that we nicknamed her the Bashful. We were all patriots, but she was called the Patriot, because our warmest feeling for our country was cold beside hers. Also she was called the Beautiful; and this was not merely because of the extraordinary beauty of her face and form, but because of the loveliness of her character. These names she kept, and one other — the Brave. + +We grew along up, in that plodding and peaceful region, and got to be good-sized boys and girls — big enough, in fact, to begin to know as much about the wars raging perpetually to the west and north of us as our elders, and also to feel as stirred up over the occasional news from these red fields as they did. I remember certain of these days very clearly. One Tuesday a crowd of us were romping and singing around the Fairy Tree, and hanging garlands on it in memory of our lost little fairy friends, when Little Mengette cried out: + +“Look! What is that?” + +When one exclaims like that in a way that shows astonishment and apprehension, he gets attention. All the panting breasts and flushed faces flocked together, and all the eager eyes were turned in one direction — down the slope, toward the village. + +“It’s a black flag.” + +“A black flag! No — is it?” + +“You can see for yourself that it is nothing else.” + +“It is a black flag, sure! Now, has any ever seen the like of that before?” + +“What can it mean?” + +“Mean? It means something dreadful — what else?” + +“That is nothing to the point; anybody knows that without the telling. But what? — that is the question.” + +“It is a chance that he that bears it can answer as well as any that are here, if you contain yourself till he comes.” + +“He runs well. Who is it?” + +Some named one, some another; but presently all saw that it was Etienne Roze, called the Sunflower, because he had yellow hair and a round pock-marked face. His ancestors had been Germans some centuries ago. He came straining up the slope, now and then projecting his flag-stick aloft and giving his black symbol of woe a wave in the air, whilst all eyes watched him, all tongues discussed him, and every heart beat faster and faster with impatience to know his news. At last he sprang among us, and struck his flag-stick into the ground, saying: + +“There! Stand there and represent France while I get my breath. She needs no other flag now.” + +All the giddy chatter stopped. It was as if one had announced a death. In that chilly hush there was no sound audible but the panting of the breath-blown boy. When he was presently able to speak, he said: + +“Black news is come. A treaty has been made at Troyes between France and the English and Burgundians. By it France is betrayed and delivered over, tied hand and foot, to the enemy. It is the work of the Duke of Burgundy and that she-devil, the Queen of France. It marries Henry of England to Catharine of France — ” + +“Is not this a lie? Marries the daughter of France to the Butcher of Agincourt? It is not to be believed. You have not heard aright.” + +“If you cannot believe that, Jacques d’Arc, then you have a difficult task indeed before you, for worse is to come. Any child that is born of that marriage — if even a girl — is to inherit the thrones of both England and France, and this double ownership is to remain with its posterity forever!” + +“Now that is certainly a lie, for it runs counter to our Salic law, and so is not legal and cannot have effect,” said Edmond Aubrey, called the Paladin, because of the armies he was always going to eat up some day. He would have said more, but he was drowned out by the clamors of the others, who all burst into a fury over this feature of the treaty, all talking at once and nobody hearing anybody, until presently Haumette persuaded them to be still, saying: + +“It is not fair to break him up so in his tale; pray let him go on. You find fault with his history because it seems to be lies. That were reason for satisfaction — that kind of lies — not discontent. Tell the rest, Etienne.” + +“There is but this to tell: Our King, Charles VI., is to reign until he dies, then Henry V. of England is to be Regent of France until a child of his shall be old enough to — ” + +“That man is to reign over us — the Butcher? It is lies! all lies!” cried the Paladin. “Besides, look you — what becomes of our Dauphin? What says the treaty about him?” + +“Nothing. It takes away his throne and makes him an outcast.” + +Then everybody shouted at once and said the news was a lie; and all began to get cheerful again, saying, “Our King would have to sign the treaty to make it good; and that he would not do, seeing how it serves his own son.” + +But the Sunflower said: “I will ask you this: Would the Queen sign a treaty disinheriting her son?” + +“That viper? Certainly. Nobody is talking of her. Nobody expects better of her. There is no villainy she will stick at, if it feed her spite; and she hates her son. Her signing it is of no consequence. The King must sign.” + +“I will ask you another thing. What is the King’s condition? Mad, isn’t he?” + +“Yes, and his people love him all the more for it. It brings him near to them by his sufferings; and pitying him makes them love him.” + +“You say right, Jacques d’Arc. Well, what would you of one that is mad? Does he know what he does? No. Does he do what others make him do? Yes. Now, then, I tell you he has signed the treaty.” + +“Who made him do it?” + +“You know, without my telling. The Queen.” + +Then there was another uproar — everybody talking at once, and all heaping execrations upon the Queen’s head. Finally Jacques d’Arc said: + +“But many reports come that are not true. Nothing so shameful as this has ever come before, nothing that cuts so deep, nothing that has dragged France so low; therefore there is hope that this tale is but another idle rumor. Where did you get it?” + +The color went out of his sister Joan’s face. She dreaded the answer; and her instinct was right. + +“The cure of Maxey brought it.” + +There was a general gasp. We knew him, you see, for a trusty man. + +“Did he believe it?” + +The hearts almost stopped beating. Then came the answer: + +“He did. And that is not all. He said he knew it to be true.” + +Some of the girls began to sob; the boys were struck silent. The distress in Joan’s face was like that which one sees in the face of a dumb animal that has received a mortal hurt. The animal bears it, making no complaint; she bore it also, saying no word. Her brother Jacques put his hand on her head and caressed her hair to indicate his sympathy, and she gathered the hand to her lips and kissed it for thanks, not saying anything. Presently the reaction came, and the boys began to talk. Noel Rainguesson said: + +“Oh, are we never going to be men! We do grow along so slowly, and France never needed soldiers as she needs them now, to wipe out this black insult.” + +“I hate youth!” said Pierre Morel, called the Dragon-fly because his eyes stuck out so. “You’ve always got to wait, and wait, and wait — and here are the great wars wasting away for a hundred years, and you never get a chance. If I could only be a soldier now!” + +“As for me, I’m not going to wait much longer,” said the Paladin; “and when I do start you’ll hear from me, I promise you that. There are some who, in storming a castle, prefer to be in the rear; but as for me, give me the front or none; I will have none in front of me but the officers.” + +Even the girls got the war spirit, and Marie Dupont said: + +“I would I were a man; I would start this minute!” and looked very proud of herself, and glanced about for applause. + +“So would I,” said Cecile Letellier, sniffing the air like a war-horse that smells the battle; “I warrant you I would not turn back from the field though all England were in front of me.” + +“Pooh!” said the Paladin; “girls can brag, but that’s all they are good for. Let a thousand of them come face to face with a handful of soldiers once, if you want to see what running is like. Here’s little Joan — next she’ll be threatening to go for a soldier!” + +The idea was so funny, and got such a good laugh, that the Paladin gave it another trial, and said: “Why you can just see her! — see her plunge into battle like any old veteran. Yes, indeed; and not a poor shabby common soldier like us, but an officer — an officer, mind you, with armor on, and the bars of a steel helmet to blush behind and hide her embarrassment when she finds an army in front of her that she hasn’t been introduced to. An officer? Why, she’ll be a captain! A captain, I tell you, with a hundred men at her back — or maybe girls. Oh, no common-soldier business for her! And, dear me, when she starts for that other army, you’ll think there’s a hurricane blowing it away!” + +Well, he kept it up like that till he made their sides ache with laughing; which was quite natural, for certainly it was a very funny idea — at that time — I mean, the idea of that gentle little creature, that wouldn’t hurt a fly, and couldn’t bear the sight of blood, and was so girlish and shrinking in all ways, rushing into battle with a gang of soldiers at her back. Poor thing, she sat there confused and ashamed to be so laughed at; and yet at that very minute there was something about to happen which would change the aspect of things, and make those young people see that when it comes to laughing, the person that laughs last has the best chance. For just then a face which we all knew and all feared projected itself from behind the Fairy Tree, and the thought that shot through us all was, crazy Benoist has gotten loose from his cage, and we are as good as dead! This ragged and hairy and horrible creature glided out from behind the tree, and raised an ax as he came. We all broke and fled, this way and that, the girls screaming and crying. No, not all; all but Joan. She stood up and faced the man, and remained so. As we reached the wood that borders the grassy clearing and jumped into its shelter, two or three of us glanced back to see if Benoist was gaining on us, and that is what we saw — Joan standing, and the maniac gliding stealthily toward her with his ax lifted. The sight was sickening. We stood where we were, trembling and not able to move. I did not want to see the murder done, and yet I could not take my eyes away. Now I saw Joan step forward to meet the man, though I believed my eyes must be deceiving me. Then I saw him stop. He threatened her with his ax, as if to warn her not to come further, but she paid no heed, but went steadily on, until she was right in front of him — right under his ax. Then she stopped, and seemed to begin to talk with him. It made me sick, yes, giddy, and everything swam around me, and I could not see anything for a time — whether long or brief I do not know. When this passed and I looked again, Joan was walking by the man’s side toward the village, holding him by his hand. The ax was in her other hand. + +One by one the boys and girls crept out, and we stood there gazing, open-mouthed, till those two entered the village and were hid from sight. It was then that we named her the Brave. + +We left the black flag there to continue its mournful office, for we had other matter to think of now. We started for the village on a run, to give warning, and get Joan out of her peril; though for one, after seeing what I had seen, it seemed to me that while Joan had the ax the man’s chance was not the best of the two. When we arrived the danger was past, the madman was in custody. All the people were flocking to the little square in front of the church to talk and exclaim and wonder over the event, and it even made the town forget the black news of the treaty for two or three hours. + +All the women kept hugging and kissing Joan, and praising her, and crying, and the men patted her on the head and said they wished she was a man, they would send her to the wars and never doubt but that she would strike some blows that would be heard of. She had to tear herself away and go and hide, this glory was so trying to her diffidence. + +Of course the people began to ask us for the particulars. I was so ashamed that I made an excuse to the first comer, and got privately away and went back to the Fairy Tree, to get relief from the embarrassment of those questionings. There I found Joan, but she was there to get relief from the embarrassment of glory. One by one the others shirked the inquirers and joined us in our refuge. Then we gathered around Joan, and asked her how she had dared to do that thing. She was very modest about it, and said: + +“You make a great thing of it, but you mistake; it was not a great matter. It was not as if I had been a stranger to the man. I know him, and have known him long; and he knows me, and likes me. I have fed him through the bars of his cage many times; and last December, when they chopped off two of his fingers to remind him to stop seizing and wounding people passing by, I dressed his hand every day till it was well again.” + +“That is all well enough,” said Little Mengette, “but he is a madman, dear, and so his likings and his gratitude and friendliness go for nothing when his rage is up. You did a perilous thing.” + +“Of course you did,” said the Sunflower. “Didn’t he threaten to kill you with the ax?” + +“Yes.” + +“Didn’t he threaten you more than once?” + +“Yes.” + +“Didn’t you feel afraid?” + +“No — at least not much — very little.” + +“Why didn’t you?” + +She thought a moment, then said, quite simply: + +“I don’t know.” + +It made everybody laugh. Then the Sunflower said it was like a lamb trying to think out how it had come to eat a wolf, but had to give it up. + +Cecile Letellier asked, “Why didn’t you run when we did?” + +“Because it was necessary to get him to his cage; else he would kill some one. Then he would come to the like harm himself.” + +It is noticeable that this remark, which implies that Joan was entirely forgetful of herself and her own danger, and had thought and wrought for the preservation of other people alone, was not challenged, or criticized, or commented upon by anybody there, but was taken by all as matter of course and true. It shows how clearly her character was defined, and how well it was known and established. + +There was silence for a time, and perhaps we were all thinking of the same thing — namely, what a poor figure we had cut in that adventure as contrasted with Joan’s performance. I tried to think up some good way of explaining why I had run away and left a little girl at the mercy of a maniac armed with an ax, but all of the explanations that offered themselves to me seemed so cheap and shabby that I gave the matter up and remained still. But others were less wise. Noel Rainguesson fidgeted awhile, then broke out with a remark which showed what his mind had been running on: + +“The fact is, I was taken by surprise. That is the reason. If I had had a moment to think, I would no more have thought of running that I would think of running from a baby. For, after all, what is Theophile Benoist, that I should seem to be afraid of him? Pooh! the idea of being afraid of that poor thing! I only wish he would come along now — I’d show you!” + +“So do I!” cried Pierre Morel. “If I wouldn’t make him climb this tree quicker than — well, you’d see what I would do! Taking a person by surprise, that way — why, I never meant to run; not in earnest, I mean. I never thought of running in earnest; I only wanted to have some fun, and when I saw Joan standing there, and him threatening her, it was all I could do to restrain myself from going there and just tearing the livers and lights out of him. I wanted to do it bad enough, and if it was to do over again, I would! If ever he comes fooling around me again, I’ll — ” + +“Oh, hush!” said the Paladin, breaking in with an air of disdain; “the way you people talk, a person would think there’s something heroic about standing up and facing down that poor remnant of a man. Why, it’s nothing! There’s small glory to be got in facing him down, I should say. Why, I wouldn’t want any better fun than to face down a hundred like him. If he was to come along here now, I would walk up to him just as I am now — I wouldn’t care if he had a thousand axes — and say — ” + +And so he went on and on, telling the brave things he would say and the wonders he would do; and the others put in a word from time to time, describing over again the gory marvels they would do if ever that madman ventured to cross their path again, for next time they would be ready for him, and would soon teach him that if he thought he could surprise them twice because he had surprised them once, he would find himself very seriously mistaken, that’s all. + +And so, in the end, they all got back their self-respect; yes, and even added somewhat to it; indeed when the sitting broke up they had a finer opinion of themselves than they had ever had before. + +== Chapter 5 Domremy Pillaged and Burned + +image::https://i.nostr.build/WNWWpUpw9cNink7x.jpg[0065, 300] + + +THEY WERE peaceful and pleasant, those young and smoothly flowing days of ours; that is, that was the case as a rule, we being remote from the seat of war; but at intervals roving bands approached near enough for us to see the flush in the sky at night which marked where they were burning some farmstead or village, and we all knew, or at least felt, that some day they would come yet nearer, and we should have our turn. This dull dread lay upon our spirits like a physical weight. It was greatly augmented a couple of years after the Treaty of Troyes. + +It was truly a dismal year for France. One day we had been over to have one of our occasional pitched battles with those hated Burgundian boys of the village of Maxey, and had been whipped, and were arriving on our side of the river after dark, bruised and weary, when we heard the bell ringing the tocsin. We ran all the way, and when we got to the square we found it crowded with the excited villagers, and weirdly lighted by smoking and flaring torches. + +On the steps of the church stood a stranger, a Burgundian priest, who was telling the people news which made them weep, and rave, and rage, and curse, by turns. He said our old mad King was dead, and that now we and France and the crown were the property of an English baby lying in his cradle in London. And he urged us to give that child our allegiance, and be its faithful servants and well-wishers; and said we should now have a strong and stable government at last, and that in a little time the English armies would start on their last march, and it would be a brief one, for all that it would need to do would be to conquer what odds and ends of our country yet remained under that rare and almost forgotten rag, the banner of France. + +The people stormed and raged at him, and you could see dozens of them stretch their fists above the sea of torch-lighted faces and shake them at him; and it was all a wild picture, and stirring to look at; and the priest was a first-rate part of it, too, for he stood there in the strong glare and looked down on those angry people in the blandest and most indifferent way, so that while you wanted to burn him at the stake, you still admired the aggravating coolness of him. And his winding-up was the coolest thing of all. For he told them how, at the funeral of our old King, the French King-at-Arms had broken his staff of office over the coffin of “Charles VI. and his dynasty,” at the same time saying, in a loud voice, “God grant long life to Henry, King of France and England, our sovereign lord!” and then he asked them to join him in a hearty Amen to that! The people were white with wrath, and it tied their tongues for the moment, and they could not speak. But Joan was standing close by, and she looked up in his face, and said in her sober, earnest way: + +“I would I might see thy head struck from thy body!” — then, after a pause, and crossing herself — “if it were the will of God.” + +This is worth remembering, and I will tell you why: it is the only harsh speech Joan ever uttered in her life. When I shall have revealed to you the storms she went through, and the wrongs and persecutions, then you will see that it was wonderful that she said but one bitter thing while she lived. + +From the day that that dreary news came we had one scare after another, the marauders coming almost to our doors every now and then; so that we lived in ever-increasing apprehension, and yet were somehow mercifully spared from actual attack. But at last our turn did really come. This was in the spring of ’28. The Burgundians swarmed in with a great noise, in the middle of a dark night, and we had to jump up and fly for our lives. We took the road to Neufchateau, and rushed along in the wildest disorder, everybody trying to get ahead, and thus the movements of all were impeded; but Joan had a cool head — the only cool head there — and she took command and brought order out of that chaos. She did her work quickly and with decision and despatch, and soon turned the panic flight into a quite steady-going march. You will grant that for so young a person, and a girl at that, this was a good piece of work. + +She was sixteen now, shapely and graceful, and of a beauty so extraordinary that I might allow myself any extravagance of language in describing it and yet have no fear of going beyond the truth. There was in her face a sweetness and serenity and purity that justly reflected her spiritual nature. She was deeply religious, and this is a thing which sometimes gives a melancholy cast to a person’s countenance, but it was not so in her case. Her religion made her inwardly content and joyous; and if she was troubled at times, and showed the pain of it in her face and bearing, it came of distress for her country; no part of it was chargeable to her religion. + +A considerable part of our village was destroyed, and when it became safe for us to venture back there we realized what other people had been suffering in all the various quarters of France for many years — yes, decades of years. For the first time we saw wrecked and smoke-blackened homes, and in the lanes and alleys carcasses of dumb creatures that had been slaughtered in pure wantonness — among them calves and lambs that had been pets of the children; and it was pity to see the children lament over them. + +And then, the taxes, the taxes! Everybody thought of that. That burden would fall heavy now in the commune’s crippled condition, and all faces grew long with the thought of it. Joan said: + +“Paying taxes with naught to pay them with is what the rest of France has been doing these many years, but we never knew the bitterness of that before. We shall know it now.” + +And so she went on talking about it and growing more and more troubled about it, until one could see that it was filling all her mind. + +At last we came upon a dreadful object. It was the madman — hacked and stabbed to death in his iron cage in the corner of the square. It was a bloody and dreadful sight. Hardly any of us young people had ever seen a man before who had lost his life by violence; so this cadaver had an awful fascination for us; we could not take our eyes from it. I mean, it had that sort of fascination for all of us but one. That one was Joan. She turned away in horror, and could not be persuaded to go near it again. There — it is a striking reminder that we are but creatures of use and custom; yes, and it is a reminder, too, of how harshly and unfairly fate deals with us sometimes. For it was so ordered that the very ones among us who were most fascinated with mutilated and bloody death were to live their lives in peace, while that other, who had a native and deep horror of it, must presently go forth and have it as a familiar spectacle every day on the field of battle. + +You may well believe that we had plenty of matter for talk now, since the raiding of our village seemed by long odds the greatest event that had really ever occurred in the world; for although these dull peasants may have thought they recognized the bigness of some of the previous occurrences that had filtered from the world’s history dimly into their minds, the truth is that they hadn’t. One biting little fact, visible to their eyes of flesh and felt in their own personal vitals, became at once more prodigious to them than the grandest remote episode in the world’s history which they had got at second hand and by hearsay. It amuses me now when I recall how our elders talked then. They fumed and fretted in a fine fashion. + +“Ah, yes,” said old Jacques d’Arc, “things are come to a pretty pass, indeed! The King must be informed of this. It is time that he cease from idleness and dreaming, and get at his proper business.” He meant our young disinherited King, the hunted refugee, Charles VII. + +“You say well,” said the maire. “He should be informed, and that at once. It is an outrage that such things would be permitted. Why, we are not safe in our beds, and he taking his ease yonder. It shall be made known, indeed it shall — all France shall hear of it!” + +To hear them talk, one would have imagined that all the previous ten thousand sackings and burnings in France had been but fables, and this one the only fact. It is always the way; words will answer as long as it is only a person’s neighbor who is in trouble, but when that person gets into trouble himself, it is time that the King rise up and do something. + +The big event filled us young people with talk, too. We let it flow in a steady stream while we tended the flocks. We were beginning to feel pretty important now, for I was eighteen and the other youths were from one to four years older — young men, in fact. One day the Paladin was arrogantly criticizing the patriot generals of France and said: + +“Look at Dunois, Bastard of Orleans — call him a general! Just put me in his place once — never mind what I would do, it is not for me to say, I have no stomach for talk, my way is to act and let others do the talking — but just put me in his place once, that’s all! And look at Saintrailles — pooh! and that blustering La Hire, now what a general that is!” + +It shocked everybody to hear these great names so flippantly handled, for to us these renowned soldiers were almost gods. In their far-off splendor they rose upon our imaginations dim and huge, shadowy and awful, and it was a fearful thing to hear them spoken of as if they were mere men, and their acts open to comment and criticism. The color rose in Joan’s face, and she said: + +“I know not how any can be so hardy as to use such words regarding these sublime men, who are the very pillars of the French state, supporting it with their strength and preserving it at daily cost of their blood. As for me, I could count myself honored past all deserving if I might be allowed but the privilege of looking upon them once — at a distance, I mean, for it would not become one of my degree to approach them too near.” + +The Paladin was disconcerted for a moment, seeing by the faces around him that Joan had put into words what the others felt, then he pulled his complacency together and fell to fault-finding again. Joan’s brother Jean said: + +“If you don’t like what our generals do, why don’t you go to the great wars yourself and better their work? You are always talking about going to the wars, but you don’t go.” + +“Look you,” said the Paladin, “it is easy to say that. Now I will tell you why I remain chafing here in a bloodless tranquillity which my reputation teaches you is repulsive to my nature. I do not go because I am not a gentleman. That is the whole reason. What can one private soldier do in a contest like this? Nothing. He is not permitted to rise from the ranks. If I were a gentleman would I remain here? Not one moment. I can save France — ah, you may laugh, but I know what is in me, I know what is hid under this peasant cap. I can save France, and I stand ready to do it, but not under these present conditions. If they want me, let them send for me; otherwise, let them take the consequences; I shall not budge but as an officer.” + +“Alas, poor France — France is lost!” said Pierre d’Arc. + +“Since you sniff so at others, why don’t you go to the wars yourself, Pierre d’Arc?” + +“Oh, I haven’t been sent for, either. I am no more a gentleman than you. Yet I will go; I promise to go. I promise to go as a private under your orders — when you are sent for.” + +They all laughed, and the Dragon-fly said: + +“So soon? Then you need to begin to get ready; you might be called for in five years — who knows? Yes, in my opinion you’ll march for the wars in five years.” + +“He will go sooner,” said Joan. She said it in a low voice and musingly, but several heard it. + +“How do you know that, Joan?” said the Dragon-fly, with a surprised look. But Jean d’Arc broke in and said: + +“I want to go myself, but as I am rather young yet, I also will wait, and march when the Paladin is sent for.” + +“No,” said Joan, “he will go with Pierre.” + +She said it as one who talks to himself aloud without knowing it, and none heard it but me. I glanced at her and saw that her knitting-needles were idle in her hands, and that her face had a dreamy and absent look in it. There were fleeting movements of her lips as if she might be occasionally saying parts of sentences to herself. But there was no sound, for I was the nearest person to her and I heard nothing. But I set my ears open, for those two speeches had affected me uncannily, I being superstitious and easily troubled by any little thing of a strange and unusual sort. + +Noel Rainguesson said: + +“There is one way to let France have a chance for her salvation. We’ve got one gentleman in the commune, at any rate. Why can’t the Scholar change name and condition with the Paladin? Then he can be an officer. France will send for him then, and he will sweep these English and Burgundian armies into the sea like flies.” + +I was the Scholar. That was my nickname, because I could read and write. There was a chorus of approval, and the Sunflower said: + +“That is the very thing — it settles every difficulty. The Sieur de Conte will easily agree to that. Yes, he will march at the back of Captain Paladin and die early, covered with common-soldier glory.” + +“He will march with Jean and Pierre, and live till these wars are forgotten,” Joan muttered; “and at the eleventh hour Noel and the Paladin will join these, but not of their own desire.” The voice was so low that I was not perfectly sure that these were the words, but they seemed to be. It makes one feel creepy to hear such things. + +“Come, now,” Noel continued, “it’s all arranged; there’s nothing to do but organize under the Paladin’s banner and go forth and rescue France. You’ll all join?” + +All said yes, except Jacques d’Arc, who said: + +“I’ll ask you to excuse me. It is pleasant to talk war, and I am with you there, and I’ve always thought I should go soldiering about this time, but the look of our wrecked village and that carved-up and bloody madman have taught me that I am not made for such work and such sights. I could never be at home in that trade. Face swords and the big guns and death? It isn’t in me. No, no; count me out. And besides, I’m the eldest son, and deputy prop and protector of the family. Since you are going to carry Jean and Pierre to the wars, somebody must be left behind to take care of our Joan and her sister. I shall stay at home, and grow old in peace and tranquillity.” + +“He will stay at home, but not grow old,” murmured Joan. + +The talk rattled on in the gay and careless fashion privileged to youth, and we got the Paladin to map out his campaigns and fight his battles and win his victories and extinguish the English and put our King upon his throne and set his crown upon his head. Then we asked him what he was going to answer when the King should require him to name his reward. The Paladin had it all arranged in his head, and brought it out promptly: + +“He shall give me a dukedom, name me premier peer, and make me Hereditary Lord High Constable of France.” + +“And marry you to a princess — you’re not going to leave that out, are you?” + +The Paladin colored a trifle, and said, brusquely: + +“He may keep his princesses — I can marry more to my taste.” + +Meaning Joan, though nobody suspected it at that time. If any had, the Paladin would have been finely ridiculed for his vanity. There was no fit mate in that village for Joan of Arc. Every one would have said that. + +In turn, each person present was required to say what reward he would demand of the King if he could change places with the Paladin and do the wonders the Paladin was going to do. The answers were given in fun, and each of us tried to outdo his predecessors in the extravagance of the reward he would claim; but when it came to Joan’s turn, and they rallied her out of her dreams and asked her to testify, they had to explain to her what the question was, for her thought had been absent, and she had heard none of this latter part of our talk. She supposed they wanted a serious answer, and she gave it. She sat considering some moments, then she said: + +“If the Dauphin, out of his grace and nobleness, should say to me, ‘Now that I am rich and am come to my own again, choose and have,’ I should kneel and ask him to give command that our village should nevermore be taxed.” + +It was so simple and out of her heart that it touched us and we did not laugh, but fell to thinking. We did not laugh; but there came a day when we remembered that speech with a mournful pride, and were glad that we had not laughed, perceiving then how honest her words had been, and seeing how faithfully she made them good when the time came, asking just that boon of the King and refusing to take even any least thing for herself. + +== Chapter 6 Joan and Archangel Michael + +ALL THROUGH her childhood and up to the middle of her fourteenth year, Joan had been the most light-hearted creature and the merriest in the village, with a hop-skip-and-jump gait and a happy and catching laugh; and this disposition, supplemented by her warm and sympathetic nature and frank and winning ways, had made her everybody’s pet. She had been a hot patriot all this time, and sometimes the war news had sobered her spirits and wrung her heart and made her acquainted with tears, but always when these interruptions had run their course her spirits rose and she was her old self again. + +But now for a whole year and a half she had been mainly grave; not melancholy, but given to thought, abstraction, dreams. She was carrying France upon her heart, and she found the burden not light. I knew that this was her trouble, but others attributed her abstraction to religious ecstasy, for she did not share her thinkings with the village at large, yet gave me glimpses of them, and so I knew, better than the rest, what was absorbing her interest. Many a time the idea crossed my mind that she had a secret — a secret which she was keeping wholly to herself, as well from me as from the others. This idea had come to me because several times she had cut a sentence in two and changed the subject when apparently she was on the verge of a revelation of some sort. I was to find this secret out, but not just yet. + +The day after the conversation which I have been reporting we were together in the pastures and fell to talking about France, as usual. For her sake I had always talked hopefully before, but that was mere lying, for really there was not anything to hang a rag of hope for France upon. Now it was such a pain to lie to her, and cost me such shame to offer this treachery to one so snow-pure from lying and treachery, and even from suspicion of such baseness in others, as she was, that I was resolved to face about now and begin over again, and never insult her more with deception. I started on the new policy by saying — still opening up with a small lie, of course, for habit is habit, and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time: + +“Joan, I have been thinking the thing all over last night, and have concluded that we have been in the wrong all this time; that the case of France is desperate; that it has been desperate ever since Agincourt; and that to-day it is more than desperate, it is hopeless.” + +I did not look her in the face while I was saying it; it could not be expected of a person. To break her heart, to crush her hope with a so frankly brutal speech as that, without one charitable soft place in it — it seemed a shameful thing, and it was. But when it was out, the weight gone, and my conscience rising to the surface, I glanced at her face to see the result. + +There was none to see. At least none that I was expecting. There was a barely perceptible suggestion of wonder in her serious eyes, but that was all; and she said, in her simple and placid way: + +“The case of France hopeless? Why should you think that? Tell me.” + +It is a most pleasant thing to find that what you thought would inflict a hurt upon one whom you honor, has not done it. I was relieved now, and could say all my say without any furtivenesses and without embarrassment. So I began: + +“Let us put sentiment and patriotic illusions aside, and look at the facts in the face. What do they say? They speak as plainly as the figures in a merchant’s account-book. One has only to add the two columns up to see that the French house is bankrupt, that one-half of its property is already in the English sheriff’s hands and the other half in nobody’s — except those of irresponsible raiders and robbers confessing allegiance to nobody. Our King is shut up with his favorites and fools in inglorious idleness and poverty in a narrow little patch of the kingdom — a sort of back lot, as one may say — and has no authority there or anywhere else, hasn’t a farthing to his name, nor a regiment of soldiers; he is not fighting, he is not intending to fight, he means to make no further resistance; in truth, there is but one thing that he is intending to do — give the whole thing up, pitch his crown into the sewer, and run away to Scotland. There are the facts. Are they correct?” + +“Yes, they are correct.” + +“Then it is as I have said: one needs but to add them together in order to realize what they mean.” + +She asked, in an ordinary, level tone: + +“What — that the case of France is hopeless?” + +“Necessarily. In face of these facts, doubt of it is impossible.” + +“How can you say that? How can you feel like that?” + +“How can I? How could I think or feel in any other way, in the circumstances? Joan, with these fatal figures before, you, have you really any hope for France — really and actually?” + +“Hope — oh, more than that! France will win her freedom and keep it. Do not doubt it.” + +It seemed to me that her clear intellect must surely be clouded to-day. It must be so, or she would see that those figures could mean only one thing. Perhaps if I marshaled them again she would see. So I said: + +“Joan, your heart, which worships France, is beguiling your head. You are not perceiving the importance of these figures. Here — I want to make a picture of them, here on the ground with a stick. Now, this rough outline is France. Through its middle, east and west, I draw a river.” + +“Yes, the Loire.” + +“Now, then, this whole northern half of the country is in the tight grip of the English.” + +“Yes.” + +“And this whole southern half is really in nobody’s hands at all — as our King confesses by meditating desertion and flight to a foreign land. England has armies here; opposition is dead; she can assume full possession whenever she may choose. In very truth, all France is gone, France is already lost, France has ceased to exist. What was France is now but a British province. Is this true?” + +Her voice was low, and just touched with emotion, but distinct: + +“Yes, it is true.” + +“Very well. Now add this clinching fact, and surely the sum is complete: When have French soldiers won a victory? Scotch soldiers, under the French flag, have won a barren fight or two a few years back, but I am speaking of French ones. Since eight thousand Englishmen nearly annihilated sixty thousand Frenchmen a dozen years ago at Agincourt, French courage has been paralyzed. And so it is a common saying to-day that if you confront fifty French soldiers with five English ones, the French will run.” + +“It is a pity, but even these things are true.” + +“Then certainly the day for hoping is past.” + +I believed the case would be clear to her now. I thought it could not fail to be clear to her, and that she would say, herself, that there was no longer any ground for hope. But I was mistaken; and disappointed also. She said, without any doubt in her tone: + +“France will rise again. You shall see.” + +“Rise? — with this burden of English armies on her back!” + +“She will cast it off; she will trample it under foot!” This with spirit. + +“Without soldiers to fight with?” + +“The drums will summon them. They will answer, and they will march.” + +“March to the rear, as usual?” + +“No; to the front — ever to the front — always to the front! You shall see.” + +“And the pauper King?” + +“He will mount his throne — he will wear his crown.” + +“Well, of a truth this makes one’s head dizzy. Why, if I could believe that in thirty years from now the English domination would be broken and the French monarch’s head find itself hooped with a real crown of sovereignty — ” + +“Both will have happened before two years are sped.” + +“Indeed? and who is going to perform all these sublime impossibilities?” + +“God.” + +It was a reverent low note, but it rang clear. + +What could have put those strange ideas in her head? This question kept running in my mind during two or three days. It was inevitable that I should think of madness. What other way was there to account for such things? Grieving and brooding over the woes of France had weakened that strong mind, and filled it with fantastic phantoms — yes, that must be it. + +But I watched her, and tested her, and it was not so. Her eye was clear and sane, her ways were natural, her speech direct and to the point. No, there was nothing the matter with her mind; it was still the soundest in the village and the best. She went on thinking for others, planning for others, sacrificing herself for others, just as always before. She went on ministering to her sick and to her poor, and still stood ready to give the wayfarer her bed and content herself with the floor. There was a secret somewhere, but madness was not the key to it. This was plain. + +Now the key did presently come into my hands, and the way that it happened was this. You have heard all the world talk of this matter which I am about to speak of, but you have not heard an eyewitness talk of it before. + +I was coming from over the ridge, one day — it was the 15th of May, ’28 — and when I got to the edge of the oak forest and was about to step out of it upon the turfy open space in which the haunted beech tree stood, I happened to cast a glance from cover, first — then I took a step backward, and stood in the shelter and concealment of the foliage. For I had caught sight of Joan, and thought I would devise some sort of playful surprise for her. Think of it — that trivial conceit was neighbor, with but a scarcely measurable interval of time between, to an event destined to endure forever in histories and songs. + +The day was overcast, and all that grassy space wherein the Tree stood lay in a soft rich shadow. Joan sat on a natural seat formed by gnarled great roots of the Tree. Her hands lay loosely, one reposing in the other, in her lap. Her head was bent a little toward the ground, and her air was that of one who is lost to thought, steeped in dreams, and not conscious of herself or of the world. And now I saw a most strange thing, for I saw a white shadow come slowly gliding along the grass toward the Tree. It was of grand proportions — a robed form, with wings — and the whiteness of this shadow was not like any other whiteness that we know of, except it be the whiteness of lightnings, but even the lightnings are not so intense as it was, for one can look at them without hurt, whereas this brilliancy was so blinding that it pained my eyes and brought the water into them. I uncovered my head, perceiving that I was in the presence of something not of this world. My breath grew faint and difficult, because of the terror and the awe that possessed me. + +Another strange thing. The wood had been silent — smitten with that deep stillness which comes when a storm-cloud darkens a forest, and the wild creatures lose heart and are afraid; but now all the birds burst forth into song, and the joy, the rapture, the ecstasy of it was beyond belief; and was so eloquent and so moving, withal, that it was plain it was an act of worship. With the first note of those birds Joan cast herself upon her knees, and bent her head low and crossed her hands upon her breast. + +She had not seen the shadow yet. Had the song of the birds told her it was coming? It had that look to me. Then the like of this must have happened before. Yes, there might be no doubt of that. + +The shadow approached Joan slowly; the extremity of it reached her, flowed over her, clothed her in its awful splendor. In that immortal light her face, only humanly beautiful before, became divine; flooded with that transforming glory her mean peasant habit was become like to the raiment of the sun-clothed children of God as we see them thronging the terraces of the Throne in our dreams and imaginings. + +Presently she rose and stood, with her head still bowed a little, and with her arms down and the ends of her fingers lightly laced together in front of her; and standing so, all drenched with that wonderful light, and yet apparently not knowing it, she seemed to listen — but I heard nothing. After a little she raised her head, and looked up as one might look up toward the face of a giant, and then clasped her hands and lifted them high, imploringly, and began to plead. I heard some of the words. I heard her say: + +“But I am so young! oh, so young to leave my mother and my home and go out into the strange world to undertake a thing so great! Ah, how can I talk with men, be comrade with men? — soldiers! It would give me over to insult, and rude usage, and contempt. How can I go to the great wars, and lead armies? — I a girl, and ignorant of such things, knowing nothing of arms, nor how to mount a horse, nor ride it.... Yet — if it is commanded — ” + +Her voice sank a little, and was broken by sobs, and I made out no more of her words. Then I came to myself. I reflected that I had been intruding upon a mystery of God — and what might my punishment be? I was afraid, and went deeper into the wood. Then I carved a mark in the bark of a tree, saying to myself, it may be that I am dreaming and have not seen this vision at all. I will come again, when I know that I am awake and not dreaming, and see if this mark is still here; then I shall know. + +== Chapter 7 She Delivers the Divine Command + +image::https://i.nostr.build/vafnVoVM18PuuxSK.jpg[0095, 300] + + +I HEARD my name called. It was Joan’s voice. It startled me, for how could she know I was there? I said to myself, it is part of the dream; it is all dream — voice, vision and all; the fairies have done this. So I crossed myself and pronounced the name of God, to break the enchantment. I knew I was awake now and free from the spell, for no spell can withstand this exorcism. Then I heard my name called again, and I stepped at once from under cover, and there indeed was Joan, but not looking as she had looked in the dream. For she was not crying now, but was looking as she had used to look a year and a half before, when her heart was light and her spirits high. Her old-time energy and fire were back, and a something like exaltation showed itself in her face and bearing. It was almost as if she had been in a trance all that time and had come awake again. Really, it was just as if she had been away and lost, and was come back to us at last; and I was so glad that I felt like running to call everybody and have them flock around her and give her welcome. I ran to her excited and said: + +“Ah, Joan, I’ve got such a wonderful thing to tell you about! You would never imagine it. I’ve had a dream, and in the dream I saw you right here where you are standing now, and — ” + +But she put up her hand and said: + +“It was not a dream.” + +It gave me a shock, and I began to feel afraid again. + +“Not a dream?” I said, “how can you know about it, Joan?” + +“Are you dreaming now?” + +“I — I suppose not. I think I am not.” + +“Indeed you are not. I know you are not. And you were not dreaming when you cut the mark in the tree.” + +I felt myself turning cold with fright, for now I knew of a certainty that I had not been dreaming, but had really been in the presence of a dread something not of this world. Then I remembered that my sinful feet were upon holy ground — the ground where that celestial shadow had rested. I moved quickly away, smitten to the bones with fear. Joan followed, and said: + +“Do not be afraid; indeed there is no need. Come with me. We will sit by the spring and I will tell you all my secret.” + +When she was ready to begin, I checked her and said: + +“First tell me this. You could not see me in the wood; how did you know I cut a mark in the tree?” + +“Wait a little; I will soon come to that; then you will see.” + +“But tell me one thing now; what was that awful shadow that I saw?” + +“I will tell you, but do not be disturbed; you are not in danger. It was the shadow of an archangel — Michael, the chief and lord of the armies of heaven.” + +I could but cross myself and tremble for having polluted that ground with my feet. + +“You were not afraid, Joan? Did you see his face — did you see his form?” + +“Yes; I was not afraid, because this was not the first time. I was afraid the first time.” + +“When was that, Joan?” + +“It is nearly three years ago now.” + +“So long? Have you seen him many times?” + +“Yes, many times.” + +“It is this, then, that has changed you; it was this that made you thoughtful and not as you were before. I see it now. Why did you not tell us about it?” + +“It was not permitted. It is permitted now, and soon I shall tell all. But only you, now. It must remain a secret for a few days still.” + +“Has none seen that white shadow before but me?” + +“No one. It has fallen upon me before when you and others were present, but none could see it. To-day it has been otherwise, and I was told why; but it will not be visible again to any.” + +“It was a sign to me, then — and a sign with a meaning of some kind?” + +“Yes, but I may not speak of that.” + +“Strange — that that dazzling light could rest upon an object before one’s eyes and not be visible.” + +“With it comes speech, also. Several saints come, attended by myriads of angels, and they speak to me; I hear their voices, but others do not. They are very dear to me — my Voices; that is what I call them to myself.” + +“Joan, what do they tell you?” + +“All manner of things — about France, I mean.” + +“What things have they been used to tell you?” + +She sighed, and said: + +“Disasters — only disasters, and misfortunes, and humiliation. There was naught else to foretell.” + +“They spoke of them to you beforehand?” “Yes. So that I knew what was going to happen before it happened. It made me grave — as you saw. It could not be otherwise. But always there was a word of hope, too. More than that: France was to be rescued, and made great and free again. But how and by whom — that was not told. Not until to-day.” As she said those last words a sudden deep glow shone in her eyes, which I was to see there many times in after-days when the bugles sounded the charge and learn to call it the battle-light. Her breast heaved, and the color rose in her face. “But to-day I know. God has chosen the meanest of His creatures for this work; and by His command, and in His protection, and by His strength, not mine, I am to lead His armies, and win back France, and set the crown upon the head of His servant that is Dauphin and shall be King.” + +I was amazed, and said: + +“You, Joan? You, a child, lead armies?” + +“Yes. For one little moment or two the thought crushed me; for it is as you say — I am only a child; a child and ignorant — ignorant of everything that pertains to war, and not fitted for the rough life of camps and the companionship of soldiers. But those weak moments passed; they will not come again. I am enlisted, I will not turn back, God helping me, till the English grip is loosed from the throat of France. My Voices have never told me lies, they have not lied to-day. They say I am to go to Robert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, and he will give me men-at-arms for escort and send me to the King. A year from now a blow will be struck which will be the beginning of the end, and the end will follow swiftly.” + +“Where will it be struck?” + +“My Voices have not said; nor what will happen this present year, before it is struck. It is appointed me to strike it, that is all I know; and follow it with others, sharp and swift, undoing in ten weeks England’s long years of costly labor, and setting the crown upon the Dauphin’s head — for such is God’s will; my Voices have said it, and shall I doubt it? No; it will be as they have said, for they say only that which is true.” + +These were tremendous sayings. They were impossibilities to my reason, but to my heart they rang true; and so, while my reason doubted, my heart believed — believed, and held fast to the belief from that day. Presently I said: + +“Joan, I believe the things which you have said, and now I am glad that I am to march with you to the great wars — that is, if it is with you I am to march when I go.” + +She looked surprised, and said: + +“It is true that you will be with me when I go to the wars, but how did you know?” + +“I shall march with you, and so also will Jean and Pierre, but not Jacques.” + +“All true — it is so ordered, as was revealed to me lately, but I did not know until to-day that the marching would be with me, or that I should march at all. How did you know these things?” + +I told her when it was that she had said them. But she did not remember about it. So then I knew that she had been asleep, or in a trance or an ecstasy of some kind, at that time. She bade me keep these and the other revelations to myself for the present, and I said I would, and kept the faith I promised. + +None who met Joan that day failed to notice the change that had come over her. She moved and spoke with energy and decision; there was a strange new fire in her eye, and also a something wholly new and remarkable in her carriage and in the set of her head. This new light in the eye and this new bearing were born of the authority and leadership which had this day been vested in her by the decree of God, and they asserted that authority as plainly as speech could have done it, yet without ostentation or bravado. This calm consciousness of command, and calm unconscious outward expression of it, remained with her thenceforth until her mission was accomplished. + +Like the other villagers, she had always accorded me the deference due my rank; but now, without word said on either side, she and I changed places; she gave orders, not suggestions. I received them with the deference due a superior, and obeyed them without comment. In the evening she said to me: + +“I leave before dawn. No one will know it but you. I go to speak with the governor of Vaucouleurs as commanded, who will despise me and treat me rudely, and perhaps refuse my prayer at this time. I go first to Burey, to persuade my uncle Laxart to go with me, it not being meet that I go alone. I may need you in Vaucouleurs; for if the governor will not receive me I will dictate a letter to him, and so must have some one by me who knows the art of how to write and spell the words. You will go from here to-morrow in the afternoon, and remain in Vaucouleurs until I need you.” + +I said I would obey, and she went her way. You see how clear a head she had, and what a just and level judgment. She did not order me to go with her; no, she would not subject her good name to gossiping remark. She knew that the governor, being a noble, would grant me, another noble, audience; but no, you see, she would not have that, either. A poor peasant-girl presenting a petition through a young nobleman — how would that look? She always protected her modesty from hurt; and so, for reward, she carried her good name unsmirched to the end. I knew what I must do now, if I would have her approval: go to Vaucouleurs, keep out of her sight, and be ready when wanted. + +I went the next afternoon, and took an obscure lodging; the next day I called at the castle and paid my respects to the governor, who invited me to dine with him at noon of the following day. He was an ideal soldier of the time; tall, brawny, gray-headed, rough, full of strange oaths acquired here and there and yonder in the wars and treasured as if they were decorations. He had been used to the camp all his life, and to his notion war was God’s best gift to man. He had his steel cuirass on, and wore boots that came above his knees, and was equipped with a huge sword; and when I looked at this martial figure, and heard the marvelous oaths, and guessed how little of poetry and sentiment might be looked for in this quarter, I hoped the little peasant-girl would not get the privilege of confronting this battery, but would have to content herself with the dictated letter. + +I came again to the castle the next day at noon, and was conducted to the great dining-hall and seated by the side of the governor at a small table which was raised a couple of steps higher than the general table. At the small table sat several other guests besides myself, and at the general table sat the chief officers of the garrison. At the entrance door stood a guard of halberdiers, in morion and breastplate. + +As for talk, there was but one topic, of course — the desperate situation of France. There was a rumor, some one said, that Salisbury was making preparations to march against Orleans. It raised a turmoil of excited conversation, and opinions fell thick and fast. Some believed he would march at once, others that he could not accomplish the investment before fall, others that the siege would be long, and bravely contested; but upon one thing all voices agreed: that Orleans must eventually fall, and with it France. With that, the prolonged discussion ended, and there was silence. Every man seemed to sink himself in his own thoughts, and to forget where he was. This sudden and profound stillness, where before had been so much animation, was impressive and solemn. Now came a servant and whispered something to the governor, who said: + +“Would talk with me?” + +“Yes, your Excellency.” + +“H’m! A strange idea, certainly. Bring them in.” + +It was Joan and her uncle Laxart. At the spectacle of the great people the courage oozed out of the poor old peasant and he stopped midway and would come no further, but remained there with his red nightcap crushed in his hands and bowing humbly here, there, and everywhere, stupefied with embarrassment and fear. But Joan came steadily forward, erect and self-possessed, and stood before the governor. She recognized me, but in no way indicated it. There was a buzz of admiration, even the governor contributing to it, for I heard him mutter, “By God’s grace, it is a beautiful creature!” He inspected her critically a moment or two, then said: + +“Well, what is your errand, my child?” + +“My message is to you, Robert de Baudricourt, governor of Vaucouleurs, and it is this: that you will send and tell the Dauphin to wait and not give battle to his enemies, for God will presently send him help.” + +This strange speech amazed the company, and many murmured, “The poor young thing is demented.” The governor scowled, and said: + +“What nonsense is this? The King — or the Dauphin, as you call him — needs no message of that sort. He will wait, give yourself no uneasiness as to that. What further do you desire to say to me?” + +“This. To beg that you will give me an escort of men-at-arms and send me to the Dauphin.” + +“What for?” + +“That he may make me his general, for it is appointed that I shall drive the English out of France, and set the crown upon his head.” + +“What — you? Why, you are but a child!” + +“Yet am I appointed to do it, nevertheless.” + +“Indeed! And when will all this happen?” + +“Next year he will be crowned, and after that will remain master of France.” + +There was a great and general burst of laughter, and when it had subsided the governor said: + +“Who has sent you with these extravagant messages?” + +“My Lord.” + +“What Lord?” + +“The King of Heaven.” + +Many murmured, “Ah, poor thing, poor thing!” and others, “Ah, her mind is but a wreck!” The governor hailed Laxart, and said: + +“Harkye! — take this mad child home and whip her soundly. That is the best cure for her ailment.” + +As Joan was moving away she turned and said, with simplicity: + +“You refuse me the soldiers, I know not why, for it is my Lord that has commanded you. Yes, it is He that has made the command; therefore I must come again, and yet again; then I shall have the men-at-arms.” + +There was a great deal of wondering talk, after she was gone; and the guards and servants passed the talk to the town, the town passed it to the country; Domremy was already buzzing with it when we got back. + +== Chapter 8 Why the Scorners Relented + +HUMAN NATURE is the same everywhere: it defies success, it has nothing but scorn for defeat. The village considered that Joan had disgraced it with her grotesque performance and its ridiculous failure; so all the tongues were busy with the matter, and as bilious and bitter as they were busy; insomuch that if the tongues had been teeth she would not have survived her persecutions. Those persons who did not scold did what was worse and harder to bear; for they ridiculed her, and mocked at her, and ceased neither day nor night from their witticisms and jeerings and laughter. Haumette and Little Mengette and I stood by her, but the storm was too strong for her other friends, and they avoided her, being ashamed to be seen with her because she was so unpopular, and because of the sting of the taunts that assailed them on her account. She shed tears in secret, but none in public. In public she carried herself with serenity, and showed no distress, nor any resentment — conduct which should have softened the feeling against her, but it did not. Her father was so incensed that he could not talk in measured terms about her wild project of going to the wars like a man. He had dreamed of her doing such a thing, some time before, and now he remembered that dream with apprehension and anger, and said that rather than see her unsex herself and go away with the armies, he would require her brothers to drown her; and that if they should refuse, he would do it with his own hands. + +But none of these things shook her purpose in the least. Her parents kept a strict watch upon her to keep her from leaving the village, but she said her time was not yet; that when the time to go was come she should know it, and then the keepers would watch in vain. + +The summer wasted along; and when it was seen that her purpose continued steadfast, the parents were glad of a chance which finally offered itself for bringing her projects to an end through marriage. The Paladin had the effrontery to pretend that she had engaged herself to him several years before, and now he claimed a ratification of the engagement. + +She said his statement was not true, and refused to marry him. She was cited to appear before the ecclesiastical court at Toul to answer for her perversity; when she declined to have counsel, and elected to conduct her case herself, her parents and all her ill-wishers rejoiced, and looked upon her as already defeated. And that was natural enough; for who would expect that an ignorant peasant-girl of sixteen would be otherwise than frightened and tongue-tied when standing for the first time in presence of the practised doctors of the law, and surrounded by the cold solemnities of a court? Yet all these people were mistaken. They flocked to Toul to see and enjoy this fright and embarrassment and defeat, and they had their trouble for their pains. She was modest, tranquil, and quite at her ease. She called no witnesses, saying she would content herself with examining the witnesses for the prosecution. When they had testified, she rose and reviewed their testimony in a few words, pronounced it vague, confused, and of no force, then she placed the Paladin again on the stand and began to search him. His previous testimony went rag by rag to ruin under her ingenious hands, until at last he stood bare, so to speak, he that had come so richly clothed in fraud and falsehood. His counsel began an argument, but the court declined to hear it, and threw out the case, adding a few words of grave compliment for Joan, and referring to her as “this marvelous child.” + +After this victory, with this high praise from so imposing a source added, the fickle village turned again, and gave Joan countenance, compliment, and peace. Her mother took her back to her heart, and even her father relented and said he was proud of her. But the time hung heavy on her hands, nevertheless, for the siege of Orleans was begun, the clouds lowered darker and darker over France, and still her Voices said wait, and gave her no direct commands. The winter set in, and wore tediously along; but at last there was a change. + +== BOOK II + +IN COURT AND CAMP + +== Chapter 1 Joan Says Good-By + +image::https://i.nostr.build/tMdjhyvwHCM23CR2.jpg[0109, 300] + + +THE 5th of January, 1429, Joan came to me with her uncle Laxart, and said: + +“The time is come. My Voices are not vague now, but clear, and they have told me what to do. In two months I shall be with the Dauphin.” + +Her spirits were high, and her bearing martial. I caught the infection and felt a great impulse stirring in me that was like what one feels when he hears the roll of the drums and the tramp of marching men. + +“I believe it,” I said. + +“I also believe it,” said Laxart. “If she had told me before, that she was commanded of God to rescue France, I should not have believed; I should have let her seek the governor by her own ways and held myself clear of meddling in the matter, not doubting she was mad. But I have seen her stand before those nobles and mighty men unafraid, and say her say; and she had not been able to do that but by the help of God. That I know. Therefore with all humbleness I am at her command, to do with me as she will.” + +“My uncle is very good to me,” Joan said. “I sent and asked him to come and persuade my mother to let him take me home with him to tend his wife, who is not well. It is arranged, and we go at dawn to-morrow. From his house I shall go soon to Vaucouleurs, and wait and strive until my prayer is granted. Who were the two cavaliers who sat to your left at the governor’s table that day?” + +“One was the Sieur Jean de Novelonpont de Metz, the other the Sieur Bertrand de Poulengy.” + +“Good metal — good metal, both. I marked them for men of mine.... What is it I see in your face? Doubt?” + +I was teaching myself to speak the truth to her, not trimming it or polishing it; so I said: + +“They considered you out of your head, and said so. It is true they pitied you for being in such misfortune, but still they held you to be mad.” + +This did not seem to trouble her in any way or wound her. She only said: + +“The wise change their minds when they perceive that they have been in error. These will. They will march with me. I shall see them presently.. .. You seem to doubt again? Do you doubt?” + +“N-no. Not now. I was remembering that it was a year ago, and that they did not belong here, but only chanced to stop a day on their journey.” + +“They will come again. But as to matters now in hand; I came to leave with you some instructions. You will follow me in a few days. Order your affairs, for you will be absent long.” + +“Will Jean and Pierre go with me?” + +“No; they would refuse now, but presently they will come, and with them they will bring my parents’ blessing, and likewise their consent that I take up my mission. I shall be stronger, then — stronger for that; for lack of it I am weak now.” She paused a little while, and the tears gathered in her eyes; then she went on: “I would say good-by to Little Mengette. Bring her outside the village at dawn; she must go with me a little of the way — ” + +“And Haumette?” + +She broke down and began to cry, saying: + +“No, oh, no — she is too dear to me, I could not bear it, knowing I should never look upon her face again.” + +Next morning I brought Mengette, and we four walked along the road in the cold dawn till the village was far behind; then the two girls said their good-bys, clinging about each other’s neck, and pouring out their grief in loving words and tears, a pitiful sight to see. And Joan took one long look back upon the distant village, and the Fairy Tree, and the oak forest, and the flowery plain, and the river, as if she was trying to print these scenes on her memory so that they would abide there always and not fade, for she knew she would not see them any more in this life; then she turned, and went from us, sobbing bitterly. It was her birthday and mine. She was seventeen years old. + +== Chapter 2 The Governor Speeds Joan + +After a few days, Laxart took Joan to Vaucouleurs, and found lodging and guardianship for her with Catherine Royer, a wheelwright’s wife, an honest and good woman. Joan went to mass regularly, she helped do the housework, earning her keep in that way, and if any wished to talk with her about her mission — and many did — she talked freely, making no concealments regarding the matter now. I was soon housed near by, and witnessed the effects which followed. At once the tidings spread that a young girl was come who was appointed of God to save France. The common people flocked in crowds to look at her and speak with her, and her fair young loveliness won the half of their belief, and her deep earnestness and transparent sincerity won the other half. The well-to-do remained away and scoffed, but that is their way. + +Next, a prophecy of Merlin’s, more than eight hundred years old, was called to mind, which said that in a far future time France would be lost by a woman and restored by a woman. France was now, for the first time, lost — and by a woman, Isabel of Bavaria, her base Queen; doubtless this fair and pure young girl was commissioned of Heaven to complete the prophecy. + +This gave the growing interest a new and powerful impulse; the excitement rose higher and higher, and hope and faith along with it; and so from Vaucouleurs wave after wave of this inspiring enthusiasm flowed out over the land, far and wide, invading all the villages and refreshing and revivifying the perishing children of France; and from these villages came people who wanted to see for themselves, hear for themselves; and they did see and hear, and believe. They filled the town; they more than filled it; inns and lodgings were packed, and yet half of the inflow had to go without shelter. And still they came, winter as it was, for when a man’s soul is starving, what does he care for meat and roof so he can but get that nobler hunger fed? Day after day, and still day after day the great tide rose. Domremy was dazed, amazed, stupefied, and said to itself, “Was this world-wonder in our familiar midst all these years and we too dull to see it?” Jean and Pierre went out from the village, stared at and envied like the great and fortunate of the earth, and their progress to Vaucouleurs was like a triumph, all the country-side flocking to see and salute the brothers of one with whom angels had spoken face to face, and into whose hands by command of God they had delivered the destinies of France. + +The brothers brought the parents’ blessing and godspeed to Joan, and their promise to bring it to her in person later; and so, with this culminating happiness in her heart and the high hope it inspired, she went and confronted the governor again. But he was no more tractable than he had been before. He refused to send her to the King. She was disappointed, but in no degree discouraged. She said: + +“I must still come to you until I get the men-at-arms; for so it is commanded, and I may not disobey. I must go to the Dauphin, though I go on my knees.” + +I and the two brothers were with Joan daily, to see the people that came and hear what they said; and one day, sure enough, the Sieur Jean de Metz came. He talked with her in a petting and playful way, as one talks with children, and said: + +“What are you doing here, my little maid? Will they drive the King out of France, and shall we all turn English?” + +She answered him in her tranquil, serious way: + +“I am come to bid Robert de Baudricourt take or send me to the King, but he does not heed my words.” + +“Ah, you have an admirable persistence, truly; a whole year has not turned you from your wish. I saw you when you came before.” + +Joan said, as tranquilly as before: + +“It is not a wish, it is a purpose. He will grant it. I can wait.” + +“Ah, perhaps it will not be wise to make too sure of that, my child. These governors are stubborn people to deal with. In case he shall not grant your prayer — ” + +“He will grant it. He must. It is not a matter of choice.” + +The gentleman’s playful mood began to disappear — one could see that, by his face. Joan’s earnestness was affecting him. It always happened that people who began in jest with her ended by being in earnest. They soon began to perceive depths in her that they had not suspected; and then her manifest sincerity and the rocklike steadfastness of her convictions were forces which cowed levity, and it could not maintain its self-respect in their presence. The Sieur de Metz was thoughtful for a moment or two, then he began, quite soberly: + +“Is it necessary that you go to the King soon? — that is, I mean — ” + +“Before Mid-Lent, even though I wear away my legs to the knees!” + +She said it with that sort of repressed fieriness that means so much when a person’s heart is in a thing. You could see the response in that nobleman’s face; you could see his eye light up; there was sympathy there. He said, most earnestly: + +“God knows I think you should have the men-at-arms, and that somewhat would come of it. What is it that you would do? What is your hope and purpose?” + +“To rescue France. And it is appointed that I shall do it. For no one else in the world, neither kings, nor dukes, no any other, can recover the kingdom of France, and there is no help but in me.” + +The words had a pleading and pathetic sound, and they touched that good nobleman. I saw it plainly. Joan dropped her voice a little, and said: “But indeed I would rather spin with my poor mother, for this is not my calling; but I must go and do it, for it is my Lord’s will.” + +“Who is your Lord?” + +“He is God.” + +Then the Sieur de Metz, following the impressive old feudal fashion, knelt and laid his hands within Joan’s in sign of fealty, and made oath that by God’s help he himself would take her to the king. + +The next day came the Sieur Bertrand de Poulengy, and he also pledged his oath and knightly honor to abide with her and follow her witherosever she might lead. + +This day, too, toward evening, a great rumor went flying abroad through the town — namely, that the very governor himself was going to visit the young girl in her humble lodgings. So in the morning the streets and lanes were packed with people waiting to see if this strange thing would indeed happen. And happen it did. The governor rode in state, attended by his guards, and the news of it went everywhere, and made a great sensation, and modified the scoffings of the people of quality and raised Joan’s credit higher than ever. + +The governor had made up his mind to one thing: Joan was either a witch or a saint, and he meant to find out which it was. So he brought a priest with him to exorcise the devil that was in her in case there was one there. The priest performed his office, but found no devil. He merely hurt Joan’s feelings and offended her piety without need, for he had already confessed her before this, and should have known, if he knew anything, that devils cannot abide the confessional, but utter cries of anguish and the most profane and furious cursings whenever they are confronted with that holy office. + +The governor went away troubled and full of thought, and not knowing what to do. And while he pondered and studied, several days went by and the 14th of February was come. Then Joan went to the castle and said: + +“In God’s name, Robert de Baudricourt, you are too slow about sending me, and have caused damage thereby, for this day the Dauphin’s cause has lost a battle near Orleans, and will suffer yet greater injury if you do not send me to him soon.” + +The governor was perplexed by this speech, and said: + +“To-day, child, to-day? How can you know what has happened in that region to-day? It would take eight or ten days for the word to come.” + +“My Voices have brought the word to me, and it is true. A battle was lost to-day, and you are in fault to delay me so.” + +The governor walked the floor awhile, talking within himself, but letting a great oath fall outside now and then; and finally he said: + +“Harkye! go in peace, and wait. If it shall turn out as you say, I will give you the letter and send you to the King, and not otherwise.” + +Joan said with fervor: + +“Now God be thanked, these waiting days are almost done. In nine days you will fetch me the letter.” + +Already the people of Vaucouleurs had given her a horse and had armed and equipped her as a soldier. She got no chance to try the horse and see if she could ride it, for her great first duty was to abide at her post and lift up the hopes and spirits of all who would come to talk with her, and prepare them to help in the rescue and regeneration of the kingdom. This occupied every waking moment she had. But it was no matter. There was nothing she could not learn — and in the briefest time, too. Her horse would find this out in the first hour. Meantime the brothers and I took the horse in turn and began to learn to ride. And we had teaching in the use of the sword and other arms also. + +On the 20th Joan called her small army together — the two knights and her two brothers and me — for a private council of war. No, it was not a council, that is not the right name, for she did not consult with us, she merely gave us orders. She mapped out the course she would travel toward the King, and did it like a person perfectly versed in geography; and this itinerary of daily marches was so arranged as to avoid here and there peculiarly dangerous regions by flank movements — which showed that she knew her political geography as intimately as she knew her physical geography; yet she had never had a day’s schooling, of course, and was without education. I was astonished, but thought her Voices must have taught her. But upon reflection I saw that this was not so. By her references to what this and that and the other person had told her, I perceived that she had been diligently questioning those crowds of visiting strangers, and that out of them she had patiently dug all this mass of invaluable knowledge. The two knights were filled with wonder at her good sense and sagacity. + +She commanded us to make preparations to travel by night and sleep by day in concealment, as almost the whole of our long journey would be through the enemy’s country. + +Also, she commanded that we should keep the date of our departure a secret, since she meant to get away unobserved. Otherwise we should be sent off with a grand demonstration which would advertise us to the enemy, and we should be ambushed and captured somewhere. Finally she said: + +“Nothing remains, now, but that I confide to you the date of our departure, so that you may make all needful preparation in time, leaving nothing to be done in haste and badly at the last moment. We march the 23d, at eleven of the clock at night.” + +Then we were dismissed. The two knights were startled — yes, and troubled; and the Sieur Bertrand said: + +“Even if the governor shall really furnish the letter and the escort, he still may not do it in time to meet the date she has chosen. Then how can she venture to name that date? It is a great risk — a great risk to select and decide upon the date, in this state of uncertainty.” + +I said: + +“Since she has named the 23d, we may trust her. The Voices have told her, I think. We shall do best to obey.” + +We did obey. Joan’s parents were notified to come before the 23d, but prudence forbade that they be told why this limit was named. + +All day, the 23d, she glanced up wistfully whenever new bodies of strangers entered the house, but her parents did not appear. Still she was not discouraged, but hoped on. But when night fell at last, her hopes perished, and the tears came; however, she dashed them away, and said: + +“It was to be so, no doubt; no doubt it was so ordered; I must bear it, and will.” + +De Metz tried to comfort her by saying: + +“The governor sends no word; it may be that they will come to-morrow, and — ” + +He got no further, for she interrupted him, saying: + +“To what good end? We start at eleven to-night.” + +And it was so. At ten the governor came, with his guard and arms, with horses and equipment for me and for the brothers, and gave Joan a letter to the King. Then he took off his sword, and belted it about her waist with his own hands, and said: + +“You said true, child. The battle was lost, on the day you said. So I have kept my word. Now go — come of it what may.” + +Joan gave him thanks, and he went his way. + +The lost battle was the famous disaster that is called in history the Battle of the Herrings. + +All the lights in the house were at once put out, and a little while after, when the streets had become dark and still, we crept stealthily through them and out at the western gate and rode away under whip and spur. + +== Chapter 3 The Paladin Groans and Boasts + +image::https://i.nostr.build/F6UZdPoJ2tU1noN2.jpg[0121, 300] + + +WE WERE twenty-five strong, and well equipped. We rode in double file, Joan and her brothers in the center of the column, with Jean de Metz at the head of it and the Sieur Bertrand at its extreme rear. In two or three hours we should be in the enemy’s country, and then none would venture to desert. By and by we began to hear groans and sobs and execrations from different points along the line, and upon inquiry found that six of our men were peasants who had never ridden a horse before, and were finding it very difficult to stay in their saddles, and moreover were now beginning to suffer considerable bodily torture. They had been seized by the governor at the last moment and pressed into the service to make up the tale, and he had placed a veteran alongside of each with orders to help him stick to the saddle, and kill him if he tried to desert. + +These poor devils had kept quiet as long as they could, but their physical miseries were become so sharp by this time that they were obliged to give them vent. But we were within the enemy’s country now, so there was no help for them, they must continue the march, though Joan said that if they chose to take the risk they might depart. They preferred to stay with us. We modified our pace now, and moved cautiously, and the new men were warned to keep their sorrows to themselves and not get the command into danger with their curses and lamentations. + +Toward dawn we rode deep into a forest, and soon all but the sentries were sound asleep in spite of the cold ground and the frosty air. + +I woke at noon out of such a solid and stupefying sleep that at first my wits were all astray, and I did not know where I was nor what had been happening. Then my senses cleared, and I remembered. As I lay there thinking over the strange events of the past month or two the thought came into my mind, greatly surprising me, that one of Joan’s prophecies had failed; for where were Noel and the Paladin, who were to join us at the eleventh hour? By this time, you see, I had gotten used to expecting everything Joan said to come true. So, being disturbed and troubled by these thoughts, I opened my eyes. Well, there stood the Paladin leaning against a tree and looking down on me! How often that happens; you think of a person, or speak of a person, and there he stands before you, and you not dreaming he is near. It looks as if his being near is really the thing that makes you think of him, and not just an accident, as people imagine. Well, be that as it may, there was the Paladin, anyway, looking down in my face and waiting for me to wake. I was ever so glad to see him, and jumped up and shook him by the hand, and led him a little way from the camp — he limping like a cripple — and told him to sit down, and said: + +“Now, where have you dropped down from? And how did you happen to light in this place? And what do the soldier-clothes mean? Tell me all about it.” + +He answered: + +“I marched with you last night.” + +“No!” (To myself I said, “The prophecy has not all failed — half of it has come true.”) “Yes, I did. I hurried up from Domremy to join, and was within a half a minute of being too late. In fact, I was too late, but I begged so hard that the governor was touched by my brave devotion to my country’s cause — those are the words he used — and so he yielded, and allowed me to come.” + +I thought to myself, this is a lie, he is one of those six the governor recruited by force at the last moment; I know it, for Joan’s prophecy said he would join at the eleventh hour, but not by his own desire. Then I said aloud: + +“I am glad you came; it is a noble cause, and one should not sit at home in times like these.” + +“Sit at home! I could no more do it than the thunderstone could stay hid in the clouds when the storm calls it.” + +“That is the right talk. It sounds like you.” + +That pleased him. + +“I’m glad you know me. Some don’t. But they will, presently. They will know me well enough before I get done with this war.” + +“That is what I think. I believe that wherever danger confronts you you will make yourself conspicuous.” + +He was charmed with this speech, and it swelled him up like a bladder. He said: + +“If I know myself — and I think I do — my performances in this campaign will give you occasion more than once to remember those words.” + +“I were a fool to doubt it. That I know.” + +“I shall not be at my best, being but a common soldier; still, the country will hear of me. If I were where I belong; if I were in the place of La Hire, or Saintrailles, or the Bastard of Orleans — well, I say nothing. I am not of the talking kind, like Noel Rainguesson and his sort, I thank God. But it will be something, I take it — a novelty in this world, I should say — to raise the fame of a private soldier above theirs, and extinguish the glory of their names with its shadow.” + +“Why, look here, my friend,” I said, “do you know that you have hit out a most remarkable idea there? Do you realize the gigantic proportions of it? For look you; to be a general of vast renown, what is that? Nothing — history is clogged and confused with them; one cannot keep their names in his memory, there are so many. But a common soldier of supreme renown — why, he would stand alone! He would the be one moon in a firmament of mustard-seed stars; his name would outlast the human race! My friend, who gave you that idea?” + +He was ready to burst with happiness, but he suppressed betrayal of it as well as he could. He simply waved the compliment aside with his hand and said, with complacency: + +“It is nothing. I have them often — ideas like that — and even greater ones. I do not consider this one much.” + +“You astonish me; you do, indeed. So it is really your own?” + +“Quite. And there is plenty more where it came from” — tapping his head with his finger, and taking occasion at the same time to cant his morion over his right ear, which gave him a very self-satisfied air — “I do not need to borrow my ideas, like Noel Rainguesson.” + +“Speaking of Noel, when did you see him last?” + +“Half an hour ago. He is sleeping yonder like a corpse. Rode with us last night.” + +I felt a great upleap in my heart, and said to myself, now I am at rest and glad; I will never doubt her prophecies again. Then I said aloud: + +“It gives me joy. It makes me proud of our village. There is not keeping our lion-hearts at home in these great times, I see that.” + +“Lion-heart! Who — that baby? Why, he begged like a dog to be let off. Cried, and said he wanted to go to his mother. Him a lion-heart! — that tumble-bug!” + +“Dear me, why I supposed he volunteered, of course. Didn’t he?” + +“Oh, yes, he volunteered the way people do to the headsman. Why, when he found I was coming up from Domremy to volunteer, he asked me to let him come along in my protection, and see the crowds and the excitement. Well, we arrived and saw the torches filing out at the Castle, and ran there, and the governor had him seized, along with four more, and he begged to be let off, and I begged for his place, and at last the governor allowed me to join, but wouldn’t let Noel off, because he was disgusted with him, he was such a cry-baby. Yes, and much good he’ll do the King’s service; he’ll eat for six and run for sixteen. I hate a pygmy with half a heart and nine stomachs!” + +“Why, this is very surprising news to me, and I am sorry and disappointed to hear it. I thought he was a very manly fellow.” + +The Paladin gave me an outraged look, and said: + +“I don’t see how you can talk like that, I’m sure I don’t. I don’t see how you could have got such a notion. I don’t dislike him, and I’m not saying these things out of prejudice, for I don’t allow myself to have prejudices against people. I like him, and have always comraded with him from the cradle, but he must allow me to speak my mind about his faults, and I am willing he shall speak his about mine, if I have any. And, true enough, maybe I have; but I reckon they’ll bear inspection — I have that idea, anyway. A manly fellow! You should have heard him whine and wail and swear, last night, because the saddle hurt him. Why didn’t the saddle hurt me? Pooh — I was as much at home in it as if I had been born there. And yet it was the first time I was ever on a horse. All those old soldiers admired my riding; they said they had never seen anything like it. But him — why, they had to hold him on, all the time.” + +An odor as of breakfast came stealing through the wood; the Paladin unconsciously inflated his nostrils in lustful response, and got up and limped painfully away, saying he must go and look to his horse. + +At bottom he was all right and a good-hearted giant, without any harm in him, for it is no harm to bark, if one stops there and does not bite, and it is no harm to be an ass, if one is content to bray and not kick. If this vast structure of brawn and muscle and vanity and foolishness seemed to have a libelous tongue, what of it? There was no malice behind it; and besides, the defect was not of his own creation; it was the work of Noel Rainguesson, who had nurtured it, fostered it, built it up and perfected it, for the entertainment he got out of it. His careless light heart had to have somebody to nag and chaff and make fun of, the Paladin had only needed development in order to meet its requirements, consequently the development was taken in hand and diligently attended to and looked after, gnat-and-bull fashion, for years, to the neglect and damage of far more important concerns. The result was an unqualified success. Noel prized the society of the Paladin above everybody else’s; the Paladin preferred anybody’s to Noel’s. The big fellow was often seen with the little fellow, but it was for the same reason that the bull is often seen with the gnat. + +With the first opportunity, I had a talk with Noel. I welcomed him to our expedition, and said: + +“It was fine and brave of you to volunteer, Noel.” + +His eye twinkled, and he answered: + +“Yes, it was rather fine, I think. Still, the credit doesn’t all belong to me; I had help.” + +“Who helped you?” + +“The governor.” + +“How?” + +“Well, I’ll tell you the whole thing. I came up from Domremy to see the crowds and the general show, for I hadn’t ever had any experience of such things, of course, and this was a great opportunity; but I hadn’t any mind to volunteer. I overtook the Paladin on the road and let him have my company the rest of the way, although he did not want it and said so; and while we were gawking and blinking in the glare of the governor’s torches they seized us and four more and added us to the escort, and that is really how I came to volunteer. But, after all, I wasn’t sorry, remembering how dull life would have been in the village without the Paladin.” + +“How did he feel about it? Was he satisfied?” + +“I think he was glad.” + +“Why?” + +“Because he said he wasn’t. He was taken by surprise, you see, and it is not likely that he could tell the truth without preparation. Not that he would have prepared, if he had had the chance, for I do not think he would. I am not charging him with that. In the same space of time that he could prepare to speak the truth, he could also prepare to lie; besides, his judgment would be cool then, and would warn him against fooling with new methods in an emergency. No, I am sure he was glad, because he said he wasn’t.” + +“Do you think he was very glad?” + +“Yes, I know he was. He begged like a slave, and bawled for his mother. He said his health was delicate, and he didn’t know how to ride a horse, and he knew he couldn’t outlive the first march. But really he wasn’t looking as delicate as he was feeling. There was a cask of wine there, a proper lift for four men. The governor’s temper got afire, and he delivered an oath at him that knocked up the dust where it struck the ground, and told him to shoulder that cask or he would carve him to cutlets and send him home in a basket. The Paladin did it, and that secured his promotion to a privacy in the escort without any further debate.” + +“Yes, you seem to make it quite plain that he was glad to join — that is, if your premises are right that you start from. How did he stand the march last night?” + +“About as I did. If he made the more noise, it was the privilege of his bulk. We stayed in our saddles because we had help. We are equally lame to-day, and if he likes to sit down, let him; I prefer to stand.” + +== Chapter 4 Joan Leads Us Through the Enemy + +WE WERE called to quarters and subjected to a searching inspection by Joan. Then she made a short little talk in which she said that even the rude business of war could be conducted better without profanity and other brutalities of speech than with them, and that she should strictly require us to remember and apply this admonition. She ordered half an hour’s horsemanship drill for the novices then, and appointed one of the veterans to conduct it. It was a ridiculous exhibition, but we learned something, and Joan was satisfied and complimented us. She did not take any instruction herself or go through the evolutions and manoeuvres, but merely sat her horse like a martial little statue and looked on. That was sufficient for her, you see. She would not miss or forget a detail of the lesson, she would take it all in with her eye and her mind, and apply it afterward with as much certainty and confidence as if she had already practised it. + +We now made three night marches of twelve or thirteen leagues each, riding in peace and undisturbed, being taken for a roving band of Free Companions. Country-folk were glad to have that sort of people go by without stopping. Still, they were very wearying marches, and not comfortable, for the bridges were few and the streams many, and as we had to ford them we found the water dismally cold, and afterward had to bed ourselves, still wet, on the frosty or snowy ground, and get warm as we might and sleep if we could, for it would not have been prudent to build fires. Our energies languished under these hardships and deadly fatigues, but Joan’s did not. Her step kept its spring and firmness and her eye its fire. We could only wonder at this, we could not explain it. + +But if we had had hard times before, I know not what to call the five nights that now followed, for the marches were as fatiguing, the baths as cold, and we were ambuscaded seven times in addition, and lost two novices and three veterans in the resulting fights. The news had leaked out and gone abroad that the inspired Virgin of Vaucouleurs was making for the King with an escort, and all the roads were being watched now. + +These five nights disheartened the command a good deal. This was aggravated by a discovery which Noel made, and which he promptly made known at headquarters. Some of the men had been trying to understand why Joan continued to be alert, vigorous, and confident while the strongest men in the company were fagged with the heavy marches and exposure and were become morose and irritable. There, it shows you how men can have eyes and yet not see. All their lives those men had seen their own women-folks hitched up with a cow and dragging the plow in the fields while the men did the driving. They had also seen other evidences that women have far more endurance and patience and fortitude than men — but what good had their seeing these things been to them? None. It had taught them nothing. They were still surprised to see a girl of seventeen bear the fatigues of war better than trained veterans of the army. Moreover, they did not reflect that a great soul, with a great purpose, can make a weak body strong and keep it so; and here was the greatest soul in the universe; but how could they know that, those dumb creatures? No, they knew nothing, and their reasonings were of a piece with their ignorance. They argued and discussed among themselves, with Noel listening, and arrived at the decision that Joan was a witch, and had her strange pluck and strength from Satan; so they made a plan to watch for a safe opportunity to take her life. + +To have secret plottings of this sort going on in our midst was a very serious business, of course, and the knights asked Joan’s permission to hang the plotters, but she refused without hesitancy. She said: + +“Neither these men nor any others can take my life before my mission is accomplished, therefore why should I have their blood upon my hands? I will inform them of this, and also admonish them. Call them before me.” + +When they came she made that statement to them in a plain matter-of-fact way, and just as if the thought never entered her mind that any one could doubt it after she had given her word that it was true. The men were evidently amazed and impressed to hear her say such a thing in such a sure and confident way, for prophecies boldly uttered never fall barren on superstitious ears. Yes, this speech certainly impressed them, but her closing remark impressed them still more. It was for the ringleader, and Joan said it sorrowfully: + +“It is a pity that you should plot another’s death when your own is so close at hand.” + +That man’s horse stumbled and fell on him in the first ford which we crossed that night, and he was drowned before we could help him. We had no more conspiracies. + +This night was harassed with ambuscades, but we got through without having any men killed. One more night would carry us over the hostile frontier if we had good luck, and we saw the night close down with a good deal of solicitude. Always before, we had been more or less reluctant to start out into the gloom and the silence to be frozen in the fords and persecuted by the enemy, but this time we were impatient to get under way and have it over, although there was promise of more and harder fighting than any of the previous nights had furnished. Moreover, in front of us about three leagues there was a deep stream with a frail wooden bridge over it, and as a cold rain mixed with snow had been falling steadily all day we were anxious to find out whether we were in a trap or not. If the swollen stream had washed away the bridge, we might properly consider ourselves trapped and cut off from escape. + +As soon as it was dark we filed out from the depth of the forest where we had been hidden and began the march. From the time that we had begun to encounter ambushes Joan had ridden at the head of the column, and she took this post now. By the time we had gone a league the rain and snow had turned to sleet, and under the impulse of the storm-wind it lashed my face like whips, and I envied Joan and the knights, who could close their visors and shut up their heads in their helmets as in a box. Now, out of the pitchy darkness and close at hand, came the sharp command: + +“Halt!” + +We obeyed. I made out a dim mass in front of us which might be a body of horsemen, but one could not be sure. A man rode up and said to Joan in a tone of reproof: + +“Well, you have taken your time, truly. And what have you found out? Is she still behind us, or in front?” + +Joan answered in a level voice: + +“She is still behind.” + +This news softened the stranger’s tone. He said: + +“If you know that to be true, you have not lost your time, Captain. But are you sure? How do you know?” + +“Because I have seen her.” + +“Seen her! Seen the Virgin herself?” + +“Yes, I have been in her camp.” + +“Is it possible! Captain Raymond, I ask you to pardon me for speaking in that tone just now. You have performed a daring and admirable service. Where was she camped?” + +“In the forest, not more than a league from here.” + +“Good! I was afraid we might be still behind her, but now that we know she is behind us, everything is safe. She is our game. We will hang her. You shall hang her yourself. No one has so well earned the privilege of abolishing this pestilent limb of Satan.” + +“I do not know how to thank you sufficiently. If we catch her, I — ” + +“If! I will take care of that; give yourself no uneasiness. All I want is just a look at her, to see what the imp is like that has been able to make all this noise, then you and the halter may have her. How many men has she?” + +“I counted but eighteen, but she may have had two or three pickets out.” + +“Is that all? It won’t be a mouthful for my force. Is it true that she is only a girl?” + +“Yes; she is not more than seventeen.” + +“It passes belief! Is she robust, or slender?” + +“Slender.” + +The officer pondered a moment or two, then he said: + +“Was she preparing to break camp?” + +“Not when I had my last glimpse of her.” + +“What was she doing?” + +“She was talking quietly with an officer.” + +“Quietly? Not giving orders?” + +“No, talking as quietly as we are now.” + +“That is good. She is feeling a false security. She would have been restless and fussy else — it is the way of her sex when danger is about. As she was making no preparation to break camp — ” + +“She certainly was not when I saw her last.” + +“ — and was chatting quietly and at her ease, it means that this weather is not to her taste. Night-marching in sleet and wind is not for chits of seventeen. No; she will stay where she is. She has my thanks. We will camp, ourselves; here is as good a place as any. Let us get about it.” + +“If you command it — certainly. But she has two knights with her. They might force her to march, particularly if the weather should improve.” + +I was scared, and impatient to be getting out of this peril, and it distressed and worried me to have Joan apparently set herself to work to make delay and increase the danger — still, I thought she probably knew better than I what to do. The officer said: + +“Well, in that case we are here to block the way.” + +“Yes, if they come this way. But if they should send out spies, and find out enough to make them want to try for the bridge through the woods? Is it best to allow the bridge to stand?” + +It made me shiver to hear her. + +The officer considered awhile, then said: + +“It might be well enough to send a force to destroy the bridge. I was intending to occupy it with the whole command, but that is not necessary now.” + +Joan said, tranquilly: + +“With your permission, I will go and destroy it myself.” + +Ah, now I saw her idea, and was glad she had had the cleverness to invent it and the ability to keep her head cool and think of it in that tight place. The officer replied: + +“You have it, Captain, and my thanks. With you to do it, it will be well done; I could send another in your place, but not a better.” + +They saluted, and we moved forward. I breathed freer. A dozen times I had imagined I heard the hoofbeats of the real Captain Raymond’s troop arriving behind us, and had been sitting on pins and needles all the while that that conversation was dragging along. I breathed freer, but was still not comfortable, for Joan had given only the simple command, “Forward!” Consequently we moved in a walk. Moved in a dead walk past a dim and lengthening column of enemies at our side. The suspense was exhausting, yet it lasted but a short while, for when the enemy’s bugles sang the “Dismount!” Joan gave the word to trot, and that was a great relief to me. She was always at herself, you see. Before the command to dismount had been given, somebody might have wanted the countersign somewhere along that line if we came flying by at speed, but now we seemed to be on our way to our allotted camping position, so we were allowed to pass unchallenged. The further we went the more formidable was the strength revealed by the hostile force. Perhaps it was only a hundred or two, but to me it seemed a thousand. When we passed the last of these people I was thankful, and the deeper we plowed into the darkness beyond them the better I felt. I came nearer and nearer to feeling good, for an hour; then we found the bridge still standing, and I felt entirely good. We crossed it and destroyed it, and then I felt — but I cannot describe what I felt. One has to feel it himself in order to know what it is like. + +We had expected to hear the rush of a pursuing force behind us, for we thought that the real Captain Raymond would arrive and suggest that perhaps the troop that had been mistaken for his belonged to the Virgin of Vaucouleurs; but he must have been delayed seriously, for when we resumed our march beyond the river there were no sounds behind us except those which the storm was furnishing. + +I said that Joan had harvested a good many compliments intended for Captain Raymond, and that he would find nothing of a crop left but a dry stubble of reprimands when he got back, and a commander just in the humor to superintend the gathering of it in. + +Joan said: + +“It will be as you say, no doubt; for the commander took a troop for granted, in the night and unchallenged, and would have camped without sending a force to destroy the bridge if he had been left unadvised, and none are so ready to find fault with others as those who do things worthy of blame themselves.” + +The Sieur Bertrand was amused at Joan’s naive way of referring to her advice as if it had been a valuable present to a hostile leader who was saved by it from making a censurable blunder of omission, and then he went on to admire how ingeniously she had deceived that man and yet had not told him anything that was not the truth. This troubled Joan, and she said: + +“I thought he was deceiving himself. I forbore to tell him lies, for that would have been wrong; but if my truths deceived him, perhaps that made them lies, and I am to blame. I would God I knew if I have done wrong.” + +She was assured that she had done right, and that in the perils and necessities of war deceptions that help one’s own cause and hurt the enemy’s were always permissible; but she was not quite satisfied with that, and thought that even when a great cause was in danger one ought to have the privilege of trying honorable ways first. Jean said: + +“Joan, you told us yourself that you were going to Uncle Laxart’s to nurse his wife, but you didn’t say you were going further, yet you did go on to Vaucouleurs. There!” + +“I see now,” said Joan, sorrowfully. “I told no lie, yet I deceived. I had tried all other ways first, but I could not get away, and I had to get away. My mission required it. I did wrong, I think, and am to blame.” + +She was silent a moment, turning the matter over in her mind, then she added, with quiet decision, “But the thing itself was right, and I would do it again.” + +It seemed an over-nice distinction, but nobody said anything. If we had known her as well as she knew herself, and as her later history revealed her to us, we should have perceived that she had a clear meaning there, and that her position was not identical with ours, as we were supposing, but occupied a higher plane. She would sacrifice herself — and her best self; that is, her truthfulness — to save her cause; but only that; she would not buy her life at that cost; whereas our war-ethics permitted the purchase of our lives, or any mere military advantage, small or great, by deception. Her saying seemed a commonplace at the time, the essence of its meaning escaping us; but one sees now that it contained a principle which lifted it above that and made it great and fine. + +Presently the wind died down, the sleet stopped falling, and the cold was less severe. The road was become a bog, and the horses labored through it at a walk — they could do no better. As the heavy time wore on, exhaustion overcame us, and we slept in our saddles. Not even the dangers that threatened us could keep us awake. + +This tenth night seemed longer than any of the others, and of course it was the hardest, because we had been accumulating fatigue from the beginning, and had more of it on hand now than at any previous time. But we were not molested again. When the dull dawn came at last we saw a river before us and we knew it was the Loire; we entered the town of Gien, and knew we were in a friendly land, with the hostiles all behind us. That was a glad morning for us. + +We were a worn and bedraggled and shabby-looking troop; and still, as always, Joan was the freshest of us all, in both body and spirits. We had averaged above thirteen leagues a night, by tortuous and wretched roads. It was a remarkable march, and shows what men can do when they have a leader with a determined purpose and a resolution that never flags. + +== Chapter 5 We Pierce the Last Ambuscades + +image::https://i.nostr.build/RefC5jivuypU9OgH.jpg[0135, 300] + + +WE RESTED and otherwise refreshed ourselves two or three hours at Gien, but by that time the news was abroad that the young girl commissioned of God to deliver France was come; wherefore, such a press of people flocked to our quarters to get sight of her that it seemed best to seek a quieter place; so we pushed on and halted at a small village called Fierbois. + +We were now within six leagues of the King, who was at the Castle of Chinon. Joan dictated a letter to him at once, and I wrote it. In it she said she had come a hundred and fifty leagues to bring him good news, and begged the privilege of delivering it in person. She added that although she had never seen him she would know him in any disguise and would point him out. + +The two knights rode away at once with the letter. The troop slept all the afternoon, and after supper we felt pretty fresh and fine, especially our little group of young Domremians. We had the comfortable tap-room of the village inn to ourselves, and for the first time in ten unspeakably long days were exempt from bodings and terrors and hardships and fatiguing labors. The Paladin was suddenly become his ancient self again, and was swaggering up and down, a very monument of self-complacency. Noel Rainguesson said: + +“I think it is wonderful, the way he has brought us through.” + +“Who?” asked Jean. + +“Why, the Paladin.” + +The Paladin seemed not to hear. + +“What had he to do with it?” asked Pierre d’Arc. + +“Everything. It was nothing but Joan’s confidence in his discretion that enabled her to keep up her heart. She could depend on us and on herself for valor, but discretion is the winning thing in war, after all; discretion is the rarest and loftiest of qualities, and he has got more of it than any other man in France — more of it, perhaps, than any other sixty men in France.” + +“Now you are getting ready to make a fool of yourself, Noel Rainguesson,” said the Paladin, “and you want to coil some of that long tongue of yours around your neck and stick the end of it in your ear, then you’ll be the less likely to get into trouble.” + +“I didn’t know he had more discretion than other people,” said Pierre, “for discretion argues brains, and he hasn’t any more brains than the rest of us, in my opinion.” + +“No, you are wrong there. Discretion hasn’t anything to do with brains; brains are an obstruction to it, for it does not reason, it feels. Perfect discretion means absence of brains. Discretion is a quality of the heart — solely a quality of the heart; it acts upon us through feeling. We know this because if it were an intellectual quality it would only perceive a danger, for instance, where a danger exists; whereas — ” + +“Hear him twaddle — the damned idiot!” muttered the Paladin. + +“ — whereas, it being purely a quality of the heart, and proceeding by feeling, not reason, its reach is correspondingly wider and sublimer, enabling it to perceive and avoid dangers that haven’t any existence at all; as, for instance, that night in the fog, when the Paladin took his horse’s ears for hostile lances and got off and climbed a tree — ” + +“It’s a lie! a lie without shadow of foundation, and I call upon you all to beware you give credence to the malicious inventions of this ramshackle slander-mill that has been doing its best to destroy my character for years, and will grind up your own reputations for you next. I got off to tighten my saddle-girth — I wish I may die in my tracks if it isn’t so — and whoever wants to believe it can, and whoever don’t can let it alone.” + +“There, that is the way with him, you see; he never can discuss a theme temperately, but always flies off the handle and becomes disagreeable. And you notice his defect of memory. He remembers getting off his horse, but forgets all the rest, even the tree. But that is natural; he would remember getting off the horse because he was so used to doing it. He always did it when there was an alarm and the clash of arms at the front.” + +“Why did he choose that time for it?” asked Jean. + +“I don’t know. To tighten up his girth, he thinks, to climb a tree, I think; I saw him climb nine trees in a single night.” + +“You saw nothing of the kind! A person that can lie like that deserves no one’s respect. I ask you all to answer me. Do you believe what this reptile has said?” + +All seemed embarrassed, and only Pierre replied. He said, hesitatingly: + +“I — well, I hardly know what to say. It is a delicate situation. It seems offensive to me to refuse to believe a person when he makes so direct a statement, and yet I am obliged to say, rude as it may appear, that I am not able to believe the whole of it — no, I am not able to believe that you climbed nine trees.” + +“There!” cried the Paladin; “now what do you think of yourself, Noel Rainguesson? How many do you believe I climbed, Pierre?” + +“Only eight.” + +The laughter that followed inflamed the Paladin’s anger to white heat, and he said: + +“I bide my time — I bide my time. I will reckon with you all, I promise you that!” + +“Don’t get him started,” Noel pleaded; “he is a perfect lion when he gets started. I saw enough to teach me that, after the third skirmish. After it was over I saw him come out of the bushes and attack a dead man single-handed.” + +“It is another lie; and I give you fair warning that you are going too far. You will see me attack a live one if you are not careful.” + +“Meaning me, of course. This wounds me more than any number of injurious and unkind speeches could do. In gratitude to one’s benefactor — ” + +“Benefactor? What do I owe you, I should like to know?” + +“You owe me your life. I stood between the trees and the foe, and kept hundreds and thousands of the enemy at bay when they were thirsting for your blood. And I did not do it to display my daring. I did it because I loved you and could not live without you.” + +“There — you have said enough! I will not stay here to listen to these infamies. I can endure your lies, but not your love. Keep that corruption for somebody with a stronger stomach than mine. And I want to say this, before I go. That you people’s small performances might appear the better and win you the more glory, I hid my own deeds through all the march. I went always to the front, where the fighting was thickest, to be remote from you in order that you might not see and be discouraged by the things I did to the enemy. It was my purpose to keep this a secret in my own breast, but you force me to reveal it. If you ask for my witnesses, yonder they lie, on the road we have come. I found that road mud, I paved it with corpses. I found that country sterile, I fertilized it with blood. Time and again I was urged to go to the rear because the command could not proceed on account of my dead. And yet you, you miscreant, accuse me of climbing trees! Pah!” + +And he strode out, with a lofty air, for the recital of his imaginary deeds had already set him up again and made him feel good. + +Next day we mounted and faced toward Chinon. Orleans was at our back now, and close by, lying in the strangling grip of the English; soon, please God, we would face about and go to their relief. From Gien the news had spread to Orleans that the peasant Maid of Vaucouleurs was on her way, divinely commissioned to raise the siege. The news made a great excitement and raised a great hope — the first breath of hope those poor souls had breathed in five months. They sent commissioners at once to the King to beg him to consider this matter, and not throw this help lightly away. These commissioners were already at Chinon by this time. + +When we were half-way to Chinon we happened upon yet one more squad of enemies. They burst suddenly out of the woods, and in considerable force, too; but we were not the apprentices we were ten or twelve days before; no, we were seasoned to this kind of adventure now; our hearts did not jump into our throats and our weapons tremble in our hands. We had learned to be always in battle array, always alert, and always ready to deal with any emergency that might turn up. We were no more dismayed by the sight of those people than our commander was. Before they could form, Joan had delivered the order, “Forward!” and we were down upon them with a rush. They stood no chance; they turned tail and scattered, we plowing through them as if they had been men of straw. That was our last ambuscade, and it was probably laid for us by that treacherous rascal, the King’s own minister and favorite, De la Tremouille. + +We housed ourselves in an inn, and soon the town came flocking to get a glimpse of the Maid. + +Ah, the tedious King and his tedious people! Our two good knights came presently, their patience well wearied, and reported. They and we reverently stood — as becomes persons who are in the presence of kings and the superiors of kings — until Joan, troubled by this mark of homage and respect, and not content with it nor yet used to it, although we had not permitted ourselves to do otherwise since the day she prophesied that wretched traitor’s death and he was straightway drowned, thus confirming many previous signs that she was indeed an ambassador commissioned of God, commanded us to sit; then the Sieur de Metz said to Joan: + +“The King has got the letter, but they will not let us have speech with him.” + +“Who is it that forbids?” + +“None forbids, but there be three or four that are nearest his person — schemers and traitors every one — that put obstructions in the way, and seek all ways, by lies and pretexts, to make delay. Chiefest of these are Georges de la Tremouille and that plotting fox, the Archbishop of Rheims. While they keep the King idle and in bondage to his sports and follies, they are great and their importance grows; whereas if ever he assert himself and rise and strike for crown and country like a man, their reign is done. So they but thrive, they care not if the crown go to destruction and the King with it.” + +“You have spoken with others besides these?” + +“Not of the Court, no — the Court are the meek slaves of those reptiles, and watch their mouths and their actions, acting as they act, thinking as they think, saying as they say; wherefore they are cold to us, and turn aside and go another way when we appear. But we have spoken with the commissioners from Orleans. They said with heat: ‘It is a marvel that any man in such desperate case as is the King can moon around in this torpid way, and see his all go to ruin without lifting a finger to stay the disaster. What a most strange spectacle it is! Here he is, shut up in this wee corner of the realm like a rat in a trap; his royal shelter this huge gloomy tomb of a castle, with wormy rags for upholstery and crippled furniture for use, a very house of desolation; in his treasure forty francs, and not a farthing more, God be witness! no army, nor any shadow of one; and by contrast with his hungry poverty you behold this crownless pauper and his shoals of fools and favorites tricked out in the gaudiest silks and velvets you shall find in any Court in Christendom. And look you, he knows that when our city falls — as fall it surely will except succor come swiftly — France falls; he knows that when that day comes he will be an outlaw and a fugitive, and that behind him the English flag will float unchallenged over every acre of his great heritage; he knows these things, he knows that our faithful city is fighting all solitary and alone against disease, starvation, and the sword to stay this awful calamity, yet he will not strike one blow to save her, he will not hear our prayers, he will not even look upon our faces.’ That is what the commissioners said, and they are in despair.” + +Joan said, gently: + +“It is pity, but they must not despair. The Dauphin will hear them presently. Tell them so.” + +She almost always called the King the Dauphin. To her mind he was not King yet, not being crowned. + +“We will tell them so, and it will content them, for they believe you come from God. The Archbishop and his confederate have for backer that veteran soldier Raoul de Gaucourt, Grand Master of the Palace, a worthy man, but simply a soldier, with no head for any greater matter. He cannot make out to see how a country-girl, ignorant of war, can take a sword in her small hand and win victories where the trained generals of France have looked for defeats only, for fifty years — and always found them. And so he lifts his frosty mustache and scoffs.” + +“When God fights it is but small matter whether the hand that bears His sword is big or little. He will perceive this in time. Is there none in that Castle of Chinon who favors us?” + +“Yes, the King’s mother-in-law, Yolande, Queen of Sicily, who is wise and good. She spoke with the Sieur Bertrand.” + +“She favors us, and she hates those others, the King’s beguilers,” said Bertrand. “She was full of interest, and asked a thousand questions, all of which I answered according to my ability. Then she sat thinking over these replies until I thought she was lost in a dream and would wake no more. But it was not so. At last she said, slowly, and as if she were talking to herself: ‘A child of seventeen — a girl — country-bred — untaught — ignorant of war, the use of arms, and the conduct of battles — modest, gentle, shrinking — yet throws away her shepherd’s crook and clothes herself in steel, and fights her way through a hundred and fifty leagues of fear, and comes — she to whom a king must be a dread and awful presence — and will stand up before such an one and say, Be not afraid, God has sent me to save you! Ah, whence could come a courage and conviction so sublime as this but from very God Himself!’ She was silent again awhile, thinking and making up her mind; then she said, ‘And whether she comes of God or no, there is that in her heart that raises her above men — high above all men that breathe in France to-day — for in her is that mysterious something that puts heart into soldiers, and turns mobs of cowards into armies of fighters that forget what fear is when they are in that presence — fighters who go into battle with joy in their eyes and songs on their lips, and sweep over the field like a storm — that is the spirit that can save France, and that alone, come it whence it may! It is in her, I do truly believe, for what else could have borne up that child on that great march, and made her despise its dangers and fatigues? The King must see her face to face — and shall!’ She dismissed me with those good words, and I know her promise will be kept. They will delay her all they can — those animals — but she will not fail in the end.” + +“Would she were King!” said the other knight, fervently. “For there is little hope that the King himself can be stirred out of his lethargy. He is wholly without hope, and is only thinking of throwing away everything and flying to some foreign land. The commissioners say there is a spell upon him that makes him hopeless — yes, and that it is shut up in a mystery which they cannot fathom.” + +“I know the mystery,” said Joan, with quiet confidence; “I know it, and he knows it, but no other but God. When I see him I will tell him a secret that will drive away his trouble, then he will hold up his head again.” + +I was miserable with curiosity to know what it was that she would tell him, but she did not say, and I did not expect she would. She was but a child, it is true; but she was not a chatterer to tell great matters and make herself important to little people; no, she was reserved, and kept things to herself, as the truly great always do. + +The next day Queen Yolande got one victory over the King’s keepers, for, in spite of their protestations and obstructions, she procured an audience for our two knights, and they made the most they could out of their opportunity. They told the King what a spotless and beautiful character Joan was, and how great and noble a spirit animated her, and they implored him to trust in her, believe in her, and have faith that she was sent to save France. They begged him to consent to see her. He was strongly moved to do this, and promised that he would not drop the matter out of his mind, but would consult with his council about it. This began to look encouraging. Two hours later there was a great stir below, and the innkeeper came flying up to say a commission of illustrious ecclesiastics was come from the King — from the King his very self, understand! — think of this vast honor to his humble little hostelry! — and he was so overcome with the glory of it that he could hardly find breath enough in his excited body to put the facts into words. They were come from the King to speak with the Maid of Vaucouleurs. Then he flew downstairs, and presently appeared again, backing into the room, and bowing to the ground with every step, in front of four imposing and austere bishops and their train of servants. + +Joan rose, and we all stood. The bishops took seats, and for a while no word was said, for it was their prerogative to speak first, and they were so astonished to see what a child it was that was making such a noise in the world and degrading personages of their dignity to the base function of ambassadors to her in her plebeian tavern, that they could not find any words to say at first. Then presently their spokesman told Joan they were aware that she had a message for the King, wherefore she was now commanded to put it into words, briefly and without waste of time or embroideries of speech. + +As for me, I could hardly contain my joy — our message was to reach the King at last! And there was the same joy and pride and exultation in the faces of our knights, too, and in those of Joan’s brothers. And I knew that they were all praying — as I was — that the awe which we felt in the presence of these great dignitaries, and which would have tied our tongues and locked our jaws, would not affect her in the like degree, but that she would be enabled to word her message well, and with little stumbling, and so make a favorable impression here, where it would be so valuable and so important. + +Ah, dear, how little we were expecting what happened then! We were aghast to hear her say what she said. She was standing in a reverent attitude, with her head down and her hands clasped in front of her; for she was always reverent toward the consecrated servants of God. When the spokesman had finished, she raised her head and set her calm eye on those faces, not any more disturbed by their state and grandeur than a princess would have been, and said, with all her ordinary simplicity and modesty of voice and manner: + +“Ye will forgive me, reverend sirs, but I have no message save for the King’s ear alone.” + +Those surprised men were dumb for a moment, and their faces flushed darkly; then the spokesman said: + +“Hark ye, to you fling the King’s command in his face and refuse to deliver this message of yours to his servants appointed to receive it?” + +“God has appointed me to receive it, and another’s commandment may not take precedence of that. I pray you let me have speech for his grace the Dauphin.” + +“Forbear this folly, and come at your message! Deliver it, and waste no more time about it.” + +“You err indeed, most reverend fathers in God, and it is not well. I am not come hither to talk, but to deliver Orleans, and lead the Dauphin to his good city of Rheims, and set the crown upon his head.” + +“Is that the message you send to the King?” + +But Joan only said, in the simple fashion which was her wont: + +“Ye will pardon me for reminding you again — but I have no message to send to any one.” + +The King’s messengers rose in deep anger and swept out of the place without further words, we and Joan kneeling as they passed. + +Our countenances were vacant, our hearts full of a sense of disaster. Our precious opportunity was thrown away; we could not understand Joan’s conduct, she who had been so wise until this fatal hour. At last the Sieur Bertrand found courage to ask her why she had let this great chance to get her message to the King go by. + +“Who sent them here?” she asked. + +“The King.” + +“Who moved the King to send them?” She waited for an answer; none came, for we began to see what was in her mind — so she answered herself: “The Dauphin’s council moved him to it. Are they enemies to me and to the Dauphin’s weal, or are they friends?” + +“Enemies,” answered the Sieur Bertrand. + +“If one would have a message go sound and ungarbled, does one choose traitors and tricksters to send it by?” + +I saw that we had been fools, and she wise. They saw it too, so none found anything to say. Then she went on: + +“They had but small wit that contrived this trap. They thought to get my message and seem to deliver it straight, yet deftly twist it from its purpose. You know that one part of my message is but this — to move the Dauphin by argument and reasonings to give me men-at-arms and send me to the siege. If an enemy carried these in the right words, the exact words, and no word missing, yet left out the persuasions of gesture and supplicating tone and beseeching looks that inform the words and make them live, where were the value of that argument — whom could it convince? Be patient, the Dauphin will hear me presently; have no fear.” + +The Sieur de Metz nodded his head several times, and muttered as to himself: + +“She was right and wise, and we are but dull fools, when all is said.” + +It was just my thought; I could have said it myself; and indeed it was the thought of all there present. A sort of awe crept over us, to think how that untaught girl, taken suddenly and unprepared, was yet able to penetrate the cunning devices of a King’s trained advisers and defeat them. Marveling over this, and astonished at it, we fell silent and spoke no more. We had come to know that she was great in courage, fortitude, endurance, patience, conviction, fidelity to all duties — in all things, indeed, that make a good and trusty soldier and perfect him for his post; now we were beginning to feel that maybe there were greatnesses in her brain that were even greater than these great qualities of the heart. It set us thinking. + +What Joan did that day bore fruit the very day after. The King was obliged to respect the spirit of a young girl who could hold her own and stand her ground like that, and he asserted himself sufficiently to put his respect into an act instead of into polite and empty words. He moved Joan out of that poor inn, and housed her, with us her servants, in the Castle of Courdray, personally confiding her to the care of Madame de Bellier, wife of old Raoul de Gaucourt, Master of the Palace. Of course, this royal attention had an immediate result: all the great lords and ladies of the Court began to flock there to see and listen to the wonderful girl-soldier that all the world was talking about, and who had answered the King’s mandate with a bland refusal to obey. Joan charmed them every one with her sweetness and simplicity and unconscious eloquence, and all the best and capablest among them recognized that there was an indefinable something about her that testified that she was not made of common clay, that she was built on a grander plan than the mass of mankind, and moved on a loftier plane. These spread her fame. She always made friends and advocates that way; neither the high nor the low could come within the sound of her voice and the sight of her face and go out from her presence indifferent. + +== Chapter 6 Joan Convinces the King + +WELL, anything to make delay. The King’s council advised him against arriving at a decision in our matter too precipitately. He arrive at a decision too precipitately! So they sent a committee of priests — always priests — into Lorraine to inquire into Joan’s character and history — a matter which would consume several weeks, of course. You see how fastidious they were. It was as if people should come to put out the fire when a man’s house was burning down, and they waited till they could send into another country to find out if he had always kept the Sabbath or not, before letting him try. + +So the days poked along; dreary for us young people in some ways, but not in all, for we had one great anticipation in front of us; we had never seen a king, and now some day we should have that prodigious spectacle to see and to treasure in our memories all our lives; so we were on the lookout, and always eager and watching for the chance. The others were doomed to wait longer than I, as it turned out. One day great news came — the Orleans commissioners, with Yolande and our knights, had at last turned the council’s position and persuaded the King to see Joan. + +Joan received the immense news gratefully but without losing her head, but with us others it was otherwise; we could not eat or sleep or do any rational thing for the excitement and the glory of it. During two days our pair of noble knights were in distress and trepidation on Joan’s account, for the audience was to be at night, and they were afraid that Joan would be so paralyzed by the glare of light from the long files of torches, the solemn pomps and ceremonies, the great concourse of renowned personages, the brilliant costumes, and the other splendors of the Court, that she, a simple country-maid, and all unused to such things, would be overcome by these terrors and make a piteous failure. + +No doubt I could have comforted them, but I was not free to speak. Would Joan be disturbed by this cheap spectacle, this tinsel show, with its small King and his butterfly dukelets? — she who had spoken face to face with the princes of heaven, the familiars of God, and seen their retinue of angels stretching back into the remoteness of the sky, myriads upon myriads, like a measureless fan of light, a glory like the glory of the sun streaming from each of those innumerable heads, the massed radiance filling the deeps of space with a blinding splendor? I thought not. + +Queen Yolande wanted Joan to make the best possible impression upon the King and the Court, so she was strenuous to have her clothed in the richest stuffs, wrought upon the princeliest pattern, and set off with jewels; but in that she had to be disappointed, of course, Joan not being persuadable to it, but begging to be simply and sincerely dressed, as became a servant of God, and one sent upon a mission of a serious sort and grave political import. So then the gracious Queen imagined and contrived that simple and witching costume which I have described to you so many times, and which I cannot think of even now in my dull age without being moved just as rhythmical and exquisite music moves one; for that was music, that dress — that is what it was — music that one saw with the eyes and felt in the heart. Yes, she was a poem, she was a dream, she was a spirit when she was clothed in that. + +She kept that raiment always, and wore it several times upon occasions of state, and it is preserved to this day in the Treasury of Orleans, with two of her swords, and her banner, and other things now sacred because they had belonged to her. + +At the appointed time the Count of Vendome, a great lord of the court, came richly clothed, with his train of servants and assistants, to conduct Joan to the King, and the two knights and I went with her, being entitled to this privilege by reason of our official positions near her person. + +When we entered the great audience-hall, there it all was just as I have already painted it. Here were ranks of guards in shining armor and with polished halberds; two sides of the hall were like flower-gardens for variety of color and the magnificence of the costumes; light streamed upon these masses of color from two hundred and fifty flambeaux. There was a wide free space down the middle of the hall, and at the end of it was a throne royally canopied, and upon it sat a crowned and sceptered figure nobly clothed and blazing with jewels. + +It is true that Joan had been hindered and put off a good while, but now that she was admitted to an audience at last, she was received with honors granted to only the greatest personages. At the entrance door stood four heralds in a row, in splendid tabards, with long slender silver trumpets at their mouths, with square silken banners depending from them embroidered with the arms of France. As Joan and the Count passed by, these trumpets gave forth in unison one long rich note, and as we moved down the hall under the pictured and gilded vaulting, this was repeated at every fifty feet of our progress — six times in all. It made our good knights proud and happy, and they held themselves erect, and stiffened their stride, and looked fine and soldierly. They were not expecting this beautiful and honorable tribute to our little country-maid. + +Joan walked two yards behind the Count, we three walked two yards behind Joan. Our solemn march ended when we were as yet some eight or ten steps from the throne. The Count made a deep obeisance, pronounced Joan’s name, then bowed again and moved to his place among a group of officials near the throne. I was devouring the crowned personage with all my eyes, and my heart almost stood still with awe. + +The eyes of all others were fixed upon Joan in a gaze of wonder which was half worship, and which seemed to say, “How sweet — how lovely — how divine!” All lips were parted and motionless, which was a sure sign that those people, who seldom forget themselves, had forgotten themselves now, and were not conscious of anything but the one object they were gazing upon. They had the look of people who are under the enchantment of a vision. + +Then they presently began to come to life again, rousing themselves out of the spell and shaking it off as one drives away little by little a clinging drowsiness or intoxication. Now they fixed their attention upon Joan with a strong new interest of another sort; they were full of curiosity to see what she would do — they having a secret and particular reason for this curiosity. So they watched. This is what they saw: + +She made no obeisance, nor even any slight inclination of her head, but stood looking toward the throne in silence. That was all there was to see at present. + +I glanced up at De Metz, and was shocked at the paleness of his face. I whispered and said: + +“What is it, man, what is it?” + +His answering whisper was so weak I could hardly catch it: + +“They have taken advantage of the hint in her letter to play a trick upon her! She will err, and they will laugh at her. That is not the King that sits there.” + +Then I glanced at Joan. She was still gazing steadfastly toward the throne, and I had the curious fancy that even her shoulders and the back of her head expressed bewilderment. Now she turned her head slowly, and her eye wandered along the lines of standing courtiers till it fell upon a young man who was very quietly dressed; then her face lighted joyously, and she ran and threw herself at his feet, and clasped his knees, exclaiming in that soft melodious voice which was her birthright and was now charged with deep and tender feeling: + +“God of his grace give you long life, O dear and gentle Dauphin!” + +In his astonishment and exultation De Metz cried out: + +“By the shadow of God, it is an amazing thing!” Then he mashed all the bones of my hand in his grateful grip, and added, with a proud shake of his mane, “Now, what have these painted infidels to say!” + +Meantime the young person in the plain clothes was saying to Joan: + +“Ah, you mistake, my child, I am not the King. There he is,” and he pointed to the throne. + +The knight’s face clouded, and he muttered in grief and indignation: + +“Ah, it is a shame to use her so. But for this lie she had gone through safe. I will go and proclaim to all the house what — ” + +“Stay where you are!” whispered I and the Sieur Bertrand in a breath, and made him stop in his place. + +Joan did not stir from her knees, but still lifted her happy face toward the King, and said: + +“No, gracious liege, you are he, and none other.” + +De Metz’s troubles vanished away, and he said: + +“Verily, she was not guessing, she knew. Now, how could she know? It is a miracle. I am content, and will meddle no more, for I perceive that she is equal to her occasions, having that in her head that cannot profitably be helped by the vacancy that is in mine.” + +This interruption of his lost me a remark or two of the other talk; however, I caught the King’s next question: + +“But tell me who you are, and what would you?” + +“I am called Joan the Maid, and am sent to say that the King of Heaven wills that you be crowned and consecrated in your good city of Rheims, and be thereafter Lieutenant of the Lord of Heaven, who is King of France. And He willeth also that you set me at my appointed work and give me men-at-arms.” After a slight pause she added, her eye lighting at the sound of her words, “For then will I raise the siege of Orleans and break the English power!” + +The young monarch’s amused face sobered a little when this martial speech fell upon that sick air like a breath blown from embattled camps and fields of war, and this trifling smile presently faded wholly away and disappeared. He was grave now, and thoughtful. After a little he waved his hand lightly, and all the people fell away and left those two by themselves in a vacant space. The knights and I moved to the opposite side of the hall and stood there. We saw Joan rise at a sign, then she and the King talked privately together. + +All that host had been consumed with curiosity to see what Joan would do. Well, they had seen, and now they were full of astonishment to see that she had really performed that strange miracle according to the promise in her letter; and they were fully as much astonished to find that she was not overcome by the pomps and splendors about her, but was even more tranquil and at her ease in holding speech with a monarch than ever they themselves had been, with all their practice and experience. + +As for our two knights, they were inflated beyond measure with pride in Joan, but nearly dumb, as to speech, they not being able to think out any way to account for her managing to carry herself through this imposing ordeal without ever a mistake or an awkwardness of any kind to mar the grace and credit of her great performance. + +The talk between Joan and the King was long and earnest, and held in low voices. We could not hear, but we had our eyes and could note effects; and presently we and all the house noted one effect which was memorable and striking, and has been set down in memoirs and histories and in testimony at the Process of Rehabilitation by some who witnessed it; for all knew it was big with meaning, though none knew what that meaning was at that time, of course. For suddenly we saw the King shake off his indolent attitude and straighten up like a man, and at the same time look immeasurably astonished. It was as if Joan had told him something almost too wonderful for belief, and yet of a most uplifting and welcome nature. + +It was long before we found out the secret of this conversation, but we know it now, and all the world knows it. That part of the talk was like this — as one may read in all histories. The perplexed King asked Joan for a sign. He wanted to believe in her and her mission, and that her Voices were supernatural and endowed with knowledge hidden from mortals, but how could he do this unless these Voices could prove their claim in some absolutely unassailable way? It was then that Joan said: + +“I will give you a sign, and you shall no more doubt. There is a secret trouble in your heart which you speak of to none — a doubt which wastes away your courage, and makes you dream of throwing all away and fleeing from your realm. Within this little while you have been praying, in your own breast, that God of his grace would resolve that doubt, even if the doing of it must show you that no kingly right is lodged in you.” + +It was that that amazed the King, for it was as she had said: his prayer was the secret of his own breast, and none but God could know about it. So he said: + +“The sign is sufficient. I know now that these Voices are of God. They have said true in this matter; if they have said more, tell it me — I will believe.” + +“They have resolved that doubt, and I bring their very words, which are these: Thou art lawful heir to the King thy father, and true heir of France. God has spoken it. Now lift up thy head, and doubt no more, but give me men-at-arms and let me get about my work.” + +Telling him he was of lawful birth was what straightened him up and made a man of him for a moment, removing his doubts upon that head and convincing him of his royal right; and if any could have hanged his hindering and pestiferous council and set him free, he would have answered Joan’s prayer and set her in the field. But no, those creatures were only checked, not checkmated; they could invent some more delays. + +We had been made proud by the honors which had so distinguished Joan’s entrance into that place — honors restricted to personages of very high rank and worth — but that pride was as nothing compared with the pride we had in the honor done her upon leaving it. For whereas those first honors were shown only to the great, these last, up to this time, had been shown only to the royal. The King himself led Joan by the hand down the great hall to the door, the glittering multitude standing and making reverence as they passed, and the silver trumpets sounding those rich notes of theirs. Then he dismissed her with gracious words, bending low over her hand and kissing it. Always — from all companies, high or low — she went forth richer in honor and esteem than when she came. + +And the King did another handsome thing by Joan, for he sent us back to Courdray Castle torch-lighted and in state, under escort of his own troop — his guard of honor — the only soldiers he had; and finely equipped and bedizened they were, too, though they hadn’t seen the color of their wages since they were children, as a body might say. The wonders which Joan had been performing before the King had been carried all around by this time, so the road was so packed with people who wanted to get a sight of her that we could hardly dig through; and as for talking together, we couldn’t, all attempts at talk being drowned in the storm of shoutings and huzzas that broke out all along as we passed, and kept abreast of us like a wave the whole way. + +== Chapter 7 Our Paladin in His Glory + +WE WERE doomed to suffer tedious waits and delays, and we settled ourselves down to our fate and bore it with a dreary patience, counting the slow hours and the dull days and hoping for a turn when God should please to send it. The Paladin was the only exception — that is to say, he was the only one who was happy and had no heavy times. This was partly owing to the satisfaction he got out of his clothes. He bought them at second hand — a Spanish cavalier’s complete suit, wide-brimmed hat with flowing plumes, lace collar and cuffs, faded velvet doublet and trunks, short cloak hung from the shoulder, funnel-topped buskins, long rapier, and all that — a graceful and picturesque costume, and the Paladin’s great frame was the right place to hang it for effect. He wore it when off duty; and when he swaggered by with one hand resting on the hilt of his rapier, and twirling his new mustache with the other, everybody stopped to look and admire; and well they might, for he was a fine and stately contrast to the small French gentlemen of the day squeezed into the trivial French costume of the time. + +He was king bee of the little village that snuggled under the shelter of the frowning towers and bastions of Courdray Castle, and acknowledged lord of the tap-room of the inn. When he opened his mouth there, he got a hearing. Those simple artisans and peasants listened with deep and wondering interest; for he was a traveler and had seen the world — all of it that lay between Chinon and Domremy, at any rate — and that was a wide stretch more of it than they might ever hope to see; and he had been in battle, and knew how to paint its shock and struggle, its perils and surprises, with an art that was all his own. He was cock of that walk, hero of that hostelry; he drew custom as honey draws flies; so he was the pet of the innkeeper, and of his wife and daughter, and they were his obliged and willing servants. + +Most people who have the narrative gift — that great and rare endowment — have with it the defect of telling their choice things over the same way every time, and this injures them and causes them to sound stale and wearisome after several repetitions; but it was not so with the Paladin, whose art was of a finer sort; it was more stirring and interesting to hear him tell about a battle the tenth time than it was the first time, because he did not tell it twice the same way, but always made a new battle of it and a better one, with more casualties on the enemy’s side each time, and more general wreck and disaster all around, and more widows and orphans and suffering in the neighborhood where it happened. He could not tell his battles apart himself, except by their names; and by the time he had told one of then ten times it had grown so that there wasn’t room enough in France for it any more, but was lapping over the edges. But up to that point the audience would not allow him to substitute a new battle, knowing that the old ones were the best, and sure to improve as long as France could hold them; and so, instead of saying to him as they would have said to another, “Give us something fresh, we are fatigued with that old thing,” they would say, with one voice and with a strong interest, “Tell about the surprise at Beaulieu again — tell it three or four times!” That is a compliment which few narrative experts have heard in their lifetime. + +At first when the Paladin heard us tell about the glories of the Royal Audience he was broken-hearted because he was not taken with us to it; next, his talk was full of what he would have done if he had been there; and within two days he was telling what he did do when he was there. His mill was fairly started, now, and could be trusted to take care of its affair. Within three nights afterward all his battles were taking a rest, for already his worshipers in the tap-room were so infatuated with the great tale of the Royal Audience that they would have nothing else, and so besotted with it were they that they would have cried if they could not have gotten it. + +Noel Rainguesson hid himself and heard it, and came and told me, and after that we went together to listen, bribing the inn hostess to let us have her little private parlor, where we could stand at the wickets in the door and see and hear. + +The tap-room was large, yet had a snug and cozy look, with its inviting little tables and chairs scattered irregularly over its red brick floor, and its great fire flaming and crackling in the wide chimney. It was a comfortable place to be in on such chilly and blustering March nights as these, and a goodly company had taken shelter there, and were sipping their wine in contentment and gossiping one with another in a neighborly way while they waited for the historian. The host, the hostess, and their pretty daughter were flying here and there and yonder among the tables and doing their best to keep up with the orders. The room was about forty feet square, and a space or aisle down the center of it had been kept vacant and reserved for the Paladin’s needs. At the end of it was a platform ten or twelve feet wide, with a big chair and a small table on it, and three steps leading up to it. + +Among the wine-sippers were many familiar faces: the cobbler, the farrier, the blacksmith, the wheelwright, the armorer, the maltster, the weaver, the baker, the miller’s man with his dusty coat, and so on; and conscious and important, as a matter of course, was the barber-surgeon, for he is that in all villages. As he has to pull everybody’s teeth and purge and bleed all the grown people once a month to keep their health sound, he knows everybody, and by constant contact with all sorts of folk becomes a master of etiquette and manners and a conversationalist of large facility. There were plenty of carriers, drovers, and their sort, and journeymen artisans. + +When the Paladin presently came sauntering indolently in, he was received with a cheer, and the barber hustled forward and greeted him with several low and most graceful and courtly bows, also taking his hand and touching his lips to it. Then he called in a loud voice for a stoup of wine for the Paladin, and when the host’s daughter brought it up on the platform and dropped her courtesy and departed, the barber called after her, and told her to add the wine to his score. This won him ejaculations of approval, which pleased him very much and made his little rat-eyes shine; and such applause is right and proper, for when we do a liberal and gallant thing it is but natural that we should wish to see notice taken of it. + +The barber called upon the people to rise and drink the Paladin’s health, and they did it with alacrity and affectionate heartiness, clashing their metal flagons together with a simultaneous crash, and heightening the effect with a resounding cheer. It was a fine thing to see how that young swashbuckler had made himself so popular in a strange land in so little a while, and without other helps to his advancement than just his tongue and the talent to use it given him by God — a talent which was but one talent in the beginning, but was now become ten through husbandry and the increment and usufruct that do naturally follow that and reward it as by a law. + +The people sat down and began to hammer on the tables with their flagons and call for “the King’s Audience! — the King’s Audience! — the King’s Audience!” The Paladin stood there in one of his best attitudes, with his plumed great hat tipped over to the left, the folds of his short cloak drooping from his shoulder, and the one hand resting upon the hilt of his rapier and the other lifting his beaker. As the noise died down he made a stately sort of a bow, which he had picked up somewhere, then fetched his beaker with a sweep to his lips and tilted his head back and drained it to the bottom. The barber jumped for it and set it upon the Paladin’s table. Then the Paladin began to walk up and down his platform with a great deal of dignity and quite at his ease; and as he walked he talked, and every little while stopped and stood facing his house and so standing continued his talk. + +We went three nights in succession. It was plain that there was a charm about the performance that was apart from the mere interest which attaches to lying. It was presently discoverable that this charm lay in the Paladin’s sincerity. He was not lying consciously; he believed what he was saying. To him, his initial statements were facts, and whenever he enlarged a statement, the enlargement became a fact too. He put his heart into his extravagant narrative, just as a poet puts his heart into a heroic fiction, and his earnestness disarmed criticism — disarmed it as far as he himself was concerned. Nobody believed his narrative, but all believed that he believed it. + +He made his enlargements without flourish, without emphasis, and so casually that often one failed to notice that a change had been made. He spoke of the governor of Vaucouleurs, the first night, simply as the governor of Vaucouleurs; he spoke of him the second night as his uncle the governor of Vaucouleurs; the third night he was his father. He did not seem to know that he was making these extraordinary changes; they dropped from his lips in a quite natural and effortless way. By his first night’s account the governor merely attached him to the Maid’s military escort in a general and unofficial way; the second night his uncle the governor sent him with the Maid as lieutenant of her rear guard; the third night his father the governor put the whole command, Maid and all, in his special charge. The first night the governor spoke of him as a youth without name or ancestry, but “destined to achieve both”; the second night his uncle the governor spoke of him as the latest and worthiest lineal descendent of the chiefest and noblest of the Twelve Paladins of Charlemagne; the third night he spoke of him as the lineal descendent of the whole dozen. In three nights he promoted the Count of Vendome from a fresh acquaintance to a schoolmate, and then brother-in-law. + +At the King’s Audience everything grew, in the same way. First the four silver trumpets were twelve, then thirty-five, finally ninety-six; and by that time he had thrown in so many drums and cymbals that he had to lengthen the hall from five hundred feet to nine hundred to accommodate them. Under his hand the people present multiplied in the same large way. + +The first two nights he contented himself with merely describing and exaggerating the chief dramatic incident of the Audience, but the third night he added illustration to description. He throned the barber in his own high chair to represent the sham King; then he told how the Court watched the Maid with intense interest and suppressed merriment, expecting to see her fooled by the deception and get herself swept permanently out of credit by the storm of scornful laughter which would follow. He worked this scene up till he got his house in a burning fever of excitement and anticipation, then came his climax. Turning to the barber, he said: + +“But mark you what she did. She gazed steadfastly upon that sham’s villain face as I now gaze upon yours — this being her noble and simple attitude, just as I stand now — then turned she — thus — to me, and stretching her arm out — so — and pointing with her finger, she said, in that firm, calm tone which she was used to use in directing the conduct of a battle, ‘Pluck me this false knave from the throne!’ I, striding forward as I do now, took him by the collar and lifted him out and held him aloft — thus — as if he had been but a child.” (The house rose, shouting, stamping, and banging with their flagons, and went fairly mad over this magnificent exhibition of strength — and there was not the shadow of a laugh anywhere, though the spectacle of the limp but proud barber hanging there in the air like a puppy held by the scruff of its neck was a thing that had nothing of solemnity about it.) “Then I set him down upon his feet — thus — being minded to get him by a better hold and heave him out of the window, but she bid me forbear, so by that error he escaped with his life. + +“Then she turned her about and viewed the throng with those eyes of hers, which are the clear-shining windows whence her immortal wisdom looketh out upon the world, resolving its falsities and coming at the kernel of truth that is hid within them, and presently they fell upon a young man modestly clothed, and him she proclaimed for what he truly was, saying, ‘I am thy servant — thou art the King!’ Then all were astonished, and a great shout went up, the whole six thousand joining in it, so that the walls rocked with the volume and the tumult of it.” + +He made a fine and picturesque thing of the march-out from the Audience, augmenting the glories of it to the last limit of the impossibilities; then he took from his finger and held up a brass nut from a bolt-head which the head ostler at the castle had given him that morning, and made his conclusion — thus: + +“Then the King dismissed the Maid most graciously — as indeed was her desert — and, turning to me, said, ‘Take this signet-ring, son of the Paladins, and command me with it in your day of need; and look you,’ said he, touching my temple, ‘preserve this brain, France has use for it; and look well to its casket also, for I foresee that it will be hooped with a ducal coronet one day.’ I took the ring, and knelt and kissed his hand, saying, ‘Sire, where glory calls, there will I be found; where danger and death are thickest, that is my native air; when France and the throne need help — well, I say nothing, for I am not of the talking sort — let my deeds speak for me, it is all I ask.’ + +“So ended the most fortunate and memorable episode, so big with future weal for the crown and the nation, and unto God be the thanks! Rise! Fill your flagons! Now — to France and the King — drink!” + +They emptied them to the bottom, then burst into cheers and huzzas, and kept it up as much as two minutes, the Paladin standing at stately ease the while and smiling benignantly from his platform. + +== Chapter 8 Joan Persuades Her Inquisitors + +image::https://i.nostr.build/K4tARirGbcRrzArB.jpg[0151, 300] + + +WHEN JOAN told the King what that deep secret was that was torturing his heart, his doubts were cleared away; he believed she was sent of God, and if he had been let alone he would have set her upon her great mission at once. But he was not let alone. Tremouille and the holy fox of Rheims knew their man. All they needed to say was this — and they said it: + +“Your Highness says her Voices have revealed to you, by her mouth, a secret known only to yourself and God. How can you know that her Voices are not of Satan, and she his mouthpiece? — for does not Satan know the secrets of men and use his knowledge for the destruction of their souls? It is a dangerous business, and your Highness will do well not to proceed in it without probing the matter to the bottom.” + +That was enough. It shriveled up the King’s little soul like a raisin, with terrors and apprehensions, and straightway he privately appointed a commission of bishops to visit and question Joan daily until they should find out whether her supernatural helps hailed from heaven or from hell. + +The King’s relative, the Duke of Alencon, three years prisoner of war to the English, was in these days released from captivity through promise of a great ransom; and the name and fame of the Maid having reached him — for the same filled all mouths now, and penetrated to all parts — he came to Chinon to see with his own eyes what manner of creature she might be. The King sent for Joan and introduced her to the Duke. She said, in her simple fashion: + +“You are welcome; the more of the blood of France that is joined to this cause, the better for the cause and it.” + +Then the two talked together, and there was just the usual result: when they departed, the Duke was her friend and advocate. + +Joan attended the King’s mass the next day, and afterward dined with the King and the Duke. The King was learning to prize her company and value her conversation; and that might well be, for, like other kings, he was used to getting nothing out of people’s talk but guarded phrases, colorless and non-committal, or carefully tinted to tally with the color of what he said himself; and so this kind of conversation only vexes and bores, and is wearisome; but Joan’s talk was fresh and free, sincere and honest, and unmarred by timorous self-watching and constraint. She said the very thing that was in her mind, and said it in a plain, straightforward way. One can believe that to the King this must have been like fresh cold water from the mountains to parched lips used to the water of the sun-baked puddles of the plain. + +After dinner Joan so charmed the Duke with her horsemanship and lance practice in the meadows by the Castle of Chinon whither the King also had come to look on, that he made her a present of a great black war-steed. + +Every day the commission of bishops came and questioned Joan about her Voices and her mission, and then went to the King with their report. These pryings accomplished but little. She told as much as she considered advisable, and kept the rest to herself. Both threats and trickeries were wasted upon her. She did not care for the threats, and the traps caught nothing. She was perfectly frank and childlike about these things. She knew the bishops were sent by the King, that their questions were the King’s questions, and that by all law and custom a King’s questions must be answered; yet she told the King in her naive way at his own table one day that she answered only such of those questions as suited her. + +The bishops finally concluded that they couldn’t tell whether Joan was sent by God or not. They were cautious, you see. There were two powerful parties at Court; therefore to make a decision either way would infallibly embroil them with one of those parties; so it seemed to them wisest to roost on the fence and shift the burden to other shoulders. And that is what they did. They made final report that Joan’s case was beyond their powers, and recommended that it be put into the hands of the learned and illustrious doctors of the University of Poitiers. Then they retired from the field, leaving behind them this little item of testimony, wrung from them by Joan’s wise reticence: they said she was a “gentle and simple little shepherdess, very candid, but not given to talking.” + +It was quite true — in their case. But if they could have looked back and seen her with us in the happy pastures of Domremy, they would have perceived that she had a tongue that could go fast enough when no harm could come of her words. + +So we traveled to Poitiers, to endure there three weeks of tedious delay while this poor child was being daily questioned and badgered before a great bench of — what? Military experts? — since what she had come to apply for was an army and the privilege of leading it to battle against the enemies of France. Oh no; it was a great bench of priests and monks — profoundly leaned and astute casuists — renowned professors of theology! Instead of setting a military commission to find out if this valorous little soldier could win victories, they set a company of holy hair-splitters and phrase-mongers to work to find out if the soldier was sound in her piety and had no doctrinal leaks. The rats were devouring the house, but instead of examining the cat’s teeth and claws, they only concerned themselves to find out if it was a holy cat. If it was a pious cat, a moral cat, all right, never mind about the other capacities, they were of no consequence. + +Joan was as sweetly self-possessed and tranquil before this grim tribunal, with its robed celebrities, its solemn state and imposing ceremonials, as if she were but a spectator and not herself on trial. She sat there, solitary on her bench, untroubled, and disconcerted the science of the sages with her sublime ignorance — an ignorance which was a fortress; arts, wiles, the learning drawn from books, and all like missiles rebounded from its unconscious masonry and fell to the ground harmless; they could not dislodge the garrison which was within — Joan’s serene great heart and spirit, the guards and keepers of her mission. + +She answered all questions frankly, and she told all the story of her visions and of her experiences with the angels and what they said to her; and the manner of the telling was so unaffected, and so earnest and sincere, and made it all seem so lifelike and real, that even that hard practical court forgot itself and sat motionless and mute, listening with a charmed and wondering interest to the end. And if you would have other testimony than mine, look in the histories and you will find where an eyewitness, giving sworn testimony in the Rehabilitation process, says that she told that tale “with a noble dignity and simplicity,” and as to its effect, says in substance what I have said. Seventeen, she was — seventeen, and all alone on her bench by herself; yet was not afraid, but faced that great company of erudite doctors of law and theology, and by the help of no art learned in the schools, but using only the enchantments which were hers by nature, of youth, sincerity, a voice soft and musical, and an eloquence whose source was the heart, not the head, she laid that spell upon them. Now was not that a beautiful thing to see? If I could, I would put it before you just as I saw it; then I know what you would say. + +As I have told you, she could not read. “One day they harried and pestered her with arguments, reasonings, objections, and other windy and wordy trivialities, gathered out of the works of this and that and the other great theological authority, until at last her patience vanished, and she turned upon them sharply and said: + +“I don’t know A from B; but I know this: that I am come by command of the Lord of Heaven to deliver Orleans from the English power and crown the King of Rheims, and the matters ye are puttering over are of no consequence!” + +Necessarily those were trying days for her, and wearing for everybody that took part; but her share was the hardest, for she had no holidays, but must be always on hand and stay the long hours through, whereas this, that, and the other inquisitor could absent himself and rest up from his fatigues when he got worn out. And yet she showed no wear, no weariness, and but seldom let fly her temper. As a rule she put her day through calm, alert, patient, fencing with those veteran masters of scholarly sword-play and coming out always without a scratch. + +One day a Dominican sprung upon her a question which made everybody cock up his ears with interest; as for me, I trembled, and said to myself she is done this time, poor Joan, for there is no way of answering this. The sly Dominican began in this way — in a sort of indolent fashion, as if the thing he was about was a matter of no moment: + +“You assert that God has willed to deliver France from this English bondage?” + +“Yes, He has willed it.” + +“You wish for men-at-arms, so that you may go to the relief of Orleans, I believe?” + +“Yes — and the sooner the better.” + +“God is all-powerful, and able to do whatsoever thing He wills to do, is it not so?” + +“Most surely. None doubts it.” + +The Dominican lifted his head suddenly, and sprung that question I have spoken of, with exultation: + +“Then answer me this. If He has willed to deliver France, and is able to do whatsoever He wills, where is the need for men-at-arms?” + +There was a fine stir and commotion when he said that, and a sudden thrusting forward of heads and putting up of hands to ears to catch the answer; and the Dominican wagged his head with satisfaction, and looked about him collecting his applause, for it shone in every face. But Joan was not disturbed. There was no note of disquiet in her voice when she answered: + +“He helps who help themselves. The sons of France will fight the battles, but He will give the victory!” + +You could see a light of admiration sweep the house from face to face like a ray from the sun. Even the Dominican himself looked pleased, to see his master-stroke so neatly parried, and I heard a venerable bishop mutter, in the phrasing common to priest and people in that robust time, “By God, the child has said true. He willed that Goliath should be slain, and He sent a child like this to do it!” + +Another day, when the inquisition had dragged along until everybody looked drowsy and tired but Joan, Brother Seguin, professor of theology at the University of Poitiers, who was a sour and sarcastic man, fell to plying Joan with all sorts of nagging questions in his bastard Limousin French — for he was from Limoges. Finally he said: + +“How is it that you understand those angels? What language did they speak?” + +“French.” + +“In-deed! How pleasant to know that our language is so honored! Good French?” + +“Yes — perfect.” + +“Perfect, eh? Well, certainly you ought to know. It was even better than your own, eh?” + +“As to that, I — I believe I cannot say,” said she, and was going on, but stopped. Then she added, almost as if she were saying it to herself, “Still, it was an improvement on yours!” + +I knew there was a chuckle back of her eyes, for all their innocence. Everybody shouted. Brother Seguin was nettled, and asked brusquely: + +“Do you believe in God?” + +Joan answered with an irritating nonchalance: + +“Oh, well, yes — better than you, it is likely.” + +Brother Seguin lost his patience, and heaped sarcasm after sarcasm upon her, and finally burst out in angry earnest, exclaiming: + +“Very well, I can tell you this, you whose belief in God is so great: God has not willed that any shall believe in you without a sign. Where is your sign? — show it!” + +This roused Joan, and she was on her feet in a moment, and flung out her retort with spirit: + +“I have not come to Poitiers to show signs and do miracles. Send me to Orleans and you shall have signs enough. Give me men-at-arms — few or many — and let me go!” + +The fire was leaping from her eyes — ah, the heroic little figure! can’t you see her? There was a great burst of acclamations, and she sat down blushing, for it was not in her delicate nature to like being conspicuous. + +This speech and that episode about the French language scored two points against Brother Seguin, while he scored nothing against Joan; yet, sour man as he was, he was a manly man, and honest, as you can see by the histories; for at the Rehabilitation he could have hidden those unlucky incidents if he had chosen, but he didn’t do it, but spoke them right out in his evidence. + +On one of the latter days of that three-weeks session the gowned scholars and professors made one grand assault all along the line, fairly overwhelming Joan with objections and arguments culled from the writings of every ancient and illustrious authority of the Roman Church. She was well-nigh smothered; but at last she shook herself free and struck back, crying out: + +“Listen! The Book of God is worth more than all these ye cite, and I stand upon it. And I tell ye there are things in that Book that not one among ye can read, with all your learning!” + +From the first she was the guest, by invitation, of the dame De Rabateau, wife of a councilor of the Parliament of Poitiers; and to that house the great ladies of the city came nightly to see Joan and talk with her; and not these only, but the old lawyers, councilors and scholars of the Parliament and the University. And these grave men, accustomed to weigh every strange and questionable thing, and cautiously consider it, and turn it about this way and that and still doubt it, came night after night, and night after night, falling ever deeper and deeper under the influence of that mysterious something, that spell, that elusive and unwordable fascination, which was the supremest endowment of Joan of Arc, that winning and persuasive and convincing something which high and low alike recognized and felt, but which neither high nor low could explain or describe, and one by one they all surrendered, saying, “This child is sent of God.” + +All day long Joan, in the great court and subject to its rigid rules of procedure, was at a disadvantage; her judges had things their own way; but at night she held court herself, and matters were reversed, she presiding, with her tongue free and her same judges there before her. There could not be but one result: all the objections and hindrances they could build around her with their hard labors of the day she would charm away at night. In the end, she carried her judges with her in a mass, and got her great verdict without a dissenting voice. + +The court was a sight to see when the president of it read it from his throne, for all the great people of the town were there who could get admission and find room. First there were some solemn ceremonies, proper and usual at such times; then, when there was silence again, the reading followed, penetrating the deep hush so that every word was heard in even the remotest parts of the house: + +“It is found, and is hereby declared, that Joan of Arc, called the Maid, is a good Christian and a good Catholic; that there is nothing in her person or her words contrary to the faith; and that the King may and ought to accept the succor she offers; for to repel it would be to offend the Holy Spirit, and render him unworthy of the air of God.” + +The court rose, and then the storm of plaudits burst forth unrebuked, dying down and bursting forth again and again, and I lost sight of Joan, for she was swallowed up in a great tide of people who rushed to congratulate her and pour out benedictions upon her and upon the cause of France, now solemnly and irrevocably delivered into her little hands. + +== Chapter 9 She Is Made General-in-Chief + +IT WAS indeed a great day, and a stirring thing to see. + +She had won! It was a mistake of Tremouille and her other ill-wishers to let her hold court those nights. + +The commission of priests sent to Lorraine ostensibly to inquire into Joan’s character — in fact to weary her with delays and wear out her purpose and make her give it up — arrived back and reported her character perfect. Our affairs were in full career now, you see. + +The verdict made a prodigious stir. Dead France woke suddenly to life, wherever the great news traveled. Whereas before, the spiritless and cowed people hung their heads and slunk away if one mentioned war to them, now they came clamoring to be enlisted under the banner of the Maid of Vaucouleurs, and the roaring of war-songs and the thundering of the drums filled all the air. I remembered now what she had said, that time there in our village when I proved by facts and statistics that France’s case was hopeless, and nothing could ever rouse the people from their lethargy: + +“They will hear the drums — and they will answer, they will march!” + +It has been said that misfortunes never come one at a time, but in a body. In our case it was the same with good luck. Having got a start, it came flooding in, tide after tide. Our next wave of it was of this sort. There had been grave doubts among the priests as to whether the Church ought to permit a female soldier to dress like a man. But now came a verdict on that head. Two of the greatest scholars and theologians of the time — one of whom had been Chancellor of the University of Paris — rendered it. They decided that since Joan “must do the work of a man and a soldier, it is just and legitimate that her apparel should conform to the situation.” + +It was a great point gained, the Church’s authority to dress as a man. Oh, yes, wave on wave the good luck came sweeping in. Never mind about the smaller waves, let us come to the largest one of all, the wave that swept us small fry quite off our feet and almost drowned us with joy. The day of the great verdict, couriers had been despatched to the King with it, and the next morning bright and early the clear notes of a bugle came floating to us on the crisp air, and we pricked up our ears and began to count them. One — two — three; pause; one — two; pause; one — two — three, again — and out we skipped and went flying; for that formula was used only when the King’s herald-at-arms would deliver a proclamation to the people. As we hurried along, people came racing out of every street and house and alley, men, women, and children, all flushed, excited, and throwing lacking articles of clothing on as they ran; still those clear notes pealed out, and still the rush of people increased till the whole town was abroad and streaming along the principal street. At last we reached the square, which was now packed with citizens, and there, high on the pedestal of the great cross, we saw the herald in his brilliant costume, with his servitors about him. The next moment he began his delivery in the powerful voice proper to his office: + +“Know all men, and take heed therefore, that the most high, the most illustrious Charles, by the grace of God King of France, hath been pleased to confer upon his well-beloved servant Joan of Arc, called the Maid, the title, emoluments, authorities, and dignity of General-in-Chief of the Armies of France — ” + +Here a thousand caps flew in the air, and the multitude burst into a hurricane of cheers that raged and raged till it seemed as if it would never come to an end; but at last it did; then the herald went on and finished: — “and hath appointed to be her lieutenant and chief of staff a prince of his royal house, his grace the Duke of Alencon!” + +That was the end, and the hurricane began again, and was split up into innumerable strips by the blowers of it and wafted through all the lanes and streets of the town. + +General of the Armies of France, with a prince of the blood for subordinate! Yesterday she was nothing — to-day she was this. Yesterday she was not even a sergeant, not even a corporal, not even a private — to-day, with one step, she was at the top. Yesterday she was less than nobody to the newest recruit — to-day her command was law to La Hire, Saintrailles, the Bastard of Orleans, and all those others, veterans of old renown, illustrious masters of the trade of war. These were the thoughts I was thinking; I was trying to realize this strange and wonderful thing that had happened, you see. + +My mind went travelling back, and presently lighted upon a picture — a picture which was still so new and fresh in my memory that it seemed a matter of only yesterday — and indeed its date was no further back than the first days of January. This is what it was. A peasant-girl in a far-off village, her seventeenth year not yet quite completed, and herself and her village as unknown as if they had been on the other side of the globe. She had picked up a friendless wanderer somewhere and brought it home — a small gray kitten in a forlorn and starving condition — and had fed it and comforted it and got its confidence and made it believe in her, and now it was curled up in her lap asleep, and she was knitting a coarse stocking and thinking — dreaming — about what, one may never know. And now — the kitten had hardly had time to become a cat, and yet already the girl is General of the Armies of France, with a prince of the blood to give orders to, and out of her village obscurity her name has climbed up like the sun and is visible from all corners of the land! It made me dizzy to think of these things, they were so out of the common order, and seemed so impossible. + +== Chapter 10 The Maid’s Sword and Banner + +JOAN’S first official act was to dictate a letter to the English commanders at Orleans, summoning them to deliver up all strongholds in their possession and depart out of France. She must have been thinking it all out before and arranging it in her mind, it flowed from her lips so smoothly, and framed itself into such vivacious and forcible language. Still, it might not have been so; she always had a quick mind and a capable tongue, and her faculties were constantly developing in these latter weeks. This letter was to be forwarded presently from Blois. Men, provisions, and money were offering in plenty now, and Joan appointed Blois as a recruiting-station and depot of supplies, and ordered up La Hire from the front to take charge. + +The Great Bastard — him of the ducal house, and governor of Orleans — had been clamoring for weeks for Joan to be sent to him, and now came another messenger, old D’Aulon, a veteran officer, a trusty man and fine and honest. The King kept him, and gave him to Joan to be chief of her household, and commanded her to appoint the rest of her people herself, making their number and dignity accord with the greatness of her office; and at the same time he gave order that they should be properly equipped with arms, clothing, and horses. + +Meantime the King was having a complete suit of armor made for her at Tours. It was of the finest steel, heavily plated with silver, richly ornamented with engraved designs, and polished like a mirror. + +Joan’s Voices had told her that there was an ancient sword hidden somewhere behind the altar of St. Catherine’s at Fierbois, and she sent De Metz to get it. The priests knew of no such sword, but a search was made, and sure enough it was found in that place, buried a little way under the ground. It had no sheath and was very rusty, but the priests polished it up and sent it to Tours, whither we were now to come. They also had a sheath of crimson velvet made for it, and the people of Tours equipped it with another, made of cloth-of-gold. But Joan meant to carry this sword always in battle; so she laid the showy sheaths away and got one made of leather. It was generally believed that this sword had belonged to Charlemagne, but that was only a matter of opinion. I wanted to sharpen that old blade, but she said it was not necessary, as she should never kill anybody, and should carry it only as a symbol of authority. + +At Tours she designed her Standard, and a Scotch painter named James Power made it. It was of the most delicate white boucassin, with fringes of silk. For device it bore the image of God the Father throned in the clouds and holding the world in His hand; two angels knelt at His feet, presenting lilies; inscription, JESUS, MARIA; on the reverse the crown of France supported by two angels. + +She also caused a smaller standard or pennon to be made, whereon was represented an angel offering a lily to the Holy Virgin. + +Everything was humming there at Tours. Every now and then one heard the bray and crash of military music, every little while one heard the measured tramp of marching men — squads of recruits leaving for Blois; songs and shoutings and huzzas filled the air night and day, the town was full of strangers, the streets and inns were thronged, the bustle of preparation was everywhere, and everybody carried a glad and cheerful face. Around Joan’s headquarters a crowd of people was always massed, hoping for a glimpse of the new General, and when they got it, they went wild; but they seldom got it, for she was busy planning her campaign, receiving reports, giving orders, despatching couriers, and giving what odd moments she could spare to the companies of great folk waiting in the drawing-rooms. As for us boys, we hardly saw her at all, she was so occupied. + +We were in a mixed state of mind — sometimes hopeful, sometimes not; mostly not. She had not appointed her household yet — that was our trouble. We knew she was being overrun with applications for places in it, and that these applications were backed by great names and weighty influence, whereas we had nothing of the sort to recommend us. She could fill her humblest places with titled folk — folk whose relationships would be a bulwark for her and a valuable support at all times. In these circumstances would policy allow her to consider us? We were not as cheerful as the rest of the town, but were inclined to be depressed and worried. Sometimes we discussed our slim chances and gave them as good an appearance as we could. But the very mention of the subject was anguish to the Paladin; for whereas we had some little hope, he had none at all. As a rule Noel Rainguesson was quite willing to let the dismal matter alone; but not when the Paladin was present. Once we were talking the thing over, when Noel said: + +“Cheer up, Paladin, I had a dream last night, and you were the only one among us that got an appointment. It wasn’t a high one, but it was an appointment, anyway — some kind of a lackey or body-servant, or something of that kind.” + +The Paladin roused up and looked almost cheerful; for he was a believer in dreams, and in anything and everything of a superstitious sort, in fact. He said, with a rising hopefulness: + +“I wish it might come true. Do you think it will come true?” + +“Certainly; I might almost say I know it will, for my dreams hardly ever fail.” + +“Noel, I could hug you if that dream could come true, I could, indeed! To be servant of the first General of France and have all the world hear of it, and the news go back to the village and make those gawks stare that always said I wouldn’t ever amount to anything — wouldn’t it be great! Do you think it will come true, Noel? Don’t you believe it will?” + +“I do. There’s my hand on it.” + +“Noel, if it comes true I’ll never forget you — shake again! I should be dressed in a noble livery, and the news would go to the village, and those animals would say, ‘Him, lackey to the General-in-Chief, with the eyes of the whole world on him, admiring — well, he has shot up into the sky now, hasn’t he!” + +He began to walk the floor and pile castles in the air so fast and so high that we could hardly keep up with him. Then all of a sudden all the joy went out of his face and misery took its place, and he said: + +“Oh, dear, it is all a mistake, it will never come true. I forgot that foolish business at Toul. I have kept out of her sight as much as I could, all these weeks, hoping she would forget that and forgive it — but I know she never will. She can’t, of course. And, after all, I wasn’t to blame. I did say she promised to marry me, but they put me up to it and persuaded me. I swear they did!” The vast creature was almost crying. Then he pulled himself together and said, remorsefully, “It was the only lie I’ve ever told, and — ” + +He was drowned out with a chorus of groans and outraged exclamations; and before he could begin again, one of D’Aulon’s liveried servants appeared and said we were required at headquarters. We rose, and Noel said: + +“There — what did I tell you? I have a presentiment — the spirit of prophecy is upon me. She is going to appoint him, and we are to go there and do him homage. Come along!” + +But the Paladin was afraid to go, so we left him. + +When we presently stood in the presence, in front of a crowd of glittering officers of the army, Joan greeted us with a winning smile, and said she appointed all of us to places in her household, for she wanted her old friends by her. It was a beautiful surprise to have ourselves honored like this when she could have had people of birth and consequence instead, but we couldn’t find our tongues to say so, she was become so great and so high above us now. One at a time we stepped forward and each received his warrant from the hand of our chief, D’Aulon. All of us had honorable places; the two knights stood highest; then Joan’s two brothers; I was first page and secretary, a young gentleman named Raimond was second page; Noel was her messenger; she had two heralds, and also a chaplain and almoner, whose name was Jean Pasquerel. She had previously appointed a maitre d’hotel and a number of domestics. Now she looked around and said: + +“But where is the Paladin?” + +The Sieur Bertrand said: + +“He thought he was not sent for, your Excellency.” + +“Now that is not well. Let him be called.” + +The Paladin entered humbly enough. He ventured no farther than just within the door. He stopped there, looking embarrassed and afraid. Then Joan spoke pleasantly, and said: + +“I watched you on the road. You began badly, but improved. Of old you were a fantastic talker, but there is a man in you, and I will bring it out.” It was fine to see the Paladin’s face light up when she said that. “Will you follow where I lead?” + +“Into the fire!” he said; and I said to myself, “By the ring of that, I think she has turned this braggart into a hero. It is another of her miracles, I make no doubt of it.” + +“I believe you,” said Joan. “Here — take my banner. You will ride with me in every field, and when France is saved, you will give it me back.” + +He took the banner, which is now the most precious of the memorials that remain of Joan of Arc, and his voice was unsteady with emotion when he said: + +“If I ever disgrace this trust, my comrades here will know how to do a friend’s office upon my body, and this charge I lay upon them, as knowing they will not fail me.” + +== Chapter 11 The War March Is Begun + +image::https://i.nostr.build/7U34bnIAXiZllgNT.jpg[0165, 300] + + +NOEL and I went back together — silent at first, and impressed. + +Finally Noel came up out of his thinkings and said: + +“The first shall be last and the last first — there’s authority for this surprise. But at the same time wasn’t it a lofty hoist for our big bull!” + +“It truly was; I am not over being stunned yet. It was the greatest place in her gift.” + +“Yes, it was. There are many generals, and she can create more; but there is only one Standard-Bearer.” + +“True. It is the most conspicuous place in the army, after her own.” + +“And the most coveted and honorable. Sons of two dukes tried to get it, as we know. And of all people in the world, this majestic windmill carries it off. Well, isn’t it a gigantic promotion, when you come to look at it!” + +“There’s no doubt about it. It’s a kind of copy of Joan’s own in miniature.” + +“I don’t know how to account for it — do you?” + +“Yes — without any trouble at all — that is, I think I do.” + +Noel was surprised at that, and glanced up quickly, as if to see if I was in earnest. He said: + +“I thought you couldn’t be in earnest, but I see you are. If you can make me understand this puzzle, do it. Tell me what the explanation is.” + +“I believe I can. You have noticed that our chief knight says a good many wise things and has a thoughtful head on his shoulders. One day, riding along, we were talking about Joan’s great talents, and he said, ‘But, greatest of all her gifts, she has the seeing eye.’ I said, like an unthinking fool, ‘The seeing eye? — I shouldn’t count on that for much — I suppose we all have it.’ ‘No,’ he said; ‘very few have it.’ Then he explained, and made his meaning clear. He said the common eye sees only the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and the soul, finding there capacities which the outside didn’t indicate or promise, and which the other kind of eye couldn’t detect. He said the mightiest military genius must fail and come to nothing if it have not the seeing eye — that is to say, if it cannot read men and select its subordinates with an infallible judgment. It sees as by intuition that this man is good for strategy, that one for dash and daredevil assault, the other for patient bulldog persistence, and it appoints each to his right place and wins, while the commander without the seeing eye would give to each the other’s place and lose. He was right about Joan, and I saw it. When she was a child and the tramp came one night, her father and all of us took him for a rascal, but she saw the honest man through the rags. When I dined with the governor of Vaucouleurs so long ago, I saw nothing in our two knights, though I sat with them and talked with them two hours; Joan was there five minutes, and neither spoke with them nor heard them speak, yet she marked them for men of worth and fidelity, and they have confirmed her judgment. Whom has she sent for to take charge of this thundering rabble of new recruits at Blois, made up of old disbanded Armagnac raiders, unspeakable hellions, every one? Why, she has sent for Satan himself — that is to say, La Hire — that military hurricane, that godless swashbuckler, that lurid conflagration of blasphemy, that Vesuvius of profanity, forever in eruption. Does he know how to deal with that mob of roaring devils? Better than any man that lives; for he is the head devil of this world his own self, he is the match of the whole of them combined, and probably the father of most of them. She places him in temporary command until she can get to Blois herself — and then! Why, then she will certainly take them in hand personally, or I don’t know her as well as I ought to, after all these years of intimacy. That will be a sight to see — that fair spirit in her white armor, delivering her will to that muck-heap, that rag-pile, that abandoned refuse of perdition.” + +“La Hire!” cried Noel, “our hero of all these years — I do want to see that man!” + +“I too. His name stirs me just as it did when I was a little boy.” + +“I want to hear him swear.” + +“Of course, I would rather hear him swear than another man pray. He is the frankest man there is, and the naivest. Once when he was rebuked for pillaging on his raids, he said it was nothing. Said he, ‘If God the Father were a soldier, He would rob.’ I judge he is the right man to take temporary charge there at Blois. Joan has cast the seeing eye upon him, you see.” + +“Which brings us back to where we started. I have an honest affection for the Paladin, and not merely because he is a good fellow, but because he is my child — I made him what he is, the windiest blusterer and most catholic liar in the kingdom. I’m glad of his luck, but I hadn’t the seeing eye. I shouldn’t have chosen him for the most dangerous post in the army. I should have placed him in the rear to kill the wounded and violate the dead.” + +“Well, we shall see. Joan probably knows what is in him better than we do. And I’ll give you another idea. When a person in Joan of Arc’s position tells a man he is brave, he believes it; and believing it is enough; in fact, to believe yourself brave is to be brave; it is the one only essential thing.” + +“Now you’ve hit it!” cried Noel. “She’s got the creating mouth as well as the seeing eye! Ah, yes, that is the thing. France was cowed and a coward; Joan of Arc has spoken, and France is marching, with her head up!” + +I was summoned now to write a letter from Joan’s dictation. During the next day and night our several uniforms were made by the tailors, and our new armor provided. We were beautiful to look upon now, whether clothed for peace or war. Clothed for peace, in costly stuffs and rich colors, the Paladin was a tower dyed with the glories of the sunset; plumed and sashed and iron-clad for war, he was a still statelier thing to look at. + +Orders had been issued for the march toward Blois. It was a clear, sharp, beautiful morning. As our showy great company trotted out in column, riding two and two, Joan and the Duke of Alencon in the lead, D’Aulon and the big standard-bearer next, and so on, we made a handsome spectacle, as you may well imagine; and as we plowed through the cheering crowds, with Joan bowing her plumed head to left and right and the sun glinting from her silver mail, the spectators realized that the curtain was rolling up before their eyes upon the first act of a prodigious drama, and their rising hopes were expressed in an enthusiasm that increased with each moment, until at last one seemed to even physically feel the concussion of the huzzas as well as hear them. Far down the street we heard the softened strains of wind-blown music, and saw a cloud of lancers moving, the sun glowing with a subdued light upon the massed armor, but striking bright upon the soaring lance-heads — a vaguely luminous nebula, so to speak, with a constellation twinkling above it — and that was our guard of honor. It joined us, the procession was complete, the first war-march of Joan of Arc was begun, the curtain was up. + +== Chapter 12 Joan Puts Heart in Her Army + +WE WERE at Blois three days. Oh, that camp, it is one of the treasures of my memory! Order? There was no more order among those brigands than there is among the wolves and the hyenas. They went roaring and drinking about, whooping, shouting, swearing, and entertaining themselves with all manner of rude and riotous horse-play; and the place was full of loud and lewd women, and they were no whit behind the men for romps and noise and fantastics. + +It was in the midst of this wild mob that Noel and I had our first glimpse of La Hire. He answered to our dearest dreams. He was of great size and of martial bearing, he was cased in mail from head to heel, with a bushel of swishing plumes on his helmet, and at his side the vast sword of the time. + +He was on his way to pay his respects in state to Joan, and as he passed through the camp he was restoring order, and proclaiming that the Maid had come, and he would have no such spectacle as this exposed to the head of the army. His way of creating order was his own, not borrowed. He did it with his great fists. As he moved along swearing and admonishing, he let drive this way, that way, and the other, and wherever his blow landed, a man went down. + +“Damn you!” he said, “staggering and cursing around like this, and the Commander-in-Chief in the camp! Straighten up!” and he laid the man flat. What his idea of straightening up was, was his own secret. + +We followed the veteran to headquarters, listening, observing, admiring — yes, devouring, you may say, the pet hero of the boys of France from our cradles up to that happy day, and their idol and ours. I called to mind how Joan had once rebuked the Paladin, there in the pastures of Domremy, for uttering lightly those mighty names, La Hire and the Bastard of Orleans, and how she said that if she could but be permitted to stand afar off and let her eyes rest once upon those great men, she would hold it a privilege. They were to her and the other girls just what they were to the boys. Well, here was one of them at last — and what was his errand? It was hard to realize it, and yet it was true; he was coming to uncover his head before her and take her orders. + +While he was quieting a considerable group of his brigands in his soothing way, near headquarters, we stepped on ahead and got a glimpse of Joan’s military family, the great chiefs of the army, for they had all arrived now. There they were, six officers of wide renown, handsome men in beautiful armor, but the Lord High Admiral of France was the handsomest of them all and had the most gallant bearing. + +When La Hire entered, one could see the surprise in his face at Joan’s beauty and extreme youth, and one could see, too, by Joan’s glad smile, that it made her happy to get sight of this hero of her childhood at last. La Hire bowed low, with his helmet in his gauntleted hand, and made a bluff but handsome little speech with hardly an oath in it, and one could see that those two took to each other on the spot. + +The visit of ceremony was soon over, and the others went away; but La Hire stayed, and he and Joan sat there, and he sipped her wine, and they talked and laughed together like old friends. And presently she gave him some instructions, in his quality as master of the camp, which made his breath stand still. For, to begin with, she said that all those loose women must pack out of the place at once, she wouldn’t allow one of them to remain. Next, the rough carousing must stop, drinking must be brought within proper and strictly defined limits, and discipline must take the place of disorder. And finally she climaxed the list of surprises with this — which nearly lifted him out of his armor: + +“Every man who joins my standard must confess before the priest and absolve himself from sin; and all accepted recruits must be present at divine service twice a day.” + +La Hire could not say a word for a good part of a minute, then he said, in deep dejection: + +“Oh, sweet child, they were littered in hell, these poor darlings of mine! Attend mass? Why, dear heart, they’ll see us both damned first!” + +And he went on, pouring out a most pathetic stream of arguments and blasphemy, which broke Joan all up, and made her laugh as she had not laughed since she played in the Domremy pastures. It was good to hear. + +But she stuck to her point; so the soldier yielded, and said all right, if such were the orders he must obey, and would do the best that was in him; then he refreshed himself with a lurid explosion of oaths, and said that if any man in the camp refused to renounce sin and lead a pious life, he would knock his head off. That started Joan off again; she was really having a good time, you see. But she would not consent to that form of conversions. She said they must be voluntary. + +La Hire said that that was all right, he wasn’t going to kill the voluntary ones, but only the others. + +No matter, none of them must be killed — Joan couldn’t have it. She said that to give a man a chance to volunteer, on pain of death if he didn’t, left him more or less trammeled, and she wanted him to be entirely free. + +So the soldier sighed and said he would advertise the mass, but said he doubted if there was a man in camp that was any more likely to go to it than he was himself. Then there was another surprise for him, for Joan said: + +“But, dear man, you are going!” + +“I? Impossible! Oh, this is lunacy!” + +“Oh, no, it isn’t. You are going to the service — twice a day.” + +“Oh, am I dreaming? Am I drunk — or is my hearing playing me false? Why, I would rather go to — ” + +“Never mind where. In the morning you are going to begin, and after that it will come easy. Now don’t look downhearted like that. Soon you won’t mind it.” + +La Hire tried to cheer up, but he was not able to do it. He sighed like a zephyr, and presently said: + +“Well, I’ll do it for you, but before I would do it for another, I swear I — ” + +“But don’t swear. Break it off.” + +“Break it off? It is impossible! I beg you to — to — Why — oh, my General, it is my native speech!” + +He begged so hard for grace for his impediment, that Joan left him one fragment of it; she said he might swear by his baton, the symbol of his generalship. + +He promised that he would swear only by his baton when in her presence, and would try to modify himself elsewhere, but doubted he could manage it, now that it was so old and stubborn a habit, and such a solace and support to his declining years. + +That tough old lion went away from there a good deal tamed and civilized — not to say softened and sweetened, for perhaps those expressions would hardly fit him. Noel and I believed that when he was away from Joan’s influence his old aversions would come up so strong in him that he could not master them, and so wouldn’t go to mass. But we got up early in the morning to see. + +Satan was converted, you see. Well, the rest followed. Joan rode up and down that camp, and wherever that fair young form appeared in its shining armor, with that sweet face to grace the vision and perfect it, the rude host seemed to think they saw the god of war in person, descended out of the clouds; and first they wondered, then they worshiped. After that, she could do with them what she would. + +In three days it was a clean camp and orderly, and those barbarians were herding to divine service twice a day like good children. The women were gone. La Hire was stunned by these marvels; he could not understand them. He went outside the camp when he wanted to swear. He was that sort of a man — sinful by nature and habit, but full of superstitious respect for holy places. + +The enthusiasm of the reformed army for Joan, its devotion to her, and the hot desire she had aroused in it to be led against the enemy, exceeded any manifestations of this sort which La Hire had ever seen before in his long career. His admiration of it all, and his wonder over the mystery and miracle of it, were beyond his power to put into words. He had held this army cheap before, but his pride and confidence in it knew no limits now. He said: + +“Two or three days ago it was afraid of a hen-roost; one could storm the gates of hell with it now.” + +Joan and he were inseparable, and a quaint and pleasant contrast they made. He was so big, she so little; he was so gray and so far along in his pilgrimage of life, she so youthful; his face was so bronzed and scarred, hers so fair and pink, so fresh and smooth; she was so gracious, and he so stern; she was so pure, so innocent, he such a cyclopedia of sin. In her eye was stored all charity and compassion, in his lightnings; when her glance fell upon you it seemed to bring benediction and the peace of God, but with his it was different, generally. + +They rode through the camp a dozen times a day, visiting every corner of it, observing, inspecting, perfecting; and wherever they appeared the enthusiasm broke forth. They rode side by side, he a great figure of brawn and muscle, she a little masterwork of roundness and grace; he a fortress of rusty iron, she a shining statuette of silver; and when the reformed raiders and bandits caught sight of them they spoke out, with affection and welcome in their voices, and said: + +“There they come — Satan and the Page of Christ!” + +All the three days that we were in Blois, Joan worked earnestly and tirelessly to bring La Hire to God — to rescue him from the bondage of sin — to breathe into his stormy heart the serenity and peace of religion. She urged, she begged, she implored him to pray. He stood out, three days of our stay, begging about piteously to be let off — to be let off from just that one thing, that impossible thing; he would do anything else — anything — command, and he would obey — he would go through the fire for her if she said the word — but spare him this, only this, for he couldn’t pray, had never prayed, he was ignorant of how to frame a prayer, he had no words to put it in. + +And yet — can any believe it? — she carried even that point, she won that incredible victory. She made La Hire pray. It shows, I think, that nothing was impossible to Joan of Arc. Yes, he stood there before her and put up his mailed hands and made a prayer. And it was not borrowed, but was his very own; he had none to help him frame it, he made it out of his own head — saying: + +“Fair Sir God, I pray you to do by La Hire as he would do by you if you were La Hire and he were God.” + +Then he put on his helmet and marched out of Joan’s tent as satisfied with himself as any one might be who had arranged a perplexed and difficult business to the content and admiration of all the parties concerned in the matter. + +If I had know that he had been praying, I could have understood why he was feeling so superior, but of course I could not know that. + +I was coming to the tent at that moment, and saw him come out, and saw him march away in that large fashion, and indeed it was fine and beautiful to see. But when I got to the tent door I stopped and stepped back, grieved and shocked, for I heard Joan crying, as I mistakenly thought — crying as if she could not contain nor endure the anguish of her soul, crying as if she would die. But it was not so, she was laughing — laughing at La Hire’s prayer. + +It was not until six-and-thirty years afterward that I found that out, and then — oh, then I only cried when that picture of young care-free mirth rose before me out of the blur and mists of that long-vanished time; for there had come a day between, when God’s good gift of laughter had gone out from me to come again no more in this life. + +[INFO] +==== +This prayer has been stolen many times and by many nations in the past four hundred and sixty years, but it originated with La Hire, and the fact is of official record in the National Archives of France. We have the authority of Michelet for this. — TRANSLATOR +==== + +== Chapter 13 Checked by the Folly of the Wise + +WE MARCHED out in great strength and splendor, and took the road toward Orleans. The initial part of Joan’s great dream was realizing itself at last. It was the first time that any of us youngsters had ever seen an army, and it was a most stately and imposing spectacle to us. It was indeed an inspiring sight, that interminable column, stretching away into the fading distances, and curving itself in and out of the crookedness of the road like a mighty serpent. Joan rode at the head of it with her personal staff; then came a body of priests singing the Veni Creator, the banner of the Cross rising out of their midst; after these the glinting forest of spears. The several divisions were commanded by the great Armagnac generals, La Hire, and Marshal de Boussac, the Sire de Retz, Florent d’Illiers, and Poton de Saintrailles. + +Each in his degree was tough, and there were three degrees — tough, tougher, toughest — and La Hire was the last by a shade, but only a shade. They were just illustrious official brigands, the whole party; and by long habits of lawlessness they had lost all acquaintanceship with obedience, if they had ever had any. + +But what was the good of saying that? These independent birds knew no law. They seldom obeyed the King; they never obeyed him when it didn’t suit them to do it. Would they obey the Maid? In the first place they wouldn’t know how to obey her or anybody else, and in the second place it was of course not possible for them to take her military character seriously — that country-girl of seventeen who had been trained for the complex and terrible business of war — how? By tending sheep. + +They had no idea of obeying her except in cases where their veteran military knowledge and experience showed them that the thing she required was sound and right when gauged by the regular military standards. Were they to blame for this attitude? I should think not. Old war-worn captains are hard-headed, practical men. They do not easily believe in the ability of ignorant children to plan campaigns and command armies. No general that ever lived could have taken Joan seriously (militarily) before she raised the siege of Orleans and followed it with the great campaign of the Loire. + +Did they consider Joan valueless? Far from it. They valued her as the fruitful earth values the sun — they fully believed she could produce the crop, but that it was in their line of business, not hers, to take it off. They had a deep and superstitious reverence for her as being endowed with a mysterious supernatural something that was able to do a mighty thing which they were powerless to do — blow the breath of life and valor into the dead corpses of cowed armies and turn them into heroes. + +To their minds they were everything with her, but nothing without her. She could inspire the soldiers and fit them for battle — but fight the battle herself? Oh, nonsense — that was their function. They, the generals, would fight the battles, Joan would give the victory. That was their idea — an unconscious paraphrase of Joan’s reply to the Dominican. + +So they began by playing a deception upon her. She had a clear idea of how she meant to proceed. It was her purpose to march boldly upon Orleans by the north bank of the Loire. She gave that order to her generals. They said to themselves, “The idea is insane — it is blunder No. 1; it is what might have been expected of this child who is ignorant of war.” They privately sent the word to the Bastard of Orleans. He also recognized the insanity of it — at least he thought he did — and privately advised the generals to get around the order in some way. + +They did it by deceiving Joan. She trusted those people, she was not expecting this sort of treatment, and was not on the lookout for it. It was a lesson to her; she saw to it that the game was not played a second time. + +Why was Joan’s idea insane, from the generals’ point of view, but not from hers? Because her plan was to raise the siege immediately, by fighting, while theirs was to besiege the besiegers and starve them out by closing their communications — a plan which would require months in the consummation. + +The English had built a fence of strong fortresses called bastilles around Orleans — fortresses which closed all the gates of the city but one. To the French generals the idea of trying to fight their way past those fortresses and lead the army into Orleans was preposterous; they believed that the result would be the army’s destruction. One may not doubt that their opinion was militarily sound — no, would have been, but for one circumstance which they overlooked. That was this: the English soldiers were in a demoralized condition of superstitious terror; they had become satisfied that the Maid was in league with Satan. By reason of this a good deal of their courage had oozed out and vanished. On the other hand, the Maid’s soldiers were full of courage, enthusiasm, and zeal. + +Joan could have marched by the English forts. However, it was not to be. She had been cheated out of her first chance to strike a heavy blow for her country. + +In camp that night she slept in her armor on the ground. It was a cold night, and she was nearly as stiff as her armor itself when we resumed the march in the morning, for iron is not good material for a blanket. However, her joy in being now so far on her way to the theater of her mission was fire enough to warm her, and it soon did it. + +Her enthusiasm and impatience rose higher and higher with every mile of progress; but at last we reached Olivet, and down it went, and indignation took its place. For she saw the trick that had been played upon her — the river lay between us and Orleans. + +She was for attacking one of the three bastilles that were on our side of the river and forcing access to the bridge which it guarded (a project which, if successful, would raise the siege instantly), but the long-ingrained fear of the English came upon her generals and they implored her not to make the attempt. The soldiers wanted to attack, but had to suffer disappointment. So we moved on and came to a halt at a point opposite Checy, six miles above Orleans. + +Dunois, Bastard of Orleans, with a body of knights and citizens, came up from the city to welcome Joan. Joan was still burning with resentment over the trick that had been put upon her, and was not in the mood for soft speeches, even to revered military idols of her childhood. She said: + +“Are you the bastard?” + +“Yes, I am he, and am right glad of your coming.” + +“And did you advise that I be brought by this side of the river instead of straight to Talbot and the English?” + +Her high manner abashed him, and he was not able to answer with anything like a confident promptness, but with many hesitations and partial excuses he managed to get out the confession that for what he and the council had regarded as imperative military reasons they so advised. + +“In God’s name,” said Joan, “my Lord’s counsel is safer and wiser than yours. You thought to deceive me, but you have deceived yourselves, for I bring you the best help that ever knight or city had; for it is God’s help, not sent for love of me, but by God’s pleasure. At the prayer of St. Louis and St. Charlemagne He has had pity on Orleans, and will not suffer the enemy to have both the Duke of Orleans and his city. The provisions to save the starving people are here, the boats are below the city, the wind is contrary, they cannot come up hither. Now then, tell me, in God’s name, you who are so wise, what that council of yours was thinking about, to invent this foolish difficulty.” + +Dunois and the rest fumbled around the matter a moment, then gave in and conceded that a blunder had been made. + +“Yes, a blunder has been made,” said Joan, “and except God take your proper work upon Himself and change the wind and correct your blunder for you, there is none else that can devise a remedy.” + +Some of these people began to perceive that with all her technical ignorance she had practical good sense, and that with all her native sweetness and charm she was not the right kind of a person to play with. + +Presently God did take the blunder in hand, and by His grace the wind did change. So the fleet of boats came up and went away loaded with provisions and cattle, and conveyed that welcome succor to the hungry city, managing the matter successfully under protection of a sortie from the walls against the bastille of St. Loup. Then Joan began on the Bastard again: + +“You see here the army?” + +“Yes.” + +“It is here on this side by advice of your council?” + +“Yes.” + +“Now, in God’s name, can that wise council explain why it is better to have it here than it would be to have it in the bottom of the sea?” + +Dunois made some wandering attempts to explain the inexplicable and excuse the inexcusable, but Joan cut him short and said: + +“Answer me this, good sir — has the army any value on this side of the river?” + +The Bastard confessed that it hadn’t — that is, in view of the plan of campaign which she had devised and decreed. + +“And yet, knowing this, you had the hardihood to disobey my orders. Since the army’s place is on the other side, will you explain to me how it is to get there?” + +The whole size of the needless muddle was apparent. Evasions were of no use; therefore Dunois admitted that there was no way to correct the blunder but to send the army all the way back to Blois, and let it begin over again and come up on the other side this time, according to Joan’s original plan. + +Any other girl, after winning such a triumph as this over a veteran soldier of old renown, might have exulted a little and been excusable for it, but Joan showed no disposition of this sort. She dropped a word or two of grief over the precious time that must be lost, then began at once to issue commands for the march back. She sorrowed to see her army go; for she said its heart was great and its enthusiasm high, and that with it at her back she did not fear to face all the might of England. + +All arrangements having been completed for the return of the main body of the army, she took the Bastard and La Hire and a thousand men and went down to Orleans, where all the town was in a fever of impatience to have sight of her face. It was eight in the evening when she and the troops rode in at the Burgundy gate, with the Paladin preceding her with her standard. She was riding a white horse, and she carried in her hand the sacred sword of Fierbois. You should have seen Orleans then. What a picture it was! Such black seas of people, such a starry firmament of torches, such roaring whirlwinds of welcome, such booming of bells and thundering of cannon! It was as if the world was come to an end. Everywhere in the glare of the torches one saw rank upon rank of upturned white faces, the mouths wide open, shouting, and the unchecked tears running down; Joan forged her slow way through the solid masses, her mailed form projecting above the pavement of heads like a silver statue. The people about her struggled along, gazing up at her through their tears with the rapt look of men and women who believe they are seeing one who is divine; and always her feet were being kissed by grateful folk, and such as failed of that privilege touched her horse and then kissed their fingers. + +Nothing that Joan did escaped notice; everything she did was commented upon and applauded. You could hear the remarks going all the time. + +“There — she’s smiling — see!” + +“Now she’s taking her little plumed cap off to somebody — ah, it’s fine and graceful!” + +“She’s patting that woman on the head with her gauntlet.” + +“Oh, she was born on a horse — see her turn in her saddle, and kiss the hilt of her sword to the ladies in the window that threw the flowers down.” + +“Now there’s a poor woman lifting up a child — she’s kissed it — oh, she’s divine!” + +“What a dainty little figure it is, and what a lovely face — and such color and animation!” + +Joan’s slender long banner streaming backward had an accident — the fringe caught fire from a torch. She leaned forward and crushed the flame in her hand. + +“She’s not afraid of fire nor anything!” they shouted, and delivered a storm of admiring applause that made everything quake. + +She rode to the cathedral and gave thanks to God, and the people crammed the place and added their devotions to hers; then she took up her march again and picked her slow way through the crowds and the wilderness of torches to the house of Jacques Boucher, treasurer of the Duke of Orleans, where she was to be the guest of his wife as long as she stayed in the city, and have his young daughter for comrade and room-mate. The delirium of the people went on the rest of the night, and with it the clamor of the joy-bells and the welcoming cannon. + +Joan of Arc had stepped upon her stage at last, and was ready to begin. + +== Chapter 14 What the English Answered + +image::https://i.nostr.build/ga7Ehj8ybgXFrOtt.jpg[0181, 300] + + +SHE WAS ready, but must sit down and wait until there was an army to work with. + +Next morning, Saturday, April 30, 1429, she set about inquiring after the messenger who carried her proclamation to the English from Blois — the one which she had dictated at Poitiers. Here is a copy of it. It is a remarkable document, for several reasons: for its matter-of-fact directness, for its high spirit and forcible diction, and for its naive confidence in her ability to achieve the prodigious task which she had laid upon herself, or which had been laid upon her — which you please. All through it you seem to see the pomps of war and hear the rumbling of the drums. In it Joan’s warrior soul is revealed, and for the moment the soft little shepherdess has disappeared from your view. This untaught country-damsel, unused to dictating anything at all to anybody, much less documents of state to kings and generals, poured out this procession of vigorous sentences as fluently as if this sort of work had been her trade from childhood: + +JESUS MARIA King of England and you Duke of Bedford who call yourself Regent of France; William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk; and you Thomas Lord Scales, who style yourselves lieutenants of the said Bedford — do right to the King of Heaven. Render to the Maid who is sent by God the keys of all the good towns you have taken and violated in France. She is sent hither by God, to restore the blood royal. She is very ready to make peace if you will do her right by giving up France and paying for what you have held. And you archers, companions of war, noble and otherwise, who are before the good city of Orleans, begone into your own land in God’s name, or expect news from the Maid who will shortly go to see you to your very great hurt. King of England, if you do not so, I am chief of war, and whenever I shall find your people in France, I will drive them out, willing or not willing; and if they do not obey I will slay them all, but if they obey, I will have them to mercy. I am come hither by God, the King of Heaven, body for body, to put you out of France, in spite of those who would work treason and mischief against the kingdom. Think not you shall ever hold the kingdom from the King of Heaven, the Son of the Blessed Mary; King Charles shall hold it, for God wills it so, and has revealed it to him by the Maid. If you believe not the news sent by God through the Maid, wherever we shall meet you we will strike boldly and make such a noise as has not been in France these thousand years. Be sure that God can send more strength to the Maid than you can bring to any assault against her and her good men-at-arms; and then we shall see who has the better right, the King of Heaven, or you. Duke of Bedford, the Maid prays you not to bring about your own destruction. If you do her right, you may yet go in her company where the French shall do the finest deed that has been done in Christendom, and if you do not, you shall be reminded shortly of your great wrongs. + +In that closing sentence she invites them to go on crusade with her to rescue the Holy Sepulcher. No answer had been returned to this proclamation, and the messenger himself had not come back. + +So now she sent her two heralds with a new letter warning the English to raise the siege and requiring them to restore that missing messenger. The heralds came back without him. All they brought was notice from the English to Joan that they would presently catch her and burn her if she did not clear out now while she had a chance, and “go back to her proper trade of minding cows.” + +She held her peace, only saying it was a pity that the English would persist in inviting present disaster and eventual destruction when she was “doing all she could to get them out of the country with their lives still in their bodies.” + +Presently she thought of an arrangement that might be acceptable, and said to the heralds, “Go back and say to Lord Talbot this, from me: ‘Come out of your bastilles with your host, and I will come with mine; if I beat you, go in peace out of France; if you beat me, burn me, according to your desire.’” + +I did not hear this, but Dunois did, and spoke of it. The challenge was refused. + +Sunday morning her Voices or some instinct gave her a warning, and she sent Dunois to Blois to take command of the army and hurry it to Orleans. It was a wise move, for he found Regnault de Chartres and some more of the King’s pet rascals there trying their best to disperse the army, and crippling all the efforts of Joan’s generals to head it for Orleans. They were a fine lot, those miscreants. They turned their attention to Dunois now, but he had balked Joan once, with unpleasant results to himself, and was not minded to meddle in that way again. He soon had the army moving. + +== Chapter 15 My Exquisite Poem Goes to Smash + +WE OF the personal staff were in fairyland now, during the few days that we waited for the return of the army. We went into society. To our two knights this was not a novelty, but to us young villagers it was a new and wonderful life. Any position of any sort near the person of the Maid of Vaucouleurs conferred high distinction upon the holder and caused his society to be courted; and so the D’Arc brothers, and Noel, and the Paladin, humble peasants at home, were gentlemen here, personages of weight and influence. It was fine to see how soon their country diffidences and awkwardnesses melted away under this pleasant sun of deference and disappeared, and how lightly and easily they took to their new atmosphere. The Paladin was as happy as it was possible for any one in this earth to be. His tongue went all the time, and daily he got new delight out of hearing himself talk. He began to enlarge his ancestry and spread it out all around, and ennoble it right and left, and it was not long until it consisted almost entirely of dukes. He worked up his old battles and tricked them out with fresh splendors; also with new terrors, for he added artillery now. We had seen cannon for the first time at Blois — a few pieces — here there was plenty of it, and now and then we had the impressive spectacle of a huge English bastille hidden from sight in a mountain of smoke from its own guns, with lances of red flame darting through it; and this grand picture, along with the quaking thunders pounding away in the heart of it, inflamed the Paladin’s imagination and enabled him to dress out those ambuscade-skirmishes of ours with a sublimity which made it impossible for any to recognize them at all except people who had not been there. + +You may suspect that there was a special inspiration for these great efforts of the Paladin’s, and there was. It was the daughter of the house, Catherine Boucher, who was eighteen, and gentle and lovely in her ways, and very beautiful. I think she might have been as beautiful as Joan herself, if she had had Joan’s eyes. But that could never be. There was never but that one pair, there will never be another. Joan’s eyes were deep and rich and wonderful beyond anything merely earthly. They spoke all the languages — they had no need of words. They produced all effects — and just by a glance, just a single glance; a glance that could convict a liar of his lie and make him confess it; that could bring down a proud man’s pride and make him humble; that could put courage into a coward and strike dead the courage of the bravest; that could appease resentments and real hatreds; that could make the doubter believe and the hopeless hope again; that could purify the impure mind; that could persuade — ah, there it is — persuasion! that is the word; what or who is it that it couldn’t persuade? The maniac of Domremy — the fairy-banishing priest — the reverend tribunal of Toul — the doubting and superstitious Laxart — the obstinate veteran of Vaucouleurs — the characterless heir of France — the sages and scholars of the Parliament and University of Poitiers — the darling of Satan, La Hire — the masterless Bastard of Orleans, accustomed to acknowledge no way as right and rational but his own — these were the trophies of that great gift that made her the wonder and mystery that she was. + +We mingled companionably with the great folk who flocked to the big house to make Joan’s acquaintance, and they made much of us and we lived in the clouds, so to speak. But what we preferred even to this happiness was the quieter occasions, when the formal guests were gone and the family and a few dozen of its familiar friends were gathered together for a social good time. It was then that we did our best, we five youngsters, with such fascinations as we had, and the chief object of them was Catherine. None of us had ever been in love before, and now we had the misfortune to all fall in love with the same person at the same time — which was the first moment we saw her. She was a merry heart, and full of life, and I still remember tenderly those few evenings that I was permitted to have my share of her dear society and of comradeship with that little company of charming people. + +The Paladin made us all jealous the first night, for when he got fairly started on those battles of his he had everything to himself, and there was no use in anybody else’s trying to get any attention. Those people had been living in the midst of real war for seven months; and to hear this windy giant lay out his imaginary campaigns and fairly swim in blood and spatter it all around, entertained them to the verge of the grave. Catherine was like to die, for pure enjoyment. She didn’t laugh loud — we, of course, wished she would — but kept in the shelter of a fan, and shook until there was danger that she would unhitch her ribs from her spine. Then when the Paladin had got done with a battle and we began to feel thankful and hope for a change, she would speak up in a way that was so sweet and persuasive that it rankled in me, and ask him about some detail or other in the early part of his battle which she said had greatly interested her, and would he be so good as to describe that part again and with a little more particularity? — which of course precipitated the whole battle on us, again, with a hundred lies added that had been overlooked before. + +I do not know how to make you realize the pain I suffered. I had never been jealous before, and it seemed intolerable that this creature should have this good fortune which he was so ill entitled to, and I have to sit and see myself neglected when I was so longing for the least little attention out of the thousand that this beloved girl was lavishing on him. I was near her, and tried two or three times to get started on some of the things that I had done in those battles — and I felt ashamed of myself, too, for stooping to such a business — but she cared for nothing but his battles, and could not be got to listen; and presently when one of my attempts caused her to lose some precious rag or other of his mendacities and she asked him to repeat, thus bringing on a new engagement, of course, and increasing the havoc and carnage tenfold, I felt so humiliated by this pitiful miscarriage of mine that I gave up and tried no more. + +The others were as outraged by the Paladin’s selfish conduct as I was — and by his grand luck, too, of course — perhaps, indeed, that was the main hurt. We talked our trouble over together, which was natural, for rivals become brothers when a common affliction assails them and a common enemy bears off the victory. + +Each of us could do things that would please and get notice if it were not for this person, who occupied all the time and gave others no chance. I had made a poem, taking a whole night to it — a poem in which I most happily and delicately celebrated that sweet girl’s charms, without mentioning her name, but any one could see who was meant; for the bare title — “The Rose of Orleans” — would reveal that, as it seemed to me. It pictured this pure and dainty white rose as growing up out of the rude soil of war and looking abroad out of its tender eyes upon the horrid machinery of death, and then — note this conceit — it blushes for the sinful nature of man, and turns red in a single night. Becomes a red rose, you see — a rose that was white before. The idea was my own, and quite new. Then it sent its sweet perfume out over the embattled city, and when the beleaguering forces smelt it they laid down their arms and wept. This was also my own idea, and new. That closed that part of the poem; then I put her into the similitude of the firmament — not the whole of it, but only part. That is to say, she was the moon, and all the constellations were following her about, their hearts in flames for love of her, but she would not halt, she would not listen, for ’twas thought she loved another. ’Twas thought she loved a poor unworthy suppliant who was upon the earth, facing danger, death, and possible mutilation in the bloody field, waging relentless war against a heartless foe to save her from an all too early grave, and her city from destruction. And when the sad pursuing constellations came to know and realize the bitter sorrow that was come upon them — note this idea — their hearts broke and their tears gushed forth, filling the vault of heaven with a fiery splendor, for those tears were falling stars. It was a rash idea, but beautiful; beautiful and pathetic; wonderfully pathetic, the way I had it, with the rhyme and all to help. At the end of each verse there was a two-line refrain pitying the poor earthly lover separated so far, and perhaps forever, from her he loved so well, and growing always paler and weaker and thinner in his agony as he neared the cruel grave — the most touching thing — even the boys themselves could hardly keep back their tears, the way Noel said those lines. There were eight four-line stanzas in the first end of the poem — the end about the rose, the horticultural end, as you may say, if that is not too large a name for such a little poem — and eight in the astronomical end — sixteen stanzas altogether, and I could have made it a hundred and fifty if I had wanted to, I was so inspired and so all swelled up with beautiful thoughts and fancies; but that would have been too many to sing or recite before a company that way, whereas sixteen was just right, and could be done over again if desired. The boys were amazed that I could make such a poem as that out of my own head, and so was I, of course, it being as much a surprise to me as it could be to anybody, for I did not know that it was in me. If any had asked me a single day before if it was in me, I should have told them frankly no, it was not. + +That is the way with us; we may go on half of our life not knowing such a thing is in us, when in reality it was there all the time, and all we needed was something to turn up that would call for it. Indeed, it was always so without family. My grandfather had a cancer, and they never knew what was the matter with him till he died, and he didn’t know himself. It is wonderful how gifts and diseases can be concealed in that way. All that was necessary in my case was for this lovely and inspiring girl to cross my path, and out came the poem, and no more trouble to me to word it and rhyme it and perfect it than it is to stone a dog. No, I should have said it was not in me; but it was. + +The boys couldn’t say enough about it, they were so charmed and astonished. The thing that pleased them the most was the way it would do the Paladin’s business for him. They forgot everything in their anxiety to get him shelved and silenced. Noel Rainguesson was clear beside himself with admiration of the poem, and wished he could do such a thing, but it was out of his line, and he couldn’t, of course. He had it by heart in half an hour, and there was never anything so pathetic and beautiful as the way he recited it. For that was just his gift — that and mimicry. He could recite anything better than anybody in the world, and he could take of La Hire to the very life — or anybody else, for that matter. Now I never could recite worth a farthing; and when I tried with this poem the boys wouldn’t let me finish; they would have nobody but Noel. So then, as I wanted the poem to make the best possible impression on Catherine and the company, I told Noel he might do the reciting. Never was anybody so delighted. He could hardly believe that I was in earnest, but I was. I said that to have them know that I was the author of it would be enough for me. The boys were full of exultation, and Noel said if he could just get one chance at those people it would be all he would ask; he would make them realize that there was something higher and finer than war-lies to be had here. + +But how to get the opportunity — that was the difficulty. We invented several schemes that promised fairly, and at last we hit upon one that was sure. That was, to let the Paladin get a good start in a manufactured battle, and then send in a false call for him, and as soon as he was out of the room, have Noel take his place and finish the battle himself in the Paladin’s own style, imitated to a shade. That would get great applause, and win the house’s favor and put it in the right mood to hear the poem. The two triumphs together with finish the Standard-Bearer — modify him, anyway, to a certainty, and give the rest of us a chance for the future. + +So the next night I kept out of the way until the Paladin had got his start and was sweeping down upon the enemy like a whirlwind at the head of his corps, then I stepped within the door in my official uniform and announced that a messenger from General La Hire’s quarters desired speech with the Standard-Bearer. He left the room, and Noel took his place and said that the interruption was to be deplored, but that fortunately he was personally acquainted with the details of the battle himself, and if permitted would be glad to state them to the company. Then without waiting for the permission he turned himself to the Paladin — a dwarfed Paladin, of course — with manner, tones, gestures, attitudes, everything exact, and went right on with the battle, and it would be impossible to imagine a more perfectly and minutely ridiculous imitation than he furnished to those shrieking people. They went into spasms, convulsions, frenzies of laughter, and the tears flowed down their cheeks in rivulets. The more they laughed, the more inspired Noel grew with his theme and the greater marvels he worked, till really the laughter was not properly laughing any more, but screaming. Blessedest feature of all, Catherine Boucher was dying with ecstasies, and presently there was little left of her but gasps and suffocations. Victory? It was a perfect Agincourt. + +The Paladin was gone only a couple of minutes; he found out at once that a trick had been played on him, so he came back. When he approached the door he heard Noel ranting in there and recognized the state of the case; so he remained near the door but out of sight, and heard the performance through to the end. The applause Noel got when he finished was wonderful; and they kept it up and kept it up, clapping their hands like mad, and shouting to him to do it over again. + +But Noel was clever. He knew the very best background for a poem of deep and refined sentiment and pathetic melancholy was one where great and satisfying merriment had prepared the spirit for the powerful contrast. + +So he paused until all was quiet, then his face grew grave and assumed an impressive aspect, and at once all faces sobered in sympathy and took on a look of wondering and expectant interest. Now he began in a low but distinct voice the opening verses of The Rose. As he breathed the rhythmic measures forth, and one gracious line after another fell upon those enchanted ears in that deep hush, one could catch, on every hand, half-audible ejaculations of “How lovely — how beautiful — how exquisite!” + +By this time the Paladin, who had gone away for a moment with the opening of the poem, was back again, and had stepped within the door. He stood there now, resting his great frame against the wall and gazing toward the reciter like one entranced. When Noel got to the second part, and that heart-breaking refrain began to melt and move all listeners, the Paladin began to wipe away tears with the back of first one hand and then the other. The next time the refrain was repeated he got to snuffling, and sort of half sobbing, and went to wiping his eyes with the sleeves of his doublet. He was so conspicuous that he embarrassed Noel a little, and also had an ill effect upon the audience. With the next repetition he broke quite down and began to cry like a calf, which ruined all the effect and started many to the audience to laughing. Then he went on from bad to worse, until I never saw such a spectacle; for he fetched out a towel from under his doublet and began to swab his eyes with it and let go the most infernal bellowings mixed up with sobbings and groanings and retchings and barkings and coughings and snortings and screamings and howlings — and he twisted himself about on his heels and squirmed this way and that, still pouring out that brutal clamor and flourishing his towel in the air and swabbing again and wringing it out. Hear? You couldn’t hear yourself think. Noel was wholly drowned out and silenced, and those people were laughing the very lungs out of themselves. It was the most degrading sight that ever was. Now I heard the clankety-clank that plate-armor makes when the man that is in it is running, and then alongside my head there burst out the most inhuman explosion of laughter that ever rent the drum of a person’s ear, and I looked, and it was La Hire; and the stood there with his gauntlets on his hips and his head tilted back and his jaws spread to that degree to let out his hurricanes and his thunders that it amounted to indecent exposure, for you could see everything that was in him. Only one thing more and worse could happen, and it happened: at the other door I saw the flurry and bustle and bowings and scrapings of officials and flunkeys which means that some great personage is coming — then Joan of Arc stepped in, and the house rose! Yes, and tried to shut its indecorous mouth and make itself grave and proper; but when it saw the Maid herself go to laughing, it thanked God for this mercy and the earthquake that followed. + +Such things make a life of bitterness, and I do not wish to dwell upon them. The effect of the poem was spoiled. + +== Chapter 16 The Finding of the Dwarf + +THIS EPISODE disagreed with me and I was not able to leave my bed the next day. The others were in the same condition. But for this, one or another of us might have had the good luck that fell to the Paladin’s share that day; but it is observable that God in His compassion sends the good luck to such as are ill equipped with gifts, as compensation for their defect, but requires such as are more fortunately endowed to get by labor and talent what those others get by chance. It was Noel who said this, and it seemed to me to be well and justly thought. + +The Paladin, going about the town all the day in order to be followed and admired and overhear the people say in an awed voice, “‘Ssh! — look, it is the Standard-Bearer of Joan of Arc!” had speech with all sorts and conditions of folk, and he learned from some boatmen that there was a stir of some kind going on in the bastilles on the other side of the river; and in the evening, seeking further, he found a deserter from the fortress called the “Augustins,” who said that the English were going to send me over to strengthen the garrisons on our side during the darkness of the night, and were exulting greatly, for they meant to spring upon Dunois and the army when it was passing the bastilles and destroy it; a thing quite easy to do, since the “Witch” would not be there, and without her presence the army would do like the French armies of these many years past — drop their weapons and run when they saw an English face. + +It was ten at night when the Paladin brought this news and asked leave to speak to Joan, and I was up and on duty then. It was a bitter stroke to me to see what a chance I had lost. Joan made searching inquiries, and satisfied herself that the word was true, then she made this annoying remark: + +“You have done well, and you have my thanks. It may be that you have prevented a disaster. Your name and service shall receive official mention.” + +Then he bowed low, and when he rose he was eleven feet high. As he swelled out past me he covertly pulled down the corner of his eye with his finger and muttered part of that defiled refrain, “Oh, tears, ah, tears, oh, sad sweet tears! — name in General Orders — personal mention to the King, you see!” + +I wished Joan could have seen his conduct, but she was busy thinking what she would do. Then she had me fetch the knight Jean de Metz, and in a minute he was off for La Hire’s quarters with orders for him and the Lord de Villars and Florent d’Illiers to report to her at five o’clock next morning with five hundred picked men well mounted. The histories say half past four, but it is not true, I heard the order given. + +We were on our way at five to the minute, and encountered the head of the arriving column between six and seven, a couple of leagues from the city. Dunois was pleased, for the army had begun to get restive and show uneasiness now that it was getting so near to the dreaded bastilles. But that all disappeared now, as the word ran down the line, with a huzza that swept along the length of it like a wave, that the Maid was come. Dunois asked her to halt and let the column pass in review, so that the men could be sure that the reports of her presence was not a ruse to revive their courage. So she took position at the side of the road with her staff, and the battalions swung by with a martial stride, huzzaing. Joan was armed, except her head. She was wearing the cunning little velvet cap with the mass of curved white ostrich plumes tumbling over its edges which the city of Orleans had given her the night she arrived — the one that is in the picture that hangs in the Hotel de Ville at Rouen. She was looking about fifteen. The sight of soldiers always set her blood to leaping, and lit the fires in her eyes and brought the warm rich color to her cheeks; it was then that you saw that she was too beautiful to be of the earth, or at any rate that there was a subtle something somewhere about her beauty that differed it from the human types of your experience and exalted it above them. + +In the train of wains laden with supplies a man lay on top of the goods. He was stretched out on his back, and his hands were tied together with ropes, and also his ankles. Joan signed to the officer in charge of that division of the train to come to her, and he rode up and saluted. + +“What is he that is bound there?” she asked. + +“A prisoner, General.” + +“What is his offense?” + +“He is a deserter.” + +“What is to be done with him?” + +“He will be hanged, but it was not convenient on the march, and there was no hurry.” + +“Tell me about him.” + +“He is a good soldier, but he asked leave to go and see his wife who was dying, he said, but it could not be granted; so he went without leave. Meanwhile the march began, and he only overtook us yesterday evening.” + +“Overtook you? Did he come of his own will?” + +“Yes, it was of his own will.” + +“He a deserter! Name of God! Bring him to me.” + +The officer rode forward and loosed the man’s feet and brought him back with his hands still tied. What a figure he was — a good seven feet high, and built for business! He had a strong face; he had an unkempt shock of black hair which showed up a striking way when the officer removed his morion for him; for weapon he had a big ax in his broad leathern belt. Standing by Joan’s horse, he made Joan look littler than ever, for his head was about on a level with her own. His face was profoundly melancholy; all interest in life seemed to be dead in the man. Joan said: + +“Hold up your hands.” + +The man’s head was down. He lifted it when he heard that soft friendly voice, and there was a wistful something in his face which made one think that there had been music in it for him and that he would like to hear it again. When he raised his hands Joan laid her sword to his bonds, but the officer said with apprehension: + +“Ah, madam — my General!” + +“What is it?” she said. + +“He is under sentence!” + +“Yes, I know. I am responsible for him”; and she cut the bonds. They had lacerated his wrists, and they were bleeding. “Ah, pitiful!” she said; “blood — I do not like it”; and she shrank from the sight. But only for a moment. “Give me something, somebody, to bandage his wrists with.” + +The officer said: + +“Ah, my General! it is not fitting. Let me bring another to do it.” + +“Another? De par le Dieu! You would seek far to find one that can do it better than I, for I learned it long ago among both men and beasts. And I can tie better than those that did this; if I had tied him the ropes had not cut his flesh.” + +The man looked on silent, while he was being bandaged, stealing a furtive glance at Joan’s face occasionally, such as an animal might that is receiving a kindness form an unexpected quarter and is gropingly trying to reconcile the act with its source. All the staff had forgotten the huzzaing army drifting by in its rolling clouds of dust, to crane their necks and watch the bandaging as if it was the most interesting and absorbing novelty that ever was. I have often seen people do like that — get entirely lost in the simplest trifle, when it is something that is out of their line. Now there in Poitiers, once, I saw two bishops and a dozen of those grave and famous scholars grouped together watching a man paint a sign on a shop; they didn’t breathe, they were as good as dead; and when it began to sprinkle they didn’t know it at first; then they noticed it, and each man hove a deep sigh, and glanced up with a surprised look as wondering to see the others there, and how he came to be there himself — but that is the way with people, as I have said. There is no way of accounting for people. You have to take them as they are. + +“There,” said Joan at last, pleased with her success; “another could have done it no better — not as well, I think. Tell me — what is it you did? Tell me all.” + +The giant said: + +“It was this way, my angel. My mother died, then my three little children, one after the other, all in two years. It was the famine; others fared so — it was God’s will. I saw them die; I had that grace; and I buried them. Then when my poor wife’s fate was come, I begged for leave to go to her — she who was so dear to me — she who was all I had; I begged on my knees. But they would not let me. Could I let her die, friendless and alone? Could I let her die believing I would not come? Would she let me die and she not come — with her feet free to do it if she would, and no cost upon it but only her life? Ah, she would come — she would come through the fire! So I went. I saw her. She died in my arms. I buried her. Then the army was gone. I had trouble to overtake it, but my legs are long and there are many hours in a day; I overtook it last night.” + +Joan said, musingly, as if she were thinking aloud: + +“It sounds true. If true, it were no great harm to suspend the law this one time — any would say that. It may not be true, but if it is true — ” She turned suddenly to the man and said, “I would see your eyes — look up!” The eyes of the two met, and Joan said to the officer, “This man is pardoned. Give you good day; you may go.” Then she said to the man, “Did you know it was death to come back to the army?” + +“Yes,” he said, “I knew it.” + +“Then why did you do it?” + +The man said, quite simply: + +“Because it was death. She was all I had. There was nothing left to love.” + +“Ah, yes, there was — France! The children of France have always their mother — they cannot be left with nothing to love. You shall live — and you shall serve France — ” + +“I will serve you!” — “you shall fight for France — ” + +“I will fight for you!” + +“You shall be France’s soldier — ” + +“I will be your soldier!” — “you shall give all your heart to France — ” + +“I will give all my heart to you — and all my soul, if I have one — and all my strength, which is great — for I was dead and am alive again; I had nothing to live for, but now I have! You are France for me. You are my France, and I will have no other.” + +Joan smiled, and was touched and pleased at the man’s grave enthusiasm — solemn enthusiasm, one may call it, for the manner of it was deeper than mere gravity — and she said: + +“Well, it shall be as you will. What are you called?” + +The man answered with unsmiling simplicity: + +“They call me the Dwarf, but I think it is more in jest than otherwise.” + +It made Joan laugh, and she said: + +“It has something of that look truly! What is the office of that vast ax?” + +The soldier replied with the same gravity — which must have been born to him, it sat upon him so naturally: + +“It is to persuade persons to respect France.” + +Joan laughed again, and said: + +“Have you given many lessons?” + +“Ah, indeed, yes — many.” + +“The pupils behaved to suit you, afterward?” + +“Yes; it made them quiet — quite pleasant and quiet.” + +“I should think it would happen so. Would you like to be my man-at-arms? — orderly, sentinel, or something like that?” + +“If I may!” + +“Then you shall. You shall have proper armor, and shall go on teaching your art. Take one of those led horses there, and follow the staff when we move.” + +That is how we came by the Dwarf; and a good fellow he was. Joan picked him out on sight, but it wasn’t a mistake; no one could be faithfuler than he was, and he was a devil and the son of a devil when he turned himself loose with his ax. He was so big that he made the Paladin look like an ordinary man. He liked to like people, therefore people liked him. He liked us boys from the start; and he liked the knights, and liked pretty much everybody he came across; but he thought more of a paring of Joan’s finger-nail than he did of all the rest of the world put together. + +Yes, that is where we got him — stretched on the wain, going to his death, poor chap, and nobody to say a good word for him. He was a good find. Why, the knights treated him almost like an equal — it is the honest truth; that is the sort of a man he was. They called him the Bastille sometimes, and sometimes they called him Hellfire, which was on account of his warm and sumptuous style in battle, and you know they wouldn’t have given him pet names if they hadn’t had a good deal of affection for him. + +To the Dwarf, Joan was France, the spirit of France made flesh — he never got away from that idea that he had started with; and God knows it was the true one. That was a humble eye to see so great a truth where some others failed. To me that seems quite remarkable. And yet, after all, it was, in a way, just what nations do. When they love a great and noble thing, they embody it — they want it so that they can see it with their eyes; like liberty, for instance. They are not content with the cloudy abstract idea, they make a beautiful statue of it, and then their beloved idea is substantial and they can look at it and worship it. And so it is as I say; to the Dwarf, Joan was our country embodied, our country made visible flesh cast in a gracious form. When she stood before others, they saw Joan of Arc, but he saw France. + +Sometimes he would speak of her by that name. It shows you how the idea was embedded in his mind, and how real it was to him. The world has called our kings by it, but I know of none of them who has had so good a right as she to that sublime title. + +When the march past was finished, Joan returned to the front and rode at the head of the column. When we began to file past those grim bastilles and could glimpse the men within, standing to their guns and ready to empty death into our ranks, such a faintness came over me and such a sickness that all things seemed to turn dim and swim before my eyes; and the other boys looked droopy, too, I thought — including the Paladin, although I do not know this for certain, because he was ahead of me and I had to keep my eyes out toward the bastille side, because I could wince better when I saw what to wince at. + +But Joan was at home — in Paradise, I might say. She sat up straight, and I could see that she was feeling different from me. The awfulest thing was the silence; there wasn’t a sound but the screaking of the saddles, the measured tramplings, and the sneezing of the horses, afflicted by the smothering dust-clouds which they kicked up. I wanted to sneeze myself, but it seemed to me that I would rather go unsneezed, or suffer even a bitterer torture, if there is one, than attract attention to myself. + +I was not of a rank to make suggestions, or I would have suggested that if we went faster we should get by sooner. It seemed to me that it was an ill-judged time to be taking a walk. Just as we were drifting in that suffocating stillness past a great cannon that stood just within a raised portcullis, with nothing between me and it but the moat, a most uncommon jackass in there split the world with his bray, and I fell out of the saddle. Sir Bertrand grabbed me as I went, which was well, for if I had gone to the ground in my armor I could not have gotten up again by myself. The English warders on the battlements laughed a coarse laugh, forgetting that every one must begin, and that there had been a time when they themselves would have fared no better when shot by a jackass. + +The English never uttered a challenge nor fired a shot. It was said afterward that when their men saw the Maid riding at the front and saw how lovely she was, their eager courage cooled down in many cases and vanished in the rest, they feeling certain that the creature was not mortal, but the very child of Satan, and so the officers were prudent and did not try to make them fight. It was said also that some of the officers were affected by the same superstitious fears. Well, in any case, they never offered to molest us, and we poked by all the grisly fortresses in peace. During the march I caught up on my devotions, which were in arrears; so it was not all loss and no profit for me after all. + +It was on this march that the histories say Dunois told Joan that the English were expecting reinforcements under the command of Sir John Fastolfe, and that she turned upon him and said: + +“Bastard, Bastard, in God’s name I warn you to let me know of his coming as soon as you hear of it; for if he passes without my knowledge you shall lose your head!” + +It may be so; I don’t deny it; but I didn’t her it. If she really said it I think she only meant she would take off his official head — degrade him from his command. It was not like her to threaten a comrade’s life. She did have her doubts of her generals, and was entitled to them, for she was all for storm and assault, and they were for holding still and tiring the English out. Since they did not believe in her way and were experienced old soldiers, it would be natural for them to prefer their own and try to get around carrying hers out. + +But I did hear something that the histories didn’t mention and don’t know about. I heard Joan say that now that the garrisons on the other wide had been weakened to strengthen those on our side, the most effective point of operations had shifted to the south shore; so she meant to go over there and storm the forts which held the bridge end, and that would open up communication with our own dominions and raise the siege. The generals began to balk, privately, right away, but they only baffled and delayed her, and that for only four days. + +All Orleans met the army at the gate and huzzaed it through the bannered streets to its various quarters, but nobody had to rock it to sleep; it slumped down dog-tired, for Dunois had rushed it without mercy, and for the next twenty-four hours it would be quiet, all but the snoring. + +== Chapter 17 Sweet Fruit of Bitter Truth + +image::https://i.nostr.build/3bulW3HUpiP97gFU.jpg[0197, 300] + + +WHEN WE got home, breakfast for us minor fry was waiting in our mess-room and the family honored us by coming in to eat it with us. The nice old treasurer, and in fact all three were flatteringly eager to hear about our adventures. Nobody asked the Paladin to begin, but he did begin, because now that his specially ordained and peculiar military rank set him above everybody on the personal staff but old D’Aulon, who didn’t eat with us, he didn’t care a farthing for the knights’ nobility no mine, but took precedence in the talk whenever it suited him, which was all the time, because he was born that way. He said: + +“God be thanked, we found the army in admirable condition I think I have never seen a finer body of animals.” + +“Animals!” said Miss Catherine. + +“I will explain to you what he means,” said Noel. “He — ” + +“I will trouble you not to trouble yourself to explain anything for me,” said the Paladin, loftily. “I have reason to think — ” + +“That is his way,” said Noel; “always when he thinks he has reason to think, he thinks he does think, but this is an error. He didn’t see the army. I noticed him, and he didn’t see it. He was troubled by his old complaint.” + +“What’s his old complaint?” Catherine asked. + +“Prudence,” I said, seeing my chance to help. + +But it was not a fortunate remark, for the Paladin said: + +“It probably isn’t your turn to criticize people’s prudence — you who fall out of the saddle when a donkey brays.” + +They all laughed, and I was ashamed of myself for my hasty smartness. I said: + +“It isn’t quite fair for you to say I fell out on account of the donkey’s braying. It was emotion, just ordinary emotion.” + +“Very well, if you want to call it that, I am not objecting. What would you call it, Sir Bertrand?” + +“Well, it — well, whatever it was, it was excusable, I think. All of you have learned how to behave in hot hand-to-hand engagements, and you don’t need to be ashamed of your record in that matter; but to walk along in front of death, with one’s hands idle, and no noise, no music, and nothing going on, is a very trying situation. If I were you, De Conte, I would name the emotion; it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” + +It was as straight and sensible a speech as ever I heard, and I was grateful for the opening it gave me; so I came out and said: + +“It was fear — and thank you for the honest idea, too.” + +“It was the cleanest and best way out,” said the old treasurer; “you’ve done well, my lad.” + +That made me comfortable, and when Miss Catherine said, “It’s what I think, too,” I was grateful to myself for getting into that scrape. + +Sir Jean de Metz said: + +“We were all in a body together when the donkey brayed, and it was dismally still at the time. I don’t see how any young campaigner could escape some little touch of that emotion.” + +He looked about him with a pleasant expression of inquiry on his good face, and as each pair of eyes in turn met his head they were in nodded a confession. Even the Paladin delivered his nod. That surprised everybody, and saved the Standard-Bearer’s credit. It was clever of him; nobody believed he could tell the truth that way without practice, or would tell that particular sort of a truth either with or without practice. I suppose he judged it would favorably impress the family. Then the old treasurer said: + +“Passing the forts in that trying way required the same sort of nerve that a person must have when ghosts are about him in the dark, I should think. What does the Standard-Bearer think?” + +“Well, I don’t quite know about that, sir. I’ve often thought I would like to see a ghost if I — ” + +“Would you?” exclaimed the young lady. “We’ve got one! Would you try that one? Will you?” + +She was so eager and pretty that the Paladin said straight out that he would; and then as none of the rest had bravery enough to expose the fear that was in him, one volunteered after the other with a prompt mouth and a sick heart till all were shipped for the voyage; then the girl clapped her hands in glee, and the parents were gratified, too, saying that the ghosts of their house had been a dread and a misery to them and their forebears for generations, and nobody had ever been found yet who was willing to confront them and find out what their trouble was, so that the family could heal it and content the poor specters and beguile them to tranquillity and peace. + +== Chapter 18 Joan’s First Battle-Field + +ABOUT NOON I was chatting with Madame Boucher; nothing was going on, all was quiet, when Catherine Boucher suddenly entered in great excitement, and said: + +“Fly, sir, fly! The Maid was doing in her chair in my room, when she sprang up and cried out, ‘French blood is flowing! — my arms, give me my arms!’ Her giant was on guard at the door, and he brought D’Aulon, who began to arm her, and I and the giant have been warning the staff. Fly! — and stay by her; and if there really is a battle, keep her out of it — don’t let her risk herself — there is no need — if the men know she is near and looking on, it is all that is necessary. Keep her out of the fight — don’t fail of this!” + +I started on a run, saying, sarcastically — for I was always fond of sarcasm, and it was said that I had a most neat gift that way: + +“Oh, yes, nothing easier than that — I’ll attend to it!” + +At the furthest end of the house I met Joan, fully armed, hurrying toward the door, and she said: + +“Ah, French blood is being spilt, and you did not tell me.” + +“Indeed I did not know it,” I said; “there are no sounds of war; everything is quiet, your Excellency.” + +“You will hear war-sounds enough in a moment,” she said, and was gone. + +It was true. Before one could count five there broke upon the stillness the swelling rush and tramp of an approaching multitude of men and horses, with hoarse cries of command; and then out of the distance came the muffled deep boom! — boom-boom! — boom! of cannon, and straightway that rushing multitude was roaring by the house like a hurricane. + +Our knights and all our staff came flying, armed, but with no horses ready, and we burst out after Joan in a body, the Paladin in the lead with the banner. The surging crowd was made up half of citizens and half of soldiers, and had no recognized leader. When Joan was seen a huzza went up, and she shouted: + +“A horse — a horse!” + +A dozen saddles were at her disposal in a moment. She mounted, a hundred people shouting: + +“Way, there — way for the MAID OF ORLEANS!” The first time that that immortal name was ever uttered — and I, praise God, was there to hear it! The mass divided itself like the waters of the Red Sea, and down this lane Joan went skimming like a bird, crying, “Forward, French hearts — follow me!” and we came winging in her wake on the rest of the borrowed horses, the holy standard streaming above us, and the lane closing together in our rear. + +This was a different thing from the ghastly march past the dismal bastilles. No, we felt fine, now, and all awhirl with enthusiasm. The explanation of this sudden uprising was this. The city and the little garrison, so long hopeless and afraid, had gone wild over Joan’s coming, and could no longer restrain their desire to get at the enemy; so, without orders from anybody, a few hundred soldiers and citizens had plunged out at the Burgundy gate on a sudden impulse and made a charge on one of Lord Talbot’s most formidable fortresses — St. Loup — and were getting the worst of it. The news of this had swept through the city and started this new crowd that we were with. + +As we poured out at the gate we met a force bringing in the wounded from the front. The sight moved Joan, and she said: + +“Ah, French blood; it makes my hair rise to see it!” + +We were soon on the field, soon in the midst of the turmoil. Joan was seeing her first real battle, and so were we. + +It was a battle in the open field; for the garrison of St. Loup had sallied confidently out to meet the attack, being used to victories when “witches” were not around. The sally had been reinforced by troops from the “Paris” bastille, and when we approached the French were getting whipped and were falling back. But when Joan came charging through the disorder with her banner displayed, crying “Forward, men — follow me!” there was a change; the French turned about and surged forward like a solid wave of the sea, and swept the English before them, hacking and slashing, and being hacked and slashed, in a way that was terrible to see. + +In the field the Dwarf had no assignment; that is to say, he was not under orders to occupy any particular place, therefore he chose his place for himself, and went ahead of Joan and made a road for her. It was horrible to see the iron helmets fly into fragments under his dreadful ax. He called it cracking nuts, and it looked like that. He made a good road, and paved it well with flesh and iron. Joan and the rest of us followed it so briskly that we outspeeded our forces and had the English behind us as well as before. The knights commanded us to face outward around Joan, which we did, and then there was work done that was fine to see. One was obliged to respect the Paladin, now. Being right under Joan’s exalting and transforming eye, he forgot his native prudence, he forgot his diffidence in the presence of danger, he forgot what fear was, and he never laid about him in his imaginary battles in a more tremendous way that he did in this real one; and wherever he struck there was an enemy the less. + +We were in that close place only a few minutes; then our forces to the rear broke through with a great shout and joined us, and then the English fought a retreating fight, but in a fine and gallant way, and we drove them to their fortress foot by foot, they facing us all the time, and their reserves on the walls raining showers of arrows, cross-bow bolts, and stone cannon-balls upon us. + +The bulk of the enemy got safely within the works and left us outside with piles of French and English dead and wounded for company — a sickening sight, an awful sight to us youngsters, for our little ambush fights in February had been in the night, and the blood and the mutilations and the dead faces were mercifully dim, whereas we saw these things now for the first time in all their naked ghastliness. + +Now arrived Dunois from the city, and plunged through the battle on his foam-flecked horse and galloped up to Joan, saluting, and uttering handsome compliments as he came. He waved his hand toward the distant walls of the city, where a multitude of flags were flaunting gaily in the wind, and said the populace were up there observing her fortunate performance and rejoicing over it, and added that she and the forces would have a great reception now. + +“Now? Hardly now, Bastard. Not yet!” + +“Why not yet? Is there more to be done?” + +“More, Bastard? We have but begun! We will take this fortress.” + +“Ah, you can’t be serious! We can’t take this place; let me urge you not to make the attempt; it is too desperate. Let me order the forces back.” + +Joan’s heart was overflowing with the joys and enthusiasms of war, and it made her impatient to hear such talk. She cried out: + +“Bastard, Bastard, will ye play always with these English? Now verily I tell you we will not budge until this place is ours. We will carry it by storm. Sound the charge!” + +“Ah, my General — ” + +“Waste no more time, man — let the bugles sound the assault!” and we saw that strange deep light in her eye which we named the battle-light, and learned to know so well in later fields. + +The martial notes pealed out, the troops answered with a yell, and down they came against that formidable work, whose outlines were lost in its own cannon-smoke, and whose sides were spouting flame and thunder. + +We suffered repulse after repulse, but Joan was here and there and everywhere encouraging the men, and she kept them to their work. During three hours the tide ebbed and flowed, flowed and ebbed; but at last La Hire, who was now come, made a final and resistless charge, and the bastille St. Loup was ours. We gutted it, taking all its stores and artillery, and then destroyed it. + +When all our host was shouting itself hoarse with rejoicings, and there went up a cry for the General, for they wanted to praise her and glorify her and do her homage for her victory, we had trouble to find her; and when we did find her, she was off by herself, sitting among a ruck of corpses, with her face in her hands, crying — for she was a young girl, you know, and her hero heart was a young girl’s heart too, with the pity and the tenderness that are natural to it. She was thinking of the mothers of those dead friends and enemies. + +Among the prisoners were a number of priests, and Joan took these under her protection and saved their lives. It was urged that they were most probably combatants in disguise, but she said: + +“As to that, how can any tell? They wear the livery of God, and if even one of these wears it rightfully, surely it were better that all the guilty should escape than that we have upon our hands the blood of that innocent man. I will lodge them where I lodge, and feed them, and sent them away in safety.” + +We marched back to the city with our crop of cannon and prisoners on view and our banners displayed. Here was the first substantial bit of war-work the imprisoned people had seen in the seven months that the siege had endured, the first chance they had had to rejoice over a French exploit. You may guess that they made good use of it. They and the bells went mad. Joan was their darling now, and the press of people struggling and shouldering each other to get a glimpse of her was so great that we could hardly push our way through the streets at all. Her new name had gone all about, and was on everybody’s lips. The Holy Maid of Vaucouleurs was a forgotten title; the city had claimed her for its own, and she was the MAID OF ORLEANS now. It is a happiness to me to remember that I heard that name the first time it was ever uttered. Between that first utterance and the last time it will be uttered on this earth — ah, think how many moldering ages will lie in that gap! + +The Boucher family welcomed her back as if she had been a child of the house, and saved from death against all hope or probability. They chided her for going into the battle and exposing herself to danger during all those hours. They could not realize that she had meant to carry her warriorship so far, and asked her if it had really been her purpose to go right into the turmoil of the fight, or hadn’t she got swept into it by accident and the rush of the troops? They begged her to be more careful another time. It was good advice, maybe, but it fell upon pretty unfruitful soil. + +== Chapter 19 We Burst In Upon Ghosts + +BEING WORN out with the long fight, we all slept the rest of the afternoon away and two or three hours into the night. Then we got up refreshed, and had supper. As for me, I could have been willing to let the matter of the ghost drop; and the others were of a like mind, no doubt, for they talked diligently of the battle and said nothing of that other thing. And indeed it was fine and stirring to hear the Paladin rehearse his deeds and see him pile his dead, fifteen here, eighteen there, and thirty-five yonder; but this only postponed the trouble; it could not do more. He could not go on forever; when he had carried the bastille by assault and eaten up the garrison there was nothing for it but to stop, unless Catherine Boucher would give him a new start and have it all done over again — as we hoped she would, this time — but she was otherwise minded. As soon as there was a good opening and a fair chance, she brought up her unwelcome subject, and we faced it the best we could. + +We followed her and her parents to the haunted room at eleven o’clock, with candles, and also with torches to place in the sockets on the walls. It was a big house, with very thick walls, and this room was in a remote part of it which had been left unoccupied for nobody knew how many years, because of its evil repute. + +This was a large room, like a salon, and had a big table in it of enduring oak and well preserved; but the chair were worm-eaten and the tapestry on the walls was rotten and discolored by age. The dusty cobwebs under the ceiling had the look of not having had any business for a century. + +Catherine said: + +“Tradition says that these ghosts have never been seen — they have merely been heard. It is plain that this room was once larger than it is now, and that the wall at this end was built in some bygone time to make and fence off a narrow room there. There is no communication anywhere with that narrow room, and if it exists — and of that there is no reasonable doubt — it has no light and no air, but is an absolute dungeon. Wait where you are, and take note of what happens.” + +That was all. Then she and her parents left us. When their footfalls had died out in the distance down the empty stone corridors an uncanny silence and solemnity ensued which was dismaler to me than the mute march past the bastilles. We sat looking vacantly at each other, and it was easy to see that no one there was comfortable. The longer we sat so, the more deadly still that stillness got to be; and when the wind began to moan around the house presently, it made me sick and miserable, and I wished I had been brave enough to be a coward this time, for indeed it is no proper shame to be afraid of ghosts, seeing how helpless the living are in their hands. And then these ghosts were invisible, which made the matter the worse, as it seemed to me. They might be in the room with us at that moment — we could not know. I felt airy touches on my shoulders and my hair, and I shrank from them and cringed, and was not ashamed to show this fear, for I saw the others doing the like, and knew that they were feeling those faint contacts too. As this went on — oh, eternities it seemed, the time dragged so drearily — all those faces became as wax, and I seemed sitting with a congress of the dead. + +At last, faint and far and weird and slow, came a “boom! — boom! — boom!” — a distant bell tolling midnight. When the last stroke died, that depressing stillness followed again, and as before I was staring at those waxen faces and feeling those airy touches on my hair and my shoulders once more. + +One minute — two minutes — three minutes of this, then we heard a long deep groan, and everybody sprang up and stood, with his legs quaking. It came from that little dungeon. There was a pause, then we herd muffled sobbings, mixed with pitiful ejaculations. Then there was a second voice, low and not distinct, and the one seemed trying to comfort the other; and so the two voices went on, with moanings, and soft sobbings, and, ah, the tones were so full of compassion and sorry and despair! Indeed, it made one’s heart sore to hear it. + +But those sounds were so real and so human and so moving that the idea of ghosts passed straight out of our minds, and Sir Jean de Metz spoke out and said: + +“Come! we will smash that wall and set those poor captives free. Here, with your ax!” + +The Dwarf jumped forward, swinging his great ax with both hands, and others sprang for torches and brought them. + +Bang! — whang! — slam! — smash went the ancient bricks, and there was a hole an ox could pass through. We plunged within and held up the torches. + +Nothing there but vacancy! On the floor lay a rusty sword and a rotten fan. + +Now you know all that I know. Take the pathetic relics, and weave about them the romance of the dungeon’s long-vanished inmates as best you can. + +== Chapter 20 Joan Makes Cowards Brave Victors + +image::https://i.nostr.build/3bulW3HUpiP97gFU.jpg[0213, 300] + + +THE NEXT day Joan wanted to go against the enemy again, but it was the feast of the Ascension, and the holy council of bandit generals were too pious to be willing to profane it with bloodshed. But privately they profaned it with plottings, a sort of industry just in their line. They decided to do the only thing proper to do now in the new circumstances of the case — feign an attack on the most important bastille on the Orleans side, and then, if the English weakened the far more important fortresses on the other side of the river to come to its help, cross in force and capture those works. This would give them the bridge and free communication with the Sologne, which was French territory. They decided to keep this latter part of the program secret from Joan. + +Joan intruded and took them by surprise. She asked them what they were about and what they had resolved upon. They said they had resolved to attack the most important of the English bastilles on the Orleans side next morning — and there the spokesman stopped. Joan said: + +“Well, go on.” + +“There is nothing more. That is all.” + +“Am I to believe this? That is to say, am I to believe that you have lost your wits?” She turned to Dunois, and said, “Bastard, you have sense, answer me this: if this attack is made and the bastille taken, how much better off would we be than we are now?” + +The Bastard hesitated, and then began some rambling talk not quite germane to the question. Joan interrupted him and said: + +“That will not do, good Bastard, you have answered. Since the Bastard is not able to mention any advantage to be gained by taking that bastille and stopping there, it is not likely that any of you could better the matter. You waste much time here in inventing plans that lead to nothing, and making delays that are a damage. Are you concealing something from me? Bastard, this council has a general plan, I take it; without going into details, what is it?” + +“It is the same it was in the beginning, seven months ago — to get provisions for a long siege, then sit down and tire the English out.” + +“In the name of God! As if seven months was not enough, you want to provide for a year of it. Now ye shall drop these pusillanimous dreams — the English shall go in three days!” + +Several exclaimed: + +“Ah, General, General, be prudent!” + +“Be prudent and starve? Do ye call that war? I tell you this, if you do not already know it: The new circumstances have changed the face of matters. The true point of attack has shifted; it is on the other side of the river now. One must take the fortifications that command the bridge. The English know that if we are not fools and cowards we will try to do that. They are grateful for your piety in wasting this day. They will reinforce the bridge forts from this side to-night, knowing what ought to happen to-morrow. You have but lost a day and made our task harder, for we will cross and take the bridge forts. Bastard, tell me the truth — does not this council know that there is no other course for us than the one I am speaking of?” + +Dunois conceded that the council did know it to be the most desirable, but considered it impracticable; and he excused the council as well as he could by saying that inasmuch as nothing was really and rationally to be hoped for but a long continuance of the siege and wearying out of the English, they were naturally a little afraid of Joan’s impetuous notions. He said: + +“You see, we are sure that the waiting game is the best, whereas you would carry everything by storm.” + +“That I would! — and moreover that I will! You have my orders — here and now. We will move upon the forts of the south bank to-morrow at dawn.” + +“And carry them by storm?” + +“Yes, carry them by storm!” + +La Hire came clanking in, and heard the last remark. He cried out: + +“By my baton, that is the music I love to hear! Yes, that is the right time and the beautiful words, my General — we will carry them by storm!” + +He saluted in his large way and came up and shook Joan by the hand. + +Some member of the council was heard to say: + +“It follows, then, that we must begin with the bastille St. John, and that will give the English time to — ” + +Joan turned and said: + +“Give yourselves no uneasiness about the bastille St. John. The English will know enough to retire from it and fall back on the bridge bastilles when they see us coming.” She added, with a touch of sarcasm, “Even a war-council would know enough to do that itself.” + +Then she took her leave. La Hire made this general remark to the council: + +“She is a child, and that is all ye seem to see. Keep to that superstition if you must, but you perceive that this child understands this complex game of war as well as any of you; and if you want my opinion without the trouble of asking for it, here you have it without ruffles or embroidery — by God, I think she can teach the best of you how to play it!” + +Joan had spoken truly; the sagacious English saw that the policy of the French had undergone a revolution; that the policy of paltering and dawdling was ended; that in place of taking blows, blows were ready to be struck now; therefore they made ready for the new state of things by transferring heavy reinforcements to the bastilles of the south bank from those of the north. + +The city learned the great news that once more in French history, after all these humiliating years, France was going to take the offensive; that France, so used to retreating, was going to advance; that France, so long accustomed to skulking, was going to face about and strike. The joy of the people passed all bounds. The city walls were black with them to see the army march out in the morning in that strange new position — its front, not its tail, toward an English camp. You shall imagine for yourselves what the excitement was like and how it expressed itself, when Joan rode out at the head of the host with her banner floating above her. + +We crossed the five in strong force, and a tedious long job it was, for the boats were small and not numerous. Our landing on the island of St. Aignan was not disputed. We threw a bridge of a few boats across the narrow channel thence to the south shore and took up our march in good order and unmolested; for although there was a fortress there — St. John — the English vacated and destroyed it and fell back on the bridge forts below as soon as our first boats were seen to leave the Orleans shore; which was what Joan had said would happen, when she was disputing with the council. + +We moved down the shore and Joan planted her standard before the bastille of the Augustins, the first of the formidable works that protected the end of the bridge. The trumpets sounded the assault, and two charges followed in handsome style; but we were too weak, as yet, for our main body was still lagging behind. Before we could gather for a third assault the garrison of St. Prive were seen coming up to reinforce the big bastille. They came on a run, and the Augustins sallied out, and both forces came against us with a rush, and sent our small army flying in a panic, and followed us, slashing and slaying, and shouting jeers and insults at us. + +Joan was doing her best to rally the men, but their wits were gone, their hearts were dominated for the moment by the old-time dread of the English. Joan’s temper flamed up, and she halted and commanded the trumpets to sound the advance. Then she wheeled about and cried out: + +“If there is but a dozen of you that are not cowards, it is enough — follow me!” + +Away she went, and after her a few dozen who had heard her words and been inspired by them. The pursuing force was astonished to see her sweeping down upon them with this handful of men, and it was their turn now to experience a grisly fright — surely this is a witch, this is a child of Satan! That was their thought — and without stopping to analyze the matter they turned and fled in a panic. + +Our flying squadrons heard the bugle and turned to look; and when they saw the Maid’s banner speeding in the other direction and the enemy scrambling ahead of it in disorder, their courage returned and they came scouring after us. + +La Hire heard it and hurried his force forward and caught up with us just as we were planting our banner again before the ramparts of the Augustins. We were strong enough now. We had a long and tough piece of work before us, but we carried it through before night, Joan keeping us hard at it, and she and La Hire saying we were able to take that big bastille, and must. The English fought like — well, they fought like the English; when that is said, there is no more to say. We made assault after assault, through the smoke and flame and the deafening cannon-blasts, and at last as the sun was sinking we carried the place with a rush, and planted our standard on its walls. + +The Augustins was ours. The Tourelles must be ours, too, if we would free the bridge and raise the siege. We had achieved one great undertaking, Joan was determined to accomplish the other. We must lie on our arms where we were, hold fast to what we had got, and be ready for business in the morning. So Joan was not minded to let the men be demoralized by pillage and riot and carousings; she had the Augustins burned, with all its stores in it, excepting the artillery and ammunition. + +Everybody was tired out with this long day’s hard work, and of course this was the case with Joan; still, she wanted to stay with the army before the Tourelles, to be ready for the assault in the morning. The chiefs argued with her, and at last persuaded her to go home and prepare for the great work by taking proper rest, and also by having a leech look to a wound which she had received in her foot. So we crossed with them and went home. + +Just as usual, we found the town in a fury of joy, all the bells clanging, everybody shouting, and several people drunk. We never went out or came in without furnishing good and sufficient reasons for one of these pleasant tempests, and so the tempest was always on hand. There had been a blank absence of reasons for this sort of upheavals for the past seven months, therefore the people too to the upheavals with all the more relish on that account. + +== Chapter 21 She Gently Reproves Her Dear Friend + +TO GET away from the usual crowd of visitors and have a rest, Joan went with Catherine straight to the apartment which the two occupied together, and there they took their supper and there the wound was dressed. But then, instead of going to bed, Joan, weary as she was, sent the Dwarf for me, in spite of Catherine’s protests and persuasions. She said she had something on her mind, and must send a courier to Domremy with a letter for our old Pere Fronte to read to her mother. I came, and she began to dictate. After some loving words and greetings to her mother and family, came this: + +“But the thing which moves me to write now, is to say that when you presently hear that I am wounded, you shall give yourself no concern about it, and refuse faith to any that shall try to make you believe it is serious.” + +She was going on, when Catherine spoke up and said: + +“Ah, but it will fright her so to read these words. Strike them out, Joan, strike them out, and wait only one day — two days at most — then write and say your foot was wounded but is well again — for it surely be well then, or very near it. Don’t distress her, Joan; do as I say.” + +A laugh like the laugh of the old days, the impulsive free laugh of an untroubled spirit, a laugh like a chime of bells, was Joan’s answer; then she said: + +“My foot? Why should I write about such a scratch as that? I was not thinking of it, dear heart.” + +“Child, have you another wound and a worse, and have not spoken of it? What have you been dreaming about, that you — ” + +She had jumped up, full of vague fears, to have the leech called back at once, but Joan laid her hand upon her arm and made her sit down again, saying: + +“There, now, be tranquil, there is no other wound, as yet; I am writing about one which I shall get when we storm that bastille to-morrow.” + +Catherine had the look of one who is trying to understand a puzzling proposition but cannot quite do it. She said, in a distraught fashion: + +“A wound which you are going to get? But — but why grieve your mother when it — when it may not happen?” + +“May not? Why, it will.” + +The puzzle was a puzzle still. Catherine said in that same abstracted way as before: + +“Will. It is a strong word. I cannot seem to — my mind is not able to take hold of this. Oh, Joan, such a presentiment is a dreadful thing — it takes one’s peace and courage all away. Cast it from you! — drive it out! It will make your whole night miserable, and to no good; for we will hope — ” + +“But it isn’t a presentiment — it is a fact. And it will not make me miserable. It is uncertainties that do that, but this is not an uncertainty.” + +“Joan, do you know it is going to happen?” + +“Yes, I know it. My Voices told me.” + +“Ah,” said Catherine, resignedly, “if they told you — But are you sure it was they? — quite sure?” + +“Yes, quite. It will happen — there is no doubt.” + +“It is dreadful! Since when have you know it?” + +“Since — I think it is several weeks.” Joan turned to me. “Louis, you will remember. How long is it?” + +“Your Excellency spoke of it first to the King, in Chinon,” I answered; “that was as much as seven weeks ago. You spoke of it again the 20th of April, and also the 22d, two weeks ago, as I see by my record here.” + +These marvels disturbed Catherine profoundly, but I had long ceased to be surprised at them. One can get used to anything in this world. Catherine said: + +“And it is to happen to-morrow? — always to-morrow? Is it the same date always? There has been no mistake, and no confusion?” + +“No,” Joan said, “the 7th of May is the date — there is no other.” + +“Then you shall not go a step out of this house till that awful day is gone by! You will not dream of it, Joan, will you? — promise that you will stay with us.” + +But Joan was not persuaded. She said: + +“It would not help the matter, dear good friend. The wound is to come, and come to-morrow. If I do not seek it, it will seek me. My duty calls me to that place to-morrow; I should have to go if my death were waiting for me there; shall I stay away for only a wound? Oh, no, we must try to do better than that.” + +“Then you are determined to go?” + +“Of a certainty, yes. There is only one thing that I can do for France — hearten her soldiers for battle and victory.” She thought a moment, then added, “However, one should not be unreasonable, and I would do much to please you, who are so good to me. Do you love France?” + +I wondered what she might be contriving now, but I saw no clue. Catherine said, reproachfully: + +“Ah, what have I done to deserve this question?” + +“Then you do love France. I had not doubted it, dear. Do not be hurt, but answer me — have you ever told a lie?” + +“In my life I have not wilfully told a lie — fibs, but no lies.” + +“That is sufficient. You love France and do not tell lies; therefore I will trust you. I will go or I will stay, as you shall decide.” + +“Oh, I thank you from my heart, Joan! How good and dear it is of you to do this for me! Oh, you shall stay, and not go!” + +In her delight she flung her arms about Joan’s neck and squandered endearments upon her the least of which would have made me rich, but, as it was, they only made me realize how poor I was — how miserably poor in what I would most have prized in this world. Joan said: + +“Then you will send word to my headquarters that I am not going?” + +“Oh, gladly. Leave that to me.” + +“It is good of you. And how will you word it? — for it must have proper official form. Shall I word it for you?” + +“Oh, do — for you know about these solemn procedures and stately proprieties, and I have had no experience.” + +“Then word it like this: ‘The chief of staff is commanded to make known to the King’s forces in garrison and in the field, that the General-in-Chief of the Armies of France will not face the English on the morrow, she being afraid she may get hurt. Signed, JOAN OF ARC, by the hand of CATHERINE BOUCHER, who loves France.’” + +There was a pause — a silence of the sort that tortures one into stealing a glance to see how the situation looks, and I did that. There was a loving smile on Joan’s face, but the color was mounting in crimson waves into Catherine’s, and her lips were quivering and the tears gathering; then she said: + +“Oh, I am so ashamed of myself! — and you are so noble and brave and wise, and I am so paltry — so paltry and such a fool!” and she broke down and began to cry, and I did so want to take her in my arms and comfort her, but Joan did it, and of course I said nothing. Joan did it well, and most sweetly and tenderly, but I could have done it as well, though I knew it would be foolish and out of place to suggest such a thing, and might make an awkwardness, too, and be embarrassing to us all, so I did not offer, and I hope I did right and for the best, though I could not know, and was many times tortured with doubts afterward as having perhaps let a chance pass which might have changed all my life and made it happier and more beautiful than, alas, it turned out to be. For this reason I grieve yet, when I think of that scene, and do not like to call it up out of the deeps of my memory because of the pangs it brings. + +Well, well, a good and wholesome thing is a little harmless fun in this world; it tones a body up and keeps him human and prevents him from souring. To set that little trap for Catherine was as good and effective a way as any to show her what a grotesque thing she was asking of Joan. It was a funny idea now, wasn’t it, when you look at it all around? Even Catherine dried up her tears and laughed when she thought of the English getting hold of the French Commander-in-Chief’s reason for staying out of a battle. She granted that they could have a good time over a thing like that. + +We got to work on the letter again, and of course did not have to strike out the passage about the wound. Joan was in fine spirits; but when she got to sending messages to this, that, and the other playmate and friend, it brought our village and the Fairy Tree and the flowery plain and the browsing sheep and all the peaceful beauty of our old humble home-place back, and the familiar names began to tremble on her lips; and when she got to Haumette and Little Mengette it was no use, her voice broke and she couldn’t go on. She waited a moment, then said: + +“Give them my love — my warm love — my deep love — oh, out of my heart of hearts! I shall never see our home any more.” + +Now came Pasquerel, Joan’s confessor, and introduced a gallant knight, the Sire de Rais, who had been sent with a message. He said he was instructed to say that the council had decided that enough had been done for the present; that it would be safest and best to be content with what God had already done; that the city was now well victualed and able to stand a long siege; that the wise course must necessarily be to withdraw the troops from the other side of the river and resume the defensive — therefore they had decided accordingly. + +“The incurable cowards!” exclaimed Joan. “So it was to get me away from my men that they pretended so much solicitude about my fatigue. Take this message back, not to the council — I have no speeches for those disguised ladies’ maids — but to the Bastard and La Hire, who are men. Tell them the army is to remain where it is, and I hold them responsible if this command miscarries. And say the offensive will be resumed in the morning. You may go, good sir.” + +Then she said to her priest: + +“Rise early, and be by me all the day. There will be much work on my hands, and I shall be hurt between my neck and my shoulder.” + +== Chapter 22 The Fate of France Decided + +WE WERE up at dawn, and after mass we started. In the hall we met the master of the house, who was grieved, good man, to see Joan going breakfastless to such a day’s work, and begged her to wait and eat, but she couldn’t afford the time — that is to say, she couldn’t afford the patience, she being in such a blaze of anxiety to get at that last remaining bastille which stood between her and the completion of the first great step in the rescue and redemption of France. Boucher put in another plea: + +“But think — we poor beleaguered citizens who have hardly known the flavor of fish for these many months, have spoil of that sort again, and we owe it to you. There’s a noble shad for breakfast; wait — be persuaded.” + +Joan said: + +“Oh, there’s going to be fish in plenty; when this day’s work is done the whole river-front will be yours to do as you please with.” + +“Ah, your Excellency will do well, that I know; but we don’t require quite that much, even of you; you shall have a month for it in place of a day. Now be beguiled — wait and eat. There’s a saying that he that would cross a river twice in the same day in a boat, will do well to eat fish for luck, lest he have an accident.” + +“That doesn’t fit my case, for to-day I cross but once in a boat.” + +“Oh, don’t say that. Aren’t you coming back to us?” + +“Yes, but not in a boat.” + +“How, then?” + +“By the bridge.” + +“Listen to that — by the bridge! Now stop this jesting, dear General, and do as I would have done you. It’s a noble fish.” + +“Be good then, and save me some for supper; and I will bring one of those Englishmen with me and he shall have his share.” + +“Ah, well, have your way if you must. But he that fasts must attempt but little and stop early. When shall you be back?” + +“When we’ve raised the siege of Orleans. FORWARD!” + +We were off. The streets were full of citizens and of groups and squads of soldiers, but the spectacle was melancholy. There was not a smile anywhere, but only universal gloom. It was as if some vast calamity had smitten all hope and cheer dead. We were not used to this, and were astonished. But when they saw the Maid, there was an immediate stir, and the eager question flew from mouth to mouth. + +“Where is she going? Whither is she bound?” + +Joan heard it, and called out: + +“Whither would ye suppose? I am going to take the Tourelles.” + +It would not be possible for any to describe how those few words turned that mourning into joy — into exaltation — into frenzy; and how a storm of huzzas burst out and swept down the streets in every direction and woke those corpse-like multitudes to vivid life and action and turmoil in a moment. The soldiers broke from the crowd and came flocking to our standard, and many of the citizens ran and got pikes and halberds and joined us. As we moved on, our numbers increased steadily, and the hurrahing continued — yes, we moved through a solid cloud of noise, as you may say, and all the windows on both sides contributed to it, for they were filled with excited people. + +You see, the council had closed the Burgundy gate and placed a strong force there, under that stout soldier Raoul de Gaucourt, Bailly of Orleans, with orders to prevent Joan from getting out and resuming the attack on the Tourelles, and this shameful thing had plunged the city into sorrow and despair. But that feeling was gone now. They believed the Maid was a match for the council, and they were right. + +When we reached the gate, Joan told Gaucourt to open it and let her pass. + +He said it would be impossible to do this, for his orders were from the council and were strict. Joan said: + +“There is no authority above mine but the King’s. If you have an order from the King, produce it.” + +“I cannot claim to have an order from him, General.” + +“Then make way, or take the consequences!” + +He began to argue the case, for he was like the rest of the tribe, always ready to fight with words, not acts; but in the midst of his gabble Joan interrupted with the terse order: + +“Charge!” + +We came with a rush, and brief work we made of that small job. It was good to see the Bailly’s surprise. He was not used to this unsentimental promptness. He said afterward that he was cut off in the midst of what he was saying — in the midst of an argument by which he could have proved that he could not let Joan pass — an argument which Joan could not have answered. + +“Still, it appears she did answer it,” said the person he was talking to. + +We swung through the gate in great style, with a vast accession of noise, the most of which was laughter, and soon our van was over the river and moving down against the Tourelles. + +First we must take a supporting work called a boulevard, and which was otherwise nameless, before we could assault the great bastille. Its rear communicated with the bastille by a drawbridge, under which ran a swift and deep strip of the Loire. The boulevard was strong, and Dunois doubted our ability to take it, but Joan had no such doubt. She pounded it with artillery all the forenoon, then about noon she ordered an assault and led it herself. We poured into the fosse through the smoke and a tempest of missiles, and Joan, shouting encouragements to her men, started to climb a scaling-ladder, when that misfortune happened which we knew was to happen — the iron bolt from an arbaquest struck between her neck and her shoulder, and tore its way down through her armor. When she felt the sharp pain and saw her blood gushing over her breast, she was frightened, poor girl, and as she sank to the ground she began to cry bitterly. + +The English sent up a glad shout and came surging down in strong force to take her, and then for a few minutes the might of both adversaries was concentrated upon that spot. Over her and above her, English and French fought with desperation — for she stood for France, indeed she was France to both sides — whichever won her won France, and could keep it forever. Right there in that small spot, and in ten minutes by the clock, the fate of France, for all time, was to be decided, and was decided. + +If the English had captured Joan then, Charles VII. would have flown the country, the Treaty of Troyes would have held good, and France, already English property, would have become, without further dispute, an English province, to so remain until Judgment Day. A nationality and a kingdom were at stake there, and no more time to decide it in than it takes to hard-boil an egg. It was the most momentous ten minutes that the clock has ever ticked in France, or ever will. Whenever you read in histories about hours or days or weeks in which the fate of one or another nation hung in the balance, do not you fail to remember, nor your French hearts to beat the quicker for the remembrance, the ten minutes that France, called otherwise Joan of Arc, lay bleeding in the fosse that day, with two nations struggling over her for her possession. + +And you will not forget the Dwarf. For he stood over her, and did the work of any six of the others. He swung his ax with both hands; whenever it came down, he said those two words, “For France!” and a splintered helmet flew like eggshells, and the skull that carried it had learned its manners and would offend the French no more. He piled a bulwark of iron-clad dead in front of him and fought from behind it; and at last when the victory was ours we closed about him, shielding him, and he ran up a ladder with Joan as easily as another man would carry a child, and bore her out of the battle, a great crowd following and anxious, for she was drenched with blood to her feet, half of it her own and the other half English, for bodies had fallen across her as she lay and had poured their red life-streams over her. One couldn’t see the white armor now, with that awful dressing over it. + +The iron bolt was still in the wound — some say it projected out behind the shoulder. It may be — I did not wish to see, and did not try to. It was pulled out, and the pain made Joan cry again, poor thing. Some say she pulled it out herself because others refused, saying they could not bear to hurt her. As to this I do not know; I only know it was pulled out, and that the wound was treated with oil and properly dressed. + +Joan lay on the grass, weak and suffering, hour after hour, but still insisting that the fight go on. Which it did, but not to much purpose, for it was only under her eye that men were heroes and not afraid. They were like the Paladin; I think he was afraid of his shadow — I mean in the afternoon, when it was very big and long; but when he was under Joan’s eye and the inspiration of her great spirit, what was he afraid of? Nothing in this world — and that is just the truth. + +Toward night Dunois gave it up. Joan heard the bugles. + +“What!” she cried. “Sounding the retreat!” + +Her wound was forgotten in a moment. She countermanded the order, and sent another, to the officer in command of a battery, to stand ready to fire five shots in quick succession. This was a signal to the force on the Orleans side of the river under La Hire, who was not, as some of the histories say, with us. It was to be given whenever Joan should feel sure the boulevard was about to fall into her hands — then that force must make a counter-attack on the Tourelles by way of the bridge. + +Joan mounted her horse now, with her staff about her, and when our people saw us coming they raised a great shout, and were at once eager for another assault on the boulevard. Joan rode straight to the fosse where she had received her wound, and standing there in the rain of bolts and arrows, she ordered the Paladin to let her long standard blow free, and to note when its fringes should touch the fortress. Presently he said: + +“It touches.” + +“Now, then,” said Joan to the waiting battalions, “the place is yours — enter in! Bugles, sound the assault! Now, then — all together — go!” + +And go it was. You never saw anything like it. We swarmed up the ladders and over the battlements like a wave — and the place was our property. Why, one might live a thousand years and never see so gorgeous a thing as that again. There, hand to hand, we fought like wild beasts, for there was no give-up to those English — there was no way to convince one of those people but to kill him, and even then he doubted. At least so it was thought, in those days, and maintained by many. + +We were busy and never heard the five cannon-shots fired, but they were fired a moment after Joan had ordered the assault; and so, while we were hammering and being hammered in the smaller fortress, the reserve on the Orleans side poured across the bridge and attacked the Tourelles from that side. A fire-boat was brought down and moored under the drawbridge which connected the Tourelles with our boulevard; wherefore, when at last we drove our English ahead of us and they tried to cross that drawbridge and join their friends in the Tourelles, the burning timbers gave way under them and emptied them in a mass into the river in their heavy armor — and a pitiful sight it was to see brave men die such a death as that. + +“Ah, God pity them!” said Joan, and wept to see that sorrowful spectacle. She said those gentle words and wept those compassionate tears although one of those perishing men had grossly insulted her with a coarse name three days before, when she had sent him a message asking him to surrender. That was their leader, Sir Williams Glasdale, a most valorous knight. He was clothed all in steel; so he plunged under water like a lance, and of course came up no more. + +We soon patched a sort of bridge together and threw ourselves against the last stronghold of the English power that barred Orleans from friends and supplies. Before the sun was quite down, Joan’s forever memorable day’s work was finished, her banner floated from the fortress of the Tourelles, her promise was fulfilled, she had raised the siege of Orleans! + +The seven months’ beleaguerment was ended, the thing which the first generals of France had called impossible was accomplished; in spite of all that the King’s ministers and war-councils could do to prevent it, this little country-maid at seventeen had carried her immortal task through, and had done it in four days! + +Good news travels fast, sometimes, as well as bad. By the time we were ready to start homeward by the bridge the whole city of Orleans was one red flame of bonfires, and the heavens blushed with satisfaction to see it; and the booming and bellowing of cannon and the banging of bells surpassed by great odds anything that even Orleans had attempted before in the way of noise. + +When we arrived — well, there is no describing that. Why, those acres of people that we plowed through shed tears enough to raise the river; there was not a face in the glare of those fires that hadn’t tears streaming down it; and if Joan’s feet had not been protected by iron they would have kissed them off of her. “Welcome! welcome to the Maid of Orleans!” That was the cry; I heard it a hundred thousand times. “Welcome to our Maid!” some of them worded it. + +No other girl in all history has ever reached such a summit of glory as Joan of Arc reached that day. And do you think it turned her head, and that she sat up to enjoy that delicious music of homage and applause? No; another girl would have done that, but not this one. That was the greatest heart and the simplest that ever beat. She went straight to bed and to sleep, like any tired child; and when the people found she was wounded and would rest, they shut off all passage and traffic in that region and stood guard themselves the whole night through, to see that he slumbers were not disturbed. They said, “She has given us peace, she shall have peace herself.” + +All knew that that region would be empty of English next day, and all said that neither the present citizens nor their posterity would ever cease to hold that day sacred to the memory of Joan of Arc. That word has been true for more than sixty years; it will continue so always. Orleans will never forget the 8th of May, nor ever fail to celebrate it. It is Joan of Arc’s day — and holy. + +[INFO] +==== +It is still celebrated every year with civic and military pomps and solemnities. — TRANSLATOR. +==== + +== Chapter 23 Joan Inspires the Tawdry King + +image::https://i.nostr.build/0iVntmSx0bPR0LVv.jpg[0229, 300] + + +IN THE earliest dawn of morning, Talbot and his English forces evacuated their bastilles and marched away, not stopping to burn, destroy, or carry off anything, but leaving their fortresses just as they were, provisioned, armed, and equipped for a long siege. It was difficult for the people to believe that this great thing had really happened; that they were actually free once more, and might go and come through any gate they pleased, with none to molest or forbid; that the terrible Talbot, that scourge of the French, that man whose mere name had been able to annul the effectiveness of French armies, was gone, vanished, retreating — driven away by a girl. + +The city emptied itself. Out of every gate the crowds poured. They swarmed about the English bastilles like an invasion of ants, but noisier than those creatures, and carried off the artillery and stores, then turned all those dozen fortresses into monster bonfires, imitation volcanoes whose lofty columns of thick smoke seemed supporting the arch of the sky. + +The delight of the children took another form. To some of the younger ones seven months was a sort of lifetime. They had forgotten what grass was like, and the velvety green meadows seemed paradise to their surprised and happy eyes after the long habit of seeing nothing but dirty lanes and streets. It was a wonder to them — those spacious reaches of open country to run and dance and tumble and frolic in, after their dull and joyless captivity; so they scampered far and wide over the fair regions on both sides of the river, and came back at eventide weary, but laden with flowers and flushed with new health drawn from the fresh country air and the vigorous exercise. + +After the burnings, the grown folk followed Joan from church to church and put in the day in thanksgivings for the city’s deliverance, and at night they feted her and her generals and illuminated the town, and high and low gave themselves up to festivities and rejoicings. By the time the populace were fairly in bed, toward dawn, we were in the saddle and away toward Tours to report to the King. + +That was a march which would have turned any one’s head but Joan’s. We moved between emotional ranks of grateful country-people all the way. They crowded about Joan to touch her feet, her horse, her armor, and they even knelt in the road and kissed her horse’s hoof-prints. + +The land was full of her praises. The most illustrious chiefs of the church wrote to the King extolling the Maid, comparing her to the saints and heroes of the Bible, and warning him not to let “unbelief, ingratitude, or other injustice” hinder or impair the divine help sent through her. One might think there was a touch of prophecy in that, and we will let it go at that; but to my mind it had its inspiration in those great men’s accurate knowledge of the King’s trivial and treacherous character. + +The King had come to Tours to meet Joan. At the present day this poor thing is called Charles the Victorious, on account of victories which other people won for him, but in our time we had a private name for him which described him better, and was sanctified to him by personal deserving — Charles the Base. When we entered the presence he sat throned, with his tinseled snobs and dandies around him. He looked like a forked carrot, so tightly did his clothing fit him from his waist down; he wore shoes with a rope-like pliant toe a foot long that had to be hitched up to the knee to keep it out of the way; he had on a crimson velvet cape that came no lower than his elbows; on his head he had a tall felt thing like a thimble, with a feather it its jeweled band that stuck up like a pen from an inkhorn, and from under that thimble his bush of stiff hair stuck down to his shoulders, curving outward at the bottom, so that the cap and the hair together made the head like a shuttlecock. All the materials of his dress were rich, and all the colors brilliant. In his lap he cuddled a miniature greyhound that snarled, lifting its lip and showing its white teeth whenever any slight movement disturbed it. The King’s dandies were dressed in about the same fashion as himself, and when I remembered that Joan had called the war-council of Orleans “disguised ladies’ maids,” it reminded me of people who squander all their money on a trifle and then haven’t anything to invest when they come across a better chance; that name ought to have been saved for these creatures. + +Joan fell on her knees before the majesty of France, and the other frivolous animal in his lap — a sight which it pained me to see. What had that man done for his country or for anybody in it, that she or any other person should kneel to him? But she — she had just done the only great deed that had been done for France in fifty years, and had consecrated it with the libation of her blood. The positions should have been reversed. + +However, to be fair, one must grant that Charles acquitted himself very well for the most part, on that occasion — very much better than he was in the habit of doing. He passed his pup to a courtier, and took off his cap to Joan as if she had been a queen. Then he stepped from his throne and raised her, and showed quite a spirited and manly joy and gratitude in welcoming her and thanking her for her extraordinary achievement in his service. My prejudices are of a later date than that. If he had continued as he was at that moment, I should not have acquired them. + +He acted handsomely. He said: + +“You shall not kneel to me, my matchless General; you have wrought royally, and royal courtesies are your due.” Noticing that she was pale, he said, “But you must not stand; you have lost blood for France, and your wound is yet green — come.” He led her to a seat and sat down by her. “Now, then, speak out frankly, as to one who owes you much and freely confesses it before all this courtly assemblage. What shall be your reward? Name it.” + +I was ashamed of him. And yet that was not fair, for how could he be expected to know this marvelous child in these few weeks, when we who thought we had known her all her life were daily seeing the clouds uncover some new altitudes of her character whose existence was not suspected by us before? But we are all that way: when we know a thing we have only scorn for other people who don’t happen to know it. And I was ashamed of these courtiers, too, for the way they licked their chops, so to speak, as envying Joan her great chance, they not knowing her any better than the King did. A blush began to rise in Joan’s cheeks at the thought that she was working for her country for pay, and she dropped her head and tried to hide her face, as girls always do when they find themselves blushing; no one knows why they do, but they do, and the more they blush the more they fail to get reconciled to it, and the more they can’t bear to have people look at them when they are doing it. The King made it a great deal worse by calling attention to it, which is the unkindest thing a person can do when a girl is blushing; sometimes, when there is a big crowd of strangers, it is even likely to make her cry if she is as young as Joan was. God knows the reason for this, it is hidden from men. As for me, I would as soon blush as sneeze; in fact, I would rather. However, these meditations are not of consequence: I will go on with what I was saying. The King rallied her for blushing, and this brought up the rest of the blood and turned her face to fire. Then he was sorry, seeing what he had done, and tried to make her comfortable by saying the blush was exceeding becoming to her and not to mind it — which caused even the dog to notice it now, so of course the red in Joan’s face turned to purple, and the tears overflowed and ran down — I could have told anybody that that would happen. The King was distressed, and saw that the best thing to do would be to get away from this subject, so he began to say the finest kind of things about Joan’s capture of the Tourelles, and presently when she was more composed he mentioned the reward again and pressed her to name it. Everybody listened with anxious interest to hear what her claim was going to be, but when her answer came their faces showed that the thing she asked for was not what they had been expecting. + +“Oh, dear and gracious Dauphin, I have but one desire — only one. If — ” + +“Do not be afraid, my child — name it.” + +“That you will not delay a day. My army is strong and valiant, and eager to finish its work — march with me to Rheims and receive your crown.” You could see the indolent King shrink, in his butterfly clothes. + +“To Rheims — oh, impossible, my General! We march through the heart of England’s power?” + +Could those be French faces there? Not one of them lighted in response to the girl’s brave proposition, but all promptly showed satisfaction in the King’s objection. Leave this silken idleness for the rude contact of war? None of these butterflies desired that. They passed their jeweled comfit-boxes one to another and whispered their content in the head butterfly’s practical prudence. Joan pleaded with the King, saying: + +“Ah, I pray you do not throw away this perfect opportunity. Everything is favorable — everything. It is as if the circumstances were specially made for it. The spirits of our army are exalted with victory, those of the English forces depressed by defeat. Delay will change this. Seeing us hesitate to follow up our advantage, our men will wonder, doubt, lose confidence, and the English will wonder, gather courage, and be bold again. Now is the time — pritheee let us march!” + +The King shook his head, and La Tremouille, being asked for an opinion, eagerly furnished it: + +“Sire, all prudence is against it. Think of the English strongholds along the Loire; think of those that lie between us and Rheims!” + +He was going on, but Joan cut him short, and said, turning to him: + +“If we wait, they will all be strengthened, reinforced. Will that advantage us?” + +“Why — no.” + +“Then what is your suggestion? — what is it that you would propose to do?” + +“My judgment is to wait.” + +“Wait for what?” + +The minister was obliged to hesitate, for he knew of no explanation that would sound well. Moreover, he was not used to being catechized in this fashion, with the eyes of a crowd of people on him, so he was irritated, and said: + +“Matters of state are not proper matters for public discussion.” + +Joan said placidly: + +“I have to beg your pardon. My trespass came of ignorance. I did not know that matters connected with your department of the government were matters of state.” + +The minister lifted his brows in amused surprise, and said, with a touch of sarcasm: + +“I am the King’s chief minister, and yet you had the impression that matters connected with my department are not matters of state? Pray, how is that?” + +Joan replied, indifferently: + +“Because there is no state.” + +“No state!” + +“No, sir, there is no state, and no use for a minister. France is shrunk to a couple of acres of ground; a sheriff’s constable could take care of it; its affairs are not matters of state. The term is too large.” + +The King did not blush, but burst into a hearty, careless laugh, and the court laughed too, but prudently turned its head and did it silently. La Tremouille was angry, and opened his mouth to speak, but the King put up his hand, and said: + +“There — I take her under the royal protection. She has spoken the truth, the ungilded truth — how seldom I hear it! With all this tinsel on me and all this tinsel about me, I am but a sheriff after all — a poor shabby two-acre sheriff — and you are but a constable,” and he laughed his cordial laugh again. “Joan, my frank, honest General, will you name your reward? I would ennoble you. You shall quarter the crown and the lilies of France for blazon, and with them your victorious sword to defend them — speak the word.” + +It made an eager buzz of surprise and envy in the assemblage, but Joan shook her head and said: + +“Ah, I cannot, dear and noble Dauphin. To be allowed to work for France, to spend one’s self for France, is itself so supreme a reward that nothing can add to it — nothing. Give me the one reward I ask, the dearest of all rewards, the highest in your gift — march with me to Rheims and receive your crown. I will beg it on my knees.” + +But the King put his hand on her arm, and there was a really brave awakening in his voice and a manly fire in his eye when he said: + +“No, sit. You have conquered me — it shall be as you — ” + +But a warning sign from his minister halted him, and he added, to the relief of the court: + +“Well, well, we will think of it, we will think it over and see. Does that content you, impulsive little soldier?” + +The first part of the speech sent a glow of delight to Joan’s face, but the end of it quenched it and she looked sad, and the tears gathered in her eyes. After a moment she spoke out with what seemed a sort of terrified impulse, and said: + +“Oh, use me; I beseech you, use me — there is but little time!” + +“But little time?” + +“Only a year — I shall last only a year.” + +“Why, child, there are fifty good years in that compact little body yet.” + +“Oh, you err, indeed you do. In one little year the end will come. Ah, the time is so short, so short; the moments are flying, and so much to be done. Oh, use me, and quickly — it is life or death for France.” + +Even those insects were sobered by her impassioned words. The King looked very grave — grave, and strongly impressed. His eyes lit suddenly with an eloquent fire, and he rose and drew his sword and raised it aloft; then he brought it slowly down upon Joan’s shoulder and said: + +“Ah, thou art so simple, so true, so great, so noble — and by this accolade I join thee to the nobility of France, thy fitting place! And for thy sake I do hereby ennoble all thy family and all thy kin; and all their descendants born in wedlock, not only in the male but also in the female line. And more! — more! To distinguish thy house and honor it above all others, we add a privilege never accorded to any before in the history of these dominions: the females of thy line shall have and hold the right to ennoble their husbands when these shall be of inferior degree.” [Astonishment and envy flared up in every countenance when the words were uttered which conferred this extraordinary grace. The King paused and looked around upon these signs with quite evident satisfaction.] “Rise, Joan of Arc, now and henceforth surnamed Du Lis, in grateful acknowledgment of the good blow which you have struck for the lilies of France; and they, and the royal crown, and your own victorious sword, fit and fair company for each other, shall be grouped in you escutcheon and be and remain the symbol of your high nobility forever.” + +As my Lady Du Lis rose, the gilded children of privilege pressed forward to welcome her to their sacred ranks and call her by her new name; but she was troubled, and said these honors were not meet for one of her lowly birth and station, and by their kind grace she would remain simple Joan of Arc, nothing more — and so be called. + +Nothing more! As if there could be anything more, anything higher, anything greater. My Lady Du Lis — why, it was tinsel, petty, perishable. But, JOAN OF ARC! The mere sound of it sets one’s pulses leaping. + +== Chapter 24 Tinsel Trappings of Nobility + +IT WAS vexatious to see what a to-do the whole town, and next the whole country, made over the news. Joan of Arc ennobled by the King! People went dizzy with wonder and delight over it. You cannot imagine how she was gaped at, stared at, envied. Why, one would have supposed that some great and fortunate thing had happened to her. But we did not think any great things of it. To our minds no mere human hand could add a glory to Joan of Arc. To us she was the sun soaring in the heavens, and her new nobility a candle atop of it; to us it was swallowed up and lost in her own light. And she was as indifferent to it and as unconscious of it as the other sun would have been. + +But it was different with her brothers. They were proud and happy in their new dignity, which was quite natural. And Joan was glad it had been conferred, when she saw how pleased they were. It was a clever thought in the King to outflank her scruples by marching on them under shelter of her love for her family and her kin. + +Jean and Pierre sported their coats-of-arms right away; and their society was courted by everybody, the nobles and commons alike. The Standard-Bearer said, with some touch of bitterness, that he could see that they just felt good to be alive, they were so soaked with the comfort of their glory; and didn’t like to sleep at all, because when they were asleep they didn’t know they were noble, and so sleep was a clean loss of time. And then he said: + +“They can’t take precedence of me in military functions and state ceremonies, but when it comes to civil ones and society affairs I judge they’ll cuddle coolly in behind you and the knights, and Noel and I will have to walk behind them — hey?” + +“Yes,” I said, “I think you are right.” + +“I was just afraid of it — just afraid of it,” said the Standard-Bearer, with a sigh. “Afraid of it? I’m talking like a fool; of course I knew it. Yes, I was talking like a fool.” + +Noel Rainguesson said, musingly: + +“Yes, I noticed something natural about the tone of it.” + +We others laughed. + +“Oh, you did, did you? You think you are very clever, don’t you? I’ll take and wring your neck for you one of these days, Noel Rainguesson.” + +The Sieur de Metz said: + +“Paladin, your fears haven’t reached the top notch. They are away below the grand possibilities. Didn’t it occur to you that in civil and society functions they will take precedence of all the rest of the personal staff — every one of us?” + +“Oh, come!” + +“You’ll find it’s so. Look at their escutcheon. Its chiefest feature is the lilies of France. It’s royal, man, royal — do you understand the size of that? The lilies are there by authority of the King — do you understand the size of that? Though not in detail and in entirety, they do nevertheless substantially quarter the arms of France in their coat. Imagine it! consider it! measure the magnitude of it! We walk in front of those boys? Bless you, we’ve done that for the last time. In my opinion there isn’t a lay lord in this whole region that can walk in front of them, except the Duke d’Alencon, prince of the blood.” + +You could have knocked the Paladin down with a feather. He seemed to actually turn pale. He worked his lips a moment without getting anything out; then it came: + +“I didn’t know that, nor the half of it; how could I? I’ve been an idiot. I see it now — I’ve been an idiot. I met them this morning, and sung out hello to them just as I would to anybody. I didn’t mean to be ill-mannered, but I didn’t know the half of this that you’ve been telling. I’ve been an ass. Yes, that is all there is to it — I’ve been an ass.” + +Noel Rainguesson said, in a kind of weary way: + +“Yes, that is likely enough; but I don’t see why you should seem surprised at it.” + +“You don’t, don’t you? Well, why don’t you?” + +“Because I don’t see any novelty about it. With some people it is a condition which is present all the time. Now you take a condition which is present all the time, and the results of that condition will be uniform; this uniformity of result will in time become monotonous; monotonousness, by the law of its being, is fatiguing. If you had manifested fatigue upon noticing that you had been an ass, that would have been logical, that would have been rational; whereas it seems to me that to manifest surprise was to be again an ass, because the condition of intellect that can enable a person to be surprised and stirred by inert monotonousness is a — ” + +“Now that is enough, Noel Rainguesson; stop where you are, before you get yourself into trouble. And don’t bother me any more for some days or a week an it please you, for I cannot abide your clack.” + +“Come, I like that! I didn’t want to talk. I tried to get out of talking. If you didn’t want to hear my clack, what did you keep intruding your conversation on me for?” + +“I? I never dreamed of such a thing.” + +“Well, you did it, anyway. And I have a right to feel hurt, and I do feel hurt, to have you treat me so. It seems to me that when a person goads, and crowds, and in a manner forces another person to talk, it is neither very fair nor very good-mannered to call what he says clack.” + +“Oh, snuffle — do! and break your heart, you poor thing. Somebody fetch this sick doll a sugar-rag. Look you, Sir Jean de Metz, do you feel absolutely certain about that thing?” + +“What thing?” + +“Why, that Jean and Pierre are going to take precedence of all the lay noblesse hereabouts except the Duke d’Alencon?” + +“I think there is not a doubt of it.” + +The Standard-Bearer was deep in thoughts and dreams a few moments, then the silk-and-velvet expanse of his vast breast rose and fell with a sigh, and he said: + +“Dear, dear, what a lift it is! It just shows what luck can do. Well, I don’t care. I shouldn’t care to be a painted accident — I shouldn’t value it. I am prouder to have climbed up to where I am just by sheer natural merit than I would be to ride the very sun in the zenith and have to reflect that I was nothing but a poor little accident, and got shot up there out of somebody else’s catapult. To me, merit is everything — in fact, the only thing. All else is dross.” + +Just then the bugles blew the assembly, and that cut our talk short. + +== Chapter 25 At Last — Forward! + +THE DAYS began to waste away — and nothing decided, nothing done. The army was full of zeal, but it was also hungry. It got no pay, the treasury was getting empty, it was becoming impossible to feed it; under pressure of privation it began to fall apart and disperse — which pleased the trifling court exceedingly. Joan’s distress was pitiful to see. She was obliged to stand helpless while her victorious army dissolved away until hardly the skeleton of it was left. + +At last one day she went to the Castle of Loches, where the King was idling. She found him consulting with three of his councilors, Robert le Maton, a former Chancellor of France, Christophe d’Harcourt, and Gerard Machet. The Bastard of Orleans was present also, and it is through him that we know what happened. Joan threw herself at the King’s feet and embraced his knees, saying: + +“Noble Dauphin, prithee hold no more of these long and numerous councils, but come, and come quickly, to Rheims and receive your crown.” + +Christophe d’Harcourt asked: + +“Is it your Voices that command you to say that to the King?” + +“Yes, and urgently.” + +“Then will you not tell us in the King’s presence in what way the Voices communicate with you?” + +It was another sly attempt to trap Joan into indiscreet admissions and dangerous pretensions. But nothing came of it. Joan’s answer was simple and straightforward, and the smooth Bishop was not able to find any fault with it. She said that when she met with people who doubted the truth of her mission she went aside and prayed, complaining of the distrust of these, and then the comforting Voices were heard at her ear saying, soft and low, “Go forward, Daughter of God, and I will help thee.” Then she added, “When I hear that, the joy in my heart, oh, it is insupportable!” + +The Bastard said that when she said these words her face lit up as with a flame, and she was like one in an ecstasy. + +Joan pleaded, persuaded, reasoned; gaining ground little by little, but opposed step by step by the council. She begged, she implored, leave to march. When they could answer nothing further, they granted that perhaps it had been a mistake to let the army waste away, but how could we help it now? how could we march without an army? + +“Raise one!” said Joan. + +“But it will take six weeks.” + +“No matter — begin! let us begin!” + +“It is too late. Without doubt the Duke of Bedford has been gathering troops to push to the succor of his strongholds on the Loire.” + +“Yes, while we have been disbanding ours — and pity ’tis. But we must throw away no more time; we must bestir ourselves.” + +The King objected that he could not venture toward Rheims with those strong places on the Loire in his path. But Joan said: + +“We will break them up. Then you can march.” + +With that plan the King was willing to venture assent. He could sit around out of danger while the road was being cleared. + +Joan came back in great spirits. Straightway everything was stirring. Proclamations were issued calling for men, a recruiting-camp was established at Selles in Berry, and the commons and the nobles began to flock to it with enthusiasm. + +A deal of the month of May had been wasted; and yet by the 6th of June Joan had swept together a new army and was ready to march. She had eight thousand men. Think of that. Think of gathering together such a body as that in that little region. And these were veteran soldiers, too. In fact, most of the men in France were soldiers, when you came to that; for the wars had lasted generations now. Yes, most Frenchmen were soldiers; and admirable runners, too, both by practice and inheritance; they had done next to nothing but run for near a century. But that was not their fault. They had had no fair and proper leadership — at least leaders with a fair and proper chance. Away back, King and Court got the habit of being treacherous to the leaders; then the leaders easily got the habit of disobeying the King and going their own way, each for himself and nobody for the lot. Nobody could win victories that way. Hence, running became the habit of the French troops, and no wonder. Yet all that those troops needed in order to be good fighters was a leader who would attend strictly to business — a leader with all authority in his hands in place of a tenth of it along with nine other generals equipped with an equal tenth apiece. They had a leader rightly clothed with authority now, and with a head and heart bent on war of the most intensely businesslike and earnest sort — and there would be results. No doubt of that. They had Joan of Arc; and under that leadership their legs would lose the art and mystery of running. + +Yes, Joan was in great spirits. She was here and there and everywhere, all over the camp, by day and by night, pushing things. And wherever she came charging down the lines, reviewing the troops, it was good to hear them break out and cheer. And nobody could help cheering, she was such a vision of young bloom and beauty and grace, and such an incarnation of pluck and life and go! she was growing more and more ideally beautiful every day, as was plain to be seen — and these were days of development; for she was well past seventeen now — in fact, she was getting close upon seventeen and a half — indeed, just a little woman, as you may say. + +The two young Counts de Laval arrived one day — fine young fellows allied to the greatest and most illustrious houses of France; and they could not rest till they had seen Joan of Arc. So the King sent for them and presented them to her, and you may believe she filled the bill of their expectations. When they heard that rich voice of hers they must have thought it was a flute; and when they saw her deep eyes and her face, and the soul that looked out of that face, you could see that the sight of her stirred them like a poem, like lofty eloquence, like martial music. One of them wrote home to his people, and in his letter he said, “It seemed something divine to see her and hear her.” Ah, yes, and it was a true word. Truer word was never spoken. + +He saw her when she was ready to begin her march and open the campaign, and this is what he said about it: + +“She was clothed all in white armor save her head, and in her hand she carried a little battle-ax; and when she was ready to mount her great black horse he reared and plunged and would not let her. Then she said, ‘Lead him to the cross.’ This cross was in front of the church close by. So they led him there. Then she mounted, and he never budged, any more than if he had been tied. Then she turned toward the door of the church and said, in her soft womanly voice, ‘You, priests and people of the Church, make processions and pray to God for us!’ Then she spurred away, under her standard, with her little ax in her hand, crying ‘Forward — march!’ One of her brothers, who came eight days ago, departed with her; and he also was clad all in white armor.” + +I was there, and I saw it, too; saw it all, just as he pictures it. And I see it yet — the little battle-ax, the dainty plumed cap, the white armor — all in the soft June afternoon; I see it just as if it were yesterday. And I rode with the staff — the personal staff — the staff of Joan of Arc. + +That young count was dying to go, too, but the King held him back for the present. But Joan had made him a promise. In his letter he said: + +“She told me that when the King starts for Rheims I shall go with him. But God grant I may not have to wait till then, but may have a part in the battles!” + +She made him that promise when she was taking leave of my lady the Duchess d’Alencon. The duchess was exacting a promise, so it seemed a proper time for others to do the like. The duchess was troubled for her husband, for she foresaw desperate fighting; and she held Joan to her breast, and stroked her hair lovingly, and said: + +“You must watch over him, dear, and take care of him, and send him back to me safe. I require it of you; I will not let you go till you promise.” + +Joan said: + +“I give you the promise with all my heart; and it is not just words, it is a promise; you shall have him back without a hurt. Do you believe? And are you satisfied with me now?” + +The duchess could not speak, but she kissed Joan on the forehead; and so they parted. + +We left on the 6th and stopped over at Romorantin; then on the 9th Joan entered Orleans in state, under triumphal arches, with the welcoming cannon thundering and seas of welcoming flags fluttering in the breeze. The Grand Staff rode with her, clothed in shining splendors of costume and decorations: the Duke d’Alencon; the Bastard of Orleans; the Sire de Boussac, Marshal of France; the Lord de Granville, Master of the Crossbowmen; the Sire de Culan, Admiral of France; Ambroise de Lor; Etienne de Vignoles, called La Hire; Gautier de Brusac, and other illustrious captains. + +It was grand times; the usual shoutings and packed multitudes, the usual crush to get sight of Joan; but at last we crowded through to our old lodgings, and I saw old Boucher and the wife and that dear Catherine gather Joan to their hearts and smother her with kisses — and my heart ached for her so! for I could have kissed Catherine better than anybody, and more and longer; yet was not thought of for that office, and I so famished for it. Ah, she was so beautiful, and oh, so sweet! I had loved her the first day I ever saw her, and from that day forth she was sacred to me. I have carried her image in my heart for sixty-three years — all lonely thee, yes, solitary, for it never has had company — and I am grown so old, so old; but it, oh, it is as fresh and young and merry and mischievous and lovely and sweet and pure and witching and divine as it was when it crept in there, bringing benediction and peace to its habitation so long ago, so long ago — for it has not aged a day! + +== Chapter 26 The Last Doubts Scattered + +THIS TIME, as before, the King’s last command to the generals was this: “See to it that you do nothing without the sanction of the Maid.” And this time the command was obeyed; and would continue to be obeyed all through the coming great days of the Loire campaign. + +That was a change! That was new! It broke the traditions. It shows you what sort of a reputation as a commander-in-chief the child had made for herself in ten days in the field. It was a conquering of men’s doubts and suspicions and a capturing and solidifying of men’s belief and confidence such as the grayest veteran on the Grand Staff had not been able to achieve in thirty years. Don’t you remember that when at sixteen Joan conducted her own case in a grim court of law and won it, the old judge spoke of her as “this marvelous child”? It was the right name, you see. + +These veterans were not going to branch out and do things without the sanction of the Maid — that is true; and it was a great gain. But at the same time there were some among them who still trembled at her new and dashing war tactics and earnestly desired to modify them. And so, during the 10th, while Joan was slaving away at her plans and issuing order after order with tireless industry, the old-time consultations and arguings and speechifyings were going on among certain of the generals. + +In the afternoon of that day they came in a body to hold one of these councils of war; and while they waited for Joan to join them they discussed the situation. Now this discussion is not set down in the histories; but I was there, and I will speak of it, as knowing you will trust me, I not being given to beguiling you with lies. + +Gautier de Brusac was spokesman for the timid ones; Joan’s side was resolutely upheld by d’Alencon, the Bastard, La Hire, the Admiral of France, the Marshal de Boussac, and all the other really important chiefs. + +De Brusac argued that the situation was very grave; that Jargeau, the first point of attack, was formidably strong; its imposing walls bristling with artillery; with seven thousand picked English veterans behind them, and at their head the great Earl of Suffolk and his two redoubtable brothers, the De la Poles. It seemed to him that the proposal of Joan of Arc to try to take such a place by storm was a most rash and over-daring idea, and she ought to be persuaded to relinquish it in favor of the soberer and safer procedure of investment by regular siege. It seemed to him that this fiery and furious new fashion of hurling masses of men against impregnable walls of stone, in defiance of the established laws and usages of war, was — + +But he got no further. La Hire gave his plumed helm an impatient toss and burst out with: + +“By God, she knows her trade, and none can teach it her!” + +And before he could get out anything more, D’Alencon was on his feet, and the Bastard of Orleans, and a half a dozen others, all thundering at once, and pouring out their indignant displeasure upon any and all that might hold, secretly or publicly, distrust of the wisdom of the Commander-in-Chief. And when they had said their say, La Hire took a chance again, and said: + +“There are some that never know how to change. Circumstances may change, but those people are never able to see that they have got to change too, to meet those circumstances. All that they know is the one beaten track that their fathers and grandfathers have followed and that they themselves have followed in their turn. If an earthquake come and rip the land to chaos, and that beaten track now lead over precipices and into morasses, those people can’t learn that they must strike out a new road — no; they will march stupidly along and follow the old one, to death and perdition. Men, there’s a new state of things; and a surpassing military genius has perceived it with her clear eye. And a new road is required, and that same clear eye has noted where it must go, and has marked it out for us. The man does not live, never has lived, never will live, that can improve upon it! The old state of things was defeat, defeat, defeat — and by consequence we had troops with no dash, no heart, no hope. Would you assault stone walls with such? No — there was but one way with that kind: sit down before a place and wait, wait — starve it out, if you could. The new case is the very opposite; it is this: men all on fire with pluck and dash and vim and fury and energy — a restrained conflagration! What would you do with it? Hold it down and let it smolder and perish and go out? What would Joan of Arc do with it? Turn it loose, by the Lord God of heaven and earth, and let it swallow up the foe in the whirlwind of its fires! Nothing shows the splendor and wisdom of her military genius like her instant comprehension of the size of the change which has come about, and her instant perception of the right and only right way to take advantage of it. With her is no sitting down and starving out; no dilly-dallying and fooling around; no lazying, loafing, and going to sleep; no, it is storm! storm! storm! and still storm! storm! storm! and forever storm! storm! storm! hunt the enemy to his hole, then turn her French hurricanes loose and carry him by storm! And that is my sort! Jargeau? What of Jargeau, with its battlements and towers, its devastating artillery, its seven thousand picked veterans? Joan of Arc is to the fore, and by the splendor of God its fate is sealed!” + +Oh, he carried them. There was not another word said about persuading Joan to change her tactics. They sat talking comfortably enough after that. + +By and by Joan entered, and they rose and saluted with their swords, and she asked what their pleasure might be. La Hire said: + +“It is settled, my General. The matter concerned Jargeau. There were some who thought we could not take the place.” + +Joan laughed her pleasant laugh, her merry, carefree laugh; the laugh that rippled so buoyantly from her lips and made old people feel young again to hear it; and she said to the company: + +“Have no fears — indeed, there is no need nor any occasion for them. We will strike the English boldly by assault, and you will see.” Then a faraway look came into her eyes, and I think that a picture of her home drifted across the vision of her mind; for she said very gently, and as one who muses, “But that I know God guides us and will give us success, I had liefer keep sheep than endure these perils.” + +We had a homelike farewell supper that evening — just the personal staff and the family. Joan had to miss it; for the city had given a banquet in her honor, and she had gone there in state with the Grand Staff, through a riot of joy-bells and a sparkling Milky Way of illuminations. + +After supper some lively young folk whom we knew came in, and we presently forgot that we were soldiers, and only remembered that we were boys and girls and full of animal spirits and long-pent fun; and so there was dancing, and games, and romps, and screams of laughter — just as extravagant and innocent and noisy a good time as ever I had in my life. Dear, dear, how long ago it was! — and I was young then. And outside, all the while, was the measured tramp of marching battalions, belated odds and ends of the French power gathering for the morrow’s tragedy on the grim stage of war. Yes, in those days we had those contrasts side by side. And as I passed along to bed there was another one: the big Dwarf, in brave new armor, sat sentry at Joan’s door — the stern Spirit of War made flesh, as it were — and on his ample shoulder was curled a kitten asleep. + +== Chapter 27 How Joan Took Jargeau + +image::https://i.nostr.build/a7IY3Q2wygLqKjit.jpg[0245, 300] + + +WE MADE a gallant show next day when we filed out through the frowning gates of Orleans, with banners flying and Joan and the Grand Staff in the van of the long column. Those two young De Lavals were come now, and were joined to the Grand Staff. Which was well; war being their proper trade, for they were grandsons of that illustrious fighter Bertrand du Guesclin, Constable of France in earlier days. Louis de Bourbon, the Marshal de Rais, and the Vidame de Chartres were added also. We had a right to feel a little uneasy, for we knew that a force of five thousand men was on its way under Sir John Fastolfe to reinforce Jargeau, but I think we were not uneasy, nevertheless. In truth, that force was not yet in our neighborhood. Sir John was loitering; for some reason or other he was not hurrying. He was losing precious time — four days at Etampes, and four more at Janville. + +We reached Jargeau and began business at once. Joan sent forward a heavy force which hurled itself against the outworks in handsome style, and gained a footing and fought hard to keep it; but it presently began to fall back before a sortie from the city. Seeing this, Joan raised her battle-cry and led a new assault herself under a furious artillery fire. The Paladin was struck down at her side wounded, but she snatched her standard from his failing hand and plunged on through the ruck of flying missiles, cheering her men with encouraging cries; and then for a good time one had turmoil, and clash of steel, and collision and confusion of struggling multitudes, and the hoarse bellowing of the guns; and then the hiding of it all under a rolling firmament of smoke — a firmament through which veiled vacancies appeared for a moment now and then, giving fitful dim glimpses of the wild tragedy enacting beyond; and always at these times one caught sight of that slight figure in white mail which was the center and soul of our hope and trust, and whenever we saw that, with its back to us and its face to the fight, we knew that all was well. At last a great shout went up — a joyous roar of shoutings, in fact — and that was sign sufficient that the faubourgs were ours. + +Yes, they were ours; the enemy had been driven back within the walls. On the ground which Joan had won we camped; for night was coming on. + +Joan sent a summons to the English, promising that if they surrendered she would allow them to go in peace and take their horses with them. Nobody knew that she could take that strong place, but she knew it — knew it well; yet she offered that grace — offered it in a time when such a thing was unknown in war; in a time when it was custom and usage to massacre the garrison and the inhabitants of captured cities without pity or compunction — yes, even to the harmless women and children sometimes. There are neighbors all about you who well remember the unspeakable atrocities which Charles the Bold inflicted upon the men and women and children of Dinant when he took that place some years ago. It was a unique and kindly grace which Joan offered that garrison; but that was her way, that was her loving and merciful nature — she always did her best to save her enemy’s life and his soldierly pride when she had the mastery of him. + +The English asked fifteen days’ armistice to consider the proposal in. And Fastolfe coming with five thousand men! Joan said no. But she offered another grace: they might take both their horses and their side-arms — but they must go within the hour. + +Well, those bronzed English veterans were pretty hard-headed folk. They declined again. Then Joan gave command that her army be made ready to move to the assault at nine in the morning. Considering the deal of marching and fighting which the men had done that day, D’Alencon thought the hour rather early; but Joan said it was best so, and so must be obeyed. Then she burst out with one of those enthusiasms which were always burning in her when battle was imminent, and said: + +“Work! work! and God will work with us!” + +Yes, one might say that her motto was “Work! stick to it; keep on working!” for in war she never knew what indolence was. And whoever will take that motto and live by it will likely to succeed. There’s many a way to win in this world, but none of them is worth much without good hard work back out of it. + +I think we should have lost our big Standard-Bearer that day, if our bigger Dwarf had not been at hand to bring him out of the melee when he was wounded. He was unconscious, and would have been trampled to death by our own horse, if the Dwarf had not promptly rescued him and haled him to the rear and safety. He recovered, and was himself again after two or three hours; and then he was happy and proud, and made the most of his wound, and went swaggering around in his bandages showing off like an innocent big-child — which was just what he was. He was prouder of being wounded than a really modest person would be of being killed. But there was no harm in his vanity, and nobody minded it. He said he was hit by a stone from a catapult — a stone the size of a man’s head. But the stone grew, of course. Before he got through with it he was claiming that the enemy had flung a building at him. + +“Let him alone,” said Noel Rainguesson. “Don’t interrupt his processes. To-morrow it will be a cathedral.” + +He said that privately. And, sure enough, to-morrow it was a cathedral. I never saw anybody with such an abandoned imagination. + +Joan was abroad at the crack of dawn, galloping here and there and yonder, examining the situation minutely, and choosing what she considered the most effective positions for her artillery; and with such accurate judgment did she place her guns that her Lieutenant-General’s admiration of it still survived in his memory when his testimony was taken at the Rehabilitation, a quarter of a century later. + +In this testimony the Duke d’Alencon said that at Jargeau that morning of the 12th of June she made her dispositions not like a novice, but “with the sure and clear judgment of a trained general of twenty or thirty years’ experience.” + +The veteran captains of the armies of France said she was great in war in all ways, but greatest of all in her genius for posting and handling artillery. + +Who taught the shepherd-girl to do these marvels — she who could not read, and had had no opportunity to study the complex arts of war? I do not know any way to solve such a baffling riddle as that, there being no precedent for it, nothing in history to compare it with and examine it by. For in history there is no great general, however gifted, who arrived at success otherwise than through able teaching and hard study and some experience. It is a riddle which will never be guessed. I think these vast powers and capacities were born in her, and that she applied them by an intuition which could not err. + +At eight o’clock all movement ceased, and with it all sounds, all noise. A mute expectancy reigned. The stillness was something awful — because it meant so much. There was no air stirring. The flags on the towers and ramparts hung straight down like tassels. Wherever one saw a person, that person had stopped what he was doing, and was in a waiting attitude, a listening attitude. We were on a commanding spot, clustered around Joan. Not far from us, on every hand, were the lanes and humble dwellings of these outlying suburbs. Many people were visible — all were listening, not one was moving. A man had placed a nail; he was about to fasten something with it to the door-post of his shop — but he had stopped. There was his hand reaching up holding the nail; and there was his other hand in the act of striking with the hammer; but he had forgotten everything — his head was turned aside listening. Even children unconsciously stopped in their play; I saw a little boy with his hoop-stick pointed slanting toward the ground in the act of steering the hoop around the corner; and so he had stopped and was listening — the hoop was rolling away, doing its own steering. I saw a young girl prettily framed in an open window, a watering-pot in her hand and window-boxes of red flowers under its spout — but the water had ceased to flow; the girl was listening. Everywhere were these impressive petrified forms; and everywhere was suspended movement and that awful stillness. + +Joan of Arc raised her sword in the air. At the signal, the silence was torn to rags; cannon after cannon vomited flames and smoke and delivered its quaking thunders; and we saw answering tongues of fire dart from the towers and walls of the city, accompanied by answering deep thunders, and in a minute the walls and the towers disappeared, and in their place stood vast banks and pyramids of snowy smoke, motionless in the dead air. The startled girl dropped her watering-pot and clasped her hands together, and at that moment a stone cannon-ball crashed through her fair body. + +The great artillery duel went on, each side hammering away with all its might; and it was splendid for smoke and noise, and most exalting to one’s spirits. The poor little town around about us suffered cruelly. The cannon-balls tore through its slight buildings, wrecking them as if they had been built of cards; and every moment or two one would see a huge rock come curving through the upper air above the smoke-clouds and go plunging down through the roofs. Fire broke out, and columns of flame and smoke rose toward the sky. + +Presently the artillery concussions changed the weather. The sky became overcast, and a strong wind rose and blew away the smoke that hid the English fortresses. + +Then the spectacle was fine; turreted gray walls and towers, and streaming bright flags, and jets of red fire and gushes of white smoke in long rows, all standing out with sharp vividness against the deep leaden background of the sky; and then the whizzing missiles began to knock up the dirt all around us, and I felt no more interest in the scenery. There was one English gun that was getting our position down finer and finer all the time. Presently Joan pointed to it and said: + +“Fair duke, step out of your tracks, or that machine will kill you.” + +The Duke d’Alencon did as he was bid; but Monsieur du Lude rashly took his place, and that cannon tore his head off in a moment. + +Joan was watching all along for the right time to order the assault. At last, about nine o’clock, she cried out: + +“Now — to the assault!” and the buglers blew the charge. + +Instantly we saw the body of men that had been appointed to this service move forward toward a point where the concentrated fire of our guns had crumbled the upper half of a broad stretch of wall to ruins; we saw this force descend into the ditch and begin to plant the scaling-ladders. We were soon with them. The Lieutenant-General thought the assault premature. But Joan said: + +“Ah, gentle duke, are you afraid? Do you not know that I have promised to send you home safe?” + +It was warm work in the ditches. The walls were crowded with men, and they poured avalanches of stones down upon us. There was one gigantic Englishman who did us more hurt than any dozen of his brethren. He always dominated the places easiest of assault, and flung down exceedingly troublesome big stones which smashed men and ladders both — then he would near burst himself with laughing over what he had done. But the duke settled accounts with him. He went and found the famous cannoneer, Jean le Lorrain, and said: + +“Train your gun — kill me this demon.” + +He did it with the first shot. He hit the Englishman fair in the breast and knocked him backward into the city. + +The enemy’s resistance was so effective and so stubborn that our people began to show signs of doubt and dismay. Seeing this, Joan raised her inspiring battle-cry and descended into the fosse herself, the Dwarf helping her and the Paladin sticking bravely at her side with the standard. She started up a scaling-ladder, but a great stone flung from above came crashing down upon her helmet and stretched her, wounded and stunned, upon the ground. But only for a moment. The Dwarf stood her upon her feet, and straightway she started up the ladder again, crying: + +“To the assault, friends, to the assault — the English are ours! It is the appointed hour!” + +There was a grand rush, and a fierce roar of war-cries, and we swarmed over the ramparts like ants. The garrison fled, we pursued; Jargeau was ours! + +The Earl of Suffolk was hemmed in and surrounded, and the Duke d’Alencon and the Bastard of Orleans demanded that he surrender himself. But he was a proud nobleman and came of a proud race. He refused to yield his sword to subordinates, saying: + +“I will die rather. I will surrender to the Maid of Orleans alone, and to no other.” + +And so he did; and was courteously and honorably used by her. + +His two brothers retreated, fighting step by step, toward the bridge, we pressing their despairing forces and cutting them down by scores. Arrived on the bridge, the slaughter still continued. Alexander de la Pole was pushed overboard or fell over, and was drowned. Eleven hundred men had fallen; John de la Pole decided to give up the struggle. But he was nearly as proud and particular as his brother of Suffolk as to whom he would surrender to. The French officer nearest at hand was Guillaume Renault, who was pressing him closely. Sir John said to him: + +“Are you a gentleman?” + +“Yes.” + +“And a knight?” + +“No.” + +Then Sir John knighted him himself there on the bridge, giving him the accolade with English coolness and tranquillity in the midst of that storm of slaughter and mutilation; and then bowing with high courtesy took the sword by the blade and laid the hilt of it in the man’s hand in token of surrender. Ah, yes, a proud tribe, those De la Poles. + +It was a grand day, a memorable day, a most splendid victory. We had a crowd of prisoners, but Joan would not allow them to be hurt. We took them with us and marched into Orleans next day through the usual tempest of welcome and joy. + +And this time there was a new tribute to our leader. From everywhere in the packed streets the new recruits squeezed their way to her side to touch the sword of Joan of Arc, and draw from it somewhat of that mysterious quality which made it invincible. + +*END OF VOLUME 1* \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/JoanArc_Vol2.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/JoanArc_Vol2.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4f61215 --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/JoanArc_Vol2.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,3157 @@ += Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc: Volume 2 + +== Title Page + +image::https://i.nostr.build/DLHYZjDXDRdCUMXX.jpg[Cover Art, 300] + + +[%hardbreaks] +Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, volumes 1 and 2 +by Mark Twain + +[quote, Louis Kossuth] +Consider this unique and imposing distinction. Since the writing of human history began, Joan of Arc is the only person, of either sex, who has ever held supreme command of the military forces of a nation at the age of seventeen. + +image::https://i.nostr.build/1nW9COJVw2gNxWbR.jpg[0010, 300] + + +[%hardbreaks] +PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC +by The Sieur Louis De Conte +(her page and secretary) + +Freely translated out of the ancient French into modern English from the original unpublished manuscript in the National Archives of France + +== CONTENTS + +Volume 2 + +* PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF JOAN OF ARC +* BOOK II — IN COURT AND CAMP (Continued) +** 28 Joan Foretells Her Doom +** 29 Fierce Talbot Reconsiders +** 30 The Red Field of Patay +** 31 France Begins to Live Again +** 32 The Joyous News Flies Fast +** 33 Joan’s Five Great Deeds +** 34 The Jests of the Burgundians +** 35 The Heir of France is Crowned +** 36 Joan Hears News from Home +** 37 Again to Arms +** 38 The King Cries “Forward!” +** 39 We Win, But the King Balks +** 40 Treachery Conquers Joan +** 41 The Maid Will March No More +* BOOK III TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM +** 1 The Maid in Chains +** 2 Joan Sold to the English +** 3 Weaving the Net About Her +** 4 All Ready to Condemn +** 5 Fifty Experts Against a Novice +** 6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors +** 7 Craft That Was in Vain +** 8 Joan Tells of Her Visions +** 9 Her Sure Deliverance Foretold +** 10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits’ End +** 11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination +** 12 Joan’s Master-Stroke Diverted +** 13 The Third Trial Fails +** 14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies +** 15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning +** 16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack +** 17 Supreme in Direst Peril +** 18 Condemned Yet Unafraid +** 19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail +** 20 The Betrayal +** 21 Respited Only for Torture +** 22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer +** 23 The Time Is at Hand +** 24 Joan the Martyr +* CONCLUSION + +== Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc — Volume 1 + +by Mark Twain + +== BOOK II (Continued) + +IN COURT AND CAMP + +== Chapter 28 Joan Foretells Her Doom + +image::https://i.nostr.build/G0PAMOZwQdkCxEM9.jpg[0305, 300] + + +THE TROOPS must have a rest. Two days would be allowed for this. The morning of the 14th I was writing from Joan’s dictation in a small room which she sometimes used as a private office when she wanted to get away from officials and their interruptions. Catherine Boucher came in and sat down and said: + +“Joan, dear, I want you to talk to me.” + +“Indeed, I am not sorry for that, but glad. What is in your mind?” + +“This. I scarcely slept last night, for thinking of the dangers you are running. The Paladin told me how you made the duke stand out of the way when the cannon-balls were flying all about, and so saved his life.” + +“Well, that was right, wasn’t it?” + +“Right? Yes; but you stayed there yourself. Why will you do like that? It seems such a wanton risk.” + +“Oh, no, it was not so. I was not in any danger.” + +“How can you say that, Joan, with those deadly things flying all about you?” + +Joan laughed, and tried to turn the subject, but Catherine persisted. She said: + +“It was horribly dangerous, and it could not be necessary to stay in such a place. And you led an assault again. Joan, it is tempting Providence. I want you to make me a promise. I want you to promise me that you will let others lead the assaults, if there must be assaults, and that you will take better care of yourself in those dreadful battles. Will you?” + +But Joan fought away from the promise and did not give it. Catherine sat troubled and discontented awhile, then she said: + +“Joan, are you going to be a soldier always? These wars are so long — so long. They last forever and ever and ever.” + +There was a glad flash in Joan’s eye as she cried: + +“This campaign will do all the really hard work that is in front of it in the next four days. The rest of it will be gentler — oh, far less bloody. Yes, in four days France will gather another trophy like the redemption of Orleans and make her second long step toward freedom!” + +Catherine started (and so did I); then she gazed long at Joan like one in a trance, murmuring “four days — four days,” as if to herself and unconsciously. Finally she asked, in a low voice that had something of awe in it: + +“Joan, tell me — how is it that you know that? For you do know it, I think.” + +“Yes,” said Joan, dreamily, “I know — I know. I shall strike — and strike again. And before the fourth day is finished I shall strike yet again.” She became silent. We sat wondering and still. This was for a whole minute, she looking at the floor and her lips moving but uttering nothing. Then came these words, but hardly audible: “And in a thousand years the English power in France will not rise up from that blow.” + +It made my flesh creep. It was uncanny. She was in a trance again — I could see it — just as she was that day in the pastures of Domremy when she prophesied about us boys in the war and afterward did not know that she had done it. She was not conscious now; but Catherine did not know that, and so she said, in a happy voice: + +“Oh, I believe it, I believe it, and I am so glad! Then you will come back and bide with us all your life long, and we will love you so, and honor you!” + +A scarcely perceptible spasm flitted across Joan’s face, and the dreamy voice muttered: + +“Before two years are sped I shall die a cruel death!” + +I sprang forward with a warning hand up. That is why Catherine did not scream. She was going to do that — I saw it plainly. Then I whispered her to slip out of the place, and say nothing of what had happened. I said Joan was asleep — asleep and dreaming. Catherine whispered back, and said: + +“Oh, I am so grateful that it is only a dream! It sounded like prophecy.” And she was gone. + +Like prophecy! I knew it was prophecy; and I sat down crying, as knowing we should lose her. Soon she started, shivering slightly, and came to herself, and looked around and saw me crying there, and jumped out of her chair and ran to me all in a whirl of sympathy and compassion, and put her hand on my head, and said: + +“My poor boy! What is it? Look up and tell me.” + +I had to tell her a lie; I grieved to do it, but there was no other way. I picked up an old letter from my table, written by Heaven knows who, about some matter Heaven knows what, and told her I had just gotten it from Pere Fronte, and that in it it said the children’s Fairy Tree had been chopped down by some miscreant or other, and — I got no further. She snatched the letter from my hand and searched it up and down and all over, turning it this way and that, and sobbing great sobs, and the tears flowing down her cheeks, and ejaculating all the time, “Oh, cruel, cruel! how could any be so heartless? Ah, poor Arbre Fee de Bourlemont gone — and we children loved it so! Show me the place where it says it!” + +And I, still lying, showed her the pretended fatal words on the pretended fatal page, and she gazed at them through her tears, and said she could see herself that they were hateful, ugly words — they “had the very look of it.” + +Then we heard a strong voice down the corridor announcing: + +“His majesty’s messenger — with despatches for her Excellency the Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of France!” + +== Chapter 29 Fierce Talbot Reconsiders + +I KNEW she had seen the wisdom of the Tree. But when? I could not know. Doubtless before she had lately told the King to use her, for that she had but one year left to work in. It had not occurred to me at the time, but the conviction came upon me now that at that time she had already seen the Tree. It had brought her a welcome message; that was plain, otherwise she could not have been so joyous and light-hearted as she had been these latter days. The death-warning had nothing dismal about it for her; no, it was remission of exile, it was leave to come home. + +Yes, she had seen the Tree. No one had taken the prophecy to heart which she made to the King; and for a good reason, no doubt; no one wanted to take it to heart; all wanted to banish it away and forget it. And all had succeeded, and would go on to the end placid and comfortable. All but me alone. I must carry my awful secret without any to help me. A heavy load, a bitter burden; and would cost me a daily heartbreak. She was to die; and so soon. I had never dreamed of that. How could I, and she so strong and fresh and young, and every day earning a new right to a peaceful and honored old age? For at that time I thought old age valuable. I do not know why, but I thought so. All young people think it, I believe, they being ignorant and full of superstitions. She had seen the Tree. All that miserable night those ancient verses went floating back and forth through my brain: + +.... +And when, in exile wand’ring, we +Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, +Oh, rise upon our sight! +.... + +But at dawn the bugles and the drums burst through the dreamy hush of the morning, and it was turn out all! mount and ride. For there was red work to be done. + +We marched to Meung without halting. There we carried the bridge by assault, and left a force to hold it, the rest of the army marching away next morning toward Beaugency, where the lion Talbot, the terror of the French, was in command. When we arrived at that place, the English retired into the castle and we sat down in the abandoned town. + +Talbot was not at the moment present in person, for he had gone away to watch for and welcome Fastolfe and his reinforcement of five thousand men. + +Joan placed her batteries and bombarded the castle till night. Then some news came: Richemont, Constable of France, this long time in disgrace with the King, largely because of the evil machinations of La Tremouille and his party, was approaching with a large body of men to offer his services to Joan — and very much she needed them, now that Fastolfe was so close by. Richemont had wanted to join us before, when we first marched on Orleans; but the foolish King, slave of those paltry advisers of his, warned him to keep his distance and refused all reconciliation with him. + +I go into these details because they are important. Important because they lead up to the exhibition of a new gift in Joan’s extraordinary mental make-up — statesmanship. It is a sufficiently strange thing to find that great quality in an ignorant country-girl of seventeen and a half, but she had it. + +Joan was for receiving Richemont cordially, and so was La Hire and the two young Lavals and other chiefs, but the Lieutenant-General, d’Alencon, strenuously and stubbornly opposed it. He said he had absolute orders from the King to deny and defy Richemont, and that if they were overridden he would leave the army. This would have been a heavy disaster, indeed. But Joan set herself the task of persuading him that the salvation of France took precedence of all minor things — even the commands of a sceptered ass; and she accomplished it. She persuaded him to disobey the King in the interest of the nation, and to be reconciled to Count Richemont and welcome him. That was statesmanship; and of the highest and soundest sort. Whatever thing men call great, look for it in Joan of Arc, and there you will find it. + +In the early morning, June 17th, the scouts reported the approach of Talbot and Fastolfe with Fastolfe’s succoring force. Then the drums beat to arms; and we set forth to meet the English, leaving Richemont and his troops behind to watch the castle of Beaugency and keep its garrison at home. By and by we came in sight of the enemy. Fastolfe had tried to convince Talbot that it would be wisest to retreat and not risk a battle with Joan at this time, but distribute the new levies among the English strongholds of the Loire, thus securing them against capture; then be patient and wait — wait for more levies from Paris; let Joan exhaust her army with fruitless daily skirmishing; then at the right time fall upon her in resistless mass and annihilate her. He was a wise old experienced general, was Fastolfe. But that fierce Talbot would hear of no delay. He was in a rage over the punishment which the Maid had inflicted upon him at Orleans and since, and he swore by God and Saint George that he would have it out with her if he had to fight her all alone. So Fastolfe yielded, though he said they were now risking the loss of everything which the English had gained by so many years’ work and so many hard knocks. + +The enemy had taken up a strong position, and were waiting, in order of battle, with their archers to the front and a stockade before them. + +Night was coming on. A messenger came from the English with a rude defiance and an offer of battle. But Joan’s dignity was not ruffled, her bearing was not discomposed. She said to the herald: + +“Go back and say it is too late to meet to-night; but to-morrow, please God and our Lady, we will come to close quarters.” + +The night fell dark and rainy. It was that sort of light steady rain which falls so softly and brings to one’s spirit such serenity and peace. About ten o’clock D’Alencon, the Bastard of Orleans, La Hire, Pothon of Saintrailles, and two or three other generals came to our headquarters tent, and sat down to discuss matters with Joan. Some thought it was a pity that Joan had declined battle, some thought not. Then Pothon asked her why she had declined it. She said: + +“There was more than one reason. These English are ours — they cannot get away from us. Wherefore there is no need to take risks, as at other times. The day was far spent. It is good to have much time and the fair light of day when one’s force is in a weakened state — nine hundred of us yonder keeping the bridge of Meung under the Marshal de Rais, fifteen hundred with the Constable of France keeping the bridge and watching the castle of Beaugency.” + +Dunois said: + +“I grieve for this decision, Excellency, but it cannot be helped. And the case will be the same the morrow, as to that.” + +Joan was walking up and down just then. She laughed her affectionate, comrady laugh, and stopping before that old war-tiger she put her small hand above his head and touched one of his plumes, saying: + +“Now tell me, wise man, which feather is it that I touch?” + +“In sooth, Excellency, that I cannot.” + +“Name of God, Bastard, Bastard! you cannot tell me this small thing, yet are bold to name a large one — telling us what is in the stomach of the unborn morrow: that we shall not have those men. Now it is my thought that they will be with us.” + +That made a stir. All wanted to know why she thought that. But La Hire took the word and said: + +“Let be. If she thinks it, that is enough. It will happen.” + +Then Pothon of Santrailles said: + +“There were other reasons for declining battle, according to the saying of your Excellency?” + +“Yes. One was that we being weak and the day far gone, the battle might not be decisive. When it is fought it must be decisive. And it shall be.” + +“God grant it, and amen. There were still other reasons?” + +“One other — yes.” She hesitated a moment, then said: “This was not the day. To-morrow is the day. It is so written.” + +They were going to assail her with eager questionings, but she put up her hand and prevented them. Then she said: + +“It will be the most noble and beneficent victory that God has vouchsafed for France at any time. I pray you question me not as to whence or how I know this thing, but be content that it is so.” + +There was pleasure in every face, and conviction and high confidence. A murmur of conversation broke out, but that was interrupted by a messenger from the outposts who brought news — namely, that for an hour there had been stir and movement in the English camp of a sort unusual at such a time and with a resting army, he said. Spies had been sent under cover of the rain and darkness to inquire into it. They had just come back and reported that large bodies of men had been dimly made out who were slipping stealthily away in the direction of Meung. + +The generals were very much surprised, as any might tell from their faces. + +“It is a retreat,” said Joan. + +“It has that look,” said D’Alencon. + +“It certainly has,” observed the Bastard and La Hire. + +“It was not to be expected,” said Louis de Bourbon, “but one can divine the purpose of it.” + +“Yes,” responded Joan. “Talbot has reflected. His rash brain has cooled. He thinks to take the bridge of Meung and escape to the other side of the river. He knows that this leaves his garrison of Beaugency at the mercy of fortune, to escape our hands if it can; but there is no other course if he would avoid this battle, and that he also knows. But he shall not get the bridge. We will see to that.” + +“Yes,” said D’Alencon, “we must follow him, and take care of that matter. What of Beaugency?” + +“Leave Beaugency to me, gentle duke; I will have it in two hours, and at no cost of blood.” + +“It is true, Excellency. You will but need to deliver this news there and receive the surrender.” + +“Yes. And I will be with you at Meung with the dawn, fetching the Constable and his fifteen hundred; and when Talbot knows that Beaugency has fallen it will have an effect upon him.” + +“By the mass, yes!” cried La Hire. “He will join his Meung garrison to his army and break for Paris. Then we shall have our bridge force with us again, along with our Beaugency watchers, and be stronger for our great day’s work by four-and-twenty hundred able soldiers, as was here promised within the hour. Verily this Englishman is doing our errands for us and saving us much blood and trouble. Orders, Excellency — give us orders!” + +“They are simple. Let the men rest three hours longer. At one o’clock the advance-guard will march, under our command, with Pothon of Saintrailles as second; the second division will follow at two under the Lieutenant-General. Keep well in the rear of the enemy, and see to it that you avoid an engagement. I will ride under guard to Beaugency and make so quick work there that I and the Constable of France will join you before dawn with his men.” + +She kept her word. Her guard mounted and we rode off through the puttering rain, taking with us a captured English officer to confirm Joan’s news. We soon covered the journey and summoned the castle. Richard Guetin, Talbot’s lieutenant, being convinced that he and his five hundred men were left helpless, conceded that it would be useless to try to hold out. He could not expect easy terms, yet Joan granted them nevertheless. His garrison could keep their horses and arms, and carry away property to the value of a silver mark per man. They could go whither they pleased, but must not take arms against France again under ten days. + +Before dawn we were with our army again, and with us the Constable and nearly all his men, for we left only a small garrison in Beaugency castle. We heard the dull booming of cannon to the front, and knew that Talbot was beginning his attack on the bridge. But some time before it was yet light the sound ceased and we heard it no more. + +Guetin had sent a messenger through our lines under a safe-conduct given by Joan, to tell Talbot of the surrender. Of course this poursuivant had arrived ahead of us. Talbot had held it wisdom to turn now and retreat upon Paris. When daylight came he had disappeared; and with him Lord Scales and the garrison of Meung. + +What a harvest of English strongholds we had reaped in those three days! — strongholds which had defied France with quite cool confidence and plenty of it until we came. + +== Chapter 30 The Red Field of Patay + +image::https://i.nostr.build/gU6IHJ4tHMOWI9S9.jpg[0321, 300] + + +WHEN THE morning broke at last on that forever memorable 18th of June, there was no enemy discoverable anywhere, as I have said. But that did not trouble me. I knew we should find him, and that we should strike him; strike him the promised blow — the one from which the English power in France would not rise up in a thousand years, as Joan had said in her trance. + +The enemy had plunged into the wide plains of La Beauce — a roadless waste covered with bushes, with here and there bodies of forest trees — a region where an army would be hidden from view in a very little while. We found the trail in the soft wet earth and followed it. It indicated an orderly march; no confusion, no panic. + +But we had to be cautious. In such a piece of country we could walk into an ambush without any trouble. Therefore Joan sent bodies of cavalry ahead under La Hire, Pothon, and other captains, to feel the way. Some of the other officers began to show uneasiness; this sort of hide-and-go-seek business troubled them and made their confidence a little shaky. Joan divined their state of mind and cried out impetuously: + +“Name of God, what would you? We must smite these English, and we will. They shall not escape us. Though they were hung to the clouds we would get them!” + +By and by we were nearing Patay; it was about a league away. Now at this time our reconnaissance, feeling its way in the bush, frightened a deer, and it went bounding away and was out of sight in a moment. Then hardly a minute later a dull great shout went up in the distance toward Patay. It was the English soldiery. They had been shut up in a garrison so long on moldy food that they could not keep their delight to themselves when this fine fresh meat came springing into their midst. Poor creature, it had wrought damage to a nation which loved it well. For the French knew where the English were now, whereas the English had no suspicion of where the French were. + +La Hire halted where he was, and sent back the tidings. Joan was radiant with joy. The Duke d’Alencon said to her: + +“Very well, we have found them; shall we fight them?” + +“Have you good spurs, prince?” + +“Why? Will they make us run away?” + +“Nenni, en nom de Dieu! These English are ours — they are lost. They will fly. Who overtakes them will need good spurs. Forward — close up!” + +By the time we had come up with La Hire the English had discovered our presence. Talbot’s force was marching in three bodies. First his advance-guard; then his artillery; then his battle-corps a good way in the rear. He was now out of the bush and in a fair open country. He at once posted his artillery, his advance-guard, and five hundred picked archers along some hedges where the French would be obliged to pass, and hoped to hold this position till his battle-corps could come up. Sir John Fastolfe urged the battle-corps into a gallop. Joan saw her opportunity and ordered La Hire to advance — which La Hire promptly did, launching his wild riders like a storm-wind, his customary fashion. + +The duke and the Bastard wanted to follow, but Joan said: + +“Not yet — wait.” + +So they waited — impatiently, and fidgeting in their saddles. But she was ready — gazing straight before her, measuring, weighing, calculating — by shades, minutes, fractions of minutes, seconds — with all her great soul present, in eye, and set of head, and noble pose of body — but patient, steady, master of herself — master of herself and of the situation. + +And yonder, receding, receding, plumes lifting and falling, lifting and falling, streamed the thundering charge of La Hire’s godless crew, La Hire’s great figure dominating it and his sword stretched aloft like a flagstaff. + +“Oh, Satan and his Hellions, see them go!” Somebody muttered it in deep admiration. + +And now he was closing up — closing up on Fastolfe’s rushing corps. + +And now he struck it — struck it hard, and broke its order. It lifted the duke and the Bastard in their saddles to see it; and they turned, trembling with excitement, to Joan, saying: + +“Now!” + +But she put up her hand, still gazing, weighing, calculating, and said again: + +“Wait — not yet.” + +Fastolfe’s hard-driven battle-corps raged on like an avalanche toward the waiting advance-guard. Suddenly these conceived the idea that it was flying in panic before Joan; and so in that instant it broke and swarmed away in a mad panic itself, with Talbot storming and cursing after it. + +Now was the golden time. Joan drove her spurs home and waved the advance with her sword. “Follow me!” she cried, and bent her head to her horse’s neck and sped away like the wind! + +We went down into the confusion of that flying rout, and for three long hours we cut and hacked and stabbed. At last the bugles sang “Halt!” + +The Battle of Patay was won. + +Joan of Arc dismounted, and stood surveying that awful field, lost in thought. Presently she said: + +“The praise is to God. He has smitten with a heavy hand this day.” After a little she lifted her face, and looking afar off, said, with the manner of one who is thinking aloud, “In a thousand years — a thousand years — the English power in France will not rise up from this blow.” She stood again a time thinking, then she turned toward her grouped generals, and there was a glory in her face and a noble light in her eye; and she said: + +“Oh, friends, friends, do you know? — do you comprehend? France is on the way to be free!” + +“And had never been, but for Joan of Arc!” said La Hire, passing before her and bowing low, the other following and doing likewise; he muttering as he went, “I will say it though I be damned for it.” Then battalion after battalion of our victorious army swung by, wildly cheering. And they shouted, “Live forever, Maid of Orleans, live forever!” while Joan, smiling, stood at the salute with her sword. + +This was not the last time I saw the Maid of Orleans on the red field of Patay. Toward the end of the day I came upon her where the dead and dying lay stretched all about in heaps and winrows; our men had mortally wounded an English prisoner who was too poor to pay a ransom, and from a distance she had seen that cruel thing done; and had galloped to the place and sent for a priest, and now she was holding the head of her dying enemy in her lap, and easing him to his death with comforting soft words, just as his sister might have done; and the womanly tears running down her face all the time. + +[INFO] +==== +Lord Ronald Gower says: “Michelet discovered this story in the deposition of Joan of Arc’s page, Louis de Conte, who was probably an eye-witness of the scene.” This is true. It was a part of the testimony of the author of these “Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc,” given by him in the Rehabilitation proceedings of 1456. — TRANSLATOR. +==== + +== Chapter 31 France Begins to Live Again + +JOAN HAD said true: France was on the way to be free. + +The war called the Hundred Years’ War was very sick to-day. Sick on its English side — for the very first time since its birth, ninety-one years gone by. + +Shall we judge battles by the numbers killed and the ruin wrought? Or shall we not rather judge them by the results which flowed from them? Any one will say that a battle is only truly great or small according to its results. Yes, any one will grant that, for it is the truth. + +Judged by results, Patay’s place is with the few supremely great and imposing battles that have been fought since the peoples of the world first resorted to arms for the settlement of their quarrels. So judged, it is even possible that Patay has no peer among that few just mentioned, but stand alone, as the supremest of historic conflicts. For when it began France lay gasping out the remnant of an exhausted life, her case wholly hopeless in the view of all political physicians; when it ended, three hours later, she was convalescent. Convalescent, and nothing requisite but time and ordinary nursing to bring her back to perfect health. The dullest physician of them all could see this, and there was none to deny it. + +Many death-sick nations have reached convalescence through a series of battles, a procession of battles, a weary tale of wasting conflicts stretching over years, but only one has reached it in a single day and by a single battle. That nation is France, and that battle Patay. + +Remember it and be proud of it; for you are French, and it is the stateliest fact in the long annals of your country. There it stands, with its head in the clouds! And when you grow up you will go on pilgrimage to the field of Patay, and stand uncovered in the presence of — what? A monument with its head in the clouds? Yes. For all nations in all times have built monuments on their battle-fields to keep green the memory of the perishable deed that was wrought there and of the perishable name of him who wrought it; and will France neglect Patay and Joan of Arc? Not for long. And will she build a monument scaled to their rank as compared with the world’s other fields and heroes? Perhaps — if there be room for it under the arch of the sky. + +But let us look back a little, and consider certain strange and impressive facts. The Hundred Years’ War began in 1337. It raged on and on, year after year and year after year; and at last England stretched France prone with that fearful blow at Crecy. But she rose and struggled on, year after year, and at last again she went down under another devastating blow — Poitiers. She gathered her crippled strength once more, and the war raged on, and on, and still on, year after year, decade after decade. Children were born, grew up, married, died — the war raged on; their children in turn grew up, married, died — the war raged on; their children, growing, saw France struck down again; this time under the incredible disaster of Agincourt — and still the war raged on, year after year, and in time these children married in their turn. + +France was a wreck, a ruin, a desolation. The half of it belonged to England, with none to dispute or deny the truth; the other half belonged to nobody — in three months would be flying the English flag; the French King was making ready to throw away his crown and flee beyond the seas. + +Now came the ignorant country-maid out of her remote village and confronted this hoary war, this all-consuming conflagration that had swept the land for three generations. Then began the briefest and most amazing campaign that is recorded in history. In seven weeks it was finished. In seven weeks she hopelessly crippled that gigantic war that was ninety-one years old. At Orleans she struck it a staggering blow; on the field of Patay she broke its back. + +Think of it. Yes, one can do that; but understand it? Ah, that is another matter; none will ever be able to comprehend that stupefying marvel. + +Seven weeks — with her and there a little bloodshed. Perhaps the most of it, in any single fight, at Patay, where the English began six thousand strong and left two thousand dead upon the field. It is said and believed that in three battles alone — Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt — near a hundred thousand Frenchmen fell, without counting the thousand other fights of that long war. The dead of that war make a mournful long list — an interminable list. Of men slain in the field the count goes by tens of thousands; of innocent women and children slain by bitter hardship and hunger it goes by that appalling term, millions. + +It was an ogre, that war; an ogre that went about for near a hundred years, crunching men and dripping blood from its jaws. And with her little hand that child of seventeen struck him down; and yonder he lies stretched on the field of Patay, and will not get up any more while this old world lasts. + +== Chapter 32 The Joyous News Flies Fast + +THE GREAT news of Patay was carried over the whole of France in twenty hours, people said. I do not know as to that; but one thing is sure, anyway: the moment a man got it he flew shouting and glorifying God and told his neighbor; and that neighbor flew with it to the next homestead; and so on and so on without resting the word traveled; and when a man got it in the night, at what hour soever, he jumped out of his bed and bore the blessed message along. And the joy that went with it was like the light that flows across the land when an eclipse is receding from the face of the sun; and, indeed, you may say that France had lain in an eclipse this long time; yes, buried in a black gloom which these beneficent tidings were sweeping away now before the onrush of their white splendor. + +The news beat the flying enemy to Yeuville, and the town rose against its English masters and shut the gates against their brethren. It flew to Mont Pipeau, to Saint Simon, and to this, that, and the other English fortress; and straightway the garrison applied the torch and took to the fields and the woods. A detachment of our army occupied Meung and pillaged it. + +When we reached Orleans that tow was as much as fifty times insaner with joy than we had ever seen it before — which is saying much. Night had just fallen, and the illuminations were on so wonderful a scale that we seemed to plow through seas of fire; and as to the noise — the hoarse cheering of the multitude, the thundering of cannon, the clash of bells — indeed, there was never anything like it. And everywhere rose a new cry that burst upon us like a storm when the column entered the gates, and nevermore ceased: “Welcome to Joan of Arc — way for the SAVIOR OF FRANCE!” And there was another cry: “Crecy is avenged! Poitiers is avenged! Agincourt is avenged! — Patay shall live forever!” + +Mad? Why, you never could imagine it in the world. The prisoners were in the center of the column. When that came along and the people caught sight of their masterful old enemy Talbot, that had made them dance so long to his grim war-music, you may imagine what the uproar was like if you can, for I can not describe it. They were so glad to see him that presently they wanted to have him out and hang him; so Joan had him brought up to the front to ride in her protection. They made a striking pair. + +== Chapter 33 Joan’s Five Great Deeds + +image::https://i.nostr.build/6YfUNxWrH90pNnpT.jpg[0347, 300] + + +YES, ORLEANS was in a delirium of felicity. She invited the King, and made sumptuous preparations to receive him, but — he didn’t come. He was simply a serf at that time, and La Tremouille was his master. Master and serf were visiting together at the master’s castle of Sully-sur-Loire. + +At Beaugency Joan had engaged to bring about a reconciliation between the Constable Richemont and the King. She took Richemont to Sully-sur-Loire and made her promise good. + +The great deeds of Joan of Arc are five: + +1. The Raising of the Siege. +2. The Victory of Patay. +3. The Reconciliation at Sully-sur-Loire. +4. The Coronation of the King. +5. The Bloodless March. + +We shall come to the Bloodless March presently (and the Coronation). It was the victorious long march which Joan made through the enemy’s country from Gien to Rheims, and thence to the gates of Paris, capturing every English town and fortress that barred the road, from the beginning of the journey to the end of it; and this by the mere force of her name, and without shedding a drop of blood — perhaps the most extraordinary campaign in this regard in history — this is the most glorious of her military exploits. + +The Reconciliation was one of Joan’s most important achievements. No one else could have accomplished it; and, in fact, no one else of high consequence had any disposition to try. In brains, in scientific warfare, and in statesmanship the Constable Richemont was the ablest man in France. His loyalty was sincere; his probity was above suspicion — (and it made him sufficiently conspicuous in that trivial and conscienceless Court). + +In restoring Richemont to France, Joan made thoroughly secure the successful completion of the great work which she had begun. She had never seen Richemont until he came to her with his little army. Was it not wonderful that at a glance she should know him for the one man who could finish and perfect her work and establish it in perpetuity? How was it that that child was able to do this? It was because she had the “seeing eye,” as one of our knights had once said. Yes, she had that great gift — almost the highest and rarest that has been granted to man. Nothing of an extraordinary sort was still to be done, yet the remaining work could not safely be left to the King’s idiots; for it would require wise statesmanship and long and patient though desultory hammering of the enemy. Now and then, for a quarter of a century yet, there would be a little fighting to do, and a handy man could carry that on with small disturbance to the rest of the country; and little by little, and with progressive certainty, the English would disappear from France. + +And that happened. Under the influence of Richemont the King became at a later time a man — a man, a king, a brave and capable and determined soldier. Within six years after Patay he was leading storming parties himself; fighting in fortress ditches up to his waist in water, and climbing scaling-ladders under a furious fire with a pluck that would have satisfied even Joan of Arc. In time he and Richemont cleared away all the English; even from regions where the people had been under their mastership for three hundred years. In such regions wise and careful work was necessary, for the English rule had been fair and kindly; and men who have been ruled in that way are not always anxious for a change. + +Which of Joan’s five chief deeds shall we call the chiefest? It is my thought that each in its turn was that. This is saying that, taken as a whole, they equalized each other, and neither was then greater than its mate. + +Do you perceive? Each was a stage in an ascent. To leave out one of them would defeat the journey; to achieve one of them at the wrong time and in the wrong place would have the same effect. + +Consider the Coronation. As a masterpiece of diplomacy, where can you find its superior in our history? Did the King suspect its vast importance? No. Did his ministers? No. Did the astute Bedford, representative of the English crown? No. An advantage of incalculable importance was here under the eyes of the King and of Bedford; the King could get it by a bold stroke, Bedford could get it without an effort; but, being ignorant of its value, neither of them put forth his hand. Of all the wise people in high office in France, only one knew the priceless worth of this neglected prize — the untaught child of seventeen, Joan of Arc — and she had known it from the beginning as an essential detail of her mission. + +How did she know it? It was simple: she was a peasant. That tells the whole story. She was of the people and knew the people; those others moved in a loftier sphere and knew nothing much about them. We make little account of that vague, formless, inert mass, that mighty underlying force which we call “the people” — an epithet which carries contempt with it. It is a strange attitude; for at bottom we know that the throne which the people support stands, and that when that support is removed nothing in this world can save it. + +Now, then, consider this fact, and observe its importance. Whatever the parish priest believes his flock believes; they love him, they revere him; he is their unfailing friend, their dauntless protector, their comforter in sorrow, their helper in their day of need; he has their whole confidence; what he tells them to do, that they will do, with a blind and affectionate obedience, let it cost what it may. Add these facts thoughtfully together, and what is the sum? This: The parish priest governs the nation. What is the King, then, if the parish priest withdraws his support and deny his authority? Merely a shadow and no King; let him resign. + +Do you get that idea? Then let us proceed. A priest is consecrated to his office by the awful hand of God, laid upon him by his appointed representative on earth. That consecration is final; nothing can undo it, nothing can remove it. Neither the Pope nor any other power can strip the priest of his office; God gave it, and it is forever sacred and secure. The dull parish knows all this. To priest and parish, whatsoever is anointed of God bears an office whose authority can no longer be disputed or assailed. To the parish priest, and to his subjects the nation, an uncrowned king is a similitude of a person who has been named for holy orders but has not been consecrated; he has no office, he has not been ordained, another may be appointed to his place. In a word, an uncrowned king is a doubtful king; but if God appoint him and His servant the Bishop anoint him, the doubt is annihilated; the priest and the parish are his loyal subjects straightway, and while he lives they will recognize no king but him. + +To Joan of Arc, the peasant-girl, Charles VII. was no King until he was crowned; to her he was only the Dauphin; that is to say, the heir. If I have ever made her call him King, it was a mistake; she called him the Dauphin, and nothing else until after the Coronation. It shows you as in a mirror — for Joan was a mirror in which the lowly hosts of France were clearly reflected — that to all that vast underlying force called “the people,” he was no King but only Dauphin before his crowning, and was indisputably and irrevocably King after it. + +Now you understand what a colossal move on the political chess-board the Coronation was. Bedford realized this by and by, and tried to patch up his mistake by crowning his King; but what good could that do? None in the world. + +Speaking of chess, Joan’s great acts may be likened to that game. Each move was made in its proper order, and it as great and effective because it was made in its proper order and not out of it. Each, at the time made, seemed the greatest move; but the final result made them all recognizable as equally essential and equally important. This is the game, as played: + +1. Joan moves to Orleans and Patay — check. +2. Then moves the Reconciliation — but does not proclaim check, it being a move for position, and to take effect later. +3. Next she moves the Coronation — check. +4. Next, the Bloodless March — check. +5. Final move (after her death), the reconciled Constable Richemont to the French King’s elbow — checkmate. + +== Chapter 34 The Jests of the Burgundians + +THE CAMPAIGN of the Loire had as good as opened the road to Rheims. There was no sufficient reason now why the Coronation should not take place. The Coronation would complete the mission which Joan had received from heaven, and then she would be forever done with war, and would fly home to her mother and her sheep, and never stir from the hearthstone and happiness any more. That was her dream; and she could not rest, she was so impatient to see it fulfilled. She became so possessed with this matter that I began to lose faith in her two prophecies of her early death — and, of course, when I found that faith wavering I encouraged it to waver all the more. + +The King was afraid to start to Rheims, because the road was mile-posted with English fortresses, so to speak. Joan held them in light esteem and not things to be afraid of in the existing modified condition of English confidence. + +And she was right. As it turned out, the march to Rheims was nothing but a holiday excursion: Joan did not even take any artillery along, she was so sure it would not be necessary. We marched from Gien twelve thousand strong. This was the 29th of June. The Maid rode by the side of the King; on his other side was the Duke d’Alencon. After the duke followed three other princes of the blood. After these followed the Bastard of Orleans, the Marshal de Boussac, and the Admiral of France. After these came La Hire, Saintrailles, Tremouille, and a long procession of knights and nobles. + +We rested three days before Auxerre. The city provisioned the army, and a deputation waited upon the King, but we did not enter the place. + +Saint-Florentin opened its gates to the King. + +On the 4th of July we reached Saint-Fal, and yonder lay Troyes before us — a town which had a burning interest for us boys; for we remembered how seven years before, in the pastures of Domremy, the Sunflower came with his black flag and brought us the shameful news of the Treaty of Troyes — that treaty which gave France to England, and a daughter of our royal line in marriage to the Butcher of Agincourt. That poor town was not to blame, of course; yet we flushed hot with that old memory, and hoped there would be a misunderstanding here, for we dearly wanted to storm the place and burn it. It was powerfully garrisoned by English and Burgundian soldiery, and was expecting reinforcements from Paris. Before night we camped before its gates and made rough work with a sortie which marched out against us. + +Joan summoned Troyes to surrender. Its commandant, seeing that she had no artillery, scoffed at the idea, and sent her a grossly insulting reply. Five days we consulted and negotiated. No result. The King was about to turn back now and give up. He was afraid to go on, leaving this strong place in his rear. Then La Hire put in a word, with a slap in it for some of his Majesty’s advisers: + +“The Maid of Orleans undertook this expedition of her own motion; and it is my mind that it is her judgment that should be followed here, and not that of any other, let him be of whatsoever breed and standing he may.” + +There was wisdom and righteousness in that. So the King sent for the Maid, and asked her how she thought the prospect looked. She said, without any tone of doubt or question in her voice: + +“In three days’ time the place is ours.” + +The smug Chancellor put in a word now: + +“If we were sure of it we would wait her six days.” + +“Six days, forsooth! Name of God, man, we will enter the gates to-morrow!” + +Then she mounted, and rode her lines, crying out: + +“Make preparation — to your work, friends, to your work! We assault at dawn!” + +She worked hard that night, slaving away with her own hands like a common soldier. She ordered fascines and fagots to be prepared and thrown into the fosse, thereby to bridge it; and in this rough labor she took a man’s share. + +At dawn she took her place at the head of the storming force and the bugles blew the assault. At that moment a flag of truce was flung to the breeze from the walls, and Troyes surrendered without firing a shot. + +The next day the King with Joan at his side and the Paladin bearing her banner entered the town in state at the head of the army. And a goodly army it was now, for it had been growing ever bigger and bigger from the first. + +And now a curious thing happened. By the terms of the treaty made with the town the garrison of English and Burgundian soldiery were to be allowed to carry away their “goods” with them. This was well, for otherwise how would they buy the wherewithal to live? Very well; these people were all to go out by the one gate, and at the time set for them to depart we young fellows went to that gate, along with the Dwarf, to see the march-out. Presently here they came in an interminable file, the foot-soldiers in the lead. As they approached one could see that each bore a burden of a bulk and weight to sorely tax his strength; and we said among ourselves, truly these folk are well off for poor common soldiers. When they were come nearer, what do you think? Every rascal of them had a French prisoner on his back! They were carrying away their “goods,” you see — their property — strictly according to the permission granted by the treaty. + +Now think how clever that was, how ingenious. What could a body say? what could a body do? For certainly these people were within their right. These prisoners were property; nobody could deny that. My dears, if those had been English captives, conceive of the richness of that booty! For English prisoners had been scarce and precious for a hundred years; whereas it was a different matter with French prisoners. They had been over-abundant for a century. The possessor of a French prisoner did not hold him long for ransom, as a rule, but presently killed him to save the cost of his keep. This shows you how small was the value of such a possession in those times. When we took Troyes a calf was worth thirty francs, a sheep sixteen, a French prisoner eight. It was an enormous price for those other animals — a price which naturally seems incredible to you. It was the war, you see. It worked two ways: it made meat dear and prisoners cheap. + +Well, here were these poor Frenchmen being carried off. What could we do? Very little of a permanent sort, but we did what we could. We sent a messenger flying to Joan, and we and the French guards halted the procession for a parley — to gain time, you see. A big Burgundian lost his temper and swore a great oath that none should stop him; he would go, and would take his prisoner with him. But we blocked him off, and he saw that he was mistaken about going — he couldn’t do it. He exploded into the maddest cursings and revilings, then, and, unlashing his prisoner from his back, stood him up, all bound and helpless; then drew his knife, and said to us with a light of sarcasting triumph in his eye: + +“I may not carry him away, you say — yet he is mine, none will dispute it. Since I may not convey him hence, this property of mine, there is another way. Yes, I can kill him; not even the dullest among you will question that right. Ah, you had not thought of that — vermin!” + +That poor starved fellow begged us with his piteous eyes to save him; then spoke, and said he had a wife and little children at home. Think how it wrung our heartstrings. But what could we do? The Burgundian was within his right. We could only beg and plead for the prisoner. Which we did. And the Burgundian enjoyed it. He stayed his hand to hear more of it, and laugh at it. That stung. Then the Dwarf said: + +“Prithee, young sirs, let me beguile him; for when a matter requiring permission is to the fore, I have indeed a gift in that sort, as any will tell you that know me well. You smile; and that is punishment for my vanity; and fairly earned, I grant you. Still, if I may toy a little, just a little — ” saying which he stepped to the Burgundian and began a fair soft speech, all of goodly and gentle tenor; and in the midst he mentioned the Maid; and was going on to say how she out of her good heart would prize and praise this compassionate deed which he was about to — It was as far as he got. The Burgundian burst into his smooth oration with an insult leveled at Joan of Arc. We sprang forward, but the Dwarf, his face all livid, brushed us aside and said, in a most grave and earnest way: + +“I crave your patience. Am not I her guard of honor? This is my affair.” + +And saying this he suddenly shot his right hand out and gripped the great Burgundian by the throat, and so held him upright on his feet. “You have insulted the Maid,” he said; “and the Maid is France. The tongue that does that earns a long furlough.” + +One heard the muffled cracking of bones. The Burgundian’s eyes began to protrude from their sockets and stare with a leaden dullness at vacancy. The color deepened in his face and became an opaque purple. His hands hung down limp, his body collapsed with a shiver, every muscle relaxed its tension and ceased from its function. The Dwarf took away his hand and the column of inert mortality sank mushily to the ground. + +We struck the bonds from the prisoner and told him he was free. His crawling humbleness changed to frantic joy in a moment, and his ghastly fear to a childish rage. He flew at that dead corpse and kicked it, spat in its face, danced upon it, crammed mud into its mouth, laughing, jeering, cursing, and volleying forth indecencies and bestialities like a drunken fiend. It was a thing to be expected; soldiering makes few saints. Many of the onlookers laughed, others were indifferent, none was surprised. But presently in his mad caperings the freed man capered within reach of the waiting file, and another Burgundian promptly slipped a knife through his neck, and down he went with a death-shriek, his brilliant artery blood spurting ten feet as straight and bright as a ray of light. There was a great burst of jolly laughter all around from friend and foe alike; and thus closed one of the pleasantest incidents of my checkered military life. + +And now came Joan hurrying, and deeply troubled. She considered the claim of the garrison, then said: + +“You have right upon your side. It is plain. It was a careless word to put in the treaty, and covers too much. But ye may not take these poor men away. They are French, and I will not have it. The King shall ransom them, every one. Wait till I send you word from him; and hurt no hair of their heads; for I tell you, I who speak, that that would cost you very dear.” + +That settled it. The prisoners were safe for one while, anyway. Then she rode back eagerly and required that thing of the King, and would listen to no paltering and no excuses. So the King told her to have her way, and she rode straight back and bought the captives free in his name and let them go. + +== Chapter 35 The Heir of France is Crowned + +IT WAS here hat we saw again the Grand Master of the King’s Household, in whose castle Joan was guest when she tarried at Chinon in those first days of her coming out of her own country. She made him Bailiff of Troyes now by the King’s permission. + +And now we marched again; Chalons surrendered to us; and there by Chalons in a talk, Joan, being asked if she had no fears for the future, said yes, one — treachery. Who would believe it? who could dream it? And yet in a sense it was prophecy. Truly, man is a pitiful animal. + +We marched, marched, kept on marching; and at last, on the 16th of July, we came in sight of our goal, and saw the great cathedraled towers of Rheims rise out of the distance! Huzza after huzza swept the army from van to rear; and as for Joan of Arc, there where she sat her horse gazing, clothed all in white armor, dreamy, beautiful, and in her face a deep, deep joy, a joy not of earth, oh, she was not flesh, she was a spirit! Her sublime mission was closing — closing in flawless triumph. To-morrow she could say, “It is finished — let me go free.” + +We camped, and the hurry and rush and turmoil of the grand preparations began. The Archbishop and a great deputation arrived; and after these came flock after flock, crowd after crowd, of citizens and country-folk, hurrahing, in, with banners and music, and flowed over the camp, one rejoicing inundation after another, everybody drunk with happiness. And all night long Rheims was hard at work, hammering away, decorating the town, building triumphal arches and clothing the ancient cathedral within and without in a glory of opulent splendors. + +We moved betimes in the morning; the coronation ceremonies would begin at nine and last five hours. We were aware that the garrison of English and Burgundian soldiers had given up all thought of resisting the Maid, and that we should find the gates standing hospitably open and the whole city ready to welcome us with enthusiasm. + +It was a delicious morning, brilliant with sunshine, but cool and fresh and inspiring. The army was in great form, and fine to see, as it uncoiled from its lair fold by fold, and stretched away on the final march of the peaceful Coronation Campaign. + +Joan, on her black horse, with the Lieutenant-General and the personal staff grouped about her, took post for a final review and a good-by; for she was not expecting to ever be a soldier again, or ever serve with these or any other soldiers any more after this day. The army knew this, and believed it was looking for the last time upon the girlish face of its invincible little Chief, its pet, its pride, its darling, whom it had ennobled in its private heart with nobilities of its own creation, call her “Daughter of God,” “Savior of France,” “Victory’s Sweetheart,” “The Page of Christ,” together with still softer titles which were simply naive and frank endearments such as men are used to confer upon children whom they love. And so one saw a new thing now; a thing bred of the emotion that was present there on both sides. Always before, in the march-past, the battalions had gone swinging by in a storm of cheers, heads up and eyes flashing, the drums rolling, the bands braying paens of victory; but now there was nothing of that. But for one impressive sound, one could have closed his eyes and imagined himself in a world of the dead. That one sound was all that visited the ear in the summer stillness — just that one sound — the muffled tread of the marching host. As the serried masses drifted by, the men put their right hands up to their temples, palms to the front, in military salute, turning their eyes upon Joan’s face in mute God-bless-you and farewell, and keeping them there while they could. They still kept their hands up in reverent salute many steps after they had passed by. Every time Joan put her handkerchief to her eyes you could see a little quiver of emotion crinkle along the faces of the files. + +The march-past after a victory is a thing to drive the heart mad with jubilation; but this one was a thing to break it. + +We rode now to the King’s lodgings, which was the Archbishop’s country palace; and he was presently ready, and we galloped off and took position at the head of the army. By this time the country-people were arriving in multitudes from every direction and massing themselves on both sides of the road to get sight of Joan — just as had been done every day since our first day’s march began. Our march now lay through the grassy plain, and those peasants made a dividing double border for that plain. They stretched right down through it, a broad belt of bright colors on each side of the road; for every peasant girl and woman in it had a white jacket on her body and a crimson skirt on the rest of her. Endless borders made of poppies and lilies stretching away in front of us — that is what it looked like. And that is the kind of lane we had been marching through all these days. Not a lane between multitudinous flowers standing upright on their stems — no, these flowers were always kneeling; kneeling, these human flowers, with their hands and faces lifted toward Joan of Arc, and the grateful tears streaming down. And all along, those closest to the road hugged her feet and kissed them and laid their wet cheeks fondly against them. I never, during all those days, saw any of either sex stand while she passed, nor any man keep his head covered. Afterward in the Great Trial these touching scenes were used as a weapon against her. She had been made an object of adoration by the people, and this was proof that she was a heretic — so claimed that unjust court. + +As we drew near the city the curving long sweep of ramparts and towers was gay with fluttering flags and black with masses of people; and all the air was vibrant with the crash of artillery and gloomed with drifting clouds of smoke. We entered the gates in state and moved in procession through the city, with all the guilds and industries in holiday costume marching in our rear with their banners; and all the route was hedged with a huzzaing crush of people, and all the windows were full and all the roofs; and from the balconies hung costly stuffs of rich colors; and the waving of handkerchiefs, seen in perspective through a long vista, was like a snowstorm. + +Joan’s name had been introduced into the prayers of the Church — an honor theretofore restricted to royalty. But she had a dearer honor and an honor more to be proud of, from a humbler source: the common people had had leaden medals struck which bore her effigy and her escutcheon, and these they wore as charms. One saw them everywhere. + +From the Archbishop’s Palace, where we halted, and where the King and Joan were to lodge, the King sent to the Abbey Church of St. Remi, which was over toward the gate by which we had entered the city, for the Sainte Ampoule, or flask of holy oil. This oil was not earthly oil; it was made in heaven; the flask also. The flask, with the oil in it, was brought down from heaven by a dove. It was sent down to St. Remi just as he was going to baptize King Clovis, who had become a Christian. I know this to be true. I had known it long before; for Pere Fronte told me in Domremy. I cannot tell you how strange and awful it made me feel when I saw that flask and knew I was looking with my own eyes upon a thing which had actually been in heaven, a thing which had been seen by angels, perhaps; and by God Himself of a certainty, for He sent it. And I was looking upon it — I. At one time I could have touched it. But I was afraid; for I could not know but that God had touched it. It is most probable that He had. + +From this flask Clovis had been anointed; and from it all the kings of France had been anointed since. Yes, ever since the time of Clovis, and that was nine hundred years. And so, as I have said, that flask of holy oil was sent for, while we waited. A coronation without that would not have been a coronation at all, in my belief. + +Now in order to get the flask, a most ancient ceremonial had to be gone through with; otherwise the Abby of St. Remi hereditary guardian in perpetuity of the oil, would not deliver it. So, in accordance with custom, the King deputed five great nobles to ride in solemn state and richly armed and accoutered, they and their steeds, to the Abbey Church as a guard of honor to the Archbishop of Rheims and his canons, who were to bear the King’s demand for the oil. When the five great lords were ready to start, they knelt in a row and put up their mailed hands before their faces, palm joined to palm, and swore upon their lives to conduct the sacred vessel safely, and safely restore it again to the Church of St. Remi after the anointing of the King. The Archbishop and his subordinates, thus nobly escorted, took their way to St. Remi. The Archbishop was in grand costume, with his miter on his head and his cross in his hand. At the door of St. Remi they halted and formed, to receive the holy vial. Soon one heard the deep tones of the organ and of chanting men; then one saw a long file of lights approaching through the dim church. And so came the Abbot, in his sacerdotal panoply, bearing the vial, with his people following after. He delivered it, with solemn ceremonies, to the Archbishop; then the march back began, and it was most impressive; for it moved, the whole way, between two multitudes of men and women who lay flat upon their faces and prayed in dumb silence and in dread while that awful thing went by that had been in heaven. + +This August company arrived at the great west door of the cathedral; and as the Archbishop entered a noble anthem rose and filled the vast building. The cathedral was packed with people — people in thousands. Only a wide space down the center had been kept free. Down this space walked the Archbishop and his canons, and after them followed those five stately figures in splendid harness, each bearing his feudal banner — and riding! + +Oh, that was a magnificent thing to see. Riding down the cavernous vastness of the building through the rich lights streaming in long rays from the pictured windows — oh, there was never anything so grand! + +They rode clear to the choir — as much as four hundred feet from the door, it was said. Then the Archbishop dismissed them, and they made deep obeisance till their plumes touched their horses’ necks, then made those proud prancing and mincing and dancing creatures go backward all the way to the door — which was pretty to see, and graceful; then they stood them on their hind-feet and spun them around and plunged away and disappeared. + +For some minutes there was a deep hush, a waiting pause; a silence so profound that it was as if all those packed thousands there were steeped in dreamless slumber — why, you could even notice the faintest sounds, like the drowsy buzzing of insects; then came a mighty flood of rich strains from four hundred silver trumpets, and then, framed in the pointed archway of the great west door, appeared Joan and the King. They advanced slowly, side by side, through a tempest of welcome — explosion after explosion of cheers and cries, mingled with the deep thunders of the organ and rolling tides of triumphant song from chanting choirs. Behind Joan and the King came the Paladin and the Banner displayed; and a majestic figure he was, and most proud and lofty in his bearing, for he knew that the people were marking him and taking note of the gorgeous state dress which covered his armor. + +At his side was the Sire d’Albret, proxy for the Constable of France, bearing the Sword of State. + +After these, in order of rank, came a body royally attired representing the lay peers of France; it consisted of three princes of the blood, and La Tremouille and the young De Laval brothers. + +These were followed by the representatives of the ecclesiastical peers — the Archbishop of Rheims, and the Bishops of Laon, Chalons, Orleans, and one other. + +Behind these came the Grand Staff, all our great generals and famous names, and everybody was eager to get a sight of them. Through all the din one could hear shouts all along that told you where two of them were: “Live the Bastard of Orleans!” “Satan La Hire forever!” + +The August procession reached its appointed place in time, and the solemnities of the Coronation began. They were long and imposing — with prayers, and anthems, and sermons, and everything that is right for such occasions; and Joan was at the King’s side all these hours, with her Standard in her hand. But at last came the grand act: the King took the oath, he was anointed with the sacred oil; a splendid personage, followed by train-bearers and other attendants, approached, bearing the Crown of France upon a cushion, and kneeling offered it. The King seemed to hesitate — in fact, did hesitate; for he put out his hand and then stopped with it there in the air over the crown, the fingers in the attitude of taking hold of it. But that was for only a moment — though a moment is a notable something when it stops the heartbeat of twenty thousand people and makes them catch their breath. Yes, only a moment; then he caught Joan’s eye, and she gave him a look with all the joy of her thankful great soul in it; then he smiled, and took the Crown of France in his hand, and right finely and right royally lifted it up and set it upon his head. + +Then what a crash there was! All about us cries and cheers, and the chanting of the choirs and groaning of the organ; and outside the clamoring of the bells and the booming of the cannon. The fantastic dream, the incredible dream, the impossible dream of the peasant-child stood fulfilled; the English power was broken, the Heir of France was crowned. + +She was like one transfigured, so divine was the joy that shone in her face as she sank to her knees at the King’s feet and looked up at him through her tears. Her lips were quivering, and her words came soft and low and broken: + +“Now, O gentle King, is the pleasure of God accomplished according to His command that you should come to Rheims and receive the crown that belongeth of right to you, and unto none other. My work which was given me to do is finished; give me your peace, and let me go back to my mother, who is poor and old, and has need of me.” + +The King raised her up, and there before all that host he praised her great deeds in most noble terms; and there he confirmed her nobility and titles, making her the equal of a count in rank, and also appointed a household and officers for her according to her dignity; and then he said: + +“You have saved the crown. Speak — require — demand; and whatsoever grace you ask it shall be granted, though it make the kingdom poor to meet it.” + +Now that was fine, that was royal. Joan was on her knees again straightway, and said: + +“Then, O gentle King, if out of your compassion you will speak the word, I pray you give commandment that my village, poor and hard pressed by reason of war, may have its taxes remitted.” + +“It is so commanded. Say on.” + +“That is all.” + +“All? Nothing but that?” + +“It is all. I have no other desire.” + +“But that is nothing — less than nothing. Ask — do not be afraid.” + +“Indeed, I cannot, gentle King. Do not press me. I will not have aught else, but only this alone.” + +The King seemed nonplussed, and stood still a moment, as if trying to comprehend and realize the full stature of this strange unselfishness. Then he raised his head and said: + +“Who has won a kingdom and crowned its King; and all she asks and all she will take is this poor grace — and even this is for others, not for herself. And it is well; her act being proportioned to the dignity of one who carries in her head and heart riches which outvalue any that any King could add, though he gave his all. She shall have her way. Now, therefore, it is decreed that from this day forth Domremy, natal village of Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France, called the Maid of Orleans, is freed from all taxation forever.” Whereat the silver horns blew a jubilant blast. + +There, you see, she had had a vision of this very scene the time she was in a trance in the pastures of Domremy and we asked her to name to boon she would demand of the King if he should ever chance to tell her she might claim one. But whether she had the vision or not, this act showed that after all the dizzy grandeurs that had come upon her, she was still the same simple, unselfish creature that she was that day. + +Yes, Charles VII. remitted those taxes “forever.” Often the gratitude of kings and nations fades and their promises are forgotten or deliberately violated; but you, who are children of France, should remember with pride that France has kept this one faithfully. Sixty-three years have gone by since that day. The taxes of the region wherein Domremy lies have been collected sixty-three times since then, and all the villages of that region have paid except that one — Domremy. The tax-gatherer never visits Domremy. Domremy has long ago forgotten what that dread sorrow-sowing apparition is like. Sixty-three tax-books have been filed meantime, and they lie yonder with the other public records, and any may see them that desire it. At the top of every page in the sixty-three books stands the name of a village, and below that name its weary burden of taxation is figured out and displayed; in the case of all save one. It is true, just as I tell you. In each of the sixty-three books there is a page headed “Domremi,” but under that name not a figure appears. Where the figures should be, there are three words written; and the same words have been written every year for all these years; yes, it is a blank page, with always those grateful words lettered across the face of it — a touching memorial. Thus: + +[%hardbreaks] +.... +DOMREMI +RIEN — LA PUCELLE +.... + +“NOTHING — THE MAID OF ORLEANS.” How brief it is; yet how much it says! It is the nation speaking. You have the spectacle of that unsentimental thing, a Government, making reverence to that name and saying to its agent, “Uncover, and pass on; it is France that commands.” Yes, the promise has been kept; it will be kept always; “forever” was the King’s word. At two o’clock in the afternoon the ceremonies of the Coronation came at last to an end; then the procession formed once more, with Joan and the King at its head, and took up its solemn march through the midst of the church, all instruments and all people making such clamor of rejoicing noises as was, indeed, a marvel to hear. An so ended the third of the great days of Joan’s life. And how close together they stand — May 8th, June 18th, July 17th! + +[INFO] +==== +It was faithfully kept during three hundred and sixty years and more; then the over-confident octogenarian’s prophecy failed. During the tumult of the French Revolution the promise was forgotten and the grace withdrawn. It has remained in disuse ever since. Joan never asked to be remembered, but France has remembered her with an inextinguishable love and reverence; Joan never asked for a statue, but France has lavished them upon her; Joan never asked for a church for Domremy, but France is building one; Joan never asked for saintship, but even that is impending. Everything which Joan of Arc did not ask for has been given her, and with a noble profusion; but the one humble little thing which she did ask for and get has been taken away from her. There is something infinitely pathetic about this. France owes Domremy a hundred years of taxes, and could hardly find a citizen within her borders who would vote against the payment of the debt. — TRANSLATOR +==== + +== Chapter 36 Joan Hears News from Home + +image::https://i.nostr.build/1gWauEtXclP6Zpq6.jpg[0361, 300] + + +WE MOUNTED and rode, a spectacle to remember, a most noble display of rich vestments and nodding plumes, and as we moved between the banked multitudes they sank down all along abreast of us as we advanced, like grain before the reaper, and kneeling hailed with a rousing welcome the consecrated King and his companion the Deliverer of France. But by and by when we had paraded about the chief parts of the city and were come near to the end of our course, we being now approaching the Archbishop’s palace, one saw on the right, hard by the inn that is called the Zebra, a strange thing — two men not kneeling but standing! Standing in the front rank of the kneelers; unconscious, transfixed, staring. Yes, and clothed in the coarse garb of the peasantry, these two. Two halberdiers sprang at them in a fury to teach them better manners; but just as they seized them Joan cried out “Forbear!” and slid from her saddle and flung her arms about one of those peasants, calling him by all manner of endearing names, and sobbing. For it was her father; and the other was her uncle, Laxart. + +The news flew everywhere, and shouts of welcome were raised, and in just one little moment those two despised and unknown plebeians were become famous and popular and envied, and everybody was in a fever to get sight of them and be able to say, all their lives long, that they had seen the father of Joan of Arc and the brother of her mother. How easy it was for her to do miracles like to this! She was like the sun; on whatsoever dim and humble object her rays fell, that thing was straightway drowned in glory. + +All graciously the King said: + +“Bring them to me.” + +And she brought them; she radiant with happiness and affection, they trembling and scared, with their caps in their shaking hands; and there before all the world the King gave them his hand to kiss, while the people gazed in envy and admiration; and he said to old D’Arc: + +“Give God thanks for that you are father to this child, this dispenser of immortalities. You who bear a name that will still live in the mouths of men when all the race of kings has been forgotten, it is not meet that you bare your head before the fleeting fames and dignities of a day — cover yourself!” And truly he looked right fine and princely when he said that. Then he gave order that the Bailly of Rheims be brought; and when he was come, and stood bent low and bare, the King said to him, “These two are guests of France;” and bade him use them hospitably. + +I may as well say now as later, that Papa D’Arc and Laxart were stopping in that little Zebra inn, and that there they remained. Finer quarters were offered them by the Bailly, also public distinctions and brave entertainment; but they were frightened at these projects, they being only humble and ignorant peasants; so they begged off, and had peace. They could not have enjoyed such things. Poor souls, they did not even know what to do with their hands, and it took all their attention to keep from treading on them. The Bailly did the best he could in the circumstances. He made the innkeeper place a whole floor at their disposal, and told him to provide everything they might desire, and charge all to the city. Also the Bailly gave them a horse apiece and furnishings; which so overwhelmed them with pride and delight and astonishment that they couldn’t speak a word; for in their lives they had never dreamed of wealth like this, and could not believe, at first, that the horses were real and would not dissolve to a mist and blow away. They could not unglue their minds from those grandeurs, and were always wrenching the conversation out of its groove and dragging the matter of animals into it, so that they could say “my horse” here, and “my horse” there and yonder and all around, and taste the words and lick their chops over them, and spread their legs and hitch their thumbs in their armpits, and feel as the good God feels when He looks out on His fleets of constellations plowing the awful deeps of space and reflects with satisfaction that they are His — all His. Well, they were the happiest old children one ever saw, and the simplest. + +The city gave a grand banquet to the King and Joan in mid-afternoon, and to the Court and the Grand Staff; and about the middle of it Pere D’Arc and Laxart were sent for, but would not venture until it was promised that they might sit in a gallery and be all by themselves and see all that was to be seen and yet be unmolested. And so they sat there and looked down upon the splendid spectacle, and were moved till the tears ran down their cheeks to see the unbelievable honors that were paid to their small darling, and how naively serene and unafraid she sat there with those consuming glories beating upon her. + +But at last her serenity was broken up. Yes, it stood the strain of the King’s gracious speech; and of D’Alencon’s praiseful words, and the Bastard’s; and even La Hire’s thunder-blast, which took the place by storm; but at last, as I have said, they brought a force to bear which was too strong for her. For at the close the King put up his hand to command silence, and so waited, with his hand up, till every sound was dead and it was as if one could almost the stillness, so profound it was. Then out of some remote corner of that vast place there rose a plaintive voice, and in tones most tender and sweet and rich came floating through that enchanted hush our poor old simple song “L’Arbre Fee Bourlemont!” and then Joan broke down and put her face in her hands and cried. Yes, you see, all in a moment the pomps and grandeurs dissolved away and she was a little child again herding her sheep with the tranquil pastures stretched about her, and war and wounds and blood and death and the mad frenzy and turmoil of battle a dream. Ah, that shows you the power of music, that magician of magicians, who lifts his wand and says his mysterious word and all things real pass away and the phantoms of your mind walk before you clothed in flesh. + +That was the King’s invention, that sweet and dear surprise. Indeed, he had fine things hidden away in his nature, though one seldom got a glimpse of them, with that scheming Tremouille and those others always standing in the light, and he so indolently content to save himself fuss and argument and let them have their way. + +At the fall of night we the Domremy contingent of the personal staff were with the father and uncle at the inn, in their private parlor, brewing generous drinks and breaking ground for a homely talk about Domremy and the neighbors, when a large parcel arrived from Joan to be kept till she came; and soon she came herself and sent her guard away, saying she would take one of her father’s rooms and sleep under his roof, and so be at home again. We of the staff rose and stood, as was meet, until she made us sit. Then she turned and saw that the two old men had gotten up too, and were standing in an embarrassed and unmilitary way; which made her want to laugh, but she kept it in, as not wishing to hurt them; and got them to their seats and snuggled down between them, and took a hand of each of them upon her knees and nestled her own hands in them, and said: + +“Now we will nave no more ceremony, but be kin and playmates as in other times; for I am done with the great wars now, and you two will take me home with you, and I shall see — ” She stopped, and for a moment her happy face sobered, as if a doubt or a presentiment had flitted through her mind; then it cleared again, and she said, with a passionate yearning, “Oh, if the day were but come and we could start!” + +The old father was surprised, and said: + +“Why, child, are you in earnest? Would you leave doing these wonders that make you to be praised by everybody while there is still so much glory to be won; and would you go out from this grand comradeship with princes and generals to be a drudging villager again and a nobody? It is not rational.” + +“No,” said the uncle, Laxart, “it is amazing to hear, and indeed not understandable. It is a stranger thing to hear her say she will stop the soldiering that it was to hear her say she would begin it; and I who speak to you can say in all truth that that was the strangest word that ever I had heard till this day and hour. I would it could be explained.” + +“It is not difficult,” said Joan. “I was not ever fond of wounds and suffering, nor fitted by my nature to inflict them; and quarrelings did always distress me, and noise and tumult were against my liking, my disposition being toward peace and quietness, and love for all things that have life; and being made like this, how could I bear to think of wars and blood, and the pain that goes with them, and the sorrow and mourning that follow after? But by his angels God laid His great commands upon me, and could I disobey? I did as I was bid. Did He command me to do many things? No; only two: to raise the siege of Orleans, and crown the King at Rheims. The task is finished, and I am free. Has ever a poor soldier fallen in my sight, whether friend or foe, and I not felt the pain in my own body, and the grief of his home-mates in my own heart? No, not one; and, oh, it is such bliss to know that my release is won, and that I shall not any more see these cruel things or suffer these tortures of the mind again! Then why should I not go to my village and be as I was before? It is heaven! and ye wonder that I desire it. Ah, ye are men — just men! My mother would understand.” + +They didn’t quite know what to say; so they sat still awhile, looking pretty vacant. Then old D’Arc said: + +“Yes, your mother — that is true. I never saw such a woman. She worries, and worries, and worries; and wakes nights, and lies so, thinking — that is, worrying; worrying about you. And when the night storms go raging along, she moans and says, ‘Ah, God pity her, she is out in this with her poor wet soldiers.’ And when the lightning glares and the thunder crashes she wrings her hands and trembles, saying, ‘It is like the awful cannon and the flash, and yonder somewhere she is riding down upon the spouting guns and I not there to protect her.” + +“Ah, poor mother, it is pity, it is pity!” + +“Yes, a most strange woman, as I have noticed a many times. When there is news of a victory and all the village goes mad with pride and joy, she rushes here and there in a maniacal frenzy till she finds out the one only thing she cares to know — that you are safe; then down she goes on her knees in the dirt and praises God as long as there is any breath left in her body; and all on your account, for she never mentions the battle once. And always she says, ‘Now it is over — now France is saved — now she will come home’ — and always is disappointed and goes about mourning.” + +“Don’t, father! it breaks my heart. I will be so good to her when I get home. I will do her work for her, and be her comfort, and she shall not suffer any more through me.” + +There was some more talk of this sort, then Uncle Laxart said: + +“You have done the will of God, dear, and are quits; it is true, and none may deny it; but what of the King? You are his best soldier; what if he command you to stay?” + +That was a crusher — and sudden! It took Joan a moment or two to recover from the shock of it; then she said, quite simply and resignedly: + +“The King is my Lord; I am his servant.” She was silent and thoughtful a little while, then she brightened up and said, cheerily, “But let us drive such thoughts away — this is no time for them. Tell me about home.” + +So the two old gossips talked and talked; talked about everything and everybody in the village; and it was good to hear. Joan out of her kindness tried to get us into the conversation, but that failed, of course. She was the Commander-in-Chief, we were nobodies; her name was the mightiest in France, we were invisible atoms; she was the comrade of princes and heroes, we of the humble and obscure; she held rank above all Personages and all Puissances whatsoever in the whole earth, by right of baring her commission direct from God. To put it in one word, she was JOAN OF ARC — and when that is said, all is said. To us she was divine. Between her and us lay the bridgeless abyss which that word implies. We could not be familiar with her. No, you can see yourselves that that would have been impossible. + +And yet she was so human, too, and so good and kind and dear and loving and cheery and charming and unspoiled and unaffected! Those are all the words I think of now, but they are not enough; no, they are too few and colorless and meager to tell it all, or tell the half. Those simple old men didn’t realize her; they couldn’t; they had never known any people but human beings, and so they had no other standard to measure her by. To them, after their first little shyness had worn off, she was just a girl — that was all. It was amazing. It made one shiver, sometimes, to see how calm and easy and comfortable they were in her presence, and hear them talk to her exactly as they would have talked to any other girl in France. + +Why, that simple old Laxart sat up there and droned out the most tedious and empty tale one ever heard, and neither he nor Papa D’Arc ever gave a thought to the badness of the etiquette of it, or ever suspected that that foolish tale was anything but dignified and valuable history. There was not an atom of value in it; and whilst they thought it distressing and pathetic, it was in fact not pathetic at all, but actually ridiculous. At least it seemed so to me, and it seems so yet. Indeed, I know it was, because it made Joan laugh; and the more sorrowful it got the more it made her laugh; and the Paladin said that he could have laughed himself if she had not been there, and Noel Rainguesson said the same. It was about old Laxart going to a funeral there at Domremy two or three weeks back. He had spots all over his face and hands, and he got Joan to rub some healing ointment on them, and while she was doing it, and comforting him, and trying to say pitying things to him, he told her how it happened. And first he asked her if she remembered that black bull calf that she left behind when she came away, and she said indeed she did, and he was a dear, and she loved him so, and was he well? — and just drowned him in questions about that creature. And he said it was a young bull now, and very frisky; and he was to bear a principal hand at a funeral; and she said, “The bull?” and he said, “No, myself”; but said the bull did take a hand, but not because of his being invited, for he wasn’t; but anyway he was away over beyond the Fairy Tree, and fell asleep on the grass with his Sunday funeral clothes on, and a long black rag on his hat and hanging down his back; and when he woke he saw by the sun how late it was, and not a moment to lose; and jumped up terribly worried, and saw the young bull grazing there, and thought maybe he could ride part way on him and gain time; so he tied a rope around the bull’s body to hold on by, and put a halter on him to steer with, and jumped on and started; but it was all new to the bull, and he was discontented with it, and scurried around and bellowed and reared and pranced, and Uncle Laxart was satisfied, and wanted to get off and go by the next bull or some other way that was quieter, but he didn’t dare try; and it was getting very warm for him, too, and disturbing and wearisome, and not proper for Sunday; but by and by the bull lost all his temper, and went tearing down the slope with his tail in the air and blowing in the most awful way; and just in the edge of the village he knocked down some beehives, and the bees turned out and joined the excursion, and soared along in a black cloud that nearly hid those other two from sight, and prodded them both, and jabbed them and speared them and spiked them, and made them bellow and shriek, and shriek and bellow; and here they came roaring through the village like a hurricane, and took the funeral procession right in the center, and sent that section of it sprawling, and galloped over it, and the rest scattered apart and fled screeching in every direction, every person with a layer of bees on him, and not a rag of that funeral left but the corpse; and finally the bull broke for the river and jumped in, and when they fished Uncle Laxart out he was nearly drowned, and his face looked like a pudding with raisins in it. And then he turned around, this old simpleton, and looked a long time in a dazed way at Joan where she had her face in a cushion, dying, apparently, and says: + +“What do you reckon she is laughing at?” + +And old D’Arc stood looking at her the same way, sort of absently scratching his head; but had to give it up, and said he didn’t know — “must have been something that happened when we weren’t noticing.” + +Yes, both of those old people thought that that tale was pathetic; whereas to my mind it was purely ridiculous, and not in any way valuable to any one. It seemed so to me then, and it seems so to me yet. And as for history, it does not resemble history; for the office of history is to furnish serious and important facts that teach; whereas this strange and useless event teaches nothing; nothing that I can see, except not to ride a bull to a funeral; and surely no reflecting person needs to be taught that. + +== Chapter 37 Again to Arms + +NOW THESE were nobles, you know, by decree of the King! — these precious old infants. But they did not realize it; they could not be called conscious of it; it was an abstraction, a phantom; to them it had no substance; their minds could not take hold of it. No, they did not bother about their nobility; they lived in their horses. The horses were solid; they were visible facts, and would make a mighty stir in Domremy. Presently something was said about the Coronation, and old D’Arc said it was going to be a grand thing to be able to say, when they got home, that they were present in the very town itself when it happened. Joan looked troubled, and said: + +“Ah, that reminds me. You were here and you didn’t send me word. In the town, indeed! Why, you could have sat with the other nobles, and been welcome; and could have looked upon the crowning itself, and carried that home to tell. Ah, why did you use me so, and send me no word?” + +The old father was embarrassed, now, quite visibly embarrassed, and had the air of one who does not quite know what to say. But Joan was looking up in his face, her hands upon his shoulders — waiting. He had to speak; so presently he drew her to his breast, which was heaving with emotion; and he said, getting out his words with difficulty: + +“There, hide your face, child, and let your old father humble himself and make his confession. I — I — don’t you see, don’t you understand? — I could not know that these grandeurs would not turn your young head — it would be only natural. I might shame you before these great per — ” + +“Father!” + +“And then I was afraid, as remembering that cruel thing I said once in my sinful anger. Oh, appointed of God to be a soldier, and the greatest in the land! and in my ignorant anger I said I would drown you with my own hands if you unsexed yourself and brought shame to your name and family. Ah, how could I ever have said it, and you so good and dear and innocent! I was afraid; for I was guilty. You understand it now, my child, and you forgive?” + +Do you see? Even that poor groping old land-crab, with his skull full of pulp, had pride. Isn’t it wonderful? And more — he had conscience; he had a sense of right and wrong, such as it was; he was able to find remorse. It looks impossible, it looks incredible, but it is not. I believe that some day it will be found out that peasants are people. Yes, beings in a great many respects like ourselves. And I believe that some day they will find this out, too — and then! Well, then I think they will rise up and demand to be regarded as part of the race, and that by consequence there will be trouble. Whenever one sees in a book or in a king’s proclamation those words “the nation,” they bring before us the upper classes; only those; we know no other “nation”; for us and the kings no other “nation” exists. But from the day that I saw old D’Arc the peasant acting and feeling just as I should have acted and felt myself, I have carried the conviction in my heart that our peasants are not merely animals, beasts of burden put here by the good God to produce food and comfort for the “nation,” but something more and better. You look incredulous. Well, that is your training; it is the training of everybody; but as for me, I thank that incident for giving me a better light, and I have never forgotten it. + +Let me see — where was I? One’s mind wanders around here and there and yonder, when one is old. I think I said Joan comforted him. Certainly, that is what she would do — there was no need to say that. She coaxed him and petted him and caressed him, and laid the memory of that old hard speech of his to rest. Laid it to rest until she should be dead. Then he would remember it again — yes, yes! Lord, how those things sting, and burn, and gnaw — the things which we did against the innocent dead! And we say in our anguish, “If they could only come back!” Which is all very well to say, but, as far as I can see, it doesn’t profit anything. In my opinion the best way is not to do the thing in the first place. And I am not alone in this; I have heard our two knights say the same thing; and a man there in Orleans — no, I believe it was at Beaugency, or one of those places — it seems more as if it was at Beaugency than the others — this man said the same thing exactly; almost the same words; a dark man with a cast in his eye and one leg shorter than the other. His name was — was — it is singular that I can’t call that man’s name; I had it in my mind only a moment ago, and I know it begins with — no, I don’t remember what it begins with; but never mind, let it go; I will think of it presently, and then I will tell you. + +Well, pretty soon the old father wanted to know how Joan felt when she was in the thick of a battle, with the bright blades hacking and flashing all around her, and the blows rapping and slatting on her shield, and blood gushing on her from the cloven ghastly face and broken teeth of the neighbor at her elbow, and the perilous sudden back surge of massed horses upon a person when the front ranks give way before a heavy rush of the enemy, and men tumble limp and groaning out of saddles all around, and battle-flags falling from dead hands wipe across one’s face and hide the tossing turmoil a moment, and in the reeling and swaying and laboring jumble one’s horse’s hoofs sink into soft substances and shrieks of pain respond, and presently — panic! rush! swarm! flight! and death and hell following after! And the old fellow got ever so much excited; and strode up and down, his tongue going like a mill, asking question after question and never waiting for an answer; and finally he stood Joan up in the middle of the room and stepped off and scanned her critically, and said: + +“No — I don’t understand it. You are so little. So little and slender. When you had your armor on, to-day, it gave one a sort of notion of it; but in these pretty silks and velvets, you are only a dainty page, not a league-striding war-colossus, moving in clouds and darkness and breathing smoke and thunder. I would God I might see you at it and go tell your mother! That would help her sleep, poor thing! Here — teach me the arts of the soldier, that I may explain them to her.” + +And she did it. She gave him a pike, and put him through the manual of arms; and made him do the steps, too. His marching was incredibly awkward and slovenly, and so was his drill with the pike; but he didn’t know it, and was wonderfully pleased with himself, and mightily excited and charmed with the ringing, crisp words of command. I am obliged to say that if looking proud and happy when one is marching were sufficient, he would have been the perfect soldier. + +And he wanted a lesson in sword-play, and got it. But of course that was beyond him; he was too old. It was beautiful to see Joan handle the foils, but the old man was a bad failure. He was afraid of the things, and skipped and dodged and scrambled around like a woman who has lost her mind on account of the arrival of a bat. He was of no good as an exhibition. But if La Hire had only come in, that would have been another matter. Those two fenced often; I saw them many times. True, Joan was easily his master, but it made a good show for all that, for La Hire was a grand swordsman. What a swift creature Joan was! You would see her standing erect with her ankle-bones together and her foil arched over her head, the hilt in one hand and the button in the other — the old general opposite, bent forward, left hand reposing on his back, his foil advanced, slightly wiggling and squirming, his watching eye boring straight into hers — and all of a sudden she would give a spring forward, and back again; and there she was, with the foil arched over her head as before. La Hire had been hit, but all that the spectator saw of it was a something like a thin flash of light in the air, but nothing distinct, nothing definite. + +We kept the drinkables moving, for that would please the Bailly and the landlord; and old Laxart and D’Arc got to feeling quite comfortable, but without being what you could call tipsy. They got out the presents which they had been buying to carry home — humble things and cheap, but they would be fine there, and welcome. And they gave to Joan a present from Pere Fronte and one from her mother — the one a little leaden image of the Holy Virgin, the other half a yard of blue silk ribbon; and she was as pleased as a child; and touched, too, as one could see plainly enough. Yes, she kissed those poor things over and over again, as if they had been something costly and wonderful; and she pinned the Virgin on her doublet, and sent for her helmet and tied the ribbon on that; first one way, then another; then a new way, then another new way; and with each effort perching the helmet on her hand and holding it off this way and that, and canting her head to one side and then the other, examining the effect, as a bird does when it has got a new bug. And she said she could almost wish she was going to the wars again; for then she would fight with the better courage, as having always with her something which her mother’s touch had blessed. + +Old Laxart said he hoped she would go to the wars again, but home first, for that all the people there were cruel anxious to see her — and so he went on: + +“They are proud of you, dear. Yes, prouder than any village ever was of anybody before. And indeed it is right and rational; for it is the first time a village has ever had anybody like you to be proud of and call its own. And it is strange and beautiful how they try to give your name to every creature that has a sex that is convenient. It is but half a year since you began to be spoken of and left us, and so it is surprising to see how many babies there are already in that region that are named for you. First it was just Joan; then it was Joan-Orleans; then Joan-Orleans-Beaugency-Patay; and now the next ones will have a lot of towns and the Coronation added, of course. Yes, and the animals the same. They know how you love animals, and so they try to do you honor and show their love for you by naming all those creatures after you; insomuch that if a body should step out and call ‘Joan of Arc — come!’ there would be a landslide of cats and all such things, each supposing it was the one wanted, and all willing to take the benefit of the doubt, anyway, for the sake of the food that might be on delivery. The kitten you left behind — the last stray you fetched home — bears you name, now, and belongs to Pere Fronte, and is the pet and pride of the village; and people have come miles to look at it and pet it and stare at it and wonder over it because it was Joan of Arc’s cat. Everybody will tell you that; and one day when a stranger threw a stone at it, not knowing it was your cat, the village rose against him as one man and hanged him! And but for Pere Fronte — ” + +There was an interruption. It was a messenger from the King, bearing a note for Joan, which I read to her, saying he had reflected, and had consulted his other generals, and was obliged to ask her to remain at the head of the army and withdraw her resignation. Also, would she come immediately and attend a council of war? Straightway, at a little distance, military commands and the rumble of drums broke on the still night, and we knew that her guard was approaching. + +Deep disappointment clouded her face for just one moment and no more — it passed, and with it the homesick girl, and she was Joan of Arc, Commander-in-Chief again, and ready for duty. + +== Chapter 38 The King Cries “Forward!” + +IN MY double quality of page and secretary I followed Joan to the council. She entered that presence with the bearing of a grieved goddess. What was become of the volatile child that so lately was enchanted with a ribbon and suffocated with laughter over the distress of a foolish peasant who had stormed a funeral on the back of a bee-stung bull? One may not guess. Simply it was gone, and had left no sign. She moved straight to the council-table, and stood. Her glance swept from face to face there, and where it fell, these lit it as with a torch, those it scorched as with a brand. She knew where to strike. She indicated the generals with a nod, and said: + +“My business is not with you. You have not craved a council of war.” Then she turned toward the King’s privy council, and continued: “No; it is with you. A council of war! It is amazing. There is but one thing to do, and only one, and lo, ye call a council of war! Councils of war have no value but to decide between two or several doubtful courses. But a council of war when there is only one course? Conceive of a man in a boat and his family in the water, and he goes out among his friends to ask what he would better do? A council of war, name of God! To determine what?” + +She stopped, and turned till her eyes rested upon the face of La Tremouille; and so she stood, silent, measuring him, the excitement in all faces burning steadily higher and higher, and all pulses beating faster and faster; then she said, with deliberation: + +“Every sane man — whose loyalty is to his King and not a show and a pretense — knows that there is but one rational thing before us — the march upon Paris!” + +Down came the fist of La Hire with an approving crash upon the table. La Tremouille turned white with anger, but he pulled himself firmly together and held his peace. The King’s lazy blood was stirred and his eye kindled finely, for the spirit of war was away down in him somewhere, and a frank, bold speech always found it and made it tingle gladsomely. Joan waited to see if the chief minister might wish to defend his position; but he was experienced and wise, and not a man to waste his forces where the current was against him. He would wait; the King’s private ear would be at his disposal by and by. + +That pious fox the Chancellor of France took the word now. He washed his soft hands together, smiling persuasively, and said to Joan: + +“Would it be courteous, your Excellency, to move abruptly from here without waiting for an answer from the Duke of Burgundy? You may not know that we are negotiating with his Highness, and that there is likely to be a fortnight’s truce between us; and on his part a pledge to deliver Paris into our hands without the cost of a blow or the fatigue of a march thither.” + +Joan turned to him and said, gravely: + +“This is not a confessional, my lord. You were not obliged to expose that shame here.” + +The Chancellor’s face reddened, and he retorted: + +“Shame? What is there shameful about it?” + +Joan answered in level, passionless tones: + +“One may describe it without hunting far for words. I knew of this poor comedy, my lord, although it was not intended that I should know. It is to the credit of the devisers of it that they tried to conceal it — this comedy whose text and impulse are describable in two words.” + +The Chancellor spoke up with a fine irony in his manner: + +“Indeed? And will your Excellency be good enough to utter them?” + +“Cowardice and treachery!” + +The fists of all the generals came down this time, and again the King’s eye sparkled with pleasure. The Chancellor sprang to his feet and appealed to his Majesty: + +“Sire, I claim your protection.” + +But the King waved him to his seat again, saying: + +“Peace. She had a right to be consulted before that thing was undertaken, since it concerned war as well as politics. It is but just that she be heard upon it now.” + +The Chancellor sat down trembling with indignation, and remarked to Joan: + +“Out of charity I will consider that you did not know who devised this measure which you condemn in so candid language.” + +“Save your charity for another occasion, my lord,” said Joan, as calmly as before. “Whenever anything is done to injure the interests and degrade the honor of France, all but the dead know how to name the two conspirators-in-chief — ” + +“Sir, sire! this insinuation — ” + +“It is not an insinuation, my lord,” said Joan, placidly, “it is a charge. I bring it against the King’s chief minister and his Chancellor.” + +Both men were on their feet now, insisting that the King modify Joan’s frankness; but he was not minded to do it. His ordinary councils were stale water — his spirit was drinking wine, now, and the taste of it was good. He said: + +“Sit — and be patient. What is fair for one must in fairness be allowed the other. Consider — and be just. When have you two spared her? What dark charges and harsh names have you withheld when you spoke of her?” Then he added, with a veiled twinkle in his eyes, “If these are offenses I see no particular difference between them, except that she says her hard things to your faces, whereas you say yours behind her back.” + +He was pleased with that neat shot and the way it shriveled those two people up, and made La Hire laugh out loud and the other generals softly quake and chuckle. Joan tranquilly resumed: + +“From the first, we have been hindered by this policy of shilly-shally; this fashion of counseling and counseling and counseling where no counseling is needed, but only fighting. We took Orleans on the 8th of May, and could have cleared the region round about in three days and saved the slaughter of Patay. We could have been in Rheims six weeks ago, and in Paris now; and would see the last Englishman pass out of France in half a year. But we struck no blow after Orleans, but went off into the country — what for? Ostensibly to hold councils; really to give Bedford time to send reinforcements to Talbot — which he did; and Patay had to be fought. After Patay, more counseling, more waste of precious time. Oh, my King, I would that you would be persuaded!” She began to warm up, now. “Once more we have our opportunity. If we rise and strike, all is well. Bid me march upon Paris. In twenty days it shall be yours, and in six months all France! Here is half a year’s work before us; if this chance be wasted, I give you twenty years to do it in. Speak the word, O gentle King — speak but the one — ” + +“I cry you mercy!” interrupted the Chancellor, who saw a dangerous enthusiasm rising in the King’s face. “March upon Paris? Does your Excellency forget that the way bristles with English strongholds?” + +“That for your English strongholds!” and Joan snapped her fingers scornfully. “Whence have we marched in these last days? From Gien. And whither? To Rheims. What bristled between? English strongholds. What are they now? French ones — and they never cost a blow!” Here applause broke out from the group of generals, and Joan had to pause a moment to let it subside. “Yes, English strongholds bristled before us; now French ones bristle behind us. What is the argument? A child can read it. The strongholds between us and Paris are garrisoned by no new breed of English, but by the same breed as those others — with the same fears, the same questionings, the same weaknesses, the same disposition to see the heavy hand of God descending upon them. We have but to march! — on the instant — and they are ours, Paris is ours, France is ours! Give the word, O my King, command your servant to — ” + +“Stay!” cried the Chancellor. “It would be madness to put our affront upon his Highness the Duke of Burgundy. By the treaty which we have every hope to make with him — ” + +“Oh, the treaty which we hope to make with him! He has scorned you for years, and defied you. Is it your subtle persuasions that have softened his manners and beguiled him to listen to proposals? No; it was blows! — the blows which we gave him! That is the only teaching that that sturdy rebel can understand. What does he care for wind? The treaty which we hope to make with him — alack! He deliver Paris! There is no pauper in the land that is less able to do it. He deliver Paris! Ah, but that would make great Bedford smile! Oh, the pitiful pretext! the blind can see that this thin pour-parler with its fifteen-day truce has no purpose but to give Bedford time to hurry forward his forces against us. More treachery — always treachery! We call a council of war — with nothing to council about; but Bedford calls no council to teach him what our course is. He knows what he would do in our place. He would hang his traitors and march upon Paris! O gentle King, rouse! The way is open, Paris beckons, France implores, Speak and we — ” + +“Sire, it is madness, sheer madness! Your Excellency, we cannot, we must not go back from what we have done; we have proposed to treat, we must treat with the Duke of Burgundy.” + +“And we will!” said Joan. + +“Ah? How?” + +“At the point of the lance!” + +The house rose, to a man — all that had French hearts — and let go a crack of applause — and kept it up; and in the midst of it one heard La Hire growl out: “At the point of the lance! By God, that is music!” The King was up, too, and drew his sword, and took it by the blade and strode to Joan and delivered the hilt of it into her hand, saying: + +“There, the King surrenders. Carry it to Paris.” + +And so the applause burst out again, and the historical council of war that has bred so many legends was over. + +== Chapter 39 We Win, But the King Balks + +image::https://i.nostr.build/Wx6UGJio8O4B0H7n.jpg[0375, 300] + + +IT WAS away past midnight, and had been a tremendous day in the matter of excitement and fatigue, but that was no matter to Joan when there was business on hand. She did not think of bed. The generals followed her to her official quarters, and she delivered her orders to them as fast as she could talk, and they sent them off to their different commands as fast as delivered; wherefore the messengers galloping hither and thither raised a world of clatter and racket in the still streets; and soon were added to this the music of distant bugles and the roll of drums — notes of preparation; for the vanguard would break camp at dawn. + +The generals were soon dismissed, but I wasn’t; nor Joan; for it was my turn to work, now. Joan walked the floor and dictated a summons to the Duke of Burgundy to lay down his arms and make peace and exchange pardons with the King; or, if he must fight, go fight the Saracens. “Pardonnez-vous l’un — l’autre de bon coeligeur, entierement, ainsi que doivent faire loyaux chretiens, et, s’il vous plait de guerroyer, allez contre les Sarrasins.” It was long, but it was good, and had the sterling ring to it. It is my opinion that it was as fine and simple and straightforward and eloquent a state paper as she ever uttered. + +It was delivered into the hands of a courier, and he galloped away with it. The Joan dismissed me, and told me to go to the inn and stay, and in the morning give to her father the parcel which she had left there. It contained presents for the Domremy relatives and friends and a peasant dress which she had bought for herself. She said she would say good-by to her father and uncle in the morning if it should still be their purpose to go, instead of tarrying awhile to see the city. + +I didn’t say anything, of course, but I could have said that wild horses couldn’t keep those men in that town half a day. They waste the glory of being the first to carry the great news to Domremy — the taxes remitted forever! — and hear the bells clang and clatter, and the people cheer and shout? Oh, not they. Patay and Orleans and the Coronation were events which in a vague way these men understood to be colossal; but they were colossal mists, films, abstractions; this was a gigantic reality! + +When I got there, do you suppose they were abed! Quite the reverse. They and the rest were as mellow as mellow could be; and the Paladin was doing his battles in great style, and the old peasants were endangering the building with their applause. He was doing Patay now; and was bending his big frame forward and laying out the positions and movements with a rake here and a rake there of his formidable sword on the floor, and the peasants were stooped over with their hands on their spread knees observing with excited eyes and ripping out ejaculations of wonder and admiration all along: + +“Yes, here we were, waiting — waiting for the word; our horses fidgeting and snorting and dancing to get away, we lying back on the bridles till our bodies fairly slanted to the rear; the word rang out at last — ‘Go!’ and we went! + +“Went? There was nothing like it ever seen! Where we swept by squads of scampering English, the mere wind of our passage laid them flat in piles and rows! Then we plunged into the ruck of Fastolfe’s frantic battle-corps and tore through it like a hurricane, leaving a causeway of the dead stretching far behind; no tarrying, no slacking rein, but on! on! on! far yonder in the distance lay our prey — Talbot and his host looming vast and dark like a storm-cloud brooding on the sea! Down we swooped upon them, glooming all the air with a quivering pall of dead leaves flung up by the whirlwind of our flight. In another moment we should have struck them as world strikes world when disorbited constellations crash into the Milky way, but by misfortune and the inscrutable dispensation of God I was recognized! Talbot turned white, and shouting, ‘Save yourselves, it is the Standard-Bearer of Joan of Arc!’ drove his spurs home till they met in the middle of his horse’s entrails, and fled the field with his billowing multitudes at his back! I could have cursed myself for not putting on a disguise. I saw reproach in the eyes of her Excellency, and was bitterly ashamed. I had caused what seemed an irreparable disaster. Another might have gone aside to grieve, as not seeing any way to mend it; but I thank God I am not of those. Great occasions only summon as with a trumpet-call the slumbering reserves of my intellect. I saw my opportunity in an instant — in the next I was away! Through the woods I vanished — fst! — like an extinguished light! Away around through the curtaining forest I sped, as if on wings, none knowing what was become of me, none suspecting my design. Minute after minute passed, on and on I flew; on, and still on; and at last with a great cheer I flung my Banner to the breeze and burst out in front of Talbot! Oh, it was a mighty thought! That weltering chaos of distracted men whirled and surged backward like a tidal wave which has struck a continent, and the day was ours! Poor helpless creatures, they were in a trap; they were surrounded; they could not escape to the rear, for there was our army; they could not escape to the front, for there was I. Their hearts shriveled in their bodies, their hands fell listless at their sides. They stood still, and at our leisure we slaughtered them to a man; all except Talbot and Fastolfe, whom I saved and brought away, one under each arm.” + +Well, there is no denying it, the Paladin was in great form that night. Such style! such noble grace of gesture, such grandeur of attitude, such energy when he got going! such steady rise, on such sure wing, such nicely graduated expenditures of voice according to the weight of the matter, such skilfully calculated approaches to his surprises and explosions, such belief-compelling sincerity of tone and manner, such a climaxing peal from his brazen lungs, and such a lightning-vivid picture of his mailed form and flaunting banner when he burst out before that despairing army! And oh, the gentle art of the last half of his last sentence — delivered in the careless and indolent tone of one who has finished his real story, and only adds a colorless and inconsequential detail because it has happened to occur to him in a lazy way. + +It was a marvel to see those innocent peasants. Why, they went all to pieces with enthusiasm, and roared out applauses fit to raise the roof and wake the dead. When they had cooled down at last and there was silence but for the heaving and panting, old Laxart said, admiringly: + +“As it seems to me, you are an army in your single person.” + +“Yes, that is what he is,” said Noel Rainguesson, convincingly. “He is a terror; and not just in this vicinity. His mere name carries a shudder with it to distant lands — just his mere name; and when he frowns, the shadow of it falls as far as Rome, and the chickens go to roost an hour before schedule time. Yes; and some say — ” + +“Noel Rainguesson, you are preparing yourself for trouble. I will say just one word to you, and it will be to your advantage to — ” + +I saw that the usual thing had got a start. No man could prophesy when it would end. So I delivered Joan’s message and went off to bed. + +Joan made her good-byes to those old fellows in the morning, with loving embraces and many tears, and with a packed multitude for sympathizers, and they rode proudly away on their precious horses to carry their great news home. I had seen better riders, some will say that; for horsemanship was a new art to them. + +The vanguard moved out at dawn and took the road, with bands braying and banners flying; the second division followed at eight. Then came the Burgundian ambassadors, and lost us the rest of that day and the whole of the next. But Joan was on hand, and so they had their journey for their pains. The rest of us took the road at dawn, next morning, July 20th. And got how far? Six leagues. Tremouille was getting in his sly work with the vacillating King, you see. The King stopped at St. Marcoul and prayed three days. Precious time lost — for us; precious time gained for Bedford. He would know how to use it. + +We could not go on without the King; that would be to leave him in the conspirators’ camp. Joan argued, reasoned, implored; and at last we got under way again. + +Joan’s prediction was verified. It was not a campaign, it was only another holiday excursion. English strongholds lined our route; they surrendered without a blow; we garrisoned them with Frenchmen and passed on. Bedford was on the march against us with his new army by this time, and on the 25th of July the hostile forces faced each other and made preparation for battle; but Bedford’s good judgment prevailed, and he turned and retreated toward Paris. Now was our chance. Our men were in great spirits. + +Will you believe it? Our poor stick of a King allowed his worthless advisers to persuade him to start back for Gien, whence he had set out when we first marched for Rheims and the Coronation! And we actually did start back. The fifteen-day truce had just been concluded with the Duke of Burgundy, and we would go and tarry at Gien until he should deliver Paris to us without a fight. + +We marched to Bray; then the King changed his mind once more, and with it his face toward Paris. Joan dictated a letter to the citizens of Rheims to encourage them to keep heart in spite of the truce, and promising to stand by them. She furnished them the news herself that the Kin had made this truce; and in speaking of it she was her usual frank self. She said she was not satisfied with it, and didn’t know whether she would keep it or not; that if she kept it, it would be solely out of tenderness for the King’s honor. All French children know those famous words. How naive they are! “De cette treve qui a ete faite, je ne suis pas contente, et je ne sais si je la tiendrai. Si je la tiens, ce sera seulement pour garder l’honneur du roi.” But in any case, she said, she would not allow the blood royal to be abused, and would keep the army in good order and ready for work at the end of the truce. + +Poor child, to have to fight England, Burgundy, and a French conspiracy all at the same time — it was too bad. She was a match for the others, but a conspiracy — ah, nobody is a match for that, when the victim that is to be injured is weak and willing. It grieved her, these troubled days, to be so hindered and delayed and baffled, and at times she was sad and the tears lay near the surface. Once, talking with her good old faithful friend and servant, the Bastard of Orleans, she said: + +“Ah, if it might but please God to let me put off this steel raiment and go back to my father and my mother, and tend my sheep again with my sister and my brothers, who would be so glad to see me!” + +By the 12th of August we were camped near Dampmartin. Later we had a brush with Bedford’s rear-guard, and had hopes of a big battle on the morrow, but Bedford and all his force got away in the night and went on toward Paris. + +Charles sent heralds and received the submission of Beauvais. The Bishop Pierre Cauchon, that faithful friend and slave of the English, was not able to prevent it, though he did his best. He was obscure then, but his name was to travel round the globe presently, and live forever in the curses of France! Bear with me now, while I spit in fancy upon his grave. + +Compiegne surrendered, and hauled down the English flag. On the 14th we camped two leagues from Senlis. Bedford turned and approached, and took up a strong position. We went against him, but all our efforts to beguile him out from his intrenchments failed, though he had promised us a duel in the open field. Night shut down. Let him look out for the morning! But in the morning he was gone again. + +We entered Compiegne the 18th of August, turning out the English garrison and hoisting our own flag. + +On the 23d Joan gave command to move upon Paris. The King and the clique were not satisfied with this, and retired sulking to Senlis, which had just surrendered. Within a few days many strong places submitted — Creil, Pont-Saint-Maxence, Choisy, Gournay-sur-Aronde, Remy, Le Neufville-en-Hez, Moguay, Chantilly, Saintines. The English power was tumbling, crash after crash! And still the King sulked and disapproved, and was afraid of our movement against the capital. + +On the 26th of August, 1429, Joan camped at St. Denis; in effect, under the walls of Paris. + +And still the King hung back and was afraid. If we could but have had him there to back us with his authority! Bedford had lost heart and decided to waive resistance and go an concentrate his strength in the best and loyalest province remaining to him — Normandy. Ah, if we could only have persuaded the King to come and countenance us with his presence and approval at this supreme moment! + +== Chapter 40 Treachery Conquers Joan + +COURIER after courier was despatched to the King, and he promised to come, but didn’t. The Duke d’Alencon went to him and got his promise again, which he broke again. Nine days were lost thus; then he came, arriving at St. Denis September 7th. + +Meantime the enemy had begun to take heart: the spiritless conduct of the King could have no other result. Preparations had now been made to defend the city. Joan’s chances had been diminished, but she and her generals considered them plenty good enough yet. Joan ordered the attack for eight o’clock next morning, and at that hour it began. + +Joan placed her artillery and began to pound a strong work which protected the gate St. Honor. When it was sufficiently crippled the assault was sounded at noon, and it was carried by storm. Then we moved forward to storm the gate itself, and hurled ourselves against it again and again, Joan in the lead with her standard at her side, the smoke enveloping us in choking clouds, and the missiles flying over us and through us as thick as hail. + +In the midst of our last assault, which would have carried the gate sure and given us Paris and in effect France, Joan was struck down by a crossbow bolt, and our men fell back instantly and almost in a panic — for what were they without her? She was the army, herself. + +Although disabled, she refused to retire, and begged that a new assault be made, saying it must win; and adding, with the battle-light rising in her eyes, “I will take Paris now or die!” She had to be carried away by force, and this was done by Gaucourt and the Duke d’Alencon. + +But her spirits were at the very top notch, now. She was brimming with enthusiasm. She said she would be carried before the gate in the morning, and in half an hour Paris would be ours without any question. She could have kept her word. About this there was no doubt. But she forgot one factor — the King, shadow of that substance named La Tremouille. The King forbade the attempt! + +You see, a new Embassy had just come from the Duke of Burgundy, and another sham private trade of some sort was on foot. + +You would know, without my telling you, that Joan’s heart was nearly broken. Because of the pain of her wound and the pain at her heart she slept little that night. Several times the watchers heard muffled sobs from the dark room where she lay at St. Denis, and many times the grieving words, “It could have been taken! — it could have been taken!” which were the only ones she said. + +She dragged herself out of bed a day later with a new hope. D’Alencon had thrown a bridge across the Seine near St. Denis. Might she not cross by that and assault Paris at another point? But the King got wind of it and broke the bridge down! And more — he declared the campaign ended! And more still — he had made a new truce and a long one, in which he had agreed to leave Paris unthreatened and unmolested, and go back to the Loire whence he had come! + +Joan of Arc, who had never been defeated by the enemy, was defeated by her own King. She had said once that all she feared for her cause was treachery. It had struck its first blow now. She hung up her white armor in the royal basilica of St. Denis, and went and asked the King to relieve her of her functions and let her go home. As usual, she was wise. Grand combinations, far-reaching great military moves were at an end, now; for the future, when the truce should end, the war would be merely a war of random and idle skirmishes, apparently; work suitable for subalterns, and not requiring the supervision of a sublime military genius. But the King would not let her go. The truce did not embrace all France; there were French strongholds to be watched and preserved; he would need her. Really, you see, Tremouille wanted to keep her where he could balk and hinder her. + +Now came her Voices again. They said, “Remain at St. Denis.” There was no explanation. They did not say why. That was the voice of God; it took precedence of the command of the King; Joan resolved to stay. But that filled La Tremouille with dread. She was too tremendous a force to be left to herself; she would surely defeat all his plans. He beguiled the King to use compulsion. Joan had to submit — because she was wounded and helpless. In the Great Trial she said she was carried away against her will; and that if she had not been wounded it could not have been accomplished. Ah, she had a spirit, that slender girl! a spirit to brave all earthly powers and defy them. We shall never know why the Voices ordered her to stay. We only know this; that if she could have obeyed, the history of France would not be as it now stands written in the books. Yes, well we know that. + +On the 13th of September the army, sad and spiritless, turned its face toward the Loire, and marched — without music! Yes, one noted that detail. It was a funeral march; that is what it was. A long, dreary funeral march, with never a shout or a cheer; friends looking on in tears, all the way, enemies laughing. We reached Gien at last — that place whence we had set out on our splendid march toward Rheims less than three months before, with flags flying, bands playing, the victory-flush of Patay glowing in our faces, and the massed multitudes shouting and praising and giving us godspeed. There was a dull rain falling now, the day was dark, the heavens mourned, the spectators were few, we had no welcome but the welcome of silence, and pity, and tears. + +Then the King disbanded that noble army of heroes; it furled its flags, it stored its arms: the disgrace of France was complete. La Tremouille wore the victor’s crown; Joan of Arc, the unconquerable, was conquered. + +== Chapter 41 The Maid Will March No More + +YES, IT was as I have said: Joan had Paris and France in her grip, and the Hundred Years’ War under her heel, and the King made her open her fist and take away her foot. + +Now followed about eight months of drifting about with the King and his council, and his gay and showy and dancing and flirting and hawking and frolicking and serenading and dissipating court — drifting from town to town and from castle to castle — a life which was pleasant to us of the personal staff, but not to Joan. However, she only saw it, she didn’t live it. The King did his sincerest best to make her happy, and showed a most kind and constant anxiety in this matter. + +All others had to go loaded with the chains of an exacting court etiquette, but she was free, she was privileged. So that she paid her duty to the King once a day and passed the pleasant word, nothing further was required of her. Naturally, then, she made herself a hermit, and grieved the weary days through in her own apartments, with her thoughts and devotions for company, and the planning of now forever unrealizable military combinations for entertainment. In fancy she moved bodies of men from this and that and the other point, so calculating the distances to be covered, the time required for each body, and the nature of the country to be traversed, as to have them appear in sight of each other on a given day or at a given hour and concentrate for battle. It was her only game, her only relief from her burden of sorrow and inaction. She played it hour after hour, as others play chess; and lost herself in it, and so got repose for her mind and healing for her heart. + +She never complained, of course. It was not her way. She was the sort that endure in silence. + +But — she was a caged eagle just the same, and pined for the free air and the alpine heights and the fierce joys of the storm. + +France was full of rovers — disbanded soldiers ready for anything that might turn up. Several times, at intervals, when Joan’s dull captivity grew too heavy to bear, she was allowed to gather a troop of cavalry and make a health-restoring dash against the enemy. These things were a bath to her spirits. + +It was like old times, there at Saint-Pierre-le-Moutier, to see her lead assault after assault, be driven back again and again, but always rally and charge anew, all in a blaze of eagerness and delight; till at last the tempest of missiles rained so intolerably thick that old D’Aulon, who was wounded, sounded the retreat (for the King had charged him on his head to let no harm come to Joan); and away everybody rushed after him — as he supposed; but when he turned and looked, there were we of the staff still hammering away; wherefore he rode back and urged her to come, saying she was mad to stay there with only a dozen men. Her eye danced merrily, and she turned upon him crying out: + +“A dozen men! name of God, I have fifty-thousand, and will never budge till this place is taken! + +“Sound the charge!” + +Which he did, and over the walls we went, and the fortress was ours. Old D’Aulon thought her mind was wandering; but all she meant was, that she felt the might of fifty thousand men surging in her heart. It was a fanciful expression; but, to my thinking, truer word was never said. + +Then there was the affair near Lagny, where we charged the intrenched Burgundians through the open field four times, the last time victoriously; the best prize of it Franquet d’Arras, the free-booter and pitiless scourge of the region roundabout. + +Now and then other such affairs; and at last, away toward the end of May, 1430, we were in the neighborhood of Compiegne, and Joan resolved to go to the help of that place, which was being besieged by the Duke of Burgundy. + +I had been wounded lately, and was not able to ride without help; but the good Dwarf took me on behind him, and I held on to him and was safe enough. We started at midnight, in a sullen downpour of warm rain, and went slowly and softly and in dead silence, for we had to slip through the enemy’s lines. We were challenged only once; we made no answer, but held our breath and crept steadily and stealthily along, and got through without any accident. About three or half past we reached Compiegne, just as the gray dawn was breaking in the east. + +Joan set to work at once, and concerted a plan with Guillaume de Flavy, captain of the city — a plan for a sortie toward evening against the enemy, who was posted in three bodies on the other side of the Oise, in the level plain. From our side one of the city gates communicated with a bridge. The end of this bridge was defended on the other side of the river by one of those fortresses called a boulevard; and this boulevard also commanded a raised road, which stretched from its front across the plain to the village of Marguy. A force of Burgundians occupied Marguy; another was camped at Clairoix, a couple of miles above the raised road; and a body of English was holding Venette, a mile and a half below it. A kind of bow-and-arrow arrangement, you see; the causeway the arrow, the boulevard at the feather-end of it, Marguy at the barb, Venette at one end of the bow, Clairoix at the other. + +Joan’s plan was to go straight per causeway against Marguy, carry it by assault, then turn swiftly upon Clairoix, up to the right, and capture that camp in the same way, then face to the rear and be ready for heavy work, for the Duke of Burgundy lay behind Clairoix with a reserve. Flavy’s lieutenant, with archers and the artillery of the boulevard, was to keep the English troops from coming up from below and seizing the causeway and cutting off Joan’s retreat in case she should have to make one. Also, a fleet of covered boats was to be stationed near the boulevard as an additional help in case a retreat should become necessary. + +It was the 24th of May. At four in the afternoon Joan moved out at the head of six hundred cavalry — on her last march in this life! + +It breaks my heart. I had got myself helped up onto the walls, and from there I saw much that happened, the rest was told me long afterward by our two knights and other eye-witnesses. Joan crossed the bridge, and soon left the boulevard behind her and went skimming away over the raised road with her horsemen clattering at her heels. She had on a brilliant silver-gilt cape over her armor, and I could see it flap and flare and rise and fall like a little patch of white flame. + +It was a bright day, and one could see far and wide over that plain. Soon we saw the English force advancing, swiftly and in handsome order, the sunlight flashing from its arms. + +Joan crashed into the Burgundians at Marguy and was repulsed. Then she saw the other Burgundians moving down from Clairoix. Joan rallied her men and charged again, and was again rolled back. Two assaults occupy a good deal of time — and time was precious here. The English were approaching the road now from Venette, but the boulevard opened fire on them and they were checked. Joan heartened her men with inspiring words and led them to the charge again in great style. This time she carried Marguy with a hurrah. Then she turned at once to the right and plunged into the plan and struck the Clairoix force, which was just arriving; then there was heavy work, and plenty of it, the two armies hurling each other backward turn about and about, and victory inclining first to the one, then to the other. Now all of a sudden there was a panic on our side. Some say one thing caused it, some another. Some say the cannonade made our front ranks think retreat was being cut off by the English, some say the rear ranks got the idea that Joan was killed. Anyway our men broke, and went flying in a wild rout for the causeway. Joan tried to rally them and face them around, crying to them that victory was sure, but it did no good, they divided and swept by her like a wave. Old D’Aulon begged her to retreat while there was yet a chance for safety, but she refused; so he seized her horse’s bridle and bore her along with the wreck and ruin in spite of herself. And so along the causeway they came swarming, that wild confusion of frenzied men and horses — and the artillery had to stop firing, of course; consequently the English and Burgundians closed in in safety, the former in front, the latter behind their prey. Clear to the boulevard the French were washed in this enveloping inundation; and there, cornered in an angle formed by the flank of the boulevard and the slope of the causeway, they bravely fought a hopeless fight, and sank down one by one. + +Flavy, watching from the city wall, ordered the gate to be closed and the drawbridge raised. This shut Joan out. + +The little personal guard around her thinned swiftly. Both of our good knights went down disabled; Joan’s two brothers fell wounded; then Noel Rainguesson — all wounded while loyally sheltering Joan from blows aimed at her. When only the Dwarf and the Paladin were left, they would not give up, but stood their ground stoutly, a pair of steel towers streaked and splashed with blood; and where the ax of one fell, and the sword of the other, an enemy gasped and died. + +And so fighting, and loyal to their duty to the last, good simple souls, they came to their honorable end. Peace to their memories! they were very dear to me. + +Then there was a cheer and a rush, and Joan, still defiant, still laying about her with her sword, was seized by her cape and dragged from her horse. She was borne away a prisoner to the Duke of Burgundy’s camp, and after her followed the victorious army roaring its joy. + +The awful news started instantly on its round; from lip to lip it flew; and wherever it came it struck the people as with a sort of paralysis; and they murmured over and over again, as if they were talking to themselves, or in their sleep, “The Maid of Orleans taken!... Joan of Arc a prisoner!... the savior of France lost to us!” — and would keep saying that over, as if they couldn’t understand how it could be, or how God could permit it, poor creatures! + +You know what a city is like when it is hung from eaves to pavement with rustling black? Then you know what Rouse was like, and some other cities. But can any man tell you what the mourning in the hearts of the peasantry of France was like? No, nobody can tell you that, and, poor dumb things, they could not have told you themselves, but it was there — indeed, yes. Why, it was the spirit of a whole nation hung with crape! + +The 24th of May. We will draw down the curtain now upon the most strange, and pathetic, and wonderful military drama that has been played upon the stage of the world. Joan of Arc will march no more. + +== BOOK III TRIAL AND MARTYRDOM + +== Chapter 1 The Maid in Chains + +image::https://i.nostr.build/lzq54Zm3gSPwHhsg.jpg[0401, 300] + + +I CANNOT bear to dwell at great length upon the shameful history of the summer and winter following the capture. For a while I was not much troubled, for I was expecting every day to hear that Joan had been put to ransom, and that the King — no, not the King, but grateful France — had come eagerly forward to pay it. By the laws of war she could not be denied the privilege of ransom. She was not a rebel; she was a legitimately constituted soldier, head of the armies of France by her King’s appointment, and guilty of no crime known to military law; therefore she could not be detained upon any pretext, if ransom were proffered. + +But day after day dragged by and no ransom was offered! It seems incredible, but it is true. Was that reptile Tremouille busy at the King’s ear? All we know is, that the King was silent, and made no offer and no effort in behalf of this poor girl who had done so much for him. + +But, unhappily, there was alacrity enough in another quarter. The news of the capture reached Paris the day after it happened, and the glad English and Burgundians deafened the world all the day and all the night with the clamor of their joy-bells and the thankful thunder of their artillery, and the next day the Vicar-General of the Inquisition sent a message to the Duke of Burgundy requiring the delivery of the prisoner into the hands of the Church to be tried as an idolater. + +The English had seen their opportunity, and it was the English power that was really acting, not the Church. The Church was being used as a blind, a disguise; and for a forcible reason: the Church was not only able to take the life of Joan of Arc, but to blight her influence and the valor-breeding inspiration of her name, whereas the English power could but kill her body; that would not diminish or destroy the influence of her name; it would magnify it and make it permanent. Joan of Arc was the only power in France that the English did not despise, the only power in France that they considered formidable. If the Church could be brought to take her life, or to proclaim her an idolater, a heretic, a witch, sent from Satan, not from heaven, it was believed that the English supremacy could be at once reinstated. + +The Duke of Burgundy listened — but waited. He could not doubt that the French King or the French people would come forward presently and pay a higher price than the English. He kept Joan a close prisoner in a strong fortress, and continued to wait, week after week. He was a French prince, and was at heart ashamed to sell her to the English. Yet with all his waiting no offer came to him from the French side. + +One day Joan played a cunning trick on her jailer, and not only slipped out of her prison, but locked him up in it. But as she fled away she was seen by a sentinel, and was caught and brought back. + +Then she was sent to Beaurevoir, a stronger castle. This was early in August, and she had been in captivity more than two months now. Here she was shut up in the top of a tower which was sixty feet high. She ate her heart there for another long stretch — about three months and a half. And she was aware, all these weary five months of captivity, that the English, under cover of the Church, were dickering for her as one would dicker for a horse or a slave, and that France was silent, the King silent, all her friends the same. Yes, it was pitiful. + +And yet when she heard at last that Compiegne was being closely besieged and likely to be captured, and that the enemy had declared that no inhabitant of it should escape massacre, not even children of seven years of age, she was in a fever at once to fly to our rescue. So she tore her bedclothes to strips and tied them together and descended this frail rope in the night, and it broke, and she fell and was badly bruised, and remained three days insensible, meantime neither eating nor drinking. + +And now came relief to us, led by the Count of Vendome, and Compiegne was saved and the siege raised. This was a disaster to the Duke of Burgundy. He had to save money now. It was a good time for a new bid to be made for Joan of Arc. The English at once sent a French bishop — that forever infamous Pierre Cauchon of Beauvais. He was partly promised the Archbishopric of Rouen, which was vacant, if he should succeed. He claimed the right to preside over Joan’s ecclesiastical trial because the battle-ground where she was taken was within his diocese. By the military usage of the time the ransom of a royal prince was 10,000 livres of gold, which is 61,125 francs — a fixed sum, you see. It must be accepted when offered; it could not be refused. + +Cauchon brought the offer of this very sum from the English — a royal prince’s ransom for the poor little peasant-girl of Domremy. It shows in a striking way the English idea of her formidable importance. It was accepted. For that sum Joan of Arc, the Savior of France, was sold; sold to her enemies; to the enemies of her country; enemies who had lashed and thrashed and thumped and trounced France for a century and made holiday sport of it; enemies who had forgotten, years and years ago, what a Frenchman’s face was like, so used were they to seeing nothing but his back; enemies whom she had whipped, whom she had cowed, whom she had taught to respect French valor, new-born in her nation by the breath of her spirit; enemies who hungered for her life as being the only puissance able to stand between English triumph and French degradation. Sold to a French priest by a French prince, with the French King and the French nation standing thankless by and saying nothing. + +And she — what did she say? Nothing. Not a reproach passed her lips. She was too great for that — she was Joan of Arc; and when that is said, all is said. + +As a soldier, her record was spotless. She could not be called to account for anything under that head. A subterfuge must be found, and, as we have seen, was found. She must be tried by priests for crimes against religion. If none could be discovered, some must be invented. Let the miscreant Cauchon alone to contrive those. + +Rouen was chosen as the scene of the trial. It was in the heart of the English power; its population had been under English dominion so many generations that they were hardly French now, save in language. The place was strongly garrisoned. Joan was taken there near the end of December, 1430, and flung into a dungeon. Yes, and clothed in chains, that free spirit! + +Still France made no move. How do I account for this? I think there is only one way. You will remember that whenever Joan was not at the front, the French held back and ventured nothing; that whenever she led, they swept everything before them, so long as they could see her white armor or her banner; that every time she fell wounded or was reported killed — as at Compiegne — they broke in panic and fled like sheep. I argue from this that they had undergone no real transformation as yet; that at bottom they were still under the spell of a timorousness born of generations of unsuccess, and a lack of confidence in each other and in their leaders born of old and bitter experience in the way of treacheries of all sorts — for their kings had been treacherous to their great vassals and to their generals, and these in turn were treacherous to the head of the state and to each other. The soldiery found that they could depend utterly on Joan, and upon her alone. With her gone, everything was gone. She was the sun that melted the frozen torrents and set them boiling; with that sun removed, they froze again, and the army and all France became what they had been before, mere dead corpses — that and nothing more; incapable of thought, hope, ambition, or motion. + +== Chapter 2 Joan Sold to the English + +MY WOUND gave me a great deal of trouble clear into the first part of October; then the fresher weather renewed my life and strength. All this time there were reports drifting about that the King was going to ransom Joan. I believed these, for I was young and had not yet found out the littleness and meanness of our poor human race, which brags about itself so much, and thinks it is better and higher than the other animals. + +In October I was well enough to go out with two sorties, and in the second one, on the 23d, I was wounded again. My luck had turned, you see. On the night of the 25th the besiegers decamped, and in the disorder and confusion one of their prisoners escaped and got safe into Compiegne, and hobbled into my room as pallid and pathetic an object as you would wish to see. + +“What? Alive? Noel Rainguesson!” + +It was indeed he. It was a most joyful meeting, that you will easily know; and also as sad as it was joyful. We could not speak Joan’s name. One’s voice would have broken down. We knew who was meant when she was mentioned; we could say “she” and “her,” but we could not speak the name. + +We talked of the personal staff. Old D’Aulon, wounded and a prisoner, was still with Joan and serving her, by permission of the Duke of Burgundy. Joan was being treated with respect due to her rank and to her character as a prisoner of war taken in honorable conflict. And this was continued — as we learned later — until she fell into the hands of that bastard of Satan, Pierre Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais. + +Noel was full of noble and affectionate praises and appreciations of our old boastful big Standard-Bearer, now gone silent forever, his real and imaginary battles all fought, his work done, his life honorably closed and completed. + +“And think of his luck!” burst out Noel, with his eyes full of tears. “Always the pet child of luck! + +“See how it followed him and stayed by him, from his first step all through, in the field or out of it; always a splendid figure in the public eye, courted and envied everywhere; always having a chance to do fine things and always doing them; in the beginning called the Paladin in joke, and called it afterward in earnest because he magnificently made the title good; and at last — supremest luck of all — died in the field! died with his harness on; died faithful to his charge, the Standard in his hand; died — oh, think of it — with the approving eye of Joan of Arc upon him! + +“He drained the cup of glory to the last drop, and went jubilant to his peace, blessedly spared all part in the disaster which was to follow. What luck, what luck! And we? What was our sin that we are still here, we who have also earned our place with the happy dead?” + +And presently he said: + +“They tore the sacred Standard from his dead hand and carried it away, their most precious prize after its captured owner. But they haven’t it now. A month ago we put our lives upon the risk — our two good knights, my fellow-prisoners, and I — and stole it, and got it smuggled by trusty hands to Orleans, and there it is now, safe for all time in the Treasury.” + +I was glad and grateful to learn that. I have seen it often since, when I have gone to Orleans on the 8th of May to be the petted old guest of the city and hold the first place of honor at the banquets and in the processions — I mean since Joan’s brothers passed from this life. It will still be there, sacredly guarded by French love, a thousand years from now — yes, as long as any shred of it hangs together. + +[INFO] +==== +It remained there three hundred and sixty years, and then was destroyed in a public bonfire, together with two swords, a plumed cap, several suits of state apparel, and other relics of the Maid, by a mob in the time of the Revolution. Nothing which the hand of Joan of Arc is known to have touched now remains in existence except a few preciously guarded military and state papers which she signed, her pen being guided by a clerk or her secretary, Louis de Conte. A boulder exists from which she is known to have mounted her horse when she was once setting out upon a campaign. Up to a quarter of a century ago there was a single hair from her head still in existence. It was drawn through the wax of a seal attached to the parchment of a state document. It was surreptitiously snipped out, seal and all, by some vandal relic-hunter, and carried off. Doubtless it still exists, but only the thief knows where. — TRANSLATOR. +==== + +Two or three weeks after this talk came the tremendous news like a thunder-clap, and we were aghast — Joan of Arc sold to the English! + +Not for a moment had we ever dreamed of such a thing. We were young, you see, and did not know the human race, as I have said before. We had been so proud of our country, so sure of her nobleness, her magnanimity, her gratitude. We had expected little of the King, but of France we had expected everything. Everybody knew that in various towns patriot priests had been marching in procession urging the people to sacrifice money, property, everything, and buy the freedom of their heaven-sent deliverer. That the money would be raised we had not thought of doubting. + +But it was all over now, all over. It was a bitter time for us. The heavens seemed hung with black; all cheer went out from our hearts. Was this comrade here at my bedside really Noel Rainguesson, that light-hearted creature whose whole life was but one long joke, and who used up more breath in laughter than in keeping his body alive? No, no; that Noel I was to see no more. This one’s heart was broken. He moved grieving about, and absently, like one in a dream; the stream of his laughter was dried at its source. + +Well, that was best. It was my own mood. We were company for each other. He nursed me patiently through the dull long weeks, and at last, in January, I was strong enough to go about again. Then he said: + +“Shall we go now?” + +“Yes.” + +There was no need to explain. Our hearts were in Rouen; we would carry our bodies there. All that we cared for in this life was shut up in that fortress. We could not help her, but it would be some solace to us to be near her, to breathe the air that she breathed, and look daily upon the stone walls that hid her. What if we should be made prisoners there? Well, we could but do our best, and let luck and fate decide what should happen. + +And so we started. We could not realize the change which had come upon the country. We seemed able to choose our own route and go whenever we pleased, unchallenged and unmolested. When Joan of Arc was in the field there was a sort of panic of fear everywhere; but now that she was out of the way, fear had vanished. Nobody was troubled about you or afraid of you, nobody was curious about you or your business, everybody was indifferent. + +We presently saw that we could take to the Seine, and not weary ourselves out with land travel. + +So we did it, and were carried in a boat to within a league of Rouen. Then we got ashore; not on the hilly side, but on the other, where it is as level as a floor. Nobody could enter or leave the city without explaining himself. It was because they feared attempts at a rescue of Joan. + +We had no trouble. We stopped in the plain with a family of peasants and stayed a week, helping them with their work for board and lodging, and making friends of them. We got clothes like theirs, and wore them. When we had worked our way through their reserves and gotten their confidence, we found that they secretly harbored French hearts in their bodies. Then we came out frankly and told them everything, and found them ready to do anything they could to help us. + +Our plan was soon made, and was quite simple. It was to help them drive a flock of sheep to the market of the city. One morning early we made the venture in a melancholy drizzle of rain, and passed through the frowning gates unmolested. Our friends had friends living over a humble wine shop in a quaint tall building situated in one of the narrow lanes that run down from the cathedral to the river, and with these they bestowed us; and the next day they smuggled our own proper clothing and other belongings to us. The family that lodged us — the Pieroons — were French in sympathy, and we needed to have no secrets from them. + +== Chapter 3 Weaving the Net About Her + +IT WAS necessary for me to have some way to gain bread for Noel and myself; and when the Pierrons found that I knew how to write, the applied to their confessor in my behalf, and he got a place for me with a good priest named Manchon, who was to be the chief recorder in the Great Trial of Joan of Arc now approaching. It was a strange position for me — clerk to the recorder — and dangerous if my sympathies and the late employment should be found out. But there was not much danger. Manchon was at bottom friendly to Joan and would not betray me; and my name would not, for I had discarded my surname and retained only my given one, like a person of low degree. + +I attended Manchon constantly straight along, out of January and into February, and was often in the citadel with him — in the very fortress where Joan was imprisoned, though not in the dungeon where she was confined, and so did not see her, of course. + +Manchon told me everything that had been happening before my coming. Ever since the purchase of Joan, Cauchon had been busy packing his jury for the destruction of the Maid — weeks and weeks he had spent in this bad industry. The University of Paris had sent him a number of learned and able and trusty ecclesiastics of the stripe he wanted; and he had scraped together a clergyman of like stripe and great fame here and there and yonder, until he was able to construct a formidable court numbering half a hundred distinguished names. French names they were, but their interests and sympathies were English. + +A great officer of the Inquisition was also sent from Paris for the accused must be tried by the forms of the Inquisition; but this was a brave and righteous man, and he said squarely that this court had no power to try the case, wherefore he refused to act; and the same honest talk was uttered by two or three others. + +The Inquisitor was right. The case as here resurrected against Joan had already been tried long ago at Poitiers, and decided in her favor. Yes, and by a higher tribunal than this one, for at the head of it was an Archbishop — he of Rheims — Cauchon’s own metropolitan. So here, you see, a lower court was impudently preparing to try and redecide a cause which had already been decided by its superior, a court of higher authority. Imagine it! No, the case could not properly be tried again. Cauchon could not properly preside in this new court, for more than one reason: + +Rouen was not in his diocese; Joan had not been arrested in her domicile, which was still Domremy; and finally this proposed judge was the prisoner’s outspoken enemy, and therefore he was incompetent to try her. Yet all these large difficulties were gotten rid of. The territorial Chapter of Rouen finally granted territorial letters to Cauchon — though only after a struggle and under compulsion. Force was also applied to the Inquisitor, and he was obliged to submit. + +So then, the little English King, by his representative, formally delivered Joan into the hands of the court, but with this reservation: if the court failed to condemn her, he was to have her back again! Ah, dear, what chance was there for that forsaken and friendless child? Friendless, indeed — it is the right word. For she was in a black dungeon, with half a dozen brutal common soldiers keeping guard night and day in the room where her cage was — for she was in a cage; an iron cage, and chained to her bed by neck and hands and feet. Never a person near her whom she had ever seen before; never a woman at all. Yes, this was, indeed, friendlessness. + +Now it was a vassal of Jean de Luxembourg who captured Joan and Compiegne, and it was Jean who sold her to the Duke of Burgundy. Yet this very De Luxembourg was shameless enough to go and show his face to Joan in her cage. He came with two English earls, Warwick and Stafford. He was a poor reptile. He told her he would get her set free if she would promise not to fight the English any more. She had been in that cage a long time now, but not long enough to break her spirit. She retorted scornfully: + +“Name of God, you but mock me. I know that you have neither the power nor the will to do it.” + +He insisted. Then the pride and dignity of the soldier rose in Joan, and she lifted her chained hands and let them fall with a clash, saying: + +“See these! They know more than you, and can prophesy better. I know that the English are going to kill me, for they think that when I am dead they can get the Kingdom of France. It is not so. + +“Though there were a hundred thousand of them they would never get it.” + +This defiance infuriated Stafford, and he — now think of it — he a free, strong man, she a chained and helpless girl — he drew his dagger and flung himself at her to stab her. But Warwick seized him and held him back. Warwick was wise. Take her life in that way? Send her to Heaven stainless and undisgraced? It would make her the idol of France, and the whole nation would rise and march to victory and emancipation under the inspiration of her spirit. No, she must be saved for another fate than that. + +Well, the time was approaching for the Great Trial. For more than two months Cauchon had been raking and scraping everywhere for any odds and ends of evidence or suspicion or conjecture that might be usable against Joan, and carefully suppressing all evidence that came to hand in her favor. He had limitless ways and means and powers at his disposal for preparing and strengthening the case for the prosecution, and he used them all. + +But Joan had no one to prepare her case for her, and she was shut up in those stone walls and had no friend to appeal to for help. And as for witnesses, she could not call a single one in her defense; they were all far away, under the French flag, and this was an English court; they would have been seized and hanged if they had shown their faces at the gates of Rouen. No, the prisoner must be the sole witness — witness for the prosecution, witness for the defense; and with a verdict of death resolved upon before the doors were opened for the court’s first sitting. + +When she learned that the court was made up of ecclesiastics in the interest of the English, she begged that in fairness an equal number of priests of the French party should be added to these. + +Cauchon scoffed at her message, and would not even deign to answer it. + +By the law of the Church — she being a minor under twenty-one — it was her right to have counsel to conduct her case, advise her how to answer when questioned, and protect her from falling into traps set by cunning devices of the prosecution. She probably did not know that this was her right, and that she could demand it and require it, for there was none to tell her that; but she begged for this help, at any rate. Cauchon refused it. She urged and implored, pleading her youth and her ignorance of the complexities and intricacies of the law and of legal procedure. Cauchon refused again, and said she must get along with her case as best she might by herself. Ah, his heart was a stone. + +Cauchon prepared the proces verbal. I will simplify that by calling it the Bill of Particulars. It was a detailed list of the charges against her, and formed the basis of the trial. Charges? It was a list of suspicions and public rumors — those were the words used. It was merely charged that she was suspected of having been guilty of heresies, witchcraft, and other such offenses against religion. + +Now by the law of the Church, a trial of that sort could not be begun until a searching inquiry had been made into the history and character of the accused, and it was essential that the result of this inquiry be added to the proces verbal and form a part of it. You remember that that was the first thing they did before the trial at Poitiers. They did it again now. An ecclesiastic was sent to Domremy. There and all about the neighborhood he made an exhaustive search into Joan’s history and character, and came back with his verdict. It was very clear. The searcher reported that he found Joan’s character to be in every way what he “would like his own sister’s character to be.” Just about the same report that was brought back to Poitiers, you see. Joan’s was a character which could endure the minutest examination. + +This verdict was a strong point for Joan, you will say. Yes, it would have been if it could have seen the light; but Cauchon was awake, and it disappeared from the proces verbal before the trial. People were prudent enough not to inquire what became of it. + +One would imagine that Cauchon was ready to begin the trial by this time. But no, he devised one more scheme for poor Joan’s destruction, and it promised to be a deadly one. + +One of the great personages picked out and sent down by the University of Paris was an ecclesiastic named Nicolas Loyseleur. He was tall, handsome, grave, of smooth, soft speech and courteous and winning manners. There was no seeming of treachery or hypocrisy about him, yet he was full of both. He was admitted to Joan’s prison by night, disguised as a cobbler; he pretended to be from her own country; he professed to be secretly a patriot; he revealed the fact that he was a priest. She was filled with gladness to see one from the hills and plains that were so dear to her; happier still to look upon a priest and disburden her heart in confession, for the offices of the Church were the bread of life, the breath of her nostrils to her, and she had been long forced to pine for them in vain. She opened her whole innocent heart to this creature, and in return he gave her advice concerning her trial which could have destroyed her if her deep native wisdom had not protected her against following it. + +You will ask, what value could this scheme have, since the secrets of the confessional are sacred and cannot be revealed? True — but suppose another person should overhear them? That person is not bound to keep the secret. Well, that is what happened. Cauchon had previously caused a hole to be bored through the wall; and he stood with his ear to that hole and heard all. It is pitiful to think of these things. One wonders how they could treat that poor child so. She had not done them any harm. + +== Chapter 4 All Ready to Condemn + +image::https://i.nostr.build/Tcpvf2PgHPsKTetP.jpg[0415, 300] + + +ON TUESDAY, the 20th of February, while I sat at my master’s work in the evening, he came in, looking sad, and said it had been decided to begin the trial at eight o’clock the next morning, and I must get ready to assist him. + +Of course I had been expecting such news every day for many days; but no matter, the shock of it almost took my breath away and set me trembling like a leaf. I suppose that without knowing it I had been half imagining that at the last moment something would happen, something that would stop this fatal trial; maybe that La Hire would burst in at the gates with his hellions at his back; maybe that God would have pity and stretch forth His mighty hand. But now — now there was no hope. + +The trial was to begin in the chapel of the fortress and would be public. So I went sorrowing away and told Noel, so that he might be there early and secure a place. It would give him a chance to look again upon the face which we so revered and which was so precious to us. All the way, both going and coming, I plowed through chattering and rejoicing multitudes of English soldiery and English-hearted French citizens. There was no talk but of the coming event. Many times I heard the remark, accompanied by a pitiless laugh: + +“The fat Bishop has got things as he wants them at last, and says he will lead the vile witch a merry dance and a short one.” + +But here and there I glimpsed compassion and distress in a face, and it was not always a French one. English soldiers feared Joan, but they admired her for her great deeds and her unconquerable spirit. + +In the morning Manchon and I went early, yet as we approached the vast fortress we found crowds of men already there and still others gathering. The chapel was already full and the way barred against further admissions of unofficial persons. We took our appointed places. Throned on high sat the president, Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais, in his grand robes, and before him in rows sat his robed court — fifty distinguished ecclesiastics, men of high degree in the Church, of clear-cut intellectual faces, men of deep learning, veteran adepts in strategy and casuistry, practised setters of traps for ignorant minds and unwary feet. When I looked around upon this army of masters of legal fence, gathered here to find just one verdict and no other, and remembered that Joan must fight for her good name and her life single-handed against them, I asked myself what chance an ignorant poor country-girl of nineteen could have in such an unequal conflict; and my heart sank down low, very low. When I looked again at that obese president, puffing and wheezing there, his great belly distending and receding with each breath, and noted his three chins, fold above fold, and his knobby and knotty face, and his purple and splotchy complexion, and his repulsive cauliflower nose, and his cold and malignant eyes — a brute, every detail of him — my heart sank lower still. And when I noted that all were afraid of this man, and shrank and fidgeted in their seats when his eye smote theirs, my last poor ray of hope dissolved away and wholly disappeared. + +There was one unoccupied seat in this place, and only one. It was over against the wall, in view of every one. It was a little wooden bench without a back, and it stood apart and solitary on a sort of dais. Tall men-at-arms in morion, breastplate, and steel gauntlets stood as stiff as their own halberds on each side of this dais, but no other creature was near by it. A pathetic little bench to me it was, for I knew whom it was for; and the sight of it carried my mind back to the great court at Poitiers, where Joan sat upon one like it and calmly fought her cunning fight with the astonished doctors of the Church and Parliament, and rose from it victorious and applauded by all, and went forth to fill the world with the glory of her name. + +What a dainty little figure she was, and how gentle and innocent, how winning and beautiful in the fresh bloom of her seventeen years! Those were grand days. And so recent — for she was just nineteen now — and how much she had seen since, and what wonders she had accomplished! + +But now — oh, all was changed now. She had been languishing in dungeons, away from light and air and the cheer of friendly faces, for nearly three-quarters of a year — she, born child of the sun, natural comrade of the birds and of all happy free creatures. She would be weary now, and worn with this long captivity, her forces impaired; despondent, perhaps, as knowing there was no hope. Yes, all was changed. + +All this time there had been a muffled hum of conversation, and rustling of robes and scraping of feet on the floor, a combination of dull noises which filled all the place. Suddenly: + +“Produce the accused!” + +It made me catch my breath. My heart began to thump like a hammer. But there was silence now — silence absolute. All those noises ceased, and it was as if they had never been. Not a sound; the stillness grew oppressive; it was like a weight upon one. All faces were turned toward the door; and one could properly expect that, for most of the people there suddenly realized, no doubt, that they were about to see, in actual flesh and blood, what had been to them before only an embodied prodigy, a word, a phrase, a world-girdling Name. + +The stillness continued. Then, far down the stone-paved corridors, one heard a vague slow sound approaching: clank... clink... clank — Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France, in chains! + +My head swam; all things whirled and spun about me. Ah, I was realizing, too. + +== Chapter 5 Fifty Experts Against a Novice + +I GIVE you my honor now that I am not going to distort or discolor the facts of this miserable trial. No, I will give them to you honestly, detail by detail, just as Manchon and I set them down daily in the official record of the court, and just as one may read them in the printed histories. + +There will be only this difference: that in talking familiarly with you, I shall use my right to comment upon the proceedings and explain them as I go along, so that you can understand them better; also, I shall throw in trifles which came under our eyes and have a certain interest for you and me, but were not important enough to go into the official record. + +[INFO] +==== +He kept his word. His account of the Great Trial will be found to be in strict and detailed accordance with the sworn facts of history. — TRANSLATOR. +==== + +To take up my story now where I left off. We heard the clanking of Joan’s chains down the corridors; she was approaching. + +Presently she appeared; a thrill swept the house, and one heard deep breaths drawn. Two guardsmen followed her at a short distance to the rear. Her head was bowed a little, and she moved slowly, she being weak and her irons heavy. She had on men’s attire — all black; a soft woolen stuff, intensely black, funereally black, not a speck of relieving color in it from her throat to the floor. A wide collar of this same black stuff lay in radiating folds upon her shoulders and breast; the sleeves of her doublet were full, down to the elbows, and tight thence to her manacled wrists; below the doublet, tight black hose down to the chains on her ankles. + +Half-way to her bench she stopped, just where a wide shaft of light fell slanting from a window, and slowly lifted her face. Another thrill! — it was totally colorless, white as snow; a face of gleaming snow set in vivid contrast upon that slender statue of somber unmitigated black. It was smooth and pure and girlish, beautiful beyond belief, infinitely sad and sweet. But, dear, dear! when the challenge of those untamed eyes fell upon that judge, and the droop vanished from her form and it straightened up soldierly and noble, my heart leaped for joy; and I said, all is well, all is well — they have not broken her, they have not conquered her, she is Joan of Arc still! Yes, it was plain to me now that there was one spirit there which this dreaded judge could not quell nor make afraid. + +She moved to her place and mounted the dais and seated herself upon her bench, gathering her chains into her lap and nestling her little white hands there. Then she waited in tranquil dignity, the only person there who seemed unmoved and unexcited. A bronzed and brawny English soldier, standing at martial ease in the front rank of the citizen spectators, did now most gallantly and respectfully put up his great hand and give her the military salute; and she, smiling friendly, put up hers and returned it; whereat there was a sympathetic little break of applause, which the judge sternly silence. + +Now the memorable inquisition called in history the Great Trial began. Fifty experts against a novice, and no one to help the novice! + +The judge summarized the circumstances of the case and the public reports and suspicions upon which it was based; then he required Joan to kneel and make oath that she would answer with exact truthfulness to all questions asked her. + +Joan’s mind was not asleep. It suspected that dangerous possibilities might lie hidden under this apparently fair and reasonable demand. She answered with the simplicity which so often spoiled the enemy’s best-laid plans in the trial at Poitiers, and said: + +“No; for I do not know what you are going to ask me; you might ask of me things which I would not tell you.” + +This incensed the Court, and brought out a brisk flurry of angry exclamations. Joan was not disturbed. Cauchon raised his voice and began to speak in the midst of this noise, but he was so angry that he could hardly get his words out. He said: + +“With the divine assistance of our Lord we require you to expedite these proceedings for the welfare of your conscience. Swear, with your hands upon the Gospels, that you will answer true to the questions which shall be asked you!” and he brought down his fat hand with a crash upon his official table. + +Joan said, with composure: + +“As concerning my father and mother, and the faith, and what things I have done since my coming into France, I will gladly answer; but as regards the revelations which I have received from God, my Voices have forbidden me to confide them to any save my King — ” + +Here there was another angry outburst of threats and expletives, and much movement and confusion; so she had to stop, and wait for the noise to subside; then her waxen face flushed a little and she straightened up and fixed her eye on the judge, and finished her sentence in a voice that had the old ring to it: + +— “and I will never reveal these things though you cut my head off!” + +Well, maybe you know what a deliberative body of Frenchmen is like. The judge and half the court were on their feet in a moment, and all shaking their fists at the prisoner, and all storming and vituperating at once, so that you could hardly hear yourself think. They kept this up several minutes; and because Joan sat untroubled and indifferent they grew madder and noisier all the time. Once she said, with a fleeting trace of the old-time mischief in her eye and manner: + +“Prithee, speak one at a time, fair lords, then I will answer all of you.” + +At the end of three whole hours of furious debating over the oath, the situation had not changed a jot. The Bishop was still requiring an unmodified oath, Joan was refusing for the twentieth time to take any except the one which she had herself proposed. There was a physical change apparent, but it was confined to the court and judge; they were hoarse, droopy, exhausted by their long frenzy, and had a sort of haggard look in their faces, poor men, whereas Joan was still placid and reposeful and did not seem noticeably tired. + +The noise quieted down; there was a waiting pause of some moments’ duration. Then the judge surrendered to the prisoner, and with bitterness in his voice told her to take the oath after her own fashion. Joan sunk at once to her knees; and as she laid her hands upon the Gospels, that big English soldier set free his mind: + +“By God, if she were but English, she were not in this place another half a second!” + +It was the soldier in him responding to the soldier in her. But what a stinging rebuke it was, what an arraignment of French character and French royalty! Would that he could have uttered just that one phrase in the hearing of Orleans! I know that that grateful city, that adoring city, would have risen to the last man and the last woman, and marched upon Rouen. Some speeches — speeches that shame a man and humble him — burn themselves into the memory and remain there. That one is burned into mine. + +After Joan had made oath, Cauchon asked her her name, and where she was born, and some questions about her family; also what her age was. She answered these. Then he asked her how much education she had. + +“I have learned from my mother the Pater Noster, the Ave Maria, and the Belief. All that I know was taught me by my mother.” + +Questions of this unessential sort dribbled on for a considerable time. Everybody was tired out by now, except Joan. The tribunal prepared to rise. At this point Cauchon forbade Joan to try to escape from prison, upon pain of being held guilty of the crime of heresy — singular logic! She answered simply: + +“I am not bound by this proposition. If I could escape I would not reproach myself, for I have given no promise, and I shall not.” + +Then she complained of the burden of her chains, and asked that they might be removed, for she was strongly guarded in that dungeon and there was no need of them. But the Bishop refused, and reminded her that she had broken out of prison twice before. Joan of Arc was too proud to insist. She only said, as she rose to go with the guard: + +“It is true, I have wanted to escape, and I do want to escape.” Then she added, in a way that would touch the pity of anybody, I think, “It is the right of every prisoner.” + +And so she went from the place in the midst of an impressive stillness, which made the sharper and more distressful to me the clank of those pathetic chains. + +What presence of mind she had! One could never surprise her out of it. She saw Noel and me there when she first took her seat on the bench, and we flushed to the forehead with excitement and emotion, but her face showed nothing, betrayed nothing. Her eyes sought us fifty times that day, but they passed on and there was never any ray of recognition in them. Another would have started upon seeing us, and then — why, then there could have been trouble for us, of course. + +We walked slowly home together, each busy with his own grief and saying not a word. + +== Chapter 6 The Maid Baffles Her Persecutors + +THAT NIGHT Manchon told me that all through the day’s proceedings Cauchon had had some clerks concealed in the embrasure of a window who were to make a special report garbling Joan’s answers and twisting them from their right meaning. Ah, that was surely the cruelest man and the most shameless that has lived in this world. But his scheme failed. Those clerks had human hearts in them, and their base work revolted them, and they turned to and boldly made a straight report, whereupon Cauchon cursed them and ordered them out of his presence with a threat of drowning, which was his favorite and most frequent menace. The matter had gotten abroad and was making great and unpleasant talk, and Cauchon would not try to repeat this shabby game right away. It comforted me to hear that. + +When we arrived at the citadel next morning, we found that a change had been made. The chapel had been found too small. The court had now removed to a noble chamber situated at the end of the great hall of the castle. The number of judges was increased to sixty-two — one ignorant girl against such odds, and none to help her. + +The prisoner was brought in. She was as white as ever, but she was looking no whit worse than she looked when she had first appeared the day before. Isn’t it a strange thing? Yesterday she had sat five hours on that backless bench with her chains in her lap, baited, badgered, persecuted by that unholy crew, without even the refreshment of a cup of water — for she was never offered anything, and if I have made you know her by this time you will know without my telling you that she was not a person likely to ask favors of those people. And she had spent the night caged in her wintry dungeon with her chains upon her; yet here she was, as I say, collected, unworn, and ready for the conflict; yes, and the only person there who showed no signs of the wear and worry of yesterday. And her eyes — ah, you should have seen them and broken your hearts. Have you seen that veiled deep glow, that pathetic hurt dignity, that unsubdued and unsubduable spirit that burns and smolders in the eye of a caged eagle and makes you feel mean and shabby under the burden of its mute reproach? Her eyes were like that. How capable they were, and how wonderful! Yes, at all times and in all circumstances they could express as by print every shade of the wide range of her moods. In them were hidden floods of gay sunshine, the softest and peacefulest twilights, and devastating storms and lightnings. Not in this world have there been others that were comparable to them. Such is my opinion, and none that had the privilege to see them would say otherwise than this which I have said concerning them. + +The seance began. And how did it begin, should you think? Exactly as it began before — with that same tedious thing which had been settled once, after so much wrangling. The Bishop opened thus: + +“You are required now, to take the oath pure and simple, to answer truly all questions asked you.” + +Joan replied placidly: + +“I have made oath yesterday, my lord; let that suffice.” + +The Bishop insisted and insisted, with rising temper; Joan but shook her head and remained silent. At last she said: + +“I made oath yesterday; it is sufficient.” Then she sighed and said, “Of a truth, you do burden me too much.” + +The Bishop still insisted, still commanded, but he could not move her. At last he gave it up and turned her over for the day’s inquest to an old hand at tricks and traps and deceptive plausibilities — Beaupere, a doctor of theology. Now notice the form of this sleek strategist’s first remark — flung out in an easy, offhand way that would have thrown any unwatchful person off his guard: + +“Now, Joan, the matter is very simple; just speak up and frankly and truly answer the questions which I am going to ask you, as you have sworn to do.” + +It was a failure. Joan was not asleep. She saw the artifice. She said: + +“No. You could ask me things which I could not tell you — and would not.” Then, reflecting upon how profane and out of character it was for these ministers of God to be prying into matters which had proceeded from His hands under the awful seal of His secrecy, she added, with a warning note in her tone, “If you were well informed concerning me you would wish me out of your hands. I have done nothing but by revelation.” + +Beaupere changed his attack, and began an approach from another quarter. He would slip upon her, you see, under cover of innocent and unimportant questions. + +“Did you learn any trade at home?” + +“Yes, to sew and to spin.” Then the invincible soldier, victor of Patay, conqueror of the lion Talbot, deliverer of Orleans, restorer of a king’s crown, commander-in-chief of a nation’s armies, straightened herself proudly up, gave her head a little toss, and said with naive complacency, “And when it comes to that, I am not afraid to be matched against any woman in Rouen!” + +The crowd of spectators broke out with applause — which pleased Joan — and there was many a friendly and petting smile to be seen. But Cauchon stormed at the people and warned them to keep still and mind their manners. + +Beaupere asked other questions. Then: + +“Had you other occupations at home?” + +“Yes. I helped my mother in the household work and went to the pastures with the sheep and the cattle.” + +Her voice trembled a little, but one could hardly notice it. As for me, it brought those old enchanted days flooding back to me, and I could not see what I was writing for a little while. + +Beaupere cautiously edged along up with other questions toward the forbidden ground, and finally repeated a question which she had refused to answer a little while back — as to whether she had received the Eucharist in those days at other festivals than that of Easter. Joan merely said: + +“Passez outre.” Or, as one might say, “Pass on to matters which you are privileged to pry into.” + +I heard a member of the court say to a neighbor: + +“As a rule, witnesses are but dull creatures, and an easy prey — yes, and easily embarrassed, easily frightened — but truly one can neither scare this child nor find her dozing.” + +Presently the house pricked up its ears and began to listen eagerly, for Beaupere began to touch upon Joan’s Voices, a matter of consuming interest and curiosity to everybody. His purpose was to trick her into heedless sayings that could indicate that the Voices had sometimes given her evil advice — hence that they had come from Satan, you see. To have dealing with the devil — well, that would send her to the stake in brief order, and that was the deliberate end and aim of this trial. + +“When did you first hear these Voices?” + +“I was thirteen when I first heard a Voice coming from God to help me to live well. I was frightened. It came at midday, in my father’s garden in the summer.” + +“Had you been fasting?” + +“Yes.” + +“The day before?” + +“No.” + +“From what direction did it come?” + +“From the right — from toward the church.” + +“Did it come with a bright light?” + +“Oh, indeed yes. It was brilliant. When I came into France I often heard the Voices very loud.” + +“What did the Voice sound like?” + +“It was a noble Voice, and I thought it was sent to me from God. The third time I heard it I recognized it as being an angel’s.” + +“You could understand it?” + +“Quite easily. It was always clear.” + +“What advice did it give you as to the salvation of your soul?” + +“It told me to live rightly, and be regular in attendance upon the services of the Church. And it told me that I must go to France.” + +“In what species of form did the Voice appear?” + +Joan looked suspiciously at he priest a moment, then said, tranquilly: + +“As to that, I will not tell you.” + +“Did the Voice seek you often?” + +“Yes. Twice or three times a week, saying, ‘Leave your village and go to France.’” + +“Did you father know about your departure?” + +“No. The Voice said, ‘Go to France’; therefore I could not abide at home any longer.” + +“What else did it say?” + +“That I should raise the siege of Orleans.” + +“Was that all?” + +“No, I was to go to Vaucouleurs, and Robert de Baudricourt would give me soldiers to go with me to France; and I answered, saying that I was a poor girl who did not know how to ride, neither how to fight.” + +Then she told how she was balked and interrupted at Vaucouleurs, but finally got her soldiers, and began her march. + +“How were you dressed?” + +The court of Poitiers had distinctly decided and decreed that as God had appointed her to do a man’s work, it was meet and no scandal to religion that she should dress as a man; but no matter, this court was ready to use any and all weapons against Joan, even broken and discredited ones, and much was going to be made of this one before this trial should end. + +“I wore a man’s dress, also a sword which Robert de Baudricourt gave me, but no other weapon.” + +“Who was it that advised you to wear the dress of a man?” + +Joan was suspicious again. She would not answer. + +The question was repeated. + +She refused again. + +“Answer. It is a command!” + +“Passez outre,” was all she said. + +So Beaupere gave up the matter for the present. + +“What did Baudricourt say to you when you left?” + +“He made them that were to go with me promise to take charge of me, and to me he said, ‘Go, and let happen what may!’” (Advienne que pourra!) After a good deal of questioning upon other matters she was asked again about her attire. She said it was necessary for her to dress as a man. + +“Did your Voice advise it?” + +Joan merely answered placidly: + +“I believe my Voice gave me good advice.” + +It was all that could be got out of her, so the questions wandered to other matters, and finally to her first meeting with the King at Chinon. She said she chose out the King, who was unknown to her, by the revelation of her Voices. All that happened at that time was gone over. Finally: + +“Do you still hear those Voices?” + +“They come to me every day.” + +“What do you ask of them?” + +“I have never asked of them any recompense but the salvation of my soul.” + +“Did the Voice always urge you to follow the army?” + +He is creeping upon her again. She answered: + +“It required me to remain behind at St. Denis. I would have obeyed if I had been free, but I was helpless by my wound, and the knights carried me away by force.” + +“When were you wounded?” + +“I was wounded in the moat before Paris, in the assault.” + +The next question reveals what Beaupere had been leading up to: + +“Was it a feast-day?” + +You see? The suggestion that a voice coming from God would hardly advise or permit the violation, by war and bloodshed, of a sacred day. + +Joan was troubled a moment, then she answered yes, it was a feast-day. + +“Now, then, tell the this: did you hold it right to make the attack on such a day?” + +This was a shot which might make the first breach in a wall which had suffered no damage thus far. There was immediate silence in the court and intense expectancy noticeable all about. But Joan disappointed the house. She merely made a slight little motion with her hand, as when one brushes away a fly, and said with reposeful indifference: + +“Passez outre.” + +Smiles danced for a moment in some of the sternest faces there, and several men even laughed outright. The trap had been long and laboriously prepared; it fell, and was empty. + +The court rose. It had sat for hours, and was cruelly fatigued. Most of the time had been taken up with apparently idle and purposeless inquiries about the Chinon events, the exiled Duke of Orleans, Joan’s first proclamation, and so on, but all this seemingly random stuff had really been sown thick with hidden traps. But Joan had fortunately escaped them all, some by the protecting luck which attends upon ignorance and innocence, some by happy accident, the others by force of her best and surest helper, the clear vision and lightning intuitions of her extraordinary mind. + +Now, then, this daily baiting and badgering of this friendless girl, a captive in chains, was to continue a long, long time — dignified sport, a kennel of mastiffs and bloodhounds harassing a kitten! — and I may as well tell you, upon sworn testimony, what it was like from the first day to the last. When poor Joan had been in her grave a quarter of a century, the Pope called together that great court which was to re-examine her history, and whose just verdict cleared her illustrious name from every spot and stain, and laid upon the verdict and conduct of our Rouen tribunal the blight of its everlasting execrations. Manchon and several of the judges who had been members of our court were among the witnesses who appeared before that Tribunal of Rehabilitation. Recalling these miserable proceedings which I have been telling you about, Manchon testified thus: — here you have it, all in fair print in the unofficial history: + +When Joan spoke of her apparitions she was interrupted at almost every word. They wearied her with long and multiplied interrogatories upon all sorts of things. Almost every day the interrogatories of the morning lasted three or four hours; then from these morning interrogatories they extracted the particularly difficult and subtle points, and these served as material for the afternoon interrogatories, which lasted two or three hours. Moment by moment they skipped from one subject to another; yet in spite of this she always responded with an astonishing wisdom and memory. She often corrected the judges, saying, “But I have already answered that once before — ask the recorder,” referring them to me. + +And here is the testimony of one of Joan’s judges. Remember, these witnesses are not talking about two or three days, they are talking about a tedious long procession of days: + +They asked her profound questions, but she extricated herself quite well. Sometimes the questioners changed suddenly and passed on to another subject to see if she would not contradict herself. They burdened her with long interrogatories of two or three hours, from which the judges themselves went forth fatigued. From the snares with which she was beset the expertest man in the world could not have extricated himself but with difficulty. She gave her responses with great prudence; indeed to such a degree that during three weeks I believed she was inspired. + +Ah, had she a mind such as I have described? You see what these priests say under oath — picked men, men chosen for their places in that terrible court on account of their learning, their experience, their keen and practised intellects, and their strong bias against the prisoner. They make that poor country-girl out the match, and more than the match, of the sixty-two trained adepts. Isn’t it so? They from the University of Paris, she from the sheepfold and the cow-stable! + +Ah, yes, she was great, she was wonderful. It took six thousand years to produce her; her like will not be seen in the earth again in fifty thousand. Such is my opinion. + +== Chapter 7 Craft That Was in Vain + +image::https://i.nostr.build/6m5NnJs7QfmdsXOs.jpg[0429, 300] + + +THE THIRD meeting of the court was in that same spacious chamber, next day, 24th of February. + +How did it begin? In just the same old way. When the preparations were ended, the robed sixty-two massed in their chairs and the guards and order-keepers distributed to their stations, Cauchon spoke from his throne and commanded Joan to lay her hands upon the Gospels and swear to tell the truth concerning everything asked her! + +Joan’s eyes kindled, and she rose; rose and stood, fine and noble, and faced toward the Bishop and said: + +“Take care what you do, my lord, you who are my judge, for you take a terrible responsibility on yourself and you presume too far.” + +It made a great stir, and Cauchon burst out upon her with an awful threat — the threat of instant condemnation unless she obeyed. That made the very bones of my body turn cold, and I saw cheeks about me blanch — for it meant fire and the stake! But Joan, still standing, answered him back, proud and undismayed: + +“Not all the clergy in Paris and Rouen could condemn me, lacking the right!” + +This made a great tumult, and part of it was applause from the spectators. Joan resumed her seat. + +The Bishop still insisted. Joan said: + +“I have already made oath. It is enough.” + +The Bishop shouted: + +“In refusing to swear, you place yourself under suspicion!” + +“Let be. I have sworn already. It is enough.” + +The Bishop continued to insist. Joan answered that “she would tell what she knew — but not all that she knew.” + +The Bishop plagued her straight along, till at last she said, in a weary tone: + +“I came from God; I have nothing more to do here. Return me to God, from whom I came.” + +It was piteous to hear; it was the same as saying, “You only want my life; take it and let me be at peace.” + +The Bishop stormed out again: + +“Once more I command you to — ” + +Joan cut in with a nonchalant “Passez outre,” and Cauchon retired from the struggle; but he retired with some credit this time, for he offered a compromise, and Joan, always clear-headed, saw protection for herself in it and promptly and willingly accepted it. She was to swear to tell the truth “as touching the matters et down in the proces verbal.” They could not sail her outside of definite limits, now; her course was over a charted sea, henceforth. The Bishop had granted more than he had intended, and more than he would honestly try to abide by. + +By command, Beaupere resumed his examination of the accused. It being Lent, there might be a chance to catch her neglecting some detail of her religious duties. I could have told him he would fail there. Why, religion was her life! + +“Since when have you eaten or drunk?” + +If the least thing had passed her lips in the nature of sustenance, neither her youth nor the fact that she was being half starved in her prison could save her from dangerous suspicion of contempt for the commandments of the Church. + +“I have done neither since yesterday at noon.” + +The priest shifted to the Voices again. + +“When have you heard your Voice?” + +“Yesterday and to-day.” + +“At what time?” + +“Yesterday it was in the morning.” + +“What were you doing then?” + +“I was asleep and it woke me.” + +“By touching your arm?” + +“No, without touching me.” + +“Did you thank it? Did you kneel?” + +He had Satan in his mind, you see; and was hoping, perhaps, that by and by it could be shown that she had rendered homage to the arch enemy of God and man. + +“Yes, I thanked it; and knelt in my bed where I was chained, and joined my hands and begged it to implore God’s help for me so that I might have light and instruction as touching the answers I should give here.” + +“Then what did the Voice say?” + +“It told me to answer boldly, and God would help me.” Then she turned toward Cauchon and said, “You say that you are my judge; now I tell you again, take care what you do, for in truth I am sent of God and you are putting yourself in great danger.” + +Beaupere asked her if the Voice’s counsels were not fickle and variable. + +“No. It never contradicts itself. This very day it has told me again to answer boldly.” + +“Has it forbidden you to answer only part of what is asked you?” + +“I will tell you nothing as to that. I have revelations touching the King my master, and those I will not tell you.” Then she was stirred by a great emotion, and the tears sprang to her eyes and she spoke out as with strong conviction, saying: + +“I believe wholly — as wholly as I believe the Christian faith and that God has redeemed us from the fires of hell, that God speaks to me by that Voice!” + +Being questioned further concerning the Voice, she said she was not at liberty to tell all she knew. + +“Do you think God would be displeased at your telling the whole truth?” + +“The Voice has commanded me to tell the King certain things, and not you — and some very lately — even last night; things which I would he knew. He would be more easy at his dinner.” + +“Why doesn’t the Voice speak to the King itself, as it did when you were with him? Would it not if you asked it?” + +“I do not know if it be the wish of God.” She was pensive a moment or two, busy with her thoughts and far away, no doubt; then she added a remark in which Beaupere, always watchful, always alert, detected a possible opening — a chance to set a trap. Do you think he jumped at it instantly, betraying the joy he had in his mind, as a young hand at craft and artifice would do? + +No, oh, no, you could not tell that he had noticed the remark at all. He slid indifferently away from it at once, and began to ask idle questions about other things, so as to slip around and spring on it from behind, so to speak: tedious and empty questions as to whether the Voice had told her she would escape from this prison; and if it had furnished answers to be used by her in to-day’s seance; if it was accompanied with a glory of light; if it had eyes, etc. That risky remark of Joan’s was this: + +“Without the Grace of God I could do nothing.” + +The court saw the priest’s game, and watched his play with a cruel eagerness. Poor Joan was grown dreamy and absent; possibly she was tired. Her life was in imminent danger, and she did not suspect it. The time was ripe now, and Beaupere quietly and stealthily sprang his trap: + +“Are you in a state of Grace?” + +Ah, we had two or three honorable brave men in that pack of judges; and Jean Lefevre was one of them. He sprang to his feet and cried out: + +“It is a terrible question! The accused is not obliged to answer it!” + +Cauchon’s face flushed black with anger to see this plank flung to the perishing child, and he shouted: + +“Silence! and take your seat. The accused will answer the question!” + +There was no hope, no way out of the dilemma; for whether she said yes or whether she said no, it would be all the same — a disastrous answer, for the Scriptures had said one cannot know this thing. Think what hard hearts they were to set this fatal snare for that ignorant young girl and be proud of such work and happy in it. It was a miserable moment for me while we waited; it seemed a year. All the house showed excitement; and mainly it was glad excitement. Joan looked out upon these hungering faces with innocent, untroubled eyes, and then humbly and gently she brought out that immortal answer which brushed the formidable snare away as it had been but a cobweb: + +“If I be not in a state of Grace, I pray God place me in it; if I be in it, I pray God keep me so.” + +Ah, you will never see an effect like that; no, not while you live. For a space there was the silence of the grave. Men looked wondering into each other’s faces, and some were awed and crossed themselves; and I heard Lefevre mutter: + +“It was beyond the wisdom of man to devise that answer. Whence comes this child’s amazing inspirations?” + +Beaupere presently took up his work again, but the humiliation of his defeat weighed upon him, and he made but a rambling and dreary business of it, he not being able to put any heart in it. + +He asked Joan a thousand questions about her childhood and about the oak wood, and the fairies, and the children’s games and romps under our dear Arbre Fee Bourlemont, and this stirring up of old memories broke her voice and made her cry a little, but she bore up as well as she could, and answered everything. + +Then the priest finished by touching again upon the matter of her apparel — a matter which was never to be lost sight of in this still-hunt for this innocent creature’s life, but kept always hanging over her, a menace charged with mournful possibilities: + +“Would you like a woman’s dress?” + +“Indeed yes, if I may go out from this prison — but here, no.” + +== Chapter 8 Joan Tells of Her Visions + +THE COURT met next on Monday the 27th. Would you believe it? The Bishop ignored the contract limiting the examination to matters set down in the proces verbal and again commanded Joan to take the oath without reservations. She said: + +“You should be content I have sworn enough.” + +She stood her ground, and Cauchon had to yield. + +The examination was resumed, concerning Joan’s Voices. + +“You have said that you recognized them as being the voices of angels the third time that you heard them. What angels were they?” + +“St. Catherine and St. Marguerite.” + +“How did you know that it was those two saints? How could you tell the one from the other?” + +“I know it was they; and I know how to distinguish them.” + +“By what sign?” + +“By their manner of saluting me. I have been these seven years under their direction, and I knew who they were because they told me.” + +“Whose was the first Voice that came to you when you were thirteen years old?” + +“It was the Voice of St. Michael. I saw him before my eyes; and he was not alone, but attended by a cloud of angels.” + +“Did you see the archangel and the attendant angels in the body, or in the spirit?” + +“I saw them with the eyes of my body, just as I see you; and when they went away I cried because they did not take me with them.” + +It made me see that awful shadow again that fell dazzling white upon her that day under l’Arbre Fee de Bourlemont, and it made me shiver again, though it was so long ago. It was really not very long gone by, but it seemed so, because so much had happened since. + +“In what shape and form did St. Michael appear?” + +“As to that, I have not received permission to speak.” + +“What did the archangel say to you that first time?” + +“I cannot answer you to-day.” + +Meaning, I think, that she would have to get permission of her Voices first. + +Presently, after some more questions as to the revelations which had been conveyed through her to the King, she complained of the unnecessity of all this, and said: + +“I will say again, as I have said before many times in these sittings, that I answered all questions of this sort before the court at Poitiers, and I would that you wold bring here the record of that court and read from that. Prithee, send for that book.” + +There was no answer. It was a subject that had to be got around and put aside. That book had wisely been gotten out of the way, for it contained things which would be very awkward here. + +Among them was a decision that Joan’s mission was from God, whereas it was the intention of this inferior court to show that it was from the devil; also a decision permitting Joan to wear male attire, whereas it was the purpose of this court to make the male attire do hurtful work against her. + +“How was it that you were moved to come into France — by your own desire?” + +“Yes, and by command of God. But that it was His will I would not have come. I would sooner have had my body torn in sunder by horses than come, lacking that.” + +Beaupere shifted once more to the matter of the male attire, now, and proceeded to make a solemn talk about it. That tried Joan’s patience; and presently she interrupted and said: + +“It is a trifling thing and of no consequence. And I did not put it on by counsel of any man, but by command of God.” + +“Robert de Baudricourt did not order you to wear it?” + +“No.” + +“Did you think you did well in taking the dress of a man?” + +“I did well to do whatsoever thing God commanded me to do.” + +“But in this particular case do you think you did well in taking the dress of a man?” + +“I have done nothing but by command of God.” + +Beaupere made various attempts to lead her into contradictions of herself; also to put her words and acts in disaccord with the Scriptures. But it was lost time. He did not succeed. He returned to her visions, the light which shone about them, her relations with the King, and so on. + +“Was there an angel above the King’s head the first time you saw him?” + +“By the Blessed Mary! — ” + +She forced her impatience down, and finished her sentence with tranquillity: “If there was one I did not see it.” + +“Was there light?” + +“There were more than three thousand soldiers there, and five hundred torches, without taking account of spiritual light.” + +“What made the King believe in the revelations which you brought him?” + +“He had signs; also the counsel of the clergy.” + +“What revelations were made to the King?” + +“You will not get that out of me this year.” + +Presently she added: “During three weeks I was questioned by the clergy at Chinon and Poitiers. The King had a sign before he would believe; and the clergy were of opinion that my acts were good and not evil.” + +The subject was dropped now for a while, and Beaupere took up the matter of the miraculous sword of Fierbois to see if he could not find a chance there to fix the crime of sorcery upon Joan. + +“How did you know that there was an ancient sword buried in the ground under the rear of the altar of the church of St. Catherine of Fierbois?” + +Joan had no concealments to make as to this: + +“I knew the sword was there because my Voices told me so; and I sent to ask that it be given to me to carry in the wars. It seemed to me that it was not very deep in the ground. The clergy of the church caused it to be sought for and dug up; and they polished it, and the rust fell easily off from it.” + +“Were you wearing it when you were taken in battle at Compiegne?” + +“No. But I wore it constantly until I left St. Denis after the attack upon Paris.” + +This sword, so mysteriously discovered and so long and so constantly victorious, was suspected of being under the protection of enchantment. + +“Was that sword blest? What blessing had been invoked upon it?” + +“None. I loved it because it was found in the church of St. Catherine, for I loved that church very dearly.” + +She loved it because it had been built in honor of one of her angels. + +“Didn’t you lay it upon the altar, to the end that it might be lucky?” (The altar of St. Denis.) “No.” + +“Didn’t you pray that it might be made lucky?” + +“Truly it were no harm to wish that my harness might be fortunate.” + +“Then it was not that sword which you wore in the field of Compiegne? What sword did you wear there?” + +“The sword of the Burgundian Franquet d’Arras, whom I took prisoner in the engagement at Lagny. I kept it because it was a good war-sword — good to lay on stout thumps and blows with.” + +She said that quite simply; and the contrast between her delicate little self and the grim soldier words which she dropped with such easy familiarity from her lips made many spectators smile. + +“What is become of the other sword? Where is it now?” + +“Is that in the proces verbal?” + +Beaupere did not answer. + +“Which do you love best, your banner or your sword?” + +Her eye lighted gladly at the mention of her banner, and she cried out: + +“I love my banner best — oh, forty times more than the sword! Sometimes I carried it myself when I charged the enemy, to avoid killing any one.” Then she added, naively, and with again that curious contrast between her girlish little personality and her subject, “I have never killed anyone.” + +It made a great many smile; and no wonder, when you consider what a gentle and innocent little thing she looked. One could hardly believe she had ever even seen men slaughtered, she look so little fitted for such things. + +“In the final assault at Orleans did you tell your soldiers that the arrows shot by the enemy and the stones discharged from their catapults would not strike any one but you?” + +“No. And the proof is, that more than a hundred of my men were struck. I told them to have no doubts and no fears; that they would raise the siege. I was wounded in the neck by an arrow in the assault upon the bastille that commanded the bridge, but St. Catherine comforted me and I was cured in fifteen days without having to quit the saddle and leave my work.” + +“Did you know that you were going to be wounded?” + +“Yes; and I had told it to the King beforehand. I had it from my Voices.” + +“When you took Jargeau, why did you not put its commandant to ransom?” + +“I offered him leave to go out unhurt from the place, with all his garrison; and if he would not I would take it by storm.” + +“And you did, I believe.” + +“Yes.” + +“Had your Voices counseled you to take it by storm?” + +“As to that, I do not remember.” + +Thus closed a weary long sitting, without result. Every device that could be contrived to trap Joan into wrong thinking, wrong doing, or disloyalty to the Church, or sinfulness as a little child at home or later, had been tried, and none of them had succeeded. She had come unscathed through the ordeal. + +Was the court discouraged? No. Naturally it was very much surprised, very much astonished, to find its work baffling and difficult instead of simple and easy, but it had powerful allies in the shape of hunger, cold, fatigue, persecution, deception, and treachery; and opposed to this array nothing but a defenseless and ignorant girl who must some time or other surrender to bodily and mental exhaustion or get caught in one of the thousand traps set for her. + +And had the court made no progress during these seemingly resultless sittings? Yes. It had been feeling its way, groping here, groping there, and had found one or two vague trails which might freshen by and by and lead to something. The male attire, for instance, and the visions and Voices. Of course no one doubted that she had seen supernatural beings and been spoken to and advised by them. And of course no one doubted that by supernatural help miracles had been done by Joan, such as choosing out the King in a crowd when she had never seen him before, and her discovery of the sword buried under the altar. It would have been foolish to doubt these things, for we all know that the air is full of devils and angels that are visible to traffickers in magic on the one hand and to the stainlessly holy on the other; but what many and perhaps most did doubt was, that Joan’s visions, Voices, and miracles came from God. It was hoped that in time they could be proven to have been of satanic origin. Therefore, as you see, the court’s persistent fashion of coming back to that subject every little while and spooking around it and prying into it was not to pass the time — it had a strictly business end in view. + +== Chapter 9 Her Sure Deliverance Foretold + +THE NEXT sitting opened on Thursday the first of March. Fifty-eight judges present — the others resting. + +As usual, Joan was required to take an oath without reservations. She showed no temper this time. She considered herself well buttressed by the proces verbal compromise which Cauchon was so anxious to repudiate and creep out of; so she merely refused, distinctly and decidedly; and added, in a spirit of fairness and candor: + +“But as to matters set down in the proces verbal, I will freely tell the whole truth — yes, as freely and fully as if I were before the Pope.” + +Here was a chance! We had two or three Popes, then; only one of them could be the true Pope, of course. Everybody judiciously shirked the question of which was the true Pope and refrained from naming him, it being clearly dangerous to go into particulars in this matter. Here was an opportunity to trick an unadvised girl into bringing herself into peril, and the unfair judge lost no time in taking advantage of it. He asked, in a plausibly indolent and absent way: + +“Which one do you consider to be the true Pope?” + +The house took an attitude of deep attention, and so waited to hear the answer and see the prey walk into the trap. But when the answer came it covered the judge with confusion, and you could see many people covertly chuckling. For Joan asked in a voice and manner which almost deceived even me, so innocent it seemed: + +“Are there two?” + +One of the ablest priests in that body and one of the best swearers there, spoke right out so that half the house heard him, and said: + +“By God, it was a master stroke!” + +As soon as the judge was better of his embarrassment he came back to the charge, but was prudent and passed by Joan’s question: + +“Is it true that you received a letter from the Count of Armagnac asking you which of the three Popes he ought to obey?” + +“Yes, and answered it.” + +Copies of both letters were produced and read. Joan said that hers had not been quite strictly copied. She said she had received the Count’s letter when she was just mounting her horse; and added: + +“So, in dictating a word or two of reply I said I would try to answer him from Paris or somewhere where I could be at rest.” + +She was asked again which Pope she had considered the right one. + +“I was not able to instruct the Count of Armagnac as to which one he ought to obey”; then she added, with a frank fearlessness which sounded fresh and wholesome in that den of trimmers and shufflers, “but as for me, I hold that we are bound to obey our Lord the Pope who is at Rome.” + +The matter was dropped. They produced and read a copy of Joan’s first effort at dictating — her proclamation summoning the English to retire from the siege of Orleans and vacate France — truly a great and fine production for an unpractised girl of seventeen. + +“Do you acknowledge as your own the document which has just been read?” + +“Yes, except that there are errors in it — words which make me give myself too much importance.” I saw what was coming; I was troubled and ashamed. “For instance, I did not say ‘Deliver up to the Maid’ (rendez au la Pucelle); I said ‘Deliver up to the King’ (rendez au Roi); and I did not call myself ‘Commander-in-Chief’ (chef de guerre). All those are words which my secretary substituted; or mayhap he misheard me or forgot what I said.” + +She did not look at me when she said it: she spared me that embarrassment. I hadn’t misheard her at all, and hadn’t forgotten. I changed her language purposely, for she was Commander-in-Chief and entitled to call herself so, and it was becoming and proper, too; and who was going to surrender anything to the King? — at that time a stick, a cipher? If any surrendering was done, it would be to the noble Maid of Vaucouleurs, already famed and formidable though she had not yet struck a blow. + +Ah, there would have been a fine and disagreeable episode (for me) there, if that pitiless court had discovered that the very scribbler of that piece of dictation, secretary to Joan of Arc, was present — and not only present, but helping build the record; and not only that, but destined at a far distant day to testify against lies and perversions smuggled into it by Cauchon and deliver them over to eternal infamy! + +“Do you acknowledge that you dictated this proclamation?” + +“I do.” + +“Have you repented of it? Do you retract it?” + +Ah, then she was indignant! + +“No! Not even these chains” — and she shook them — “not even these chains can chill the hopes that I uttered there. And more!” — she rose, and stood a moment with a divine strange light kindling in her face, then her words burst forth as in a flood — “I warn you now that before seven years a disaster will smite the English, oh, many fold greater than the fall of Orleans! and — ” + +“Silence! Sit down!” + +“ — and then, soon after, they will lose all France!” + +Now consider these things. The French armies no longer existed. The French cause was standing still, our King was standing still, there was no hint that by and by the Constable Richemont would come forward and take up the great work of Joan of Arc and finish it. In face of all this, Joan made that prophecy — made it with perfect confidence — and it came true. For within five years Paris fell — 1436 — and our King marched into it flying the victor’s flag. So the first part of the prophecy was then fulfilled — in fact, almost the entire prophecy; for, with Paris in our hands, the fulfilment of the rest of it was assured. + +Twenty years later all France was ours excepting a single town — Calais. + +Now that will remind you of an earlier prophecy of Joan’s. At the time that she wanted to take Paris and could have done it with ease if our King had but consented, she said that that was the golden time; that, with Paris ours, all France would be ours in six months. But if this golden opportunity to recover France was wasted, said she, “I give you twenty years to do it in.” + +She was right. After Paris fell, in 1436, the rest of the work had to be done city by city, castle by castle, and it took twenty years to finish it. + +Yes, it was the first day of March, 1431, there in the court, that she stood in the view of everybody and uttered that strange and incredible prediction. Now and then, in this world, somebody’s prophecy turns up correct, but when you come to look into it there is sure to be considerable room for suspicion that the prophecy was made after the fact. But here the matter is different. There in that court Joan’s prophecy was set down in the official record at the hour and moment of its utterance, years before the fulfilment, and there you may read it to this day. + +Twenty-five years after Joan’s death the record was produced in the great Court of the Rehabilitation and verified under oath by Manchon and me, and surviving judges of our court confirmed the exactness of the record in their testimony. + +Joan’ startling utterance on that now so celebrated first of March stirred up a great turmoil, and it was some time before it quieted down again. Naturally, everybody was troubled, for a prophecy is a grisly and awful thing, whether one thinks it ascends from hell or comes down from heaven. + +All that these people felt sure of was, that the inspiration back of it was genuine and puissant. + +They would have given their right hands to know the source of it. + +At last the questions began again. + +“How do you know that those things are going to happen?” + +“I know it by revelation. And I know it as surely as I know that you sit here before me.” + +This sort of answer was not going to allay the spreading uneasiness. Therefore, after some further dallying the judge got the subject out of the way and took up one which he could enjoy more. + +“What languages do your Voices speak?” + +“French.” + +“St. Marguerite, too?” + +“Verily; why not? She is on our side, not on the English!” + +Saints and angels who did not condescend to speak English is a grave affront. They could not be brought into court and punished for contempt, but the tribunal could take silent note of Joan’s remark and remember it against her; which they did. It might be useful by and by. + +“Do your saints and angels wear jewelry? — crowns, rings, earrings?” + +To Joan, questions like these were profane frivolities and not worthy of serious notice; she answered indifferently. But the question brought to her mind another matter, and she turned upon Cauchon and said: + +“I had two rings. They have been taken away from me during my captivity. You have one of them. It is the gift of my brother. Give it back to me. If not to me, then I pray that it be given to the Church.” + +The judges conceived the idea that maybe these rings were for the working of enchantments. + +Perhaps they could be made to do Joan a damage. + +“Where is the other ring?” + +“The Burgundians have it.” + +“Where did you get it?” + +“My father and mother gave it to me.” + +“Describe it.” + +“It is plain and simple and has ‘Jesus and Mary’ engraved upon it.” + +Everybody could see that that was not a valuable equipment to do devil’s work with. So that trail was not worth following. Still, to make sure, one of the judges asked Joan if she had ever cured sick people by touching them with the ring. She said no. + +“Now as concerning the fairies, that were used to abide near by Domremy whereof there are many reports and traditions. It is said that your godmother surprised these creatures on a summer’s night dancing under the tree called l’Arbre Fee de Bourlemont. Is it not possible that your pretended saints and angels are but those fairies?” + +“Is that in your proces?” + +She made no other answer. + +“Have you not conversed with St. Marguerite and St. Catherine under that tree?” + +“I do not know.” + +“Or by the fountain near the tree?” + +“Yes, sometimes.” + +“What promises did they make you?” + +“None but such as they had God’s warrant for.” + +“But what promises did they make?” + +“That is not in your proces; yet I will say this much: they told me that the King would become master of his kingdom in spite of his enemies.” + +“And what else?” + +There was a pause; then she said humbly: + +“They promised to lead me to Paradise.” + +If faces do really betray what is passing in men’s minds, a fear came upon many in that house, at this time, that maybe, after all, a chosen servant and herald of God was here being hunted to her death. The interest deepened. Movements and whisperings ceased: the stillness became almost painful. + +Have you noticed that almost from the beginning the nature of the questions asked Joan showed that in some way or other the questioner very often already knew his fact before he asked his question? Have you noticed that somehow or other the questioners usually knew just how and were to search for Joan’s secrets; that they really knew the bulk of her privacies — a fact not suspected by her — and that they had no task before them but to trick her into exposing those secrets? + +Do you remember Loyseleur, the hypocrite, the treacherous priest, tool of Cauchon? Do you remember that under the sacred seal of the confessional Joan freely and trustingly revealed to him everything concerning her history save only a few things regarding her supernatural revelations which her Voices had forbidden her to tell to any one — and that the unjust judge, Cauchon, was a hidden listener all the time? + +Now you understand how the inquisitors were able to devise that long array of minutely prying questions; questions whose subtlety and ingenuity and penetration are astonishing until we come to remember Loyseleur’s performance and recognize their source. Ah, Bishop of Beauvais, you are now lamenting this cruel iniquity these many years in hell! Yes verily, unless one has come to your help. There is but one among the redeemed that would do it; and it is futile to hope that that one has not already done it — Joan of Arc. + +We will return to the questionings. + +“Did they make you still another promise?” + +“Yes, but that is not in your proces. I will not tell it now, but before three months I will tell it you.” + +The judge seems to know the matter he is asking about, already; one gets this idea from his next question. + +“Did your Voices tell you that you would be liberated before three months?” + +Joan often showed a little flash of surprise at the good guessing of the judges, and she showed one this time. I was frequently in terror to find my mind (which I could not control) criticizing the Voices and saying, “They counsel her to speak boldly — a thing which she would do without any suggestion from them or anybody else — but when it comes to telling her any useful thing, such as how these conspirators manage to guess their way so skilfully into her affairs, they are always off attending to some other business.” + +I am reverent by nature; and when such thoughts swept through my head they made me cold with fear, and if there was a storm and thunder at the time, I was so ill that I could but with difficulty abide at my post and do my work. + +Joan answered: + +“That is not in your proces. I do not know when I shall be set free, but some who wish me out of this world will go from it before me.” + +It made some of them shiver. + +“Have your Voices told you that you will be delivered from this prison?” + +Without a doubt they had, and the judge knew it before he asked the question. + +“Ask me again in three months and I will tell you.” She said it with such a happy look, the tired prisoner! And I? And Noel Rainguesson, drooping yonder? — why, the floods of joy went streaming through us from crown to sole! It was all that we could do to hold still and keep from making fatal exposure of our feelings. + +She was to be set free in three months. That was what she meant; we saw it. The Voices had told her so, and told her true — true to the very day — May 30th. But we know now that they had mercifully hidden from her how she was to be set free, but left her in ignorance. Home again! + +That day was our understanding of it — Noel’s and mine; that was our dream; and now we would count the days, the hours, the minutes. They would fly lightly along; they would soon be over. + +Yes, we would carry our idol home; and there, far from the pomps and tumults of the world, we would take up our happy life again and live it out as we had begun it, in the free air and the sunshine, with the friendly sheep and the friendly people for comrades, and the grace and charm of the meadows, the woods, and the river always before our eyes and their deep peace in our hearts. Yes, that was our dream, the dream that carried us bravely through that three months to an exact and awful fulfilment, the thought of which would have killed us, I think, if we had foreknown it and been obliged to bear the burden of it upon our hearts the half of those weary days. + +Our reading of the prophecy was this: We believed the King’s soul was going to be smitten with remorse; and that he would privately plan a rescue with Joan’s old lieutenants, D’Alencon and the Bastard and La Hire, and that this rescue would take place at the end of the three months. So we made up our minds to be ready and take a hand in it. + +In the present and also in later sittings Joan was urged to name the exact day of her deliverance; but she could not do that. She had not the permission of her Voices. Moreover, the Voices themselves did not name the precise day. Ever since the fulfilment of the prophecy, I have believed that Joan had the idea that her deliverance was going to come in the form of death. But not that death! Divine as she was, dauntless as she was in battle, she was human also. She was not solely a saint, an angel, she was a clay-made girl also — as human a girl as any in the world, and full of a human girl’s sensitiveness and tenderness and delicacies. And so, that death! No, she could not have lived the three months with that one before her, I think. You remember that the first time she was wounded she was frightened, and cried, just as any other girl of seventeen would have done, although she had known for eighteen days that she was going to be wounded on that very day. No, she was not afraid of any ordinary death, and an ordinary death was what she believed the prophecy of deliverance meant, I think, for her face showed happiness, not horror, when she uttered it. + +Now I will explain why I think as I do. Five weeks before she was captured in the battle of Compiegne, her Voices told her what was coming. They did not tell her the day or the place, but said she would be taken prisoner and that it would be before the feast of St. John. She begged that death, certain and swift, should be her fate, and the captivity brief; for she was a free spirit, and dreaded the confinement. The Voices made no promise, but only told her to bear whatever came. Now as they did not refuse the swift death, a hopeful young thing like Joan would naturally cherish that fact and make the most of it, allowing it to grow and establish itself in her mind. And so now that she was told she was to be “delivered” in three months, I think she believed it meant that she would die in her bed in the prison, and that that was why she looked happy and content — the gates of Paradise standing open for her, the time so short, you see, her troubles so soon to be over, her reward so close at hand. Yes, that would make her look happy, that would make her patient and bold, and able to fight her fight out like a soldier. Save herself if she could, of course, and try for the best, for that was the way she was made; but die with her face to the front if die she must. + +Then later, when she charged Cauchon with trying to kill her with a poisoned fish, her notion that she was to be “delivered” by death in the prison — if she had it, and I believe she had — would naturally be greatly strengthened, you see. + +But I am wandering from the trial. Joan was asked to definitely name the time that she would be delivered from prison. + +“I have always said that I was not permitted to tell you everything. I am to be set free, and I desire to ask leave of my Voices to tell you the day. That is why I wish for delay.” + +“Do your Voices forbid you to tell the truth?” + +“Is it that you wish to know matters concerning the King of France? I tell you again that he will regain his kingdom, and that I know it as well as I know that you sit here before me in this tribunal.” She sighed and, after a little pause, added: “I should be dead but for this revelation, which comforts me always.” + +Some trivial questions were asked her about St. Michael’s dress and appearance. She answered them with dignity, but one saw that they gave her pain. After a little she said: + +“I have great joy in seeing him, for when I see him I have the feeling that I am not in mortal sin.” + +She added, “Sometimes St. Marguerite and St. Catherine have allowed me to confess myself to them.” + +Here was a possible chance to set a successful snare for her innocence. + +“When you confessed were you in mortal sin, do you think?” + +But her reply did her no hurt. So the inquiry was shifted once more to the revelations made to the King — secrets which the court had tried again and again to force out of Joan, but without success. + +“Now as to the sign given to the King — ” + +“I have already told you that I will tell you nothing about it.” + +“Do you know what the sign was?” + +“As to that, you will not find out from me.” + +All this refers to Joan’s secret interview with the King — held apart, though two or three others were present. It was known — through Loyseleur, of course — that this sign was a crown and was a pledge of the verity of Joan’s mission. But that is all a mystery until this day — the nature of the crown, I mean — and will remain a mystery to the end of time. We can never know whether a real crown descended upon the King’s head, or only a symbol, the mystic fabric of a vision. + +“Did you see a crown upon the King’s head when he received the revelation?” + +“I cannot tell you as to that, without perjury.” + +“Did the King have that crown at Rheims?” + +“I think the King put upon his head a crown which he found there; but a much richer one was brought him afterward.” + +“Have you seen that one?” + +“I cannot tell you, without perjury. But whether I have seen it or not, I have heard say that it was rich and magnificent.” + +They went on and pestered her to weariness about that mysterious crown, but they got nothing more out of her. The sitting closed. A long, hard day for all of us. + +== Chapter 10 The Inquisitors at Their Wits’ End + +image::https://i.nostr.build/VepBKa1dvozsTkKg.jpg[0445, 300] + + +THE COURT rested a day, then took up work again on Saturday, the third of March. + +This was one of our stormiest sessions. The whole court was out of patience; and with good reason. These threescore distinguished churchmen, illustrious tacticians, veteran legal gladiators, had left important posts where their supervision was needed, to journey hither from various regions and accomplish a most simple and easy matter — condemn and send to death a country-lass of nineteen who could neither read nor write, knew nothing of the wiles and perplexities of legal procedure, could not call a single witness in her defense, was allowed no advocate or adviser, and must conduct her case by herself against a hostile judge and a packed jury. In two hours she would be hopelessly entangled, routed, defeated, convicted. Nothing could be more certain that this — so they thought. But it was a mistake. The two hours had strung out into days; what promised to be a skirmish had expanded into a siege; the thing which had looked so easy had proven to be surprisingly difficult; the light victim who was to have been puffed away like a feather remained planted like a rock; and on top of all this, if anybody had a right to laugh it was the country-lass and not the court. + +She was not doing that, for that was not her spirit; but others were doing it. The whole town was laughing in its sleeve, and the court knew it, and its dignity was deeply hurt. The members could not hide their annoyance. + +And so, as I have said, the session was stormy. It was easy to see that these men had made up their minds to force words from Joan to-day which should shorten up her case and bring it to a prompt conclusion. It shows that after all their experience with her they did not know her yet. + +They went into the battle with energy. They did not leave the questioning to a particular member; no, everybody helped. They volleyed questions at Joan from all over the house, and sometimes so many were talking at once that she had to ask them to deliver their fire one at a time and not by platoons. The beginning was as usual: + +“You are once more required to take the oath pure and simple.” + +“I will answer to what is in the proces verbal. When I do more, I will choose the occasion for myself.” + +That old ground was debated and fought over inch by inch with great bitterness and many threats. But Joan remained steadfast, and the questionings had to shift to other matters. Half an hour was spent over Joan’s apparitions — their dress, hair, general appearance, and so on — in the hope of fishing something of a damaging sort out of the replies; but with no result. + +Next, the male attire was reverted to, of course. After many well-worn questions had been re-asked, one or two new ones were put forward. + +“Did not the King or the Queen sometimes ask you to quit the male dress?” + +“That is not in your proces.” + +“Do you think you would have sinned if you had taken the dress of your sex?” + +“I have done best to serve and obey my sovereign Lord and Master.” + +After a while the matter of Joan’s Standard was taken up, in the hope of connecting magic and witchcraft with it. + +“Did not your men copy your banner in their pennons?” + +“The lancers of my guard did it. It was to distinguish them from the rest of the forces. It was their own idea.” + +“Were they often renewed?” + +“Yes. When the lances were broken they were renewed.” + +The purpose of the question unveils itself in the next one. + +“Did you not say to your men that pennons made like your banner would be lucky?” + +The soldier-spirit in Joan was offended at this puerility. She drew herself up, and said with dignity and fire: “What I said to them was, ‘Ride those English down!’ and I did it myself.” + +Whenever she flung out a scornful speech like that at these French menials in English livery it lashed them into a rage; and that is what happened this time. There were ten, twenty, sometimes even thirty of them on their feet at a time, storming at the prisoner minute after minute, but Joan was not disturbed. + +By and by there was peace, and the inquiry was resumed. + +It was now sought to turn against Joan the thousand loving honors which had been done her when she was raising France out of the dirt and shame of a century of slavery and castigation. + +“Did you not cause paintings and images of yourself to be made?” + +“No. At Arras I saw a painting of myself kneeling in armor before the King and delivering him a letter; but I caused no such things to be made.” + +“Were not masses and prayers said in your honor?” + +“If it was done it was not by my command. But if any prayed for me I think it was no harm.” + +“Did the French people believe you were sent of God?” + +“As to that, I know not; but whether they believed it or not, I was not the less sent of God.” + +“If they thought you were sent of God, do you think it was well thought?” + +“If they believed it, their trust was not abused.” + +“What impulse was it, think you, that moved the people to kiss your hands, your feet, and your vestments?” + +“They were glad to see me, and so they did those things; and I could not have prevented them if I had had the heart. Those poor people came lovingly to me because I had not done them any hurt, but had done the best I could for them according to my strength.” + +See what modest little words she uses to describe that touching spectacle, her marches about France walled in on both sides by the adoring multitudes: “They were glad to see me.” Glad? + +Why they were transported with joy to see her. When they could not kiss her hands or her feet, they knelt in the mire and kissed the hoof-prints of her horse. They worshiped her; and that is what these priests were trying to prove. It was nothing to them that she was not to blame for what other people did. No, if she was worshiped, it was enough; she was guilty of mortal sin. + +Curious logic, one must say. + +“Did you not stand sponsor for some children baptized at Rheims?” + +“At Troyes I did, and at St. Denis; and I named the boys Charles, in honor of the King, and the girls I named Joan.” + +“Did not women touch their rings to those which you wore?” + +“Yes, many did, but I did not know their reason for it.” + +“At Rheims was your Standard carried into the church? Did you stand at the altar with it in your hand at the Coronation?” + +“Yes.” + +“In passing through the country did you confess yourself in the Churches and receive the sacrament?” + +“Yes.” + +“In the dress of a man?” + +“Yes. But I do not remember that I was in armor.” + +It was almost a concession! almost a half-surrender of the permission granted her by the Church at Poitiers to dress as a man. The wily court shifted to another matter: to pursue this one at this time might call Joan’s attention to her small mistake, and by her native cleverness she might recover her lost ground. The tempestuous session had worn her and drowsed her alertness. + +“It is reported that you brought a dead child to life in the church at Lagny. Was that in answer to your prayers?” + +“As to that, I have no knowledge. Other young girls were praying for the child, and I joined them and prayed also, doing no more than they.” + +“Continue.” + +“While we prayed it came to life, and cried. It had been dead three days, and was as black as my doublet. It was straight way baptized, then it passed from life again and was buried in holy ground.” + +“Why did you jump from the tower of Beaurevoir by night and try to escape?” + +“I would go to the succor of Compiegne.” + +It was insinuated that this was an attempt to commit the deep crime of suicide to avoid falling into the hands of the English. + +“Did you not say that you would rather die than be delivered into the power of the English?” + +Joan answered frankly; without perceiving the trap: + +“Yes; my words were, that I would rather that my soul be returned unto God than that I should fall into the hands of the English.” + +It was now insinuated that when she came to, after jumping from the tower, she was angry and blasphemed the name of God; and that she did it again when she heard of the defection of the Commandant of Soissons. She was hurt and indignant at this, and said: + +“It is not true. I have never cursed. It is not my custom to swear.” + +== Chapter 11 The Court Reorganized for Assassination + +A HALT was called. It was time. Cauchon was losing ground in the fight, Joan was gaining it. + +There were signs that here and there in the court a judge was being softened toward Joan by her courage, her presence of mind, her fortitude, her constancy, her piety, her simplicity and candor, her manifest purity, the nobility of her character, her fine intelligence, and the good brave fight she was making, all friendless and alone, against unfair odds, and there was grave room for fear that this softening process would spread further and presently bring Cauchon’s plans in danger. + +Something must be done, and it was done. Cauchon was not distinguished for compassion, but he now gave proof that he had it in his character. He thought it pity to subject so many judges to the prostrating fatigues of this trial when it could be conducted plenty well enough by a handful of them. Oh, gentle judge! But he did not remember to modify the fatigues for the little captive. + +He would let all the judges but a handful go, but he would select the handful himself, and he did. + +He chose tigers. If a lamb or two got in, it was by oversight, not intention; and he knew what to do with lambs when discovered. + +He called a small council now, and during five days they sifted the huge bulk of answers thus far gathered from Joan. They winnowed it of all chaff, all useless matter — that is, all matter favorable to Joan; they saved up all matter which could be twisted to her hurt, and out of this they constructed a basis for a new trial which should have the semblance of a continuation of the old one. Another change. It was plain that the public trial had wrought damage: its proceedings had been discussed all over the town and had moved many to pity the abused prisoner. There should be no more of that. The sittings should be secret hereafter, and no spectators admitted. So Noel could come no more. I sent this news to him. I had not the heart to carry it myself. I would give the pain a chance to modify before I should see him in the evening. + +On the 10th of March the secret trial began. A week had passed since I had seen Joan. Her appearance gave me a great shock. She looked tired and weak. She was listless and far away, and her answers showed that she was dazed and not able to keep perfect run of all that was done and said. Another court would not have taken advantage of her state, seeing that her life was at stake here, but would have adjourned and spared her. Did this one? No; it worried her for hours, and with a glad and eager ferocity, making all it could out of this great chance, the first one it had had. + +She was tortured into confusing herself concerning the “sign” which had been given the King, and the next day this was continued hour after hour. As a result, she made partial revealments of particulars forbidden by her Voices; and seemed to me to state as facts things which were but allegories and visions mixed with facts. + +The third day she was brighter, and looked less worn. She was almost her normal self again, and did her work well. Many attempts were made to beguile her into saying indiscreet things, but she saw the purpose in view and answered with tact and wisdom. + +“Do you know if St. Catherine and St. Marguerite hate the English?” + +“They love whom Our Lord loves, and hate whom He hates.” + +“Does God hate the English?” + +“Of the love or the hatred of God toward the English I know nothing.” Then she spoke up with the old martial ring in her voice and the old audacity in her words, and added, “But I know this — that God will send victory to the French, and that all the English will be flung out of France but the dead ones!” + +“Was God on the side of the English when they were prosperous in France?” + +“I do not know if God hates the French, but I think that He allowed them to be chastised for their sins.” + +It was a sufficiently naive way to account for a chastisement which had now strung out for ninety-six years. But nobody found fault with it. There was nobody there who would not punish a sinner ninety-six years if he could, nor anybody there who would ever dream of such a thing as the Lord’s being any shade less stringent than men. + +“Have you ever embraced St. Marguerite and St. Catherine?” + +“Yes, both of them.” + +The evil face of Cauchon betrayed satisfaction when she said that. + +“When you hung garlands upon L’Arbre Fee Bourlemont, did you do it in honor of your apparitions?” + +“No.” + +Satisfaction again. No doubt Cauchon would take it for granted that she hung them there out of sinful love for the fairies. + +“When the saints appeared to you did you bow, did you make reverence, did you kneel?” + +“Yes; I did them the most honor and reverence that I could.” + +A good point for Cauchon if he could eventually make it appear that these were no saints to whom she had done reverence, but devils in disguise. + +Now there was the matter of Joan’s keeping her supernatural commerce a secret from her parents. Much might be made of that. In fact, particular emphasis had been given to it in a private remark written in the margin of the proces: “She concealed her visions from her parents and from every one.” Possibly this disloyalty to her parents might itself be the sign of the satanic source of her mission. + +“Do you think it was right to go away to the wars without getting your parents’ leave? It is written one must honor his father and his mother.” + +“I have obeyed them in all things but that. And for that I have begged their forgiveness in a letter and gotten it.” + +“Ah, you asked their pardon? So you knew you were guilty of sin in going without their leave!” + +Joan was stirred. Her eyes flashed, and she exclaimed: + +“I was commanded of God, and it was right to go! If I had had a hundred fathers and mothers and been a king’s daughter to boot I would have gone.” + +“Did you never ask your Voices if you might tell your parents?” + +“They were willing that I should tell them, but I would not for anything have given my parents that pain.” + +To the minds of the questioners this headstrong conduct savored of pride. That sort of pride would move one to see sacrilegious adorations. + +“Did not your Voices call you Daughter of God?” + +Joan answered with simplicity, and unsuspiciously: + +“Yes; before the siege of Orleans and since, they have several times called me Daughter of God.” + +Further indications of pride and vanity were sought. + +“What horse were you riding when you were captured? Who gave it you?” + +“The King.” + +“You had other things — riches — of the King?” + +“For myself I had horses and arms, and money to pay the service in my household.” + +“Had you not a treasury?” + +“Yes. Ten or twelve thousand crowns.” Then she said with naivete “It was not a great sum to carry on a war with.” + +“You have it yet?” + +“No. It is the King’s money. My brothers hold it for him.” + +“What were the arms which you left as an offering in the church of St. Denis?” + +“My suit of silver mail and a sword.” + +“Did you put them there in order that they might be adored?” + +“No. It was but an act of devotion. And it is the custom of men of war who have been wounded to make such offering there. I had been wounded before Paris.” + +Nothing appealed to these stony hearts, those dull imaginations — not even this pretty picture, so simply drawn, of the wounded girl-soldier hanging her toy harness there in curious companionship with the grim and dusty iron mail of the historic defenders of France. No, there was nothing in it for them; nothing, unless evil and injury for that innocent creature could be gotten out of it somehow. + +“Which aided most — you the Standard, or the Standard you?” + +“Whether it was the Standard or whether it was I, is nothing — the victories came from God.” + +“But did you base your hopes of victory in yourself or in your Standard?” + +“In neither. In God, and not otherwise.” + +“Was not your Standard waved around the King’s head at the Coronation?” + +“No. It was not.” + +“Why was it that your Standard had place at the crowning of the King in the Cathedral of Rheims, rather than those of the other captains?” + +Then, soft and low, came that touching speech which will live as long as language lives, and pass into all tongues, and move all gentle hearts wheresoever it shall come, down to the latest day: + +“It had borne the burden, it had earned the honor.” How simple it is, and how beautiful. And how it beggars the studies eloquence of the masters of oratory. Eloquence was a native gift of Joan of Arc; it came from her lips without effort and without preparation. Her words were as sublime as her deeds, as sublime as her character; they had their source in a great heart and were coined in a great brain. + +[INFO] +==== +What she said has been many times translated, but never with success. There is a haunting pathos about the original which eludes all efforts to convey it into our tongue. It is as subtle as an odor, and escapes in the transmission. Her words were these: + +“Il avait, a la peine, c’etait bien raison qu’il fut a l’honneur.” + +Monseigneur Ricard, Honorary Vicar-General to the Archbishop of Aix, finely speaks of it (Jeanne d’Arc la Venerable, page 197) as “that sublime reply, enduring in the history of celebrated sayings like the cry of a French and Christian soul wounded unto death in its patriotism and its faith.” — TRANSLATOR. +==== + +== Chapter 12 Joan’s Master-Stroke Diverted + +NOW, as a next move, this small secret court of holy assassins did a thing so base that even at this day, in my old age, it is hard to speak of it with patience. + +In the beginning of her commerce with her Voices there at Domremy, the child Joan solemnly devoted her life to God, vowing her pure body and her pure soul to His service. You will remember that her parents tried to stop her from going to the wars by haling her to the court at Toul to compel her to make a marriage which she had never promised to make — a marriage with our poor, good, windy, big, hard-fighting, and most dear and lamented comrade, the Standard-Bearer, who fell in honorable battle and sleeps with God these sixty years, peace to his ashes! And you will remember how Joan, sixteen years old, stood up in that venerable court and conducted her case all by herself, and tore the poor Paladin’s case to rags and blew it away with a breath; and how the astonished old judge on the bench spoke of her as “this marvelous child.” + +You remember all that. Then think what I felt, to see these false priests, here in the tribunal wherein Joan had fought a fourth lone fight in three years, deliberately twist that matter entirely around and try to make out that Joan haled the Paladin into court and pretended that he had promised to marry her, and was bent on making him do it. + +Certainly there was no baseness that those people were ashamed to stoop to in their hunt for that friendless girl’s life. What they wanted to show was this — that she had committed the sin of relapsing from her vow and trying to violate it. + +Joan detailed the true history of the case, but lost her temper as she went along, and finished with some words for Cauchon which he remembers yet, whether he is fanning himself in the world he belongs in or has swindled his way into the other. + +The rest of this day and part of the next the court labored upon the old theme — the male attire. It was shabby work for those grave men to be engaged in; for they well knew one of Joan’s reasons for clinging to the male dress was, that soldiers of the guard were always present in her room whether she was asleep or awake, and that the male dress was a better protection for her modesty than the other. + +The court knew that one of Joan’s purposes had been the deliverance of the exiled Duke of Orleans, and they were curious to know how she had intended to manage it. Her plan was characteristically businesslike, and her statement of it as characteristically simple and straightforward: + +“I would have taken English prisoners enough in France for his ransom; and failing that, I would have invaded England and brought him out by force.” + +That was just her way. If a thing was to be done, it was love first, and hammer and tongs to follow; but no shilly-shallying between. She added with a little sigh: + +“If I had had my freedom three years, I would have delivered him.” + +“Have you the permission of your Voices to break out of prison whenever you can?” + +“I have asked their leave several times, but they have not given it.” + +I think it is as I have said, she expected the deliverance of death, and within the prison walls, before the three months should expire. + +“Would you escape if you saw the doors open?” + +She spoke up frankly and said: + +“Yes — for I should see in that the permission of Our Lord. God helps who help themselves, the proverb says. But except I thought I had permission, I would not go.” + +Now, then, at this point, something occurred which convinces me, every time I think of it — and it struck me so at the time — that for a moment, at least, her hopes wandered to the King, and put into her mind the same notion about her deliverance which Noel and I had settled upon — a rescue by her old soldiers. I think the idea of the rescue did occur to her, but only as a passing thought, and that it quickly passed away. + +Some remark of the Bishop of Beauvais moved her to remind him once more that he was an unfair judge, and had no right to preside there, and that he was putting himself in great danger. + +“What danger?” he asked. + +“I do not know. St. Catherine has promised me help, but I do not know the form of it. I do not know whether I am to be delivered from this prison or whether when you sent me to the scaffold there will happen a trouble by which I shall be set free. Without much thought as to this matter, I am of the opinion that it may be one or the other.” After a pause she added these words, memorable forever — words whose meaning she may have miscaught, misunderstood; as to that we can never know; words which she may have rightly understood, as to that, also, we can never know; but words whose mystery fell away from them many a year ago and revealed their meaning to all the world: + +“But what my Voices have said clearest is, that I shall be delivered by a great victory.” She paused, my heart was beating fast, for to me that great victory meant the sudden bursting in of our old soldiers with the war-cry and clash of steel at the last moment and the carrying off of Joan of Arc in triumph. But, oh, that thought had such a short life! For now she raised her head and finished, with those solemn words which men still so often quote and dwell upon — words which filled me with fear, they sounded so like a prediction. “And always they say ‘Submit to whatever comes; do not grieve for your martyrdom; from it you will ascend into the Kingdom of Paradise.” + +Was she thinking of fire and the stake? I think not. I thought of it myself, but I believe she was only thinking of this slow and cruel martyrdom of chains and captivity and insult. Surely, martyrdom was the right name for it. + +It was Jean de la Fontaine who was asking the questions. He was willing to make the most he could out of what she had said: + +“As the Voices have told you you are going to Paradise, you feel certain that that will happen and that you will not be damned in hell. Is that so?” + +“I believe what they told me. I know that I shall be saved.” + +“It is a weighty answer.” + +“To me the knowledge that I shall be saved is a great treasure.” + +“Do you think that after that revelation you could be able to commit mortal sin?” + +“As to that, I do not know. My hope for salvation is in holding fast to my oath to keep by body and my soul pure.” + +“Since you know you are to be saved, do you think it necessary to go to confession?” + +The snare was ingeniously devised, but Joan’s simple and humble answer left it empty: + +“One cannot keep his conscience too clean.” + +We were now arriving at the last day of this new trial. Joan had come through the ordeal well. It had been a long and wearisome struggle for all concerned. All ways had been tried to convict the accused, and all had failed, thus far. The inquisitors were thoroughly vexed and dissatisfied. + +However, they resolved to make one more effort, put in one more day’s work. This was done — March 17th. Early in the sitting a notable trap was set for Joan: + +“Will you submit to the determination of the Church all your words and deeds, whether good or bad?” + +That was well planned. Joan was in imminent peril now. If she should heedlessly say yes, it would put her mission itself upon trial, and one would know how to decide its source and character promptly. If she should say no, she would render herself chargeable with the crime of heresy. + +But she was equal to the occasion. She drew a distinct line of separation between the Church’s authority over her as a subject member, and the matter of her mission. She said she loved the Church and was ready to support the Christian faith with all her strength; but as to the works done under her mission, those must be judged by God alone, who had commanded them to be done. + +The judge still insisted that she submit them to the decision of the Church. She said: + +“I will submit them to Our Lord who sent me. It would seem to me that He and His Church are one, and that there should be no difficulty about this matter.” Then she turned upon the judge and said, “Why do you make a difficulty when there is no room for any?” + +Then Jean de la Fontaine corrected her notion that there was but one Church. There were two — the Church Triumphant, which is God, the saints, the angels, and the redeemed, and has its seat in heaven; and the Church Militant, which is our Holy Father the Pope, Vicar of God, the prelates, the clergy and all good Christians and Catholics, the which Church has its seat in the earth, is governed by the Holy Spirit, and cannot err. “Will you not submit those matters to the Church Militant?” + +“I am come to the King of France from the Church Triumphant on high by its commandant, and to that Church I will submit all those things which I have done. For the Church Militant I have no other answer now.” + +The court took note of this straitly worded refusal, and would hope to get profit out of it; but the matter was dropped for the present, and a long chase was then made over the old hunting-ground — the fairies, the visions, the male attire, and all that. + +In the afternoon the satanic Bishop himself took the chair and presided over the closing scenes of the trial. Along toward the finish, this question was asked by one of the judges: + +“You have said to my lord the Bishop that you would answer him as you would answer before our Holy Father the Pope, and yet there are several questions which you continually refuse to answer. Would you not answer the Pope more fully than you have answered before my lord of Beauvais? Would you not feel obliged to answer the Pope, who is the Vicar of God, more fully?” + +Now a thunder-clap fell out of a clear sky: + +“Take me to the Pope. I will answer to everything that I ought to.” + +It made the Bishop’s purple face fairly blanch with consternation. If Joan had only known, if she had only know! She had lodged a mine under this black conspiracy able to blow the Bishop’s schemes to the four winds of heaven, and she didn’t know it. She had made that speech by mere instinct, not suspecting what tremendous forces were hidden in it, and there was none to tell her what she had done. I knew, and Manchon knew; and if she had known how to read writing we could have hoped to get the knowledge to her somehow; but speech was the only way, and none was allowed to approach her near enough for that. So there she sat, once more Joan of Arc the Victorious, but all unconscious of it. She was miserably worn and tired, by the long day’s struggle and by illness, or she must have noticed the effect of that speech and divined the reason of it. + +She had made many master-strokes, but this was the master-stroke. It was an appeal to Rome. It was her clear right; and if she had persisted in it Cauchon’s plot would have tumbled about his ears like a house of cards, and he would have gone from that place the worst-beaten man of the century. He was daring, but he was not daring enough to stand up against that demand if Joan had urged it. But no, she was ignorant, poor thing, and did not know what a blow she had struck for life and liberty. + +France was not the Church. Rome had no interest in the destruction of this messenger of God. + +Rome would have given her a fair trial, and that was all that her cause needed. From that trial she would have gone forth free, and honored, and blessed. + +But it was not so fated. Cauchon at once diverted the questions to other matters and hurried the trial quickly to an end. + +As Joan moved feebly away, dragging her chains, I felt stunned and dazed, and kept saying to myself, “Such a little while ago she said the saving word and could have gone free; and now, there she goes to her death; yes, it is to her death, I know it, I feel it. They will double the guards; they will never let any come near her now between this and her condemnation, lest she get a hint and speak that word again. This is the bitterest day that has come to me in all this miserable time.” + +== Chapter 13 The Third Trial Fails + +image::https://i.nostr.build/3hB8jxo27cnYJrfX.jpg[0485, 300] + + +SO THE SECOND trial in the prison was over. Over, and no definite result. The character of it I have described to you. It was baser in one particular than the previous one; for this time the charges had not been communicated to Joan, therefore she had been obliged to fight in the dark. + +There was no opportunity to do any thinking beforehand; there was no foreseeing what traps might be set, and no way to prepare for them. Truly it was a shabby advantage to take of a girl situated as this one was. One day, during the course of it, an able lawyer of Normandy, Maetre Lohier, happened to be in Rouen, and I will give you his opinion of that trial, so that you may see that I have been honest with you, and that my partisanship has not made me deceive you as to its unfair and illegal character. Cauchon showed Lohier the proces and asked his opinion about the trial. Now this was the opinion which he gave to Cauchon. He said that the whole thing was null and void; for these reasons: 1, because the trial was secret, and full freedom of speech and action on the part of those present not possible; 2, because the trial touched the honor of the King of France, yet he was not summoned to defend himself, nor any one appointed to represent him; 3, because the charges against the prisoner were not communicated to her; 4, because the accused, although young and simple, had been forced to defend her cause without help of counsel, notwithstanding she had so much at stake. + +Did that please Bishop Cauchon? It did not. He burst out upon Lohier with the most savage cursings, and swore he would have him drowned. Lohier escaped from Rouen and got out of France with all speed, and so saved his life. + +Well, as I have said, the second trial was over, without definite result. But Cauchon did not give up. He could trump up another. And still another and another, if necessary. He had the half-promise of an enormous prize — the Archbishopric of Rouen — if he should succeed in burning the body and damning to hell the soul of this young girl who had never done him any harm; and such a prize as that, to a man like the Bishop of Beauvais, was worth the burning and damning of fifty harmless girls, let alone one. + +So he set to work again straight off next day; and with high confidence, too, intimating with brutal cheerfulness that he should succeed this time. It took him and the other scavengers nine days to dig matter enough out of Joan’s testimony and their own inventions to build up the new mass of charges. And it was a formidable mass indeed, for it numbered sixty-six articles. + +This huge document was carried to the castle the next day, March 27th; and there, before a dozen carefully selected judges, the new trial was begun. + +Opinions were taken, and the tribunal decided that Joan should hear the articles read this time. + +Maybe that was on account of Lohier’s remark upon that head; or maybe it was hoped that the reading would kill the prisoner with fatigue — for, as it turned out, this reading occupied several days. It was also decided that Joan should be required to answer squarely to every article, and that if she refused she should be considered convicted. You see, Cauchon was managing to narrow her chances more and more all the time; he was drawing the toils closer and closer. + +Joan was brought in, and the Bishop of Beauvais opened with a speech to her which ought to have made even himself blush, so laden it was with hypocrisy and lies. He said that this court was composed of holy and pious churchmen whose hearts were full of benevolence and compassion toward her, and that they had no wish to hurt her body, but only a desire to instruct her and lead her into the way of truth and salvation. + +Why, this man was born a devil; now think of his describing himself and those hardened slaves of his in such language as that. + +And yet, worse was to come. For now having in mind another of Lovier’s hints, he had the cold effrontery to make to Joan a proposition which, I think, will surprise you when you hear it. He said that this court, recognizing her untaught estate and her inability to deal with the complex and difficult matters which were about to be considered, had determined, out of their pity and their mercifulness, to allow her to choose one or more persons out of their own number to help her with counsel and advice! + +Think of that — a court made up of Loyseleur and his breed of reptiles. It was granting leave to a lamb to ask help of a wolf. Joan looked up to see if he was serious, and perceiving that he was at least pretending to be, she declined, of course. + +The Bishop was not expecting any other reply. He had made a show of fairness and could have it entered on the minutes, therefore he was satisfied. + +Then he commanded Joan to answer straitly to every accusation; and threatened to cut her off from the Church if she failed to do that or delayed her answers beyond a given length of time. + +Yes, he was narrowing her chances down, step by step. + +Thomas de Courcelles began the reading of that interminable document, article by article. Joan answered to each article in its turn; sometimes merely denying its truth, sometimes by saying her answer would be found in the records of the previous trials. + +What a strange document that was, and what an exhibition and exposure of the heart of man, the one creature authorized to boast that he is made in the image of God. To know Joan of Arc was to know one who was wholly noble, pure, truthful, brave, compassionate, generous, pious, unselfish, modest, blameless as the very flowers in the fields — a nature fine and beautiful, a character supremely great. To know her from that document would be to know her as the exact reverse of all that. Nothing that she was appears in it, everything that she was not appears there in detail. + +Consider some of the things it charges against her, and remember who it is it is speaking of. It calls her a sorceress, a false prophet, an invoker and companion of evil spirits, a dealer in magic, a person ignorant of the Catholic faith, a schismatic; she is sacrilegious, an idolater, an apostate, a blasphemer of God and His saints, scandalous, seditious, a disturber of the peace; she incites men to war, and to the spilling of human blood; she discards the decencies and proprieties of her sex, irreverently assuming the dress of a man and the vocation of a soldier; she beguiles both princes and people; she usurps divine honors, and has caused herself to be adored and venerated, offering her hands and her vestments to be kissed. + +There it is — every fact of her life distorted, perverted, reversed. As a child she had loved the fairies, she had spoken a pitying word for them when they were banished from their home, she had played under their tree and around their fountain — hence she was a comrade of evil spirits. + +She had lifted France out of the mud and moved her to strike for freedom, and led her to victory after victory — hence she was a disturber of the peace — as indeed she was, and a provoker of war — as indeed she was again! and France will be proud of it and grateful for it for many a century to come. And she had been adored — as if she could help that, poor thing, or was in any way to blame for it. The cowed veteran and the wavering recruit had drunk the spirit of war from her eyes and touched her sword with theirs and moved forward invincible — hence she was a sorceress. + +And so the document went on, detail by detail, turning these waters of life to poison, this gold to dross, these proofs of a noble and beautiful life to evidences of a foul and odious one. + +Of course, the sixty-six articles were just a rehash of the things which had come up in the course of the previous trials, so I will touch upon this new trial but lightly. In fact, Joan went but little into detail herself, usually merely saying, “That is not true — passez outre”; or, “I have answered that before — let the clerk read it in his record,” or saying some other brief thing. + +She refused to have her mission examined and tried by the earthly Church. The refusal was taken note of. + +She denied the accusation of idolatry and that she had sought men’s homage. She said: + +“If any kissed my hands and my vestments it was not by my desire, and I did what I could to prevent it.” + +She had the pluck to say to that deadly tribunal that she did not know the fairies to be evil beings. She knew it was a perilous thing to say, but it was not in her nature to speak anything but the truth when she spoke at all. Danger had no weight with her in such things. Note was taken of her remark. + +She refused, as always before, when asked if she would put off the male attire if she were given permission to commune. And she added this: + +“When one receives the sacrament, the manner of his dress is a small thing and of no value in the eyes of Our Lord.” + +She was charge with being so stubborn in clinging to her male dress that she would not lay it off even to get the blessed privilege of hearing mass. She spoke out with spirit and said: + +“I would rather die than be untrue to my oath to God.” + +She was reproached with doing man’s work in the wars and thus deserting the industries proper to her sex. She answered, with some little touch of soldierly disdain: + +“As to the matter of women’s work, there’s plenty to do it.” + +It was always a comfort to me to see the soldier spirit crop up in her. While that remained in her she would be Joan of Arc, and able to look trouble and fate in the face. + +“It appears that this mission of yours which you claim you had from God, was to make war and pour out human blood.” + +Joan replied quite simply, contenting herself with explaining that war was not her first move, but her second: + +“To begin with, I demanded that peace should be made. If it was refused, then I would fight.” + +The judge mixed the Burgundians and English together in speaking of the enemy which Joan had come to make war upon. But she showed that she made a distinction between them by act and word, the Burgundians being Frenchmen and therefore entitled to less brusque treatment than the English. She said: + +“As to the Duke of Burgundy, I required of him, both by letters and by his ambassadors, that he make peace with the King. As to the English, the only peace for them was that they leave the country and go home.” + +Then she said that even with the English she had shown a pacific disposition, since she had warned them away by proclamation before attacking them. + +“If they had listened to me,” said she, “they would have done wisely.” At this point she uttered her prophecy again, saying with emphasis, “Before seven years they will see it themselves.” + +Then they presently began to pester her again about her male costume, and tried to persuade her to voluntarily promise to discard it. I was never deep, so I think it no wonder that I was puzzled by their persistency in what seemed a thing of no consequence, and could not make out what their reason could be. But we all know now. We all know now that it was another of their treacherous projects. Yes, if they could but succeed in getting her to formally discard it they could play a game upon her which would quickly destroy her. So they kept at their evil work until at last she broke out and said: + +“Peace! Without the permission of God I will not lay it off though you cut off my head!” + +At one point she corrected the proces verbal, saying: + +“It makes me say that everything which I have done was done by the counsel of Our Lord. I did not say that, I said ‘all which I have well done.’” + +Doubt was cast upon the authenticity of her mission because of the ignorance and simplicity of the messenger chosen. Joan smiled at that. She could have reminded these people that Our Lord, who is no respecter of persons, had chosen the lowly for his high purposes even oftener than he had chosen bishops and cardinals; but she phrased her rebuke in simpler terms: + +“It is the prerogative of Our Lord to choose His instruments where He will.” + +She was asked what form of prayer she used in invoking counsel from on high. She said the form was brief and simple; then she lifted her pallid face and repeated it, clasping her chained hands: + +“Most dear God, in honor of your holy passion I beseech you, if you love me, that you will reveal to me what I am to answer to these churchmen. As concerns my dress, I know by what command I have put it on, but I know not in what manner I am to lay it off. I pray you tell me what to do.” + +She was charged with having dared, against the precepts of God and His saints, to assume empire over men and make herself Commander-in-Chief. That touched the soldier in her. She had a deep reverence for priests, but the soldier in her had but small reverence for a priest’s opinions about war; so, in her answer to this charge she did not condescend to go into any explanations or excuses, but delivered herself with bland indifference and military brevity. + +“If I was Commander-in-Chief, it was to thrash the English.” + +Death was staring her in the face here all the time, but no matter; she dearly loved to make these English-hearted Frenchmen squirm, and whenever they gave her an opening she was prompt to jab her sting into it. She got great refreshment out of these little episodes. Her days were a desert; these were the oases in it. + +Her being in the wars with men was charged against her as an indelicacy. She said: + +“I had a woman with me when I could — in towns and lodgings. In the field I always slept in my armor.” + +That she and her family had been ennobled by the King was charged against her as evidence that the source of her deeds were sordid self-seeking. She answered that she had not asked this grace of the King; it was his own act. + +This third trial was ended at last. And once again there was no definite result. + +Possibly a fourth trial might succeed in defeating this apparently unconquerable girl. So the malignant Bishop set himself to work to plan it. + +He appointed a commission to reduce the substance of the sixty-six articles to twelve compact lies, as a basis for the new attempt. This was done. It took several days. + +Meantime Cauchon went to Joan’s cell one day, with Manchon and two of the judges, Isambard de la Pierre and Martin Ladvenue, to see if he could not manage somehow to beguile Joan into submitting her mission to the examination and decision of the Church Militant — that is to say, to that part of the Church Militant which was represented by himself and his creatures. + +Joan once more positively refused. Isambard de la Pierre had a heart in his body, and he so pitied this persecuted poor girl that he ventured to do a very daring thing; for he asked her if she would be willing to have her case go before the Council of Basel, and said it contained as many priests of her party as of the English party. + +Joan cried out that she would gladly go before so fairly constructed a tribunal as that; but before Isambard could say another word Cauchon turned savagely upon him and exclaimed: + +“Shut up, in the devil’s name!” + +Then Manchon ventured to do a brave thing, too, though he did it in great fear for his life. He asked Cauchon if he should enter Joan’s submission to the Council of Basel upon the minutes. + +“No! It is not necessary.” + +“Ah,” said poor Joan, reproachfully, “you set down everything that is against me, but you will not set down what is for me.” + +It was piteous. It would have touched the heart of a brute. But Cauchon was more than that. + +== Chapter 14 Joan Struggles with Her Twelve Lies + +WE WERE now in the first days of April. Joan was ill. She had fallen ill the 29th of March, the day after the close of the third trial, and was growing worse when the scene which I have just described occurred in her cell. It was just like Cauchon to go there and try to get some advantage out of her weakened state. + +Let us note some of the particulars in the new indictment — the Twelve Lies. + +Part of the first one says Joan asserts that she has found her salvation. She never said anything of the kind. It also says she refuses to submit herself to the Church. Not true. She was willing to submit all her acts to this Rouen tribunal except those done by the command of God in fulfilment of her mission. Those she reserved for the judgment of God. She refused to recognize Cauchon and his serfs as the Church, but was willing to go before the Pope or the Council of Basel. + +A clause of another of the Twelve says she admits having threatened with death those who would not obey her. Distinctly false. Another clause says she declares that all she has done has been done by command of God. What she really said was, all that she had done well — a correction made by herself as you have already seen. + +Another of the Twelve says she claims that she has never committed any sin. She never made any such claim. + +Another makes the wearing of the male dress a sin. If it was, she had high Catholic authority for committing it — that of the Archbishop of Rheims and the tribunal of Poitiers. + +The Tenth Article was resentful against her for “pretending” that St. Catherine and St. + +Marguerite spoke French and not English, and were French in their politics. + +The Twelve were to be submitted first to the learned doctors of theology of the University of Paris for approval. They were copied out and ready by the night of April 4th. Then Manchon did another bold thing: he wrote in the margin that many of the Twelve put statements in Joan’s mouth which were the exact opposite of what she had said. That fact would not be considered important by the University of Paris, and would not influence its decision or stir its humanity, in case it had any — which it hadn’t when acting in a political capacity, as at present — but it was a brave thing for that good Manchon to do, all the same. + +The Twelve were sent to Paris next day, April 5th. That afternoon there was a great tumult in Rouen, and excited crowds were flocking through all the chief streets, chattering and seeking for news; for a report had gone abroad that Joan of Arc was sick until death. In truth, these long seances had worn her out, and she was ill indeed. The heads of the English party were in a state of consternation; for if Joan should die uncondemned by the Church and go to the grave unsmirched, the pity and the love of the people would turn her wrongs and sufferings and death into a holy martyrdom, and she would be even a mightier power in France dead than she had been when alive. + +The Earl of Warwick and the English Cardinal (Winchester) hurried to the castle and sent messengers flying for physicians. Warwick was a hard man, a rude, coarse man, a man without compassion. There lay the sick girl stretched in her chains in her iron cage — not an object to move man to ungentle speech, one would think; yet Warwick spoke right out in her hearing and said to the physicians: + +“Mind you take good care of her. The King of England has no mind to have her die a natural death. She is dear to him, for he bought her dear, and he does not want her to die, save at the stake. Now then, mind you cure her.” + +The doctors asked Joan what had made her ill. She said the Bishop of Beauvais had sent her a fish and she thought it was that. + +Then Jean d’Estivet burst out on her, and called her names and abused her. He understood Joan to be charging the Bishop with poisoning her, you see; and that was not pleasing to him, for he was one of Cauchon’s most loving and conscienceless slaves, and it outraged him to have Joan injure his master in the eyes of these great English chiefs, these being men who could ruin Cauchon and would promptly do it if they got the conviction that he was capable of saving Joan from the stake by poisoning her and thus cheating the English out of all the real value gainable by her purchase from the Duke of Burgundy. + +Joan had a high fever, and the doctors proposed to bleed her. Warwick said: + +“Be careful about that; she is smart and is capable of killing herself.” + +He meant that to escape the stake she might undo the bandage and let herself bleed to death. + +But the doctors bled her anyway, and then she was better. + +Not for long, though. Jean d’Estivet could not hold still, he was so worried and angry about the suspicion of poisoning which Joan had hinted at; so he came back in the evening and stormed at her till he brought the fever all back again. + +When Warwick heard of this he was in a fine temper, you may be sure, for here was his prey threatening to escape again, and all through the over-zeal of this meddling fool. Warwick gave D’Estivet a quite admirable cursing — admirable as to strength, I mean, for it was said by persons of culture that the art of it was not good — and after that the meddler kept still. + +Joan remained ill more than two weeks; then she grew better. She was still very weak, but she could bear a little persecution now without much danger to her life. It seemed to Cauchon a good time to furnish it. So he called together some of his doctors of theology and went to her dungeon. Manchon and I went along to keep the record — that is, to set down what might be useful to Cauchon, and leave out the rest. + +The sight of Joan gave me a shock. Why, she was but a shadow! It was difficult for me to realize that this frail little creature with the sad face and drooping form was the same Joan of Arc that I had so often seen, all fire and enthusiasm, charging through a hail of death and the lightning and thunder of the guns at the head of her battalions. It wrung my heart to see her looking like this. + +But Cauchon was not touched. He made another of those conscienceless speeches of his, all dripping with hypocrisy and guile. He told Joan that among her answers had been some which had seemed to endanger religion; and as she was ignorant and without knowledge of the Scriptures, he had brought some good and wise men to instruct her, if she desired it. Said he, “We are churchmen, and disposed by our good will as well as by our vocation to procure for you the salvation of your soul and your body, in every way in our power, just as we would do the like for our nearest kin or for ourselves. In this we but follow the example of Holy Church, who never closes the refuge of her bosom against any that are willing to return.” + +Joan thanked him for these sayings and said: + +“I seem to be in danger of death from this malady; if it be the pleasure of God that I die here, I beg that I may be heard in confession and also receive my Saviour; and that I may be buried in consecrated ground.” + +Cauchon thought he saw his opportunity at last; this weakened body had the fear of an unblessed death before it and the pains of hell to follow. This stubborn spirit would surrender now. So he spoke out and said: + +“Then if you want the Sacraments, you must do as all good Catholics do, and submit to the Church.” + +He was eager for her answer; but when it came there was no surrender in it, she still stood to her guns. She turned her head away and said wearily: + +“I have nothing more to say.” + +Cauchon’s temper was stirred, and he raised his voice threateningly and said that the more she was in danger of death the more she ought to amend her life; and again he refused the things she begged for unless she would submit to the Church. Joan said: + +“If I die in this prison I beg you to have me buried in holy ground; if you will not, I cast myself upon my Saviour.” + +There was some more conversation of the like sort, then Cauchon demanded again, and imperiously, that she submit herself and all her deeds to the Church. His threatening and storming went for nothing. That body was weak, but the spirit in it was the spirit of Joan of Arc; and out of that came the steadfast answer which these people were already so familiar with and detested so sincerely: + +“Let come what may. I will neither do nor say any otherwise than I have said already in your tribunals.” + +Then the good theologians took turn about and worried her with reasonings and arguments and Scriptures; and always they held the lure of the Sacraments before her famishing soul, and tried to bribe her with them to surrender her mission to the Church’s judgment — that is to their judgment — as if they were the Church! But it availed nothing. I could have told them that beforehand, if they had asked me. But they never asked me anything; I was too humble a creature for their notice. + +Then the interview closed with a threat; a threat of fearful import; a threat calculated to make a Catholic Christian feel as if the ground were sinking from under him: + +“The Church calls upon you to submit; disobey, and she will abandon you as if you were a pagan!” + +Think of being abandoned by the Church! — that August Power in whose hands is lodged the fate of the human race; whose scepter stretches beyond the furthest constellation that twinkles in the sky; whose authority is over millions that live and over the billions that wait trembling in purgatory for ransom or doom; whose smile opens the gates of heaven to you, whose frown delivers you to the fires of everlasting hell; a Power whose dominion overshadows and belittles the pomps and shows of a village. To be abandoned by one’s King — yes, that is death, and death is much; but to be abandoned by Rome, to be abandoned by the Church! Ah, death is nothing to that, for that is consignment to endless life — and such a life! + +I could see the red waves tossing in that shoreless lake of fire, I could see the black myriads of the damned rise out of them and struggle and sink and rise again; and I knew that Joan was seeing what I saw, while she paused musing; and I believed that she must yield now, and in truth I hoped she would, for these men were able to make the threat good and deliver her over to eternal suffering, and I knew that it was in their natures to do it. + +But I was foolish to think that thought and hope that hope. Joan of Arc was not made as others are made. Fidelity to principle, fidelity to truth, fidelity to her word, all these were in her bone and in her flesh — they were parts of her. She could not change, she could not cast them out. She was the very genius of Fidelity; she was Steadfastness incarnated. Where she had taken her stand and planted her foot, there she would abide; hell itself could not move her from that place. + +Her Voices had not given her permission to make the sort of submission that was required, therefore she would stand fast. She would wait, in perfect obedience, let come what might. + +My heart was like lead in my body when I went out from that dungeon; but she — she was serene, she was not troubled. She had done what she believed to be her duty, and that was sufficient; the consequences were not her affair. The last thing she said that time was full of this serenity, full of contented repose: + +“I am a good Christian born and baptized, and a good Christian I will die.” + +== Chapter 15 Undaunted by Threat of Burning + +TWO WEEKS went by; the second of May was come, the chill was departed out of the air, the wild flowers were springing in the glades and glens, the birds were piping in the woods, all nature was brilliant with sunshine, all spirits were renewed and refreshed, all hearts glad, the world was alive with hope and cheer, the plain beyond the Seine stretched away soft and rich and green, the river was limpid and lovely, the leafy islands were dainty to see, and flung still daintier reflections of themselves upon the shining water; and from the tall bluffs above the bridge Rouen was become again a delight to the eye, the most exquisite and satisfying picture of a town that nestles under the arch of heaven anywhere. + +When I say that all hearts were glad and hopeful, I mean it in a general sense. There were exceptions — we who were the friends of Joan of Arc, also Joan of Arc herself, that poor girl shut up there in that frowning stretch of mighty walls and towers: brooding in darkness, so close to the flooding downpour of sunshine yet so impossibly far away from it; so longing for any little glimpse of it, yet so implacably denied it by those wolves in the black gowns who were plotting her death and the blackening of her good name. + +Cauchon was ready to go on with his miserable work. He had a new scheme to try now. He would see what persuasion could do — argument, eloquence, poured out upon the incorrigible captive from the mouth of a trained expert. That was his plan. But the reading of the Twelve Articles to her was not a part of it. No, even Cauchon was ashamed to lay that monstrosity before her; even he had a remnant of shame in him, away down deep, a million fathoms deep, and that remnant asserted itself now and prevailed. + +On this fair second of May, then, the black company gathered itself together in the spacious chamber at the end of the great hall of the castle — the Bishop of Beauvais on his throne, and sixty-two minor judges massed before him, with the guards and recorders at their stations and the orator at his desk. + +Then we heard the far clank of chains, and presently Joan entered with her keepers and took her seat upon her isolated bench. She was looking well now, and most fair and beautiful after her fortnight’s rest from wordy persecution. + +She glanced about and noted the orator. Doubtless she divined the situation. + +The orator had written his speech all out, and had it in his hand, though he held it back of him out of sight. It was so thick that it resembled a book. He began flowing, but in the midst of a flowery period his memory failed him and he had to snatch a furtive glance at his manuscript — which much injured the effect. Again this happened, and then a third time. The poor man’s face was red with embarrassment, the whole great house was pitying him, which made the matter worse; then Joan dropped in a remark which completed the trouble. She said: + +“Read your book — and then I will answer you!” + +Why, it was almost cruel the way those moldy veterans laughed; and as for the orator, he looked so flustered and helpless that almost anybody would have pitied him, and I had difficulty to keep from doing it myself. Yes, Joan was feeling very well after her rest, and the native mischief that was in her lay near the surface. It did not show when she made the remark, but I knew it was close in there back of the words. + +When the orator had gotten back his composure he did a wise thing; for he followed Joan’s advice: he made no more attempts at sham impromptu oratory, but read his speech straight from his “book.” In the speech he compressed the Twelve Articles into six, and made these his text. + +Every now and then he stopped and asked questions, and Joan replied. The nature of the Church Militant was explained, and once more Joan was asked to submit herself to it. + +She gave her usual answer. + +Then she was asked: + +“Do you believe the Church can err?” + +“I believe it cannot err; but for those deeds and words of mine which were done and uttered by command of God, I will answer to Him alone.” + +“Will you say that you have no judge upon earth? Is not our Holy Father the Pope your judge?” + +“I will say nothing about it. I have a good Master who is our Lord, and to Him I will submit all.” + +Then came these terrible words: + +“If you do not submit to the Church you will be pronounced a heretic by these judges here present and burned at the stake!” + +Ah, that would have smitten you or me dead with fright, but it only roused the lion heart of Joan of Arc, and in her answer rang that martial note which had used to stir her soldiers like a bugle-call: + +“I will not say otherwise than I have said already; and if I saw the fire before me I would say it again!” + +It was uplifting to hear her battle-voice once more and see the battle-light burn in her eye. Many there were stirred; every man that was a man was stirred, whether friend or foe; and Manchon risked his life again, good soul, for he wrote in the margin of the record in good plain letters these brave words: “Superba responsio!” and there they have remained these sixty years, and there you may read them to this day. + +“Superba responsio!” Yes, it was just that. For this “superb answer” came from the lips of a girl of nineteen with death and hell staring her in the face. + +Of course, the matter of the male attire was gone over again; and as usual at wearisome length; also, as usual, the customary bribe was offered: if she would discard that dress voluntarily they would let her hear mass. But she answered as she had often answered before: + +“I will go in a woman’s robe to all services of the Church if I may be permitted, but I will resume the other dress when I return to my cell.” + +They set several traps for her in a tentative form; that is to say, they placed suppositious propositions before her and cunningly tried to commit her to one end of the propositions without committing themselves to the other. But she always saw the game and spoiled it. The trap was in this form: + +“Would you be willing to do so and so if we should give you leave?” + +Her answer was always in this form or to this effect: + +“When you give me leave, then you will know.” + +Yes, Joan was at her best that second of May. She had all her wits about her, and they could not catch her anywhere. It was a long, long session, and all the old ground was fought over again, foot by foot, and the orator-expert worked all his persuasions, all his eloquence; but the result was the familiar one — a drawn battle, the sixty-two retiring upon their base, the solitary enemy holding her original position within her original lines. + +== Chapter 16 Joan Stands Defiant Before the Rack + +THE BRILLIANT weather, the heavenly weather, the bewitching weather made everybody’s heart to sing, as I have told you; yes, Rouen was feeling light-hearted and gay, and most willing and ready to break out and laugh upon the least occasion; and so when the news went around that the young girl in the tower had scored another defeat against Bishop Cauchon there was abundant laughter — abundant laughter among the citizens of both parties, for they all hated the Bishop. It is true, the English-hearted majority of the people wanted Joan burned, but that did not keep them from laughing at the man they hated. It would have been perilous for anybody to laugh at the English chiefs or at the majority of Cauchon’s assistant judges, but to laugh at Cauchon or D’Estivet and Loyseleur was safe — nobody would report it. + +The difference between Cauchon and cochon + +[INFO] +==== +Hog, pig. +==== + +was not noticeable in speech, and so there was plenty of opportunity for puns; the opportunities were not thrown away. + +Some of the jokes got well worn in the course of two or three months, from repeated use; for every time Cauchon started a new trial the folk said “The sow has littered + +[INFO] +==== +Cochonner, to litter, to farrow; also, “to make a mess of”! +==== + +again”; and every time the trial failed they said it over again, with its other meaning, “The hog has made a mess of it.” + +And so, on the third of May, Noel and I, drifting about the town, heard many a wide-mouthed lout let go his joke and his laugh, and then move to the next group, proud of his wit and happy, to work it off again: + +“’Od’s blood, the sow has littered five times, and five times has made a mess of it!” + +And now and then one was bold enough to say — but he said it softly: + +“Sixty-three and the might of England against a girl, and she camps on the field five times!” + +Cauchon lived in the great palace of the Archbishop, and it was guarded by English soldiery; but no matter, there was never a dark night but the walls showed next morning that the rude joker had been there with his paint and brush. Yes, he had been there, and had smeared the sacred walls with pictures of hogs in all attitudes except flattering ones; hogs clothed in a Bishop’s vestments and wearing a Bishop’s miter irreverently cocked on the side of their heads. + +Cauchon raged and cursed over his defeats and his impotence during seven says; then he conceived a new scheme. You shall see what it was; for you have not cruel hearts, and you would never guess it. + +On the ninth of May there was a summons, and Manchon and I got out materials together and started. But this time we were to go to one of the other towers — not the one which was Joan’s prison. It was round and grim and massive, and built of the plainest and thickest and solidest masonry — a dismal and forbidding structure. + +[INFO] +==== +The lower half of it remains to-day just as it was then; the upper half is of a later date. — TRANSLATOR. +==== + +We entered the circular room on the ground floor, and I saw what turned me sick — the instruments of torture and the executioners standing ready! Here you have the black heart of Cauchon at the blackest, here you have the proof that in his nature there was no such thing as pity. One wonders if he ever knew his mother or ever had a sister. + +Cauchon was there, and the Vice-Inquisitor and the Abbot of St. Corneille; also six others, among them that false Loyseleur. The guards were in their places, the rack was there, and by it stood the executioner and his aids in their crimson hose and doublets, meet color for their bloody trade. The picture of Joan rose before me stretched upon the rack, her feet tied to one end of it, her wrists to the other, and those red giants turning the windlass and pulling her limbs out of their sockets. It seemed to me that I could hear the bones snap and the flesh tear apart, and I did not see how that body of anointed servants of the merciful Jesus could sit there and look so placid and indifferent. + +After a little, Joan arrived and was brought in. She saw the rack, she saw the attendants, and the same picture which I had been seeing must have risen in her mind; but do you think she quailed, do you think she shuddered? No, there was no sign of that sort. She straightened herself up, and there was a slight curl of scorn about her lip; but as for fear, she showed not a vestige of it. + +This was a memorable session, but it was the shortest one of all the list. When Joan had taken her seat a resume of her “crimes” was read to her. Then Cauchon made a solemn speech. It in he said that in the course of her several trials Joan had refused to answer some of the questions and had answered others with lies, but that now he was going to have the truth out of her, and the whole of it. + +Her manner was full of confidence this time; he was sure he had found a way at last to break this child’s stubborn spirit and make her beg and cry. He would score a victory this time and stop the mouths of the jokers of Rouen. You see, he was only just a man after all, and couldn’t stand ridicule any better than other people. He talked high, and his splotchy face lighted itself up with all the shifting tints and signs of evil pleasure and promised triumph — purple, yellow, red, green — they were all there, with sometimes the dull and spongy blue of a drowned man, the uncanniest of them all. And finally he burst out in a great passion and said: + +“There is the rack, and there are its ministers! You will reveal all now or be put to the torture. + +“Speak.” + +Then she made that great answer which will live forever; made it without fuss or bravado, and yet how fine and noble was the sound of it: + +“I will tell you nothing more than I have told you; no, not even if you tear the limbs from my body. And even if in my pain I did say something otherwise, I would always say afterward that it was the torture that spoke and not I.” + +There was no crushing that spirit. You should have seen Cauchon. Defeated again, and he had not dreamed of such a thing. I heard it said the next day, around the town, that he had a full confession all written out, in his pocket and all ready for Joan to sign. I do not know that that was true, but it probably was, for her mark signed at the bottom of a confession would be the kind of evidence (for effect with the public) which Cauchon and his people were particularly value, you know. + +No, there was no crushing that spirit, and no beclouding that clear mind. Consider the depth, the wisdom of that answer, coming from an ignorant girl. Why, there were not six men in the world who had ever reflected that words forced out of a person by horrible tortures were not necessarily words of verity and truth, yet this unlettered peasant-girl put her finger upon that flaw with an unerring instinct. I had always supposed that torture brought out the truth — everybody supposed it; and when Joan came out with those simple common-sense words they seemed to flood the place with light. It was like a lightning-flash at midnight which suddenly reveals a fair valley sprinkled over with silver streams and gleaming villages and farmsteads where was only an impenetrable world of darkness before. Manchon stole a sidewise look at me, and his face was full of surprise; and there was the like to be seen in other faces there. Consider — they were old, and deeply cultured, yet here was a village maid able to teach them something which they had not known before. I heard one of them mutter: + +“Verily it is a wonderful creature. She has laid her hand upon an accepted truth that is as old as the world, and it has crumbled to dust and rubbish under her touch. Now whence got she that marvelous insight?” + +The judges laid their heads together and began to talk now. It was plain, from chance words which one caught now and then, that Cauchon and Loyseleur were insisting upon the application of the torture, and that most of the others were urgently objecting. + +Finally Cauchon broke out with a good deal of asperity in his voice and ordered Joan back to her dungeon. That was a happy surprise for me. I was not expecting that the Bishop would yield. + +When Manchon came home that night he said he had found out why the torture was not applied. + +There were two reasons. One was, a fear that Joan might die under the torture, which would not suit the English at all; the other was, that the torture would effect nothing if Joan was going to take back everything she said under its pains; and as to putting her mark to a confession, it was believed that not even the rack would ever make her do that. + +So all Rouen laughed again, and kept it up for three days, saying: + +“The sow has littered six times, and made six messes of it.” + +And the palace walls got a new decoration — a mitered hog carrying a discarded rack home on its shoulder, and Loyseleur weeping in its wake. Many rewards were offered for the capture of these painters, but nobody applied. Even the English guard feigned blindness and would not see the artists at work. + +The Bishop’s anger was very high now. He could not reconcile himself to the idea of giving up the torture. It was the pleasantest idea he had invented yet, and he would not cast it by. So he called in some of his satellites on the twelfth, and urged the torture again. But it was a failure. + +With some, Joan’s speech had wrought an effect; others feared she might die under torture; others did not believe that any amount of suffering could make her put her mark to a lying confession. There were fourteen men present, including the Bishop. Eleven of them voted dead against the torture, and stood their ground in spite of Cauchon’s abuse. Two voted with the Bishop and insisted upon the torture. These two were Loyseleur and the orator — the man whom Joan had bidden to “read his book” — Thomas de Courcelles, the renowned pleader and master of eloquence. + +Age has taught me charity of speech; but it fails me when I think of those three names — Cauchon, Courcelles, Loyseleur. + +== Chapter 17 Supreme in Direst Peril + +image::https://i.nostr.build/dnHHVbE2GO5zOnHH.jpg[0499, 300] + + +ANOTHER ten days’ wait. The great theologians of that treasury of all valuable knowledge and all wisdom, the University of Paris, were still weighing and considering and discussing the Twelve Lies. + +I had had but little to do these ten days, so I spent them mainly in walks about the town with Noel. But there was no pleasure in them, our spirits being so burdened with cares, and the outlook for Joan growing steadily darker and darker all the time. And then we naturally contrasted our circumstances with hers: this freedom and sunshine, with her darkness and chains; our comradeship, with her lonely estate; our alleviations of one sort and another, with her destitution in all. She was used to liberty, but now she had none; she was an out-of-door creature by nature and habit, but now she was shut up day and night in a steel cage like an animal; she was used to the light, but now she was always in a gloom where all objects about her were dim and spectral; she was used to the thousand various sounds which are the cheer and music of a busy life, but now she heard only the monotonous footfall of the sentry pacing his watch; she had been fond of talking with her mates, but now there was no one to talk to; she had had an easy laugh, but it was gone dumb now; she had been born for comradeship, and blithe and busy work, and all manner of joyous activities, but here were only dreariness, and leaden hours, and weary inaction, and brooding stillness, and thoughts that travel by day and night and night and day round and round in the same circle, and wear the brain and break the heart with weariness. It was death in life; yes, death in life, that is what it must have been. And there was another hard thing about it all. A young girl in trouble needs the soothing solace and support and sympathy of persons of her own sex, and the delicate offices and gentle ministries which only these can furnish; yet in all these months of gloomy captivity in her dungeon Joan never saw the face of a girl or a woman. Think how her heart would have leaped to see such a face. + +Consider. If you would realize how great Joan of Arc was, remember that it was out of such a place and such circumstances that she came week after week and month after month and confronted the master intellects of France single-handed, and baffled their cunningest schemes, defeated their ablest plans, detected and avoided their secretest traps and pitfalls, broke their lines, repelled their assaults, and camped on the field after every engagement; steadfast always, true to her faith and her ideals; defying torture, defying the stake, and answering threats of eternal death and the pains of hell with a simple “Let come what may, here I take my stand and will abide.” + +Yes, if you would realize how great was the soul, how profound the wisdom, and how luminous the intellect of Joan of Arc, you must study her there, where she fought out that long fight all alone — and not merely against the subtlest brains and deepest learning of France, but against the ignoble deceits, the meanest treacheries, and the hardest hearts to be found in any land, pagan or Christian. + +She was great in battle — we all know that; great in foresight; great in loyalty and patriotism; great in persuading discontented chiefs and reconciling conflicting interests and passions; great in the ability to discover merit and genius wherever it lay hidden; great in picturesque and eloquent speech; supremely great in the gift of firing the hearts of hopeless men and noble enthusiasms, the gift of turning hares into heroes, slaves and skulkers into battalions that march to death with songs on their lips. But all these are exalting activities; they keep hand and heart and brain keyed up to their work; there is the joy of achievement, the inspiration of stir and movement, the applause which hails success; the soul is overflowing with life and energy, the faculties are at white heat; weariness, despondency, inertia — these do not exist. + +Yes, Joan of Arc was great always, great everywhere, but she was greatest in the Rouen trials. + +There she rose above the limitations and infirmities of our human nature, and accomplished under blighting and unnerving and hopeless conditions all that her splendid equipment of moral and intellectual forces could have accomplished if they had been supplemented by the mighty helps of hope and cheer and light, the presence of friendly faces, and a fair and equal fight, with the great world looking on and wondering. + +== Chapter 18 Condemned Yet Unafraid + +TOWARD THE END of the ten-day interval the University of Paris rendered its decision concerning the Twelve Articles. By this finding, Joan was guilty upon all the counts: she must renounce her errors and make satisfaction, or be abandoned to the secular arm for punishment. + +The University’s mind was probably already made up before the Articles were laid before it; yet it took it from the fifth to the eighteenth to produce its verdict. I think the delay may have been caused by temporary difficulties concerning two points: + +1. As to who the fiends were who were represented in Joan’s Voices; 2. As to whether her saints spoke French only. + +You understand, the University decided emphatically that it was fiends who spoke in those Voices; it would need to prove that, and it did. It found out who those fiends were, and named them in the verdict: Belial, Satan, and Behemoth. This has always seemed a doubtful thing to me, and not entitled to much credit. I think so for this reason: if the University had actually known it was those three, it would for very consistency’s sake have told how it knew it, and not stopped with the mere assertion, since it had made Joan explain how she knew they were not fiends. Does not that seem reasonable? To my mind the University’s position was weak, and I will tell you why. It had claimed that Joan’s angels were devils in disguise, and we all know that devils do disguise themselves as angels; up to that point the University’s position was strong; but you see yourself that it eats its own argument when it turns around and pretends that it can tell who such apparitions are, while denying the like ability to a person with as good a head on her shoulders as the best one the University could produce. + +The doctors of the University had to see those creatures in order to know; and if Joan was deceived, it is argument that they in their turn could also be deceived, for their insight and judgment were surely not clearer than hers. + +As to the other point which I have thought may have proved a difficulty and cost the University delay, I will touch but a moment upon that, and pass on. The University decided that it was blasphemy for Joan to say that her saints spoke French and not English, and were on the French side in political sympathies. I think that the thing which troubled the doctors of theology was this: they had decided that the three Voices were Satan and two other devils; but they had also decided that these Voices were not on the French side — thereby tacitly asserting that they were on the English side; and if on the English side, then they must be angels and not devils. Otherwise, the situation was embarrassing. You see, the University being the wisest and deepest and most erudite body in the world, it would like to be logical if it could, for the sake of its reputation; therefore it would study and study, days and days, trying to find some good common-sense reason for proving the Voices to be devils in Article No. 1 and proving them to be angels in Article No. 10. However, they had to give it up. They found no way out; and so, to this day, the University’s verdict remains just so — devils in No. 1, angels in No. 10; and no way to reconcile the discrepancy. + +The envoys brought the verdict to Rouen, and with it a letter for Cauchon which was full of fervid praise. The University complimented him on his zeal in hunting down this woman “whose venom had infected the faithful of the whole West,” and as recompense it as good as promised him “a crown of imperishable glory in heaven.” Only that! — a crown in heaven; a promissory note and no indorser; always something away off yonder; not a word about the Archbishopric of Rouen, which was the thing Cauchon was destroying his soul for. A crown in heaven; it must have sounded like a sarcasm to him, after all his hard work. What should he do in heaven? he did not know anybody there. + +On the nineteenth of May a court of fifty judges sat in the archiepiscopal palace to discuss Joan’s fate. A few wanted her delivered over to the secular arm at once for punishment, but the rest insisted that she be once more “charitably admonished” first. + +So the same court met in the castle on the twenty-third, and Joan was brought to the bar. Pierre Maurice, a canon of Rouen, made a speech to Joan in which he admonished her to save her life and her soul by renouncing her errors and surrendering to the Church. He finished with a stern threat: if she remained obstinate the damnation of her soul was certain, the destruction of her body probable. But Joan was immovable. She said: + +“If I were under sentence, and saw the fire before me, and the executioner ready to light it — more, if I were in the fire itself, I would say none but the things which I have said in these trials; and I would abide by them till I died.” + +A deep silence followed now, which endured some moments. It lay upon me like a weight. I knew it for an omen. Then Cauchon, grave and solemn, turned to Pierre Maurice: + +“Have you anything further to say?” + +The priest bowed low, and said: + +“Nothing, my lord.” + +“Prisoner at the bar, have you anything further to say?” + +“Nothing.” + +“Then the debate is closed. To-morrow, sentence will be pronounced. Remove the prisoner.” + +She seemed to go from the place erect and noble. But I do not know; my sight was dim with tears. + +To-morrow — twenty-fourth of May! Exactly a year since I saw her go speeding across the plain at the head of her troops, her silver helmet shining, her silvery cape fluttering in the wind, her white plumes flowing, her sword held aloft; saw her charge the Burgundian camp three times, and carry it; saw her wheel to the right and spur for the duke’s reserves; saw her fling herself against it in the last assault she was ever to make. And now that fatal day was come again — and see what it was bringing! + +== Chapter 19 Our Last Hopes of Rescue Fail + +JOAN HAD been adjudged guilty of heresy, sorcery, and all the other terrible crimes set forth in the Twelve Articles, and her life was in Cauchon’s hands at last. He could send her to the stake at once. His work was finished now, you think? He was satisfied? Not at all. What would his Archbishopric be worth if the people should get the idea into their heads that this faction of interested priests, slaving under the English lash, had wrongly condemned and burned Joan of Arc, Deliverer of France? That would be to make of her a holy martyr. Then her spirit would rise from her body’s ashes, a thousandfold reinforced, and sweep the English domination into the sea, and Cauchon along with it. No, the victory was not complete yet. Joan’s guilt must be established by evidence which would satisfy the people. Where was that evidence to be found? There was only one person in the world who could furnish it — Joan of Arc herself. She must condemn herself, and in public — at least she must seem to do it. + +But how was this to be managed? Weeks had been spent already in trying to get her to surrender — time wholly wasted; what was to persuade her now? Torture had been threatened, the fire had been threatened; what was left? Illness, deadly fatigue, and the sight of the fire, the presence of the fire! That was left. + +Now that was a shrewd thought. She was but a girl after all, and, under illness and exhaustion, subject to a girl’s weaknesses. + +Yes, it was shrewdly thought. She had tacitly said herself that under the bitter pains of the rack they would be able to extort a false confession from her. It was a hint worth remembering, and it was remembered. + +She had furnished another hint at the same time: that as soon as the pains were gone, she would retract the confession. That hint was also remembered. + +She had herself taught them what to do, you see. First, they must wear out her strength, then frighten her with the fire. Second, while the fright was on her, she must be made to sign a paper. + +But she would demand a reading of the paper. They could not venture to refuse this, with the public there to hear. Suppose that during the reading her courage should return? — she would refuse to sign then. Very well, even that difficulty could be got over. They could read a short paper of no importance, then slip a long and deadly one into its place and trick her into signing that. + +Yet there was still one other difficulty. If they made her seem to abjure, that would free her from the death-penalty. They could keep her in a prison of the Church, but they could not kill her. + +That would not answer; for only her death would content the English. Alive she was a terror, in a prison or out of it. She had escaped from two prisons already. + +But even that difficulty could be managed. Cauchon would make promises to her; in return she would promise to leave off the male dress. He would violate his promises, and that would so situate her that she would not be able to keep hers. Her lapse would condemn her to the stake, and the stake would be ready. + +These were the several moves; there was nothing to do but to make them, each in its order, and the game was won. One might almost name the day that the betrayed girl, the most innocent creature in France and the noblest, would go to her pitiful death. + +The world knows now that Cauchon’s plan was as I have sketched it to you, but the world did not know it at that time. There are sufficient indications that Warwick and all the other English chiefs except the highest one — the Cardinal of Winchester — were not let into the secret, also, that only Loyseleur and Beaupere, on the French side, knew the scheme. Sometimes I have doubted if even Loyseleur and Beaupere knew the whole of it at first. However, if any did, it was these two. + +It is usual to let the condemned pass their last night of life in peace, but this grace was denied to poor Joan, if one may credit the rumors of the time. Loyseleur was smuggled into her presence, and in the character of priest, friend, and secret partisan of France and hater of England, he spent some hours in beseeching her to do “the only right an righteous thing” — submit to the Church, as a good Christian should; and that then she would straightway get out of the clutches of the dreaded English and be transferred to the Church’s prison, where she would be honorably used and have women about her for jailers. He knew where to touch her. He knew how odious to her was the presence of her rough and profane English guards; he knew that her Voices had vaguely promised something which she interpreted to be escape, rescue, release of some sort, and the chance to burst upon France once more and victoriously complete the great work which she had been commissioned of Heaven to do. Also there was that other thing: if her failing body could be further weakened by loss of rest and sleep now, her tired mind would be dazed and drowsy on the morrow, and in ill condition to stand out against persuasions, threats, and the sight of the stake, and also be purblind to traps and snares which it would be swift to detect when in its normal estate. + +I do not need to tell you that there was no rest for me that night. Nor for Noel. We went to the main gate of the city before nightfall, with a hope in our minds, based upon that vague prophecy of Joan’s Voices which seemed to promise a rescue by force at the last moment. The immense news had flown swiftly far and wide that at last Joan of Arc was condemned, and would be sentenced and burned alive on the morrow; and so crowds of people were flowing in at the gate, and other crowds were being refused admission by the soldiery; these being people who brought doubtful passes or none at all. We scanned these crowds eagerly, but there was nothing about them to indicate that they were our old war-comrades in disguise, and certainly there were no familiar faces among them. And so, when the gate was closed at last, we turned away grieved, and more disappointed than we cared to admit, either in speech or thought. + +The streets were surging tides of excited men. It was difficult to make one’s way. Toward midnight our aimless tramp brought us to the neighborhood of the beautiful church of St. Ouen, and there all was bustle and work. The square was a wilderness of torches and people; and through a guarded passage dividing the pack, laborers were carrying planks and timbers and disappearing with them through the gate of the churchyard. We asked what was going forward; the answer was: + +“Scaffolds and the stake. Don’t you know that the French witch is to be burned in the morning?” + +Then we went away. We had no heart for that place. + +At dawn we were at the city gate again; this time with a hope which our wearied bodies and fevered minds magnified into a large probability. We had heard a report that the Abbot of Jumieges with all his monks was coming to witness the burning. Our desire, abetted by our imagination, turned those nine hundred monks into Joan’s old campaigners, and their Abbot into La Hire or the Bastard or D’Alencon; and we watched them file in, unchallenged, the multitude respectfully dividing and uncovering while they passed, with our hearts in our throats and our eyes swimming with tears of joy and pride and exultation; and we tried to catch glimpses of the faces under the cowls, and were prepared to give signal to any recognized face that we were Joan’s men and ready and eager to kill and be killed in the good cause. How foolish we were! + +But we were young, you know, and youth hopeth all things, believeth all things. + +== Chapter 20 The Betrayal + +IN THE MORNING I was at my official post. It was on a platform raised the height of a man, in the churchyard, under the eaves of St. Ouen. On this same platform was a crowd of priests and important citizens, and several lawyers. Abreast it, with a small space between, was another and larger platform, handsomely canopied against sun and rain, and richly carpeted; also it was furnished with comfortable chairs, and with two which were more sumptuous than the others, and raised above the general level. One of these two was occupied by a prince of the royal blood of England, his Eminence the Cardinal of Winchester; the other by Cauchon, Bishop of Beauvais. In the rest of the chairs sat three bishops, the Vice-Inquisitor, eight abbots, and the sixty-two friars and lawyers who had sat as Joan’s judges in her late trials. + +Twenty steps in front of the platforms was another — a table-topped pyramid of stone, built up in retreating courses, thus forming steps. Out of this rose that grisly thing, the stake; about the stake bundles of fagots and firewood were piled. On the ground at the base of the pyramid stood three crimson figures, the executioner and his assistants. At their feet lay what had been a goodly heap of brands, but was now a smokeless nest of ruddy coals; a foot or two from this was a supplemental supply of wood and fagots compacted into a pile shoulder-high and containing as much as six packhorse loads. Think of that. We seem so delicately made, so destructible, so insubstantial; yet it is easier to reduce a granite statue to ashes than it is to do that with a man’s body. + +The sight of the stake sent physical pains tingling down the nerves of my body; and yet, turn as I would, my eyes would keep coming back t it, such fascination has the gruesome and the terrible for us. + +The space occupied by the platforms and the stake was kept open by a wall of English soldiery, standing elbow to elbow, erect and stalwart figures, fine and sightly in their polished steel; while from behind them on every hand stretched far away a level plain of human heads; and there was no window and no housetop within our view, howsoever distant, but was black with patches and masses of people. + +But there was no noise, no stir; it was as if the world was dead. The impressiveness of this silence and solemnity was deepened by a leaden twilight, for the sky was hidden by a pall of low-hanging storm-clouds; and above the remote horizon faint winkings of heat-lightning played, and now and then one caught the dull mutterings and complainings of distant thunder. + +At last the stillness was broken. From beyond the square rose an indistinct sound, but familiar — court, crisp phrases of command; next I saw the plain of heads dividing, and the steady swing of a marching host was glimpsed between. My heart leaped for a moment. Was it La Hire and his hellions? No — that was not their gait. No, it was the prisoner and her escort; it was Joan of Arc, under guard, that was coming; my spirits sank as low as they had been before. Weak as she was they made her walk; they would increase her weakness all they could. The distance was not great — it was but a few hundred yards — but short as it was it was a heavy tax upon one who had been lying chained in one spot for months, and whose feet had lost their powers from inaction. Yes, and for a year Joan had known only the cool damps of a dungeon, and now she was dragging herself through this sultry summer heat, this airless and suffocating void. As she entered the gate, drooping with exhaustion, there was that creature Loyseleur at her side with his head bent to her ear. We knew afterward that he had been with her again this morning in the prison wearying her with his persuasions and enticing her with false promises, and that he was now still at the same work at the gate, imploring her to yield everything that would be required of her, and assuring her that if she would do this all would be well with her: she would be rid of the dreaded English and find safety in the powerful shelter and protection of the Church. A miserable man, a stony-hearted man! + +The moment Joan was seated on the platform she closed her eyes and allowed her chin to fall; and so sat, with her hands nestling in her lap, indifferent to everything, caring for nothing but rest. And she was so white again — white as alabaster. + +How the faces of that packed mass of humanity lighted up with interest, and with what intensity all eyes gazed upon this fragile girl! And how natural it was; for these people realized that at last they were looking upon that person whom they had so long hungered to see; a person whose name and fame filled all Europe, and made all other names and all other renowns insignificant by comparisons; Joan of Arc, the wonder of the time, and destined to be the wonder of all times! + +And I could read as by print, in their marveling countenances, the words that were drifting through their minds: “Can it be true, is it believable, that it is this little creature, this girl, this child with the good face, the sweet face, the beautiful face, the dear and bonny face, that has carried fortresses by storm, charged at the head of victorious armies, blown the might of England out of her path with a breath, and fought a long campaign, solitary and alone, against the massed brains and learning of France — and had won it if the fight had been fair!” + +Evidently Cauchon had grown afraid of Manchon because of his pretty apparent leanings toward Joan, for another recorder was in the chief place here, which left my master and me nothing to do but sit idle and look on. + +Well, I suppose that everything had been done which could be thought of to tire Joan’s body and mind, but it was a mistake; one more device had been invented. This was to preach a long sermon to her in that oppressive heat. + +When the preacher began, she cast up one distressed and disappointed look, then dropped her head again. This preacher was Guillaume Erard, an oratorical celebrity. He got his text from the Twelve Lies. He emptied upon Joan al the calumnies in detail that had been bottled up in that mass of venom, and called her all the brutal names that the Twelve were labeled with, working himself into a whirlwind of fury as he went on; but his labors were wasted, she seemed lost in dreams, she made no sign, she did not seem to hear. At last he launched this apostrophe: + +“O France, how hast thou been abused! Thou hast always been the home of Christianity; but now, Charles, who calls himself thy King and governor, indorses, like the heretic and schismatic that he is, the words and deeds of a worthless and infamous woman!” Joan raised her head, and her eyes began to burn and flash. The preacher turned to her: “It is to you, Joan, that I speak, and I tell you that your King is schismatic and a heretic!” + +Ah, he might abuse her to his heart’s content; she could endure that; but to her dying moment she could never hear in patience a word against that ingrate, that treacherous dog our King, whose proper place was here, at this moment, sword in hand, routing these reptiles and saving this most noble servant that ever King had in this world — and he would have been there if he had not been what I have called him. Joan’s loyal soul was outraged, and she turned upon the preacher and flung out a few words with a spirit which the crowd recognized as being in accordance with the Joan of Arc traditions: + +“By my faith, sir! I make bold to say and swear, on pain of death, that he is the most noble Christian of all Christians, and the best lover of the faith and the Church!” + +There was an explosion of applause from the crowd — which angered the preacher, for he had been aching long to hear an expression like this, and now that it was come at last it had fallen to the wrong person: he had done all the work; the other had carried off all the spoil. He stamped his foot and shouted to the sheriff: + +“Make her shut up!” + +That made the crowd laugh. + +A mob has small respect for a grown man who has to call on a sheriff to protect him from a sick girl. + +Joan had damaged the preacher’s cause more with one sentence than he had helped it with a hundred; so he was much put out, and had trouble to get a good start again. But he needn’t have bothered; there was no occasion. It was mainly an English-feeling mob. It had but obeyed a law of our nature — an irresistible law — to enjoy and applaud a spirited and promptly delivered retort, no matter who makes it. The mob was with the preacher; it had been beguiled for a moment, but only that; it would soon return. It was there to see this girl burnt; so that it got that satisfaction — without too much delay — it would be content. + +Presently the preacher formally summoned Joan to submit to the Church. He made the demand with confidence, for he had gotten the idea from Loyseleur and Beaupere that she was worn to the bone, exhausted, and would not be able to put forth any more resistance; and, indeed, to look at her it seemed that they must be right. Nevertheless, she made one more effort to hold her ground, and said, wearily: + +“As to that matter, I have answered my judges before. I have told them to report all that I have said and done to our Holy Father the Pope — to whom, and to God first, I appeal.” + +Again, out of her native wisdom, she had brought those words of tremendous import, but was ignorant of their value. But they could have availed her nothing in any case, now, with the stake there and these thousands of enemies about her. Yet they made every churchman there blench, and the preacher changed the subject with all haste. Well might those criminals blench, for Joan’s appeal of her case to the Pope stripped Cauchon at once of jurisdiction over it, and annulled all that he and his judges had already done in the matter and all that they should do in it henceforth. + +Joan went on presently to reiterate, after some further talk, that she had acted by command of God in her deeds and utterances; then, when an attempt was made to implicate the King, and friends of hers and his, she stopped that. She said: + +“I charge my deeds and words upon no one, neither upon my King nor any other. If there is any fault in them, I am responsible and no other.” + +She was asked if she would not recant those of her words and deeds which had been pronounced evil by her judges. Here answer made confusion and damage again: + +“I submit them to God and the Pope.” + +The Pope once more! It was very embarrassing. Here was a person who was asked to submit her case to the Church, and who frankly consents — offers to submit it to the very head of it. What more could any one require? How was one to answer such a formidably unanswerable answer as that? + +The worried judges put their heads together and whispered and planned and discussed. Then they brought forth this sufficiently shambling conclusion — but it was the best they could do, in so close a place: they said the Pope was so far away; and it was not necessary to go to him anyway, because the present judges had sufficient power and authority to deal with the present case, and were in effect “the Church” to that extent. At another time they could have smiled at this conceit, but not now; they were not comfortable enough now. + +The mob was getting impatient. It was beginning to put on a threatening aspect; it was tired of standing, tired of the scorching heat; and the thunder was coming nearer, the lightning was flashing brighter. It was necessary to hurry this matter to a close. Erard showed Joan a written form, which had been prepared and made all ready beforehand, and asked her to abjure. + +“Abjure? What is abjure?” + +She did not know the word. It was explained to her by Massieu. She tried to understand, but she was breaking, under exhaustion, and she could not gather the meaning. It was all a jumble and confusion of strange words. In her despair she sent out this beseeching cry: + +“I appeal to the Church universal whether I ought to abjure or not!” + +Erard exclaimed: + +“You shall abjure instantly, or instantly be burnt!” + +She glanced up, at those awful words, and for the first time she saw the stake and the mass of red coals — redder and angrier than ever now under the constantly deepening storm-gloom. She gasped and staggered up out of her seat muttering and mumbling incoherently, and gazed vacantly upon the people and the scene about her like one who is dazed, or thinks he dreams, and does not know where he is. + +The priests crowded about her imploring her to sign the paper, there were many voices beseeching and urging her at once, there was great turmoil and shouting and excitement among the populace and everywhere. + +“Sign! sign!” from the priests; “sign — sign and be saved!” And Loyseleur was urging at her ear, “Do as I told you — do not destroy yourself!” + +Joan said plaintively to these people: + +“Ah, you do not do well to seduce me.” + +The judges joined their voices to the others. Yes, even the iron in their hearts melted, and they said: + +“O Joan, we pity you so! Take back what you have said, or we must deliver you up to punishment.” + +And now there was another voice — it was from the other platform — pealing solemnly above the din: Cauchon’s — reading the sentence of death! + +Joan’s strength was all spent. She stood looking about her in a bewildered way a moment, then slowly she sank to her knees, and bowed her head and said: + +“I submit.” + +They gave her no time to reconsider — they knew the peril of that. The moment the words were out of her mouth Massieu was reading to her the abjuration, and she was repeating the words after him mechanically, unconsciously — and smiling; for her wandering mind was far away in some happier world. + +Then this short paper of six lines was slipped aside and a long one of many pages was smuggled into its place, and she, noting nothing, put her mark on it, saying, in pathetic apology, that she did not know how to write. But a secretary of the King of England was there to take care of that defect; he guided her hand with his own, and wrote her name — Jehanne. + +The great crime was accomplished. She had signed — what? She did not know — but the others knew. She had signed a paper confessing herself a sorceress, a dealer with devils, a liar, a blasphemer of God and His angels, a lover of blood, a promoter of sedition, cruel, wicked, commissioned of Satan; and this signature of hers bound her to resume the dress of a woman. + +There were other promises, but that one would answer, without the others; and that one could be made to destroy her. + +Loyseleur pressed forward and praised her for having done “such a good day’s work.” + +But she was still dreamy, she hardly heard. + +Then Cauchon pronounced the words which dissolved the excommunication and restored her to her beloved Church, with all the dear privileges of worship. Ah, she heard that! You could see it in the deep gratitude that rose in her face and transfigured it with joy. + +But how transient was that happiness! For Cauchon, without a tremor of pity in his voice, added these crushing words: + +“And that she may repent of her crimes and repeat them no more, she is sentenced to perpetual imprisonment, with the bread of affliction and the water of anguish!” + +Perpetual imprisonment! She had never dreamed of that — such a thing had never been hinted to her by Loyseleur or by any other. Loyseleur had distinctly said and promised that “all would be well with her.” And the very last words spoken to her by Erard, on that very platform, when he was urging her to abjure, was a straight, unqualified promised — that if she would do it she should go free from captivity. + +She stood stunned and speechless a moment; then she remembered, with such solacement as the thought could furnish, that by another clear promise made by Cauchon himself — she would at least be the Church’s captive, and have women about her in place of a brutal foreign soldiery. So she turned to the body of priests and said, with a sad resignation: + +“Now, you men of the Church, take me to your prison, and leave me no longer in the hands of the English”; and she gathered up her chains and prepared to move. + +But alas! now came these shameful words from Cauchon — and with them a mocking laugh: + +“Take her to the prison whence she came!” + +Poor abused girl! She stood dumb, smitten, paralyzed. It was pitiful to see. She had been beguiled, lied to, betrayed; she saw it all now. + +The rumbling of a drum broke upon the stillness, and for just one moment she thought of the glorious deliverance promised by her Voices — I read it in the rapture that lit her face; then she saw what it was — her prison escort — and that light faded, never to revive again. And now her head began a piteous rocking motion, swaying slowly, this way and that, as is the way when one is suffering unwordable pain, or when one’s heart is broken; then drearily she went from us, with her face in her hands, and sobbing bitterly. + +== Chapter 21 Respited Only for Torture + +THERE IS no certainty that any one in all Rouen was in the secret of the deep game which Cauchon was playing except the Cardinal of Winchester. Then you can imagine the astonishment and stupefaction of that vast mob gathered there and those crowds of churchmen assembled on the two platforms, when they saw Joan of Arc moving away, alive and whole — slipping out of their grip at last, after all this tedious waiting, all this tantalizing expectancy. + +Nobody was able to stir or speak for a while, so paralyzing was the universal astonishment, so unbelievable the fact that the stake was actually standing there unoccupied and its prey gone. + +Then suddenly everybody broke into a fury of rage; maledictions and charges of treachery began to fly freely; yes, and even stones: a stone came near killing the Cardinal of Winchester — it just missed his head. But the man who threw it was not to blame, for he was excited, and a person who is excited never can throw straight. + +The tumult was very great, indeed, for a while. In the midst of it a chaplain of the Cardinal even forgot the proprieties so far as to opprobriously assail the August Bishop of Beauvais himself, shaking his fist in his face and shouting: + +“By God, you are a traitor!” + +“You lie!” responded the Bishop. + +He a traitor! Oh, far from it; he certainly was the last Frenchman that any Briton had a right to bring that charge against. + +The Earl of Warwick lost his temper, too. He was a doughty soldier, but when it came to the intellectuals — when it came to delicate chicane, and scheming, and trickery — he couldn’t see any further through a millstone than another. So he burst out in his frank warrior fashion, and swore that the King of England was being treacherously used, and that Joan of Arc was going to be allowed to cheat the stake. But they whispered comfort into his ear: + +“Give yourself no uneasiness, my lord; we shall soon have her again.” + +Perhaps the like tidings found their way all around, for good news travels fast as well as bad. At any rate, the ragings presently quieted down, and the huge concourse crumbled apart and disappeared. And thus we reached the noon of that fearful Thursday. + +We two youths were happy; happier than any words can tell — for we were not in the secret any more than the rest. Joan’s life was saved. We knew that, and that was enough. France would hear of this day’s infamous work — and then! Why, then her gallant sons would flock to her standard by thousands and thousands, multitudes upon multitudes, and their wrath would be like the wrath of the ocean when the storm-winds sweep it; and they would hurl themselves against this doomed city and overwhelm it like the resistless tides of that ocean, and Joan of Arc would march again! + +In six days — seven days — one short week — noble France, grateful France, indignant France, would be thundering at these gates — let us count the hours, let us count the minutes, let us count the seconds! O happy day, O day of ecstasy, how our hearts sang in our bosoms! + +For we were young then, yes, we were very young. + +Do you think the exhausted prisoner was allowed to rest and sleep after she had spent the small remnant of her strength in dragging her tired body back to the dungeon? + +No, there was no rest for her, with those sleuth-hounds on her track. Cauchon and some of his people followed her to her lair straightway; they found her dazed and dull, her mental and physical forces in a state of prostration. They told her she had abjured; that she had made certain promises — among them, to resume the apparel of her sex; and that if she relapsed, the Church would cast her out for good and all. She heard the words, but they had no meaning to her. She was like a person who has taken a narcotic and is dying for sleep, dying for rest from nagging, dying to be let alone, and who mechanically does everything the persecutor asks, taking but dull note of the things done, and but dully recording them in the memory. And so Joan put on the gown which Cauchon and his people had brought; and would come to herself by and by, and have at first but a dim idea as to when and how the change had come about. + +Cauchon went away happy and content. Joan had resumed woman’s dress without protest; also she had been formally warned against relapsing. He had witnesses to these facts. How could matters be better? + +But suppose she should not relapse? + +Why, then she must be forced to do it. + +Did Cauchon hint to the English guards that thenceforth if they chose to make their prisoner’s captivity crueler and bitterer than ever, no official notice would be taken of it? Perhaps so; since the guards did begin that policy at once, and no official notice was taken of it. Yes, from that moment Joan’s life in that dungeon was made almost unendurable. Do not ask me to enlarge upon it. I will not do it. + +== Chapter 22 Joan Gives the Fatal Answer + +image::https://i.nostr.build/FjnDjoP5CFBnTGB5.jpg[0513, 300] + + +FRIDAY and Saturday were happy days for Noel and me. Our minds were full of our splendid dream of France aroused — France shaking her mane — France on the march — France at the gates — Rouen in ashes, and Joan free! Our imagination was on fire; we were delirious with pride and joy. For we were very young, as I have said. + +We knew nothing about what had been happening in the dungeon in the yester-afternoon. We supposed that as Joan had abjured and been taken back into the forgiving bosom of the Church, she was being gently used now, and her captivity made as pleasant and comfortable for her as the circumstances would allow. So, in high contentment, we planned out our share in the great rescue, and fought our part of the fight over and over again during those two happy days — as happy days as ever I have known. + +Sunday morning came. I was awake, enjoying the balmy, lazy weather, and thinking. Thinking of the rescue — what else? I had no other thought now. I was absorbed in that, drunk with the happiness of it. + +I heard a voice shouting far down the street, and soon it came nearer, and I caught the words: + +“Joan of Arc has relapsed! The witch’s time has come!” + +It stopped my heart, it turned my blood to ice. That was more than sixty years ago, but that triumphant note rings as clear in my memory to-day as it rang in my ear that long-vanished summer morning. We are so strangely made; the memories that could make us happy pass away; it is the memories that break our hearts that abide. + +Soon other voices took up that cry — tens, scores, hundreds of voices; all the world seemed filled with the brutal joy of it. And there were other clamors — the clatter of rushing feet, merry congratulations, bursts of coarse laughter, the rolling of drums, the boom and crash of distant bands profaning the sacred day with the music of victory and thanksgiving. + +About the middle of the afternoon came a summons for Manchon and me to go to Joan’s dungeon — a summons from Cauchon. But by that time distrust had already taken possession of the English and their soldiery again, and all Rouen was in an angry and threatening mood. We could see plenty of evidences of this from our own windows — fist-shaking, black looks, tumultuous tides of furious men billowing by along the street. + +And we learned that up at the castle things were going very badly, indeed; that there was a great mob gathered there who considered the relapse a lie and a priestly trick, and among them many half-drunk English soldiers. Moreover, these people had gone beyond words. They had laid hands upon a number of churchmen who were trying to enter the castle, and it had been difficult work to rescue them and save their lives. + +And so Manchon refused to go. He said he would not go a step without a safeguard from Warwick. So next morning Warwick sent an escort of soldiers, and then we went. Matters had not grown peacefuler meantime, but worse. The soldiers protected us from bodily damage, but as we passed through the great mob at the castle we were assailed with insults and shameful epithets. I bore it well enough, though, and said to myself, with secret satisfaction, “In three or four short days, my lads, you will be employing your tongues in a different sort from this — and I shall be there to hear.” + +To my mind these were as good as dead men. How many of them would still be alive after the rescue that was coming? Not more than enough to amuse the executioner a short half-hour, certainly. + +It turned out that the report was true. Joan had relapsed. She was sitting there in her chains, clothed again in her male attire. + +She accused nobody. That was her way. It was not in her character to hold a servant to account for what his master had made him do, and her mind had cleared now, and she knew that the advantage which had been taken of her the previous morning had its origin, not in the subordinate but in the master — Cauchon. + +Here is what had happened. While Joan slept, in the early morning of Sunday, one of the guards stole her female apparel and put her male attire in its place. When she woke she asked for the other dress, but the guards refused to give it back. She protested, and said she was forbidden to wear the male dress. But they continued to refuse. She had to have clothing, for modesty’s sake; moreover, she saw that she could not save her life if she must fight for it against treacheries like this; so she put on the forbidden garments, knowing what the end would be. She was weary of the struggle, poor thing. + +We had followed in the wake of Cauchon, the Vice-Inquisitor, and the others — six or eight — and when I saw Joan sitting there, despondent, forlorn, and still in chains, when I was expecting to find her situation so different, I did not know what to make of it. The shock was very great. I had doubted the relapse perhaps; possibly I had believed in it, but had not realized it. + +Cauchon’s victory was complete. He had had a harassed and irritated and disgusted look for a long time, but that was all gone now, and contentment and serenity had taken its place. His purple face was full of tranquil and malicious happiness. He went trailing his robes and stood grandly in front of Joan, with his legs apart, and remained so more than a minute, gloating over her and enjoying the sight of this poor ruined creature, who had won so lofty a place for him in the service of the meek and merciful Jesus, Saviour of the World, Lord of the Universe — in case England kept her promise to him, who kept no promises himself. + +Presently the judges began to question Joan. One of them, named Marguerie, who was a man with more insight than prudence, remarked upon Joan’s change of clothing, and said: + +“There is something suspicious about this. How could it have come about without connivance on the part of others? Perhaps even something worse?” + +“Thousand devils!” screamed Cauchon, in a fury. “Will you shut your mouth?” + +“Armagnac! Traitor!” shouted the soldiers on guard, and made a rush for Marguerie with their lances leveled. It was with the greatest difficulty that he was saved from being run through the body. He made no more attempts to help the inquiry, poor man. The other judges proceeded with the questionings. + +“Why have you resumed this male habit?” + +I did not quite catch her answer, for just then a soldier’s halberd slipped from his fingers and fell on the stone floor with a crash; but I thought I understood Joan to say that she had resumed it of her own motion. + +“But you have promised and sworn that you would not go back to it.” + +I was full of anxiety to hear her answer to that question; and when it came it was just what I was expecting. She said — quiet quietly: + +“I have never intended and never understood myself to swear I would not resume it.” + +There — I had been sure, all along, that she did not know what she was doing and saying on the platform Thursday, and this answer of hers was proof that I had not been mistaken. Then she went on to add this: + +“But I had a right to resume it, because the promises made to me have not been kept — promises that I should be allowed to go to mass and receive the communion, and that I should be freed from the bondage of these chains — but they are still upon me, as you see.” + +“Nevertheless, you have abjured, and have especially promised to return no more to the dress of a man.” + +Then Joan held out her fettered hands sorrowfully toward these unfeeling men and said: + +“I would rather die than continue so. But if they may be taken off, and if I may hear mass, and be removed to a penitential prison, and have a woman about me, I will be good, and will do what shall seem good to you that I do.” + +Cauchon sniffed scoffingly at that. Honor the compact which he and his had made with her? + +Fulfil its conditions? What need of that? Conditions had been a good thing to concede, temporarily, and for advantage; but they have served their turn — let something of a fresher sort and of more consequence be considered. The resumption of the male dress was sufficient for all practical purposes, but perhaps Joan could be led to add something to that fatal crime. So Cauchon asked her if her Voices had spoken to her since Thursday — and he reminded her of her abjuration. + +“Yes,” she answered; and then it came out that the Voices had talked with her about the abjuration — told her about it, I suppose. She guilelessly reasserted the heavenly origin of her mission, and did it with the untroubled mien of one who was not conscious that she had ever knowingly repudiated it. So I was convinced once more that she had had no notion of what she was doing that Thursday morning on the platform. Finally she said, “My Voices told me I did very wrong to confess that what I had done was not well.” Then she sighed, and said with simplicity, “But it was the fear of the fire that made me do so.” + +That is, fear of the fire had made her sign a paper whose contents she had not understood then, but understood now by revelation of her Voices and by testimony of her persecutors. + +She was sane now and not exhausted; her courage had come back, and with it her inborn loyalty to the truth. She was bravely and serenely speaking it again, knowing that it would deliver her body up to that very fire which had such terrors for her. + +That answer of hers was quite long, quite frank, wholly free from concealments or palliations. It made me shudder; I knew she was pronouncing sentence of death upon herself. So did poor Manchon. And he wrote in the margin abreast of it: + +“RESPONSIO MORTIFERA.” + +Fatal answer. Yes, all present knew that it was, indeed, a fatal answer. Then there fell a silence such as falls in a sick-room when the watchers of the dying draw a deep breath and say softly one to another, “All is over.” + +Here, likewise, all was over; but after some moments Cauchon, wishing to clinch this matter and make it final, put this question: + +“Do you still believe that your Voices are St. Marguerite and St. Catherine?” + +“Yes — and that they come from God.” + +“Yet you denied them on the scaffold?” + +Then she made direct and clear affirmation that she had never had any intention to deny them; and that if — I noted the if — “if she had made some retractions and revocations on the scaffold it was from fear of the fire, and it was a violation of the truth.” + +There it is again, you see. She certainly never knew what it was she had done on the scaffold until she was told of it afterward by these people and by her Voices. + +And now she closed this most painful scene with these words; and there was a weary note in them that was pathetic: + +“I would rather do my penance all at once; let me die. I cannot endure captivity any longer.” + +The spirit born for sunshine and liberty so longed for release that it would take it in any form, even that. + +Several among the company of judges went from the place troubled and sorrowful, the others in another mood. In the court of the castle we found the Earl of Warwick and fifty English waiting, impatient for news. As soon as Cauchon saw them he shouted — laughing — think of a man destroying a friendless poor girl and then having the heart to laugh at it: + +“Make yourselves comfortable — it’s all over with her!” + +== Chapter 23 The Time Is at Hand + +THE YOUNG can sink into abysses of despondency, and it was so with Noel and me now; but the hopes of the young are quick to rise again, and it was so with ours. We called back that vague promise of the Voices, and said the one to the other that the glorious release was to happen at “the last moment” — “that other time was not the last moment, but this is; it will happen now; the King will come, La Hire will come, and with them our veterans, and behind them all France!” And so we were full of heart again, and could already hear, in fancy, that stirring music the clash of steel and the war-cries and the uproar of the onset, and in fancy see our prisoner free, her chains gone, her sword in her hand. + +But this dream was to pass also, and come to nothing. Late at night, when Manchon came in, he said: + +“I am come from the dungeon, and I have a message for you from that poor child.” + +A message to me! If he had been noticing I think he would have discovered me — discovered that my indifference concerning the prisoner was a pretense; for I was caught off my guard, and was so moved and so exalted to be so honored by her that I must have shown my feeling in my face and manner. + +“A message for me, your reverence?” + +“Yes. It is something she wishes done. She said she had noticed the young man who helps me, and that he had a good face; and did I think he would do a kindness for her? I said I knew you would, and asked her what it was, and she said a letter — would you write a letter to her mother? + +“And I said you would. But I said I would do it myself, and gladly; but she said no, that my labors were heavy, and she thought the young man would not mind the doing of this service for one not able to do it for herself, she not knowing how to write. Then I would have sent for you, and at that the sadness vanished out of her face. Why, it was as if she was going to see a friend, poor friendless thing. But I was not permitted. I did my best, but the orders remain as strict as ever, the doors are closed against all but officials; as before, none but officials may speak to her. So I went back and told her, and she sighed, and was sad again. Now this is what she begs you to write to her mother. It is partly a strange message, and to me means nothing, but she said her mother would understand. You will ‘convey her adoring love to her family and her village friends, and say there will be no rescue, for that this night — and it is the third time in the twelvemonth, and is final — she has seen the Vision of the Tree.’” + +“How strange!” + +“Yes, it is strange, but that is what she said; and said her parents would understand. And for a little time she was lost in dreams and thinkings, and her lips moved, and I caught in her muttering these lines, which she said over two or three times, and they seemed to bring peace and contentment to her. I set them down, thinking they might have some connection with her letter and be useful; but it was not so; they were a mere memory, floating idly in a tired mind, and they have no meaning, at least no relevancy.” + +I took the piece of paper, and found what I knew I should find: + +And when in exile wand’ring, we Shall fainting yearn for glimpse of thee, Oh, rise upon our sight! + +There was no hope any more. I knew it now. I knew that Joan’s letter was a message to Noel and me, as well as to her family, and that its object was to banish vain hopes from our minds and tell us from her own mouth of the blow that was going to fall upon us, so that we, being her soldiers, would know it for a command to bear it as became us and her, and so submit to the will of God; and in thus obeying, find assuagement of our grief. It was like her, for she was always thinking of others, not of herself. Yes, her heart was sore for us; she could find time to think of us, the humblest of her servants, and try to soften our pain, lighten the burden of our troubles — she that was drinking of the bitter waters; she that was walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. + +I wrote the letter. You will know what it cost me, without my telling you. I wrote it with the same wooden stylus which had put upon parchment the first words ever dictated by Joan of Arc — that high summons to the English to vacate France, two years past, when she was a lass of seventeen; it had now set down the last ones which she was ever to dictate. Then I broke it. For the pen that had served Joan of Arc could not serve any that would come after her in this earth without abasement. + +The next day, May 29th, Cauchon summoned his serfs, and forty-two responded. It is charitable to believe that the other twenty were ashamed to come. The forty-two pronounced her a relapsed heretic, and condemned her to be delivered over to the secular arm. Cauchon thanked them. + +Then he sent orders that Joan of Arc be conveyed the next morning to the place known as the Old Market; and that she be then delivered to the civil judge, and by the civil judge to the executioner. That meant she would be burnt. + +All the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, the 29th, the news was flying, and the people of the country-side flocking to Rouen to see the tragedy — all, at least, who could prove their English sympathies and count upon admission. The press grew thicker and thicker in the streets, the excitement grew higher and higher. And now a thing was noticeable again which had been noticeable more than once before — that there was pity for Joan in the hearts of many of these people. Whenever she had been in great danger it had manifested itself, and now it was apparent again — manifest in a pathetic dumb sorrow which was visible in many faces. + +Early the next morning, Wednesday, Martin Ladvenu and another friar were sent to Joan to prepare her for death; and Manchon and I went with them — a hard service for me. We tramped through the dim corridors, winding this way and that, and piercing ever deeper and deeper into that vast heart of stone, and at last we stood before Joan. But she did not know it. She sat with her hands in her lap and her head bowed, thinking, and her face was very sad. One might not know what she was thinking of. Of her home, and the peaceful pastures, and the friends she was no more to see? Of her wrongs, and her forsaken estate, and the cruelties which had been put upon her? Or was it of death — the death which she had longed for, and which was now so close? + +Or was it of the kind of death she must suffer? I hoped not; for she feared only one kind, and that one had for her unspeakable terrors. I believed she so feared that one that with her strong will she would shut the thought of it wholly out of her mind, and hope and believe that God would take pity on her and grant her an easier one; and so it might chance that the awful news which we were bringing might come as a surprise to her at last. + +We stood silent awhile, but she was still unconscious of us, still deep in her sad musings and far away. Then Martin Ladvenu said, softly: + +“Joan.” + +She looked up then, with a little start and a wan smile, and said: + +“Speak. Have you a message for me?” + +“Yes, my poor child. Try to bear it. Do you think you can bear it?” + +“Yes” — very softly, and her head drooped again. + +“I am come to prepare you for death.” + +A faint shiver trembled through her wasted body. There was a pause. In the stillness we could hear our breathings. Then she said, still in that low voice: + +“When will it be?” + +The muffled notes of a tolling bell floated to our ears out of the distance. + +“Now. The time is at hand.” + +That slight shiver passed again. + +“It is so soon — ah, it is so soon!” + +There was a long silence. The distant throbbings of the bell pulsed through it, and we stood motionless and listening. But it was broken at last: + +“What death is it?” + +“By fire!” + +“Oh, I knew it, I knew it!” She sprang wildly to her feet, and wound her hands in her hair, and began to writhe and sob, oh, so piteously, and mourn and grieve and lament, and turn to first one and then another of us, and search our faces beseechingly, as hoping she might find help and friendliness there, poor thing — she that had never denied these to any creature, even her wounded enemy on the battle-field. + +“Oh, cruel, cruel, to treat me so! And must my body, that has never been defiled, be consumed today and turned to ashes? Ah, sooner would I that my head were cut off seven times than suffer this woeful death. I had the promise of the Church’s prison when I submitted, and if I had but been there, and not left here in the hands of my enemies, this miserable fate had not befallen me. + +“Oh, I appeal to God the Great Judge, against the injustice which has been done me.” + +There was none there that could endure it. They turned away, with the tears running down their faces. In a moment I was on my knees at her feet. At once she thought only of my danger, and bent and whispered in my hear: “Up! — do not peril yourself, good heart. There — God bless you always!” and I felt the quick clasp of her hand. Mine was the last hand she touched with hers in life. None saw it; history does not know of it or tell of it, yet it is true, just as I have told it. The next moment she saw Cauchon coming, and she went and stood before him and reproached him, saying: + +“Bishop, it is by you that I die!” + +He was not shamed, not touched; but said, smoothly: + +“Ah, be patient, Joan. You die because you have not kept your promise, but have returned to your sins.” + +“Alas,” she said, “if you had put me in the Church’s prison, and given me right and proper keepers, as you promised, this would not have happened. And for this I summon you to answer before God!” + +Then Cauchon winced, and looked less placidly content than before, and he turned him about and went away. + +Joan stood awhile musing. She grew calmer, but occasionally she wiped her eyes, and now and then sobs shook her body; but their violence was modifying now, and the intervals between them were growing longer. Finally she looked up and saw Pierre Maurice, who had come in with the Bishop, and she said to him: + +“Master Peter, where shall I be this night?” + +“Have you not good hope in God?” + +“Yes — and by His grace I shall be in Paradise.” + +Now Martin Ladvenu heard her in confession; then she begged for the sacrament. But how grant the communion to one who had been publicly cut off from the Church, and was now no more entitled to its privileges than an unbaptized pagan? The brother could not do this, but he sent to Cauchon to inquire what he must do. All laws, human and divine, were alike to that man — he respected none of them. He sent back orders to grant Joan whatever she wished. Her last speech to him had reached his fears, perhaps; it could not reach his heart, for he had none. + +The Eucharist was brought now to that poor soul that had yearned for it with such unutterable longing all these desolate months. It was a solemn moment. While we had been in the deeps of the prison, the public courts of the castle had been filling up with crowds of the humbler sort of men and women, who had learned what was going on in Joan’s cell, and had come with softened hearts to do — they knew not what; to hear — they knew not what. We knew nothing of this, for they were out of our view. And there were other great crowds of the like caste gathered in masses outside the castle gates. And when the lights and the other accompaniments of the Sacrament passed by, coming to Joan in the prison, all those multitudes kneeled down and began to pray for her, and many wept; and when the solemn ceremony of the communion began in Joan’s cell, out of the distance a moving sound was borne moaning to our ears — it was those invisible multitudes chanting the litany for a departing soul. + +The fear of the fiery death was gone from Joan of Arc now, to come again no more, except for one fleeting instant — then it would pass, and serenity and courage would take its place and abide till the end. + +== Chapter 24 Joan the Martyr + +AT NINE o’clock the Maid of Orleans, Deliverer of France, went forth in the grace of her innocence and her youth to lay down her life for the country she loved with such devotion, and for the King that had abandoned her. She sat in the cart that is used only for felons. In one respect she was treated worse than a felon; for whereas she was on her way to be sentenced by the civil arm, she already bore her judgment inscribed in advance upon a miter-shaped cap which she wore: + +HERETIC, RELAPSED, APOSTATE, IDOLATER + +In the cart with her sat the friar Martin Ladvenu and Maetre Jean Massieu. She looked girlishly fair and sweet and saintly in her long white robe, and when a gush of sunlight flooded her as she emerged from the gloom of the prison and was yet for a moment still framed in the arch of the somber gate, the massed multitudes of poor folk murmured “A vision! a vision!” and sank to their knees praying, and many of the women weeping; and the moving invocation for the dying arose again, and was taken up and borne along, a majestic wave of sound, which accompanied the doomed, solacing and blessing her, all the sorrowful way to the place of death. “Christ have pity! Saint Margaret have pity! Pray for her, all ye saints, archangels, and blessed martyrs, pray for her! Saints and angels intercede for her! From thy wrath, good Lord, deliver her! O Lord God, save her! Have mercy on her, we beseech Thee, good Lord!” + +It is just and true what one of the histories has said: “The poor and the helpless had nothing but their prayers to give Joan of Arc; but these we may believe were not unavailing. There are few more pathetic events recorded in history than this weeping, helpless, praying crowd, holding their lighted candles and kneeling on the pavement beneath the prison walls of the old fortress.” + +And it was so all the way: thousands upon thousands massed upon their knees and stretching far down the distances, thick-sown with the faint yellow candle-flames, like a field starred with golden flowers. + +But there were some that did not kneel; these were the English soldiers. They stood elbow to elbow, on each side of Joan’s road, and walled it in all the way; and behind these living walls knelt the multitudes. + +By and by a frantic man in priest’s garb came wailing and lamenting, and tore through the crowd and the barriers of soldiers and flung himself on his knees by Joan’s cart and put up his hands in supplication, crying out: + +“O forgive, forgive!” + +It was Loyseleur! + +And Joan forgave him; forgave him out of a heart that knew nothing but forgiveness, nothing but compassion, nothing but pity for all that suffer, let their offense be what it might. And she had no word of reproach for this poor wretch who had wrought day and night with deceits and treacheries and hypocrisies to betray her to her death. + +The soldiers would have killed him, but the Earl of Warwick saved his life. What became of him is not known. He hid himself from the world somewhere, to endure his remorse as he might. + +In the square of the Old Market stood the two platforms and the stake that had stood before in the churchyard of St. Ouen. The platforms were occupied as before, the one by Joan and her judges, the other by great dignitaries, the principal being Cauchon and the English Cardinal — Winchester. The square was packed with people, the windows and roofs of the blocks of buildings surrounding it were black with them. + +When the preparations had been finished, all noise and movement gradually ceased, and a waiting stillness followed which was solemn and impressive. + +And now, by order of Cauchon, an ecclesiastic named Nicholas Midi preached a sermon, wherein he explained that when a branch of the vine — which is the Church — becomes diseased and corrupt, it must be cut away or it will corrupt and destroy the whole vine. He made it appear that Joan, through her wickedness, was a menace and a peril to the Church’s purity and holiness, and her death therefore necessary. When he was come to the end of his discourse he turned toward her and paused a moment, then he said: + +“Joan, the Church can no longer protect you. Go in peace!” + +Joan had been placed wholly apart and conspicuous, to signify the Church’s abandonment of her, and she sat there in her loneliness, waiting in patience and resignation for the end. Cauchon addressed her now. He had been advised to read the form of her abjuration to her, and had brought it with him; but he changed his mind, fearing that she would proclaim the truth — that she had never knowingly abjured — and so bring shame upon him and eternal infamy. He contented himself with admonishing her to keep in mind her wickednesses, and repent of them, and think of her salvation. Then he solemnly pronounced her excommunicate and cut off from the body of the Church. With a final word he delivered her over to the secular arm for judgment and sentence. + +Joan, weeping, knelt and began to pray. For whom? Herself? Oh, no — for the King of France. Her voice rose sweet and clear, and penetrated all hearts with its passionate pathos. She never thought of his treacheries to her, she never thought of his desertion of her, she never remembered that it was because he was an ingrate that she was here to die a miserable death; she remembered only that he was her King, that she was his loyal and loving subject, and that his enemies had undermined his cause with evil reports and false charges, and he not by to defend himself. And so, in the very presence of death, she forgot her own troubles to implore all in her hearing to be just to him; to believe that he was good and noble and sincere, and not in any way to blame for any acts of hers, neither advising them nor urging them, but being wholly clear and free of all responsibility for them. Then, closing, she begged in humble and touching words that all here present would pray for her and would pardon her, both her enemies and such as might look friendly upon her and feel pity for her in their hearts. + +There was hardly one heart there that was not touched — even the English, even the judges showed it, and there was many a lip that trembled and many an eye that was blurred with tears; yes, even the English Cardinal’s — that man with a political heart of stone but a human heart of flesh. + +The secular judge who should have delivered judgment and pronounced sentence was himself so disturbed that he forgot his duty, and Joan went to her death unsentenced — thus completing with an illegality what had begun illegally and had so continued to the end. He only said — to the guards: + +“Take her”; and to the executioner, “Do your duty.” + +Joan asked for a cross. None was able to furnish one. But an English soldier broke a stick in two and crossed the pieces and tied them together, and this cross he gave her, moved to it by the good heart that was in him; and she kissed it and put it in her bosom. Then Isambard de la Pierre went to the church near by and brought her a consecrated one; and this one also she kissed, and pressed it to her bosom with rapture, and then kissed it again and again, covering it with tears and pouring out her gratitude to God and the saints. + +And so, weeping, and with her cross to her lips, she climbed up the cruel steps to the face of the stake, with the friar Isambard at her side. Then she was helped up to the top of the pile of wood that was built around the lower third of the stake and stood upon it with her back against the stake, and the world gazing up at her breathless. The executioner ascended to her side and wound chains around her slender body, and so fastened her to the stake. Then he descended to finish his dreadful office; and there she remained alone — she that had had so many friends in the days when she was free, and had been so loved and so dear. + +All these things I saw, albeit dimly and blurred with tears; but I could bear no more. I continued in my place, but what I shall deliver to you now I got by others’ eyes and others’ mouths. Tragic sounds there were that pierced my ears and wounded my heart as I sat there, but it is as I tell you: the latest image recorded by my eyes in that desolating hour was Joan of Arc with the grace of her comely youth still unmarred; and that image, untouched by time or decay, has remained with me all my days. Now I will go on. + +If any thought that now, in that solemn hour when all transgressors repent and confess, she would revoke her revocation and say her great deeds had been evil deeds and Satan and his fiends their source, they erred. No such thought was in her blameless mind. She was not thinking of herself and her troubles, but of others, and of woes that might befall them. And so, turning her grieving eyes about her, where rose the towers and spires of that fair city, she said: + +“Oh, Rouen, Rouen, must I die here, and must you be my tomb? Ah, Rouen, Rouen, I have great fear that you will suffer for my death.” + +A whiff of smoke swept upward past her face, and for one moment terror seized her and she cried out, “Water! Give me holy water!” but the next moment her fears were gone, and they came no more to torture her. + +She heard the flames crackling below her, and immediately distress for a fellow-creature who was in danger took possession of her. It was the friar Isambard. She had given him her cross and begged him to raise it toward her face and let her eyes rest in hope and consolation upon it till she was entered into the peace of God. She made him go out from the danger of the fire. Then she was satisfied, and said: + +“Now keep it always in my sight until the end.” + +Not even yet could Cauchon, that man without shame, endure to let her die in peace, but went toward her, all black with crimes and sins as he was, and cried out: + +“I am come, Joan, to exhort you for the last time to repent and seek the pardon of God.” + +“I die through you,” she said, and these were the last words she spoke to any upon earth. + +Then the pitchy smoke, shot through with red flashes of flame, rolled up in a thick volume and hid her from sight; and from the heart of this darkness her voice rose strong and eloquent in prayer, and when by moments the wind shredded somewhat of the smoke aside, there were veiled glimpses of an upturned face and moving lips. At last a mercifully swift tide of flame burst upward, and none saw that face any more nor that form, and the voice was still. + +Yes, she was gone from us: JOAN OF ARC! What little words they are, to tell of a rich world made empty and poor! + +== CONCLUSION + +image::https://i.nostr.build/cHfoEiGBLizCeCe5.jpg[0525, 300] + + +JOAN’S BROTHER Jacques died in Domremy during the Great Trial at Rouen. This was according to the prophecy which Joan made that day in the pastures the time that she said the rest of us would go to the great wars. + +When her poor old father heard of the martyrdom it broke his heart, and he died. + +The mother was granted a pension by the city of Orleans, and upon this she lived out her days, which were many. Twenty-four years after her illustrious child’s death she traveled all the way to Paris in the winter-time and was present at the opening of the discussion in the Cathedral of Notre Dame which was the first step in the Rehabilitation. Paris was crowded with people, from all about France, who came to get sight of the venerable dame, and it was a touching spectacle when she moved through these reverent wet-eyed multitudes on her way to the grand honors awaiting her at the cathedral. With her were Jean and Pierre, no longer the light-hearted youths who marched with us from Vaucouleurs, but war-torn veterans with hair beginning to show frost. + +After the martyrdom Noel and I went back to Domremy, but presently when the Constable Richemont superseded La Tremouille as the King’s chief adviser and began the completion of Joan’s great work, we put on our harness and returned to the field and fought for the King all through the wars and skirmishes until France was freed of the English. It was what Joan would have desired of us; and, dead or alive, her desire was law for us. All the survivors of the personal staff were faithful to her memory and fought for the King to the end. Mainly we were well scattered, but when Paris fell we happened to be together. It was a great day and a joyous; but it was a sad one at the same time, because Joan was not there to march into the captured capital with us. + +Noel and I remained always together, and I was by his side when death claimed him. It was in the last great battle of the war. In that battle fell also Joan’s sturdy old enemy Talbot. He was eighty-five years old, and had spent his whole life in battle. A fine old lion he was, with his flowing white mane and his tameless spirit; yes, and his indestructible energy as well; for he fought as knightly and vigorous a fight that day as the best man there. + +La Hire survived the martyrdom thirteen years; and always fighting, of course, for that was all he enjoyed in life. I did not see him in all that time, for we were far apart, but one was always hearing of him. + +The Bastard of Orleans and D’Alencon and D’Aulon lived to see France free, and to testify with Jean and Pierre d’Arc and Pasquerel and me at the Rehabilitation. But they are all at rest now, these many years. I alone am left of those who fought at the side of Joan of Arc in the great wars. + +She said I would live until those wars were forgotten — a prophecy which failed. If I should live a thousand years it would still fail. For whatsoever had touch with Joan of Arc, that thing is immortal. + +Members of Joan’s family married, and they have left descendants. Their descendants are of the nobility, but their family name and blood bring them honors which no other nobles receive or may hope for. You have seen how everybody along the way uncovered when those children came yesterday to pay their duty to me. It was not because they are noble, it is because they are grandchildren of the brothers of Joan of Arc. + +Now as to the Rehabilitation. Joan crowned the King at Rheims. For reward he allowed her to be hunted to her death without making one effort to save her. During the next twenty-three years he remained indifferent to her memory; indifferent to the fact that her good name was under a damning blot put there by the priest because of the deeds which she had done in saving him and his scepter; indifferent to the fact that France was ashamed, and longed to have the Deliverer’s fair fame restored. Indifferent all that time. Then he suddenly changed and was anxious to have justice for poor Joan himself. Why? Had he become grateful at last? Had remorse attacked his hard heart? No, he had a better reason — a better one for his sort of man. This better reason was that, now that the English had been finally expelled from the country, they were beginning to call attention to the fact that this King had gotten his crown by the hands of a person proven by the priests to have been in league with Satan and burned for it by them as a sorceress — therefore, of what value or authority was such a Kingship as that? Of no value at all; no nation could afford to allow such a king to remain on the throne. + +It was high time to stir now, and the King did it. That is how Charles VII. came to be smitten with anxiety to have justice done the memory of his benefactress. + +He appealed to the Pope, and the Pope appointed a great commission of churchmen to examine into the facts of Joan’s life and award judgment. The Commission sat at Paris, at Domremy, at Rouen, at Orleans, and at several other places, and continued its work during several months. It examined the records of Joan’s trials, it examined the Bastard of Orleans, and the Duke d’Alencon, and D’Aulon, and Pasquerel, and Courcelles, and Isambard de la Pierre, and Manchon, and me, and many others whose names I have made familiar to you; also they examined more than a hundred witnesses whose names are less familiar to you — the friends of Joan in Domremy, Vaucouleurs, Orleans, and other places, and a number of judges and other people who had assisted at the Rouen trials, the abjuration, and the martyrdom. And out of this exhaustive examination Joan’s character and history came spotless and perfect, and this verdict was placed upon record, to remain forever. + +I was present upon most of these occasions, and saw again many faces which I have not seen for a quarter of a century; among them some well-beloved faces — those of our generals and that of Catherine Boucher (married, alas!), and also among them certain other faces that filled me with bitterness — those of Beaupere and Courcelles and a number of their fellow-fiends. I saw Haumette and Little Mengette — edging along toward fifty now, and mothers of many children. I saw Noel’s father, and the parents of the Paladin and the Sunflower. + +It was beautiful to hear the Duke d’Alencon praise Joan’s splendid capacities as a general, and to hear the Bastard indorse these praises with his eloquent tongue and then go on and tell how sweet and good Joan was, and how full of pluck and fire and impetuosity, and mischief, and mirthfulness, and tenderness, and compassion, and everything that was pure and fine and noble and lovely. He made her live again before me, and wrung my heart. + +I have finished my story of Joan of Arc, that wonderful child, that sublime personality, that spirit which in one regard has had no peer and will have none — this: its purity from all alloy of self-seeking, self-interest, personal ambition. In it no trace of these motives can be found, search as you may, and this cannot be said of any other person whose name appears in profane history. + +With Joan of Arc love of country was more than a sentiment — it was a passion. She was the Genius of Patriotism — she was Patriotism embodied, concreted, made flesh, and palpable to the touch and visible to the eye. + +Love, Mercy, Charity, Fortitude, War, Peace, Poetry, Music — these may be symbolized as any shall prefer: by figures of either sex and of any age; but a slender girl in her first young bloom, with the martyr’s crown upon her head, and in her hand the sword that severed her country’s bonds — shall not this, and no other, stand for PATRIOTISM through all the ages until time shall end? + +*THE END* \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/LoremIpsum.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/LoremIpsum.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f148b65 --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/LoremIpsum.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,131 @@ += Lorem Ipsum + +== Asciidoc test + +Here are some nostr addresses: + +nostr:naddr1qppkw6t5vd5hgctyv4kz6urjda4x2cm594jx7cm4d4jkuarpw35k7m3dva5hgcmfw3skgetv94c8ymm2v43hgtf39438jttnw3jkcmrp94mz6vgprdmhxue69uhhg6r9vd5hgctyv4kzumn0wd68yvfwvdhk6q3q2umrfdjgvdxt45g0y3ghwcyfagssjrv5qlm3t6pu2aa5vydwdmwqxpqqqp64jqj69ta + +nostr:npub149p5act9a5qm9p47elp8w8h3wpwn2d7s2xecw2ygnrxqp4wgsklq9g722q + +nostr:nprofile1qyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtcqyz55xnhpvhksrv5xhm8uyac779c96dfh6pgm8peg3zvvcqx4ezzmu4qdkdl + +nostr:naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzp22rfmsktmgpk2rtan7zwu00zuzax5maq5dnsu5g3xxvqr2u3pd7qyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtcqp4axzurrdpshger9wd5kwmscmk4nl + +nostr:nevent1qvzqqqqqqypzp22rfmsktmgpk2rtan7zwu00zuzax5maq5dnsu5g3xxvqr2u3pd7qyghwumn8ghj7mn0wd68ytnhd9hx2tcpzamhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumn0wd68ytnzv9hxgtcqyrz6y4vq9the6z78t0307nrvf3kz6m6jcu9ma6defzg6yc02tn2vqsdp3f7 + +nostr:note1ck39tqp2a7wsh36mutl5cmzvdskk75k8pwlwnw2gjx3xr6ju6nqqcald30 + + +image::https://i.pinimg.com/474x/bd/02/21/bd022104b73d5e5c1f0cccfd9892dff2.jpg[Woman reading] + +[.lead] +Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo _duo dolores et ea rebum_. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. + +.Important quote +.... +Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt *ut labore et dolore* magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. +.... + +.List of ordered items +. first item +. second item +.. second subitem 1 +.. second subitem 2 +. third item + +.List of unordered items +* item +* item +** a subitem +*** a sub-subitem + +Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. + +.Resized image with wrapped text +image::https://i.pinimg.com/736x/2b/d8/05/2bd805691ef4d47b28dc0a7bf5ab7dbc.jpg[tennis players, 300, , float="right", align="center"] + +Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. + +[source, python] +---- +# This program adds two numbers + +num1 = 1.5 +num2 = 6.3 + +# Add two numbers +sum = num1 + num2 + +# Display the sum +print('The sum of {0} and {1} is {2}'.format(num1, num2, sum)) +---- + +Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. https://www.loremipsum.de/[Lorem ipsum] dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. + +INFO: This should be formatted as a single-paragraph admonition. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. + +Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. + +[WARNING] +.This is a block admonition +==== +Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis. + +At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, At accusam aliquyam diam diam dolore dolores duo eirmod eos erat, et nonumy sed tempor et et invidunt justo labore Stet clita ea et gubergren, kasd magna no rebum. sanctus sea sed takimata ut vero voluptua. est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat. +==== + +Consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. + +.Try out an MP3 link +audio::https://www.gutenberg.org/files/3002/3002-h/mp3/sochi-med.mp3[audio file] + +.And a video link +video::https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aqVxNCpx9s[Moldau] + +.And a youtube link +video::9aqVxNCpx9s[youtube] + +Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus. + +.Windtrainer workouts +[width="80%",cols="3,^2,^2,10",options="header"] +|==== +|Date |Duration |Avg HR |Notes + +|22-Aug-08 |10:24 | 157 | +Worked out MSHR (max sustainable heart rate) by going hard +for this interval. + +|22-Aug-08 |23:03 | 152 | +Back-to-back with previous interval. + +|24-Aug-08 |40:00 | 145 | +Moderately hard interspersed with 3x 3min intervals (2min +hard + 1min really hard taking the HR up to 160). + +|==== + +And that is all. + +== Plain-text below here + +Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. + +Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. + +Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. + +Nam liber tempor cum soluta nobis eleifend option congue nihil imperdiet doming id quod mazim placerat facer possim assum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. + +Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis. + +At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, At accusam aliquyam diam diam dolore dolores duo eirmod eos erat, et nonumy sed tempor et et invidunt justo labore Stet clita ea et gubergren, kasd magna no rebum. sanctus sea sed takimata ut vero voluptua. est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat. + +Consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus. + +Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. + +Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. + +Ut wisi enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exerci tation ullamcorper suscipit lobortis nisl ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at vero eros et accumsan et iusto odio dignissim qui blandit praesent luptatum zzril delenit augue duis dolore te feugait nulla facilisi. diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/Rauhnaechte.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/Rauhnaechte.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d59e768 --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/Rauhnaechte.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,351 @@ += Sharing with you the mystical truth of the Rauhnächte + +== The First Rauhnacht + +December 24th to 25th + +image::https://i.nostr.build/05pLUfFRKTcMQBGr.jpg[1st Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The first mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *January* +Namesake: *Anastasia* +Theme: *From darkness into light* + +The first Rauhnacht is dedicated to the month of January, carrying the energy of Anastasia, "the one who rises." It symbolizes emerging from darkness into light and invites reflection on your foundation. Strengthen your roots—what is the state of your earthly grounding, and what does it rest upon? + +* Honor and bless your roots while contemplating what aspects of your life or lineage need healing. +* Consider what is needed to find peace and balance. +* Remember, true prosperity (Wohlstand) means "to stand well" (wohl stehen). +* Light a candle for your ancestors and carry its glow into your dreams. +* Leave a gift for nature at the roots of a tree, offering it along with good wishes to your ancestors. Take your questions into your dreams — answers may come... sometimes takes time over three nights and days. Write down what you receive, for the messages may guide your steps into the light. + +== The Second Rauhnacht + +December 25th to 26th + +image::https://i.nostr.build/y0DXJuaASG4OhDPF.jpg[2nd Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The second mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *February* +Namessake: *St. Stephen* +Theme: *guidance and spiritual connection* + +The second Rauhnacht connects to the month of February and resonates with the energy of St. Stephen, symbolizing guidance and spiritual connection. + +This night invites you to return to your spiritual home, a sacred space within, where you are connected to the Source. Strengthen your bond with your higher self, knowing you are supported and accompanied by beings of light. + +* Visit your inner sanctuary through meditation, stillness, or guided journeys to uncover what is essential for the times ahead. Who or what will accompany you into the new year? +* Reflect on guides such as masters, angels, spirit animals, plants, minerals, or elements that resonate with you. +* What still seeks resolution or healing? +* Consider the relationships you wish to nurture. +* Write down any insights or symbols you receive. +* You may also create a small medicine pouch filled with meaningful tokens. Lastly, ask for the clarity to hear your inner voice more distinctly as you move forward. + +If you desire support for this inner journey, please feel free to reach out. + +== The Third Rauhnacht + +December 26th to 27th + +image::https://i.nostr.build/WG1m4uymsIlwYtNd.jpg[3rd Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The third mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *March* +Theme: *God's grace and unconditional love* +Namesake: *St. John* + +The third Rauhnacht corresponds to the month of March and is associated with St. John (Johannes), symbolizing God's grace and unconditional love. + +This night invites you to open your heart and allow miracles into your life. In March, nature prepares for breakthroughs and renewal – just as you can release old burdens to make space for something new. + +Ask yourself: + +* Who was there for me during difficult times? Who brought love, joy, or wise advice into my life? +* To whom did I offer my friendship and affection? +* Are there relationships that drain my energy or feel out of balance? +* Which connections do I want to strengthen, and which can I loosen? + +Take this opportunity to resolve old matters and open your heart anew through forgiveness and release. + +Breathe deeply in and out, and imagine your heart opening like a flower, allowing unconditional love to flow into you. Only by accepting and loving yourself can you truly love others. Recognize your own light and inner beauty – this is the key to experiencing miracles. + +Today, take time to formulate your wishes and goals for the new year. Focus on what brings you deep joy, love, and passion, as these are signposts guiding you to your soul's purpose. Create a vision board or write and draw your dreams, lighting a candle for each wish. Finally, hand your heartfelt desires over to the universe with trust, and open yourself +to the miracles that await. + +== The Fourth Rauhnacht + +December 27th to 28th + +image::https://i.nostr.build/Xf6xIjIJOiN47CW9.jpg[4th Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The fourth mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *April* +Theme: *release and transformation and Innocent Children* + +The fourth Rauhnacht corresponds to the month of April and symbolizes release and transformation. It is the Day of the Innocent Children and reminds us that sometimes the old tries to suppress or even destroy the new – whether through past actions, experiences, or personal patterns. Today is a powerful time to clear the past and set the stage for a positive new year. + +* Take some time to write down everything from the past that has burdened you, such as arguments, bad news, or nightmares. +* On a new piece of paper, reframe all the negative experiences into positive ones. Rewrite your story in a way that serves you and supports your well-being. +* Burn the first paper with the negative experiences as a symbolic act of release. +* Use visualization to transform: Imagine a violet flame flowing through and around your negative experiences, purifying and harmonizing them according to the divine plan. Feel how the negative energy shifts into positive energy. Visualize joy and gratitude as you see this transformation unfold. Hold the vision of your new images and allow white-golden light to flood through them, blessing and energizing your new vision. + +Finally, light a candle for your guides of light, whether an angel, master, or other beings. This light presence will accompany you throughout the coming year. + +Let go, trust that harmony is restored, and know that your new path is set. + +== The Fifth Rauhnacht + +December 28th to 29th + +image::https://i.nostr.build/Aj9U3RTjii4s9u4f.jpg[5th Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The fifth mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *May* +Theme: *Friendship* +Namesake: *Thomas* + +The fifth Rauhnacht corresponds to the month of May and honors the feast day of Thomas, meaning "Twin." This night, therefore, is about the soul's twin. + +The theme of this night is friendship – with yourself and with others. True friendships hold the quiet secret of deep connection. Take time to ask yourself: Am I my own best friend? Forgive yourself and be kind to yourself. Only by offering love and understanding to yourself can you extend it to others. + +* Reflect on the friendships in your life. Which ones enrich you? Are there broken connections that need healing? What would it take to find peace and resolution? Clearing the field can create space for new, meaningful friendships and experiences of love. +* Look back at the past year: What have you done well? Where were the highs and lows, the setbacks and successes? Speak to yourself as you would to your best friend, and say "Yes" to yourself. +* If there are people you wish to release energetically, visualize the infinity symbol. Imagine yourself standing in one circle and the other person in the opposite circle. See their light and become aware of all the connections formed between you over time. Ask a light being, an angel, or divine light to gently dissolve any heavy or unhealthy bonds. Visualise that both of you are wrapped in light as the infinity symbol softly separates in the center. The circles move apart until the distance feels light, comfortable, and harmonious for both. Thank the person for the love and shared experiences. Everything comes to a good end. +* Perhaps you’d like to tell your friends how much you love and appreciate them. This can be done through a letter, a phone call, or a heartfelt gesture. It's a beautiful way to celebrate connection and gratitude. + +== The Sixth Rauhnacht + +December 29th to 30th + +image::https://i.nostr.build/vvqa4EDyGh5O48Ab.png[6th Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The sixth mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *June* +Theme: *Purification* + +The sixth Rauhnacht is dedicated to the month of June and the theme of purification. This night is about letting go and looking ahead with confidence — expect the best! What do you want to leave behind from the old year? Take some time to reflect on the past year and consciously prepare for the transition into the new one. Today is also a beautiful opportunity to connect with your family. + +* Begin by reaching out to the soul of your mother and asking her for a gift to take into the new year. Form your hands into a bowl and receive this gift with gratitude. +* Then, connect with the soul of your father and do the same. These gifts come from the highest realm of love. +* If you have a partner, ask their soul for a gift and, in return, offer them one from your own highest love. +* If you have children, bestow gifts upon them from this sacred space as well. These gifts will accompany you and your family through the year ahead. +* Find a quiet and safe space to connect with your spirit. Reflect on the past year: +** What went well, and what did not? +** What do you wish to leave behind? +** Are there matters that still need cleansing or healing? +** What do you need to release fully so it no longer weighs you down? +* Write down your thoughts and burn the paper in a flame, ideally with white sage or incense (Olibanum), as a symbolic act of letting go. +* Additionally, clear your home of anything broken, unnecessary, or associated with negative feelings. By doing so, you create space for new energy and opportunities to enter your life. + +== The Seventh Rauhnacht + +December 30th to 31st + +image::https://i.nostr.build/vZjzmGs2eTxUxA3g.jpg[7th Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The seventh mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *July* +Theme: *Preparation for what’s to come* +Namesake: *Silvester* + +The seventh Rauhnacht, associated with the month of July and the namesake _Silvester_, carries the theme of _Preparation for What’s to Come._ + +It represents the gateway — the transition from a past phase into a new one. Since the introduction of the Gregorian calendar, this transition has been celebrated by many on December 31st, a day dedicated to the Roman bishop Silvester. His death commemorates the end of Christian persecution and the establishment of Christianity as a state religion. (For spiritual insights on Christ consciousness, I recommend https://njump.me/naddr1qvzqqqr4gupzp35mw8w9vn7ux59vmhle98e96usz4s28pjr53psgh4ke3epxhfmrqyvhwumn8ghj7un9d3shjtnndehhyapwwdhkx6tpdshszythwden5te0dehhxarj9emkjmn99uqp2d3ctaynzefcvex5vamxvf04sunzfu6nqdgtaz38t[this article I recently shared]). + +Every transition holds the opportunity to change, reshape, and perceive life with fresh eyes. Use this day to prepare for the new year: + +* Symbolically wash away the old — whether through bathing, showering, or a cleansing ritual—and visualize your wishes and dreams for the year ahead. +* Celebrate the transition in the circle of your loved ones, as the circle symbolizes unity and wholeness. +* This night is also about banishing unwanted energies. Cleanse your space with smudging tools such as sage or frankincense to dispel negativity. *Important: Smudge before midnight to avoid sweeping away the good fortune of the new year.* +* Set new, meaningful intentions and reflect on the past year: What have you accomplished, and what remains unresolved? +* Share a plate of food with the nature spirits by offering it at the roots of a tree to show your gratitude and strengthen their goodwill. +* New Year’s Eve is also a perfect time for oracle rituals, such as drawing cards, lead pouring, or pendulum readings. +* Wish your loved ones a peaceful, joyful, and healthy transition into the new year. + +This is also an ideal time to nurture your health and well-being. Rather than losing yourself in the hustle of crowds or indulging in excess, choose a more mindful approach — it will give you a strong and joyful start to the year. + +Fireworks were created to distract us from our inner processes. Smudging, on the other hand, brings you back to the present moment, centers you, and deepens your connection to your soul. + +#Much love to all of you, and heartfelt thanks for being together in this! It truly means so much to me.# + +== The Eighth Rauhnacht + +December 31st to January 1st + +image::https://i.nostr.build/2zCdzjOFRGb8ASLs.jpg[8th Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The eighth mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *August* +Theme: *Birth of the New Year* + +#Good fortune and blessings on all your paths.# + +This eighth Rauhnacht is dedicated to new beginnings and blessings. It is a time to welcome the New Year with celebration and set it on a path filled with happiness and positivity. + +* Bless the New Year by lighting candles — the glow invites good fortune and symbolizes the start of a fresh, fulfilling cycle. If you feel the need, you can also use incense to cleanse and harmonize the energy in your home. +* Remember: How you begin today will accompany you throughout the entire year. Make this day meaningful, whether through gratitude, loving connections, or powerful intentions for the year ahead. +* The dreams that visited you on New Year's Eve carry a special message. Take time to reflect on these dreams and write them down — they may hold guidance for the months to come. + +#Wishing you all the best for this new year filled with wonders and opportunities! May it be blessed with happiness, love, and endless possibilities.# + +== The Ninth Rauhnacht + +January 1st to January 2nd + +image::https://i.nostr.build/9YSicvZQYFdLIO7i.jpg[9th Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The ninth mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *September* +Theme: *Gold, Blessing Light* +Rune of the Day: *Kenaz* +Namesakes: *Saint Katharina and Kaspar* + +For many, January 2nd marks the return of everyday life. + +Saint Katharina represents various aspects of the Earth Mother. Her symbol, the Wheel of Life, embodies the cycle of birth, life, and death. She brings the light and blesses the Sun Child with the gifts of life and wisdom. The wheel also symbolizes the belief that through faith, destiny and redemption can be achieved. + +The name Kaspar means "treasurer" in Persian. He symbolizes gold, which he offers as a gift. Gold represents the perfection of the soul and the radiant purity of inner light. It lies at the center of the Wheel of Destiny, signifying harmony and balance. The light has been embodied, and it is perfect and complete. + +image::https://i.nostr.build/V8Jfre0erMhpft7A.jpg[Rune Kenaz, 150,, role=right] +The Rune Kenaz, the sixth rune, is interpreted as a torch or flame. It symbolizes insight, wisdom, and inner fire. This rune embodies the power of transformation through light and knowledge. It reminds us that we are all bearers of light – this light resides in every cell and every atom of our being. + +It is time to focus on your center and align yourself. In the center lies stillness, peace, and strength, from which all energy flows. Connect with the golden core within you. + +.A small blessing meditation for the Ninth Rauhnacht +Use this night to connect with your inner light and golden core: + +* _Light a Candle:_ The flame of the candle symbolizes a new beginning. +* _Sit in Stillness:_ Invite this light into your heart. +* _Visualize Golden Light:_ See this light flowing through your crown chakra into your heart and then radiating out through your hands. +* _Bless the New Year:_ Guide this golden stream of light through the 12 months of the year. Wrap each month in golden light, blessing it with love and intention. +* _Notice Your Sensations:_ Pay attention to the energy flow and your feelings during this meditation. Reflect on how each month feels as the light touches it. +* _Focus on Your Center:_ Reconnect with the inner peace and harmony within your core. From this place of stillness, let your strength for the year ahead grow. + +May this night guide you to your light and remind you that the gold of perfection and wisdom already resides within you. Bless the new year with light, love, and the power of your inner flame. + +== Tenth Rauhnacht + +January 2nd to January 3rd + +image::https://i.nostr.build/MjMet1uDZ6bVbjag.jpg[10th Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The tenth mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *October* +Theme: *Frankincense, Visions and Insights, Connection to the Divine* +Namesakes: *Ehwaz, Ambeth-Margarete, Melchior* + +January 3rd invites us to connect with our inner wisdom and divine inspiration. + +image::https://i.nostr.build/46hv92Ay7WHJ4Wcr.jpg[Rune Ahwaz, 150,, role=left] +The Rune Ahwaz (or Ehwaz) stands for M and represents movement, development, and progress. It +reminds us that life is in constant flux, and through transformation, we grow. + +Ambeth-Margarete embodies the nurturing mother, fertility, abundance, birth, and rebirth – filled with light, love, and goodness. She represents the spiral of life and the cauldron of abundance, offering us tireless strength and energy. + +Melchior, the wise man from the East, brings frankincense to the crib. Frankincense symbolizes the life’s gold within us and our connection to the Divine. + +This night calls us to reflect on our gifts, imagination, and life energy: + +* How do I use my talents, thoughts, and creativity? +* How do I invest my life energy – in words, actions, and expression? +* What occupies most of my time? + +Each day provides a new opportunity to realign yourself. Reflect: + +* Which aspects of your life do you want to transform and improve? +* What changes do you wish to make this year? What steps can you take to bring them to life? +* Visualize your future: Create clear images in your mind of how you want to shape your life. + +#Every transformation begins within – it's in your hands.# + +The only constant is change. Use the energy of this day to explore new perspectives and +align yourself with your vision for the months ahead. + +== Eleventh Rauhnacht + +January 3rd to January 4th + +image::https://i.nostr.build/5MOsBHj4N3abJyWK.webp[11th Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The eleventh mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *November* +Theme: *Letting Go, Farewells, Reflection on Death* +Namesake: *Berkana, Borbeth-Barbara, Balthasar* + +This night invites us to pause and reflect on impermanence and the act of letting go. + +image::https://i.nostr.build/e4eKs1vwkkxQ2cuc.webp[Rune Berkana, 150,, role=right] +The rune Berkana symbolizes fertility and the creative force of Mother Earth. It represents both birth and death, promising a peaceful and fruitful life in harmony with nature’s cycles. Borbeth-Barbara, whose name derives from the Earth goddess Borbeth, stands for severing life’s threads and releasing old ties. Her symbol, the tower, reflects strength and transition. The name "Borbeth" evokes words such as bed — a place of rest — prayer, and petition. Barbara signifies both the act of giving life and the bier upon which the deceased rest. + +Balthasar, the wise man from the East, means _God protect his eternal life._ He brings myrrh, which was traditionally used for embalming the dead. Myrrh represents the transient nature of human life, reminding us that our time on Earth is finite. + +Reflecting on life’s impermanence leads us to profound existential questions: + +* Why am I here? +* What do I want to bring into this world? +* What is the purpose of my life? +* What goal am I pursuing during my time on Earth? + +Center yourself to find stillness and clarity for realignment. Take time to think about death and the questions it raises. Death isn’t only the end of life but also manifests daily in goodbyes, transitions, and transformations. + +Ask yourself: + +* What has truly ended, and what needs to be let go of? +* Where do I feel trapped, and what do I want to free myself from? +* What is truly important to me, and how do I want to use my life energy? +* What legacy do I want to leave behind? What do I want to be said or written about me? + +This night offers the chance to bring order to life, release old ties, and refocus on what truly matters. By consciously engaging with the act of letting go, you create space for new beginnings — laying the foundation for a meaningful and fulfilling life path. + +== The Twelfth Rauhnacht + +January 4th to January 5th + +image::https://i.nostr.build/FcdIK0RWD3dzYI3N.jpg[12th Rauchnacht, 300] + +.The twelfth mystical night of twelve +[%hardbreaks] +Month: *December* +Theme: *Cleansing and Purification* +Namesake: *The Three Holy Maidens – Day of Grace* + +The twelfth Rauhnacht marks a time of closure and cleansing. The Three Holy Maidens, representing the sacred feminine in its various aspects, stand for grace, healing, and protection. They guide us during this night with their blessing, showing the path to inner and outer harmony. + +Tonight offers you the opportunity to address and release anything that may not have gone well during the past 12 nights. + +Take some time to reflect on the Rauhnächte: + +* What has weighed on you? +* Which signs or experiences felt unsettling or uncomfortable? + +This night is filled with unique power and energy. With focused reflection, you can align yourself with this special time and prepare for renewal. + +In many places, Percht Processions are held, and old customs and traditions are celebrated. For example, the Three Kings Cake is traditionally baked on January 6th. + +Another practice involves smudging hats, magical items, ritual tools, and healing stones to clear away old and burdensome energies. + +During this night, strong forces are believed to converge, making it advisable not to spend too much time outdoors. It is said that dreams from this night have the power to come true. + +.A ritual for this night +Before going to bed, smudge everything that is important to you and has been exposed to various energies: + +* Your home’s entrance or door +* Your coat or shoes +* Your bedroom or other spaces + +Go to sleep with the clear intention of feeling protected by beings of light as you journey through your dreamland. + +This final Rauhnacht closes the cycle and prepares the way for the coming year — cleansed, blessed, and filled with positive energy. + +#I hope you enjoyed this journey of the 12 Rauhnächte. I'd love to hear your opinion and reflections.# \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/TheAccidentalCaregiversGuide.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/TheAccidentalCaregiversGuide.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..bdbcc9f --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/TheAccidentalCaregiversGuide.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,1657 @@ += The Accidental Caregiver’s Guide + +== Preface + +image::https://i.nostr.build/UWuxZjxQkeSRjyCU.png[cover page, 300] + +[.lead] +The Toolkit For Navigating The Healthcare System And Aging In Place + +WINN MERWIN PT, DPT + +*The Accidental Caregiver’s Guide: The Toolkit For Navigating The Healthcare System And Aging In Place* + +© Copyright 2024 Winn Merwin + +== Rules for Use + +All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. + +Although the author and publisher have made every effort to ensure that the information in this book was correct at press time, the author and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party for any loss, damage, or disruption caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions result from negligence, accident, or any other cause. + +Adherence to all applicable laws and regulations, including international, federal, state and local governing professional licensing, business practices, advertising, and all other aspects of doing business in the US, Canada or any other jurisdiction is the sole responsibility of the reader and consumer. + +Neither the author nor the publisher assumes any responsibility or liability whatsoever on behalf of the consumer or reader of this material. Any perceived slight of any individual or organization is purely unintentional. + +The resources in this book are provided for informational purposes only and should not be used to replace the specialized training and professional judgment of a healthcare or mental healthcare professional. + +Neither the author nor the publisher can be held responsible for the use of the information provided within this book. Please always consult a trained professional before making any decision regarding treatment of yourself or others. + +For more information, https://www.KeepMomSafeAtHome.com + +ISBN: (print only) + +NOTE: This book has been formatted and published for Nostr, with the expressed permission of the author. -- The editor. + +== Get Your Free Gift! + +To get the best experience with this book, I’ve found readers who download and use _The Accidental Caregiver’s Guide Workbook_ are able to implement faster and take the next steps needed to help their loved one navigate the medical system and get back home to safely age in place. They see improved quality of life with reduced stress for themselves and their loved one. + +image::https://i.nostr.build/npUxzYB1re8zjszs.png[free workbook, 300] + +[INFO] +==== +You can get a copy by visiting: https://www.KeepMomSafeAtHome.com/workbook +==== + +== Dedications + +I would like to dedicate this book to the following people: + +Kaitlin, you are my rock. I love you. Your strength and ability continue to amaze and inspire me every single day. You are the reason this book has become a reality. Your ability to push me to be better is something I could not do without. I know it seems like I chose the worst time to add one more thing, writing a book, to our plates. Thank you for all you do for us. You are appreciated. Mom, I know you will never see this, but I feel compelled to write it nonetheless. I miss you every day. The way you lived remains an inspiration to me. Your selflessness and care for others is humbling and something I will always fall short of. Thank you for all you have done for me and our family throughout your life. Your life continues to impact those who were blessed enough to know you. + +To the Merwin, Boykin, Adkins, Truono, Cassidey, McClure, and Holmes families: thank you all. Thank you for your love and support. Thank you for caring for our elderly loved ones. To have had five of eight grandparents and grandparents-in-law healthy and living at home into their late eighties and mid nineties is a testament to all the love, care, and support you have provided. Thank you for caring for our elderly and demonstrating the purpose of strong family ties. I love you all. + +== Foreword + +In _The Accidental Caregiver’s Guide_, Winn shares his experience and knowledge in a format that you can use as a roadmap for success. His years of work as a physical therapist coupled with his personal journey during his mother’s illness blend into a very helpful guide for families. As a physician and a daughter, I have also recently lived the experience of keeping my mother in her home during a terminal illness. I agree with his guidance wholeheartedly, and you too will be thankful for this book. It is full of practical guidelines and solutions to common concerns that will come up as you strive to provide your loved ones with the very best care possible. + +[%hardbreaks] +_Pamela B. Salazar, MD_ +Augusta Rehabilitation Associates +Augusta, GA + +== Contents + +NOTE: The main contents of the book are in the following order. Page numbers may not correspond to actual locations, depending upon the formatting. -- The editor. + +[%hardbreaks] +Foreword 7 +Introduction 11 + +[%hardbreaks] +*Part I: The Hospital and Rehabilitation 15* +Chapter 1: Navigating Healthcare: Mom Is Headed to the Hospital, Now What? 17 +Chapter 2: Discharge Planning 25 +Chapter 3: Preparing for Your Loved One’s Transition Home 37 + +[%hardbreaks] +*Part II: At Home 49* +Chapter 4: Empowering Your Loved Ones to Age in Place Safely 51 +Chapter 5: The Age-Friendly Home 63 +Chapter 6: Promoting a Healthy Lifestyle for Aging in Place 78 +Chapter 7: Getting the Right Help at the Right Time 93 +Chapter 8: The Essential Guide to Caregiver Self-Care 105 +Chapter 9: Aging in Place and Family Dynamics 117 + +[%hardbreaks] +*Part III: Leaving Home 127* +Chapter 10: When Aging in Place Is No Longer an Option 129 +Chapter 11: A Caregiver’s Guide to Death and Dying 145 + +[%hardbreaks] +Conclusion: Embracing the Journey 157 +Acknowledgments 159 +Author Bio 161 +Book Blurb 163 + +== Introduction + +Welcome to a journey of transformation and peace of mind with _The Accidental Caregiver’s Guide: The Toolkit for Navigating the Healthcare System and Aging in Place_. If the weight of caring for an aging loved one has landed unexpectedly on your shoulders, you’re not alone. This book is your roadmap through the often bewildering world of caregiving, guiding you from a place of worry and stress to a state of assurance and peace. + +You’re about to embark on a path that will illuminate the caregiving journey in its entirety. From the initial realization that your loved one needs assistance, to the intricate processes of navigating the healthcare system and creating a safe, comfortable aging-in-place environment, this guide is your compass. Every chapter, every page, is a step toward ensuring your loved one’s well-being while preserving your own peace of mind. + +Why trust this journey with me? As a Doctor of Physical Therapy with over a decade of experience in various settings of geriatric care, I bring a wealth of professional knowledge. But more than that, I bring personal experience. I’ve been where you are: I’ve navigated the emotional and practical challenges of caring for my own mother and advised numerous families on how to help their loved ones age in place gracefully. This book distills that rich experience into practical, actionable steps. + +The benefits of this book are tangible and immediate. Not only will it equip you to provide the best care for your loved one, but it will also help you save substantially by delaying or avoiding the need for expensive skilled nursing care. I promise you—with the strategies in this book, you could save over $58,000 and extend your loved one’s time at home by a year or more. This isn’t just about financial savings; it’s about enriching the quality time you have with your loved one. + +But there’s an even greater benefit, a hidden gem, if you will. + +By walking this path of caregiving, you gain invaluable insights and experiences that can enhance your own life. The techniques and understanding you acquire don’t just apply to your loved one; they’re lessons in how to live a fuller, healthier life yourself. + +This book is as much about improving your future as it is about improving your loved one’s present. + +Every day that passes is a missed opportunity to make a positive change. The cost of waiting is high—both in financial terms and in the quality of life for your loved one. _The Accidental Caregiver’s Guide_ offers you the chance to take control now, to make informed, compassionate decisions that benefit everyone involved. + +In these pages, you’ll find not just a guide, but a source of comfort. Many people have walked this path and found solace and success in these methods. You are invited to join us and move towards this community of people traveling the same path. + +My story and experience look like this: My mom died of cancer at sixty years old. She was a nurse and the most selfless person I have ever encountered. She worked full-time while shepherding a husband and two boys through this crazy world. She and my father had lived a relatively typical life of a couple born in the 1950s. Strong family values, hard work, raise a family... retire and relax, travel and enjoy life. Well, as you can guess by the way this story began, that didn’t happen. + +I was blessed to be able to help my dad and brother care for my mother during the last eight weeks of her life. It is so difficult and painful to watch cancer eat away the strongest and most beautiful person you have ever known. Maybe you know what I am talking about, but I hope you never have to experience that. Or maybe you should, because it certainly changed my perspective. + +Life is to be lived. Not that she didn’t live fully, because she did. + +Nothing made her happier than taking care of her family and her patients. But the _one-day_ things need to happen now. My mom and dad were going to travel when they didn’t need to work anymore. That opportunity never came for them. But it has given me the chance to do things a little differently. To travel a bit and enjoy the world while I still have the health to do so. + +I hope that in your journey of caring for your loved ones, you find a few positive takeaways that make your life better. You tend to find what you are looking for, so focus on those. Life and caregiving are hard enough without focusing on the negative. Try to find the bright side of this journey, and maybe the world will be a slightly better place because of it. + +Don’t let another day slip by in uncertainty and stress. Open this book, and take the first step toward becoming a confident, compassionate caregiver and an empowered individual ready for the future. + +== PART I: THE HOSPITAL AND REHABILITATION + +image::https://i.nostr.build/NunNP11Qw4d3SmX2.png[part 1, 300] + +== Chapter 1: Navigating Healthcare + +[.lead] +Mom Is Headed to the Hospital, Now What? + +In this chapter, we look into an experience that many of us may encounter: the sudden and jarring transition from our daily routines to the role of a caregiver for an ailing family member. Through a brief story, we will see the whirlwind of emotions, the sudden responsibilities, and the crucial decisions that arise following a health crisis of a loved one. By offering insights both from a professional and personal perspective, this chapter seeks to provide clarity on the first steps to take, questions to ask, and other considerations when navigating the complicated healthcare system. + +Your phone rings; it is a number you don’t recognize so you ignore it and go back to making dinner for the family. Tonight is spaghetti night and everyone loves spaghetti. The phone rings again, and it is the same number. _That’s odd_, you think, so you pick it up. _Hello?_ + +_Hello, this is Joe with Jackson County Emergency Services. We responded to a 911 call at Jack’s diner and... well, we have your mom and are on the way to Northeast Georgia Hospital in Braselton. Apparently, your mother tripped stepping down the curb, fell, and hit her head. She’s currently unconscious. I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news._ + +You mumble some sort of response and freeze as understanding sinks in. Panic ensues. You’re unsure what to do next. The seconds feel like an eternity... + +Your child brings you back to reality and you realize dinner will have to wait. _Mom... Mom! What’s wrong? Who was that on the phone?_ You quickly explain what happened to the kids and call the neighbor to see if they can come hang out for a while until their father gets home. Once the kids are safe, you rush to the hospital to find your mom on a stretcher being wheeled down the hall for scans as she is still unconscious. + +You start praying, _Please, God, don’t let it end like this..._ It seems like hours pass; someone comes and finds you, and you are taken down the hall to what will be your mother’s room. She is not there, but you are told she will be admitted while determining the next course of action. The nurse on this unit comes by and introduces herself. She is pleasant and understands your concern but has no news, other than her vitals are stable. + +She was so healthy, what happened? She loves meeting her friends at the diner on Tuesdays for their _Laughing Ladies dinners._ She usually drives and picks up her friends who are no longer able to drive. + +The waiting continues. Praying too. Then your mind turns to everything left undone, the half-cooked meal. Did he pick up the kids? I better call and check on them. Will I be able to make it to work tomorrow? I need to let my boss know about the situation. Where did I park? Am I going to spend the night here? I don’t have a toothbrush or a change of clothes... + +The concerns are endless. What time is it? You glance at the clock and notice it is 1:15 a.m. The on-call neurologist makes it up to the room. He lets you know that your mom had an aneurysm. A brain bleed. There appears to be some damage to the right side of your mother’s brain. It is unsure how much at this time. The swelling is making the imaging difficult to read. She is going to be kept unconscious by inducing a coma if needed for a few days. The ruptured blood vessel likely caused the fall and not the other way around. No broken bones, but significant bruising. + +What does that mean? Thank God she didn’t break a hip, but will her brain be okay? What will she be like when she wakes up, if she wakes up? _No, don’t think about that now._ Exhausted, you fall asleep sitting up in the chair in the hospital room. + +Does this story sound familiar? Unfortunately, this scenario or a similar one happens every day. It could be your dad and not your mom. It could be a broken hip and not a brain bleed. You may be retired from work but taking care of your grandchildren. + +We, as children, tend to assume everything is okay and normal with our parents and their health until we get slapped in the face with a crisis. The point is, millions of people every year find themselves unexpectedly thrust into this situation due to an accident or health problem of their previously independent parents. + +It is a very challenging situation for hundreds of reasons but mostly because of the unknown. What happens next? How does the healthcare system work? Who is going to pay for this? These are good questions without easy answers. Often, we have to learn the process of navigating the healthcare system and becoming caregivers by experience. Hopefully you can learn some of the difficult aspects from someone else’s experience. Someone who has been through this process on both sides. Someone who has been a caregiver for family and as a physical therapist caring for those in need of rehabilitation. + +That happens to be me. I have been a Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) for over a decade and have devoted my career to caring for the elderly and educating the primary caregivers of the elderly. That’s you! I have been writing the weekly blog Keep Mom Safe at Home since 2020. I was also the primary caregiver for my mom during her last eight weeks of life after it became obvious we were headed for the end. My father was burned out after being her caregiver for over a year as she slowly died from uterine cancer. + +I owe a lot of thanks to my former boss and close friend Aaron Hasten for supporting me during that time away from work. While I was away from my day job, caregiving is definitely work. Hopefully, you will find caregiving to be as rewarding as I did. + +My mother spent so much time and energy on me, caring for her was a special opportunity that I wouldn’t trade for the world. That doesn’t mean it is or was easy, but there are definitely lots of memories and shared experiences I took away from that time. + +I have also been fortunate enough to help my grandparents age in place for as long as safely possible. My role with my grandparents has been much smaller as the distance between us has made hands-on caregiving impossible much of the time. But my mother’s parents lived safely at home together until they were ninety. My uncle, aunt, and cousins played a huge role in their ability to safely age in place. My grandmother on my father’s side lived by herself for many years, but eventually, it became less safe for her to remain at home alone. Many months of discussions were required before relenting and moving into an independent living facility. My uncle was and still is her primary caregiver. She was very fortunate to have him close by and willing and able to assist. + +My wife had one grandparent on each side who survived their spouse. They were able to safely remain at home, aging in place until their early and late nineties. Their children were their primary caregivers, but I was able to give some recommendations along the way. + +So all that to say, here we are. You have found yourself thrust into the role of caregiver, or your role as caregiver has become more involved. Your loved one is in the hospital. What should you do next? + +Read this book! Yes, that is the next step. + +While your parent is in the hospital, you need to gather as much information as you can. Start by introducing yourself to the on-duty staff. You can start to build relationships and will recognize familiar faces from day to day as staff members and their shifts change. + +Next, write down a list of questions for the healthcare providers. + +[INFO] +==== +A sample of a few questions that may be important can be found in the _Chapter 1 Bonus Content_ of the free workbook you can download at https://www.KeepMomSafeAtHome.com/workbook. +==== + +Review that list, add to it, make it your own. Ask a couple questions of each provider you interact with, but understand that they are busy. Keep the questions as short and direct as possible. Refer back to the previous list for a look at the way to phrase good questions for the medical team. + +Next, talk to a friend or family member who works in healthcare. + +They will be able to give you ideas of which questions to ask which staff members. If you don’t know anyone in the medical field, there are lots of caregiver groups on Facebook. Join one and ask the group. There are often people who will provide a thoughtful response to your question. + +Next, keep a notebook or a note app on your phone handy. + +Write down the provider’s responses. Don’t be rude and slow down their answers to write them word for word, but quickly repeat back what you understood from their answer. Then write it down after the conversation is complete. Pay careful attention to when they give you another person to ask that question to, e.g., _Maybe save that one for the doctor_ or _That would be good to ask social services._ + +Here are some examples: + +* *Ask the MD* questions about diagnosis, prognosis, or changes in medications. +* *Ask the nurse* about what medications your loved one is on and what they are for. +* *Ask the social worker* questions about discharge planning and location. As well as resources within the community that may be helpful. +* *Ask the therapists* about mobility, function, and recovery. + +At this time, it is important to understand that there are many potential outcomes during this trip to the hospital. Anything from a quick and full recovery to a long, drawn-out hospital stay and transition to other facilities is possible. Your loved one may never return fully to their prior level of function. There is little benefit in getting lost in all the possibilities. Especially avoid dwelling on potential negative outcomes. But know that every situation is different and there is no exact road map to follow. + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Hospital Arrival:* Once you arrive at the hospital, introduce yourself to the on-duty staff. This will improve communication later. +2. *Seek External Support:* It’s essential not to navigate this journey alone. +a. Connect with friends or family in the healthcare sector for guidance. +b. Join caregiver support groups, especially on platforms like Facebook, to share experiences, seek advice, and gain insights from others in similar situations. +3. *Effective Communication with Medical Professionals:* When interacting with healthcare providers, have a short list of pertinent questions ready. Distribute questions based on their specialization as suggested above. +4. *Documentation:* Keep a notebook, pad, or note app handy. Document medical updates, medications prescribed, and any advice or recommendations given. This will help in keeping track of the care process and for future reference. +5. *Prepare for Potential Outcomes:* Understand that the recovery process can vary widely from person to person. Prepare emotionally for potential scenarios, whether that involves significant recovery or more intensive caregiving responsibilities. + +We return to our story at the beginning of the chapter. + +It can go one of two ways: + +Great news! After a few days in the hospital, she’s awake and alert. She is having little difficulty talking and swallowing. She is able to get out of bed with very little help and walk down the hall with supervision. She needs a little help with dressing and bathing, but she appears on the way back to her _normal self._ + +or + +A few days have passed, and your loved one is recovering. She is more alert for periods of time but clearly very fatigued as well. She can nod to respond to yes/no questions, but her speech is difficult and garbled. Therapy has come to visit and has helped her sit up in the recliner for a couple hours at a time, but she is not doing much else. Maybe walking short distances with two-person assistance. She needs help to get on and off the commode as well as someone to dress her. + +Either scenario is possible, along with infinite other possibilities, but what happens next happens quickly. Discharge! + +In Chapter 2, _Discharge Planning_, we will cover the following questions: What does discharge entail? What preparations need to be made? How does one ensure a smooth transition to the next phase of care? The next chapter provides guidance on ensuring a safe and well-prepared return home or transition to the next phase of care. + +== Chapter 2: Discharge Planning + +In this chapter, we jump right into the crucial phase of discharge planning. While the medical team tirelessly works behind the scenes, it often feels like a whirlwind of decisions once discharge is imminent. We’ll navigate through potential discharge destinations, the challenges of understanding and questioning the discharge plan, and setting expectations for a rehab stay. + +Your role as a caregiver is pivotal in this transition, and this guide aims to make that journey smoother for both you and your loved one. The medical team and hospital staff will begin discharge planning on the first day your loved one is in the hospital. + +It begins with the gathering of information. Diagnosis, prognosis, age, medical history, and prior level of function will all play a role in expected discharge scenarios. You will likely not know that the planning is going on until the most appropriate transition to the next level of care is determined. This will be based on your loved one’s medical condition, recovery, and expected continued progress. Discharge has been discussed all along by social workers, the medical team and therapy team, but when the time actually comes, it feels like it happens fast. The process is geared toward getting people home as safely as possible with adequate support. + +If you have been at the hospital consistently throughout this process, it will likely be assumed that you are available and capable of assisting your loved one at home. With some nursing and therapy support, of course. But even with the help, it is likely more family or additional paid caregivers will be required for some a while. It may be a challenge to get your loved one back to managing on their own day to day without additional help. That is, if they are doing well enough and have enough support to go home safely. Let’s take a look at possible destinations for discharge from the hospital. + +* *Back Home:* This is the ideal scenario where Mom returns home safely and almost fully recovered. She will have some light nursing assistance and therapy services a few times a week for thirty to forty-five minutes. Additionally, help from rotating family members or paid caregivers can make this setting a good option for your loved one if they are almost back to their prior level of function. +* *Family Member’s Home:* Mom needs more support but has adequate family and financial resources to provide around-the-clock care. Again, some light nursing assistance and therapy services a few times a week for thirty to forty-five minutes can be provided by home healthcare. +* *Inpatient Rehab Facility (IRF):* In this setting, extensive assistance is required. They will receive daily supervision by multiple doctors of differing specialties. Also, there is a minimum of three hours of therapy per day split between physical, occupational, and speech disciplines. Due to the nature of care, this setting is very expensive and most stays last one to two weeks before transitioning home. This is high-intensity rehab to maximize results in the least amount of time possible. +* *Skilled Nursing Facility(SNF)/Short-Term or SubAcute Rehab:* This setting is often used as a bridge between the hospital and home. It is for those patients who are not so medically complex that they need three hours of therapy per day; therefore, it is not as intense. Typical stays last from weeks to three months, depending on the patient’s needs and ability to return home safely. Physical, occupational, and speech therapy are provided based on need for fifteen minutes to an hour, five days per week per discipline. Most patients receive one to two total hours of therapy per day. +* *Long-Term Care:* This setting is for those who came from long-term care or are no longer safe to return home and will be requiring nursing care for the foreseeable future. +* *Hospice:* This is only an option if the medical condition is quickly declining and it looks as though your loved one will not be with you for more than six months. This is end-of-life comfort care. We’ll discuss this more in Chapter 11. + +If you are unable to provide the assistance required for your loved one, there is no other family to help, or they need more care than can be provided at home, discharge to a rehab facility is likely the best option. + +[.lead] +Who Do I Ask? + +Ask the nursing staff who you should speak to regarding discharge planning. They will point you in the right direction. Depending on the hospital or facility, either the case manager or social worker would be a great resource. The case manager or social worker who is assigned to your loved one will be a great resource when navigating the transition from acute care to the next level of care. Their role is to gather information from the medical staff (doctors, nursing, and rehab) and insurance to understand what services will be covered upon transition to the next level of care. + +[.lead] +How Should I Ask? + +Personally, when I am stressed out, I can be quite direct and even terse. I forget that other people are juggling as many or more responsibilities than I am. Taking a step back and remembering to treat everyone with respect and understanding helps me be less demanding. That being said, it is important to begin the conversation. Here are a few steps to get you started: + +* *Find out who to speak with* regarding discharge planning, and ask the best way to contact them. +* *Leave them a message* or send an email. State who you are, your relationship to the patient, and ask to schedule a time for a brief conversation regarding discharge planning. Make sure to tell them how to get back in touch with you if you are leaving a message. +* *When a time is set to have this conversation*, get out the notepad and write down your most important questions. Try to keep this list short as you will have an opportunity to follow up on the first conversation at a later date. +* *When the meeting time arrives*, ask your questions and take notes regarding their responses. Be considerate of their time as they likely have many of these meetings to work through. +* *As the meeting is wrapping up*, thank them for their time. A little gratitude goes a long way and shows that you understand they are busy and that their time is valuable. +* *Ask them for the best way to reach out* if you have any additional questions. Make a note of their response and use their preferred form of communication for following up. + +[.lead] +When Should I Ask? + +The time to start asking about the discharge options is as soon as you can. For patients whose discharge level is not yet determined, or may be between two options, it is still a good idea to begin learning what the options are. The sooner the better. This will provide the greatest likelihood of the best outcome. + +If the choice is going back to their home or a family member’s home, ask about home healthcare and available caregiving services in the area. More on this in the next chapter. + +If your loved one is not yet ready to go home, they will need to transition to a rehabilitation facility. There may be multiple good options available. If so, visiting each facility and making comparisons would be a good idea. Or there may not be many good options local to you. This causes the search to be widened and more time spent visiting the facilities. + +There are good and bad rehab centers just like anything else. During my time as a PT, I have seen both. I have worked in a couple of nursing homes that I would not let my family ever stay in. Others are very clean with friendly staff and plenty of support for patients. You can usually tell during a short visit to the facility. If you take a look at three facilities, you will likely begin to see differences that set each one apart. Then you will be better able to identify a quality facility. + +[.lead] +If You Haven’t Heard Back About the Discharge Plan in a Few Days + +It is okay to reach out and check in with the one planning for discharge, but know that the most-likely scenario is that there is just no news yet. It could be that your loved one’s medical status and functional ability have not yet reached a point where the next level of care is known. + +It may be that the next level of care has been determined and the case manager has reached out to other facilities to see who has a bed available. This takes some time as each facility will have to review the hospital documentation and determine if the patient is a good fit. It could be that they have been meaning to call you but have not had a spare moment as they have been putting out fire after fire for days. The important thing to know is that discharge won’t just happen without the patient and caregiver knowing the plan. + +Here is a great example of a success story I observed when I previously worked in a hospital in Augusta, Georgia. An elderly woman was undergoing rehab following an extensive surgery. Her large family filled the sitting area with tension, asking therapists, doctors, nurses, dietitians, case managers, and even cleaning staff constant questions and unintentionally causing disruptions. + +Craig, a transporter, saw the situation and decided to do what he could to help instead of ignoring it and going about his job. He took it upon himself to bring the family coffee and ask them about themselves. He asked about plenty of non-medical matters to ease their minds; Craig can talk for days about fishing. He did a great job of letting the family members talk through their anxieties. This allowed the family to trust him, and he was able to explain that the medical team at this hospital was top notch and that it would be best to let them focus on their work. The family’s demeanor changed. They became less demanding and more supportive. In turn, the staff was able to focus more on their job at hand and find time to answer the family’s questions when they had more information. + +This example shows that when stress is reduced and communication is improved, the outcomes are better for all involved parties. + +[.lead] +What’s Next? + +If the discharge plan is home or a family member’s home, proceed to the _Most Important Next Steps_ at the end of this chapter. If the discharge plan is rehab, continue reading below. Looks like your loved one is headed to a rehabilitation facility. That can be a great opportunity for them to get stronger and regain their independence prior to heading back home. This will also give you more time to make sure home is ready for Mom before she arrives. More on this in Chapter 3. + +Now the main goal is to find out what options are available for rehab and make the best choice for your loved one. Depending on the type of insurance coverage, the options for rehab may be limited. Most facilities will accept traditional Medicare, but options may be limited or have additional costs for managed Medicare plans or Medicare advantage plans such as Humana, AARP, Blue Cross, Kaiser, or Cigna. + +This isn’t the place to have the health insurance discussion, but usually traditional Medicare provides the most options for most seniors in most situations. Don’t worry too much about this now. The case manager will only present facilities that will accept their insurance and have an open bed. This is what they do. Once you are presented with the options, it is a good idea to call the facilities and schedule a time to quickly tour the facility. + +Here are some things to check out or ask about while touring a rehab center: + +1. *Cleanliness of the facility:* Do you notice people actively cleaning the facility? In my experience, a general feeling of cleanliness or dirtiness is usually noticeable. +2. *Attitude of the employees:* The person showing you around the facility should definitely be smiling, helpful, and cheerful. It is their job to be an ambassador for the facility. Ask to tour the facility and pay attention to the attitude and pleasantness of the rest of the staff. Do they seem happy to be at work, or does it appear that they would rather be anywhere else? Not everyone has to have a great day at work every day, but the general feeling you observe should be that most people enjoy their job and are happy to be there. Pay special attention to nurses, CNAs, and therapists as they will be the ones caring for your loved one. +3. *Proximity to family and friends who could visit:* Leaving the hospital and not going home is very difficult for most people. It can result in increased anxiety or depression. Having friends and family close enough to come visit can be a great help. I have also observed that patients who have family around most often tend to receive a little more attention. This is not necessarily on purpose by the staff, but having someone there to advocate for your loved one goes a long way. Patients often can feel like a burden, even though they are not, and tend not to speak up for themselves as often as they should. Families, especially children, can do a good job bridging the gap. This increases the importance of finding a facility close to family and friends. +4. *Experience/longevity of staff:* Ask how long people you interact with during the tour have been at that facility. If the whole therapy staff just graduated from school, they may not yet be comfortable in their roles to provide the best level of care. Turnover can be very high in healthcare, so a facility with staff who have been there for years can show a more stable environment. This is usually indicative of higher-quality rehab outcomes for patients. Healthcare providers tend to stay where they feel they are making a difference in their patients’ lives. +5. *Staffing ratios:* Ask specifically for the number of residents per registered nurse (RNs), residents per nurse on the floor, and residents per certified nursing assistants (CNAs). +6. *Services offered/activities:* Most of the time, therapy will be provided five days a week. Are there other activities to help pass the time between therapy sessions? Activities can foster community and help patients break through the loneliness and depression that can be associated with being stuck in rehab when all their friends and family are at home. +7. *Long-term care availability:* If you are concerned that your loved one is no longer safe to return home, ask about long-term care following short-term rehabilitation. Most skilled nursing facilities have a certain percentage of their beds dedicated to short-term rehabilitation and the rest are for residents who need long-term care. Often, the long-term beds can be hard to come by. Getting out in front of this as an option will help you know what the next step is and can reduce the difficulty of finding another facility upon discharge from rehab. + +Talk to your loved one. Let them know what you find. Go through the pros and cons of each option and make the best decision you can with their input. If they feel that they are part of the process, they will be more likely to _buy in_ to the rehab. This improves participation and outcomes for your loved one. + +[.lead] +What to Expect When They Get to Rehab + +Once a discharge destination has been determined, your loved one will be taken to the rehab facility. Their medical records will be sent to the facility along with doctor’s orders for medication and anything else that may affect their rehab stay. + +In the new facility, they will be assessed by the doctor, the nursing staff, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. This is required to happen in the first three days, but usually happens in the first twenty-four hours. Then each therapy discipline will set up a plan of care based on the needs of your loved one. They will likely have therapy five days per week and begin to show progress in preparation for transition home! + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Identify and Connect with the Case Manager or Social Worker:* They are your primary source of information regarding the discharge plan, insurance details, and available facilities for rehabilitation. +2. *Research Potential Discharge Destinations:* Whether it’s returning home, going to a family member’s place, or transitioning to a rehab facility, be aware of what each entails and the support required. +3. *Visit Rehab Centers (if applicable):* Prioritize cleanliness, staff attitude, proximity to friends/family, longevity of staff, and additional services or activities. This ensures your loved one will receive the best care possible. +4. *Communicate with Your Loved One:* Keep them informed about potential options, and involve them in the decision-making process. Their engagement and _buy-in_ can significantly influence their recovery. +5. *Prepare Mentally and Logistically:* Understand that your loved one’s transition from hospital to rehab or home is a process. Equip yourself with knowledge, set realistic expectations, and gather resources to support them and yourself. + +Discharge planning is more than just the act of moving your loved one from the hospital. It’s about preparing, understanding, and setting the stage for the next phase in their recovery journey. As caregivers, our role extends beyond mere logistics. It’s about ensuring that our loved ones feel understood, supported, and actively involved in decisions about their care. With the right knowledge and resources, you can make this transition as smooth as possible. + +With a grasp on discharge planning and an understanding of rehab facilities, it’s now time to prepare for your loved one’s eventual return home. Whether it’s straight from the hospital or after a stint in rehab, Chapter 3, _Preparing for Your Loved One’s Transition Home_, will equip you with insights, tips, and strategies to create a safe and supportive environment for their continued recovery. Join us in the next chapter as we take the next step in the caregiving journey. + +== Chapter 3: Preparing for Your Loved One’s Transition Home + +We finally have a plan in place to return home. That’s great news, but there are several other questions that might run through your mind. What condition is the house in? Is it safe? Will she be able to use the walker to get around? Did all the food in the fridge go bad while she was away? Can she climb the steps to get into the house? + +Before discharge from the hospital or rehab, there are a few items that should be taken care of to allow for a safe return home. Hopefully a home evaluation has been done by a therapist who made safety recommendations. But if not, don’t worry. There are a few simple things to quickly improve the safety of the home. And keep in mind, continued therapy services will improve your loved one’s mobility, strength, and function. Reintegrating a loved one into their familiar surroundings after a period of absence brings a mix of emotion and responsibility. + +This chapter shifts the focus to ensuring that the familiar space where they return is not only comfortable but also safe. We’ll guide you through the process of assessing, modifying, and finetuning a home to meet the evolving needs of your loved one. This isn’t just about physical structures and fixtures. It’s about creating an environment where they can relive cherished memories and create new ones with peace of mind. + +The first thing to do is go to their home and assess it for safety. Because your loved one’s mobility will likely be impaired upon return home, setting it up for safety before they arrive is critical. Reducing the risk of a fall in the short-term should be the focus now. Assess or correct these safety issues while your loved one is still in the hospital or rehab. Refer to Chapter 5 for larger projects to make the home safer for the long-term. + +[.lead] +Quick fix safety issues + +These few easy-to-do and relatively inexpensive items can make a large difference in the safety of your loved one: + +* *Remove tripping hazards.* Any rugs should be removed, especially if they slide or create a change in elevation more than half an inch. There should never be cords crossing walkways. Lamps and other electronics should be removed or relocated so that cords and wires are against the wall and out of the way. Make sure walkways are clear. +* *Rearrange or remove furniture that reduces walking space.* Most walkers are twenty-five to twenty-nine inches wide. Plan for thirty-inch walkways. +* *Install handrails in the shower or tub.* If home health therapy services are going to be provided, it is best to wait for the occupational therapist to attempt a shower transfer. Suction cup handrails can be purchased from Lowe’s or Amazon. If the shower wall is not a good fit for suction cups, the handrail may need to be secured to the wall. Find a handyman who can make sure they are installed correctly. +* *Install a non-slip shower or tub mat.* Anyone can do this, and the extra traction will reduce slippage when entering or exiting the tub or shower. This can be purchased at your local box retailer or online. +* *Use elevated toilet seats with rails.* Many of the toilets in older homes are very low to the ground and hard to get up from. A bedside commode can be used as an elevated toilet seat over the commode. The rails and height of the seat will make toilet transfers much safer. +* *Ensure adequate lighting.* As we age, our eyes become less effective. It becomes harder to differentiate between surfaces and changes in elevation. Poor lighting makes this problem even worse. If you are unsure if the lighting is adequate, find a way to brighten up the room. Plug-in night lights that turn on automatically are an economical way to decrease fall risk. +* *Assess stairways for safety.* Use a temporary ramp if there are two to four steps without rails, or install handrails. You can buy foldable aluminum ramps for cheaper than you would think online or from a store like Harbor Freight or Tractor Supply. + +For more things you can do to make Mom’s home safer, check out the _Home Safety Checklist_ in Chapter 3 of the free workbook. + +The next step in preparing for the transition home is making sure medications are up to date and prescriptions are filled. If your loved one has regular medication that they take, but it has been a while since they have been home, you will need to make sure it has not expired. + +They also may be coming home with new medication prescribed during her hospital stay or rehab stint. If this is the case, those medications will need to be filled. If you take the time to get your loved one set up with an online pharmacy, life can be much simpler for you both. + +Express Scripts is one of the many online options available. You can save yourself and your loved one time and effort in the future when refills are required. This is especially helpful for medications that are taken regularly. + +Once the medications have been managed, it is time to think about meals and meal prep. When first transitioning home, it is likely that a quick trip to the grocery store will be needed. You probably already know the items your parents will expect to be in the fridge when they get home. Make sure these things are in place to make the transition more smooth for them. + +When shopping for groceries, remember protein is important for healing of bone, skin, and muscle. Extensive meal prep is probably out initially, so finding ways to incorporate protein easily is a good idea. Often I suggest cooking chicken in the crockpot and making a chicken salad with it. This can provide a light protein that can go with multiple meals to reduce difficulty with meal prep. + +Another good option can be soups because they are easy to eat, provide hydration, and can be cooked in a large batch. Before discharge day, ask the case manager if your loved one would qualify for Meals on Wheels or another senior meal provider. If available, this will reduce friction upon return home. But know that home-delivered meal services often have long waiting lists. + +Ask about senior centers or local churches who provide meals for the elderly. Remember, it is unlikely that they will be able to immediately jump right back into everything they were previously doing. So it is important to find ways to reduce their energy output during the transitionary period. This allows them to focus on healing and building their strength with reduced risk of overexertion or a fall. About Durable Medical Equipment (DME) Durable medical equipment, or DME, is any sort of mobility aid or medical device that is designed to be used many times. So a rolling walker, hospital bed, or oxygen concentrators would qualify. Items like bandages or incontinence pads would not be considered DME. + +The case manager or social worker will be a resource for making sure any needed equipment is provided to allow for a safe transition home. They will speak with the therapy team who will make recommendations for a cane, walker, a wheelchair, hospital bed, or oxygen if needed. The case manager can let you know which of the recommended devices will be covered by insurance and set up delivery of this DME. + +If your loved one already has a cane, walker, or wheelchair, it is a good idea to bring this medical equipment to the therapy team. They will be able to confirm that it is safe and the proper fit for your loved one. If adjustments are needed, a therapist will make those pretty quickly. If the DME is worn out, not a good fit, or not appropriate, they will let you know. + +There is a chance that the therapy team will recommend a certain type of equipment that is not covered by insurance. An upright walker or a transport wheelchair, for example, may be covered by some insurances and not by others. If a recommended piece of DME is not covered by insurance, often they can often be purchased through Amazon. If financial assistance is needed, contact the supplier directly and ask if they have any programs to help those in need. + +Another good option is to find a local charity or nonprofit who specializes in medical equipment assistance. In my area, I often recommend Friends of Disabled Adults & Children (FODAC). They have a thrift store in Tucker, Georgia. Many different types of assistive devices and DME can be purchased second-hand. They also have some services that repair equipment when needed. Ask the case manager if they have any referrals for nonprofits in your area. + +[.lead] +Setting Up Home Healthcare + +If your loved one can ambulate in the community and has consistent transportation, outpatient therapy services would be the best fit. One must qualify as being _homebound_ to receive home health therapy services, meaning they truly can’t leave the house without assistance. Ask some friends or look for reviews of local outpatient therapy services and call to set up an evaluation. + +The most-likely scenario for continued therapy services following transition home would be home healthcare. The discharging physician will write orders for these services, and the case manager will send them to a home health company that serves your area. + +If there is a certain company that you would like to work with, reach out to the case manager and let them know. You should receive a call from the home health provider to schedule the initial assessment. This will be completed by a nurse or a physical therapist. It is usually completed within the first forty-eight hours of arriving home. + +If skilled nursing care is required, the nurse will set up a plan of care and let you know how often they will be scheduling appointments. Often, unskilled nursing care may be provided as well for bathing, dressing, grooming, and feeding. This will likely be a part-time person providing assistance and should be thought of as occasional additional help. + +If your loved one needs assistance throughout the day with light tasks until they regain their independence, it would be a good idea to look into paying for a home care aide. A quick Google search of _home care services_ should provide you with a list of companies in your area. Another good idea would be to ask the home healthcare nurse or company if there is a certain home care agency they would recommend. + +Home Health Therapy Services Physical therapy (PT), occupation therapy (OT), and speech therapy (ST) can all be provided in the home health setting. Depending on the medical event that precipitated the need for home health, one or all three disciplines may be ordered. The most commonly ordered is physical therapy, but some people need all three disciplines. + +Each type of therapy will be scheduled and completed by a different therapist. These are the types and roles of home health therapy services: + +* *Physical Therapy:* The primary goal of home health physical therapy is to improve the functional mobility of the patient within their home. The therapist will assess the ability to safely navigate the home. This includes assessing the safety and setup of the home itself, as well as the ability of the client to enter, exit, and move within their home. They will instruct your loved one on safe use of assistive devices such as walkers and canes. They will also recommend exercises to improve strength, endurance, power, and range of motion to improve overall functional mobility within the home. +* *Occupational Therapy:* The primary goal of home health occupational therapy services is to improve the independence of the client within their home for tasks called ADLs, or activities of daily living. This includes bathing, dressing, grooming, feeding, transferring, and toileting. Improving these areas will decrease the burden of care and allow for increased independence with the daily routine. +* *Speech Therapy:* The main component of speech therapy in this setting is to treat speech disorders, which include language, communication, cognition, and swallowing dysfunction. + +Each of the above disciplines will likely provide a home exercise program to be completed outside of scheduled therapy appointments. This is to improve the healing process and maximize effectiveness of scheduled appointments. Just like with nursing care, the home health agency will call and set up an appointment for therapy evaluations. These will be scheduled as soon as possible. Depending on how rural of a community it is and the ability of home health agencies to staff adequately, it could be a few days before the evaluation. + +Once your loved one has been evaluated, the evaluating therapist will set up a course of care for their therapy. This will include goals for therapy. Be sure to let them know if your loved one has any particular concerns or goals for therapy services. The most common goal is to get back to walking like they were previously. Other people want to return to cooking or caring for their home. + +Let the therapist know what is important to your loved one so they can individualize the treatment to improve the likelihood of success. Therapy will likely be one to three times per week for up to six weeks based on need. The follow-up visits may be completed by a physical therapist assistant (PTA) or a certified occupational therapy assistant (COTA). After home healthcare is complete, they should be safe to operate their daily routine, but they are unlikely to have met or surpassed their prior level of function. + +At this time, it is usually a good idea to ask your loved one’s primary care physician for a referral for outpatient physical therapy services. This is a more advanced type of therapy that is provided at a clinic in the community. The act of getting out of the house and driving or riding to another location for advanced physical therapy has many benefits. Just leaving the house, getting in and out of the car, and walking into the PT clinic is often more challenging than home health physical therapy. Add in an hour of therapy, and that is a high-level workout that will benefit your loved one as they return to their daily routine. + +[.lead] +Setting Up Follow-Up Appointments + +Upon discharge from the hospital, the doctor who provided the surgery or other necessary care will likely give instructions for setting a follow-up appointment. If your loved one spent some time in rehab, it is possible that appointment has already occurred. + +Be sure to double-check the scheduled appointments. It is important to attend these follow-up appointments, as this is the opportunity for the doctor to monitor their health and progress, and adjust medications as needed. It is also the opportunity for you and your loved one to discuss any concerns you have regarding the outcomes and return to health. + +When setting up appointments, be sure to keep in mind schedules for therapy as well as other appointments. If an appointment overlaps, it is okay to ask to reschedule. This is a much better outcome than outright missing a scheduled visit due to the unforeseen length of a previous doctor’s visit. + +It may feel like all day every day is filled with therapy and doctor visits. While it can be an annoyance initially, remember it is not forever and each one is important for the health and future independence of your loved one. Try to focus on helping them regain their independence and not the daily stressors. + +When preparing for an upcoming visit to the doctor, get out the notepad you had in the hospital once again. Which doctor are you going to see? Is it the surgeon? Ask about how Mom is doing compared to original prognosis. Maybe ask when she will be released back to her primary care physician for routine followups. Ask about prescription renewals or changes in medication. Whatever is most important. + +Think about what questions you have ahead of time. Three is usually a good number. This will give you and your loved one the best opportunity to maximize the short time you have with the provider. + +Later in Chapter 4, we take a look at how assistance can be provided within the home outside of healthcare services. We will also go into the benefits and challenges of family as caregivers and contrast that with hiring caregivers. The goal is to give our loved ones as many quality years as possible outside of the medical system. This is a concept that will be further discussed in Chapter 4. + +Congratulations! You and your loved one have survived the transition home. Unfortunately, the journey is not complete. But congratulate yourself, that was one of the most challenging parts of this journey. The quality years spent with family and friends while aging in place will make the difficulties experienced to date well worth the effort. Look forward to the next chapter in your loved one’s life. + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Home Assessment:* Begin with a comprehensive review of the current living space. Look out for any potential hazards, accessibility issues, and areas that may need modification. Refer to the quick fix safety issues at the beginning of the chapter. +2. *Confirm DME Needs:* Check with the social worker or case manager to see what DME will be provided. If additional DME is needed, check Amazon or another online retailer. If the currently owned DME is going to be used, have therapists assess its safety and height. +3. *Set Up Continued Therapy Services:* Check with the social worker about how outpatient or home health therapy services will be set up. Schedule these appointments. +4. *Make Sure Follow-Ups Are Scheduled with Doctors:* Follow-up appointments are usually scheduled the last time a patient saw the doctor, but it is a good idea to keep a list of doctors who provided care and call their office to confirm a follow-up is scheduled or not needed. +5. *Engage in Ongoing Communication:* Continuously converse with your loved one about their needs and feelings. Ensure they are comfortable and actively involved in decisions about their living environment. +6. *Start Thinking about if Family or a Paid Caregiver Will Provide Ongoing Assistance:* This will be addressed in the next chapter, but it’s time to think about who and how help will be provided as needed for your loved one. Hopefully it is a temporary measure, but they likely need more help in the day-to-day routine. + +A home is more than just four walls and a roof; it’s a sanctuary where memories are built and cherished moments are shared. Ensuring that this haven is safe and accessible for your loved one is a labor of love. With the right approach, knowledge, and support, you can create a comfortable environment that facilitates aging with dignity and grace. + +Now that you’re equipped with the insights to curate a safe and accommodating living space, it’s crucial to empower the person at the heart of it all: your loved one. In Chapter 4, _Empowering Your Loved One to Age in Place Safely_, we will guide you on fostering independence, instilling confidence, and ensuring your loved one feels truly at home in their surroundings. Together, you will co-create a space where they can thrive. + +== PART II: AT HOME + +image::https://i.nostr.build/NDhSOB7LeBxEWccM.png[part 2, 300] + +== Chapter 4: Empowering Your Loved Ones to Age in Place Safely + +Aging in place is a deeply personal journey, resonating with the natural human desire to maintain independence and familiarity as we age. In this chapter, we look into understanding the various factors and considerations that influence this choice. We’ll explore the economic aspects of aging in place versus transitioning to assisted living facilities. + +This chapter also discusses the instrumental role technology plays in bridging the gap between independence and necessary care. As we balance the past’s sentiments with the innovations of today, this chapter offers guidance on making the most informed decisions for our loved ones’ well-being. + +My mission is to provide you and your loved ones with the most scarce resource on earth: time. And not just time, but quality time, together. We all know deep down that our time together is running out. We will often think about anything else to avoid dealing with this fact. At some point, we will have no more time with our loved ones, no more time for ourselves, no more time to see children and grandparents interact in the most joyful ways, and eventually no more time on earth. + +While this is a depressing thought to dwell on, this fact should give life meaning and quality to the time we do have. Maybe your loved one’s hospitalization is exactly the wakeup call for you both to stop wasting time and live life to the fullest. + +The best way to set your parents up for more quality time is to help them age in place. According to an AARP survey, 77% of seniors want to stay in their own homes as they age. Ask your loved one if that is their goal. If the answer is yes (and it likely is), we need to do everything we can to set them up for success with aging in place. + +So what is _aging in place_? Briefly, it means staying in your own home as you age. But it is so much more than that. It is a lifestyle, an ethos, a way of making decisions to try to be the best we can be. And to help our loved ones be the best they can be. This leads to a greater quality of life. It also leads to more enjoyment with friends and family, less stress, more agency for you as a caregiver but also for your loved one. + +It is hard growing old, but we can take some of the sting out of it with a little planning and effort. And we will know that we have done the best we can for our parents and ourselves. As Dwight D. Eisenhower famously said, _Plans are nothing, planning is everything._ Whether you know it or not, you have a plan or a set of expectations. And as we all often find out, the plan or expectations were worthless because life seldom goes as we would expect. + +But the genius of the quote is the second part, _Planning is everything._ While we can’t know the outcome, thinking ahead to possible scenarios will help us make the bestfootnote:[_Where we live, where we age: Trends in home and community preferences_, American Association for Retired People, 2021, https://livablecommunities.aarpinternational.org.] decisions today. Even though the future is unknown, this will give us and our loved one the best chance possible to live a quality life at home and stay engaged with family and the community. + +In this chapter, we will take a look at... + +* Who is appropriate for aging in place +* Greatest risks to aging in place +* Types of assistance in the home + +[.lead] +Who Can Age in Place? + +Ideally, everyone would be able to live the remainder of their life at home if they so choose. Unfortunately, this is not always possible. Aging in place depends on how independent a person or couple are versus the amount of assistance that can be provided in the home. + +Assistance can come from friends, family, paid caregivers, or even healthcare workers. This community of assistance allows them to avoid psychological conditions such as sustained depression or anxiety that can lead to the need for more care. As people age or have an injury, and their needs grow past the amount of help that can be provided within the home, it may no longer be appropriate to continue aging in place. A transition to a facility designed to provide the care needed would be the next step. But we will get to that in Chapter 10. + +For now, let’s assume that since you are reading this book, you are prepared to do what you can to help your loved ones remain in their home safely for as long as possible. I want to congratulate you on the choice you are making to help the person you are caring for age in place. It is an unfortunate fact that many of our elderly do not receive the care they deserve. Thank you for doing your part in helping our community care for those who need our help the most. + +Also know you are not alone. A 2020 AARP report stated that approximately 41.8 million adults in the US are caregivers to an adult over the age of fifty. Many of them are helping their loved ones age in place. And with that starting point in mind, let’s discuss what could go wrong and prevent someone from continuing to safely age in place. + +[.lead] +Greatest Risks to Aging in Place + +Far and away, the greatest risk to our loved ones is a fall and subsequent injury. The CDC has many statistics that clearly make this point. Here are a few: + +* More than 25% of people 65+ have a fall each year. +* Less than half the people who fall tell their doctor about it. +* Having a fall in the past year doubles your risk of falling again. +* 95% of hip fractures are caused by falling. +* Falls are the leading cause of fatal injury and the most common cause of nonfatal trauma-related hospital admissions in older adults.footnote:[AARP, _2020 Report, Caregiving in the U.S._, research report, May 2020, https://www.aarp.org/content/dam/aarp/ppi/2020/05/fullreport-caregiving-in-the-united-states.doi.10.26419-2Fppi.00103.001.pdf.]footnote:[_Facts About Falls_, Older Adult Fall Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed January 5, 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/falls/facts.html.] +* 800,000+ people per year are hospitalized because of a fall-related injury, most often because of a head injury or hip fracture. +* Falls are the most common cause of traumatic brain injury (TBI). + +As you can see, the risk of falling is a significant one, and we should do all we can to prevent a fall and injury. The costs associated with a fall are quite staggering as well. Each year, about $50 billion dollars is spent on the medical care of someone 65-plus who has had a nonfatal fall. Twelve billion of that is paid for by private or out-of-pocket payers. Almost $800 million is spent on fatal falls. With an aging population, it is estimated that falls will increase by 50% by the year 2030. + +It is up to us as caregivers to do everything we can to reduce the risk of falls and injury. This is the most direct path to improving our loved one’s lives and ability to age in place. To have more quality years enjoyed at home. The CDC recommends using the _Stay Independent: 12 Question Tool_ to identify fall risk. A score of four or greater is indicative of significant fall risk. + +You can find these twelve questions and how to score the test included in the Chapter 4 bonus content of the free workbook. There are also three key questions that can identify fall risk in your loved one. If the answer is yes to any of these questions below, they are at significant risk of falling.footnote:[_Older Adult Falls Data_, Older Adult Fall Prevention, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accessed January 5, 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/falls/data/index.html.] + +* Do you feel unsteady when standing or walking? +* Do you worry about falling? +* Have you fallen in the past year? + +These questions come directly from the STEADI Algorithm for fall risk screening, assessment, and intervention among community-dwelling adults sixty-five years and older and was produced by the CDC. If your loved one completed the screen and is not currently at a significant risk of falling, there are a few preventive things you can do to help them maintain their low risk of falling. + +These include providing education regarding fall prevention, assessing vitamin D intake and supplementing daily if found to be deficient, joining a community exercise program to stay active and healthy, and reassessing fall risk yearly or immediately following a fall. If your loved one has been identified as a significant risk of falling, immediate action should be taken to reduce these risks. + +Start by assessing their modifiable risk factors. + +* *Have their gait, strength and balance evaluated by a physical therapist.* +** Timed Up and Go (TUG) test to test gait https://www.cdc.gov/steadi/pdf/TUG_test-print.pdf +** 30-second chair stand test for lower extremity strength https://www.cdc.gov/steadi/pdf/STEADI-Assessment-30Sec-508.pdf +** 4-Stage Balance Test for static balance https://www.cdc.gov/steadi/pdf/4-Stage_Balance_Test-print.pdf These are validated tests and measures to assess these items and identify deficits. +* *Have their primary care physician or pharmacist identify any medications that may increase fall risk.* +** Ask them to use Beer’s Criteria to make recommendations. This is a list of medications to rule out that may be inappropriate for use in older populations due to side effects, potential toxicity, and drug interactions. +* *Eliminate home safety hazards.* +** Refer back to Chapter 3 and make sure all quick fix safety issues are addressed. +* *Check for orthostatic hypotension.* +** Any therapist or nurse should be able to complete this test. +** Blood pressure is taken lying down after resting for five minutes and immediately upon standing. +** Recovery blood pressures are taken after standing for one and three minutes. +** A drop of 20 mmHg in systolic (top number) or 10 mmHg diastolic (bottom number) is indicative of a positive test. +* *Check visual acuity.* +** Schedule a yearly check-up with the optometrist. +** Use the Home Snellen Eye Test to check for poor vision. This is a printable chart with directions for use to estimate quality of vision. If vision is great, you do not need to see the doctor, but if there is difficulty reading the top six to eight lines, a trip to the doctor is needed. https://www.aao.org/eye-health/tips-prevention/home-eye-test-children-adults +* *Assess feet and footwear.* +** A home health or outpatient physical therapist would be a good resource for helping to assess footwear and can make a referral to a podiatrist if needed. +* *Assess vitamin D intake.* +** For adults under 70 years of age, 60 IU of vitamin D is recommended daily. +** For adults over 70 years of age, 80 IU of vitamin D is recommended daily.5 +* *Identify comorbidities.* +** Comorbidities are any additional disease that can have an effect on another disease or condition within a person. Common comorbidities that can cause problems in our loved ones include heart disease, high blood pressure, respiratory disease, dementia, and other mental health concerns, cerebrovascular disease, joint disease, and diabetes. + +After assessing fall risk, the CDC recommends some common interventions to reduce fall risk. Most of these interventions are related to getting your loved one set up with the medical providerfootnote:[Meghan Meehan and Sue Penckofer, _The Role of Vitamin D in the Aging Adult_, Journal of Aging and Gerontology 2, no. 2 (December 2013): 60–71, https://doi.org/10.12974%2F2309-6128.2014.02.02.1.] who could help them reduce their fall risks. That could be a physical therapist, occupational therapist, their primary care provider, an optometrist, or a podiatrist based on their individualized needs. + +[.lead] +Assistance Within the Home (Outside of Home Healthcare Services) + +During the transition home, it is likely that your loved one will need additional help outside of that provided by home healthcare. Although it is common for our loved ones to insist they can immediately fully regain their independence, this is not usually the case. The extra strain of managing the home and day-to-day chores while trying to recover fully from a health crisis can lead to overexertion and accidents. The desire for autonomy is rarely worth the increased risk in the early stages of returning home. + +So if they need help, who is best to provide it? Let’s compare and contrast family assistance and paid caregivers. + +[.lead] +Family Assistance + +*Benefits:* If there are multiple family members close by to assist, they can spread out the load, and are already familiar with their charge. In a family with good interpersonal communication, the support provided by family can be invaluable during this emotionally draining time of healing. + +*Challenges:* If you are the only person providing the care, caregiver burnout is a significant risk. And if you find yourself feeling stressed, anxious, and constantly worrying, you need to get help. Check out the bonus content at the end of Chapter 4 of the associated free workbook for a resource on caregiver burnout. Another challenge of family assistance is there could be gaps in the knowledge of caring for a loved one. We often don’t know what we don’t know. The good news is if you are reading this, you are looking in the right place for answers! + +[.lead] +Paid Caregiver + +*Benefits:* Finding a caregiver with experience caring for the geriatric population from a reputable company makes things easier for everyone. With their experience, they often have tips and tricks to help reduce the burden of care. They can efficiently manage the day-to-day chores and routines of their clients. Another benefit is respite time for family. Caring for a loved one is physically and emotionally draining. Knowing your loved one is well cared for while you have an opportunity to run errands, go to your own appointments, or just take some _me time_ will reduce everyone’s stress. This leads to better outcomes for all involved. + +*Challenges:* It takes time and effort to find the right company, the right caregiver and the right schedule. Often we find ourselves _just doing what needs to be done_ instead of finding the right person to help because it is easier in the short run. But this creates more stress and caregiver burnout in the long run. Another challenge with hiring a paid caregiver is the cost. While there are some programs and companies who provide financial assistance, this is not the norm and takes time and effort to apply. + +The good news is that the answer doesn’t have to be one or the other. It may be a combination of both family help and paid caregivers. Finding the right fit, the right schedule, and the right division of responsibilities between family and paid caregivers will provide the best outcomes for everyone. This doesn’t have to be a permanent solution. Be flexible with trying various ways of all working together. As your loved one grows in independence, the paid caregiver hours can be reduced. Or the time you spend doing chores for your parent can be transitioned to more enjoyable activities and family time. This can really improve everyone’s quality of life. + +If you decide to hire a caregiver, refer to Chapter 7. The process and options are discussed in much more detail in that chapter. + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Review the Stay Independent 12 Question Tool to Identify Fall Risk:* This can be found in the Chapter 4 Bonus Material of the companion workbook. +2. *Assess Their Modifiable Fall Risk Factors:* If they are identified as at risk of falling, go through the modifiable risk factors above and schedule appointments as needed with a physical therapist, occupational therapist, their primary care provider, an optometrist, or a podiatrist based on their individualized needs. +3. *Identify Who Will Be Providing Assistance at Home:* Either family, a paid caregiver, or a combination of both should be used to provide initial assistance at home for your loved one. Assume they will need more help initially. You can always reduce assistance as they regain their health and independence. +4. *Reassess Regularly:* Set a reminder in your phone or on your calendar to repeat the above steps. Set this quarterly or twice per year. This will help you stay abreast of changes to your loved one’s mobility status to reduce the risk of future falls. + +Aging in place is the preferred outcome for most of the elderly and aging population. Talk to your loved one about their desire to age in place. It can be a difficult conversation, but when both parties are on the same page, it makes the needed changes go much smoother. Start small in the conversation about tripping hazards or minor concerns. Build on the small victories and grow the discussion until y’all are listing pros and cons of moving to a new place and remodeling the current home. + +While you have been given a map for helping your loved one age in place, remember the map is never the territory. It can’t be. The actual journey is individual to you as a caregiver and your loved one. Use the map, but understand your experience may vary greatly. Progress over perfection. Keep moving forward. + +In the next chapter, the age-friendly home will be discussed. The decision to update, renovate, or move is a challenging decision our loved ones will eventually face. The pros and cons of each option will be examined with technologies that can help keep our loved ones safe in their homes. + +== Chapter 5: The Age-Friendly Home + +As our parents and grandparents age, their homes can become challenging spaces. Stairs turn into obstacles, bathrooms become risky, and what was once a haven can subtly transform into a hindrance. It’s a reality many of us face, yet it’s a transition that doesn’t have to be filled with stress or uncertainty. + +In this chapter, we look at transforming a traditional home into a secure, age-friendly space. Our journey begins with a straightforward approach: assessing and addressing the immediate safety concerns. These initial steps, often low-cost and straightforward, lay the groundwork for a more secure home environment. + +Refer back to Chapter 3 and review the quick fix safety issues. This is where you will get the most _bang for your buck._ This list is full of free and inexpensive ways to improve the safety of the home and takes a small bit of effort. But what about when simple fixes aren’t enough? The dilemma of renovating an existing home versus moving to a purpose-built community is a significant decision that many of our loved ones face. Through this chapter, we weigh the pros and cons, providing a balanced view to help you make an informed choice that aligns with your loved one’s desires and needs. + +We also explore innovative solutions that technology offers. From personal emergency response systems to smart home technologies, these tools can significantly enhance the quality of life and safety for seniors, offering peace of mind to both them and their caregivers. + +[.lead] +Safeguarding the Home Environment + +The largest task to tackle when working toward aging in place is safeguarding the home environment. This is because there are limitless modifications that can be made, but a cost versus benefit analysis should be performed to determine the best option for your loved one. + +At this stage, a good option is to bring in an expert. There is a Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS) certification that comes from the National Association of Home Builders. A person with this designation could be a physical therapist, occupational therapist, or a home inspector. They often will come out to the house and assess it for safety and make recommendations to improve the ability of your loved one to age in place. + +This may seem a bit costly, but it is usually well worth it as prevention is way less expensive than the bill following a fall and injury. + +[.lead] +Home Modifications and Investments + +Home modifications and renovations sound like quite the expensive option. And while you could spend $100,000+ modifying an older home for aging in place, you can also get some really good return on investment with a few light or moderate home modifications. + +Before you spend any money on the current home, it is a good idea to make sure the ability and desire are there to allow for aging in place. A lot of the homes our loved ones are living in were built following World War II. I love these traditional homes for their simplicity and character, but they do not always make the best option for aging in place. + +At this time, it would be a good idea to work through the pros and cons of renovating the current home versus moving to a newer home built specifically for aging in place. These communities are popping up all over the country and have some advantages, but it’s also hard to say goodbye to your current home. + +[.lead] +Pros of Staying in Current Home + +1. *Familiar environment:* Comfort and emotional attachment to home and neighborhood. +2. *Likely paid-off mortgage:* Financial stability and fewer expenses. +3. *Maintains continuity:* Allows for consistency in routines, lifestyle, and local connections. +4. *Existing social networks:* Close proximity to friends, neighbors, and social activities. +5. *Personal history:* The home may hold sentimental value, memories, and personal belongings. + +[.lead] +Cons of Staying in Current Home + +1. *Need for modifications:* Homes may need significant and costly updates for safety and accessibility. +2. *Maintenance requirements:* Older homes may have more maintenance issues and associated costs. +3. *Lack of accessibility features:* Existing homes may not be designed for mobility aids such as walkers or wheelchairs. +4. *Potential isolation:* If friends move away or pass on, one might become isolated. +5. *Stairs and other hazards:* Multi-level homes and other design features may become problematic as mobility decreases. + +[.lead] +Pros of Moving to a New Home + +1. *Tailored accessibility:* The home is designed with features that aid in mobility and accessibility. +2. *Decreased fall risk:* The home is likely built with fall prevention in mind, such as nonslip surfaces, wider doorways, and no stairs. +3. *Futureproofing:* The home is designed to accommodate changing needs as one ages. +4. *Lower maintenance:* New homes are often more energyefficient and require less maintenance. +5. *Potential for better location:* Depending on where the new home is, it may be closer to health facilities or services that the individual regularly uses. + +[.lead] +Cons of Moving to a New Home + +1. *High upfront cost:* The cost of a new home and move can be significant. +2. *Stressful transition:* Moving and acclimating to a new environment can be stressful. +3. *Distance from social connections:* One may have to leave an established network of friends, family, and familiar settings. +4. *Potential loss of memories:* The emotional impact of leaving a long-term home can be significant. +5. *Adaptation:* It may take time to adapt to new home systems and technology. + +It is possible there is not a clear-cut answer to the problem of modifying the current home versus moving to a new home. And even if the answer is to move to a new place, eventually, there are still some relatively inexpensive home adaptations that will improve the current experience of aging in place. + +Once easy modifications have been completed from the previous chapter and section, it is time to assess the next level of recommendations. You can find a great handout for _The 5 Must-Have Home Renovation Ideas for Aging in Place_ included in the Chapter 5 bonus content in the free workbook. This includes light renovation-type ideas such as changing out a toilet for a taller one. Switching out low cabinets for pullout drawers will improve efficiency and reduce the need to crouch down to access the back of the cabinets. These small changes will have a cost to them but can improve the biomechanics of our loved ones during their dayto-day activities and reduce risk of falls and injury. + +If your loved one is determined to stay in their current home and is willing to make some modifications to improve the layout for aging in place, there are seemingly infinite ways to improve their living environment. + +The greatest bang for your buck will be eliminating or reducing the need for steps. If there are five steps to enter the home, a ramp can be built. If there is a step-in tub, a low-profile shower can be installed. If there is tile in the kitchen or bathrooms, a hard rubber flooring can be installed. Doorways can be widened to eventually accommodate a walker or wheelchair. The size of the bathroom can be expanded to make more room to safely navigate. If the washer and dryer are on a separate level from the main living environment, it would be a good idea to move these appliances or to have someone who can assist with laundry. + +All of this can be quite expensive, but when you compare the onetime expense of remodeling versus the ongoing expense of skilled care, the best course of action is often quite apparent. For example, the national median cost of an assisted living facility (ALF) in 2021 was $4,500 per month, and it is likely to continue to rise. The cost for an average private room in a skilled nursing facility (SNF) was over $8,900 per month.footnote:cost[_Genworth Cost of Care Survey: Median Cost Data Tables_ (PDF), Genworth, January 31, 2022, https://pro.genworth.com/riiproweb/ productinfo/pdf/282102.pdf.] I don’t know about you, but I would want my loved one in a facility that is significantly above average. A shared room at the skilled nursing facility I work in costs $12,000 per month at the time of this writing. + +Here’s a thought exercise to determine the cost benefits of remodeling versus requiring assisted living and then skilled nursing care for different lengths of time. If Mom is no longer safe at home and needs transitioning to an assisted living facility, that change in assistance alone would cost $54,000 per year. If after three years in the ALF, she needed two years in a skilled nursing facility before she passed, the SNF would cost $106,800 per year (these are 2021 prices).footnote:cost[] So the total costs for that course of care would be $375,600. That seems so prohibitively cost restrictive. + +As you can see, putting $20,000– 50,000 or more into aging in place could provide a significant long-term savings. Adding in a little additional assistance from a paid caregiver to reduce the risk of a bad accident and improve quality of life for our loved ones may make financial sense as well. But we will go more into the paid caregiver discussion in Chapter 7. + +I can see you thinking, _That is nice and all, but I don’t have $20,000-plus dollars to dump into my mother’s house._ That is a very understandable initial reaction and is indeed the case for many people. + +If that is truly the case, you can still do very well for your loved one by following the free and lower-cost options provided in previous chapters as well as the lifestyle guidelines in the next chapter. Anything you do, even just reading this book is a step in the right direction. And small, consistent progress is the best way to achieve large results over time. + +For some of you though, there may be a source of funds available that you are not thinking of. According to the 2023 Harvard study titled, _Housing America’s Older Adults_, 59% of homeowners age 65–79 own their homes outright. + +This is potentially a large basket of resources that can be used to make aging in place renovations or pay for remodeling. There are options available to access this equity through a home equity line of credit or a reverse mortgage. At times, these options have gotten a bad rap when used irresponsibly. But there are legitimate uses for both products. + +There are many different ways they can be structured. I recently spoke to a lender in the space who let me know about a product that would allow for equity to be accessed without needing to make a payment and a guarantee that they can live the rest of their life in the home. The loan would be paid off after the passing of your loved one. + +There are also programs that allow for the equity to be used as a line of credit that can be borrowed against as needed and paid down as it is convenient.footnote:[_Housing America’s Older Adults_ (PDF), Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, published 2023, https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/reports/files/Harvard_JCHS_Housing_Americas_Older_Adults_2023.pdf.] + +Taking the time to understand these options and talking to someone with greater specific knowledge in this area would likely be a good idea. Be sure to check references, talk to a few people, and find the person who you and your loved one are most comfortable with assisting in this complex decision. + +[.lead] +Moving to a New Home + +If the choice is to move to a new home, then selling the current home and accessing the equity to purchase a new home may be the best choice. When considering a new (or new to you) home, there are a few factors to consider including the layout of the home, the location of the home, maintenance/upkeep, and finances. + +The first thing to consider is the layout of the new home or its accessibility. If it is a newly constructed home in a fifty-five-plus community, it is very likely that aging in place design has been considered. It is also important to take into consideration the future health needs of your loved one. Do they have any health concerns currently that are likely to progress? It is best to assume that at some point a wheelchair may be needed. Is the home wheelchair accessible? + +Location is the next factor to consider. How close is the new location to the family? How far away are hospitals and your loved one’s doctors? Are there grocery stores close by? What about church or activities for seniors to stay engaged in the community? The next topic to consider is maintenance of the new home and yard. Will it take much more upkeep? + +Moving to a larger, more spacious home often is the plan. Your loved one may believe that this will entice their children and grandchildren to come stay with them more often. Is this actually the case? Is this trade-off worth the extra cost of maintaining a larger home as well as the added expenses of heating and cooling a larger space? Maybe not if the family is close by anyway. + +The last thing to consider is finances. This includes HOA dues, lawn maintenance costs, insurance costs, property taxes and cost of utilities. It will be well worth the time to figure out what monthly expenses would be in the new location and compare that to monthly income or personal savings. + +A financial planner may be the right expert to find here, but make sure they are a feeonly fiduciary financial planner. This way you know what they are going to charge you up front and they don’t have any reason to sell you some insurance or annuity product that you don’t need. + +Once you and your loved one have taken all these things into consideration, if a new home is the best choice, congratulations! They will have a brand-new space to make their own and age in place. Celebrate this with them! + +While it will likely be hard for them to leave their current home behind, this turning of the page presents limitless new opportunities. Take full advantage of the quality time you have left together. + +[.lead] +Using Technology to Assist with Aging in Place + +Technology continues to advance, and it is natural to resist initially. People don’t like change. We convince ourselves that things are fine just the way they are and that nothing needs to change. But unfortunately, resisting change is like holding onto a tree branch in the middle of a rushing river. Sure you can stay where you are for some amount of time, but your energy would be better spent preparing for what is downriver once you let go and go with the flow. + +Aging may not be fun, but it sure beats the alternative. The good news is that there are constantly new products and services being designed to help our beloved seniors age gracefully and give them the greatest chance to age in place. Here are some examples worth looking into for your loved one. + +* *Personal Emergency Response Systems (PERS).* These devices allow seniors to call for help in the event of an emergency. Some also include fall detection, which can automatically notify a caregiver or emergency services if a fall is detected. Think of the _Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!_ commercial from the late ’90s. The options, cost, and technology has improved much since those first systems. +* *Home monitoring systems.* Remote monitoring systems are the first option. These vary in scope and cost, but there is an option for everyone. Cameras can be set up within the home to always know what your loved one is doing. But unless agreed to and desired by your parents, this can be an invasion of privacy that is unnecessary. Many of these remote monitoring systems have sensors but not cameras. These can provide information to let you know your loved one is still moving around the home in their normal pattern via an app on your phone. They can also alert you and emergency services if a fall is detected or your loved one is unusually still in an area of the home that would be considered abnormal. Other benefits of remote monitoring systems can be gait speed detection. If your loved one is moving slower than normal, it will alert you and you can check in. Often, unsteady gait and decreased gait speed can be indicative of an underlying medical condition that needs to be checked out by their primary care physician. +* *Smart home technology.* Smart lights, thermostats, and door locks can all be controlled remotely, making it easier for seniors to manage their home environment. Or for you to help your parent manage their home environment without having to make the trip to their house. Voiceactivated assistants, like Amazon’s Alexa or Google Home, can also be used to control these features. +* *Medication management devices.* Options include Hero or MedMinder. These tools can provide reminders to take medication, dispense the correct dosage, and notify caregivers if a dosage is missed. These devices can help reduce the risk of injury from medication mismanagement, which affects 1.3 million seniors per year. +* *Telemedicine platforms.* Telehealth has become more popular in recent years, and it allows seniors to consult with healthcare providers from the comfort of their own home. This can help increase the consistency of care and allow for easier access to providers for minor concerns that may not warrant an in-person visit. +* *Mobility aids.* Technological advancements in mobility aids such as electric wheelchairs, mobility scooters, and stairlifts can greatly enhance the ability of seniors to move around their home and community. +* *Health monitoring devices.* Wearable fitness trackers or smartwatches (e.g., Apple Watch, Fitbit) can monitor vital signs, sleep patterns, physical activity, and even detect falls. In some cases, they can alert caregivers orfootnote:[_WHO launches global effort to halve medication-related errors in 5 years_, World Health Organization, accessed January 5, 2024, https://www.who.int/news/item/29-03-2017-who-launches-global-effortto-halve-medication-related-errors-in-5-years.] medical professionals if there’s an issue. These devices can give you peace of mind knowing your loved one is in their normal state of health. +* *Assistive technology devices.* These can range from simple items like buttoning aids to help with dress shirts to high-tech devices like communication systems for individuals with severe speech impairments or telephones that convert your speech to text for the hard of hearing. +* *Video call services.* Platforms like Zoom, Skype, or FaceTime enable seniors to stay connected with their loved ones, which is especially important if they live far away or if in-person visits are not possible. There are many other technologies out there with the purpose of improving aging in place and reducing caregiver stress and worry. While not all will be appropriate for everyone, you can join my email list at https://www.KeepMomSafeAtHome.com to stay up to date with the latest and greatest technologies to make your life easier and reduce the stress of caring for an aging parent. + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Conduct a Safety Assessment:* Start by reviewing the key safety concerns outlined in Chapter 2. Focus on identifying and addressing immediate risks in the home, such as trip hazards, poor lighting, and bathroom safety. This could involve simple fixes like securing rugs, installing grab bars, or improving lighting. +2. *Consult a Certified Aging in Place Specialist (CAPS):* Consider scheduling a consultation with a CAPS professional. They can provide expert advice tailored to your loved one’s specific needs and suggest modifications to enhance safety and accessibility in the home. +3. *Evaluate Home Modification Needs:* Based on the CAPS assessment and your own observations, list out potential modifications. Prioritize these changes based on their impact on safety and the ease of living for your loved one. This list may include installing ramps, modifying bathrooms for accessibility, or updating the kitchen for easier use. +4. *Consider Financial Options for Modifications:* Explore funding options for home modifications. This could involve looking into home equity lines of credit, reverse mortgages, or other financing methods if cash is not readily available. Weigh the costs of renovations against the potential savings compared to assisted living or skilled nursing facilities. If funds are tight, focus on the less expensive but high-impact changes first. +5. *Pros and Cons of Moving versus Renovating:* If your loved one’s current home requires significant modifications, weigh the pros and cons of renovating against moving to a new, more suitable home or a senior living community. Factor in emotional attachment to the current home, financial implications, and potential benefits of a home designed for aging in place. +6. *Leverage Technology for Added Safety:* Investigate and incorporate appropriate technology solutions that can assist in aging in place. This might include emergency response systems, health monitoring devices, smart home technologies, or telemedicine platforms, which can enhance safety and provide peace of mind. +7. *Maintain Open Communication:* Regularly discuss with your loved one their needs, preferences, and any challenges they face in their current living conditions. Their feedback is vital in ensuring the modifications truly serve their purpose. + +In this chapter, we took a look at adapting a living space to meet the evolving needs of our aging loved ones and how modern technology offers safety and comfort for seniors at home. These innovations are not just about convenience. They’re about creating an environment where our loved ones can continue to live with dignity and independence. + +Thankfully, most people can make changes to improve their ability to age in place. Even small changes can have outsized returns in quality years spent at home to be enjoyed with friends and family. The important thing is to help your loved one begin making these changes now. Change can be difficult but it doesn’t have to be drastic immediately. Remember that creating an age-friendly home is not just about making physical adjustments. It’s a process that involves understanding, empathy, and a willingness to adapt to the changing needs of those we care for. + +Whether it’s choosing to invest in home modifications, deciding to move to a new home better suited for aging in place, or integrating technology for added safety, each step taken is a stride toward ensuring a more comfortable, secure, and enjoyable quality of life for our elderly family members. + +In the next chapter, we will discuss the lifestyle that will help set up our parents for success when aging in place. The goal is to keep them happy and healthy with the greatest chance to avoid a life-changing fall. + +== Chapter 6: Promoting a Healthy Lifestyle for Aging in Place + +In this chapter, we jump into the world of senior care and the critical components that ensure a high-quality life for our loved ones as they age in place. As the challenges of aging become more evident, the need for a well-rounded approach to care becomes necessary. + +This chapter will explore the four pillars of a healthy lifestyle for the elderly, emphasizing their physical, mental, and emotional well-being. The benefits of physical activity, a balanced diet, social interaction, and conservation of energy will be discussed in this chapter. Actionable insights for caregivers will be provided. Also, practical examples and personalized strategies will be shared to equip caregivers with the tools they need to make informed decisions. + +As we journey through this chapter, you’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of how to prioritize and facilitate your loved one’s unique needs, ensuring their well-being and happiness in their golden years. + +One of my favorite stories about my mom’s parents came from my grandfather’s funeral. He had lived a great life. An amazing life really. He was the primary caregiver for my grandmother who had been needing more and more assistance around the house. Every day he would get up at 4 a.m., ride to the farm to check the cows, stop by the thriving business he founded, and then come back home at 10 a.m. to help my grandmother get up and get ready for the day. + +This went on for years, until one day, he tripped leaving the local restaurant with two large shrimp and sweet potato plates. He landed on his side and could not get up. He was sure to save the shrimp and make sure they made it back home to his wife, even though he was being loaded on a stretcher and taken to the ER. + +He had broken his hip. It required surgery and a rehab process that he just was not able to overcome. He passed away a few short months later. + +Which brings me back to the story. At his funeral, people came from all over to pay their respects to my grandmother and their remaining descendants. About the fifth time someone looked at my grandmother and said, _Leah, we are just so sorry!_ she had enough. She looked right back at the unsuspecting well-wisher and said, _Why!?! He lived a good life! He was ninety! I am in such good health that I am afraid I am going to live longer than I want to!_ + +They have been very active and fortunate to live at home alone together until they were ninety years old. A large part of that is due to the active lifestyle they maintained well into their later years. Friends, community, and purpose also played a large role in their success aging in place. There are four pillars of a healthy aging-in-place lifestyle. They are exercise/activity, nutrition/diet, social interaction/community involvement, and energy conservation/lifestyle adaptation. + +[.lead] +Exercise and Activity: Building Strength and Mobility + +We have all heard about the importance of exercise and keeping up physical activity levels for overall health. This should not be new information, but here are four statistics that show how beneficial exercise is for our geriatric population. + +1. A review of the literature published in the Journal of Aging Research found that regular physical activity, even at moderate levels, can extend life expectancy by several years. +2. A systematic review published in Medicine (Baltimore) Journal of Aging and Physical Activity shows that adults aged sixty-five and above with higher levels of physical activity reduce overall risk of morbidity, mortality, and falling by 30–50%. +3. According to an analysis by the Alzheimer’s Society, adults over sixty-five who engage in regular physical activity can reduce their risk of developing dementia by about 28% and Alzheimer’s by 45%.footnote:[C. D. Reimers, G. Knapp, and A. K. Reimers, _Does Physical Activity Increase Life Expectancy? A Review of the Literature_, Journal of Aging Research 2012 (July 2012): 243958, https://doi.org/10.1155%2F2012%2F243958.]footnote:[Ewan Thomas, Guiseppe Battaglia, Antonino Patti, et al., _Physical activity programs for balance and fall prevention in elderly_, Medicine (Baltimore) 98, no. 27 (July 2019): e16218, https://doi.org/10.1097%2FMD.0000000000016218.]footnote:[_Physical activity and the risk of dementia_, Alzheimer’s Society, accessed January 5, 2024, https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/aboutdementia/managing-the-risk-of-dementia/reduce-your-risk-ofdementia/physical-activity#:~:text=Physical%20exercise%20to%20reduce%20dementia,studies%20into%20exercise%20and%20dementia.] +4. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) found that only 12% of adults aged sixty-five to seventy-four and 10% of adults seventy-five and over perform strength training exercises, despite evidence that strength training can help manage symptoms of many chronic diseases. + +Those studies clearly show that exercise reduces fall risk, increases life expectancy, reduces risk of dementia, slows cognitive decline, and manages chronic diseases. With these kinds of obvious benefits, why wouldn’t the older population be exercising all the time? + +But here is the tough question. Do you exercise regularly, even though you know you should? I know that it can be challenging to start a new exercise routine at any age. But the key is to overcome those challenges and just get started. So how can we help our loved ones overcome the perceived challenges to exercise? + +* *Health issues:* It is quite likely that your loved one has many health concerns that may prevent them from feeling like they can exercise at all. The best way to get past this is a visit to their primary care physician for a yearly physical or check-up and ask if moderate exercise would be safe for your loved one. If there are actual health conditions that would make unsupervised physical activity unsafe, ask for a referral for physical therapy to begin exercising in a controlled and supervised environment. +* *Fear of injury:* This may be overcome similarly to health issues above by going to see the primary care providerfootnote:[_Strength Training Among Adults Aged >65 Years — United States, 2001_, MMWR, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, January 22, 2004, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5302a1.htm.] and asking for a referral for PT to build confidence in exercise in a safe environment with an expert building your program. +* *Lack of energy:* This can be overcome with encouragement and group activity. A perceived lack of energy can be improved by building strength and endurance, which will increase your loved one’s vitality and energy levels. Exercising in the morning with others, e.g., walking groups, can help. +* *Mobility issues:* If your loved one has significant mobility issues, it is even more important to help them increase their activity level. Mobility issues tend to compound with decreased activity, increased weight, and further increased mobility issues. Start small and slowly build activity level. Exercise in a pool can be very helpful for these concerns as well. +* *Lack of motivation:* Sometimes explaining the statistics can help someone see the benefit. Another option is to group exercise with another enjoyable activity. Use friends, family, grandchildren, or even a reward or bribe to improve motivation. +* *Lack of knowledge:* If your loved one states they don’t know how to exercise, just start simple. Walking is a great moderate exercise. Increase total distance and time as they begin to show progress. +* *Psychological barriers:* Depression, anxiety, or feelings of hopelessness can be barriers to activity. Get a referral to a professional to work on these barriers. Physical exercise has been shown to improve these feelings and the overall outlook for the geriatric population. + +Hopefully you will be able to show your loved one the benefits of activity and get them started on an exercise program. Small, consistent action will improve their health and ability to safely age in place. Exercising with your loved one can be a great way to enjoy each other’s company. An added benefit of exercise for caregivers is stress reduction. + +When the responsibilities of life are piling up and you are running out of patience, go for a walk. Walking can help clear your head, get your blood pumping, and put you in a better position to take on the many challenges of life as a caregiver. + +The best way to make sure that you and your loved one are exercising regularly is to schedule it. Make a commitment to each other to go for a twenty-to-thirty-minute walk three days per week. Set a time and make it routine. Soon it becomes a habit and an enjoyable part of the week. + +Need ideas for exercise and activities to do with your loved one based on their ability? Refer to the Chapter 6 bonus content in the free handbook to find free copy with programs based on senior mobility levels. + +Another way to improve overall activity levels is to incorporate activity into everyday routines. A few simple things you can do is park the car a little farther away or stand up and sit down five times during every commercial break of the television show you are watching together. You can also get creative and suggest a lap around the house after a trip to the restroom or see if your loved one can stand on one leg while doing the dishes. It is not hard to increase activity levels, but it requires intention and action. Again, the small steps make large changes possible when taken consistently over time. + +[.lead] +Nutrition and Diet: Supporting Health and Vitality + +Eating is something we all do, and we often choose convenience over quality. This can be especially true for our seniors. Some may not have the energy or mobility required to go to the store and purchase whole foods let alone take the time to cook and prepare meals. But eating well is important for the quality of life of the elderly. A nutrient- and protein-rich diet supports healthy aging, forming and maintaining muscle mass, and brain and heart function. + +Many adults and aging adults are metabolically bankrupt, leading to increased risk of chronic diseases such as diabetes, kidney disease, and cardiac disease. Food is also fuel for the body, and a poor diet leads to significant falls in energy levels. This can be a self-defeating cycle where our loved ones don’t have the energy to cook well and therefore choose the convenience of fast-food or a prepackaged meal. This meal is unlikely to be nutritious enough to boost energy levels and promote increased activity. The problem with convenience, especially with food preparation, is that it is often unhealthy food choices. + +This section is not going to be browbeating related to only feeding our loved one whole foods, locally grown and reasonably seasoned. If diet and nutrition are important to you and you want to have a different conversation about it, let me know. + +For now though, how do we make sure our loved ones are eating well enough without taking all of our time and energy? The answer is often to just be a little more conscious. Make sure they are getting some form of protein and drinking enough water. Try to reduce prepackaged or fast-food meals by one or two meals per week. This can make a significant difference with little effort. My wife and I try to make a soup or chicken salad on Sundays that can serve as lunches for the week. + +Those options can also be a great source of protein and water for our aging parents. The health risks associated with malnutrition are too detrimental to ignore. Helping our loved ones avoid this state is critical to maintaining health and function within their home. Some negative effects of malnutrition include the following: + +* *Weakened immune system:* Malnutrition can lead to being more susceptible to infections and illnesses. +* *Decreased muscle mass and strength:* This can lead to increased frailty and risk of falls and fractures. +* *Poor wound healing:* When the body is malnourished, it doesn’t have the nutrients it needs to repair tissue and heal wounds. +* *Decreased organ function:* Long-term malnutrition can lead to decreased function in various organs, including the heart and lungs. +* *Increased risk of hospitalization:* Malnourished individuals often have longer hospital stays and are more at risk of complications. +* *Cognitive issues:* Malnutrition can contribute to cognitive issues like confusion and memory loss. +* *Increased risk of mortality:* Malnutrition can significantly increase the risk of mortality in older adults. Again, you don’t have to take on the burden of entirely fixing your parent’s diet. They would probably resist significant change anyway. It would be a good idea to have a conversation and to try to help them make small incremental changes in their diet if needed. When the conversation is framed about maintaining a high quality of life to have more energy and spend more time doing the things they love, they may be open to small but impactful changes in diet. Here is a list of six important nutrients for the elderly and why they are needed. +* *Protein:* Older adults actually need more protein than their younger counterparts. Protein helps maintain muscle mass, repair cells, and support the immune system. Good sources of protein can be found in meats, eggs, dairy products, legumes, nuts, and seeds. +* *Calcium and Vitamin D:* These are crucial for bone health. Dairy products and leafy green vegetables are good sources of calcium. Vitamin D can be obtained through exposure to sunlight and fatty fish. +* *Vitamin B12:* Many older adults don’t get enough vitamin B12, which is needed for creating red blood cells and maintaining nerve function. Animal products like meat, fish, and dairy are good sources of B12. +* *Fiber:* A diet high in fiber can help prevent constipation, lower cholesterol, control blood sugar, and help maintain a healthy weight. Foods high in fiber include whole grains, fruits, vegetables, beans, and nuts. +* *Potassium:* This nutrient is important for cell function and heart health. Many fruits, vegetables, beans, and dairy products contain potassium. +* *Omega-3 Fatty Acids:* These healthy fats can help reduce inflammation in the body and may lower the risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, and arthritis. Fish like salmon, mackerel, and tuna are high in omega-3s, as are flaxseeds and walnuts. + +As you can see, diet and nutrition affect everything related to quality of life. If you want to improve the quality of life of your parents, have a conversation with them about small changes to their diet. + +Also, make sure they are drinking enough water. It is unfortunately quite common for community-dwelling older adults to consciously reduce their water intake to reduce frequency of urination. This may be due to difficulty with mobility, risk of bladder accidents, or _convenience._ But whatever the reason, it is a bad idea. Poor hydration status increases the risk of many of the above side effects of malnutrition. + +[.lead] +Social Interaction and Community Engagement: Nourishing the Soul + +One of the most unfortunate and unintended consequences of the pandemic lockdowns was the effect on mental health. It was a difficult time for the young and healthy, but the psychological effects on the elderly were most severe. Depression and anxiety appeared where they hadn’t been significant before. Dementia advanced faster as well due to people being shut in. + +When we look at the negative effects of isolation, loneliness, and fear, the benefits of avoiding these conditions become more clear. Having a robust social network is very important to maintain a high quality of life while aging in place. This can be related to having a large family nearby, friends going through similar stages of life together, or neighbors in a retirement community. This allows for increased cognitive stimulation, which helps our loved ones stay sharp and reduces risk of depression and dementia. + +Encourage your loved one to find ways to build and foster connections with others. It could be through community groups, clubs, or other activities. Regular contact with friends and family will also help reduce isolation. Encourage them to reach out to friends on a regular basis to check in and see how they are doing. + +The same for families who do not live nearby or visit regularly. There are many easy-to-use video call technologies that can improve connection between distant people. It would likely be worth the time to set up or show them how to use one of these platforms. + +Faith and spirituality play a large role in improving quality of life as well as mental health. While it doesn’t necessarily have to be religious, belief in something greater than yourself is healthy. There are often readymade communities in your area full of people in a similar situation to your loved one. Help them find these groups and encourage participation. + +Volunteering in a cause you care about is another great way to find other like-minded people and foster growth of community. Help your loved one find a cause they care about to support. Volunteers are needed in nearly all organizations. + +Another aspect of family and community is you as the caregiver. Remember to take the time to enjoy each other’s company and don’t make every visit or call about things that _have to get done._ Slow down a little bit and spend quality time together. That is the goal of aging in place anyway: more quality time outside of the medical system. + +[.lead] +Energy Conservation and Lifestyle Adaptations: Maximizing Independence + +Energy conservation can be helpful to all of us at times but becomes especially important for our aging loved ones. To explain this concept, I like to use the example of the Peachtree Road Race in Atlanta, Georgia. It is the world’s largest 10K and takes place every July 4. + +It is a really fun event that I would highly recommend for people of all skill sets, but it is hot and exhausting. As my wave approaches the starting line, the excitement and energy are building. It is easy to get sucked up in the excitement and start out running really fast (I used to do this). Think _run smarter, not harder._ + +But while the energy comes easy at the beginning, it comes with a price. It is much less efficient to run the first half mile quickly, because there are so many people. You wind up running around people and zig-zagging back and forth trying to get ahead of people you are faster than. This would be fine for a much shorter race or someone in better shape than I am, but I have learned this lesson the hard way in years past and had no energy left for the hardest part of the race — what the locals call Cardiac Hill. + +Getting through the day can feel like running a 10K for our elderly loved ones. Especially those with medical conditions that make routine day-to-day activities challenging. We as caregivers have an opportunity to help them identify which parts of the day need the extra energy and try to save energy at times to reduce the risk of fatigue and exhaustion, which can lead to an increased risk of falls and injury. + +As discussed earlier in this chapter, planned exercise is the best way to increase activity throughout the day. On days where exercise is prioritized, it is a good idea to exercise earlier in the day when energy levels are typically higher for the geriatric population. It might make sense to plan exercise days around other household chores to maximize energy levels. + +Another way to help our loved ones is to do a weekly activity assessment with them. Refer to the Chapter 6 bonus content in the free handbook for a printable template for the weekly activity assessment. This is a way to plan for the week ahead and determine which events are likely to require increased amounts of energy so we can allow for periods of rest before and after these big events. + +For example, if Mom will be traveling for a family reunion or a wedding, it may be a good idea to rest up for a couple of days before a big trip. If there is an event like going to the doctor, this can be a large energy expenditure based on their mobility levels. It would be a good idea to have a good meal and rest before heading to an appointment like that. Maybe even showering the evening before the appointment can reduce the energy burden prior to this event. If laundry is a task that uses a lot of energy for our loved one, it is a good idea to avoid this on a day when a large amount of cooking will be done. Another form of energy conservation is to use an assistive device such as a rollator in the home. + +Even if your aging loved one is able to walk independently, carrying something uses significantly more energy as it throws off their normal balance by shifting their center of gravity. And if their center of gravity gets outside of their base of support, a fall is the result. An assistive device also increases the base of support, reducing overall fall risk. Using a rollator specifically to take a tray of food from the kitchen to the dining area, or to bring a laundry basket from the bedroom to the laundry room are good ideas for energy conservation. + +When helping to make sure the home is as safe as possible for our loved ones, another form of energy conservation is to reduce the steps needed between tasks. Moving the laundry closer to the bathroom or bedroom could lead to a drastic decrease in energy expenditure for someone who has to climb twelve-plus stairs to get to their washing machine. + +But a simpler way to complete this would be to pay attention to commonly used items and make sure they are easily accessible. For example, if a hair dryer is used daily, hanging it on a hook in the bathroom that is easily reachable would reduce energy cost versus storing it under the sink. + +While our parents may be resistant to some of these suggestions, it can be critically important for them to maintain their level of independence and continue to age in place. If they did have a fall or a medical event that started this process of needing help, it can be helpful to gently remind them of that and encourage them to accept some small changes to avoid drastic change that can be the result of a fall or return to the hospital. + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Exercise and Activity Planning:* Prioritize regular physical activity for your loved one. Start with simple exercises, ensuring they are safe and appropriate for their fitness level. +2. *Focus on Nutrition:* No need to hire a nutritionist or dietitian to craft the perfect diet. Taking small steps to reduce fast-food and prepackaged meals is a great first step. Be sure they are getting enough protein and water. +3. *Foster Social Connections:* Encourage your loved one to build and maintain social networks. Whether it’s through community groups, clubs, or regular interactions with friends and family, consistent social interaction can significantly reduce feelings of isolation and loneliness. +4. *Embrace Technology for Connection:* Invest time in setting up user-friendly video call platforms. This technology can bridge the distance between loved ones, ensuring that they remain connected, especially if physical visits aren’t always feasible. +5. *Encourage Spiritual Growth and Volunteering:* Regardless of religious affiliation, help your loved one find groups or communities that cater to their spiritual needs. Additionally, identifying volunteer opportunities that align with their passions can provide a sense of purpose and fulfillment. +6. *Implement Energy Conservation Strategies:* Utilize the weekly activity assessment template to strategically plan out the week. Identify activities that require significant energy, and ensure there’s sufficient rest before and after such events. Consider modifications in the home environment to make daily tasks more energy efficient, like using assistive devices. +7. *Embrace Small Changes:* Approach the care journey with patience and understanding. Instead of pushing for drastic changes, focus on introducing small, consistent improvements in their daily life. If there is resistance, kindly remind them of the benefits these changes offer in terms of safety and well-being. + +As mentioned before, the map is not the territory. Each caregiver’s experience with their elder is going to be different. The goal is to help make slow changes that consistently improve quality of life while considering the individual and their preferences. The goal is not to force drastic lifestyle changes. + +In the next chapter, we will discuss when to get our parents help. Either from a part-time or full-time caregiver. We also discuss how to implement this help to improve the quality of life of our loved ones. + +== Chapter 7: Getting the Right Help at the Right Time + +In the ever-evolving journey of caregiving, determining the precise moment when one should hire a full-time caregiver is impossible to know for sure. This chapter takes a good look into understanding when it may be the right time and presents insights into the challenges of in-home caregiving. We will explore the differentiating activities of daily living (ADLs) and instrumental activities of daily living (IADLs) and examine the hiring process and its financial implications. We’ll also understand the balance between promoting independence while ensuring necessary assistance. + +[.lead] +Knowing When to Get Mom Help + +Hopefully you found this book before your loved one had a medical emergency that brought them into the hospital system. Maybe you noticed Mom isn’t as sharp as she used to be. Or it could be that she experienced a fall without significant injury. Or it could be that you came home for Christmas and noticed that the house isn’t as well kept as it should be. If so, congratulations! Way to be proactive. + +But if you are like 90-plus percent of people I have interacted with over the years, there was a significant medical event that led you to this point. In either case, the time to get help for your loved one is now. There is a reason you are thinking about this. If you have read this far, you have some significant worries or concerns for the safety of your loved one and their ability to age in place. That is normal. + +The reason it seems so daunting or unknown is that you have not had to deal with this until now. Mom has always been independent, self-assured, capable of handling her day-to-day, and this has changed, or is changing. This is a challenging time for you as well as your loved one. + +The good news is there is help if you are willing to accept it. Reading this book is the first step toward helping your loved one improve the quality and quantity of their remaining years. To set our loved ones up for success with aging in place, it is important to think about their long-term needs. + +We have previously discussed navigating the healthcare system, setting up the home for aging in place and a healthy lifestyle to promote improved quality of life. Now we need to think about what is next as they age. This proactive approach helps us identify future needs and take small steps to be ready as their needs grow. + +[.lead] +Decreasing Senses + +It is well known that our sense of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell decline as we age. This natural progression can lead to increased difficulty with aging in place. + +Regular checks for vision and hearing can identify problems early and can be corrected. Decreased smell can be a problem during a fire or a gas leak; there are quite affordable options for smoke and carbon monoxide detectors to help with this. Be sure the batteries are still functioning once a quarter to reduce risk of the detector not working when needed. + +The declining sense of touch or decreased sensation, especially in the feet can lead to burns if water temperature is too hot. It only takes two seconds of exposure to water that is 150 degrees to cause burns that require surgery. Keep the water heater set so that the water temperature is at 120 degrees or less to reduce the risk of significant injury. + +It is also important to check the water temperature regularly to make sure it is staying at a safe level. You can do this by turning the hot water faucet all the way on and holding a thermometer underneath. If it is over 120 degrees Fahrenheit, turn down the water heater. + +Decreased hearing and vision can be the first sign of waning independence. This is often due to it no longer being safe for your loved one to drive. There are a few tests and assessments that can determine if they are still safe to drive. If they are not, another difficult conversation likely needs to be had. Like with accepting help at home, giving up driving will be resisted at first. It is often best to bring in a third party to assess the safety of driving and have the difficult conversation when necessary. Reach out to me if your loved one needs to be assessed for safety with driving, and I can get you connected with someone in the area who can help. + +Another aspect of declining sensation is decreased feeling in the feet and proprioception in the joints. Both of these changes in sensation lead to an increased risk of falling due to less feedback from your body about where it is in space. When this happens, the elderly will generally rely more heavily on their eyesight to maintain their balance. + +Having someone around to mention the change in flooring or small step up into the laundry room can be a good reminder and reduce risk of falls. This is especially true when dealing with an open and unfamiliar environment. + +[.lead] +Mental Health Challenges in Aging + +There are changes that happen in the brain with aging as well, which lead to a rise in the likelihood of depression, anxiety, and fear. Poor sleep, loneliness, isolation, and fear of death or dying can lead to these conditions. A consistent caregiver or trusted loved one goes a long way to reducing these issues and can promote improved quality of life with reduced symptoms of mental health challenges. + +Below are some of the signs and symptoms of depression, anxiety, and fear. + +[.lead] +Depression: + +* Persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness +* Loss of interest in activities they once enjoyed +* Fatigue or decreased energy +* Difficulty concentrating or making decisions +* Changes in appetite or weight (either increase or decrease) +* Sleep disturbances (either insomnia or excessive sleeping) +* Aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems without a clear physical cause that do not ease with treatment +* Recurrent thoughts of death or suicide + +[.lead] +Anxiety: + +* Excessive worry or fear +* Avoiding social activities or places because of fear +* Problems with sleep (trouble falling asleep, staying asleep, or having restful sleep) +* Irritability or edginess +* Physical symptoms like headaches, stomachaches, or unexplained aches and pains +* Difficulty concentrating +* Rapid heart rate, shortness of breath, or dizziness +* Muscle tension + +[.lead] +Fear (often related to specific phobias or fear of falling, illness, or death): + +* An extreme or irrational fear or aversion to something +* Feeling of dread or anticipation of the source of fear +* Rapid heartbeat or shortness of breath when thinking about or encountering the source of fear +* Avoidance behaviors + +If you see an increase in these symptoms, it is important to seek help for your loved one. Some of these symptoms can be caused by medication or other conditions, so seeking out a professional will help to determine the cause and best course of treatment. + +ADLs and IADLs ADLs and IADLs are the tasks required to manage day to day in the home. Examples of ADLs include the basics like dressing, eating, toileting, bathing, grooming, and mobility. IADLs are higherlevel tasks like managing finances, transportation or driving, and managing medication. + +If your loved one only needs help with IADLs, part-time help from loved ones is usually sufficient to allow them to continue to age in place. If they need help daily with ADLs, bringing in more consistent help allows them to live safely at home. A skilled caregiver will be knowledgeable and trained in providing the assistance needed for ADLs and IADLs to manage the day-to-day tasks and challenges. + +[.lead] +Approaching the Topic with Mom + +It is most likely that your loved one will resist a caregiver. They may see this as an admission that they are no longer capable of being independent and are returning to a childhood state of dependency. This is completely normal; anyone who is used to being independent will resist the feeling of having their agency to make decisions taken from them. So _do not suggest bringing in a nurse or caregiver!_ + +Framing is key when initiating the discussion to get Mom some help around the house. Have a conversation, but guide them to decide on their own that they could use some help with the more challenging tasks that take up their energy. Having an assistant a couple of hours a week to help with laundry, grocery shopping, or meal prep may give them more time to enjoy the finer things in life and be with family. The cost of a couple of hours of help should be reasonable. + +Often, people will understand the need for help with light cleaning or housekeeping tasks. This can be a gentle way to introduce the process of our loved one’s accepting help within the home. As with anything else, the key to change is small, consistent steps taken regularly. Starting with an _assistant_ or _housekeeper_ a couple hours a week can help change their perspective and show that it is okay to accept help. This can smooth out the process for a time in the future when more assistance is needed. + +Although you are aware of their need for assistance, they may not see it yet. Be careful not to point out their weaknesses and make them feel bad about their difficulties. When you see them struggling, give them a little space and then come back to the subject and ask if they could use a little assistance so they have more time and energy for something they really enjoy. + +[.lead] +Starting Small + +Increasing the hours a caregiver is around can have many unintended positive benefits. These include increased companionship for the elderly and reduced worry for you! It can also mean less stressful _emergent_ situations where you have to stop what you are doing to run to the assistance of your mom. This alone should improve your quality of life as well and that of your parents. + +When increasing the amount of time a paid in-home caregiver is around, there can often be a transition from one caregiver to two, or to an entirely new caregiver altogether. To ensure a smooth transition period, prepare your loved one for the change by discussing it a few times before it happens. It is also a good idea to sit down with your parent and the new caregiver to go through established routines, new routines, setting boundaries, and to build trust. + +While the trust is being built, consider a weekly check-in meeting to talk through what is working and what is not. A little problem-solving on the front end can go a long way to reducing anger and resentment in the future. + +[.lead] +Understanding the Hiring Process + +Once you have determined that your loved one needs additional help, the next step is to decide on the type of assistance needed. This means deciding between medical (CNA) or non-medical assistance (sitter). If your loved one does not need physical assistance to go from sitting to standing or hands-on assistance while walking to or going to the bathroom, non-medical assistance such as a sitter should be enough. This person can help with medication management, light cooking, and light housekeeping chores. They also often provide companionship as one of the more valuable parts of caring. + +If your elder needs hands-on assistance with bathing, toileting, or walking, you are likely looking for a medical professional caregiver. + +The next question to answer is do you want to go through an agency or make a private hire? There are pros and cons of both. Using an agency is often easier, and if the first caregiver doesn’t work out for some reason, switching to a new one is a relatively smooth process. Using an agency is usually more expensive though as they have already completed the hard work of finding quality caregivers who are trained or providing the training. Some agencies have both medical and non-medical caregivers. Reach out to a few and find out what type of care they can provide. + +If you elect to go with the private hire route, the time and effort to find the right fit can be more extensive up front. Be sure to ask around for recommendations for a private caregiver and know their qualifications. Ask for references and call the references to get a better understanding of their abilities and how they relate to the geriatric population. + +So how much does in-home care cost? Like with many other good questions, the answer is, it depends. Typical costs in Georgia range from $20 to $30 per hour based on location and amount of care needed. The sitters will be on the lower end of the range, and the skilled medical caregivers will tend to be toward the higher end of the range. + +The best way to really determine what the cost is to call three to four agencies in your area and ask. They will likely do an assessment to make recommendations for the amount of care needed and often have different pricing structures based on consistency of care. If you plan to use a private hire caregiver, find a few of them and after an interview, ask them for their hourly rate. + +I know this may seem like an unaffordable expense to some, but if it keeps your loved one safe at home without injury for even three extra months, it would be worth it. You would save $15,000 in three months versus a nursing home. If she were able to live safely at home for one additional year, the cost savings would be $60,000! + +Here’s a quick breakdown of the calculation used to come up with those figures. + +Average cost per month of a private room in an SNF in 2021: $8,900 + +$8,900 x 3 months = $26,700 for 3 months in an average nursing home with a private room + +Home care for this exercise is assumed to be $30/hr for 30hrs/week = $900 per week + +13 weeks(or 3 months) x $900/week = $11,700 spent on home care in 3 months + +$26,700 – $11,700 = $15,000 saved at home during those 3 months + +Over the course of a year, the total savings would be $60,000 or $5,000 per month! + +As you can see, it is significantly more cost effective to assist our parents at home. That cost savings does not even include the benefits of improved quality of life and time with friends and family at home. And being able to maintain their routine and activities is just another added bonus. Hiring a caregiver should be looked at as an investment that will save money in the long run, but it also provides more of something that is truly scarce: quality time with our loved ones. + +[.lead] +Financing Home Care: Who Pays? + +The first question most people ask is, _Does Medicare cover the cost of a caregiver?_ And the short answer is no, traditional Medicare does not pay for this service. But there is a chance your loved one could receive support from another provider or program. Some Medicare replacement plans will cover some things that Medicare does not. You would likely have to get on the phone, ask questions until you get ahold of a decision-maker, and then demonstrate the savings of the insurance provider paying for a caregiver versus the higher risk of a fall and broken hip. + +Another option is long-term care insurance. Some of these policies include coverage for in-home care if the insured requires assistance with two or more ADLs or has a cognitive impairment. Contact the provider of your parent’s long-term care policy and find out what is covered and what is required to demonstrate the need for coverage. + +The next options for assistance with paying for in-home care would be finding out if veteran’s benefits, if applicable, cover any of the costs. Even if only one parent served, benefits often extend to their spouse. Medicaid can cover some of the costs in Georgia if the patient qualifies, but every state is different, so check with your state’s Medicaid program. + +Community programs and nonprofits focused on seniors can also be a source for added benefits for community-dwelling older adults. Ask around and see what may be available in your area. If none of the above options work for you, refer back to Chapter 5. + +Reverse mortgages and other options were discussed to fund home renovations needed for aging in place. Speaking to a fiduciary, fee-only financial planners can also be beneficial as there are strategies to maximize social security monthly income, especially if you have two parents approaching that age. + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Assess Needs:* Examine the needs of your loved one, distinguishing between ADLs and IADLs to gauge the level of assistance required. +2. *Choose the Right Assistance:* Decide between medical (CNA) or non-medical assistance based on your elder’s requirements. +3. *Agency or Private:* Weigh the pros and cons of hiring through an agency versus a private caregiver. Ensure thorough vetting in either choice. +4. *Financial Planning:* Research the costs involved and look into potential avenues of financial assistance, including Medicare, long-term care insurance, or veterans benefits. +5. *Communication:* Engage in open dialogue with your loved one, ensuring they are part of the decision-making process and are comfortable with changes. +6. *Plan for Transitions:* If increasing caregiver hours or switching caregivers, ensure a smooth transition to maintain continuity and trust. + +Embarking on the journey of caregiving requires an intricate blend of empathy, practicality, and foresight. Making the right choices for our aging loved ones isn’t just about ensuring their safety; it’s about enhancing their quality of life. By understanding their daily requirements, being financially savvy, and embracing technological advancements, caregivers can create an environment of love, respect, and independence. + +Remember, the key lies in collaboration—treasure the shared moments, acknowledge the challenges, and always prioritize open communication. While it’s of paramount importance to ensure the best care for our loved ones, it’s equally crucial for caregivers to turn the gaze inwards. + +In the next chapter, _The Essential Guide to Caregiver Self-Care_, we’ll dive into the importance of self-care and explore ways caregivers can rejuvenate themselves, ensuring that they can continue their journey with renewed energy and resilience. + +== Chapter 8: The Essential Guide to Caregiver Self-Care + +In this chapter, we look into the profound and multi-dimensional journey of the primary caregiver. It’s a role often thrust upon us without warning, requiring us to navigate a complicated maze of emotions, challenges, and responsibilities. + +Here, we’ll explore the emotional spectrum a caregiver goes through, from guilt and resentment to compassion and fulfillment. We’ll touch upon the importance of self-awareness, the necessity of self-care, and offer strategies for managing the ever-evolving demands of caregiving. + +As we unfold this journey, the chapter will provide you with not only a deeper understanding of your role but also actionable steps to make the process smoother and more rewarding. + +[.lead] +The Unintended Caregiver and Its Challenges + +Most of us who become unintended caregivers do not have a transition period or a time to ramp up our assistance and slowly step away from other responsibilities. Instead, seemingly out of nowhere, there is an event and Mom needs help, lots of help. It is all new. Roles are reversed. You are caring for your parent and not the other way around. + +This process is full of new responsibilities and many associated emotions. From anger, grief, fear, and anxiety, you will run through a wide assortment of emotions. This is normal, but not easy. I don’t know about you, but I never expected to be the primary caregiver for my mother at age thirty. I was just getting used to taking care of myself and my new wife. + +Three years into my career as a DPT, and it became apparent that my mother’s condition was deteriorating at a pace where my father could no longer provide all the care she needed. She had hospice care, but that was not enough. Twenty-two hours per day or more, someone needed to be there for my mom. To help her change positions, to eat, to brush her teeth, to administer medication, to be with her. Once the time came, my work was generally understanding, and I put in for time off with the _Family and Medical Leave Act_. + +I was able to drive back home and be there for the foreseeable future to assist in my mom’s care. Thankfully, as a physical therapist, many of the skills I acquired in school and on the job were directly applicable to providing physical care for my mother. From proper positioning, bed mobility, donning and doffing clothes, as well as changing sheets and bedding, I had the physical tools. I even understood the medical system to a point that I helped my parents navigate it over the past few years. + +There are three parts of dealing with a significant health event. The first is the knowledge to navigate the healthcare system. The second is the physical tools related to rehabilitation and mobility. And the third is the ability to handle the emotions and stress associated with this. + +It occurred to me at some point during this process that I had two of the three parts necessary to make it through this experience. I had the knowledge of the medical system and physical therapy side of things. + +It was still the most challenging time for me, and I only had to figure out one part of the three: the emotional burden and stress. I imagined all the people out there who don’t have a medical background or the expertise in geriatric mobility. They very likely have so many questions about day-to-day tactical things and what the next level of care will be like that they can’t really have time to deal with their own emotions. This has taken years to come full circle for me, but I can now help you with a general framework for navigating the healthcare system, and help with home safety and mobility following injury. + +If those two pieces of the puzzle are reasonably well taken care of, you should have an opportunity to work on the third: caregiver self-care. You are likely very familiar with the challenges below that cause the need for self-care but may not have the time and resources to make self-care a priority. + +[.lead] +The Sandwich Generation: Pressures of Caring for Parents and Children + +The term _sandwich generation_ refers to a group of people, typically in their thirties to fifties, who find themselves caring for their aging parents while also raising their own children. This creates a _sandwich_ effect, with the individual providing care for family members on both ends of the age spectrum. The sandwich generation is becoming increasingly prevalent due to societal trends of increased life expectancy and people having children later in life. + +Being part of the sandwich generation can come with a unique set of challenges. These individuals often face significant physical, emotional, and financial stress as they juggle the responsibilities of caring for older and younger family members simultaneously. This can include managing medical appointments and health issues for aging parents, supporting children in their educational and personal growth, and maintaining their own career, among other duties. + +The mental and emotional toll of caring for your children and your parents at the same time is astronomical. Feelings of guilt, exhaustion, and stress are very prevalent in these overburdened caregivers. It is common to feel guilty when you are caring for your parents because you feel that you are neglecting your children, and vice versa. Add in work, spousal duties, and your own medical needs or appointments, and exhaustion is the only reasonable outcome. This stress compounds to the point that your medical condition, quality of sleep, and general wellbeing suffer. This leads to poor performance at work, strain on personal relationships, and mental health concerns like anxiety and depression. + +[.lead] +Tackling Caregiver Guilt: Acknowledging and Addressing Your Emotions + +First step to getting rid of caregiver guilt is to recognize it. Do you feel like you should be doing more for your parents or your children but can’t because you just don’t have the time and energy? Do you miss appointments or postpone plans you have for yourself because of the chance that someone needs you? Are you concerned you don’t have the money or resources to care for your loved one? Do you feel like you aren’t good enough as a caregiver for those who need you? + +This is caregiver guilt. It is a normal response to the situation you find yourself in. But just because it is normal does not mean that it is helpful. Your body and mind are in a constant state of low agitation because you are worried about something you can’t control. You have to take a step back. You cannot go on like this! You are on your way to a physical, mental, or emotional breakdown, and then you won’t be of service to anyone. + +A well-worn analogy fits here related to the deploying of the oxygen mask when the pressure drops in an airplane. You have to put your mask on first before assisting children or anyone else with theirs. You are no good to anyone who needs you if you don’t have oxygen. The same is true for caregiving and mental bandwidth. There are definitely times when we will be running on fumes as caregivers and doing our best, but we have to recognize those times and stop. + +Take some time for yourself to recharge. However that might be. Do a short meditation if that’s your thing. Or go for a walk outside alone for a few minutes. Whatever it takes. This is both true in the moment when tensions are boiling over as well as on a larger scale with all of life’s responsibilities weighing you down. + +A good way to combat caregiver guilt is to seek out professional therapy or counseling. It can be quite helpful to get out of your own head and hear yourself saying some of these thoughts out loud. As soon as you hear them, you can begin to distance yourself from them because often you realize the absurdity of a thought like _I should be able to care for my mother twenty-four seven. What if she needs me and I’m not there?_ + +Journaling is another good option for getting thoughts out of your head and onto paper. I personally find that there is something liberating about writing in a journal. It is like I am able to release whatever was stuck in my mind, freeing up space for more important or helpful thoughts. + +Another good practice is to set up boundaries and have realistic expectations about what you are able to do. For example, letting your parent know that they should not call after 9 p.m. unless it is an emergency. And if it is indeed an emergency, then CALL 911! + +Another way to set boundaries is to make a pact with yourself to get your morning exercise in before checking calls, texts, or emails. This morning routine can set you up for success throughout the day and put you in a better frame of mind to tackle the challenges ahead. Self-compassion is another way to reduce caregiver guilt. + +Here are some ways to include it in your daily routine. + +1. *Mindfulness:* A form of meditation that allows you to watch your thoughts in a nonjudgmental way. I like the Headspace app for guided mindfulness meditations. +2. *Self-kindness:* Talk to yourself the same way you would a friend going through the same thing. We are so much harder on ourselves than we would be on a friend. You are doing the best you can, and that is enough. Allow yourself to make mistakes and know that everyone does. +3. *Normalize your experiences:* Know that there are many people out there going through something very similar right now and are having similar struggles. + +[.lead] +Seeking Support + +The best way to normalize your experience is by sharing it with others who are going through similar situations. Look for local caregiver groups. The Athens Community Council on Aging has a monthly in-person caregiver support group near me. There is likely something similar in your area. Just google _caregiver support groups near me_ and see what pops up. + +Another way to find a community is to join one of the many online communities. There are many Facebook groups dedicated to those caring for aging parents, including my _Keep Mom Safe At Home_ Facebook group. This is a great way to share your frustrations and get feedback and support. + +Often, we as caregivers get stuck, and the only people we communicate with are the individuals we are caring for. This does not allow for a healthy outlet when stress or guilt builds. + +One more thought on this topic. Once you find a monthly meetup, an online support group, or both, one way to take the community support further is to start a smaller group within the group. All you need is one to three other people who are willing to hop on a scheduled weekly call. This call is not about gossiping or excessive complaining, it is more about checking in with people who are going through the same thing as you and care about you. + +Each week, you can run through a short script that mentions how things went for you last week and what you plan to work on or accomplish in the next week. This can be thirty minutes or less, but the weekly rhythm can reinforce positive changes in you as a caregiver. + +An entirely different way to seek support is through respite care. Respite care is just a name for taking a break from caregiving and trusting the care of your loved one to another party. It could be for an afternoon so you can go to the spa, or for an entire week to take that much-needed vacation. + +There are many companies out there that can provide these services. Even nursing homes can provide in-house respite care for up to a week, covered by Medicare under the hospice benefit if your loved one qualifies. Ask the other caregivers in your local meetup, online group, or weekly call to see if they have any ideas for utilizing respite care to recuperate after caring for your loved one. + +Even if you can’t find an option covered by insurance or discounted through a local agency on aging, it is well worth the money to give yourself time to recharge because you will be better able to care for your loved one. + +[.lead] +Implementing Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Self-Care Practices + +Books have been written on this topic, and I will likely write a book about it one day, so I’ll just hit the high points here. When I think about self-care for caregivers, there are three parts: physical, mental, and spiritual self-care. + +[.lead] +Physical + +Physical self-care can be broken down into three parts as well. Regular exercise, diet and nutrition (refer back to Chapter 6), and adequate rest. Regular exercise can be as simple as the exercise recommended for our loved ones aging in place. Get out and walk with them for twenty minutes if you can. Although, it may be more restful for your mind to exercise when they are not present. But ten to fifteen minutes of cardio daily can do wonders for you. + +Exercise outdoors when you can. I especially like to go for a short run with the dog right at sunrise. Getting sunlight early in the day helps with circadian rhythms and will help you sleep better at night. + +If daily exercise is too much, thirty to sixty minutes of cardio three times per week should be sufficient to improve your overall vascular system and health. You will also see improvements in mood and less brain fog. One thing I am trying to get better at myself is strength-building exercises. Lifting weights, climbing stairs, and body weight exercises like pushups and squats are good strength-building exercises. Muscle mass is inversely correlated to fall risk, so keep that in mind as you age. + +Quality rest means getting enough high-quality sleep. The amount needed is different for everyone, but it is generally understood that more is better. Caffeine after 4 p.m. and more than a single alcoholic beverage in the evening both affect the quality of your sleep. Sleep is another area for a deep dive in a future blog post or book. + +[.lead] +Mental + +Mental self-care is important to make sure you are in the right place between the ears. Meditation and journaling were mentioned previously and are great ways to practice calming the mind and reducing our reactiveness (or over-reactiveness). + +It is rare for us as caregivers to respond in a snap to something our loved ones have done and have it be the perfect response. Often we can create regret or resentment when we react too quickly to something they are doing. + +Meditation and journaling can both give you practice taking a brief pause between stimuli and reaction. This can reduce outbursts and allow us to be more thoughtful in our interactions. + +Another thing we can do to improve our mental self-care is taking the time to reflect on what can be delegated to others to reduce our stress and caregiver burnout. Allowing others to take some responsibility will reduce your workload and decrease your stress levels. Think about who could help you, even if you pay for the assistance. + +[.lead] +Spiritual + +Spiritual self-care is not that different from mental self-care. Meditation and journaling would fit right here in this section, but since they were included above, I’ll be more specific. Spiritual self-care does not have to be religious although it is for me. + +Ways to incorporate spiritual self-care into the daily routine include finding ways to appreciate something larger than yourself. That can be found at the beach staring out into the ocean. Or in the mountains appreciating the grandness of God’s creation. + +There is one thing though that is easy to implement and has been repeatedly shown to improve overall self-reported happiness, and that is a gratitude practice. It can be any variety of practices for which you find things to be grateful. I like to write down five things that I am grateful for every morning. This helps me get in the right mindset and begin the day looking at the blessings in my life and not focusing on the negative. You tend to find what you are looking for, so look for the positive in life and others. + +[INFO] +==== +If you would like more information on the topic of caregiver selfcare, join my email list at https://www.KeepMomSafeAtHome.com. +==== + +This is a topic I like to hit on frequently because if you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t effectively take care of your loved ones. + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Self-Assessment:* Regularly evaluate your mental and emotional well-being. Recognize when you might be on the brink of burnout, and be proactive about seeking help or adjusting your caregiving routine. +2. *Seek Support:* Whether it’s joining a support group, confiding in a close friend, or seeking professional 115 counseling, ensure you have an outlet to express your feelings and challenges. +3. *Establish Boundaries:* Understand that saying no is not only okay, but it’s essential for your well-being. Prioritize tasks and learn to delegate when necessary. +4. *Time for Self-Care:* Dedicate specific times in your schedule for activities that you love and help you recharge. It could be as simple as reading a book, taking a walk, or practicing meditation. +5. *Ongoing Education:* Stay updated with the latest trends, technologies, and strategies for aging in place. Join relevant email lists, Facebook groups, attend workshops, or participate in webinars to ensure you’re equipped with the best information to aid your loved one. +6. *Reevaluate Regularly:* As circumstances change, regularly reassess the caregiving situation to ensure that the needs of your loved one, as well as your own, are being met adequately. + +The role of a caregiver is one of depth and responsibility, marked by challenges but also moments of deep connection and love. This chapter has shown the many facets of this journey, emphasizing the importance of self-awareness and self-care. + +The road of caregiving is undeniably tough, but with the right tools, resources, and mindset, it can also be a very rewarding experience. Remember, in the act of caring for another, it is equally imperative to care for oneself. As we journey together through the various aspects of caregiving, it’s essential to consider all potential paths and scenarios. While our goal is often to keep our loved ones in familiar and comfortable surroundings for as long as possible, there might come a time when aging in place is no longer a feasible option. + +In the next chapter, we will tackle this sensitive topic head-on, exploring signs that indicate a need for change, understanding the available alternatives, and ensuring that the transition is as smooth and compassionate as possible. + +== Chapter 9: Aging in Place and Family Dynamics + +In this chapter, we journey through one of the most intricate terrains of caregiving: the emotional dynamics and potential resistance from our elderly loved ones. It’s common for elderly individuals to resist changes, especially when it threatens their sense of independence. This resistance can strain the relationship between caregivers and their aging parents, making the caregiving process all the more challenging. + +We will explore the root causes of such resistance, understand the perspective of the elderly, and provide strategies to cope with these challenging dynamics. Additionally, we touch upon the challenges of being a solo caregiver and navigate the complexities of caring for someone who might not have cared for you. + +[.lead] +Coping with Resistance from Aging Parents + +Resistance to change from elderly parents is almost guaranteed, but they may be more agreeable or open to listening to the need for change in the immediate aftermath of an injury or hospitalization. The hospitalization is often a wakeup call, so it is important to make necessary changes during the time of rehab while medical care needs are still top of mind. Once your loved one gets back to their normal everyday routine, it is likely their resistance to change will increase. + +Why does it seem like the elderly are often the most resistant to change? It should seem pretty straightforward. We all have our patterns and routines. It is how humans are designed to deal with a complex and ever-changing world. I know I can be resistant to change at times, and I can only imagine how set in my ways I will likely be in thirty-plus years. Good luck caring for me, Julie and Leah. + +Imagine you own a business. A small local hardware store or grocery. You have been running this store for decades and getting by quite well, maybe even thriving for much of that time. You have plenty of customers who are happy and come visit every chance they get. It is a small but significant community. + +One day, your cash register breaks and you are no longer able to go about running your business the same way. Everything stops. Your community dries up because you can’t sell them what they need anymore. It is depressing, and about the time reality is setting in that the business can’t operate like normal, someone shows up and starts telling you all the things you have been doing wrong for all these years. Now you’re dealing with a broken cash register and some know-it-all telling you what to do. + +This is a similar situation to how your loved ones feel. Everything was fine, all was well until one day, BAM! Something happens, a medical emergency, and their whole world stops. And in their broken state, people who mean well arrive from all over the medical system as well as family telling them all the things they need to change. When you zoom out a little bit and look at the big picture, it is easy to see why they may show resistance to assistance. + +There can be many fears and misconceptions about what change means. They may fear that it means they are losing their independence and agency. They may see it as their life passing before them or that if they accept any help now, it is a slippery slope having all freedom taken from them. They may have been given a diagnosis that does not have a good prognosis. They may recognize their memory is starting to fail them. + +Dealing with the onset of a progressive degenerative disease can be devastating. Whatever the reason, if you are dealing with resistance from aging parents, it is important to try to put yourself in their shoes. Showing empathy can go a long way to breaking through the resistance to accept help. + +You will also likely need patience and lots of it. Give your loved one time to come to terms with the changes that are occurring. Be prepared to have the same conversation more than once and to attack problems from different angles to find the best way to meet your loved one’s needs. + +When discussing sensitive topics with resistant parents, active listening is a great tool to demonstrate to them that they are heard. Really listen to what they are saying. You may have to listen more intently than normal to find the emotional cause of their resistance. Repeat what you believe they are saying or feeling back to them to demonstrate understanding. + +If you don’t have it yet, allow them another opportunity to get their point across. Problem-solving through resistance with gradual changes is often a good compromise. You know that you are making progress and your loved one doesn’t feel like everything is being taken from them at once. But slow progress needs to be consistent to make a difference. + +Another way to help break through some of this resistance can be with trusted third parties such as physicians, therapists, or geriatric care managers. Suggesting changes often go over better from a professional with the expertise in the field versus coming from family. + +[.lead] +Handling the Solo Caregiver Burden + +Being a solo caregiver is exhausting if not impossible to maintain for any significant length of time. There are many reasons one may wind up as a solo caregiver. Maybe you are an only child, the only surviving relative for someone without children, or it’s someone who outlived their children. Maybe you are one of many siblings, but due to location or some problematic family history, you are the only one willing or able to assist. + +My grandparents on my mother’s side had two children. One was obviously my mom who passed away before they needed much care. That left my uncle as the primary caregiver and ultimate decision-maker. He had some help from his spouse and sons, but he mentioned a couple times how much easier this process would have been with my mother still alive. She was a nurse and was much better suited to caring for her parents. He did an amazing job, and we are forever thankful for the amount of care he was able to provide them. But it is easy to see how difficult it is and the emotional toll taken by being the solo caregiver. + +On my dad’s side, my grandparents had four children. All very involved and supportive of my grandmother, but three of them live out of state. This left my uncle who remains in Mobile, Alabama, as the only day-to-day caregiver she had available before transitioning to an assisted living facility. It is helpful to my uncle that the other siblings remain involved and often take her to the beach or their homes for a week or longer. But even with this help, he likely felt like a solo caregiver most of the time. + +The physical strain of being a solo caregiver can also be too much. As your parent begins to need help around the house or standing from a chair, it is natural to jump in and assist where we can. But as the assistance required grows, you are putting your own health at risk. + +It is not helpful to risk your own health caring for a loved one. If you get injured, or medically depleted, you both will need help. And who is going to care for both of you if you were the solo caregiver previously? + +There is often a financial strain associated with being a solo caregiver. Even if your loved one is able to meet their own needs financially or with outside assistance, it can still stress finances. Often, people are unable to work or be fully employed when caring for a loved one. The time and energy required as a caregiver often leaves little in the tank for revenue-generating activities for yourself. + +One more component of the financial strain of solo caregiving is the stress and reduced time for yourself. This may manifest in poor food choices or a medical condition that further strains your finances. This would be a great time to revisit Chapter 8 about caregiver self-care. + +Broadening your support group can play a significant role in reducing the stress associated with solo caregiving. Ask friends or church members for help occasionally. Get in caregiver support groups either locally or online. They are a great resource for other people on the same journey as you. You may have a problem that they have already solved and you would never know it if you don’t get around the right people and ask questions. + +For example, other caregivers can tell you where to look for respite care or help you find an adult day center to get a few hours to take care of yourself. They can also let you know which caregiver companies they have used and trust. Maybe it’s a referral to a private caregiver who needs a new charge. + +Accepting that solo caregiving is hard if not impossible is the first step. Then look for ways to get help. + +[.lead] +Navigating Complex Emotional Dynamics: Caring for Someone Who Didn’t Care for You or Is Verbally Abusive or Threatening + +You may be struggling with past emotional pain when caring for your parent. There can be years of baggage that all comes back up when your parent needs help. Emotional trials that you thought you were past can all come flooding back. There is no good way to ignore these feelings as bottling them up can lead to worse stress and a decline in your own health and well-being. + +Acknowledging the pain and separating that from your present responsibility can help. Focus on the task at hand. Take it day by day and control what you can. If it is too much, seek help, find a professional you can speak to or a friend who can let you vent. + +Setting boundaries is critical for navigating the challenging familial interactions. Let your parents know when they are being critical or demeaning. You can say, _That is not an appropriate way to speak to me, and I will not tolerate that kind of speech from you._ If they repeatedly cross that line, you have to put your foot down. Let them know that you will not be able to assist them further if they keep this up. + +And stick to your word! If they are capable of understanding the hurtful words they are using and continue to interact this way, stop helping them. I know this seems harsh, but too many people put up with abusive relationships for way too long. If you are trying to help and the relationship becomes toxic, it is likely best for you both to walk away. + +Often, the reasons for verbal abuse from the elderly is related to fear, confusion, or declining mental capacity like dementia. If this is the case, please don’t take the hurtful words to heart. They aren’t meant, and it is the progressive disease causing this behavior. + +Get professional help when needed as it is important to be able to tell the difference between declining cognition and purposeful verbal abuse. If this is due to advancing dementia or something similar, it is likely time for them to transition to the next level of care as they are no longer safe at home. Involving a professional like a social worker and or a psychologist may be necessary. + +But also you don’t have to care for your parents at all. If they are emotionally or physically abusive, you have every right to walk away. In fact, you should walk away. Your physical, mental, and emotional health is too important to be destroyed by the person you are trying to care for. If they don’t want your help and are abusive, WALK AWAY. + +Help them find and hire another caregiver or transition to the next level of care, or if they are a danger to themselves, call Adult Protective Services (APS). While involving a government agency should be the last resort, sometimes it becomes necessary. + +[.lead] +When and How to Involve Adult Protective Services + +Calling Adult Protective Services (APS) is a serious decision and should be made if you believe that the elderly individual’s safety is at risk. This could be due to a variety of reasons, such as physical, sexual, or emotional abuse by another individual, self-neglect due to refusal of care, or inability to take care of themselves. In the context of an elderly parent being verbally abusive and refusing care, calling APS may be necessary if the parent’s well-being is at risk due to self-neglect or if the caregiver’s mental health is severely impacted by the abusive behavior. + +You can find the contact information for your local APS office by visiting the National Adult Protective Services Association website or through a quick internet search for _[Your State] Adult Protective Services_. To prepare for making a call to APS, you should do the following: + +1. *Document everything:* Keep a record of incidents that have led you to believe that APS intervention is necessary. This could include dates, times, what was said or done, and any actions you took. +2. *Gather information:* Make sure you have all the necessary information about the person in question (full name, address, age, health condition, etc.), as well as details about the specific concerns you have. +3. *Know your rights and state laws:* Laws about elder abuse and APS procedures vary from state to state, so it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with your local regulations. +4. *Prepare mentally:* Understand that this can be a difficult process, both emotionally and logistically. You might feel guilt, worry, or relief. It’s important to have your own support system in place and to take care of your own mental health during this time. + +When making a call to APS, here’s what you can expect: + +1. *Confidentiality:* Your identity will be kept confidential unless consent is given. However, keep in mind that sometimes the situation may make it clear to the person who made the call. +2. *Information gathering:* You will be asked to provide as much information as possible about the person in question and their situation. This includes their name, address, details about their condition, the nature of the abuse or neglect you suspect, and any other pertinent information. +3. *Investigation:* After the report is made, APS will investigate the claim. The time it takes can vary depending on the severity of the situation and the state’s specific regulations. +4. *Intervention:* If the claim is substantiated, APS will take steps to ensure the safety of the person involved. This can range from providing resources and services to the person in their home to moving them to a safer environment. + +With any intervention by APS, the goal is to protect the safety and well-being of the person in question. Often to receive any immediate action by APS, the situation would have to be obviously unsafe. It can be frustrating to find out that the agent who assessed the situation did not see the same safety concerns that you see, but know that it is a very serious situation to have APS intervene. + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Empathy and Patience:* Prioritize understanding and placing yourself in the shoes of your aging parent. This can go a long way in breaking through their resistance. +2. *Active Listening:* Engage in genuine conversations where you truly listen to their concerns, which will make them feel understood and valued. +3. *Gradual Changes:* Introduce modifications slowly and consistently, allowing your loved one to adjust to the new changes over time. +4. *Seek Third-Party Assistance:* Sometimes, advice from professionals such as doctors or geriatric care managers can be more palatable for the elderly than from family members. +5. *Self-Care:* Remember to take care of yourself. Join support groups or communities that offer advice, comfort, and shared experiences. +6. *Establish Boundaries:* If faced with a verbally abusive relationship, ensure you set clear boundaries. Let your loved one know which behaviors are unacceptable, and be prepared to uphold those boundaries. +7. *Know When to Seek Professional Help:* If the situation becomes untenable or if the safety of the elderly individual is at risk, consider getting Adult Protective Services involved. + +Navigating the intricate dynamics of caregiving can often be an emotional rollercoaster. Understanding the fears, concerns, and apprehensions of our aging loved ones can provide a clearer perspective on their resistance and make caregiving a more harmonious journey. By combining empathy, patience, and appropriate boundaries, caregivers can create an environment that respects both their well-being and that of their loved one. + +And when times get tough, seeking support, whether through communities or professionals, can provide the relief and guidance necessary to persevere. As we approach the final section, we will delve into the transition away from aging in place and preparing for end-of-life care. This ensures we provide the best possible support and comfort during the most delicate moments of our loved one’s life journey. + +== PART III: LEAVING HOME + +image::https://i.nostr.build/71E86kya5FHo2nHx.png[part 3, 300] + +== Chapter 10: When Aging in Place Is No Longer an Option + +In this chapter, we take a look into the multi-faceted decisions and considerations surrounding the choice of a long-term care facility for an aging loved one. From the practical aspects of facility visits and choosing the right care level, to the intricate nuances of long-term care insurance, this chapter is a comprehensive guide designed to ease the task ahead. + +Also, given the prevalent issue of dementia in our aging population, we dedicate a portion of this chapter to understanding its stages and offering tailored advice for caregivers supporting a loved one with dementia. When my grandfather moved into skilled nursing care following a hip fracture, it quickly became painfully clear to my grandmother’s primary caregivers that she was no longer safe at home. Everything was attempted to keep her safe at home until he returned home from rehab, but unfortunately, he would not make it home again. More and more visits from family were required to keep her safe. That was in addition to her full-time in-home caregiver. + +Her mobility and memory were declining rapidly. She was more unsteady on her feet and would forget to use the rolling walker. Maybe she just decided she didn’t need it. She was requiring reminders to eat and regular reassurance that everything was taken care of. She was no longer safe at home without around-the-clock care. + +Do you wonder if it is time for your loved one to move on to the next level of care? And if it isn’t yet that time, how will you know when it is? + +Most people try to do everything they can to help their loved ones stay safe at home for as long as possible. And they wind up helping their loved one hang on at home longer than they probably should. That is not a criticism, but it is something I have seen time and time again. Caregivers run themselves ragged trying to keep Mom safe at home. Even past the point where it should be obvious. + +Often it is due to feelings of guilt. Or being so caught up in the day-to-day that the big picture is overlooked. + +[.lead] +Signs It Is Time to Move + +Physical signs that a move is imminent include declining mobility. This can be increased difficulty standing from a chair. It could require multiple attempts to get up, or they may need physical assistance. + +Frequent falls is another sign. If your loved one is falling often, a serious fall and injury may be right around the corner. + +Frequent or consistent bowel and bladder accidents. This is a sign that mobility is not good enough to get to the toilet in time, the sensation of needing to go has declined, or they are unable to effectively clean themselves. + +Other physical signs include requiring assistance to eat, prepare food, or bathe. A need for help with any one of these things does not necessarily mean you should ship them off to a home immediately, but when the physical limitations start to add up, it can quickly become too much for a single caregiver. + +Cognitive signs that your loved one may require more assistance than can be provided at home include worsening memory and increased confusion. Have you noticed them starting meals and forgetting that they were cooking? This is a huge fire hazard and may be fixed by unplugging the stove. But if they are also getting lost in familiar places, this is a sign of cognitive decline. + +Another sign of decreasing mental capacity is an inability to follow directions or forgetting normal routines. People can continue to do well in their own home with some cognitive decline, but when it becomes advanced, or too much for the caregiver, it is time to consider the next level of care. + +Emotional signs that continuing to live at home alone or with a caregiver is no longer the best option include increasing isolation. This may happen naturally as friends and family members pass away, but it has significant negative effects on the elderly. + +Other emotional signs include depression and anxiety. Mood swings can be another sign that they are no longer able to process their dayto-day life and routine, and they may need more assistance than they can get at home. + +We as caregivers tend to want the best for our loved ones, and often push ourselves beyond the breaking point to help them stay at home. This is rarely what is best for them and certainly not what is best for us. If we are stressed so much that it is affecting our health, cognition, and emotional well-being, it is time to get more help, and that means moving into long-term care. + +[.lead] +Dealing with Guilt: Making the Decision for Long-Term Care + +There is often a feeling of guilt associated with the thought of putting our loved one in an assisted living facility or nursing home. We just assume the worst and think they will hate us for it. Sometimes we even feel like we are letting them down or betraying them in some way. Some of our parents will even tell us things like they will never forgive us, or they will write us out of the will. That sucks, and I’m sorry if they are making this decision harder on you. But if you have read this much of this book, you have done and are doing everything you possibly can for them. + +You have to acknowledge your limitations. No one is perfect. You have to do what is best for you, your family, and your elderly charge. And at some point, that likely means it is time to find the right facility for your loved one. If you are consumed with guilt, go back to Chapter 8 on caregiver self-care. There are some practical ways to work through those feelings. + +Also know this is a normal part of being human. Everyone deals with it. Find community and space to share your thoughts and feelings. Also know that while you feel bad about moving your loved one out of their home, it could be the best thing that has happened to them in a long time. + +Take my grandmother, for instance. She had been at home alone, with a caregiver or family member for months after my grandfather fell and broke his leg. She was depressed, and as mentioned earlier, her mobility and cognition were declining rapidly. It was time to find her a facility. + +My uncle found the perfect place about twenty-five minutes away from her home. He was eaten up with guilt but knew it was just too much for her at home. She moved to an assisted living facility. He moved some of my grandmother’s belongings into her new apartment to make it feel more like home, and she moved in. After she had been there a couple of weeks, I called to see how she was fitting in and getting along. The phone rang and rang. + +When she picked up the phone, there was a long period of time before anyone spoke. Well, it felt like a long time, it was maybe five seconds, and it was filled with uproarious laughter. Finally, when things calmed down enough for my grandmother to speak, she relayed what was so funny. + +The phone had started ringing and she looked at each of the three friends she was with a bit irritated. She asked them each individually, _Well, are you going to pick up your phone?_ The phone was in the basket of her rollator. She was apparently not used to having her phone there and was a bit embarrassed to find out it was her phone that was ringing the whole time. + +While slightly embarrassing for her, it was very clear to me that not only was she getting to know people and making friends, but she was also choosing to use the rollator that we have been trying to get her to use at home for months. Making friends with others who were using the assistive device normalized it for her, and she now takes it everywhere. + +Another benefit that I noticed was improved cognitive function. She had a bit more recall and was able to better follow the conversation than she had been previously while home alone for a couple of months. Being around others and being less sedentary helped her cognition. + +At home, she would sit in a dark room by herself with very little activity. Now she is out and about the facility a bit more. For whatever reason, I have repeatedly seen that cognition and mobility seem to go hand in hand after a certain age. At home she was isolated and had little reason to walk, so her mobility and cognition seemed to be declining together. While this is anecdotal evidence, it does seem that she is more mobile and her cognition has equalized as well. + +[.lead] +Levels of Care + +There are four levels of care available for your loved one as they reach the point of moving out of their home permanently. Understanding the differences is a key component of finding the right care for your parent. + +* *Independent living facility:* Also known as retirement communities or senior apartments. This is the lowest level of care and is more like an apartment or cottage in a senior living community. Here, people come and go as they please with many of the community members still driving. They are designed for seniors who are generally healthy, active, and able to live on their own. These facilities typically offer private apartments or houses designed with senior-friendly features. They also provide various amenities such as meal services, housekeeping, laundry services, recreational activities, fitness centers, and transportation for shopping or medical appointments. The main idea is to free seniors from the burden of home maintenance and provide opportunities for socialization. +* *Assisted living facility:* Assisted living facilities are a step up from independent living facilities in terms of the level of care provided. They are meant for seniors who need help with some daily activities such as bathing, dressing, eating, or medication management but do not require intensive medical care. These facilities offer private or semi-private living spaces, communal dining, and a range of social and recreational activities. Services typically include twenty-four-hour supervision and security, personal care assistance, health monitoring, and emergency call systems. +* *Memory care unit:* Usually located within assisted living or nursing home facilities, they provide specialized care for individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, dementia, or other cognitive impairments. These units have staff specially trained to assist with the unique challenges that come with memory loss. The environment is designed to be secure and easy to navigate, with activities tailored to promote cognitive function and social interaction. Memory care units provide a higher level of supervision and care compared to regular assisted living. +* *Skilled nursing facility:* You may remember SNFs from Chapter 2 about short-term rehab. This is the sub-acute setting, as a stop between the hospital and home. They are often referred to as nursing homes, and they offer the highest level of care outside of a hospital. They provide twenty-four-hour supervised care with nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists. Individuals in these facilities generally cannot live on their own or require round-the-clock care due to chronic illness, healing from surgery, or need for rehabilitative therapies. Skilled nursing facilities offer both short-term and long-term care options and are equipped to handle more complex medical needs. + +There are also facilities that have each of these options under one roof, or on the same campus. This is a good idea because it makes transitioning to the next level of care easy for your loved one. It turns out to be quite convenient for family members, but there can be a stigma about people who require a step up in care. The folks in independent living will gossip about someone who had to go to the assisted living side. This is true of transitioning from assisted living to either memory care or skilled nursing as well. + +While it may not seem like a big deal, it can lead to residents resisting the step to the next level of care. This can prevent your loved one from getting the assistance they need and increase their risk of injury as they try to hold onto their independence. + +It’s important to note that the level of care, cost, and services provided can vary greatly from one facility to another, so it’s necessary to do thorough research and visit potential facilities when deciding. It is also essential to consider the personal needs, health status, and preferences of the individual who will be living in the facility. + +[.lead] +Seeking Advice + +When making this decision, it can be helpful to find people who work with the geriatric population and are very familiar with identifying their needs and the right level of care. Check with your local agency on aging and see if they have any recommendations. Oftentimes, they can refer you to someone who can help in this situation. + +Another option would be to ask healthcare providers who work with a geriatric population. If you have any friends or family who work in eldercare, they may be able to help or connect you with resources. If your loved one receives home health physical or occupational therapy, ask the therapist who works with your parent. They will likely be able to give you a good idea of which level of care would be most appropriate based on functional status, mobility, and cognition. + +A third option is eldercare locator services. They are in place to help with this transition as well as to provide options available for your loved one’s situation. It is a public service offered by the US Administration on Aging. Their website is: https://eldercare.acl.gov/Public/Index.aspx or you can reach them by telephone at 1-800-677-1116. + +[.lead] +Choosing a Long-Term Care Facility: What to Look For and Questions to Ask + +Once the appropriate level of care has been identified, it is time to choose the right facility for your loved one. Important things to consider are location, cost, and services provided. It is important to tour each location being considered. Refer to the process for finding a short-term rehabilitation facility in Chapter 2. + +Use this as a guide for choosing a long-term care facility, but know that the importance of each aspect may be different this time around. For example, location may be the most important factor for long-term care. This could be for proximity to friends and family or allow for continued care under her current physicians. Or staffing ratios could be the most important now that this is for long-term care. + +You should ask the same questions at each facility and make a few notes to compare the answers provided. Each facility will be different, so it may be beneficial to create a pros and cons list if one option does not stand out as the best choice. With the aging baby boomer population, elder care has been a big focus of all healthcare for the past decade or more. This has led to significant improvements and increased options available for elder care. One important note is to compare like to like. It would not be fair to compare a SNF to an ALF, for example. + +[.lead] +Understanding Long-Term Care Insurance + +Long-term care insurance is a type of insurance designed to cover the costs of long-term care. This may seem obvious, but it should cover services that are not typically provided by traditional health insurance or Medicare. It’s important to pay attention to the specifics of what is covered as the payment policies can vary greatly depending on the specific insurance plan. + +Generally, long-term care insurance may cover the following services and facilities: + +* *In-Home Care:* This includes assistance with activities of daily living (ADLs) such as bathing, dressing, meal preparation, and medication management. +* *Assisted Living Facilities:* These are housing arrangements for seniors who require assistance with ADLs but do not need the round-the-clock medical care provided by a nursing home. +* *Adult Day Care Centers:* These facilities offer social and health services for seniors during the daytime hours, providing respite for caregivers. +* *Skilled Nursing Facilities:* These provide round-theclock skilled nursing care for those who have serious health conditions or disabilities that require constant care. +* *Memory Care Units:* These specialized units in assisted living facilities or nursing homes cater to people with Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia. +* *Respite Care:* Short-term relief for caregivers. +* *Hospice Care:* Support services for those in the end stages of terminal illness (discussed more in Chapter 11). + +[.lead] +Payment Policies and Limitations + +Long-term care insurance policies usually pay benefits based on a daily or monthly maximum amount. They could also have a maximum lifetime benefit amount. These maximums may be adjusted based on the cost of living over time. + +Many policies are _expense-incurred_ policies. The insurer pays for actual services up to the policy’s daily or monthly maximum. + +Another type is an _indemnity_ or _per diem_ policy, which pays a set amount per day regardless of the actual expenses. + +[.lead] +Exclusions and Waiting Periods + +Exclusions are conditions or situations where the insurance will not provide coverage. For example, many long-term care insurance policies do not cover treatment for mental or nervous disorders, alcohol or drug addiction, or illness or injury caused by an act of war. + +Other exclusions may include treatment in a government facility or for a condition covered by workers’ compensation or Medicare. Waiting periods, also known as elimination periods, are the amount of time that must pass after filing a claim before the policy begins to pay out benefits. This could range from zero to one hundred days, and you’re generally responsible for all costs during this period. + +A longer waiting period can lower the premium, but it also means that you’ll need to cover more of the initial cost out-of-pocket. Ask plenty of clarifying questions before purchasing a longterm care insurance policy. Consulting with a trusted insurance professional or financial adviser can be helpful to navigate this complex decision. + +The monthly premium or cost of a long-term care insurance policy is going to vary with factors like age, health status, and coverage amount. It may be past the time that your loved one would benefit from purchasing a policy. But it could be quite helpful to have a policy for other family members, or even yourself in the future. + +Even with a long-term care policy in place, you may still incur out-of-pocket expenses, so it is important to know what is covered and find any gaps in coverage that remain. Purchasing long-term care insurance is usually recommended in your fifties or sixties. This is usually when people are still in good health and can qualify for a cheaper premium. But you are close enough to potentially needing to use the insurance to make it worthwhile. Purchasing in your thirties or forties is seen as too soon. You risk paying for decades longer than needed. + +Once you lock in your premium with a long-term care policy, the premiums will not increase based on your increasing age. But sometimes premiums increase for other reasons. Be sure to ask about what could cause an increase in premium. + +[.lead] +Navigating Dementia: Special Considerations for Long-Term Care + +Dementia deserves its own course or book, but it is important to touch on it here. Dementia is a broad term for declining mental capacity that interferes with daily life. It is usually first identified by declining memory and can progress to changes in thinking and behaviors. + +Alzheimer’s disease is the most common type of dementia. There are seven stages of dementia as classified in the Global Deterioration Scale (GDS): + +1. *No cognitive decline (normal functioning):* At this stage, there are no noticeable signs of dementia, and individuals can function independently. +2. *Very mild cognitive decline (age-related changes):* This stage is associated with normal forgetfulness related to aging, such as forgetting names and where familiar objects were left. It’s usually undetectable to medical professionals, and the person’s ability to work or live independently is not affected. +3. *Mild cognitive decline (early Alzheimer’s/mild cognitive impairment):* This stage includes increased forgetfulness, slight difficulty concentrating, and decreased work performance. People may get lost more frequently or have difficulty finding the right words. At this stage, a person’s difficulties may be noticeable to family members, but the individual may still be able to carry out normal activities and social interactions. +4. *Moderate cognitive decline (mild dementia):* This stage includes difficulty with simple arithmetic, poor short-term memory (may not recall what they ate for breakfast, for example), and inability to manage finances and perform complex tasks. Individuals may be in denial about their symptoms and start withdrawing from social interactions. +5. *Moderately severe cognitive decline (moderate dementia):* During this stage, people may need assistance with daily tasks, such as dressing and bathing. They may also suffer significant confusion or memory loss and may not remember details like their address or phone number. +6. *Severe cognitive decline (moderately severe dementia):* Memory continues to worsen, personality changes may occur, and people may need extensive help with daily activities. Individuals might forget the name of their spouse or caregiver, but usually still remember themselves and some details about their past. +7. *Very severe cognitive decline (severe dementia):* In the final stage, individuals may lose the ability to communicate or respond to their environment. They may fail to recognize loved ones and have difficulty with motor functions. Total care is required at this point for hygiene and safety. + +The first three stages are not that different from ordinary aging. The progressive decline may occur in someone younger than average, but with a little help and lists/reminders, people can usually live their lives and complete daily routines in a fairly normal fashion. + +Once progression to stage four occurs, your loved one will require assistance with IADLs such as driving and managing finances and medication. This assistance can usually be provided at home with some additional hours of care from you or a paid caregiver. + +Progression to stage five is going to require assistance with basic ADLs. This would include dressing, grooming, eating, and bathing. This level will likely require full-time care. It can be provided at home or in a memory care unit of an assisted living facility. + +Behaviors are important to watch here. If your loved one grows combative or begins wandering significantly, it may be time to look into that memory care unit. Once your loved one has transitioned to memory care, maintaining regular visits and communication is important. Your familiar voice and face will help ease the transition to a new location for your parent. Regular visits make sure your loved one is well cared for and allows you to advocate for their needs and preferences. + +Dementia is a progressive disease, and there is currently no cure. It is very hard to watch a loved one slowly lose their mental capacity. It brings up significant questions about our own future and health. Caregiver self-care is important to help us deal with the challenges our loved ones are facing. Refer to Chapter 8 for a deeper dive into this topic. + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Facility Visits:* Tour multiple long-term care facilities to gain firsthand insights into their environments, staffresident interactions, and cleanliness. +2. *Detailed Inquiry:* At each facility, ask about staffing ratios, available activities, emergency protocols, and resident care plan updates to ensure a consistent level of care. +3. *Insurance Consultation:* Before purchasing longterm care insurance, consult with a trusted insurance professional or financial adviser to understand the specifics, exclusions, and potential waiting periods. +4. *Understand Dementia Progression:* Familiarize yourself with the Global Deterioration Scale to recognize the stage of dementia your loved one may be in and to anticipate their evolving needs. +5. *Plan for Memory Care:* Anticipate the potential need for transitioning your loved one to a memory care unit or facility, especially if combative behavior or significant wandering becomes apparent. + +The journey of selecting a long-term care facility for a loved one is neither simple nor linear. It requires careful consideration, diligent research, and often, challenging decision-making. Yet, with the right knowledge and support, it is a journey that can be navigated with confidence and compassion. + +Remember, while this path is filled with complexities, you are not alone. Embrace each step with patience, seek support when needed, and cherish the moments of connection along the way. + +As we move to Chapter 11, we will take a look at end-of-life care. The role of advanced directives, what to expect with hospice care, and the process after death. This chapter is not just about preparing for the end but enriching the quality of every moment we have with our loved ones. It is about ensuring our care encompasses the physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being of our loved ones. + +== Chapter 11: A Caregiver’s Guide to Death and Dying + +In this crucial chapter, we take a look into the profound journey of end-of-life care. From confronting the sometimes-overwhelming realization of our loved ones nearing their end, to understanding the importance of preparing and having critical documents in place, this chapter seeks to guide caregivers through this emotionally taxing period. + +We will introduce you to the roles of various professionals like hospice caregivers and bereavement navigators, shed light on the intricacies of managing the aftermath of a loved one’s passing, and provide insights into the winding paths of grief and acceptance. It is a comprehensive look at preparing, dealing, and healing during this final caregiving phase. + +[.lead] +Understanding and Preparing for End-of-Life Care + +End-of-life care can refer to the physical care a person needs as they near the end, but it also should include some planning for this near-death stage before the time has come. Advanced directives are documents that should be prepared ahead of time to clearly state the wishes and desires of your loved one and to give someone other than them the power to make decisions if they are unable to make them independently. + +It seems to be part of the human condition that no one wants to think about the end. We put things off and act like our loved ones will never die. We know this is obviously false, but that is the normal way to handle things. We have to break out of this failed line of thinking. It is important to get things in order, to honor our loved ones by knowing their wishes and respecting them. Things get overlooked and mixed up when legal documentation does not make these things clear. + +There is no easy way to have the discussion about end-of-life care. Bring the topic up and let your parent know that there are a few items that need to be discussed. This may take them by surprise, so give them some time to let it sink in. + +Let them know that a living will and a healthcare proxy or a durable power of attorney for healthcare will be needed. Also provide the option for them to write down their responses. If they choose to write instead of talk, provide a framework of questions for them to answer. + +When they are ready, they will need to write down their decisions. If they are unable to do so, someone can write it for them and have it notarized. This allows your loved one to clarify their wishes so everyone can understand them. + +This may be a difficult and dark conversation. The good news is once the decisions have been made, they do not have to be readdressed very often. Although it is a good idea to check back in yearly and confirm their wishes are still the same. + +This process will likely bring up uncomfortable feelings and emotions in you as well. This is normal. It may be a good idea to plan some caregiver self-care time following this conversation. This will allow you a little space to process the difficult time ahead. It will also help you to appreciate the time you have remaining. + +[.lead] +Living Will and Power of Attorney + +I don’t know about you, but most of the elderly folks I deal with on a regular basis are quite particular about certain things. One of the most particular was a lady we will call Fae who I had the opportunity of working with a few times over the years. She would have a decline in function and require skilled physical therapy services to get back to walking and getting around like she desired. + +She was generally willing to participate with PT on the condition that she could bring her cup of water. Well, many conditions actually, but all related to her cup of water. This cup required its own special place at a table beside her wheelchair. Before walking, she would stand up and take a sip of the water. Not unreasonable. But instead of swallowing the water, she would hold it in her mouth the entire time she was walking. She would reach her destination, swallow, and sit down. After attempted education related to aspiration went nowhere, this became part of our routine for therapy. + +Then, one day in my haste to get therapy going, I knocked over the table her precious cup of water was sitting on. She screamed out like she had been assaulted and wouldn’t speak to me or work with me for a week! Eventually we worked things out and were able to resume therapy services with the understanding that I was not to come anywhere near her cup of water again. + +Not everyone is that particular about everything, but it is important to understand the wishes and desires of our loved ones. Get them written down in a legal document and make sure there is someone in place to see that those wishes are followed. A living will is a legal document that specifies the desires of someone if they are unable to communicate their wishes on their own. + +It is primarily for end-of-life medical care and should include decisions about life-prolonging measures such as artificial respiration or intravenous hydration. It should also include decisions about pain management and organ donation. + +This document only goes into effect when your loved one is terminally ill or permanently unconscious and cannot communicate their wishes. A durable power of attorney for healthcare (POA) or a healthcare proxy is a directive that gives power to the _agent_ or caregiver to make healthcare decisions for the _principal_, your loved one, in the event they are unable to do so. This is a large responsibility, and it’s not for everyone. Consider this before accepting the role. + +These directives are designed to offer clarity for the medical team caring for your loved one and to reduce the bickering and infighting that can often be associated with families struggling to cope with the pending loss of a loved one. + +There are many services that will draw up a living will and POA for you to simplify this process. A quick internet search of _living will in Georgia_, for example, will provide you with numerous options. You can also ask friends and family if and how they had a living will drawn up. + +[.lead] +The Role of Hospice Care + +Hospice care is end-of-life care for our loved ones. The goal is to improve the quality of life for our loved one as they are dying. Reducing pain and stress are the main goals. Lifesaving or prolonging measures are no longer utilized while under hospice care. + +Hospice care is recommended when it is thought that your loved one is in the last six months of their life, and a physician will have to sign off on this being the case. This may be due to age and debility, an incurable disease, or other medical conditions. + +Hospice can be provided in their home, hospital, long-term acute care, a skilled nursing facility, or in a hospice center. The hospice team includes doctors, nurses, home health aides, social workers, clergy or other spiritual counselors, trained volunteers, and speech, physical, and occupational therapists if needed. This interdisciplinary team works to manage the patient’s pain and symptoms and assist with the emotional, psychosocial, and spiritual aspects of dying. The team also coaches the family on how to care for the patient and provides bereavement counseling to the family. + +It’s important to note that the focus of hospice is on caring, not curing. This means the goal is to make the patient comfortable and ease their symptoms, rather than trying to cure the underlying disease. So if needed, the physical therapist would focus on positioning to reduce pain and skin breakdown. Education of family for techniques to prevent injury of caregivers would also likely be beneficial. The therapy would not be focused on improving mobility or return to function. + +The core philosophy of hospice care is to affirm life and regard dying as a normal process while offering a holistic approach to treatment. That includes support for the patient’s physical, emotional, and spiritual needs. + +[.lead] +When is it time for hospice care? + +The answer is, it is hard to know. It often feels like accepting hospice is a death sentence for our loved ones, and we tend to avoid it longer than maybe we should. When the medical care necessary to try to help your loved one return to function or health isn’t working or your loved one expresses a desire to stop the seemingly endless medical interventions, it may be time to consider hospice. + +Hospice care should not be taken lightly, and you and your loved one should take time to consider the outcomes, but there is a time and a place for hospice care. When my mother reached the point that hospice was necessary, they provided hospice services in our home. A hospital bed and bedside commode were delivered, and a nurse came to the house to do the initial assessment. Pain management medication was provided as well as other things to make her more comfortable. She received a visit from the nurse and home care aide a couple of times per week initially, and then more frequently as her condition became worse. + +The aides were very helpful for changing, bathing, and positioning, but even when they were coming daily, there were still twenty-three hours per day that they were not present. We were not needed every minute of every hour since she slept a lot, but we were needed consistently and often throughout a twenty-four-hour period for repositioning, changing, feeding, tooth brushing, grooming, and comforting. Having the hospice team involved was very helpful, and it takes a special group of people to care for the dying. + +The team we worked with genuinely cared for my mother, and a few came to her funeral. It was much-needed help during a very challenging time for our family. + +[.lead] +The Process After Death + +Bereavement navigators, often part of the hospice team, are professionals trained in guiding families through the practical and emotional complexities following the death of a loved one. They can provide guidance, support, and necessary resources. Their roles often include offering grief counseling, assisting with paperwork, providing resources for dealing with the estate and funerals, and helping families understand and navigate the mourning process. + +Bereavement navigators provide ongoing support. Depending on the individual or family needs, this can range from a few months to over a year after the death. The first action to take after the passing of a loved one typically includes notifying family and friends. Bereavement navigators can offer guidance on how to share the news and support you during this difficult time. + +Critical institutions such as life insurance companies, banks, and social security need to be notified as well. This can be an overwhelming task, but a bereavement navigator can help prioritize these tasks and provide guidance on what to say and the documentation needed. Depending on the deceased’s wishes or cultural practices, arrangements for organ or body donation may need immediate attention. + +Next up is funeral and memorial services planning. Bereavement navigators can provide valuable support in planning a funeral or memorial service. From understanding the deceased’s wishes, if known, to providing options and contacts for funeral homes, to supporting the family in making decisions about the service. They can also assist with understanding the costs associated with various options and help with paperwork related to funeral arrangements. + +[.lead] +Handling the Estate and Legal Matters + +After the funeral, attention turns to settling the deceased’s estate, which can involve probate (the legal process of transferring assets), executing the will, or dealing with any debts left behind. Navigators can provide resources and referrals for legal assistance and help families understand this process. + +Navigators also assist in identifying and contacting relevant organizations and institutions (like banks, insurance companies, utility providers, and landlords) to close accounts or transfer services. + +[.lead] +Navigating Grief and Moving Forward + +If help is needed with emotional support and coping, bereavement navigators are trained to provide emotional support and help people navigate their grief. They can help families understand the range of emotions they might experience, from sadness and anger to guilt and relief, and reassure them that these are normal parts of the grieving process. They can provide resources for further support, such as recommending grief counselors, therapists, or support groups for ongoing assistance. + +Some navigators can also offer strategies for self-care and coping mechanisms, and help families find ways to remember and honor their loved one. It’s essential to understand that every person’s grief is unique, and there’s no right or wrong way to grieve. + +Bereavement navigators can help you navigate your unique journey through loss and bereavement. The widely accepted five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. These stages don’t necessarily occur in order, and some people might not experience all of them. + +* *Denial is a defense mechanism* that buffers the immediate shock of the loss, carrying us through the first wave of pain. +* *Anger might be directed toward oneself*, others, or higher powers, questioning the fairness of the loss. +* *Bargaining often involves _if only_ statements*, imagining different scenarios where the loved one could have survived. +* *Depression is a deeply personal stage*, representing the emptiness we feel when we begin to accept the loss. +* *Acceptance is not about being okay with the loss* but rather acknowledging the reality and trying to move forward. + +Grief can also be complicated. If it becomes a chronic and debilitating form of grief, it may require professional help. Healthy grieving involves giving yourself permission to feel and express the full range of emotions associated with the loss, without judgment or guilt. It’s about seeking out others who can offer support, such as friends, family, or support groups. + +Remember, it’s okay to laugh and find moments of joy amid the grief. Engaging in self-care is essential—maintaining a balanced diet, exercising regularly, ensuring adequate sleep, and avoiding alcohol or drugs, which can intensify feelings of despair. + +Be aware of the signs that suggest the need for professional help, such as persistent feelings of hopelessness, difficulty performing daily tasks, intense guilt over the death, or thoughts of suicide. Reach out to a mental health professional if these symptoms persist. + +The death of a loved one changes your life forever. After sevenplus years, not a day goes by that I don’t miss my mom. But I can say, it does get better. Life goes on. I have a beautiful daughter named after my mom who helps me remember the thirty years I had with her. Remember the good times. + +Moving forward is not about forgetting the person who died but finding a way to honor their memory while continuing to live your own life. You can honor their memory through various means, such as sharing stories about them, creating a memorial or tribute, or carrying on traditions they loved. + +Adjusting to life without the loved one takes time. Be patient with yourself as you navigate this new normal. It’s essential to continue self-care and seek support when needed, whether that’s through friends and family, a support group, or professional counseling. + +Remember, it’s okay to move on. It’s not about leaving your loved one behind but learning to live with the love and memory of them inside you. It’s okay to feel happiness and joy again, and it’s okay to love again. There’s no timeline for grieving, and everyone’s journey is different. Your journey is yours, and it’s okay to move at your own pace. + +[.lead] +Most Important Next Steps + +1. *Initiate Conversations Early:* Don’t wait for the critical moment. Begin discussing end-of-life wishes and preferences with your loved one while they are still in a position to communicate and make decisions. +2. *Legal Preparations:* Ensure that a living will and a power of attorney (POA) for healthcare are prepared and updated, capturing the exact wishes of your loved one. +3. *Consider Hospice Care:* Recognize when it might be time to transition to hospice care, focusing on comfort and quality of life rather than treatment. +4. *Seek Professional Guidance:* Engage with bereavement navigators or other professionals trained to guide and support families through the complexities of grief and post-death responsibilities. +5. *Organize After-Death Responsibilities:* Prepare for the practicalities following a loved one’s passing, such as notifying institutions, arranging funeral services, and handling estate matters. +6. *Prioritize Self-Care:* As a caregiver, don’t neglect your mental and emotional well-being. Consider seeking out grief counseling or joining a support group to navigate your feelings and emotions. +7. *Celebrate Memories:* As time goes on, find ways to honor and remember your loved one, cherishing the moments and experiences you shared. + +Navigating the territory of end-of-life care can be one of the most emotionally draining and challenging experiences for a caregiver. Yet, with preparation, understanding, and the right support, this journey can also be one of profound love, reflection, and acceptance. + +While the void left behind by a loved one can never truly be filled, caregivers can find solace in honoring their memories, cherishing shared moments, and moving forward with their lives, carrying the imprint of their loved ones in their hearts. In the circle of life, it’s not about the ending but about new beginnings and finding meaning in every phase. Remember, as you walk this path, you are not alone, and there’s a world of support waiting to guide and hold you. + +== Postface + +image::https://i.nostr.build/UWuxZjxQkeSRjyCU.png[cover page, 300] + +== Conclusion: Embracing the Journey + +The hardest part of becoming a caregiver is the fact that this is uncharted territory. While this book is designed to be guiderails for you along this journey, everyone’s path will be different. Each of you are different, and your relationship with your loved one is different. Think of this like bumpers in a bowling lane. They don’t guarantee a strike, but they do help the ball keep moving closer and closer to the pins. + +As stressful as it is to suddenly realize your loved one needs significant help to stay safe at home, it is even harder to be the elder in this situation. They have likely felt a slow decline for years, and that is emotionally draining. They may have outlived many of their friends and loved ones, and that is taxing to the soul. They certainly want to keep as much of their independence and agency as possible. But they also likely understand that they do need help with certain things, even if they refuse to admit it. + +Try to keep their perspective in mind. When tough decisions have to be made, have a gentle and understanding conversation. Let them participate in the decision-making and let them lead it if they are able. This encourages autonomy while also allowing them the opportunity to accept help. + +Be sure to celebrate joys and achievements along the way. Honor their wisdom and experience. The goal is to help them maintain their dignity, quality of life, and as much autonomy as possible. Accepting help is hard. They may feel it is an admission of their limitations. + +Be kind to yourself as well. While you are asking your parent to accept help, look at ways you can accept help as well. You don’t have to do everything on your own. It is impossible to be a perfect caregiver, child, spouse, sibling, parent, employee, and any of the one hundred other roles you are filling. + +Give yourself some grace. Little by little and step by step is the way things get better. Try to find the bright side of things and the humor in challenging situations. Remember, you tend to find what you are looking for. Thank you for taking the time to read this book. I hope it helps you with the many challenges of navigating the healthcare system and helping our loved ones age in place. + +== Acknowledgments + +I would first like to acknowledge my wife, Kaitlin. You have helped progress this book in countless ways. From encouraging me, to reading early drafts filled with typos and grammatical errors, to taking the girls out of the house to allow me a few hours to work on this book when deadlines are near. Thank you. I love you and would not have accomplished this without you. + +To my daughters and their grandparents, thank you for allowing me the time and space to work on this book. I believe this process will eventually lead to more time with each of you, which is the purpose of this endeavor. + +Dr. Salazar, thank you for your guidance and attention over the years. Walton Rehab was truly a wonderful place to start my career. I was fortunate to have you as a mentor and influence. Your grace under pressure and dedication to the important over the urgent give me something to continue to work toward. Aaron Hasten, I am so grateful to have grown from employee to friend bordering on family. You showed me what being a leader looks like when I was starting my career as a PT. Your stability and dedication to family is inspiring, and I look forward to further strengthening our families’ ties. + +I want to say thank you to my final clinical instructor when I was a student so many years ago, Mildred Nelson. You had more of an impact on me than you know. Thank you for the years of knowledge and guidance after we became coworkers. You helped me recognize when I had put my foot in my mouth and how to navigate healthcare as a profession. + +To all my coworkers and former coworkers, thank you for what you do every day for our patients. Working in healthcare can often feel thankless, and the burnout rate is high. Thank you for all you do to help the people in your care. + +I need to say thank you to Herlene Somook. Your help with https://www.KeepMomSafeAtHome.com for years is the main reason that project still exists and continues to grow. I look forward to working with you again in the future. + +To my coach at self-publishing school, Karen Pina, thank you. Your skill in navigating the self-publishing journey has been helpful for me to get to this point. I look forward to more wisdom as we approach a book launch. + +My editor, Carly Catt, thank you for your help to date. Thank you for your wisdom, organization, big-picture view, and skill with developing a book worth reading. + +To the East Coast Pod: You know who you are. Thank you for your weekly accountability, your critical eye, your desire for us each to be better. Thank you each individually for your support and your specific areas of expertise. I appreciate you all and am better than I would be because of you. + +== Author Bio + +Winn Merwin is a Doctor of Physical Therapy. He has spent the last ten years working with the elderly and their accidental caregivers. He is grateful to get to spend so much time learning from as well as helping the geriatric population. His gift is connecting with the elderly, especially the _difficult_ ones. And his desire is to help people age in place with grace, to help them stay out of the medical system for as long as possible. This improves quality of life and maximizes the time we have with our loved ones. + +Winn is a proud husband and father of two beautiful daughters. They live in the northeast Atlanta suburbs and enjoy traveling as a family and spending time at home with their dog, Maggie. + +== Book Blurb + +Welcome to _The Accidental Caregiver’s Guide_, a transformative guide for those unexpectedly thrust into the role of caring for an aging loved one. Authored by an experienced Doctor of Physical Therapy, this book is more than a manual; it’s a beacon of hope and clarity in the complex world of caregiving. With over a decade of professional and personal experience in geriatric care, the author shares invaluable insights, turning daunting challenges into manageable tasks. + +This comprehensive guide leads you through every step of the caregiving journey. From recognizing the initial need for assistance to mastering the intricacies of the healthcare system and creating a safe haven for aging in place, this book is your unwavering companion. It’s filled with practical, actionable advice, empowering you to ensure the well-being of your loved one while safeguarding your own peace of mind. + +_The Accidental Caregiver’s Guide_ is more than just a caregiving manual; it’s a testament to the transformative power of compassionate care. By applying the strategies within, you stand to save significantly, extending quality time and comfort for your loved one at home. + +Your caregiving experience is a hidden gem, an opportunity to gain invaluable insights for your own future. Don’t let uncertainty and stress dictate another day. Open this book and step confidently into your role as a compassionate caregiver and a forward-looking individual ready to embrace life’s lessons. + +== Don’t Forget Your Free Gift! + +To get the best experience with this book, I’ve found readers who download and use _The Accidental Caregiver’s Guide Workbook_ are able to implement faster and take the next steps needed to help their loved one navigate the medical system and get back home to safely age in place. They see improved quality of life with reduced stress for themselves and their loved one. + +image::https://i.nostr.build/npUxzYB1re8zjszs.png[free workbook, 300] + +[INFO] +==== +You can get a copy by visiting: https://www.KeepMomSafeAtHome.com/workbook +==== + +== Urgent Plea! + +[.lead] +Thank You for Reading My Book! + +I really appreciate all of your feedback and I +love hearing what you have to say. I need your +input to make the next version of this book +and my future books better. + +Please take two minutes now to leave a helpful +review on Amazon letting me know what you +thought of the book: + +https://KeepMomSafeAtHome.com/review + +Thanks so much! + +—Winn + +image::https://i.nostr.build/uVy9rjFQD81L3XiQ.png[author, 200] \ No newline at end of file diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/bitcoin-whitepaper_Preface.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/bitcoin-whitepaper_Preface.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..0ce2d93 --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/bitcoin-whitepaper_Preface.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,395 @@ += Bitcoin: A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System + +== Abstract + +A purely peer-to-peer version of electronic cash would allow online payments to be sent directly from one party to another without going through a financial institution. Digital signatures provide part of the solution, but the main benefits are lost if a trusted third party is still required to prevent double-spending. We propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer network. The network timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof-of-work, forming a record that cannot be changed without redoing the proof-of-work. The longest chain not only serves as proof of the sequence of events witnessed, but proof that it came from the largest pool of CPU power. As long as a majority of CPU power is controlled by nodes that are not cooperating to attack the network, they'll generate the longest chain and outpace attackers. The network itself requires minimal structure. Messages are broadcast on a best effort basis, and nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the longest proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone. + +== 1. Introduction + +Commerce on the Internet has come to rely almost exclusively on financial institutions serving as trusted third parties to process electronic payments. While the system works well enough for most transactions, it still suffers from the inherent weaknesses of the trust based model. Completely non-reversible transactions are not really possible, since financial institutions cannot avoid mediating disputes. The cost of mediation increases transaction costs, limiting the minimum practical transaction size and cutting off the possibility for small casual transactions, and there is a broader cost in the loss of ability to make non-reversible payments for non-reversible services. With the possibility of reversal, the need for trust spreads. Merchants must be wary of their customers, hassling them for more information than they would otherwise need. A certain percentage of fraud is accepted as unavoidable. These costs and payment uncertainties can be avoided in person by using physical currency, but no mechanism exists to make payments over a communications channel without a trusted party. + +What is needed is an electronic payment system based on cryptographic proof instead of trust, allowing any two willing parties to transact directly with each other without the need for a trusted third party. Transactions that are computationally impractical to reverse would protect sellers from fraud, and routine escrow mechanisms could easily be implemented to protect buyers. In this paper, we propose a solution to the double-spending problem using a peer-to-peer distributed timestamp server to generate computational proof of the chronological order of transactions. The system is secure as long as honest nodes collectively control more CPU power than any cooperating group of attacker nodes. + +== 2. Transactions + +We define an electronic coin as a chain of digital signatures. Each owner transfers the coin to the next by digitally signing a hash of the previous transaction and the public key of the next owner and adding these to the end of the coin. A payee can verify the signatures to verify the chain of ownership. + +[source] +---- + ┌─────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐ ┌─────────────────────┐ + │ │ │ │ │ │ + │ Transaction │ │ Transaction │ │ Transaction │ + │ │ │ │ │ │ + │ ┌─────────────┐ │ │ ┌─────────────┐ │ │ ┌─────────────┐ │ + │ │ Owner 1's │ │ │ │ Owner 2's │ │ │ │ Owner 3's │ │ + │ │ Public Key │ │ │ │ Public Key │ │ │ │ Public Key │ │ + │ └───────┬─────┘ │ │ └───────┬─────┘ │ │ └───────┬─────┘ │ + │ │ . │ │ │ . │ │ │ │ +──────┼─────────┐ │ . ├───────────────┼─────────┐ │ . ├──────────────┼─────────┐ │ │ + │ │ │ . │ │ │ │ . │ │ │ │ │ + │ ┌──▼─▼──┐ . │ │ ┌──▼─▼──┐ . │ │ ┌──▼─▼──┐ │ + │ │ Hash │ . │ │ │ Hash │ . │ │ │ Hash │ │ + │ └───┬───┘ . │ Verify │ └───┬───┘ . │ Verify │ └───┬───┘ │ + │ │ ............................ │ ........................... │ │ + │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ + │ ┌──────▼──────┐ │ │ ┌─▼────▼──────┐ │ │ ┌─▼────▼──────┐ │ + │ │ Owner 0's │ │ Sign │ │ Owner 1's │ │ Sign │ │ Owner 2's │ │ + │ │ Signature │ │ ...........─►│ Signature │ │ ...........─►│ Signature │ │ + │ └─────────────┘ │ . │ └─────────────┘ │ . │ └─────────────┘ │ + │ │ . │ │ . │ │ + └─────────────────────┘ . └─────────────────────┘ . └─────────────────────┘ + . . + ┌─────────────┐ . ┌─────────────┐ . ┌─────────────┐ + │ Owner 1's │........... │ Owner 2's │.......... │ Owner 3's │ + │ Private Key │ │ Private Key │ │ Private Key │ + └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘ └─────────────┘ +---- + +The problem of course is the payee can't verify that one of the owners did not double-spend the coin. A common solution is to introduce a trusted central authority, or mint, that checks every transaction for double spending. After each transaction, the coin must be returned to the mint to issue a new coin, and only coins issued directly from the mint are trusted not to be double-spent. The problem with this solution is that the fate of the entire money system depends on the company running the mint, with every transaction having to go through them, just like a bank. + +We need a way for the payee to know that the previous owners did not sign any earlier transactions. For our purposes, the earliest transaction is the one that counts, so we don't care about later attempts to double-spend. The only way to confirm the absence of a transaction is to be aware of all transactions. In the mint based model, the mint was aware of all transactions and decided which arrived first. To accomplish this without a trusted party, transactions must be publicly announcedfootnote:B-Money[W. Dai, "b-money," http://www.weidai.com/bmoney.txt, 1998.], and we need a system for participants to agree on a single history of the order in which they were received. The payee needs proof that at the time of each transaction, the majority of nodes agreed it was the first received. + +== 3. Timestamp Server + +The solution we propose begins with a timestamp server. A timestamp server works by taking a hash of a block of items to be timestamped and widely publishing the hash, such as in a newspaper or Usenet postfootnote:Design[H. Massias, X.S. Avila, and J.-J. Quisquater, "Design of a secure timestamping service with minimal +trust requirements," In 20th Symposium on Information Theory in the Benelux, May 1999.]footnote:How-to[S. Haber, W.S. Stornetta, "How to time-stamp a digital document," In Journal of Cryptology, vol 3, no 2, pages 99-111, 1991.]footnote:Improving[D. Bayer, S. Haber, W.S. Stornetta, "Improving the efficiency and reliability of digital time-stamping", In Sequences II: Methods in Communication, Security and Computer Science, pages 329-334, 1993.]footnote:Secure[S. Haber, W.S. Stornetta, "Secure names for bit-strings," In Proceedings of the 4th ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, pages 28-35, April 1997.]. The timestamp proves that the data must have existed at the time, obviously, in order to get into the hash. Each timestamp includes the previous timestamp in its hash, forming a chain, with each additional timestamp reinforcing the ones before it. + +[source] +---- + ┌──────┐ ┌──────┐ +────────────►│ ├───────────────────────►│ ├───────────────────► + │ Hash │ │ Hash │ + ┌───►│ │ ┌───►│ │ + │ └──────┘ │ └──────┘ + │ │ + ┌┴──────────────────────────┐ ┌┴──────────────────────────┐ + │ Block │ │ Block │ + │ ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ │ │ ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ │ + │ │Item │ │Item │ │... │ │ │ │Item │ │Item │ │... │ │ + │ └─────┘ └─────┘ └─────┘ │ │ └─────┘ └─────┘ └─────┘ │ + │ │ │ │ + └───────────────────────────┘ └───────────────────────────┘ +---- + +== 4. Proof-of-Work + +To implement a distributed timestamp server on a peer-to-peer basis, we will need to use a proof-of-work system similar to Adam Back's Hashcashfootnote:Hashcash[A. Back, "Hashcash - a denial of service counter-measure", http://www.hashcash.org/papers/hashcash.pdf, 2002.], rather than newspaper or Usenet posts. The proof-of-work involves scanning for a value that when hashed, such as with SHA-256, the hash begins with a number of zero bits. The average work required is exponential in the number of zero bits required and can be verified by executing a single hash. + +For our timestamp network, we implement the proof-of-work by incrementing a nonce in the block until a value is found that gives the block's hash the required zero bits. Once the CPU effort has been expended to make it satisfy the proof-of-work, the block cannot be changed without redoing the work. As later blocks are chained after it, the work to change the block would include redoing all the blocks after it. + +[source] +---- + ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐ + │ Block │ │ Block │ + │ ┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │ │ ┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │ +───────┼─►│ Prev Hash │ │ Nonce │ ├──────┼─►│ Prev Hash │ │ Nonce │ │ + │ └──────────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ │ └──────────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ + │ │ │ │ + │ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ │ │ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ ┌──────────┐ │ + │ │ Tx │ │ Tx │ │ ... │ │ │ │ Tx │ │ Tx │ │ ... │ │ + │ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ │ │ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ └──────────┘ │ + │ │ │ │ + └────────────────────────────────────────┘ └────────────────────────────────────────┘ +---- + +The proof-of-work also solves the problem of determining representation in majority decision making. If the majority were based on one-IP-address-one-vote, it could be subverted by anyone able to allocate many IPs. Proof-of-work is essentially one-CPU-one-vote. The majority decision is represented by the longest chain, which has the greatest proof-of-work effort invested in it. If a majority of CPU power is controlled by honest nodes, the honest chain will grow the fastest and outpace any competing chains. To modify a past block, an attacker would have to redo the proof-of-work of the block and all blocks after it and then catch up with and surpass the work of the honest nodes. We will show later that the probability of a slower attacker catching up diminishes exponentially as subsequent blocks are added. + +To compensate for increasing hardware speed and varying interest in running nodes over time, the proof-of-work difficulty is determined by a moving average targeting an average number of blocks per hour. If they're generated too fast, the difficulty increases. + +== 5. Network + +The steps to run the network are as follows: + +. New transactions are broadcast to all nodes. +. Each node collects new transactions into a block. +. Each node works on finding a difficult proof-of-work for its block. +. When a node finds a proof-of-work, it broadcasts the block to all nodes. +. Nodes accept the block only if all transactions in it are valid and not already spent. +. Nodes express their acceptance of the block by working on creating the next block in the chain, using the hash of the accepted block as the previous hash. + +Nodes always consider the longest chain to be the correct one and will keep working on extending it. If two nodes broadcast different versions of the next block simultaneously, some nodes may receive one or the other first. In that case, they work on the first one they received, but save the other branch in case it becomes longer. The tie will be broken when the next proof-of-work is found and one branch becomes longer; the nodes that were working on the other branch will then switch to the longer one. + +New transaction broadcasts do not necessarily need to reach all nodes. As long as they reach many nodes, they will get into a block before long. Block broadcasts are also tolerant of dropped messages. If a node does not receive a block, it will request it when it receives the next block and realizes it missed one. + +== 6. Incentive + +By convention, the first transaction in a block is a special transaction that starts a new coin owned by the creator of the block. This adds an incentive for nodes to support the network, and provides a way to initially distribute coins into circulation, since there is no central authority to issue them. The steady addition of a constant of amount of new coins is analogous to gold miners expending resources to add gold to circulation. In our case, it is CPU time and electricity that is expended. + +The incentive can also be funded with transaction fees. If the output value of a transaction is less than its input value, the difference is a transaction fee that is added to the incentive value of the block containing the transaction. Once a predetermined number of coins have entered circulation, the incentive can transition entirely to transaction fees and be completely inflation free. + +The incentive may help encourage nodes to stay honest. If a greedy attacker is able to assemble more CPU power than all the honest nodes, he would have to choose between using it to defraud people by stealing back his payments, or using it to generate new coins. He ought to find it more profitable to play by the rules, such rules that favour him with more new coins than everyone else combined, than to undermine the system and the validity of his own wealth. + +== 7. Reclaiming Disk Space + +Once the latest transaction in a coin is buried under enough blocks, the spent transactions before it can be discarded to save disk space. To facilitate this without breaking the block's hash, transactions are hashed in a Merkle Treefootnote:Protocols[R.C. Merkle, "Protocols for public key cryptosystems," In Proc. 1980 Symposium on Security and Privacy, IEEE Computer Society, pages 122-133, April 1980.]footnote:Design[H. Massias, X.S. Avila, and J.-J. Quisquater, "Design of a secure timestamping service with minimal trust requirements," In 20th Symposium on Information Theory in the Benelux, May 1999.]footnote:Secure[S. Haber, W.S. Stornetta, "Secure names for bit-strings," In Proceedings of the 4th ACM Conference +on Computer and Communications Security, pages 28-35, April 1997.], with only the root included in the block's hash. Old blocks can then be compacted by stubbing off branches of the tree. The interior hashes do not need to be stored. + +[source] +---- +┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────────────────────────────┐ +│ │ │ │ +│ Block ┌─────────────────────────────┐ │ │ Block ┌─────────────────────────────┐ │ +│ │ Block Header (Block Hash) │ │ │ │ Block Header (Block Hash) │ │ +│ │ ┌────────────┐ ┌─────────┐ │ │ │ │ ┌────────────┐ ┌─────────┐ │ │ +│ │ │ Prev Hash │ │ Nonce │ │ │ │ │ │ Prev Hash │ │ Nonce │ │ │ +│ │ └────────────┘ └─────────┘ │ │ │ │ └────────────┘ └─────────┘ │ │ +│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ +│ │ ┌─────────────┐ │ │ │ │ ┌─────────────┐ │ │ +│ │ │ Root Hash │ │ │ │ │ │ Root Hash │ │ │ +│ │ └─────▲─▲─────┘ │ │ │ │ └─────▲─▲─────┘ │ │ +│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ +│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ +│ └───────────┼─┼───────────────┘ │ │ └───────────┼─┼───────────────┘ │ +│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ +│ .......... │ │ .......... │ │ ┌────────┐ │ │ .......... │ +│ . ─────┘ └─────. . │ │ │ ├────┘ └─────. . │ +│ . Hash01 . . Hash23 . │ │ │ Hash01 │ . Hash23 . │ +│ .▲.....▲.. .▲.....▲.. │ │ │ │ .▲.....▲.. │ +│ │ │ │ │ │ │ └────────┘ │ │ │ +│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ +│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ +│ .....│.. ..│..... .....│.. ..│..... │ │ ┌────┴─┐ ..│..... │ +│ . . . . . . . . │ │ │ │ . . │ +│ .Hash0 . .Hash1 . .Hash2 . .Hash3 . │ │ │Hash2 │ .Hash3 . │ +│ ...▲.... ...▲.... ...▲.... ...▲.... │ │ │ │ . . │ +│ │ │ │ │ │ │ └──────┘ ...▲.... │ +│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ +│ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ +│ ┌──┴───┐ ┌──┴───┐ ┌──┴───┐ ┌──┴───┐ │ │ ┌──┴───┐ │ +│ │ Tx0 │ │ Tx1 │ │ Tx2 │ │ Tx3 │ │ │ │ Tx3 │ │ +│ └──────┘ └──────┘ └──────┘ └──────┘ │ │ └──────┘ │ +│ │ │ │ +└──────────────────────────────────────────┘ └──────────────────────────────────────────┘ + Transactions Hashed in a Merkle Tree After Pruning Tx0-2 from the Block +---- + +A block header with no transactions would be about 80 bytes. If we suppose blocks are generated every 10 minutes, 80 bytes * 6 * 24 * 365 = 4.2MB per year. With computer systems typically selling with 2GB of RAM as of 2008, and Moore's Law predicting current growth of 1.2GB per year, storage should not be a problem even if the block headers must be kept in memory. + +== 8. Simplified Payment Verification + +It is possible to verify payments without running a full network node. A user only needs to keep a copy of the block headers of the longest proof-of-work chain, which he can get by querying network nodes until he's convinced he has the longest chain, and obtain the Merkle branch linking the transaction to the block it's timestamped in. He can't check the transaction for himself, but by linking it to a place in the chain, he can see that a network node has accepted it, and blocks added after it further confirm the network has accepted it. + +[source] +---- + Longest Proof-of-Work Chain + ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐ ┌────────────────────────────────────────┐ + │ Block Header │ │ Block Header │ │ Block Header │ + │ ┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │ │ ┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │ │ ┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │ + ───────┼─►│ Prev Hash │ │ Nonce │ ├──────┼─►│ Prev Hash │ │ Nonce │ ├───────┼─►│ Prev Hash │ │ Nonce │ ├────────► + │ └──────────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ │ └──────────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ │ └──────────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ + │ │ │ │ │ │ + │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ │ ┌────────────────────┐ │ │ ┌───────────────────┐ │ + │ │ Merkle Root │ │ │ │ Merkle Root │ │ │ │ Merkle Root │ │ + │ └───────────────────┘ │ │ └────────▲─▲─────────┘ │ │ └───────────────────┘ │ + │ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ + └────────────────────────────────────────┘ └─────────────┼─┼────────────────────────┘ └────────────────────────────────────────┘ + │ │ + │ │ + ┌────────┐ │ │ .......... + │ ├────┘ └─────. . + │ Hash01 │ . Hash23 . + │ │ .▲.....▲.. + └────────┘ │ │ + │ │ + │ │ Merkle Branch for Tx3 + │ │ + ┌─────┴─┐ ..│..... + │ │ . . + │ Hash2 │ .Hash3 . + │ │ . . + └───────┘ ...▲.... + │ + │ + ┌───┴───┐ + │ Tx3 │ + └───────┘ +---- + +As such, the verification is reliable as long as honest nodes control the network, but is more vulnerable if the network is overpowered by an attacker. While network nodes can verify transactions for themselves, the simplified method can be fooled by an attacker's fabricated transactions for as long as the attacker can continue to overpower the network. One strategy to protect against this would be to accept alerts from network nodes when they detect an invalid block, prompting the user's software to download the full block and alerted transactions to confirm the inconsistency. Businesses that receive frequent payments will probably still want to run their own nodes for more independent security and quicker verification. + +== 9. Combining and Splitting Value + +Although it would be possible to handle coins individually, it would be unwieldy to make a separate transaction for every cent in a transfer. To allow value to be split and combined, transactions contain multiple inputs and outputs. Normally there will be either a single input from a larger previous transaction or multiple inputs combining smaller amounts, and at most two outputs: one for the payment, and one returning the change, if any, back to the sender. + +[source] +---- + ┌──────────────────────┐ + │ Transaction │ + │ │ + │ ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ │ +─────┼──►│ in │ │ out │ ──┼─────► + │ └─────┘ └─────┘ │ + │ │ + │ │ + │ ┌─────┐ ┌─────┐ │ +─────┼──►│ in │ │ ... │ ──┼─────► + │ └─────┘ └─────┘ │ + │ │ + │ │ + │ ┌─────┐ │ +─────┼──►│... │ │ + │ └─────┘ │ + │ │ + └──────────────────────┘ +---- + +It should be noted that fan-out, where a transaction depends on several transactions, and those transactions depend on many more, is not a problem here. There is never the need to extract a complete standalone copy of a transaction's history. + +== 10. Privacy + +The traditional banking model achieves a level of privacy by limiting access to information to the parties involved and the trusted third party. The necessity to announce all transactions publicly precludes this method, but privacy can still be maintained by breaking the flow of information in another place: by keeping public keys anonymous. The public can see that someone is sending an amount to someone else, but without information linking the transaction to anyone. This is similar to the level of information released by stock exchanges, where the time and size of individual trades, the "tape", is made public, but without telling who the parties were. + +[source] +---- +Traditional Privacy Models │ + ┌─────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │ ┌────────┐ +┌──────────────┐ ┌──────────────┐ │ Trusted │ │ │ │ │ │ +│ Identities ├──┤ Transactions ├───►│ Third Party ├──►│ Counterparty │ │ │ Public │ +└──────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ │ │ │ │ │ │ + └─────────────┘ └──────────────┘ │ └────────┘ + │ + +New Privacy Model + ┌────────┐ +┌──────────────┐ │ ┌──────────────┐ │ │ +│ Identities │ │ │ Transactions ├───►│ Public │ +└──────────────┘ │ └──────────────┘ │ │ + └────────┘ +---- + +As an additional firewall, a new key pair should be used for each transaction to keep them from being linked to a common owner. Some linking is still unavoidable with multi-input transactions, which necessarily reveal that their inputs were owned by the same owner. The risk is that if the owner of a key is revealed, linking could reveal other transactions that belonged to the same owner. + +== 11. Calculations +We consider the scenario of an attacker trying to generate an alternate chain faster than the honest chain. Even if this is accomplished, it does not throw the system open to arbitrary changes, such as creating value out of thin air or taking money that never belonged to the attacker. Nodes are not going to accept an invalid transaction as payment, and honest nodes will never accept a block containing them. An attacker can only try to change one of his own transactions to take back money he recently spent. + +The race between the honest chain and an attacker chain can be characterized as a Binomial Random Walk. The success event is the honest chain being extended by one block, increasing its lead by +1, and the failure event is the attacker's chain being extended by one block, reducing the gap by -1. + +The probability of an attacker catching up from a given deficit is analogous to a Gambler's Ruin problem. Suppose a gambler with unlimited credit starts at a deficit and plays potentially an infinite number of trials to try to reach breakeven. We can calculate the probability he ever reaches breakeven, or that an attacker ever catches up with the honest chain, as followsfootnote:Introduction[W. Feller, "An introduction to probability theory and its applications," 1957.]: + +[source] +---- +p = probability an honest node finds the next block< +q = probability the attacker finds the next block +q = probability the attacker will ever catch up from z blocks behind +---- + +[source] +---- +$$ +qz = +\begin{cases} +1 & \text{if } p \leq q \\ +\left(\frac{q}{p}\right) z & \text{if } p > q +\end{cases} +$$ +---- + +Given our assumption that p > q, the probability drops exponentially as the number of blocks the attacker has to catch up with increases. With the odds against him, if he doesn't make a lucky lunge forward early on, his chances become vanishingly small as he falls further behind. + +We now consider how long the recipient of a new transaction needs to wait before being sufficiently certain the sender can't change the transaction. We assume the sender is an attacker who wants to make the recipient believe he paid him for a while, then switch it to pay back to himself after some time has passed. The receiver will be alerted when that happens, but the sender hopes it will be too late. + +The receiver generates a new key pair and gives the public key to the sender shortly before signing. This prevents the sender from preparing a chain of blocks ahead of time by working on it continuously until he is lucky enough to get far enough ahead, then executing the transaction at that moment. Once the transaction is sent, the dishonest sender starts working in secret on a parallel chain containing an alternate version of his transaction. + +The recipient waits until the transaction has been added to a block and z blocks have been linked after it. He doesn't know the exact amount of progress the attacker has made, but assuming the honest blocks took the average expected time per block, the attacker's potential progress will be a Poisson distribution with expected value: + +[source] +---- +$$ +\lambda = z\frac{q}{p} +$$ +---- + +To get the probability the attacker could still catch up now, we multiply the Poisson density for each amount of progress he could have made by the probability he could catch up from that point: + +[source] +---- +$$ +\sum_{k=0}^{\infty} \frac{\lambda^k e^{-\lambda}}{k!} \cdot \left\{ +\begin{array}{cl} +\left(\frac{q}{p}\right)^{(z-k)} & \text{if } k \leq z \\ +1 & \text{if } k > z +\end{array} +\right. +$$ +---- + +Rearranging to avoid summing the infinite tail of the distribution... + +[source] +---- +$$ +1 - \sum_{k=0}^{z} \frac{\lambda^k e^{-\lambda}}{k!} \left(1-\left(\frac{q}{p}\right)^{(z-k)}\right) +$$ +---- + +Converting to C code... + +[source] +---- +#include + +double AttackerSuccessProbability(double q, int z) +{ + double p = 1.0 - q; + double lambda = z * (q / p); + double sum = 1.0; + int i, k; + for (k = 0; k <= z; k++) + { + double poisson = exp(-lambda); + for (i = 1; i <= k; i++) + poisson *= lambda / i; + sum -= poisson * (1 - pow(q / p, z - k)); + } + return sum; +} +---- + +Running some results, we can see the probability drop off exponentially with z. + +[source] +---- +q=0.1 +z=0 P=1.0000000 +z=1 P=0.2045873 +z=2 P=0.0509779 +z=3 P=0.0131722 +z=4 P=0.0034552 +z=5 P=0.0009137 +z=6 P=0.0002428 +z=7 P=0.0000647 +z=8 P=0.0000173 +z=9 P=0.0000046 +z=10 P=0.0000012 + +q=0.3 +z=0 P=1.0000000 +z=5 P=0.1773523 +z=10 P=0.0416605 +z=15 P=0.0101008 +z=20 P=0.0024804 +z=25 P=0.0006132 +z=30 P=0.0001522 +z=35 P=0.0000379 +z=40 P=0.0000095 +z=45 P=0.0000024 +z=50 P=0.0000006 +---- + +Solving for P less than 0.1%... + +[source] +---- +P < 0.001 +q=0.10 z=5 +q=0.15 z=8 +q=0.20 z=11 +q=0.25 z=15 +q=0.30 z=24 +q=0.35 z=41 +q=0.40 z=89 +q=0.45 z=340 +---- + +== 12. Conclusion +We have proposed a system for electronic transactions without relying on trust. We started with the usual framework of coins made from digital signatures, which provides strong control of ownership, but is incomplete without a way to prevent double-spending. To solve this, we proposed a peer-to-peer network using proof-of-work to record a public history of transactions that quickly becomes computationally impractical for an attacker to change if honest nodes control a majority of CPU power. The network is robust in its unstructured simplicity. Nodes work all at once with little coordination. They do not need to be identified, since messages are not routed to any particular place and only need to be delivered on a best effort basis. Nodes can leave and rejoin the network at will, accepting the proof-of-work chain as proof of what happened while they were gone. They vote with their CPU power, expressing their acceptance of valid blocks by working on extending them and rejecting invalid blocks by refusing to work on them. Any needed rules and incentives can be enforced with this consensus mechanism. diff --git a/test_data/AsciidocFiles/dracula2.adoc b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/dracula2.adoc new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2e7d1f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/test_data/AsciidocFiles/dracula2.adoc @@ -0,0 +1,4094 @@ += Dracula + +== Title Page + +[%hardbreaks] +DRACULA +_by_ +Bram Stoker + +[%hardbreaks] +New York Grosset & Dunlap +_publishers_ + +[%hardbreaks] +Copyright, 1897, in the United States of America, +according to Act of Congress, +by Bram Stoker +_All rights reserved._ + +[%hardbreaks] +PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES +AT THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y. + +To my dear friend, Hommy-Beg + +== Contents + +[%hardbreaks] +CHAPTER I. Jonathan Harker’s Journal +CHAPTER II. Jonathan Harker’s Journal +CHAPTER III. Jonathan Harker’s Journal +CHAPTER IV. Jonathan Harker’s Journal +CHAPTER V. Letters—Lucy and Mina +CHAPTER VI. Mina Murray’s Journal +CHAPTER VII. Cutting from “The Dailygraph,” 8 August +CHAPTER VIII. Mina Murray’s Journal +CHAPTER IX. Mina Murray’s Journal +CHAPTER X. Mina Murray’s Journal +CHAPTER XI. Lucy Westenra’s Diary +CHAPTER XII. Dr. Seward’s Diary +CHAPTER XIII. Dr. Seward’s Diary +CHAPTER XIV. Mina Harker’s Journal +CHAPTER XV. Dr. Seward’s Diary +CHAPTER XVI. Dr. Seward’s Diary +CHAPTER XVII. Dr. Seward’s Diary +CHAPTER XVIII. Dr. Seward’s Diary +CHAPTER XIX. Jonathan Harker’s Journal +CHAPTER XX. Jonathan Harker’s Journal +CHAPTER XXI. Dr. Seward’s Diary +CHAPTER XXII. Jonathan Harker’s Journal +CHAPTER XXIII. Dr. Seward’s Diary +CHAPTER XXIV. Dr. Seward’s Phonograph Diary, spoken by Van Helsing +CHAPTER XXV. Dr. Seward’s Diary +CHAPTER XXVI. Dr. Seward’s Diary +CHAPTER XXVII. Mina Harker’s Journal + +== Preface + +How these papers have been placed in sequence will be made manifest in the reading of them. All needless matters have been eliminated, so that a history almost at variance with the possibilities of later-day belief may stand forth as simple fact. There is throughout no statement of past things wherein memory may err, for all the records chosen are exactly contemporary, given from the standpoints and within the range of knowledge of those who made them. + +== CHAPTER I + +JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL _Kept in shorthand._ + +_3 May. Bistritz._ — Left Munich at 8:35 P. M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible. The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East; the most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, took us among the traditions of Turkish rule. + +We left in pretty good time, and came after nightfall to Klausenburgh. Here I stopped for the night at the Hotel Royale. I had for dinner, or rather supper, a chicken done up some way with red pepper, which was very good but thirsty. (_Mem._, get recipe for Mina.) I asked the waiter, and he said it was called “paprika hendl,” and that, as it was a national dish, I should be able to get it anywhere along the Carpathians. I found my smattering of German very useful here; indeed, I don’t know how I should be able to get on without it. + +Having had some time at my disposal when in London, I had visited the British Museum, and made search among the books and maps in the library regarding Transylvania; it had struck me that some foreknowledge of the country could hardly fail to have some importance in dealing with a nobleman of that country. I find that the district he named is in the extreme east of the country, just on the borders of three states, Transylvania, Moldavia and Bukovina, in the midst of the Carpathian mountains; one of the wildest and least known portions of Europe. I was not able to light on any map or work giving the exact locality of the Castle Dracula, as there are no maps of this country as yet to compare with our own Ordnance Survey maps; but I found that Bistritz, the post town named by Count Dracula, is a fairly well-known place. I shall enter here some of my notes, as they may refresh my memory when I talk over my travels with Mina. + +In the population of Transylvania there are four distinct nationalities: Saxons in the South, and mixed with them the Wallachs, who are the descendants of the Dacians; Magyars in the West, and Szekelys in the East and North. I am going among the latter, who claim to be descended from Attila and the Huns. This may be so, for when the Magyars conquered the country in the eleventh century they found the Huns settled in it. I read that every known superstition in the world is gathered into the horseshoe of the Carpathians, as if it were the centre of some sort of imaginative whirlpool; if so my stay may be very interesting. (_Mem._, I must ask the Count all about them.) + +I did not sleep well, though my bed was comfortable enough, for I had all sorts of queer dreams. There was a dog howling all night under my window, which may have had something to do with it; or it may have been the paprika, for I had to drink up all the water in my carafe, and was still thirsty. Towards morning I slept and was wakened by the continuous knocking at my door, so I guess I must have been sleeping soundly then. I had for breakfast more paprika, and a sort of porridge of maize flour which they said was “mamaliga,” and egg-plant stuffed with forcemeat, a very excellent dish, which they call “impletata.” (_Mem._, get recipe for this also.) I had to hurry breakfast, for the train started a little before eight, or rather it ought to have done so, for after rushing to the station at 7:30 I had to sit in the carriage for more than an hour before we began to move. It seems to me that the further east you go the more unpunctual are the trains. What ought they to be in China + +?All day long we seemed to dawdle through a country which was full of beauty of every kind. Sometimes we saw little towns or castles on the top of steep hills such as we see in old missals; sometimes we ran by rivers and streams which seemed from the wide stony margin on each side of them to be subject to great floods. It takes a lot of water, and running strong, to sweep the outside edge of a river clear. At every station there were groups of people, sometimes crowds, and in all sorts of attire. Some of them were just like the peasants at home or those I saw coming through France and Germany, with short jackets and round hats and home-made trousers; but others were very picturesque. The women looked pretty, except when you got near them, but they were very clumsy about the waist. They had all full white sleeves of some kind or other, and most of them had big belts with a lot of strips of something fluttering from them like the dresses in a ballet, but of course there were petticoats under them. The strangest figures we saw were the Slovaks, who were more barbarian than the rest, with their big cow-boy hats, great baggy dirty-white trousers, white linen shirts, and enormous heavy leather belts, nearly a foot wide, all studded over with brass nails. They wore high boots, with their trousers tucked into them, and had long black hair and heavy black moustaches. They are very picturesque, but do not look prepossessing. On the stage they would be set down at once as some old Oriental band of brigands. They are, however, I am told, very harmless and rather wanting in natural self-assertion. + +It was on the dark side of twilight when we got to Bistritz, which is a very interesting old place. Being practically on the frontier—for the Borgo Pass leads from it into Bukovina—it has had a very stormy existence, and it certainly shows marks of it. Fifty years ago a series of great fires took place, which made terrible havoc on five separate occasions. At the very beginning of the seventeenth century it underwent a siege of three weeks and lost 13,000 people, the casualties of war proper being assisted by famine and disease. + +Count Dracula had directed me to go to the Golden Krone Hotel, which I found, to my great delight, to be thoroughly old-fashioned, for of course I wanted to see all I could of the ways of the country. I was evidently expected, for when I got near the door I faced a cheery-looking elderly woman in the usual peasant dress—white undergarment with long double apron, front, and back, of coloured stuff fitting almost too tight for modesty. When I came close she bowed and said, “The Herr Englishman?” “Yes,” I said, “Jonathan Harker.” She smiled, and gave some message to an elderly man in white shirt-sleeves, who had followed her to the door. He went, but immediately returned with a letter:— + +“My Friend.—Welcome to the Carpathians. I am anxiously expecting you. Sleep well to-night. At three to-morrow the diligence will start for Bukovina; a place on it is kept for you. At the Borgo Pass my carriage will await you and will bring you to me. I trust that your journey from London has been a happy one, and that you will enjoy your stay in my beautiful land. + +“Your friend, + +“DRACULA.” + +_4 May._ — I found that my landlord had got a letter from the Count, directing him to secure the best place on the coach for me; but on making inquiries as to details he seemed somewhat reticent, and pretended that he could not understand my German. This could not be true, because up to then he had understood it perfectly; at least, he answered my questions exactly as if he did. He and his wife, the old lady who had received me, looked at each other in a frightened sort of way. He mumbled out that the money had been sent in a letter, and that was all he knew. When I asked him if he knew Count Dracula, and could tell me anything of his castle, both he and his wife crossed themselves, and, saying that they knew nothing at all, simply refused to speak further. It was so near the time of starting that I had no time to ask any one else, for it was all very mysterious and not by any means comforting. + +Just before I was leaving, the old lady came up to my room and said in a very hysterical way: + +“Must you go? Oh! young Herr, must you go?” She was in such an excited state that she seemed to have lost her grip of what German she knew, and mixed it all up with some other language which I did not know at all. I was just able to follow her by asking many questions. When I told her that I must go at once, and that I was engaged on important business, she asked again: + +“Do you know what day it is?” I answered that it was the fourth of May. She shook her head as she said again: + +“Oh, yes! I know that! I know that, but do you know what day it is?” On my saying that I did not understand, she went on: + +“It is the eve of St. George’s Day. Do you not know that to-night, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things in the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?” She was in such evident distress that I tried to comfort her, but without effect. Finally she went down on her knees and implored me not to go; at least to wait a day or two before starting. It was all very ridiculous but I did not feel comfortable. However, there was business to be done, and I could allow nothing to interfere with it. I therefore tried to raise her up, and said, as gravely as I could, that I thanked her, but my duty was imperative, and that I must go. She then rose and dried her eyes, and taking a crucifix from her neck offered it to me. I did not know what to do, for, as an English Churchman, I have been taught to regard such things as in some measure idolatrous, and yet it seemed so ungracious to refuse an old lady meaning so well and in such a state of mind. She saw, I suppose, the doubt in my face, for she put the rosary round my neck, and said, “For your mother’s sake,” and went out of the room. I am writing up this part of the diary whilst I am waiting for the coach, which is, of course, late; and the crucifix is still round my neck. Whether it is the old lady’s fear, or the many ghostly traditions of this place, or the crucifix itself, I do not know, but I am not feeling nearly as easy in my mind as usual. If this book should ever reach Mina before I do, let it bring my good-bye. Here comes the coach! + +_5 May. The Castle._ — The grey of the morning has passed, and the sun is high over the distant horizon, which seems jagged, whether with trees or hills I know not, for it is so far off that big things and little are mixed. I am not sleepy, and, as I am not to be called till I awake, naturally I write till sleep comes. There are many odd things to put down, and, lest who reads them may fancy that I dined too well before I left Bistritz, let me put down my dinner exactly. I dined on what they called “robber steak”—bits of bacon, onion, and beef, seasoned with red pepper, and strung on sticks and roasted over the fire, in the simple style of the London cat’s meat! The wine was Golden Mediasch, which produces a queer sting on the tongue, which is, however, not disagreeable. I had only a couple of glasses of this, and nothing else. + +When I got on the coach the driver had not taken his seat, and I saw him talking with the landlady. They were evidently talking of me, for every now and then they looked at me, and some of the people who were sitting on the bench outside the door—which they call by a name meaning “word-bearer”—came and listened, and then looked at me, most of them pityingly. I could hear a lot of words often repeated, queer words, for there were many nationalities in the crowd; so I quietly got my polyglot dictionary from my bag and looked them out. I must say they were not cheering to me, for amongst them were “Ordog”—Satan, “pokol”—hell, “stregoica”—witch, “vrolok” and “vlkoslak”—both of which mean the same thing, one being Slovak and the other Servian for something that is either were-wolf or vampire. (_Mem._, I must ask the Count about these superstitions) + +When we started, the crowd round the inn door, which had by this time swelled to a considerable size, all made the sign of the cross and pointed two fingers towards me. With some difficulty I got a fellow-passenger to tell me what they meant; he would not answer at first, but on learning that I was English, he explained that it was a charm or guard against the evil eye. This was not very pleasant for me, just starting for an unknown place to meet an unknown man; but every one seemed so kind-hearted, and so sorrowful, and so sympathetic that I could not but be touched. I shall never forget the last glimpse which I had of the inn-yard and its crowd of picturesque figures, all crossing themselves, as they stood round the wide archway, with its background of rich foliage of oleander and orange trees in green tubs clustered in the centre of the yard. Then our driver, whose wide linen drawers covered the whole front of the box-seat—“gotza” they call them—cracked his big whip over his four small horses, which ran abreast, and we set off on our journey. + +I soon lost sight and recollection of ghostly fears in the beauty of the scene as we drove along, although had I known the language, or rather languages, which my fellow-passengers were speaking, I might not have been able to throw them off so easily. Before us lay a green sloping land full of forests and woods, with here and there steep hills, crowned with clumps of trees or with farmhouses, the blank gable end to the road. There was everywhere a bewildering mass of fruit blossom—apple, plum, pear, cherry; and as we drove by I could see the green grass under the trees spangled with the fallen petals. In and out amongst these green hills of what they call here the “Mittel Land” ran the road, losing itself as it swept round the grassy curve, or was shut out by the straggling ends of pine woods, which here and there ran down the hillsides like tongues of flame. The road was rugged, but still we seemed to fly over it with a feverish haste. I could not understand then what the haste meant, but the driver was evidently bent on losing no time in reaching Borgo Prund. I was told that this road is in summertime excellent, but that it had not yet been put in order after the winter snows. In this respect it is different from the general run of roads in the Carpathians, for it is an old tradition that they are not to be kept in too good order. Of old the Hospadars would not repair them, lest the Turk should think that they were preparing to bring in foreign troops, and so hasten the war which was always really at loading point. + +Beyond the green swelling hills of the Mittel Land rose mighty slopes of forest up to the lofty steeps of the Carpathians themselves. Right and left of us they towered, with the afternoon sun falling full upon them and bringing out all the glorious colours of this beautiful range, deep blue and purple in the shadows of the peaks, green and brown where grass and rock mingled, and an endless perspective of jagged rock and pointed crags, till these were themselves lost in the distance, where the snowy peaks rose grandly. Here and there seemed mighty rifts in the mountains, through which, as the sun began to sink, we saw now and again the white gleam of falling water. One of my companions touched my arm as we swept round the base of a hill and opened up the lofty, snow-covered peak of a mountain, which seemed, as we wound on our serpentine way, to be right before us:— + +“Look! Isten szek!”—“God’s seat!”—and he crossed himself reverently. + +As we wound on our endless way, and the sun sank lower and lower behind us, the shadows of the evening began to creep round us. This was emphasised by the fact that the snowy mountain-top still held the sunset, and seemed to glow out with a delicate cool pink. Here and there we passed Cszeks and Slovaks, all in picturesque attire, but I noticed that goitre was painfully prevalent. By the roadside were many crosses, and as we swept by, my companions all crossed themselves. Here and there was a peasant man or woman kneeling before a shrine, who did not even turn round as we approached, but seemed in the self-surrender of devotion to have neither eyes nor ears for the outer world. There were many things new to me: for instance, hay-ricks in the trees, and here and there very beautiful masses of weeping birch, their white stems shining like silver through the delicate green of the leaves. Now and again we passed a leiter-wagon—the ordinary peasant’s cart—with its long, snake-like vertebra, calculated to suit the inequalities of the road. On this were sure to be seated quite a group of home-coming peasants, the Cszeks with their white, and the Slovaks with their coloured, sheepskins, the latter carrying lance-fashion their long staves, with axe at end. As the evening fell it began to get very cold, and the growing twilight seemed to merge into one dark mistiness the gloom of the trees, oak, beech, and pine, though in the valleys which ran deep between the spurs of the hills, as we ascended through the Pass, the dark firs stood out here and there against the background of late-lying snow. Sometimes, as the road was cut through the pine woods that seemed in the darkness to be closing down upon us, great masses of greyness, which here and there bestrewed the trees, produced a peculiarly weird and solemn effect, which carried on the thoughts and grim fancies engendered earlier in the evening, when the falling sunset threw into strange relief the ghost-like clouds which amongst the Carpathians seem to wind ceaselessly through the valleys. Sometimes the hills were so steep that, despite our driver’s haste, the horses could only go slowly. I wished to get down and walk up them, as we do at home, but the driver would not hear of it. “No, no,” he said; “you must not walk here; the dogs are too fierce”; and then he added, with what he evidently meant for grim pleasantry—for he looked round to catch the approving smile of the rest—“and you may have enough of such matters before you go to sleep.” The only stop he would make was a moment’s pause to light his lamps. + +When it grew dark there seemed to be some excitement amongst the passengers, and they kept speaking to him, one after the other, as though urging him to further speed. He lashed the horses unmercifully with his long whip, and with wild cries of encouragement urged them on to further exertions. Then through the darkness I could see a sort of patch of grey light ahead of us, as though there were a cleft in the hills. The excitement of the passengers grew greater; the crazy coach rocked on its great leather springs, and swayed like a boat tossed on a stormy sea. I had to hold on. The road grew more level, and we appeared to fly along. Then the mountains seemed to come nearer to us on each side and to frown down upon us; we were entering on the Borgo Pass. One by one several of the passengers offered me gifts, which they pressed upon me with an earnestness which would take no denial; these were certainly of an odd and varied kind, but each was given in simple good faith, with a kindly word, and a blessing, and that strange mixture of fear-meaning movements which I had seen outside the hotel at Bistritz—the sign of the cross and the guard against the evil eye. Then, as we flew along, the driver leaned forward, and on each side the passengers, craning over the edge of the coach, peered eagerly into the darkness. It was evident that something very exciting was either happening or expected, but though I asked each passenger, no one would give me the slightest explanation. This state of excitement kept on for some little time; and at last we saw before us the Pass opening out on the eastern side. There were dark, rolling clouds overhead, and in the air the heavy, oppressive sense of thunder. It seemed as though the mountain range had separated two atmospheres, and that now we had got into the thunderous one. I was now myself looking out for the conveyance which was to take me to the Count. Each moment I expected to see the glare of lamps through the blackness; but all was dark. The only light was the flickering rays of our own lamps, in which the steam from our hard-driven horses rose in a white cloud. We could see now the sandy road lying white before us, but there was on it no sign of a vehicle. The passengers drew back with a sigh of gladness, which seemed to mock my own disappointment. I was already thinking what I had best do, when the driver, looking at his watch, said to the others something which I could hardly hear, it was spoken so quietly and in so low a tone; I thought it was “An hour less than the time.” Then turning to me, he said in German worse than my own:— + +“There is no carriage here. The Herr is not expected after all. He will now come on to Bukovina, and return to-morrow or the next day; better the next day.” Whilst he was speaking the horses began to neigh and snort and plunge wildly, so that the driver had to hold them up. Then, amongst a chorus of screams from the peasants and a universal crossing of themselves, a calèche, with four horses, drove up behind us, overtook us, and drew up beside the coach. I could see from the flash of our lamps, as the rays fell on them, that the horses were coal-black and splendid animals. They were driven by a tall man, with a long brown beard and a great black hat, which seemed to hide his face from us. I could only see the gleam of a pair of very bright eyes, which seemed red in the lamplight, as he turned to us. He said to the driver:— + +“You are early to-night, my friend.” The man stammered in reply:— + +“The English Herr was in a hurry,” to which the stranger replied:— + +“That is why, I suppose, you wished him to go on to Bukovina. You cannot deceive me, my friend; I know too much, and my horses are swift.” As he spoke he smiled, and the lamplight fell on a hard-looking mouth, with very red lips and sharp-looking teeth, as white as ivory. One of my companions whispered to another the line from Burger’s “Lenore”:— + +[quote] +“Denn die Todten reiten schnell”— (“For the dead travel fast.”) + +The strange driver evidently heard the words, for he looked up with a gleaming smile. The passenger turned his face away, at the same time putting out his two fingers and crossing himself. “Give me the Herr’s luggage,” said the driver; and with exceeding alacrity my bags were handed out and put in the calèche. Then I descended from the side of the coach, as the calèche was close alongside, the driver helping me with a hand which caught my arm in a grip of steel; his strength must have been prodigious. Without a word he shook his reins, the horses turned, and we swept into the darkness of the Pass. As I looked back I saw the steam from the horses of the coach by the light of the lamps, and projected against it the figures of my late companions crossing themselves. Then the driver cracked his whip and called to his horses, and off they swept on their way to Bukovina. As they sank into the darkness I felt a strange chill, and a lonely feeling came over me; but a cloak was thrown over my shoulders, and a rug across my knees, and the driver said in excellent German:— + +“The night is chill, mein Herr, and my master the Count bade me take all care of you. There is a flask of slivovitz (the plum brandy of the country) underneath the seat, if you should require it.” I did not take any, but it was a comfort to know it was there all the same. I felt a little strangely, and not a little frightened. I think had there been any alternative I should have taken it, instead of prosecuting that unknown night journey. The carriage went at a hard pace straight along, then we made a complete turn and went along another straight road. It seemed to me that we were simply going over and over the same ground again; and so I took note of some salient point, and found that this was so. I would have liked to have asked the driver what this all meant, but I really feared to do so, for I thought that, placed as I was, any protest would have had no effect in case there had been an intention to delay. By-and-by, however, as I was curious to know how time was passing, I struck a match, and by its flame looked at my watch; it was within a few minutes of midnight. This gave me a sort of shock, for I suppose the general superstition about midnight was increased by my recent experiences. I waited with a sick feeling of suspense. + +Then a dog began to howl somewhere in a farmhouse far down the road—a long, agonised wailing, as if from fear. The sound was taken up by another dog, and then another and another, till, borne on the wind which now sighed softly through the Pass, a wild howling began, which seemed to come from all over the country, as far as the imagination could grasp it through the gloom of the night. At the first howl the horses began to strain and rear, but the driver spoke to them soothingly, and they quieted down, but shivered and sweated as though after a runaway from sudden fright. Then, far off in the distance, from the mountains on each side of us began a louder and a sharper howling—that of wolves—which affected both the horses and myself in the same way—for I was minded to jump from the calèche and run, whilst they reared again and plunged madly, so that the driver had to use all his great strength to keep them from bolting. In a few minutes, however, my own ears got accustomed to the sound, and the horses so far became quiet that the driver was able to descend and to stand before them. He petted and soothed them, and whispered something in their ears, as I have heard of horse-tamers doing, and with extraordinary effect, for under his caresses they became quite manageable again, though they still trembled. The driver again took his seat, and shaking his reins, started off at a great pace. This time, after going to the far side of the Pass, he suddenly turned down a narrow roadway which ran sharply to the right. + +Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway till we passed as through a tunnel; and again great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side. Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along. It grew colder and colder still, and fine, powdery snow began to fall, so that soon we and all around us were covered with a white blanket. The keen wind still carried the howling of the dogs, though this grew fainter as we went on our way. The baying of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer, as though they were closing round on us from every side. I grew dreadfully afraid, and the horses shared my fear. The driver, however, was not in the least disturbed; he kept turning his head to left and right, but I could not see anything through the darkness. + +Suddenly, away on our left, I saw a faint flickering blue flame. The driver saw it at the same moment; he at once checked the horses, and, jumping to the ground, disappeared into the darkness. I did not know what to do, the less as the howling of the wolves grew closer; but while I wondered the driver suddenly appeared again, and without a word took his seat, and we resumed our journey. I think I must have fallen asleep and kept dreaming of the incident, for it seemed to be repeated endlessly, and now looking back, it is like a sort of awful nightmare. Once the flame appeared so near the road, that even in the darkness around us I could watch the driver’s motions. He went rapidly to where the blue flame arose—it must have been very faint, for it did not seem to illumine the place around it at all—and gathering a few stones, formed them into some device. Once there appeared a strange optical effect: when he stood between me and the flame he did not obstruct it, for I could see its ghostly flicker all the same. This startled me, but as the effect was only momentary, I took it that my eyes deceived me straining through the darkness. Then for a time there were no blue flames, and we sped onwards through the gloom, with the howling of the wolves around us, as though they were following in a moving circle. + +At last there came a time when the driver went further afield than he had yet gone, and during his absence, the horses began to tremble worse than ever and to snort and scream with fright. I could not see any cause for it, for the howling of the wolves had ceased altogether; but just then the moon, sailing through the black clouds, appeared behind the jagged crest of a beetling, pine-clad rock, and by its light I saw around us a ring of wolves, with white teeth and lolling red tongues, with long, sinewy limbs and shaggy hair. They were a hundred times more terrible in the grim silence which held them than even when they howled. For myself, I felt a sort of paralysis of fear. It is only when a man feels himself face to face with such horrors that he can understand their true import. + +All at once the wolves began to howl as though the moonlight had had some peculiar effect on them. The horses jumped about and reared, and looked helplessly round with eyes that rolled in a way painful to see; but the living ring of terror encompassed them on every side; and they had perforce to remain within it. I called to the coachman to come, for it seemed to me that our only chance was to try to break out through the ring and to aid his approach. I shouted and beat the side of the calèche, hoping by the noise to scare the wolves from that side, so as to give him a chance of reaching the trap. How he came there, I know not, but I heard his voice raised in a tone of imperious command, and looking towards the sound, saw him stand in the roadway. As he swept his long arms, as though brushing aside some impalpable obstacle, the wolves fell back and back further still. Just then a heavy cloud passed across the face of the moon, so that we were again in darkness. + +When I could see again the driver was climbing into the calèche, and the wolves had disappeared. This was all so strange and uncanny that a dreadful fear came upon me, and I was afraid to speak or move. The time seemed interminable as we swept on our way, now in almost complete darkness, for the rolling clouds obscured the moon. We kept on ascending, with occasional periods of quick descent, but in the main always ascending. Suddenly, I became conscious of the fact that the driver was in the act of pulling up the horses in the courtyard of a vast ruined castle, from whose tall black windows came no ray of light, and whose broken battlements showed a jagged line against the moonlit sky. + +== CHAPTER II + +JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL _continued_ + +_5 May._ — I must have been asleep, for certainly if I had been fully awake I must have noticed the approach of such a remarkable place. In the gloom the courtyard looked of considerable size, and as several dark ways led from it under great round arches, it perhaps seemed bigger than it really is. I have not yet been able to see it by daylight. + +When the calèche stopped, the driver jumped down and held out his hand to assist me to alight. Again I could not but notice his prodigious strength. His hand actually seemed like a steel vice that could have crushed mine if he had chosen. Then he took out my traps, and placed them on the ground beside me as I stood close to a great door, old and studded with large iron nails, and set in a projecting doorway of massive stone. I could see even in the dim light that the stone was massively carved, but that the carving had been much worn by time and weather. As I stood, the driver jumped again into his seat and shook the reins; the horses started forward, and trap and all disappeared down one of the dark openings. + +I stood in silence where I was, for I did not know what to do. Of bell or knocker there was no sign; through these frowning walls and dark window openings it was not likely that my voice could penetrate. The time I waited seemed endless, and I felt doubts and fears crowding upon me. What sort of place had I come to, and among what kind of people? What sort of grim adventure was it on which I had embarked? Was this a customary incident in the life of a solicitor’s clerk sent out to explain the purchase of a London estate to a foreigner? Solicitor’s clerk! Mina would not like that. Solicitor—for just before leaving London I got word that my examination was successful; and I am now a full-blown solicitor! I began to rub my eyes and pinch myself to see if I were awake. It all seemed like a horrible nightmare to me, and I expected that I should suddenly awake, and find myself at home, with the dawn struggling in through the windows, as I had now and again felt in the morning after a day of overwork. But my flesh answered the pinching test, and my eyes were not to be deceived. I was indeed awake and among the Carpathians. All I could do now was to be patient, and to wait the coming of the morning. + +Just as I had come to this conclusion I heard a heavy step approaching behind the great door, and saw through the chinks the gleam of a coming light. Then there was the sound of rattling chains and the clanking of massive bolts drawn back. A key was turned with the loud grating noise of long disuse, and the great door swung back. + +Within, stood a tall old man, clean shaven save for a long white moustache, and clad in black from head to foot, without a single speck of colour about him anywhere. He held in his hand an antique silver lamp, in which the flame burned without chimney or globe of any kind, throwing long quivering shadows as it flickered in the draught of the open door. The old man motioned me in with his right hand with a courtly gesture, saying in excellent English, but with a strange intonation:— + +“Welcome to my house! Enter freely and of your own will!” He made no motion of stepping to meet me, but stood like a statue, as though his gesture of welcome had fixed him into stone. The instant, however, that I had stepped over the threshold, he moved impulsively forward, and holding out his hand grasped mine with a strength which made me wince, an effect which was not lessened by the fact that it seemed as cold as ice—more like the hand of a dead than a living man. Again he said:— + +“Welcome to my house. Come freely. Go safely; and leave something of the happiness you bring!” The strength of the handshake was so much akin to that which I had noticed in the driver, whose face I had not seen, that for a moment I doubted if it were not the same person to whom I was speaking; so to make sure, I said interrogatively:— + +“Count Dracula?” He bowed in a courtly way as he replied:— + +“I am Dracula; and I bid you welcome, Mr. Harker, to my house. Come in; the night air is chill, and you must need to eat and rest.” As he was speaking, he put the lamp on a bracket on the wall, and stepping out, took my luggage; he had carried it in before I could forestall him. I protested but he insisted:— + +“Nay, sir, you are my guest. It is late, and my people are not available. Let me see to your comfort myself.” He insisted on carrying my traps along the passage, and then up a great winding stair, and along another great passage, on whose stone floor our steps rang heavily. At the end of this he threw open a heavy door, and I rejoiced to see within a well-lit room in which a table was spread for supper, and on whose mighty hearth a great fire of logs, freshly replenished, flamed and flared. + +The Count halted, putting down my bags, closed the door, and crossing the room, opened another door, which led into a small octagonal room lit by a single lamp, and seemingly without a window of any sort. Passing through this, he opened another door, and motioned me to enter. It was a welcome sight; for here was a great bedroom well lighted and warmed with another log fire,—also added to but lately, for the top logs were fresh—which sent a hollow roar up the wide chimney. The Count himself left my luggage inside and withdrew, saying, before he closed the door:— + +“You will need, after your journey, to refresh yourself by making your toilet. I trust you will find all you wish. When you are ready, come into the other room, where you will find your supper prepared.” + +The light and warmth and the Count’s courteous welcome seemed to have dissipated all my doubts and fears. Having then reached my normal state, I discovered that I was half famished with hunger; so making a hasty toilet, I went into the other room. + +I found supper already laid out. My host, who stood on one side of the great fireplace, leaning against the stonework, made a graceful wave of his hand to the table, and said:— + +“I pray you, be seated and sup how you please. You will, I trust, excuse me that I do not join you; but I have dined already, and I do not sup.” + +I handed to him the sealed letter which Mr. Hawkins had entrusted to me. He opened it and read it gravely; then, with a charming smile, he handed it to me to read. One passage of it, at least, gave me a thrill of pleasure. + +“I must regret that an attack of gout, from which malady I am a constant sufferer, forbids absolutely any travelling on my part for some time to come; but I am happy to say I can send a sufficient substitute, one in whom I have every possible confidence. He is a young man, full of energy and talent in his own way, and of a very faithful disposition. He is discreet and silent, and has grown into manhood in my service. He shall be ready to attend on you when you will during his stay, and shall take your instructions in all matters.” + +The Count himself came forward and took off the cover of a dish, and I fell to at once on an excellent roast chicken. This, with some cheese and a salad and a bottle of old Tokay, of which I had two glasses, was my supper. During the time I was eating it the Count asked me many questions as to my journey, and I told him by degrees all I had experienced. + +By this time I had finished my supper, and by my host’s desire had drawn up a chair by the fire and begun to smoke a cigar which he offered me, at the same time excusing himself that he did not smoke. I had now an opportunity of observing him, and found him of a very marked physiognomy. + +His face was a strong—a very strong—aquiline, with high bridge of the thin nose and peculiarly arched nostrils; with lofty domed forehead, and hair growing scantily round the temples but profusely elsewhere. His eyebrows were very massive, almost meeting over the nose, and with bushy hair that seemed to curl in its own profusion. The mouth, so far as I could see it under the heavy moustache, was fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years. For the rest, his ears were pale, and at the tops extremely pointed; the chin was broad and strong, and the cheeks firm though thin. The general effect was one of extraordinary pallor. + +Hitherto I had noticed the backs of his hands as they lay on his knees in the firelight, and they had seemed rather white and fine; but seeing them now close to me, I could not but notice that they were rather coarse—broad, with squat fingers. Strange to say, there were hairs in the centre of the palm. The nails were long and fine, and cut to a sharp point. As the Count leaned over me and his hands touched me, I could not repress a shudder. It may have been that his breath was rank, but a horrible feeling of nausea came over me, which, do what I would, I could not conceal. The Count, evidently noticing it, drew back; and with a grim sort of smile, which showed more than he had yet done his protuberant teeth, sat himself down again on his own side of the fireplace. We were both silent for a while; and as I looked towards the window I saw the first dim streak of the coming dawn. There seemed a strange stillness over everything; but as I listened I heard as if from down below in the valley the howling of many wolves. The Count’s eyes gleamed, and he said:— + +“Listen to them—the children of the night. What music they make!” Seeing, I suppose, some expression in my face strange to him, he added:— + +“Ah, sir, you dwellers in the city cannot enter into the feelings of the hunter.” Then he rose and said:— + +“But you must be tired. Your bedroom is all ready, and to-morrow you shall sleep as late as you will. I have to be away till the afternoon; so sleep well and dream well!” With a courteous bow, he opened for me himself the door to the octagonal room, and I entered my bedroom.... + +I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things, which I dare not confess to my own soul. God keep me, if only for the sake of those dear to me! + +_7 May._ — It is again early morning, but I have rested and enjoyed the last twenty-four hours. I slept till late in the day, and awoke of my own accord. When I had dressed myself I went into the room where we had supped, and found a cold breakfast laid out, with coffee kept hot by the pot being placed on the hearth. There was a card on the table, on which was written:— + +“I have to be absent for a while. Do not wait for me.—D.” I set to and enjoyed a hearty meal. When I had done, I looked for a bell, so that I might let the servants know I had finished; but I could not find one. There are certainly odd deficiencies in the house, considering the extraordinary evidences of wealth which are round me. The table service is of gold, and so beautifully wrought that it must be of immense value. The curtains and upholstery of the chairs and sofas and the hangings of my bed are of the costliest and most beautiful fabrics, and must have been of fabulous value when they were made, for they are centuries old, though in excellent order. I saw something like them in Hampton Court, but there they were worn and frayed and moth-eaten. But still in none of the rooms is there a mirror. There is not even a toilet glass on my table, and I had to get the little shaving glass from my bag before I could either shave or brush my hair. I have not yet seen a servant anywhere, or heard a sound near the castle except the howling of wolves. Some time after I had finished my meal—I do not know whether to call it breakfast or dinner, for it was between five and six o’clock when I had it—I looked about for something to read, for I did not like to go about the castle until I had asked the Count’s permission. There was absolutely nothing in the room, book, newspaper, or even writing materials; so I opened another door in the room and found a sort of library. The door opposite mine I tried, but found it locked. + +In the library I found, to my great delight, a vast number of English books, whole shelves full of them, and bound volumes of magazines and newspapers. A table in the centre was littered with English magazines and newspapers, though none of them were of very recent date. The books were of the most varied kind—history, geography, politics, political economy, botany, geology, law—all relating to England and English life and customs and manners. There were even such books of reference as the London Directory, the “Red” and “Blue” books, Whitaker’s Almanac, the Army and Navy Lists, and—it somehow gladdened my heart to see it—the Law List. + +Whilst I was looking at the books, the door opened, and the Count entered. He saluted me in a hearty way, and hoped that I had had a good night’s rest. Then he went on:— + +“I am glad you found your way in here, for I am sure there is much that will interest you. These companions”—and he laid his hand on some of the books—“have been good friends to me, and for some years past, ever since I had the idea of going to London, have given me many, many hours of pleasure. Through them I have come to know your great England; and to know her is to love her. I long to go through the crowded streets of your mighty London, to be in the midst of the whirl and rush of humanity, to share its life, its change, its death, and all that makes it what it is. But alas! as yet I only know your tongue through books. To you, my friend, I look that I know it to speak.” + +“But, Count,” I said, “you know and speak English thoroughly!” He bowed gravely. + +“I thank you, my friend, for your all too-flattering estimate, but yet I fear that I am but a little way on the road I would travel. True, I know the grammar and the words, but yet I know not how to speak them.” + +“Indeed,” I said, “you speak excellently.” + +“Not so,” he answered. “Well, I know that, did I move and speak in your London, none there are who would not know me for a stranger. That is not enough for me. Here I am noble; I am _boyar_; the common people know me, and I am master. But a stranger in a strange land, he is no one; men know him not—and to know not is to care not for. I am content if I am like the rest, so that no man stops if he see me, or pause in his speaking if he hear my words, ‘Ha, ha! a stranger!’ I have been so long master that I would be master still—or at least that none other should be master of me. You come to me not alone as agent of my friend Peter Hawkins, of Exeter, to tell me all about my new estate in London. You shall, I trust, rest here with me awhile, so that by our talking I may learn the English intonation; and I would that you tell me when I make error, even of the smallest, in my speaking. I am sorry that I had to be away so long to-day; but you will, I know, forgive one who has so many important affairs in hand.” + +Of course I said all I could about being willing, and asked if I might come into that room when I chose. He answered: “Yes, certainly,” and added:— + +“You may go anywhere you wish in the castle, except where the doors are locked, where of course you will not wish to go. There is reason that all things are as they are, and did you see with my eyes and know with my knowledge, you would perhaps better understand.” I said I was sure of this, and then he went on:— + +“We are in Transylvania; and Transylvania is not England. Our ways are not your ways, and there shall be to you many strange things. Nay, from what you have told me of your experiences already, you know something of what strange things there may be.” + +This led to much conversation; and as it was evident that he wanted to talk, if only for talking’s sake, I asked him many questions regarding things that had already happened to me or come within my notice. Sometimes he sheered off the subject, or turned the conversation by pretending not to understand; but generally he answered all I asked most frankly. Then as time went on, and I had got somewhat bolder, I asked him of some of the strange things of the preceding night, as, for instance, why the coachman went to the places where he had seen the blue flames. He then explained to me that it was commonly believed that on a certain night of the year—last night, in fact, when all evil spirits are supposed to have unchecked sway—a blue flame is seen over any place where treasure has been concealed. “That treasure has been hidden,” he went on, “in the region through which you came last night, there can be but little doubt; for it was the ground fought over for centuries by the Wallachian, the Saxon, and the Turk. Why, there is hardly a foot of soil in all this region that has not been enriched by the blood of men, patriots or invaders. In old days there were stirring times, when the Austrian and the Hungarian came up in hordes, and the patriots went out to meet them—men and women, the aged and the children too—and waited their coming on the rocks above the passes, that they might sweep destruction on them with their artificial avalanches. When the invader was triumphant he found but little, for whatever there was had been sheltered in the friendly soil.” + +“But how,” said I, “can it have remained so long undiscovered, when there is a sure index to it if men will but take the trouble to look?” The Count smiled, and as his lips ran back over his gums, the long, sharp, canine teeth showed out strangely; he answered:— + +“Because your peasant is at heart a coward and a fool! Those flames only appear on one night; and on that night no man of this land will, if he can help it, stir without his doors. And, dear sir, even if he did he would not know what to do. Why, even the peasant that you tell me of who marked the place of the flame would not know where to look in daylight even for his own work. Even you would not, I dare be sworn, be able to find these places again?” + +“There you are right,” I said. “I know no more than the dead where even to look for them.” Then we drifted into other matters. + +“Come,” he said at last, “tell me of London and of the house which you have procured for me.” With an apology for my remissness, I went into my own room to get the papers from my bag. Whilst I was placing them in order I heard a rattling of china and silver in the next room, and as I passed through, noticed that the table had been cleared and the lamp lit, for it was by this time deep into the dark. The lamps were also lit in the study or library, and I found the Count lying on the sofa, reading, of all things in the world, an English Bradshaw’s Guide. When I came in he cleared the books and papers from the table; and with him I went into plans and deeds and figures of all sorts. He was interested in everything, and asked me a myriad questions about the place and its surroundings. He clearly had studied beforehand all he could get on the subject of the neighbourhood, for he evidently at the end knew very much more than I did. When I remarked this, he answered:— + +“Well, but, my friend, is it not needful that I should? When I go there I shall be all alone, and my friend Harker Jonathan—nay, pardon me, I fall into my country’s habit of putting your patronymic first—my friend Jonathan Harker will not be by my side to correct and aid me. He will be in Exeter, miles away, probably working at papers of the law with my other friend, Peter Hawkins. So!” + +We went thoroughly into the business of the purchase of the estate at Purfleet. When I had told him the facts and got his signature to the necessary papers, and had written a letter with them ready to post to Mr. Hawkins, he began to ask me how I had come across so suitable a place. I read to him the notes which I had made at the time, and which I inscribe here:— + +“At Purfleet, on a by-road, I came across just such a place as seemed to be required, and where was displayed a dilapidated notice that the place was for sale. It is surrounded by a high wall, of ancient structure, built of heavy stones, and has not been repaired for a large number of years. The closed gates are of heavy old oak and iron, all eaten with rust. + +“The estate is called Carfax, no doubt a corruption of the old _Quatre Face_, as the house is four-sided, agreeing with the cardinal points of the compass. It contains in all some twenty acres, quite surrounded by the solid stone wall above mentioned. There are many trees on it, which make it in places gloomy, and there is a deep, dark-looking pond or small lake, evidently fed by some springs, as the water is clear and flows away in a fair-sized stream. The house is very large and of all periods back, I should say, to mediæval times, for one part is of stone immensely thick, with only a few windows high up and heavily barred with iron. It looks like part of a keep, and is close to an old chapel or church. I could not enter it, as I had not the key of the door leading to it from the house, but I have taken with my kodak views of it from various points. The house has been added to, but in a very straggling way, and I can only guess at the amount of ground it covers, which must be very great. There are but few houses close at hand, one being a very large house only recently added to and formed into a private lunatic asylum. It is not, however, visible from the grounds.” + +When I had finished, he said:— + +“I am glad that it is old and big. I myself am of an old family, and to live in a new house would kill me. A house cannot be made habitable in a day; and, after all, how few days go to make up a century. I rejoice also that there is a chapel of old times. We Transylvanian nobles love not to think that our bones may lie amongst the common dead. I seek not gaiety nor mirth, not the bright voluptuousness of much sunshine and sparkling waters which please the young and gay. I am no longer young; and my heart, through weary years of mourning over the dead, is not attuned to mirth. Moreover, the walls of my castle are broken; the shadows are many, and the wind breathes cold through the broken battlements and casements. I love the shade and the shadow, and would be alone with my thoughts when I may.” Somehow his words and his look did not seem to accord, or else it was that his cast of face made his smile look malignant and saturnine. + +Presently, with an excuse, he left me, asking me to put all my papers together. He was some little time away, and I began to look at some of the books around me. One was an atlas, which I found opened naturally at England, as if that map had been much used. On looking at it I found in certain places little rings marked, and on examining these I noticed that one was near London on the east side, manifestly where his new estate was situated; the other two were Exeter, and Whitby on the Yorkshire coast. + +It was the better part of an hour when the Count returned. “Aha!” he said; “still at your books? Good! But you must not work always. Come; I am informed that your supper is ready.” He took my arm, and we went into the next room, where I found an excellent supper ready on the table. The Count again excused himself, as he had dined out on his being away from home. But he sat as on the previous night, and chatted whilst I ate. After supper I smoked, as on the last evening, and the Count stayed with me, chatting and asking questions on every conceivable subject, hour after hour. I felt that it was getting very late indeed, but I did not say anything, for I felt under obligation to meet my host’s wishes in every way. I was not sleepy, as the long sleep yesterday had fortified me; but I could not help experiencing that chill which comes over one at the coming of the dawn, which is like, in its way, the turn of the tide. They say that people who are near death die generally at the change to the dawn or at the turn of the tide; any one who has when tired, and tied as it were to his post, experienced this change in the atmosphere can well believe it. All at once we heard the crow of a cock coming up with preternatural shrillness through the clear morning air; Count Dracula, jumping to his feet, said:— + +“Why, there is the morning again! How remiss I am to let you stay up so long. You must make your conversation regarding my dear new country of England less interesting, so that I may not forget how time flies by us,” and, with a courtly bow, he quickly left me. + +I went into my own room and drew the curtains, but there was little to notice; my window opened into the courtyard, all I could see was the warm grey of quickening sky. So I pulled the curtains again, and have written of this day. + +_8 May._ — I began to fear as I wrote in this book that I was getting too diffuse; but now I am glad that I went into detail from the first, for there is something so strange about this place and all in it that I cannot but feel uneasy. I wish I were safe out of it, or that I had never come. It may be that this strange night-existence is telling on me; but would that that were all! If there were any one to talk to I could bear it, but there is no one. I have only the Count to speak with, and he!—I fear I am myself the only living soul within the place. Let me be prosaic so far as facts can be; it will help me to bear up, and imagination must not run riot with me. If it does I am lost. Let me say at once how I stand—or seem to. + +I only slept a few hours when I went to bed, and feeling that I could not sleep any more, got up. I had hung my shaving glass by the window, and was just beginning to shave. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder, and heard the Count’s voice saying to me, “Good-morning.” I started, for it amazed me that I had not seen him, since the reflection of the glass covered the whole room behind me. In starting I had cut myself slightly, but did not notice it at the moment. Having answered the Count’s salutation, I turned to the glass again to see how I had been mistaken. This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror! The whole room behind me was displayed; but there was no sign of a man in it, except myself. This was startling, and, coming on the top of so many strange things, was beginning to increase that vague feeling of uneasiness which I always have when the Count is near; but at the instant I saw that the cut had bled a little, and the blood was trickling over my chin. I laid down the razor, turning as I did so half round to look for some sticking plaster. When the Count saw my face, his eyes blazed with a sort of demoniac fury, and he suddenly made a grab at my throat. I drew away, and his hand touched the string of beads which held the crucifix. It made an instant change in him, for the fury passed so quickly that I could hardly believe that it was ever there. + +“Take care,” he said, “take care how you cut yourself. It is more dangerous than you think in this country.” Then seizing the shaving glass, he went on: “And this is the wretched thing that has done the mischief. It is a foul bauble of man’s vanity. Away with it!” and opening the heavy window with one wrench of his terrible hand, he flung out the glass, which was shattered into a thousand pieces on the stones of the courtyard far below. Then he withdrew without a word. It is very annoying, for I do not see how I am to shave, unless in my watch-case or the bottom of the shaving-pot, which is fortunately of metal. + +When I went into the dining-room, breakfast was prepared; but I could not find the Count anywhere. So I breakfasted alone. It is strange that as yet I have not seen the Count eat or drink. He must be a very peculiar man! After breakfast I did a little exploring in the castle. I went out on the stairs, and found a room looking towards the South. The view was magnificent, and from where I stood there was every opportunity of seeing it. The castle is on the very edge of a terrible precipice. A stone falling from the window would fall a thousand feet without touching anything! As far as the eye can reach is a sea of green tree tops, with occasionally a deep rift where there is a chasm. Here and there are silver threads where the rivers wind in deep gorges through the forests. + +But I am not in heart to describe beauty, for when I had seen the view I explored further; doors, doors, doors everywhere, and all locked and bolted. In no place save from the windows in the castle walls is there an available exit. + +The castle is a veritable prison, and I am a prisoner! + +== CHAPTER III + +JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL _continued_ + +When I found that I was a prisoner a sort of wild feeling came over me. I rushed up and down the stairs, trying every door and peering out of every window I could find; but after a little the conviction of my helplessness overpowered all other feelings. When I look back after a few hours I think I must have been mad for the time, for I behaved much as a rat does in a trap. When, however, the conviction had come to me that I was helpless I sat down quietly—as quietly as I have ever done anything in my life—and began to think over what was best to be done. I am thinking still, and as yet have come to no definite conclusion. Of one thing only am I certain; that it is no use making my ideas known to the Count. He knows well that I am imprisoned; and as he has done it himself, and has doubtless his own motives for it, he would only deceive me if I trusted him fully with the facts. So far as I can see, my only plan will be to keep my knowledge and my fears to myself, and my eyes open. I am, I know, either being deceived, like a baby, by my own fears, or else I am in desperate straits; and if the latter be so, I need, and shall need, all my brains to get through. + +I had hardly come to this conclusion when I heard the great door below shut, and knew that the Count had returned. He did not come at once into the library, so I went cautiously to my own room and found him making the bed. This was odd, but only confirmed what I had all along thought—that there were no servants in the house. When later I saw him through the chink of the hinges of the door laying the table in the dining-room, I was assured of it; for if he does himself all these menial offices, surely it is proof that there is no one else to do them. This gave me a fright, for if there is no one else in the castle, it must have been the Count himself who was the driver of the coach that brought me here. This is a terrible thought; for if so, what does it mean that he could control the wolves, as he did, by only holding up his hand in silence. How was it that all the people at Bistritz and on the coach had some terrible fear for me? What meant the giving of the crucifix, of the garlic, of the wild rose, of the mountain ash? Bless that good, good woman who hung the crucifix round my neck! for it is a comfort and a strength to me whenever I touch it. It is odd that a thing which I have been taught to regard with disfavour and as idolatrous should in a time of loneliness and trouble be of help. Is it that there is something in the essence of the thing itself, or that it is a medium, a tangible help, in conveying memories of sympathy and comfort? Some time, if it may be, I must examine this matter and try to make up my mind about it. In the meantime I must find out all I can about Count Dracula, as it may help me to understand. To-night he may talk of himself, if I turn the conversation that way. I must be very careful, however, not to awake his suspicion. + +_Midnight._ — I have had a long talk with the Count. I asked him a few questions on Transylvania history, and he warmed up to the subject wonderfully. In his speaking of things and people, and especially of battles, he spoke as if he had been present at them all. This he afterwards explained by saying that to a _boyar_ the pride of his house and name is his own pride, that their glory is his glory, that their fate is his fate. Whenever he spoke of his house he always said “we,” and spoke almost in the plural, like a king speaking. I wish I could put down all he said exactly as he said it, for to me it was most fascinating. It seemed to have in it a whole history of the country. He grew excited as he spoke, and walked about the room pulling his great white moustache and grasping anything on which he laid his hands as though he would crush it by main strength. One thing he said which I shall put down as nearly as I can; for it tells in its way the story of his race:— + +“We Szekelys have a right to be proud, for in our veins flows the blood of many brave races who fought as the lion fights, for lordship. Here, in the whirlpool of European races, the Ugric tribe bore down from Iceland the fighting spirit which Thor and Wodin gave them, which their Berserkers displayed to such fell intent on the seaboards of Europe, ay, and of Asia and Africa too, till the peoples thought that the were-wolves themselves had come. Here, too, when they came, they found the Huns, whose warlike fury had swept the earth like a living flame, till the dying peoples held that in their veins ran the blood of those old witches, who, expelled from Scythia had mated with the devils in the desert. Fools, fools! What devil or what witch was ever so great as Attila, whose blood is in these veins?” He held up his arms. “Is it a wonder that we were a conquering race; that we were proud; that when the Magyar, the Lombard, the Avar, the Bulgar, or the Turk poured his thousands on our frontiers, we drove them back? Is it strange that when Arpad and his legions swept through the Hungarian fatherland he found us here when he reached the frontier; that the Honfoglalas was completed there? And when the Hungarian flood swept eastward, the Szekelys were claimed as kindred by the victorious Magyars, and to us for centuries was trusted the guarding of the frontier of Turkey-land; ay, and more than that, endless duty of the frontier guard, for, as the Turks say, ‘water sleeps, and enemy is sleepless.’ Who more gladly than we throughout the Four Nations received the ‘bloody sword,’ or at its warlike call flocked quicker to the standard of the King? When was redeemed that great shame of my nation, the shame of Cassova, when the flags of the Wallach and the Magyar went down beneath the Crescent? Who was it but one of my own race who as Voivode crossed the Danube and beat the Turk on his own ground? This was a Dracula indeed! Woe was it that his own unworthy brother, when he had fallen, sold his people to the Turk and brought the shame of slavery on them! Was it not this Dracula, indeed, who inspired that other of his race who in a later age again and again brought his forces over the great river into Turkey-land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph! They said that he thought only of himself. Bah! what good are peasants without a leader? Where ends the war without a brain and heart to conduct it? Again, when, after the battle of Mohács, we threw off the Hungarian yoke, we of the Dracula blood were amongst their leaders, for our spirit would not brook that we were not free. Ah, young sir, the Szekelys—and the Dracula as their heart’s blood, their brains, and their swords—can boast a record that mushroom growths like the Hapsburgs and the Romanoffs can never reach. The warlike days are over. Blood is too precious a thing in these days of dishonourable peace; and the glories of the great races are as a tale that is told.” + +It was by this time close on morning, and we went to bed. (_Mem._, this diary seems horribly like the beginning of the “Arabian Nights,” for everything has to break off at cockcrow—or like the ghost of Hamlet’s father.) + +_12 May._ — Let me begin with facts—bare, meagre facts, verified by books and figures, and of which there can be no doubt. I must not confuse them with experiences which will have to rest on my own observation, or my memory of them. Last evening when the Count came from his room he began by asking me questions on legal matters and on the doing of certain kinds of business. I had spent the day wearily over books, and, simply to keep my mind occupied, went over some of the matters I had been examining at Lincoln’s Inn. There was a certain method in the Count’s inquiries, so I shall try to put them down in sequence; the knowledge may somehow or some time be useful to me. + +First, he asked if a man in England might have two solicitors or more. I told him he might have a dozen if he wished, but that it would not be wise to have more than one solicitor engaged in one transaction, as only one could act at a time, and that to change would be certain to militate against his interest. He seemed thoroughly to understand, and went on to ask if there would be any practical difficulty in having one man to attend, say, to banking, and another to look after shipping, in case local help were needed in a place far from the home of the banking solicitor. I asked him to explain more fully, so that I might not by any chance mislead him, so he said:— + +“I shall illustrate. Your friend and mine, Mr. Peter Hawkins, from under the shadow of your beautiful cathedral at Exeter, which is far from London, buys for me through your good self my place at London. Good! Now here let me say frankly, lest you should think it strange that I have sought the services of one so far off from London instead of some one resident there, that my motive was that no local interest might be served save my wish only; and as one of London residence might, perhaps, have some purpose of himself or friend to serve, I went thus afield to seek my agent, whose labours should be only to my interest. Now, suppose I, who have much of affairs, wish to ship goods, say, to Newcastle, or Durham, or Harwich, or Dover, might it not be that it could with more ease be done by consigning to one in these ports?” I answered that certainly it would be most easy, but that we solicitors had a system of agency one for the other, so that local work could be done locally on instruction from any solicitor, so that the client, simply placing himself in the hands of one man, could have his wishes carried out by him without further trouble. + +“But,” said he, “I could be at liberty to direct myself. Is it not so?” + +“Of course,” I replied; and “such is often done by men of business, who do not like the whole of their affairs to be known by any one person.” + +“Good!” he said, and then went on to ask about the means of making consignments and the forms to be gone through, and of all sorts of difficulties which might arise, but by forethought could be guarded against. I explained all these things to him to the best of my ability, and he certainly left me under the impression that he would have made a wonderful solicitor, for there was nothing that he did not think of or foresee. For a man who was never in the country, and who did not evidently do much in the way of business, his knowledge and acumen were wonderful. When he had satisfied himself on these points of which he had spoken, and I had verified all as well as I could by the books available, he suddenly stood up and said:— + +“Have you written since your first letter to our friend Mr. Peter Hawkins, or to any other?” It was with some bitterness in my heart that I answered that I had not, that as yet I had not seen any opportunity of sending letters to anybody. + +“Then write now, my young friend,” he said, laying a heavy hand on my shoulder: “write to our friend and to any other; and say, if it will please you, that you shall stay with me until a month from now.” + +“Do you wish me to stay so long?” I asked, for my heart grew cold at the thought. + +“I desire it much; nay, I will take no refusal. When your master, employer, what you will, engaged that someone should come on his behalf, it was understood that my needs only were to be consulted. I have not stinted. Is it not so?” + +What could I do but bow acceptance? It was Mr. Hawkins’s interest, not mine, and I had to think of him, not myself; and besides, while Count Dracula was speaking, there was that in his eyes and in his bearing which made me remember that I was a prisoner, and that if I wished it I could have no choice. The Count saw his victory in my bow, and his mastery in the trouble of my face, for he began at once to use them, but in his own smooth, resistless way:— + +“I pray you, my good young friend, that you will not discourse of things other than business in your letters. It will doubtless please your friends to know that you are well, and that you look forward to getting home to them. Is it not so?” As he spoke he handed me three sheets of note-paper and three envelopes. They were all of the thinnest foreign post, and looking at them, then at him, and noticing his quiet smile, with the sharp, canine teeth lying over the red underlip, I understood as well as if he had spoken that I should be careful what I wrote, for he would be able to read it. So I determined to write only formal notes now, but to write fully to Mr. Hawkins in secret, and also to Mina, for to her I could write in shorthand, which would puzzle the Count, if he did see it. When I had written my two letters I sat quiet, reading a book whilst the Count wrote several notes, referring as he wrote them to some books on his table. Then he took up my two and placed them with his own, and put by his writing materials, after which, the instant the door had closed behind him, I leaned over and looked at the letters, which were face down on the table. I felt no compunction in doing so, for under the circumstances I felt that I should protect myself in every way I could. + +One of the letters was directed to Samuel F. Billington, No. 7, The Crescent, Whitby, another to Herr Leutner, Varna; the third was to Coutts & Co., London, and the fourth to Herren Klopstock & Billreuth, bankers, Buda-Pesth. The second and fourth were unsealed. I was just about to look at them when I saw the door-handle move. I sank back in my seat, having just had time to replace the letters as they had been and to resume my book before the Count, holding still another letter in his hand, entered the room. He took up the letters on the table and stamped them carefully, and then turning to me, said:— + +“I trust you will forgive me, but I have much work to do in private this evening. You will, I hope, find all things as you wish.” At the door he turned, and after a moment’s pause said:— + +“Let me advise you, my dear young friend—nay, let me warn you with all seriousness, that should you leave these rooms you will not by any chance go to sleep in any other part of the castle. It is old, and has many memories, and there are bad dreams for those who sleep unwisely. Be warned! Should sleep now or ever overcome you, or be like to do, then haste to your own chamber or to these rooms, for your rest will then be safe. But if you be not careful in this respect, then”—He finished his speech in a gruesome way, for he motioned with his hands as if he were washing them. I quite understood; my only doubt was as to whether any dream could be more terrible than the unnatural, horrible net of gloom and mystery which seemed closing around me. + +_Later._ — I endorse the last words written, but this time there is no doubt in question. I shall not fear to sleep in any place where he is not. I have placed the crucifix over the head of my bed—I imagine that my rest is thus freer from dreams; and there it shall remain. + +When he left me I went to my room. After a little while, not hearing any sound, I came out and went up the stone stair to where I could look out towards the South. There was some sense of freedom in the vast expanse, inaccessible though it was to me, as compared with the narrow darkness of the courtyard. Looking out on this, I felt that I was indeed in prison, and I seemed to want a breath of fresh air, though it were of the night. I am beginning to feel this nocturnal existence tell on me. It is destroying my nerve. I start at my own shadow, and am full of all sorts of horrible imaginings. God knows that there is ground for my terrible fear in this accursed place! I looked out over the beautiful expanse, bathed in soft yellow moonlight till it was almost as light as day. In the soft light the distant hills became melted, and the shadows in the valleys and gorges of velvety blackness. The mere beauty seemed to cheer me; there was peace and comfort in every breath I drew. As I leaned from the window my eye was caught by something moving a storey below me, and somewhat to my left, where I imagined, from the order of the rooms, that the windows of the Count’s own room would look out. The window at which I stood was tall and deep, stone-mullioned, and though weatherworn, was still complete; but it was evidently many a day since the case had been there. I drew back behind the stonework, and looked carefully out. + +What I saw was the Count’s head coming out from the window. I did not see the face, but I knew the man by the neck and the movement of his back and arms. In any case I could not mistake the hands which I had had so many opportunities of studying. I was at first interested and somewhat amused, for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and begin to crawl down the castle wall over that dreadful abyss, _face down_ with his cloak spreading out around him like great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some weird effect of shadow; but I kept looking, and it could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes grasp the corners of the stones, worn clear of the mortar by the stress of years, and by thus using every projection and inequality move downwards with considerable speed, just as a lizard moves along a wall. + +What manner of man is this, or what manner of creature is it in the semblance of man? I feel the dread of this horrible place overpowering me; I am in fear—in awful fear—and there is no escape for me; I am encompassed about with terrors that I dare not think of.... + +_15 May._ — Once more have I seen the Count go out in his lizard fashion. He moved downwards in a sidelong way, some hundred feet down, and a good deal to the left. He vanished into some hole or window. When his head had disappeared, I leaned out to try and see more, but without avail—the distance was too great to allow a proper angle of sight. I knew he had left the castle now, and thought to use the opportunity to explore more than I had dared to do as yet. I went back to the room, and taking a lamp, tried all the doors. They were all locked, as I had expected, and the locks were comparatively new; but I went down the stone stairs to the hall where I had entered originally. I found I could pull back the bolts easily enough and unhook the great chains; but the door was locked, and the key was gone! That key must be in the Count’s room; I must watch should his door be unlocked, so that I may get it and escape. I went on to make a thorough examination of the various stairs and passages, and to try the doors that opened from them. One or two small rooms near the hall were open, but there was nothing to see in them except old furniture, dusty with age and moth-eaten. At last, however, I found one door at the top of the stairway which, though it seemed to be locked, gave a little under pressure. I tried it harder, and found that it was not really locked, but that the resistance came from the fact that the hinges had fallen somewhat, and the heavy door rested on the floor. Here was an opportunity which I might not have again, so I exerted myself, and with many efforts forced it back so that I could enter. I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew and a storey lower down. From the windows I could see that the suite of rooms lay along to the south of the castle, the windows of the end room looking out both west and south. On the latter side, as well as to the former, there was a great precipice. The castle was built on the corner of a great rock, so that on three sides it was quite impregnable, and great windows were placed here where sling, or bow, or culverin could not reach, and consequently light and comfort, impossible to a position which had to be guarded, were secured. To the west was a great valley, and then, rising far away, great jagged mountain fastnesses, rising peak on peak, the sheer rock studded with mountain ash and thorn, whose roots clung in cracks and crevices and crannies of the stone. This was evidently the portion of the castle occupied by the ladies in bygone days, for the furniture had more air of comfort than any I had seen. The windows were curtainless, and the yellow moonlight, flooding in through the diamond panes, enabled one to see even colours, whilst it softened the wealth of dust which lay over all and disguised in some measure the ravages of time and the moth. My lamp seemed to be of little effect in the brilliant moonlight, but I was glad to have it with me, for there was a dread loneliness in the place which chilled my heart and made my nerves tremble. Still, it was better than living alone in the rooms which I had come to hate from the presence of the Count, and after trying a little to school my nerves, I found a soft quietude come over me. Here I am, sitting at a little oak table where in old times possibly some fair lady sat to pen, with much thought and many blushes, her ill-spelt love-letter, and writing in my diary in shorthand all that has happened since I closed it last. It is nineteenth century up-to-date with a vengeance. And yet, unless my senses deceive me, the old centuries had, and have, powers of their own which mere “modernity” cannot kill. + +_Later: the Morning of 16 May._ — God preserve my sanity, for to this I am reduced. Safety and the assurance of safety are things of the past. Whilst I live on here there is but one thing to hope for, that I may not go mad, if, indeed, I be not mad already. If I be sane, then surely it is maddening to think that of all the foul things that lurk in this hateful place the Count is the least dreadful to me; that to him alone I can look for safety, even though this be only whilst I can serve his purpose. Great God! merciful God! Let me be calm, for out of that way lies madness indeed. I begin to get new lights on certain things which have puzzled me. Up to now I never quite knew what Shakespeare meant when he made Hamlet say:— + +[quote] +“My tablets! quick, my tablets! ’Tis meet that I put it down,” etc., + +for now, feeling as though my own brain were unhinged or as if the shock had come which must end in its undoing, I turn to my diary for repose. The habit of entering accurately must help to soothe me. + +The Count’s mysterious warning frightened me at the time; it frightens me more now when I think of it, for in future he has a fearful hold upon me. I shall fear to doubt what he may say! + +When I had written in my diary and had fortunately replaced the book and pen in my pocket I felt sleepy. The Count’s warning came into my mind, but I took a pleasure in disobeying it. The sense of sleep was upon me, and with it the obstinacy which sleep brings as outrider. The soft moonlight soothed, and the wide expanse without gave a sense of freedom which refreshed me. I determined not to return to-night to the gloom-haunted rooms, but to sleep here, where, of old, ladies had sat and sung and lived sweet lives whilst their gentle breasts were sad for their menfolk away in the midst of remorseless wars. I drew a great couch out of its place near the corner, so that as I lay, I could look at the lovely view to east and south, and unthinking of and uncaring for the dust, composed myself for sleep. I suppose I must have fallen asleep; I hope so, but I fear, for all that followed was startlingly real—so real that now sitting here in the broad, full sunlight of the morning, I cannot in the least believe that it was all sleep. + +I was not alone. The room was the same, unchanged in any way since I came into it; I could see along the floor, in the brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed the long accumulation of dust. In the moonlight opposite me were three young women, ladies by their dress and manner. I thought at the time that I must be dreaming when I saw them, for, though the moonlight was behind them, they threw no shadow on the floor. They came close to me, and looked at me for some time, and then whispered together. Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes that seemed to be almost red when contrasted with the pale yellow moon. The other was fair, as fair as can be, with great wavy masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires. I seemed somehow to know her face, and to know it in connection with some dreamy fear, but I could not recollect at the moment how or where. All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips. There was something about them that made me uneasy, some longing and at the same time some deadly fear. I felt in my heart a wicked, burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips. It is not good to note this down, lest some day it should meet Mina’s eyes and cause her pain; but it is the truth. They whispered together, and then they all three laughed—such a silvery, musical laugh, but as hard as though the sound never could have come through the softness of human lips. It was like the intolerable, tingling sweetness of water-glasses when played on by a cunning hand. The fair girl shook her head coquettishly, and the other two urged her on. One said:— + +“Go on! You are first, and we shall follow; yours is the right to begin.” The other added:— + +“He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all.” I lay quiet, looking out under my eyelashes in an agony of delightful anticipation. The fair girl advanced and bent over me till I could feel the movement of her breath upon me. Sweet it was in one sense, honey-sweet, and sent the same tingling through the nerves as her voice, but with a bitter underlying the sweet, a bitter offensiveness, as one smells in blood. + +I was afraid to raise my eyelids, but looked out and saw perfectly under the lashes. The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she actually licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth. Lower and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin and seemed about to fasten on my throat. Then she paused, and I could hear the churning sound of her tongue as it licked her teeth and lips, and could feel the hot breath on my neck. Then the skin of my throat began to tingle as one’s flesh does when the hand that is to tickle it approaches nearer—nearer. I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited—waited with beating heart. + +But at that instant, another sensation swept through me as quick as lightning. I was conscious of the presence of the Count, and of his being as if lapped in a storm of fury. As my eyes opened involuntarily I saw his strong hand grasp the slender neck of the fair woman and with giant’s power draw it back, the blue eyes transformed with fury, the white teeth champing with rage, and the fair cheeks blazing red with passion. But the Count! Never did I imagine such wrath and fury, even to the demons of the pit. His eyes were positively blazing. The red light in them was lurid, as if the flames of hell-fire blazed behind them. His face was deathly pale, and the lines of it were hard like drawn wires; the thick eyebrows that met over the nose now seemed like a heaving bar of white-hot metal. With a fierce sweep of his arm, he hurled the woman from him, and then motioned to the others, as though he were beating them back; it was the same imperious gesture that I had seen used to the wolves. In a voice which, though low and almost in a whisper seemed to cut through the air and then ring round the room he said:— + +“How dare you touch him, any of you? How dare you cast eyes on him when I had forbidden it? Back, I tell you all! This man belongs to me! Beware how you meddle with him, or you’ll have to deal with me.” The fair girl, with a laugh of ribald coquetry, turned to answer him:— + +“You yourself never loved; you never love!” On this the other women joined, and such a mirthless, hard, soulless laughter rang through the room that it almost made me faint to hear; it seemed like the pleasure of fiends. Then the Count turned, after looking at my face attentively, and said in a soft whisper:— + +“Yes, I too can love; you yourselves can tell it from the past. Is it not so? Well, now I promise you that when I am done with him you shall kiss him at your will. Now go! go! I must awaken him, for there is work to be done.” + +“Are we to have nothing to-night?” said one of them, with a low laugh, as she pointed to the bag which he had thrown upon the floor, and which moved as though there were some living thing within it. For answer he nodded his head. One of the women jumped forward and opened it. If my ears did not deceive me there was a gasp and a low wail, as of a half-smothered child. The women closed round, whilst I was aghast with horror; but as I looked they disappeared, and with them the dreadful bag. There was no door near them, and they could not have passed me without my noticing. They simply seemed to fade into the rays of the moonlight and pass out through the window, for I could see outside the dim, shadowy forms for a moment before they entirely faded away. + +Then the horror overcame me, and I sank down unconscious. + +== CHAPTER IV + +JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL _continued_ + +I awoke in my own bed. If it be that I had not dreamt, the Count must have carried me here. I tried to satisfy myself on the subject, but could not arrive at any unquestionable result. To be sure, there were certain small evidences, such as that my clothes were folded and laid by in a manner which was not my habit. My watch was still unwound, and I am rigorously accustomed to wind it the last thing before going to bed, and many such details. But these things are no proof, for they may have been evidences that my mind was not as usual, and, from some cause or another, I had certainly been much upset. I must watch for proof. Of one thing I am glad: if it was that the Count carried me here and undressed me, he must have been hurried in his task, for my pockets are intact. I am sure this diary would have been a mystery to him which he would not have brooked. He would have taken or destroyed it. As I look round this room, although it has been to me so full of fear, it is now a sort of sanctuary, for nothing can be more dreadful than those awful women, who were—who _are_ — waiting to suck my blood. + +_18 May._ — I have been down to look at that room again in daylight, for I _must_ know the truth. When I got to the doorway at the top of the stairs I found it closed. It had been so forcibly driven against the jamb that part of the woodwork was splintered. I could see that the bolt of the lock had not been shot, but the door is fastened from the inside. I fear it was no dream, and must act on this surmise. + +_19 May._ — I am surely in the toils. Last night the Count asked me in the suavest tones to write three letters, one saying that my work here was nearly done, and that I should start for home within a few days, another that I was starting on the next morning from the time of the letter, and the third that I had left the castle and arrived at Bistritz. I would fain have rebelled, but felt that in the present state of things it would be madness to quarrel openly with the Count whilst I am so absolutely in his power; and to refuse would be to excite his suspicion and to arouse his anger. He knows that I know too much, and that I must not live, lest I be dangerous to him; my only chance is to prolong my opportunities. Something may occur which will give me a chance to escape. I saw in his eyes something of that gathering wrath which was manifest when he hurled that fair woman from him. He explained to me that posts were few and uncertain, and that my writing now would ensure ease of mind to my friends; and he assured me with so much impressiveness that he would countermand the later letters, which would be held over at Bistritz until due time in case chance would admit of my prolonging my stay, that to oppose him would have been to create new suspicion. I therefore pretended to fall in with his views, and asked him what dates I should put on the letters. He calculated a minute, and then said:— + +“The first should be June 12, the second June 19, and the third June 29.” + +I know now the span of my life. God help me! + +_28 May._ — There is a chance of escape, or at any rate of being able to send word home. A band of Szgany have come to the castle, and are encamped in the courtyard. These Szgany are gipsies; I have notes of them in my book. They are peculiar to this part of the world, though allied to the ordinary gipsies all the world over. There are thousands of them in Hungary and Transylvania, who are almost outside all law. They attach themselves as a rule to some great noble or _boyar_, and call themselves by his name. They are fearless and without religion, save superstition, and they talk only their own varieties of the Romany tongue. + +I shall write some letters home, and shall try to get them to have them posted. I have already spoken them through my window to begin acquaintanceship. They took their hats off and made obeisance and many signs, which, however, I could not understand any more than I could their spoken language.... + +I have written the letters. Mina’s is in shorthand, and I simply ask Mr. Hawkins to communicate with her. To her I have explained my situation, but without the horrors which I may only surmise. It would shock and frighten her to death were I to expose my heart to her. Should the letters not carry, then the Count shall not yet know my secret or the extent of my knowledge.... + +I have given the letters; I threw them through the bars of my window with a gold piece, and made what signs I could to have them posted. The man who took them pressed them to his heart and bowed, and then put them in his cap. I could do no more. I stole back to the study, and began to read. As the Count did not come in, I have written here.... + +The Count has come. He sat down beside me, and said in his smoothest voice as he opened two letters:— + +“The Szgany has given me these, of which, though I know not whence they come, I shall, of course, take care. See!”—he must have looked at it—“one is from you, and to my friend Peter Hawkins; the other”—here he caught sight of the strange symbols as he opened the envelope, and the dark look came into his face, and his eyes blazed wickedly—“the other is a vile thing, an outrage upon friendship and hospitality! It is not signed. Well! so it cannot matter to us.” And he calmly held letter and envelope in the flame of the lamp till they were consumed. Then he went on:— + +“The letter to Hawkins—that I shall, of course, send on, since it is yours. Your letters are sacred to me. Your pardon, my friend, that unknowingly I did break the seal. Will you not cover it again?” He held out the letter to me, and with a courteous bow handed me a clean envelope. I could only redirect it and hand it to him in silence. When he went out of the room I could hear the key turn softly. A minute later I went over and tried it, and the door was locked. + +When, an hour or two after, the Count came quietly into the room, his coming awakened me, for I had gone to sleep on the sofa. He was very courteous and very cheery in his manner, and seeing that I had been sleeping, he said:— + +“So, my friend, you are tired? Get to bed. There is the surest rest. I may not have the pleasure to talk to-night, since there are many labours to me; but you will sleep, I pray.” I passed to my room and went to bed, and, strange to say, slept without dreaming. Despair has its own calms. + +_31 May._ — This morning when I woke I thought I would provide myself with some paper and envelopes from my bag and keep them in my pocket, so that I might write in case I should get an opportunity, but again a surprise, again a shock! + +Every scrap of paper was gone, and with it all my notes, my memoranda, relating to railways and travel, my letter of credit, in fact all that might be useful to me were I once outside the castle. I sat and pondered awhile, and then some thought occurred to me, and I made search of my portmanteau and in the wardrobe where I had placed my clothes. + +The suit in which I had travelled was gone, and also my overcoat and rug; I could find no trace of them anywhere. This looked like some new scheme of villainy.... + +_17 June._ — This morning, as I was sitting on the edge of my bed cudgelling my brains, I heard without a cracking of whips and pounding and scraping of horses’ feet up the rocky path beyond the courtyard. With joy I hurried to the window, and saw drive into the yard two great leiter-wagons, each drawn by eight sturdy horses, and at the head of each pair a Slovak, with his wide hat, great nail-studded belt, dirty sheepskin, and high boots. They had also their long staves in hand. I ran to the door, intending to descend and try and join them through the main hall, as I thought that way might be opened for them. Again a shock: my door was fastened on the outside. + +Then I ran to the window and cried to them. They looked up at me stupidly and pointed, but just then the “hetman” of the Szgany came out, and seeing them pointing to my window, said something, at which they laughed. Henceforth no effort of mine, no piteous cry or agonised entreaty, would make them even look at me. They resolutely turned away. The leiter-wagons contained great, square boxes, with handles of thick rope; these were evidently empty by the ease with which the Slovaks handled them, and by their resonance as they were roughly moved. When they were all unloaded and packed in a great heap in one corner of the yard, the Slovaks were given some money by the Szgany, and spitting on it for luck, lazily went each to his horse’s head. Shortly afterwards, I heard the cracking of their whips die away in the distance. + +_24 June, before morning._ — Last night the Count left me early, and locked himself into his own room. As soon as I dared I ran up the winding stair, and looked out of the window, which opened south. I thought I would watch for the Count, for there is something going on. The Szgany are quartered somewhere in the castle and are doing work of some kind. I know it, for now and then I hear a far-away muffled sound as of mattock and spade, and, whatever it is, it must be the end of some ruthless villainy. + +I had been at the window somewhat less than half an hour, when I saw something coming out of the Count’s window. I drew back and watched carefully, and saw the whole man emerge. It was a new shock to me to find that he had on the suit of clothes which I had worn whilst travelling here, and slung over his shoulder the terrible bag which I had seen the women take away. There could be no doubt as to his quest, and in my garb, too! This, then, is his new scheme of evil: that he will allow others to see me, as they think, so that he may both leave evidence that I have been seen in the towns or villages posting my own letters, and that any wickedness which he may do shall by the local people be attributed to me. + +It makes me rage to think that this can go on, and whilst I am shut up here, a veritable prisoner, but without that protection of the law which is even a criminal’s right and consolation. + +I thought I would watch for the Count’s return, and for a long time sat doggedly at the window. Then I began to notice that there were some quaint little specks floating in the rays of the moonlight. They were like the tiniest grains of dust, and they whirled round and gathered in clusters in a nebulous sort of way. I watched them with a sense of soothing, and a sort of calm stole over me. I leaned back in the embrasure in a more comfortable position, so that I could enjoy more fully the aërial gambolling. + +Something made me start up, a low, piteous howling of dogs somewhere far below in the valley, which was hidden from my sight. Louder it seemed to ring in my ears, and the floating motes of dust to take new shapes to the sound as they danced in the moonlight. I felt myself struggling to awake to some call of my instincts; nay, my very soul was struggling, and my half-remembered sensibilities were striving to answer the call. I was becoming hypnotised! Quicker and quicker danced the dust; the moonbeams seemed to quiver as they went by me into the mass of gloom beyond. More and more they gathered till they seemed to take dim phantom shapes. And then I started, broad awake and in full possession of my senses, and ran screaming from the place. The phantom shapes, which were becoming gradually materialised from the moonbeams, were those of the three ghostly women to whom I was doomed. I fled, and felt somewhat safer in my own room, where there was no moonlight and where the lamp was burning brightly. + +When a couple of hours had passed I heard something stirring in the Count’s room, something like a sharp wail quickly suppressed; and then there was silence, deep, awful silence, which chilled me. With a beating heart, I tried the door; but I was locked in my prison, and could do nothing. I sat down and simply cried. + +As I sat I heard a sound in the courtyard without—the agonised cry of a woman. I rushed to the window, and throwing it up, peered out between the bars. There, indeed, was a woman with dishevelled hair, holding her hands over her heart as one distressed with running. She was leaning against a corner of the gateway. When she saw my face at the window she threw herself forward, and shouted in a voice laden with menace:— + +“Monster, give me my child!” + +She threw herself on her knees, and raising up her hands, cried the same words in tones which wrung my heart. Then she tore her hair and beat her breast, and abandoned herself to all the violences of extravagant emotion. Finally, she threw herself forward, and, though I could not see her, I could hear the beating of her naked hands against the door. + +Somewhere high overhead, probably on the tower, I heard the voice of the Count calling in his harsh, metallic whisper. His call seemed to be answered from far and wide by the howling of wolves. Before many minutes had passed a pack of them poured, like a pent-up dam when liberated, through the wide entrance into the courtyard. + +There was no cry from the woman, and the howling of the wolves was but short. Before long they streamed away singly, licking their lips. + +I could not pity her, for I knew now what had become of her child, and she was better dead. + +What shall I do? what can I do? How can I escape from this dreadful thing of night and gloom and fear? + +_25 June, morning._ — No man knows till he has suffered from the night how sweet and how dear to his heart and eye the morning can be. When the sun grew so high this morning that it struck the top of the great gateway opposite my window, the high spot which it touched seemed to me as if the dove from the ark had lighted there. My fear fell from me as if it had been a vaporous garment which dissolved in the warmth. I must take action of some sort whilst the courage of the day is upon me. Last night one of my post-dated letters went to post, the first of that fatal series which is to blot out the very traces of my existence from the earth. + +Let me not think of it. Action! + +It has always been at night-time that I have been molested or threatened, or in some way in danger or in fear. I have not yet seen the Count in the daylight. Can it be that he sleeps when others wake, that he may be awake whilst they sleep? If I could only get into his room! But there is no possible way. The door is always locked, no way for me. + +Yes, there is a way, if one dares to take it. Where his body has gone why may not another body go? I have seen him myself crawl from his window. Why should not I imitate him, and go in by his window? The chances are desperate, but my need is more desperate still. I shall risk it. At the worst it can only be death; and a man’s death is not a calf’s, and the dreaded Hereafter may still be open to me. God help me in my task! Good-bye, Mina, if I fail; good-bye, my faithful friend and second father; good-bye, all, and last of all Mina! + +_Same day, later._ — I have made the effort, and God, helping me, have come safely back to this room. I must put down every detail in order. I went whilst my courage was fresh straight to the window on the south side, and at once got outside on the narrow ledge of stone which runs around the building on this side. The stones are big and roughly cut, and the mortar has by process of time been washed away between them. I took off my boots, and ventured out on the desperate way. I looked down once, so as to make sure that a sudden glimpse of the awful depth would not overcome me, but after that kept my eyes away from it. I knew pretty well the direction and distance of the Count’s window, and made for it as well as I could, having regard to the opportunities available. I did not feel dizzy—I suppose I was too excited—and the time seemed ridiculously short till I found myself standing on the window-sill and trying to raise up the sash. I was filled with agitation, however, when I bent down and slid feet foremost in through the window. Then I looked around for the Count, but, with surprise and gladness, made a discovery. The room was empty! It was barely furnished with odd things, which seemed to have never been used; the furniture was something the same style as that in the south rooms, and was covered with dust. I looked for the key, but it was not in the lock, and I could not find it anywhere. The only thing I found was a great heap of gold in one corner—gold of all kinds, Roman, and British, and Austrian, and Hungarian, and Greek and Turkish money, covered with a film of dust, as though it had lain long in the ground. None of it that I noticed was less than three hundred years old. There were also chains and ornaments, some jewelled, but all of them old and stained. + +At one corner of the room was a heavy door. I tried it, for, since I could not find the key of the room or the key of the outer door, which was the main object of my search, I must make further examination, or all my efforts would be in vain. It was open, and led through a stone passage to a circular stairway, which went steeply down. I descended, minding carefully where I went, for the stairs were dark, being only lit by loopholes in the heavy masonry. At the bottom there was a dark, tunnel-like passage, through which came a deathly, sickly odour, the odour of old earth newly turned. As I went through the passage the smell grew closer and heavier. At last I pulled open a heavy door which stood ajar, and found myself in an old, ruined chapel, which had evidently been used as a graveyard. The roof was broken, and in two places were steps leading to vaults, but the ground had recently been dug over, and the earth placed in great wooden boxes, manifestly those which had been brought by the Slovaks. There was nobody about, and I made search for any further outlet, but there was none. Then I went over every inch of the ground, so as not to lose a chance. I went down even into the vaults, where the dim light struggled, although to do so was a dread to my very soul. Into two of these I went, but saw nothing except fragments of old coffins and piles of dust; in the third, however, I made a discovery. + +There, in one of the great boxes, of which there were fifty in all, on a pile of newly dug earth, lay the Count! He was either dead or asleep, I could not say which—for the eyes were open and stony, but without the glassiness of death—and the cheeks had the warmth of life through all their pallor; the lips were as red as ever. But there was no sign of movement, no pulse, no breath, no beating of the heart. I bent over him, and tried to find any sign of life, but in vain. He could not have lain there long, for the earthy smell would have passed away in a few hours. By the side of the box was its cover, pierced with holes here and there. I thought he might have the keys on him, but when I went to search I saw the dead eyes, and in them, dead though they were, such a look of hate, though unconscious of me or my presence, that I fled from the place, and leaving the Count’s room by the window, crawled again up the castle wall. Regaining my room, I threw myself panting upon the bed and tried to think.... + +_29 June._ — To-day is the date of my last letter, and the Count has taken steps to prove that it was genuine, for again I saw him leave the castle by the same window, and in my clothes. As he went down the wall, lizard fashion, I wished I had a gun or some lethal weapon, that I might destroy him; but I fear that no weapon wrought alone by man’s hand would have any effect on him. I dared not wait to see him return, for I feared to see those weird sisters. I came back to the library, and read there till I fell asleep. + +I was awakened by the Count, who looked at me as grimly as a man can look as he said:— + +“To-morrow, my friend, we must part. You return to your beautiful England, I to some work which may have such an end that we may never meet. Your letter home has been despatched; to-morrow I shall not be here, but all shall be ready for your journey. In the morning come the Szgany, who have some labours of their own here, and also come some Slovaks. When they have gone, my carriage shall come for you, and shall bear you to the Borgo Pass to meet the diligence from Bukovina to Bistritz. But I am in hopes that I shall see more of you at Castle Dracula.” I suspected him, and determined to test his sincerity. Sincerity! It seems like a profanation of the word to write it in connection with such a monster, so asked him point-blank:— + +“Why may I not go to-night?” + +“Because, dear sir, my coachman and horses are away on a mission.” + +“But I would walk with pleasure. I want to get away at once.” He smiled, such a soft, smooth, diabolical smile that I knew there was some trick behind his smoothness. He said:— + +“And your baggage?” + +“I do not care about it. I can send for it some other time.” + +The Count stood up, and said, with a sweet courtesy which made me rub my eyes, it seemed so real:— + +“You English have a saying which is close to my heart, for its spirit is that which rules our _boyars_: ‘Welcome the coming; speed the parting guest.’ Come with me, my dear young friend. Not an hour shall you wait in my house against your will, though sad am I at your going, and that you so suddenly desire it. Come!” With a stately gravity, he, with the lamp, preceded me down the stairs and along the hall. Suddenly he stopped. + +“Hark!” + +Close at hand came the howling of many wolves. It was almost as if the sound sprang up at the rising of his hand, just as the music of a great orchestra seems to leap under the bâton of the conductor. After a pause of a moment, he proceeded, in his stately way, to the door, drew back the ponderous bolts, unhooked the heavy chains, and began to draw it open. + +To my intense astonishment I saw that it was unlocked. Suspiciously, I looked all round, but could see no key of any kind. + +As the door began to open, the howling of the wolves without grew louder and angrier; their red jaws, with champing teeth, and their blunt-clawed feet as they leaped, came in through the opening door. I knew then that to struggle at the moment against the Count was useless. With such allies as these at his command, I could do nothing. But still the door continued slowly to open, and only the Count’s body stood in the gap. Suddenly it struck me that this might be the moment and means of my doom; I was to be given to the wolves, and at my own instigation. There was a diabolical wickedness in the idea great enough for the Count, and as a last chance I cried out:— + +“Shut the door; I shall wait till morning!” and covered my face with my hands to hide my tears of bitter disappointment. With one sweep of his powerful arm, the Count threw the door shut, and the great bolts clanged and echoed through the hall as they shot back into their places. + +In silence we returned to the library, and after a minute or two I went to my own room. The last I saw of Count Dracula was his kissing his hand to me; with a red light of triumph in his eyes, and with a smile that Judas in hell might be proud of. + +When I was in my room and about to lie down, I thought I heard a whispering at my door. I went to it softly and listened. Unless my ears deceived me, I heard the voice of the Count:— + +“Back, back, to your own place! Your time is not yet come. Wait! Have patience! To-night is mine. To-morrow night is yours!” There was a low, sweet ripple of laughter, and in a rage I threw open the door, and saw without the three terrible women licking their lips. As I appeared they all joined in a horrible laugh, and ran away. + +I came back to my room and threw myself on my knees. It is then so near the end? To-morrow! to-morrow! Lord, help me, and those to whom I am dear! + +_30 June, morning._ — These may be the last words I ever write in this diary. I slept till just before the dawn, and when I woke threw myself on my knees, for I determined that if Death came he should find me ready. + +At last I felt that subtle change in the air, and knew that the morning had come. Then came the welcome cock-crow, and I felt that I was safe. With a glad heart, I opened my door and ran down to the hall. I had seen that the door was unlocked, and now escape was before me. With hands that trembled with eagerness, I unhooked the chains and drew back the massive bolts. + +But the door would not move. Despair seized me. I pulled, and pulled, at the door, and shook it till, massive as it was, it rattled in its casement. I could see the bolt shot. It had been locked after I left the Count. + +Then a wild desire took me to obtain that key at any risk, and I determined then and there to scale the wall again and gain the Count’s room. He might kill me, but death now seemed the happier choice of evils. Without a pause I rushed up to the east window, and scrambled down the wall, as before, into the Count’s room. It was empty, but that was as I expected. I could not see a key anywhere, but the heap of gold remained. I went through the door in the corner and down the winding stair and along the dark passage to the old chapel. I knew now well enough where to find the monster I sought. + +The great box was in the same place, close against the wall, but the lid was laid on it, not fastened down, but with the nails ready in their places to be hammered home. I knew I must reach the body for the key, so I raised the lid, and laid it back against the wall; and then I saw something which filled my very soul with horror. There lay the Count, but looking as if his youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby-red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood. He lay like a filthy leech, exhausted with his repletion. I shuddered as I bent over to touch him, and every sense in me revolted at the contact; but I had to search, or I was lost. The coming night might see my own body a banquet in a similar way to those horrid three. I felt all over the body, but no sign could I find of the key. Then I stopped and looked at the Count. There was a mocking smile on the bloated face which seemed to drive me mad. This was the being I was helping to transfer to London, where, perhaps, for centuries to come he might, amongst its teeming millions, satiate his lust for blood, and create a new and ever-widening circle of semi-demons to batten on the helpless. The very thought drove me mad. A terrible desire came upon me to rid the world of such a monster. There was no lethal weapon at hand, but I seized a shovel which the workmen had been using to fill the cases, and lifting it high, struck, with the edge downward, at the hateful face. But as I did so the head turned, and the eyes fell full upon me, with all their blaze of basilisk horror. The sight seemed to paralyse me, and the shovel turned in my hand and glanced from the face, merely making a deep gash above the forehead. The shovel fell from my hand across the box, and as I pulled it away the flange of the blade caught the edge of the lid which fell over again, and hid the horrid thing from my sight. The last glimpse I had was of the bloated face, blood-stained and fixed with a grin of malice which would have held its own in the nethermost hell. + +I thought and thought what should be my next move, but my brain seemed on fire, and I waited with a despairing feeling growing over me. As I waited I heard in the distance a gipsy song sung by merry voices coming closer, and through their song the rolling of heavy wheels and the cracking of whips; the Szgany and the Slovaks of whom the Count had spoken were coming. With a last look around and at the box which contained the vile body, I ran from the place and gained the Count’s room, determined to rush out at the moment the door should be opened. With strained ears, I listened, and heard downstairs the grinding of the key in the great lock and the falling back of the heavy door. There must have been some other means of entry, or some one had a key for one of the locked doors. Then there came the sound of many feet tramping and dying away in some passage which sent up a clanging echo. I turned to run down again towards the vault, where I might find the new entrance; but at the moment there seemed to come a violent puff of wind, and the door to the winding stair blew to with a shock that set the dust from the lintels flying. When I ran to push it open, I found that it was hopelessly fast. I was again a prisoner, and the net of doom was closing round me more closely. + +As I write there is in the passage below a sound of many tramping feet and the crash of weights being set down heavily, doubtless the boxes, with their freight of earth. There is a sound of hammering; it is the box being nailed down. Now I can hear the heavy feet tramping again along the hall, with many other idle feet coming behind them. + +The door is shut, and the chains rattle; there is a grinding of the key in the lock; I can hear the key withdraw: then another door opens and shuts; I hear the creaking of lock and bolt. + +Hark! in the courtyard and down the rocky way the roll of heavy wheels, the crack of whips, and the chorus of the Szgany as they pass into the distance. + +I am alone in the castle with those awful women. Faugh! Mina is a woman, and there is nought in common. They are devils of the Pit! + +I shall not remain alone with them; I shall try to scale the castle wall farther than I have yet attempted. I shall take some of the gold with me, lest I want it later. I may find a way from this dreadful place. + +And then away for home! away to the quickest and nearest train! away from this cursed spot, from this cursed land, where the devil and his children still walk with earthly feet! + +At least God’s mercy is better than that of these monsters, and the precipice is steep and high. At its foot a man may sleep—as a man. Good-bye, all! Mina! + +== CHAPTER V + +_Letter from Miss Mina Murray to Miss Lucy Westenra._ + +“_9 May._ + +“My dearest Lucy,— + +“Forgive my long delay in writing, but I have been simply overwhelmed with work. The life of an assistant schoolmistress is sometimes trying. I am longing to be with you, and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air. I have been working very hard lately, because I want to keep up with Jonathan’s studies, and I have been practising shorthand very assiduously. When we are married I shall be able to be useful to Jonathan, and if I can stenograph well enough I can take down what he wants to say in this way and write it out for him on the typewriter, at which also I am practising very hard. He and I sometimes write letters in shorthand, and he is keeping a stenographic journal of his travels abroad. When I am with you I shall keep a diary in the same way. I don’t mean one of those two-pages-to-the-week-with-Sunday-squeezed-in-a-corner diaries, but a sort of journal which I can write in whenever I feel inclined. I do not suppose there will be much of interest to other people; but it is not intended for them. I may show it to Jonathan some day if there is in it anything worth sharing, but it is really an exercise book. I shall try to do what I see lady journalists do: interviewing and writing descriptions and trying to remember conversations. I am told that, with a little practice, one can remember all that goes on or that one hears said during a day. However, we shall see. I will tell you of my little plans when we meet. I have just had a few hurried lines from Jonathan from Transylvania. He is well, and will be returning in about a week. I am longing to hear all his news. It must be so nice to see strange countries. I wonder if we—I mean Jonathan and I—shall ever see them together. There is the ten o’clock bell ringing. Good-bye. + +“Your loving + +“MINA. + +“Tell me all the news when you write. You have not told me anything for a long time. I hear rumours, and especially of a tall, handsome, curly-haired man???” + +_Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray._ + +“_17, Chatham Street_, + +“_Wednesday_. + +“My dearest Mina,— + +“I must say you tax me _very_ unfairly with being a bad correspondent. I wrote to you _twice_ since we parted, and your last letter was only your _second_. Besides, I have nothing to tell you. There is really nothing to interest you. Town is very pleasant just now, and we go a good deal to picture-galleries and for walks and rides in the park. As to the tall, curly-haired man, I suppose it was the one who was with me at the last Pop. Some one has evidently been telling tales. That was Mr. Holmwood. He often comes to see us, and he and mamma get on very well together; they have so many things to talk about in common. We met some time ago a man that would just _do for you_, if you were not already engaged to Jonathan. He is an excellent _parti_, being handsome, well off, and of good birth. He is a doctor and really clever. Just fancy! He is only nine-and-twenty, and he has an immense lunatic asylum all under his own care. Mr. Holmwood introduced him to me, and he called here to see us, and often comes now. I think he is one of the most resolute men I ever saw, and yet the most calm. He seems absolutely imperturbable. I can fancy what a wonderful power he must have over his patients. He has a curious habit of looking one straight in the face, as if trying to read one’s thoughts. He tries this on very much with me, but I flatter myself he has got a tough nut to crack. I know that from my glass. Do you ever try to read your own face? _I do_, and I can tell you it is not a bad study, and gives you more trouble than you can well fancy if you have never tried it. He says that I afford him a curious psychological study, and I humbly think I do. I do not, as you know, take sufficient interest in dress to be able to describe the new fashions. Dress is a bore. That is slang again, but never mind; Arthur says that every day. There, it is all out. Mina, we have told all our secrets to each other since we were _children_; we have slept together and eaten together, and laughed and cried together; and now, though I have spoken, I would like to speak more. Oh, Mina, couldn’t you guess? I love him. I am blushing as I write, for although I _think_ he loves me, he has not told me so in words. But oh, Mina, I love him; I love him; I love him! There, that does me good. I wish I were with you, dear, sitting by the fire undressing, as we used to sit; and I would try to tell you what I feel. I do not know how I am writing this even to you. I am afraid to stop, or I should tear up the letter, and I don’t want to stop, for I _do_ so want to tell you all. Let me hear from you _at once_, and tell me all that you think about it. Mina, I must stop. Good-night. Bless me in your prayers; and, Mina, pray for my happiness. + +“LUCY. + +“P.S.—I need not tell you this is a secret. Good-night again. + +“L.” + +_Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Murray._ + +“_24 May_. + +“My dearest Mina,— + +“Thanks, and thanks, and thanks again for your sweet letter. It was so nice to be able to tell you and to have your sympathy. + +“My dear, it never rains but it pours. How true the old proverbs are. Here am I, who shall be twenty in September, and yet I never had a proposal till to-day, not a real proposal, and to-day I have had three. Just fancy! THREE proposals in one day! Isn’t it awful! I feel sorry, really and truly sorry, for two of the poor fellows. Oh, Mina, I am so happy that I don’t know what to do with myself. And three proposals! But, for goodness’ sake, don’t tell any of the girls, or they would be getting all sorts of extravagant ideas and imagining themselves injured and slighted if in their very first day at home they did not get six at least. Some girls are so vain! You and I, Mina dear, who are engaged and are going to settle down soon soberly into old married women, can despise vanity. Well, I must tell you about the three, but you must keep it a secret, dear, from _every one_, except, of course, Jonathan. You will tell him, because I would, if I were in your place, certainly tell Arthur. A woman ought to tell her husband everything—don’t you think so, dear?—and I must be fair. Men like women, certainly their wives, to be quite as fair as they are; and women, I am afraid, are not always quite as fair as they should be. Well, my dear, number One came just before lunch. I told you of him, Dr. John Seward, the lunatic-asylum man, with the strong jaw and the good forehead. He was very cool outwardly, but was nervous all the same. He had evidently been schooling himself as to all sorts of little things, and remembered them; but he almost managed to sit down on his silk hat, which men don’t generally do when they are cool, and then when he wanted to appear at ease he kept playing with a lancet in a way that made me nearly scream. He spoke to me, Mina, very straightforwardly. He told me how dear I was to him, though he had known me so little, and what his life would be with me to help and cheer him. He was going to tell me how unhappy he would be if I did not care for him, but when he saw me cry he said that he was a brute and would not add to my present trouble. Then he broke off and asked if I could love him in time; and when I shook my head his hands trembled, and then with some hesitation he asked me if I cared already for any one else. He put it very nicely, saying that he did not want to wring my confidence from me, but only to know, because if a woman’s heart was free a man might have hope. And then, Mina, I felt a sort of duty to tell him that there was some one. I only told him that much, and then he stood up, and he looked very strong and very grave as he took both my hands in his and said he hoped I would be happy, and that if I ever wanted a friend I must count him one of my best. Oh, Mina dear, I can’t help crying: and you must excuse this letter being all blotted. Being proposed to is all very nice and all that sort of thing, but it isn’t at all a happy thing when you have to see a poor fellow, whom you know loves you honestly, going away and looking all broken-hearted, and to know that, no matter what he may say at the moment, you are passing quite out of his life. My dear, I must stop here at present, I feel so miserable, though I am so happy. + +“_Evening._ + +“Arthur has just gone, and I feel in better spirits than when I left off, so I can go on telling you about the day. Well, my dear, number Two came after lunch. He is such a nice fellow, an American from Texas, and he looks so young and so fresh that it seems almost impossible that he has been to so many places and has had such adventures. I sympathise with poor Desdemona when she had such a dangerous stream poured in her ear, even by a black man. I suppose that we women are such cowards that we think a man will save us from fears, and we marry him. I know now what I would do if I were a man and wanted to make a girl love me. No, I don’t, for there was Mr. Morris telling us his stories, and Arthur never told any, and yet— My dear, I am somewhat previous. Mr. Quincey P. Morris found me alone. It seems that a man always does find a girl alone. No, he doesn’t, for Arthur tried twice to _make_ a chance, and I helping him all I could; I am not ashamed to say it now. I must tell you beforehand that Mr. Morris doesn’t always speak slang—that is to say, he never does so to strangers or before them, for he is really well educated and has exquisite manners—but he found out that it amused me to hear him talk American slang, and whenever I was present, and there was no one to be shocked, he said such funny things. I am afraid, my dear, he has to invent it all, for it fits exactly into whatever else he has to say. But this is a way slang has. I do not know myself if I shall ever speak slang; I do not know if Arthur likes it, as I have never heard him use any as yet. Well, Mr. Morris sat down beside me and looked as happy and jolly as he could, but I could see all the same that he was very nervous. He took my hand in his, and said ever so sweetly:— + +“‘Miss Lucy, I know I ain’t good enough to regulate the fixin’s of your little shoes, but I guess if you wait till you find a man that is you will go join them seven young women with the lamps when you quit. Won’t you just hitch up alongside of me and let us go down the long road together, driving in double harness?’ + +“Well, he did look so good-humoured and so jolly that it didn’t seem half so hard to refuse him as it did poor Dr. Seward; so I said, as lightly as I could, that I did not know anything of hitching, and that I wasn’t broken to harness at all yet. Then he said that he had spoken in a light manner, and he hoped that if he had made a mistake in doing so on so grave, so momentous, an occasion for him, I would forgive him. He really did look serious when he was saying it, and I couldn’t help feeling a bit serious too—I know, Mina, you will think me a horrid flirt—though I couldn’t help feeling a sort of exultation that he was number two in one day. And then, my dear, before I could say a word he began pouring out a perfect torrent of love-making, laying his very heart and soul at my feet. He looked so earnest over it that I shall never again think that a man must be playful always, and never earnest, because he is merry at times. I suppose he saw something in my face which checked him, for he suddenly stopped, and said with a sort of manly fervour that I could have loved him for if I had been free:— + +“‘Lucy, you are an honest-hearted girl, I know. I should not be here speaking to you as I am now if I did not believe you clean grit, right through to the very depths of your soul. Tell me, like one good fellow to another, is there any one else that you care for? And if there is I’ll never trouble you a hair’s breadth again, but will be, if you will let me, a very faithful friend.’ + +“My dear Mina, why are men so noble when we women are so little worthy of them? Here was I almost making fun of this great-hearted, true gentleman. I burst into tears—I am afraid, my dear, you will think this a very sloppy letter in more ways than one—and I really felt very badly. Why can’t they let a girl marry three men, or as many as want her, and save all this trouble? But this is heresy, and I must not say it. I am glad to say that, though I was crying, I was able to look into Mr. Morris’s brave eyes, and I told him out straight:— + +“‘Yes, there is some one I love, though he has not told me yet that he even loves me.’ I was right to speak to him so frankly, for quite a light came into his face, and he put out both his hands and took mine—I think I put them into his—and said in a hearty way:— + +“‘That’s my brave girl. It’s better worth being late for a chance of winning you than being in time for any other girl in the world. Don’t cry, my dear. If it’s for me, I’m a hard nut to crack; and I take it standing up. If that other fellow doesn’t know his happiness, well, he’d better look for it soon, or he’ll have to deal with me. Little girl, your honesty and pluck have made me a friend, and that’s rarer than a lover; it’s more unselfish anyhow. My dear, I’m going to have a pretty lonely walk between this and Kingdom Come. Won’t you give me one kiss? It’ll be something to keep off the darkness now and then. You can, you know, if you like, for that other good fellow—he must be a good fellow, my dear, and a fine fellow, or you could not love him—hasn’t spoken yet.’ That quite won me, Mina, for it _was_ brave and sweet of him, and noble, too, to a rival—wasn’t it?—and he so sad; so I leant over and kissed him. He stood up with my two hands in his, and as he looked down into my face—I am afraid I was blushing very much—he said:— + +“‘Little girl, I hold your hand, and you’ve kissed me, and if these things don’t make us friends nothing ever will. Thank you for your sweet honesty to me, and good-bye.’ He wrung my hand, and taking up his hat, went straight out of the room without looking back, without a tear or a quiver or a pause; and I am crying like a baby. Oh, why must a man like that be made unhappy when there are lots of girls about who would worship the very ground he trod on? I know I would if I were free—only I don’t want to be free. My dear, this quite upset me, and I feel I cannot write of happiness just at once, after telling you of it; and I don’t wish to tell of the number three until it can be all happy. + +“Ever your loving + +“LUCY. + +“P.S.—Oh, about number Three—I needn’t tell you of number Three, need I? Besides, it was all so confused; it seemed only a moment from his coming into the room till both his arms were round me, and he was kissing me. I am very, very happy, and I don’t know what I have done to deserve it. I must only try in the future to show that I am not ungrateful to God for all His goodness to me in sending to me such a lover, such a husband, and such a friend. + +“Good-bye.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +(Kept in phonograph) + +_25 May._ — Ebb tide in appetite to-day. Cannot eat, cannot rest, so diary instead. Since my rebuff of yesterday I have a sort of empty feeling; nothing in the world seems of sufficient importance to be worth the doing.... As I knew that the only cure for this sort of thing was work, I went down amongst the patients. I picked out one who has afforded me a study of much interest. He is so quaint that I am determined to understand him as well as I can. To-day I seemed to get nearer than ever before to the heart of his mystery. + +I questioned him more fully than I had ever done, with a view to making myself master of the facts of his hallucination. In my manner of doing it there was, I now see, something of cruelty. I seemed to wish to keep him to the point of his madness—a thing which I avoid with the patients as I would the mouth of hell. + +(_Mem._, under what circumstances would I _not_ avoid the pit of hell?) _Omnia Romæ venalia sunt._ Hell has its price! _verb. sap._ If there be anything behind this instinct it will be valuable to trace it afterwards _accurately_, so I had better commence to do so, therefore— +R. M. Renfield, ætat 59.—Sanguine temperament; great physical strength; morbidly excitable; periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish; a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal; when duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it. + +_Letter, Quincey P. Morris to Hon. Arthur Holmwood._ + +“_25 May._ + +“My dear Art,— + +“We’ve told yarns by the camp-fire in the prairies; and dressed one another’s wounds after trying a landing at the Marquesas; and drunk healths on the shore of Titicaca. There are more yarns to be told, and other wounds to be healed, and another health to be drunk. Won’t you let this be at my camp-fire to-morrow night? I have no hesitation in asking you, as I know a certain lady is engaged to a certain dinner-party, and that you are free. There will only be one other, our old pal at the Korea, Jack Seward. He’s coming, too, and we both want to mingle our weeps over the wine-cup, and to drink a health with all our hearts to the happiest man in all the wide world, who has won the noblest heart that God has made and the best worth winning. We promise you a hearty welcome, and a loving greeting, and a health as true as your own right hand. We shall both swear to leave you at home if you drink too deep to a certain pair of eyes. Come! + +“Yours, as ever and always, + +“QUINCEY P. MORRIS.” + +_Telegram from Arthur Holmwood to Quincey P. Morris._ + +“_26 May._ + +“Count me in every time. I bear messages which will make both your ears tingle. + +“ART.” + +== CHAPTER VI + +MINA MURRAY’S JOURNAL + +_24 July. Whitby._ — Lucy met me at the station, looking sweeter and lovelier than ever, and we drove up to the house at the Crescent in which they have rooms. This is a lovely place. The little river, the Esk, runs through a deep valley, which broadens out as it comes near the harbour. A great viaduct runs across, with high piers, through which the view seems somehow further away than it really is. The valley is beautifully green, and it is so steep that when you are on the high land on either side you look right across it, unless you are near enough to see down. The houses of the old town—the side away from us—are all red-roofed, and seem piled up one over the other anyhow, like the pictures we see of Nuremberg. Right over the town is the ruin of Whitby Abbey, which was sacked by the Danes, and which is the scene of part of “Marmion,” where the girl was built up in the wall. It is a most noble ruin, of immense size, and full of beautiful and romantic bits; there is a legend that a white lady is seen in one of the windows. Between it and the town there is another church, the parish one, round which is a big graveyard, all full of tombstones. This is to my mind the nicest spot in Whitby, for it lies right over the town, and has a full view of the harbour and all up the bay to where the headland called Kettleness stretches out into the sea. It descends so steeply over the harbour that part of the bank has fallen away, and some of the graves have been destroyed. In one place part of the stonework of the graves stretches out over the sandy pathway far below. There are walks, with seats beside them, through the churchyard; and people go and sit there all day long looking at the beautiful view and enjoying the breeze. I shall come and sit here very often myself and work. Indeed, I am writing now, with my book on my knee, and listening to the talk of three old men who are sitting beside me. They seem to do nothing all day but sit up here and talk. + +The harbour lies below me, with, on the far side, one long granite wall stretching out into the sea, with a curve outwards at the end of it, in the middle of which is a lighthouse. A heavy sea-wall runs along outside of it. On the near side, the sea-wall makes an elbow crooked inversely, and its end too has a lighthouse. Between the two piers there is a narrow opening into the harbour, which then suddenly widens. + +It is nice at high water; but when the tide is out it shoals away to nothing, and there is merely the stream of the Esk, running between banks of sand, with rocks here and there. Outside the harbour on this side there rises for about half a mile a great reef, the sharp edge of which runs straight out from behind the south lighthouse. At the end of it is a buoy with a bell, which swings in bad weather, and sends in a mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; he is coming this way.... + +He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady at the abbey he said very brusquely:— + +“I wouldn’t fash masel’ about them, miss. Them things be all wore out. Mind, I don’t say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn’t in my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an’ the like, but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and Leeds that be always eatin’ cured herrin’s an’ drinkin’ tea an’ lookin’ out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel’ who’d be bothered tellin’ lies to them—even the newspapers, which is full of fool-talk.” I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about the whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said:— + +“I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand-daughter doesn’t like to be kept waitin’ when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of ’em; an’, miss, I lack belly-timber sairly by the clock.” + +He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from the town up to the church, there are hundreds of them—I do not know how many—and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle that a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must originally have had something to do with the abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy went out visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I did not go. They will be home by this. + +_1 August._ — I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most interesting talk with my old friend and the two others who always come and join him. He is evidently the Sir Oracle of them, and I should think must have been in his time a most dictatorial person. He will not admit anything, and downfaces everybody. If he can’t out-argue them he bullies them, and then takes their silence for agreement with his views. Lucy was looking sweetly pretty in her white lawn frock; she has got a beautiful colour since she has been here. I noticed that the old men did not lose any time in coming up and sitting near her when we sat down. She is so sweet with old people; I think they all fell in love with her on the spot. Even my old man succumbed and did not contradict her, but gave me double share instead. I got him on the subject of the legends, and he went off at once into a sort of sermon. I must try to remember it and put it down:— + +“It be all fool-talk, lock, stock, and barrel; that’s what it be, an’ nowt else. These bans an’ wafts an’ boh-ghosts an’ barguests an’ bogles an’ all anent them is only fit to set bairns an’ dizzy women a-belderin’. They be nowt but air-blebs. They, an’ all grims an’ signs an’ warnin’s, be all invented by parsons an’ illsome beuk-bodies an’ railway touters to skeer an’ scunner hafflin’s, an’ to get folks to do somethin’ that they don’t other incline to. It makes me ireful to think o’ them. Why, it’s them that, not content with printin’ lies on paper an’ preachin’ them out of pulpits, does want to be cuttin’ them on the tombstones. Look here all around you in what airt ye will; all them steans, holdin’ up their heads as well as they can out of their pride, is acant—simply tumblin’ down with the weight o’ the lies wrote on them, ‘Here lies the body’ or ‘Sacred to the memory’ wrote on all of them, an’ yet in nigh half of them there bean’t no bodies at all; an’ the memories of them bean’t cared a pinch of snuff about, much less sacred. Lies all of them, nothin’ but lies of one kind or another! My gog, but it’ll be a quare scowderment at the Day of Judgment when they come tumblin’ up in their death-sarks, all jouped together an’ tryin’ to drag their tombsteans with them to prove how good they was; some of them trimmlin’ and ditherin’, with their hands that dozzened an’ slippy from lyin’ in the sea that they can’t even keep their grup o’ them.” + +I could see from the old fellow’s self-satisfied air and the way in which he looked round for the approval of his cronies that he was “showing off,” so I put in a word to keep him going:— + +“Oh, Mr. Swales, you can’t be serious. Surely these tombstones are not all wrong?” + +“Yabblins! There may be a poorish few not wrong, savin’ where they make out the people too good; for there be folk that do think a balm-bowl be like the sea, if only it be their own. The whole thing be only lies. Now look you here; you come here a stranger, an’ you see this kirk-garth.” I nodded, for I thought it better to assent, though I did not quite understand his dialect. I knew it had something to do with the church. He went on: “And you consate that all these steans be aboon folk that be happed here, snod an’ snog?” I assented again. “Then that be just where the lie comes in. Why, there be scores of these lay-beds that be toom as old Dun’s ’bacca-box on Friday night.” He nudged one of his companions, and they all laughed. “And my gog! how could they be otherwise? Look at that one, the aftest abaft the bier-bank: read it!” I went over and read:— + +“Edward Spencelagh, master mariner, murdered by pirates off the coast of Andres, April, 1854, æt. 30.” When I came back Mr. Swales went on:— + +“Who brought him home, I wonder, to hap him here? Murdered off the coast of Andres! an’ you consated his body lay under! Why, I could name ye a dozen whose bones lie in the Greenland seas above”—he pointed northwards—“or where the currents may have drifted them. There be the steans around ye. Ye can, with your young eyes, read the small-print of the lies from here. This Braithwaite Lowrey—I knew his father, lost in the _Lively_ off Greenland in ’20; or Andrew Woodhouse, drowned in the same seas in 1777; or John Paxton, drowned off Cape Farewell a year later; or old John Rawlings, whose grandfather sailed with me, drowned in the Gulf of Finland in ’50. Do ye think that all these men will have to make a rush to Whitby when the trumpet sounds? I have me antherums aboot it! I tell ye that when they got here they’d be jommlin’ an’ jostlin’ one another that way that it ’ud be like a fight up on the ice in the old days, when we’d be at one another from daylight to dark, an’ tryin’ to tie up our cuts by the light of the aurora borealis.” This was evidently local pleasantry, for the old man cackled over it, and his cronies joined in with gusto. + +“But,” I said, “surely you are not quite correct, for you start on the assumption that all the poor people, or their spirits, will have to take their tombstones with them on the Day of Judgment. Do you think that will be really necessary?” + +“Well, what else be they tombstones for? Answer me that, miss!” + +“To please their relatives, I suppose.” + +“To please their relatives, you suppose!” This he said with intense scorn. “How will it pleasure their relatives to know that lies is wrote over them, and that everybody in the place knows that they be lies?” He pointed to a stone at our feet which had been laid down as a slab, on which the seat was rested, close to the edge of the cliff. “Read the lies on that thruff-stean,” he said. The letters were upside down to me from where I sat, but Lucy was more opposite to them, so she leant over and read:— + +“Sacred to the memory of George Canon, who died, in the hope of a glorious resurrection, on July, 29, 1873, falling from the rocks at Kettleness. This tomb was erected by his sorrowing mother to her dearly beloved son. ‘He was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow.’ Really, Mr. Swales, I don’t see anything very funny in that!” She spoke her comment very gravely and somewhat severely. + +“Ye don’t see aught funny! Ha! ha! But that’s because ye don’t gawm the sorrowin’ mother was a hell-cat that hated him because he was acrewk’d—a regular lamiter he was—an’ he hated her so that he committed suicide in order that she mightn’t get an insurance she put on his life. He blew nigh the top of his head off with an old musket that they had for scarin’ the crows with. ’Twarn’t for crows then, for it brought the clegs and the dowps to him. That’s the way he fell off the rocks. And, as to hopes of a glorious resurrection, I’ve often heard him say masel’ that he hoped he’d go to hell, for his mother was so pious that she’d be sure to go to heaven, an’ he didn’t want to addle where she was. Now isn’t that stean at any rate”—he hammered it with his stick as he spoke—“a pack of lies? and won’t it make Gabriel keckle when Geordie comes pantin’ up the grees with the tombstean balanced on his hump, and asks it to be took as evidence!” + +I did not know what to say, but Lucy turned the conversation as she said, rising up:— + +“Oh, why did you tell us of this? It is my favourite seat, and I cannot leave it; and now I find I must go on sitting over the grave of a suicide.” + +“That won’t harm ye, my pretty; an’ it may make poor Geordie gladsome to have so trim a lass sittin’ on his lap. That won’t hurt ye. Why, I’ve sat here off an’ on for nigh twenty years past, an’ it hasn’t done me no harm. Don’t ye fash about them as lies under ye, or that doesn’ lie there either! It’ll be time for ye to be getting scart when ye see the tombsteans all run away with, and the place as bare as a stubble-field. There’s the clock, an’ I must gang. My service to ye, ladies!” And off he hobbled. + +Lucy and I sat awhile, and it was all so beautiful before us that we took hands as we sat; and she told me all over again about Arthur and their coming marriage. That made me just a little heart-sick, for I haven’t heard from Jonathan for a whole month. + +_The same day._ I came up here alone, for I am very sad. There was no letter for me. I hope there cannot be anything the matter with Jonathan. The clock has just struck nine. I see the lights scattered all over the town, sometimes in rows where the streets are, and sometimes singly; they run right up the Esk and die away in the curve of the valley. To my left the view is cut off by a black line of roof of the old house next the abbey. The sheep and lambs are bleating in the fields away behind me, and there is a clatter of a donkey’s hoofs up the paved road below. The band on the pier is playing a harsh waltz in good time, and further along the quay there is a Salvation Army meeting in a back street. Neither of the bands hears the other, but up here I hear and see them both. I wonder where Jonathan is and if he is thinking of me! I wish he were here. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_5 June._ — The case of Renfield grows more interesting the more I get to understand the man. He has certain qualities very largely developed; selfishness, secrecy, and purpose. I wish I could get at what is the object of the latter. He seems to have some settled scheme of his own, but what it is I do not yet know. His redeeming quality is a love of animals, though, indeed, he has such curious turns in it that I sometimes imagine he is only abnormally cruel. His pets are of odd sorts. Just now his hobby is catching flies. He has at present such a quantity that I have had myself to expostulate. To my astonishment, he did not break out into a fury, as I expected, but took the matter in simple seriousness. He thought for a moment, and then said: “May I have three days? I shall clear them away.” Of course, I said that would do. I must watch him. + +_18 June._ — He has turned his mind now to spiders, and has got several very big fellows in a box. He keeps feeding them with his flies, and the number of the latter is becoming sensibly diminished, although he has used half his food in attracting more flies from outside to his room. + +_1 July._ — His spiders are now becoming as great a nuisance as his flies, and to-day I told him that he must get rid of them. He looked very sad at this, so I said that he must clear out some of them, at all events. He cheerfully acquiesced in this, and I gave him the same time as before for reduction. He disgusted me much while with him, for when a horrid blow-fly, bloated with some carrion food, buzzed into the room, he caught it, held it exultantly for a few moments between his finger and thumb, and, before I knew what he was going to do, put it in his mouth and ate it. I scolded him for it, but he argued quietly that it was very good and very wholesome; that it was life, strong life, and gave life to him. This gave me an idea, or the rudiment of one. I must watch how he gets rid of his spiders. He has evidently some deep problem in his mind, for he keeps a little note-book in which he is always jotting down something. Whole pages of it are filled with masses of figures, generally single numbers added up in batches, and then the totals added in batches again, as though he were “focussing” some account, as the auditors put it. + +_8 July._ — There is a method in his madness, and the rudimentary idea in my mind is growing. It will be a whole idea soon, and then, oh, unconscious cerebration! you will have to give the wall to your conscious brother. I kept away from my friend for a few days, so that I might notice if there were any change. Things remain as they were except that he has parted with some of his pets and got a new one. He has managed to get a sparrow, and has already partially tamed it. His means of taming is simple, for already the spiders have diminished. Those that do remain, however, are well fed, for he still brings in the flies by tempting them with his food. + +_19 July._ — We are progressing. My friend has now a whole colony of sparrows, and his flies and spiders are almost obliterated. When I came in he ran to me and said he wanted to ask me a great favour—a very, very great favour; and as he spoke he fawned on me like a dog. I asked him what it was, and he said, with a sort of rapture in his voice and bearing:— + +“A kitten, a nice little, sleek playful kitten, that I can play with, and teach, and feed—and feed—and feed!” I was not unprepared for this request, for I had noticed how his pets went on increasing in size and vivacity, but I did not care that his pretty family of tame sparrows should be wiped out in the same manner as the flies and the spiders; so I said I would see about it, and asked him if he would not rather have a cat than a kitten. His eagerness betrayed him as he answered:— + +“Oh, yes, I would like a cat! I only asked for a kitten lest you should refuse me a cat. No one would refuse me a kitten, would they?” I shook my head, and said that at present I feared it would not be possible, but that I would see about it. His face fell, and I could see a warning of danger in it, for there was a sudden fierce, sidelong look which meant killing. The man is an undeveloped homicidal maniac. I shall test him with his present craving and see how it will work out; then I shall know more. + +_10 p. m._ — I have visited him again and found him sitting in a corner brooding. When I came in he threw himself on his knees before me and implored me to let him have a cat; that his salvation depended upon it. I was firm, however, and told him that he could not have it, whereupon he went without a word, and sat down, gnawing his fingers, in the corner where I had found him. I shall see him in the morning early. + +_20 July._ — Visited Renfield very early, before the attendant went his rounds. Found him up and humming a tune. He was spreading out his sugar, which he had saved, in the window, and was manifestly beginning his fly-catching again; and beginning it cheerfully and with a good grace. I looked around for his birds, and not seeing them, asked him where they were. He replied, without turning round, that they had all flown away. There were a few feathers about the room and on his pillow a drop of blood. I said nothing, but went and told the keeper to report to me if there were anything odd about him during the day. + +_11 a. m._ — The attendant has just been to me to say that Renfield has been very sick and has disgorged a whole lot of feathers. “My belief is, doctor,” he said, “that he has eaten his birds, and that he just took and ate them raw!” + +_11 p. m._ — I gave Renfield a strong opiate to-night, enough to make even him sleep, and took away his pocket-book to look at it. The thought that has been buzzing about my brain lately is complete, and the theory proved. My homicidal maniac is of a peculiar kind. I shall have to invent a new classification for him, and call him a zoöphagous (life-eating) maniac; what he desires is to absorb as many lives as he can, and he has laid himself out to achieve it in a cumulative way. He gave many flies to one spider and many spiders to one bird, and then wanted a cat to eat the many birds. What would have been his later steps? It would almost be worth while to complete the experiment. It might be done if there were only a sufficient cause. Men sneered at vivisection, and yet look at its results to-day! Why not advance science in its most difficult and vital aspect—the knowledge of the brain? Had I even the secret of one such mind—did I hold the key to the fancy of even one lunatic—I might advance my own branch of science to a pitch compared with which Burdon-Sanderson’s physiology or Ferrier’s brain-knowledge would be as nothing. If only there were a sufficient cause! I must not think too much of this, or I may be tempted; a good cause might turn the scale with me, for may not I too be of an exceptional brain, congenitally + +?How well the man reasoned; lunatics always do within their own scope. I wonder at how many lives he values a man, or if at only one. He has closed the account most accurately, and to-day begun a new record. How many of us begin a new record with each day of our lives + +?To me it seems only yesterday that my whole life ended with my new hope, and that truly I began a new record. So it will be until the Great Recorder sums me up and closes my ledger account with a balance to profit or loss. Oh, Lucy, Lucy, I cannot be angry with you, nor can I be angry with my friend whose happiness is yours; but I must only wait on hopeless and work. Work! work! + +If I only could have as strong a cause as my poor mad friend there—a good, unselfish cause to make me work—that would be indeed happiness. + +_Mina Murray’s Journal._ + +_26 July._ — I am anxious, and it soothes me to express myself here; it is like whispering to one’s self and listening at the same time. And there is also something about the shorthand symbols that makes it different from writing. I am unhappy about Lucy and about Jonathan. I had not heard from Jonathan for some time, and was very concerned; but yesterday dear Mr. Hawkins, who is always so kind, sent me a letter from him. I had written asking him if he had heard, and he said the enclosed had just been received. It is only a line dated from Castle Dracula, and says that he is just starting for home. That is not like Jonathan; I do not understand it, and it makes me uneasy. Then, too, Lucy, although she is so well, has lately taken to her old habit of walking in her sleep. Her mother has spoken to me about it, and we have decided that I am to lock the door of our room every night. Mrs. Westenra has got an idea that sleep-walkers always go out on roofs of houses and along the edges of cliffs and then get suddenly wakened and fall over with a despairing cry that echoes all over the place. Poor dear, she is naturally anxious about Lucy, and she tells me that her husband, Lucy’s father, had the same habit; that he would get up in the night and dress himself and go out, if he were not stopped. Lucy is to be married in the autumn, and she is already planning out her dresses and how her house is to be arranged. I sympathise with her, for I do the same, only Jonathan and I will start in life in a very simple way, and shall have to try to make both ends meet. Mr. Holmwood—he is the Hon. Arthur Holmwood, only son of Lord Godalming—is coming up here very shortly—as soon as he can leave town, for his father is not very well, and I think dear Lucy is counting the moments till he comes. She wants to take him up to the seat on the churchyard cliff and show him the beauty of Whitby. I daresay it is the waiting which disturbs her; she will be all right when he arrives. + +_27 July._ — No news from Jonathan. I am getting quite uneasy about him, though why I should I do not know; but I do wish that he would write, if it were only a single line. Lucy walks more than ever, and each night I am awakened by her moving about the room. Fortunately, the weather is so hot that she cannot get cold; but still the anxiety and the perpetually being wakened is beginning to tell on me, and I am getting nervous and wakeful myself. Thank God, Lucy’s health keeps up. Mr. Holmwood has been suddenly called to Ring to see his father, who has been taken seriously ill. Lucy frets at the postponement of seeing him, but it does not touch her looks; she is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink. She has lost that anæmic look which she had. I pray it will all last. + +_3 August._ — Another week gone, and no news from Jonathan, not even to Mr. Hawkins, from whom I have heard. Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is his writing. There is no mistake of that. Lucy has not walked much in her sleep the last week, but there is an odd concentration about her which I do not understand; even in her sleep she seems to be watching me. She tries the door, and finding it locked, goes about the room searching for the key. + +_6 August._ — Another three days, and no news. This suspense is getting dreadful. If I only knew where to write to or where to go to, I should feel easier; but no one has heard a word of Jonathan since that last letter. I must only pray to God for patience. Lucy is more excitable than ever, but is otherwise well. Last night was very threatening, and the fishermen say that we are in for a storm. I must try to watch it and learn the weather signs. To-day is a grey day, and the sun as I write is hidden in thick clouds, high over Kettleness. Everything is grey—except the green grass, which seems like emerald amongst it; grey earthy rock; grey clouds, tinged with the sunburst at the far edge, hang over the grey sea, into which the sand-points stretch like grey fingers. The sea is tumbling in over the shallows and the sandy flats with a roar, muffled in the sea-mists drifting inland. The horizon is lost in a grey mist. All is vastness; the clouds are piled up like giant rocks, and there is a “brool” over the sea that sounds like some presage of doom. Dark figures are on the beach here and there, sometimes half shrouded in the mist, and seem “men like trees walking.” The fishing-boats are racing for home, and rise and dip in the ground swell as they sweep into the harbour, bending to the scuppers. Here comes old Mr. Swales. He is making straight for me, and I can see, by the way he lifts his hat, that he wants to talk.... + +I have been quite touched by the change in the poor old man. When he sat down beside me, he said in a very gentle way:— + +“I want to say something to you, miss.” I could see he was not at ease, so I took his poor old wrinkled hand in mine and asked him to speak fully; so he said, leaving his hand in mine:— + +“I’m afraid, my deary, that I must have shocked you by all the wicked things I’ve been sayin’ about the dead, and such like, for weeks past; but I didn’t mean them, and I want ye to remember that when I’m gone. We aud folks that be daffled, and with one foot abaft the krok-hooal, don’t altogether like to think of it, and we don’t want to feel scart of it; an’ that’s why I’ve took to makin’ light of it, so that I’d cheer up my own heart a bit. But, Lord love ye, miss, I ain’t afraid of dyin’, not a bit; only I don’t want to die if I can help it. My time must be nigh at hand now, for I be aud, and a hundred years is too much for any man to expect; and I’m so nigh it that the Aud Man is already whettin’ his scythe. Ye see, I can’t get out o’ the habit of caffin’ about it all at once; the chafts will wag as they be used to. Some day soon the Angel of Death will sound his trumpet for me. But don’t ye dooal an’ greet, my deary!”—for he saw that I was crying—“if he should come this very night I’d not refuse to answer his call. For life be, after all, only a waitin’ for somethin’ else than what we’re doin’; and death be all that we can rightly depend on. But I’m content, for it’s comin’ to me, my deary, and comin’ quick. It may be comin’ while we be lookin’ and wonderin’. Maybe it’s in that wind out over the sea that’s bringin’ with it loss and wreck, and sore distress, and sad hearts. Look! look!” he cried suddenly. “There’s something in that wind and in the hoast beyont that sounds, and looks, and tastes, and smells like death. It’s in the air; I feel it comin’. Lord, make me answer cheerful when my call comes!” He held up his arms devoutly, and raised his hat. His mouth moved as though he were praying. After a few minutes’ silence, he got up, shook hands with me, and blessed me, and said good-bye, and hobbled off. It all touched me, and upset me very much. + +I was glad when the coastguard came along, with his spy-glass under his arm. He stopped to talk with me, as he always does, but all the time kept looking at a strange ship. + +“I can’t make her out,” he said; “she’s a Russian, by the look of her; but she’s knocking about in the queerest way. She doesn’t know her mind a bit; she seems to see the storm coming, but can’t decide whether to run up north in the open, or to put in here. Look there again! She is steered mighty strangely, for she doesn’t mind the hand on the wheel; changes about with every puff of wind. We’ll hear more of her before this time to-morrow.” + +== CHAPTER VII + +[%hardbreaks] +CUTTING FROM “THE DAILYGRAPH,” 8 AUGUST +(_Pasted in Mina Murray’s Journal._) +From a Correspondent. +_Whitby_. + +One of the greatest and suddenest storms on record has just been experienced here, with results both strange and unique. The weather had been somewhat sultry, but not to any degree uncommon in the month of August. Saturday evening was as fine as was ever known, and the great body of holiday-makers laid out yesterday for visits to Mulgrave Woods, Robin Hood’s Bay, Rig Mill, Runswick, Staithes, and the various trips in the neighbourhood of Whitby. The steamers _Emma_ and _Scarborough_ made trips up and down the coast, and there was an unusual amount of “tripping” both to and from Whitby. The day was unusually fine till the afternoon, when some of the gossips who frequent the East Cliff churchyard, and from that commanding eminence watch the wide sweep of sea visible to the north and east, called attention to a sudden show of “mares’-tails” high in the sky to the north-west. The wind was then blowing from the south-west in the mild degree which in barometrical language is ranked “No. 2: light breeze.” The coastguard on duty at once made report, and one old fisherman, who for more than half a century has kept watch on weather signs from the East Cliff, foretold in an emphatic manner the coming of a sudden storm. The approach of sunset was so very beautiful, so grand in its masses of splendidly-coloured clouds, that there was quite an assemblage on the walk along the cliff in the old churchyard to enjoy the beauty. Before the sun dipped below the black mass of Kettleness, standing boldly athwart the western sky, its downward way was marked by myriad clouds of every sunset-colour—flame, purple, pink, green, violet, and all the tints of gold; with here and there masses not large, but of seemingly absolute blackness, in all sorts of shapes, as well outlined as colossal silhouettes. The experience was not lost on the painters, and doubtless some of the sketches of the “Prelude to the Great Storm” will grace the R. A. and R. I. walls in May next. More than one captain made up his mind then and there that his “cobble” or his “mule,” as they term the different classes of boats, would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed. The wind fell away entirely during the evening, and at midnight there was a dead calm, a sultry heat, and that prevailing intensity which, on the approach of thunder, affects persons of a sensitive nature. There were but few lights in sight at sea, for even the coasting steamers, which usually “hug” the shore so closely, kept well to seaward, and but few fishing-boats were in sight. The only sail noticeable was a foreign schooner with all sails set, which was seemingly going westwards. The foolhardiness or ignorance of her officers was a prolific theme for comment whilst she remained in sight, and efforts were made to signal her to reduce sail in face of her danger. Before the night shut down she was seen with sails idly flapping as she gently rolled on the undulating swell of the sea, + +[quote] +“As idle as a painted ship upon a painted ocean.” + +Shortly before ten o’clock the stillness of the air grew quite oppressive, and the silence was so marked that the bleating of a sheep inland or the barking of a dog in the town was distinctly heard, and the band on the pier, with its lively French air, was like a discord in the great harmony of nature’s silence. A little after midnight came a strange sound from over the sea, and high overhead the air began to carry a strange, faint, hollow booming. + +Then without warning the tempest broke. With a rapidity which, at the time, seemed incredible, and even afterwards is impossible to realize, the whole aspect of nature at once became convulsed. The waves rose in growing fury, each overtopping its fellow, till in a very few minutes the lately glassy sea was like a roaring and devouring monster. White-crested waves beat madly on the level sands and rushed up the shelving cliffs; others broke over the piers, and with their spume swept the lanthorns of the lighthouses which rise from the end of either pier of Whitby Harbour. The wind roared like thunder, and blew with such force that it was with difficulty that even strong men kept their feet, or clung with grim clasp to the iron stanchions. It was found necessary to clear the entire piers from the mass of onlookers, or else the fatalities of the night would have been increased manifold. To add to the difficulties and dangers of the time, masses of sea-fog came drifting inland—white, wet clouds, which swept by in ghostly fashion, so dank and damp and cold that it needed but little effort of imagination to think that the spirits of those lost at sea were touching their living brethren with the clammy hands of death, and many a one shuddered as the wreaths of sea-mist swept by. At times the mist cleared, and the sea for some distance could be seen in the glare of the lightning, which now came thick and fast, followed by such sudden peals of thunder that the whole sky overhead seemed trembling under the shock of the footsteps of the storm. + +Some of the scenes thus revealed were of immeasurable grandeur and of absorbing interest—the sea, running mountains high, threw skywards with each wave mighty masses of white foam, which the tempest seemed to snatch at and whirl away into space; here and there a fishing-boat, with a rag of sail, running madly for shelter before the blast; now and again the white wings of a storm-tossed sea-bird. On the summit of the East Cliff the new searchlight was ready for experiment, but had not yet been tried. The officers in charge of it got it into working order, and in the pauses of the inrushing mist swept with it the surface of the sea. Once or twice its service was most effective, as when a fishing-boat, with gunwale under water, rushed into the harbour, able, by the guidance of the sheltering light, to avoid the danger of dashing against the piers. As each boat achieved the safety of the port there was a shout of joy from the mass of people on shore, a shout which for a moment seemed to cleave the gale and was then swept away in its rush. + +Before long the searchlight discovered some distance away a schooner with all sails set, apparently the same vessel which had been noticed earlier in the evening. The wind had by this time backed to the east, and there was a shudder amongst the watchers on the cliff as they realized the terrible danger in which she now was. Between her and the port lay the great flat reef on which so many good ships have from time to time suffered, and, with the wind blowing from its present quarter, it would be quite impossible that she should fetch the entrance of the harbour. It was now nearly the hour of high tide, but the waves were so great that in their troughs the shallows of the shore were almost visible, and the schooner, with all sails set, was rushing with such speed that, in the words of one old salt, “she must fetch up somewhere, if it was only in hell.” Then came another rush of sea-fog, greater than any hitherto—a mass of dank mist, which seemed to close on all things like a grey pall, and left available to men only the organ of hearing, for the roar of the tempest, and the crash of the thunder, and the booming of the mighty billows came through the damp oblivion even louder than before. The rays of the searchlight were kept fixed on the harbour mouth across the East Pier, where the shock was expected, and men waited breathless. The wind suddenly shifted to the north-east, and the remnant of the sea-fog melted in the blast; and then, _mirabile dictu_, between the piers, leaping from wave to wave as it rushed at headlong speed, swept the strange schooner before the blast, with all sail set, and gained the safety of the harbour. The searchlight followed her, and a shudder ran through all who saw her, for lashed to the helm was a corpse, with drooping head, which swung horribly to and fro at each motion of the ship. No other form could be seen on deck at all. A great awe came on all as they realised that the ship, as if by a miracle, had found the harbour, unsteered save by the hand of a dead man! However, all took place more quickly than it takes to write these words. The schooner paused not, but rushing across the harbour, pitched herself on that accumulation of sand and gravel washed by many tides and many storms into the south-east corner of the pier jutting under the East Cliff, known locally as Tate Hill Pier. + +There was of course a considerable concussion as the vessel drove up on the sand heap. Every spar, rope, and stay was strained, and some of the “top-hammer” came crashing down. But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below, as if shot up by the concussion, and running forward, jumped from the bow on the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier so steeply that some of the flat tombstones—“thruff-steans” or “through-stones,” as they call them in the Whitby vernacular—actually project over where the sustaining cliff has fallen away, it disappeared in the darkness, which seemed intensified just beyond the focus of the searchlight. + +It so happened that there was no one at the moment on Tate Hill Pier, as all those whose houses are in close proximity were either in bed or were out on the heights above. Thus the coastguard on duty on the eastern side of the harbour, who at once ran down to the little pier, was the first to climb on board. The men working the searchlight, after scouring the entrance of the harbour without seeing anything, then turned the light on the derelict and kept it there. The coastguard ran aft, and when he came beside the wheel, bent over to examine it, and recoiled at once as though under some sudden emotion. This seemed to pique general curiosity, and quite a number of people began to run. It is a good way round from the West Cliff by the Drawbridge to Tate Hill Pier, but your correspondent is a fairly good runner, and came well ahead of the crowd. When I arrived, however, I found already assembled on the pier a crowd, whom the coastguard and police refused to allow to come on board. By the courtesy of the chief boatman, I was, as your correspondent, permitted to climb on deck, and was one of a small group who saw the dead seaman whilst actually lashed to the wheel. + +It was no wonder that the coastguard was surprised, or even awed, for not often can such a sight have been seen. The man was simply fastened by his hands, tied one over the other, to a spoke of the wheel. Between the inner hand and the wood was a crucifix, the set of beads on which it was fastened being around both wrists and wheel, and all kept fast by the binding cords. The poor fellow may have been seated at one time, but the flapping and buffeting of the sails had worked through the rudder of the wheel and dragged him to and fro, so that the cords with which he was tied had cut the flesh to the bone. Accurate note was made of the state of things, and a doctor—Surgeon J. M. Caffyn, of 33, East Elliot Place—who came immediately after me, declared, after making examination, that the man must have been dead for quite two days. In his pocket was a bottle, carefully corked, empty save for a little roll of paper, which proved to be the addendum to the log. The coastguard said the man must have tied up his own hands, fastening the knots with his teeth. The fact that a coastguard was the first on board may save some complications, later on, in the Admiralty Court; for coastguards cannot claim the salvage which is the right of the first civilian entering on a derelict. Already, however, the legal tongues are wagging, and one young law student is loudly asserting that the rights of the owner are already completely sacrificed, his property being held in contravention of the statutes of mortmain, since the tiller, as emblemship, if not proof, of delegated possession, is held in a _dead hand_. It is needless to say that the dead steersman has been reverently removed from the place where he held his honourable watch and ward till death—a steadfastness as noble as that of the young Casabianca—and placed in the mortuary to await inquest. + +Already the sudden storm is passing, and its fierceness is abating; crowds are scattering homeward, and the sky is beginning to redden over the Yorkshire wolds. I shall send, in time for your next issue, further details of the derelict ship which found her way so miraculously into harbour in the storm. + +_Whitby_ + +_9 August._ — The sequel to the strange arrival of the derelict in the storm last night is almost more startling than the thing itself. It turns out that the schooner is a Russian from Varna, and is called the _Demeter_. She is almost entirely in ballast of silver sand, with only a small amount of cargo—a number of great wooden boxes filled with mould. This cargo was consigned to a Whitby solicitor, Mr. S. F. Billington, of 7, The Crescent, who this morning went aboard and formally took possession of the goods consigned to him. The Russian consul, too, acting for the charter-party, took formal possession of the ship, and paid all harbour dues, etc. Nothing is talked about here to-day except the strange coincidence; the officials of the Board of Trade have been most exacting in seeing that every compliance has been made with existing regulations. As the matter is to be a “nine days’ wonder,” they are evidently determined that there shall be no cause of after complaint. A good deal of interest was abroad concerning the dog which landed when the ship struck, and more than a few of the members of the S. P. C. A., which is very strong in Whitby, have tried to befriend the animal. To the general disappointment, however, it was not to be found; it seems to have disappeared entirely from the town. It may be that it was frightened and made its way on to the moors, where it is still hiding in terror. There are some who look with dread on such a possibility, lest later on it should in itself become a danger, for it is evidently a fierce brute. Early this morning a large dog, a half-bred mastiff belonging to a coal merchant close to Tate Hill Pier, was found dead in the roadway opposite to its master’s yard. It had been fighting, and manifestly had had a savage opponent, for its throat was torn away, and its belly was slit open as if with a savage claw. + +_Later._ — By the kindness of the Board of Trade inspector, I have been permitted to look over the log-book of the _Demeter_, which was in order up to within three days, but contained nothing of special interest except as to facts of missing men. The greatest interest, however, is with regard to the paper found in the bottle, which was to-day produced at the inquest; and a more strange narrative than the two between them unfold it has not been my lot to come across. As there is no motive for concealment, I am permitted to use them, and accordingly send you a rescript, simply omitting technical details of seamanship and supercargo. It almost seems as though the captain had been seized with some kind of mania before he had got well into blue water, and that this had developed persistently throughout the voyage. Of course my statement must be taken _cum grano_, since I am writing from the dictation of a clerk of the Russian consul, who kindly translated for me, time being short. + +LOG OF THE “DEMETER.” + +_Varna to Whitby._ + +_Written 18 July, things so strange happening, that I shall keep accurate note henceforth till we land._ + +On 6 July we finished taking in cargo, silver sand and boxes of earth. At noon set sail. East wind, fresh. Crew, five hands ... two mates, cook, and myself (captain). + +On 11 July at dawn entered Bosphorus. Boarded by Turkish Customs officers. Backsheesh. All correct. Under way at 4 p. m. + +On 12 July through Dardanelles. More Customs officers and flagboat of guarding squadron. Backsheesh again. Work of officers thorough, but quick. Want us off soon. At dark passed into Archipelago. + +On 13 July passed Cape Matapan. Crew dissatisfied about something. Seemed scared, but would not speak out. + +On 14 July was somewhat anxious about crew. Men all steady fellows, who sailed with me before. Mate could not make out what was wrong; they only told him there was _something_, and crossed themselves. Mate lost temper with one of them that day and struck him. Expected fierce quarrel, but all was quiet. + +On 16 July mate reported in the morning that one of crew, Petrofsky, was missing. Could not account for it. Took larboard watch eight bells last night; was relieved by Abramoff, but did not go to bunk. Men more downcast than ever. All said they expected something of the kind, but would not say more than there was _something_ aboard. Mate getting very impatient with them; feared some trouble ahead. + +On 17 July, yesterday, one of the men, Olgaren, came to my cabin, and in an awestruck way confided to me that he thought there was a strange man aboard the ship. He said that in his watch he had been sheltering behind the deck-house, as there was a rain-storm, when he saw a tall, thin man, who was not like any of the crew, come up the companion-way, and go along the deck forward, and disappear. He followed cautiously, but when he got to bows found no one, and the hatchways were all closed. He was in a panic of superstitious fear, and I am afraid the panic may spread. To allay it, I shall to-day search entire ship carefully from stem to stern. + +Later in the day I got together the whole crew, and told them, as they evidently thought there was some one in the ship, we would search from stem to stern. First mate angry; said it was folly, and to yield to such foolish ideas would demoralise the men; said he would engage to keep them out of trouble with a handspike. I let him take the helm, while the rest began thorough search, all keeping abreast, with lanterns: we left no corner unsearched. As there were only the big wooden boxes, there were no odd corners where a man could hide. Men much relieved when search over, and went back to work cheerfully. First mate scowled, but said nothing. + +_22 July_.—Rough weather last three days, and all hands busy with sails—no time to be frightened. Men seem to have forgotten their dread. Mate cheerful again, and all on good terms. Praised men for work in bad weather. Passed Gibralter and out through Straits. All well. + +_24 July_.—There seems some doom over this ship. Already a hand short, and entering on the Bay of Biscay with wild weather ahead, and yet last night another man lost—disappeared. Like the first, he came off his watch and was not seen again. Men all in a panic of fear; sent a round robin, asking to have double watch, as they fear to be alone. Mate angry. Fear there will be some trouble, as either he or the men will do some violence. + +_28 July_.—Four days in hell, knocking about in a sort of maelstrom, and the wind a tempest. No sleep for any one. Men all worn out. Hardly know how to set a watch, since no one fit to go on. Second mate volunteered to steer and watch, and let men snatch a few hours’ sleep. Wind abating; seas still terrific, but feel them less, as ship is steadier. + +_29 July_.—Another tragedy. Had single watch to-night, as crew too tired to double. When morning watch came on deck could find no one except steersman. Raised outcry, and all came on deck. Thorough search, but no one found. Are now without second mate, and crew in a panic. Mate and I agreed to go armed henceforth and wait for any sign of cause. + +_30 July_.—Last night. Rejoiced we are nearing England. Weather fine, all sails set. Retired worn out; slept soundly; awaked by mate telling me that both man of watch and steersman missing. Only self and mate and two hands left to work ship. + +_1 August_.—Two days of fog, and not a sail sighted. Had hoped when in the English Channel to be able to signal for help or get in somewhere. Not having power to work sails, have to run before wind. Dare not lower, as could not raise them again. We seem to be drifting to some terrible doom. Mate now more demoralised than either of men. His stronger nature seems to have worked inwardly against himself. Men are beyond fear, working stolidly and patiently, with minds made up to worst. They are Russian, he Roumanian. + +_2 August, midnight_.—Woke up from few minutes’ sleep by hearing a cry, seemingly outside my port. Could see nothing in fog. Rushed on deck, and ran against mate. Tells me heard cry and ran, but no sign of man on watch. One more gone. Lord, help us! Mate says we must be past Straits of Dover, as in a moment of fog lifting he saw North Foreland, just as he heard the man cry out. If so we are now off in the North Sea, and only God can guide us in the fog, which seems to move with us; and God seems to have deserted us. + +_3 August_.—At midnight I went to relieve the man at the wheel, and when I got to it found no one there. The wind was steady, and as we ran before it there was no yawing. I dared not leave it, so shouted for the mate. After a few seconds he rushed up on deck in his flannels. He looked wild-eyed and haggard, and I greatly fear his reason has given way. He came close to me and whispered hoarsely, with his mouth to my ear, as though fearing the very air might hear: “_It_ is here; I know it, now. On the watch last night I saw It, like a man, tall and thin, and ghastly pale. It was in the bows, and looking out. I crept behind It, and gave It my knife; but the knife went through It, empty as the air.” And as he spoke he took his knife and drove it savagely into space. Then he went on: “But It is here, and I’ll find It. It is in the hold, perhaps in one of those boxes. I’ll unscrew them one by one and see. You work the helm.” And, with a warning look and his finger on his lip, he went below. There was springing up a choppy wind, and I could not leave the helm. I saw him come out on deck again with a tool-chest and a lantern, and go down the forward hatchway. He is mad, stark, raving mad, and it’s no use my trying to stop him. He can’t hurt those big boxes: they are invoiced as “clay,” and to pull them about is as harmless a thing as he can do. So here I stay, and mind the helm, and write these notes. I can only trust in God and wait till the fog clears. Then, if I can’t steer to any harbour with the wind that is, I shall cut down sails and lie by, and signal for help.... + +It is nearly all over now. Just as I was beginning to hope that the mate would come out calmer—for I heard him knocking away at something in the hold, and work is good for him—there came up the hatchway a sudden, startled scream, which made my blood run cold, and up on the deck he came as if shot from a gun—a raging madman, with his eyes rolling and his face convulsed with fear. “Save me! save me!” he cried, and then looked round on the blanket of fog. His horror turned to despair, and in a steady voice he said: “You had better come too, captain, before it is too late. _He_ is there. I know the secret now. The sea will save me from Him, and it is all that is left!” Before I could say a word, or move forward to seize him, he sprang on the bulwark and deliberately threw himself into the sea. I suppose I know the secret too, now. It was this madman who had got rid of the men one by one, and now he has followed them himself. God help me! How am I to account for all these horrors when I get to port? _When_ I get to port! Will that ever be? + +_4 August._ — Still fog, which the sunrise cannot pierce. I know there is sunrise because I am a sailor, why else I know not. I dared not go below, I dared not leave the helm; so here all night I stayed, and in the dimness of the night I saw It—Him! God forgive me, but the mate was right to jump overboard. It was better to die like a man; to die like a sailor in blue water no man can object. But I am captain, and I must not leave my ship. But I shall baffle this fiend or monster, for I shall tie my hands to the wheel when my strength begins to fail, and along with them I shall tie that which He—It!—dare not touch; and then, come good wind or foul, I shall save my soul, and my honour as a captain. I am growing weaker, and the night is coming on. If He can look me in the face again, I may not have time to act.... If we are wrecked, mayhap this bottle may be found, and those who find it may understand; if not, ... well, then all men shall know that I have been true to my trust. God and the Blessed Virgin and the saints help a poor ignorant soul trying to do his duty.... + +Of course the verdict was an open one. There is no evidence to adduce; and whether or not the man himself committed the murders there is now none to say. The folk here hold almost universally that the captain is simply a hero, and he is to be given a public funeral. Already it is arranged that his body is to be taken with a train of boats up the Esk for a piece and then brought back to Tate Hill Pier and up the abbey steps; for he is to be buried in the churchyard on the cliff. The owners of more than a hundred boats have already given in their names as wishing to follow him to the grave. + +No trace has ever been found of the great dog; at which there is much mourning, for, with public opinion in its present state, he would, I believe, be adopted by the town. To-morrow will see the funeral; and so will end this one more “mystery of the sea.” + +_Mina Murray’s Journal._ + +_8 August._ — Lucy was very restless all night, and I, too, could not sleep. The storm was fearful, and as it boomed loudly among the chimney-pots, it made me shudder. When a sharp puff came it seemed to be like a distant gun. Strangely enough, Lucy did not wake; but she got up twice and dressed herself. Fortunately, each time I awoke in time and managed to undress her without waking her, and got her back to bed. It is a very strange thing, this sleep-walking, for as soon as her will is thwarted in any physical way, her intention, if there be any, disappears, and she yields herself almost exactly to the routine of her life. + +Early in the morning we both got up and went down to the harbour to see if anything had happened in the night. There were very few people about, and though the sun was bright, and the air clear and fresh, the big, grim-looking waves, that seemed dark themselves because the foam that topped them was like snow, forced themselves in through the narrow mouth of the harbour—like a bullying man going through a crowd. Somehow I felt glad that Jonathan was not on the sea last night, but on land. But, oh, is he on land or sea? Where is he, and how? I am getting fearfully anxious about him. If I only knew what to do, and could do anything! + +_10 August._ — The funeral of the poor sea-captain to-day was most touching. Every boat in the harbour seemed to be there, and the coffin was carried by captains all the way from Tate Hill Pier up to the churchyard. Lucy came with me, and we went early to our old seat, whilst the cortège of boats went up the river to the Viaduct and came down again. We had a lovely view, and saw the procession nearly all the way. The poor fellow was laid to rest quite near our seat so that we stood on it when the time came and saw everything. Poor Lucy seemed much upset. She was restless and uneasy all the time, and I cannot but think that her dreaming at night is telling on her. She is quite odd in one thing: she will not admit to me that there is any cause for restlessness; or if there be, she does not understand it herself. There is an additional cause in that poor old Mr. Swales was found dead this morning on our seat, his neck being broken. He had evidently, as the doctor said, fallen back in the seat in some sort of fright, for there was a look of fear and horror on his face that the men said made them shudder. Poor dear old man! Perhaps he had seen Death with his dying eyes! Lucy is so sweet and sensitive that she feels influences more acutely than other people do. Just now she was quite upset by a little thing which I did not much heed, though I am myself very fond of animals. One of the men who came up here often to look for the boats was followed by his dog. The dog is always with him. They are both quiet persons, and I never saw the man angry, nor heard the dog bark. During the service the dog would not come to its master, who was on the seat with us, but kept a few yards off, barking and howling. Its master spoke to it gently, and then harshly, and then angrily; but it would neither come nor cease to make a noise. It was in a sort of fury, with its eyes savage, and all its hairs bristling out like a cat’s tail when puss is on the war-path. Finally the man, too, got angry, and jumped down and kicked the dog, and then took it by the scruff of the neck and half dragged and half threw it on the tombstone on which the seat is fixed. The moment it touched the stone the poor thing became quiet and fell all into a tremble. It did not try to get away, but crouched down, quivering and cowering, and was in such a pitiable state of terror that I tried, though without effect, to comfort it. Lucy was full of pity, too, but she did not attempt to touch the dog, but looked at it in an agonised sort of way. I greatly fear that she is of too super-sensitive a nature to go through the world without trouble. She will be dreaming of this to-night, I am sure. The whole agglomeration of things—the ship steered into port by a dead man; his attitude, tied to the wheel with a crucifix and beads; the touching funeral; the dog, now furious and now in terror—will all afford material for her dreams. + +I think it will be best for her to go to bed tired out physically, so I shall take her for a long walk by the cliffs to Robin Hood’s Bay and back. She ought not to have much inclination for sleep-walking then. + +== CHAPTER VIII + +MINA MURRAY’S JOURNAL + +_Same day, 11 o’clock p. m._ — Oh, but I am tired! If it were not that I had made my diary a duty I should not open it to-night. We had a lovely walk. Lucy, after a while, was in gay spirits, owing, I think, to some dear cows who came nosing towards us in a field close to the lighthouse, and frightened the wits out of us. I believe we forgot everything except, of course, personal fear, and it seemed to wipe the slate clean and give us a fresh start. We had a capital “severe tea” at Robin Hood’s Bay in a sweet little old-fashioned inn, with a bow-window right over the seaweed-covered rocks of the strand. I believe we should have shocked the “New Woman” with our appetites. Men are more tolerant, bless them! Then we walked home with some, or rather many, stoppages to rest, and with our hearts full of a constant dread of wild bulls. Lucy was really tired, and we intended to creep off to bed as soon as we could. The young curate came in, however, and Mrs. Westenra asked him to stay for supper. Lucy and I had both a fight for it with the dusty miller; I know it was a hard fight on my part, and I am quite heroic. I think that some day the bishops must get together and see about breeding up a new class of curates, who don’t take supper, no matter how they may be pressed to, and who will know when girls are tired. Lucy is asleep and breathing softly. She has more colour in her cheeks than usual, and looks, oh, so sweet. If Mr. Holmwood fell in love with her seeing her only in the drawing-room, I wonder what he would say if he saw her now. Some of the “New Women” writers will some day start an idea that men and women should be allowed to see each other asleep before proposing or accepting. But I suppose the New Woman won’t condescend in future to accept; she will do the proposing herself. And a nice job she will make of it, too! There’s some consolation in that. I am so happy to-night, because dear Lucy seems better. I really believe she has turned the corner, and that we are over her troubles with dreaming. I should be quite happy if I only knew if Jonathan.... God bless and keep him. + +_11 August, 3 a. m._ — Diary again. No sleep now, so I may as well write. I am too agitated to sleep. We have had such an adventure, such an agonising experience. I fell asleep as soon as I had closed my diary.... Suddenly I became broad awake, and sat up, with a horrible sense of fear upon me, and of some feeling of emptiness around me. The room was dark, so I could not see Lucy’s bed; I stole across and felt for her. The bed was empty. I lit a match and found that she was not in the room. The door was shut, but not locked, as I had left it. I feared to wake her mother, who has been more than usually ill lately, so threw on some clothes and got ready to look for her. As I was leaving the room it struck me that the clothes she wore might give me some clue to her dreaming intention. Dressing-gown would mean house; dress, outside. Dressing-gown and dress were both in their places. “Thank God,” I said to myself, “she cannot be far, as she is only in her nightdress.” I ran downstairs and looked in the sitting-room. Not there! Then I looked in all the other open rooms of the house, with an ever-growing fear chilling my heart. Finally I came to the hall door and found it open. It was not wide open, but the catch of the lock had not caught. The people of the house are careful to lock the door every night, so I feared that Lucy must have gone out as she was. There was no time to think of what might happen; a vague, overmastering fear obscured all details. I took a big, heavy shawl and ran out. The clock was striking one as I was in the Crescent, and there was not a soul in sight. I ran along the North Terrace, but could see no sign of the white figure which I expected. At the edge of the West Cliff above the pier I looked across the harbour to the East Cliff, in the hope or fear—I don’t know which—of seeing Lucy in our favourite seat. There was a bright full moon, with heavy black, driving clouds, which threw the whole scene into a fleeting diorama of light and shade as they sailed across. For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary’s Church and all around it. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the abbey coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and the churchyard became gradually visible. Whatever my expectation was, it was not disappointed, for there, on our favourite seat, the silver light of the moon struck a half-reclining figure, snowy white. The coming of the cloud was too quick for me to see much, for shadow shut down on light almost immediately; but it seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell; I did not wait to catch another glance, but flew down the steep steps to the pier and along by the fish-market to the bridge, which was the only way to reach the East Cliff. The town seemed as dead, for not a soul did I see; I rejoiced that it was so, for I wanted no witness of poor Lucy’s condition. The time and distance seemed endless, and my knees trembled and my breath came laboured as I toiled up the endless steps to the abbey. I must have gone fast, and yet it seemed to me as if my feet were weighted with lead, and as though every joint in my body were rusty. When I got almost to the top I could see the seat and the white figure, for I was now close enough to distinguish it even through the spells of shadow. There was undoubtedly something, long and black, bending over the half-reclining white figure. I called in fright, “Lucy! Lucy!” and something raised a head, and from where I was I could see a white face and red, gleaming eyes. Lucy did not answer, and I ran on to the entrance of the churchyard. As I entered, the church was between me and the seat, and for a minute or so I lost sight of her. When I came in view again the cloud had passed, and the moonlight struck so brilliantly that I could see Lucy half reclining with her head lying over the back of the seat. She was quite alone, and there was not a sign of any living thing about. + +When I bent over her I could see that she was still asleep. Her lips were parted, and she was breathing—not softly as usual with her, but in long, heavy gasps, as though striving to get her lungs full at every breath. As I came close, she put up her hand in her sleep and pulled the collar of her nightdress close around her throat. Whilst she did so there came a little shudder through her, as though she felt the cold. I flung the warm shawl over her, and drew the edges tight round her neck, for I dreaded lest she should get some deadly chill from the night air, unclad as she was. I feared to wake her all at once, so, in order to have my hands free that I might help her, I fastened the shawl at her throat with a big safety-pin; but I must have been clumsy in my anxiety and pinched or pricked her with it, for by-and-by, when her breathing became quieter, she put her hand to her throat again and moaned. When I had her carefully wrapped up I put my shoes on her feet and then began very gently to wake her. At first she did not respond; but gradually she became more and more uneasy in her sleep, moaning and sighing occasionally. At last, as time was passing fast, and, for many other reasons, I wished to get her home at once, I shook her more forcibly, till finally she opened her eyes and awoke. She did not seem surprised to see me, as, of course, she did not realise all at once where she was. Lucy always wakes prettily, and even at such a time, when her body must have been chilled with cold, and her mind somewhat appalled at waking unclad in a churchyard at night, she did not lose her grace. She trembled a little, and clung to me; when I told her to come at once with me home she rose without a word, with the obedience of a child. As we passed along, the gravel hurt my feet, and Lucy noticed me wince. She stopped and wanted to insist upon my taking my shoes; but I would not. However, when we got to the pathway outside the churchyard, where there was a puddle of water, remaining from the storm, I daubed my feet with mud, using each foot in turn on the other, so that as we went home, no one, in case we should meet any one, should notice my bare feet. + +Fortune favoured us, and we got home without meeting a soul. Once we saw a man, who seemed not quite sober, passing along a street in front of us; but we hid in a door till he had disappeared up an opening such as there are here, steep little closes, or “wynds,” as they call them in Scotland. My heart beat so loud all the time that sometimes I thought I should faint. I was filled with anxiety about Lucy, not only for her health, lest she should suffer from the exposure, but for her reputation in case the story should get wind. When we got in, and had washed our feet, and had said a prayer of thankfulness together, I tucked her into bed. Before falling asleep she asked—even implored—me not to say a word to any one, even her mother, about her sleep-walking adventure. I hesitated at first to promise; but on thinking of the state of her mother’s health, and how the knowledge of such a thing would fret her, and thinking, too, of how such a story might become distorted—nay, infallibly would—in case it should leak out, I thought it wiser to do so. I hope I did right. I have locked the door, and the key is tied to my wrist, so perhaps I shall not be again disturbed. Lucy is sleeping soundly; the reflex of the dawn is high and far over the sea.... + +_Same day, noon._ — All goes well. Lucy slept till I woke her and seemed not to have even changed her side. The adventure of the night does not seem to have harmed her; on the contrary, it has benefited her, for she looks better this morning than she has done for weeks. I was sorry to notice that my clumsiness with the safety-pin hurt her. Indeed, it might have been serious, for the skin of her throat was pierced. I must have pinched up a piece of loose skin and have transfixed it, for there are two little red points like pin-pricks, and on the band of her nightdress was a drop of blood. When I apologised and was concerned about it, she laughed and petted me, and said she did not even feel it. Fortunately it cannot leave a scar, as it is so tiny. + +_Same day, night._ — We passed a happy day. The air was clear, and the sun bright, and there was a cool breeze. We took our lunch to Mulgrave Woods, Mrs. Westenra driving by the road and Lucy and I walking by the cliff-path and joining her at the gate. I felt a little sad myself, for I could not but feel how _absolutely_ happy it would have been had Jonathan been with me. But there! I must only be patient. In the evening we strolled in the Casino Terrace, and heard some good music by Spohr and Mackenzie, and went to bed early. Lucy seems more restful than she has been for some time, and fell asleep at once. I shall lock the door and secure the key the same as before, though I do not expect any trouble to-night. + +_12 August._ — My expectations were wrong, for twice during the night I was wakened by Lucy trying to get out. She seemed, even in her sleep, to be a little impatient at finding the door shut, and went back to bed under a sort of protest. I woke with the dawn, and heard the birds chirping outside of the window. Lucy woke, too, and, I was glad to see, was even better than on the previous morning. All her old gaiety of manner seemed to have come back, and she came and snuggled in beside me and told me all about Arthur. I told her how anxious I was about Jonathan, and then she tried to comfort me. Well, she succeeded somewhat, for, though sympathy can’t alter facts, it can help to make them more bearable. + +_13 August._ — Another quiet day, and to bed with the key on my wrist as before. Again I awoke in the night, and found Lucy sitting up in bed, still asleep, pointing to the window. I got up quietly, and pulling aside the blind, looked out. It was brilliant moonlight, and the soft effect of the light over the sea and sky—merged together in one great, silent mystery—was beautiful beyond words. Between me and the moonlight flitted a great bat, coming and going in great whirling circles. Once or twice it came quite close, but was, I suppose, frightened at seeing me, and flitted away across the harbour towards the abbey. When I came back from the window Lucy had lain down again, and was sleeping peacefully. She did not stir again all night. + +_14 August._ — On the East Cliff, reading and writing all day. Lucy seems to have become as much in love with the spot as I am, and it is hard to get her away from it when it is time to come home for lunch or tea or dinner. This afternoon she made a funny remark. We were coming home for dinner, and had come to the top of the steps up from the West Pier and stopped to look at the view, as we generally do. The setting sun, low down in the sky, was just dropping behind Kettleness; the red light was thrown over on the East Cliff and the old abbey, and seemed to bathe everything in a beautiful rosy glow. We were silent for a while, and suddenly Lucy murmured as if to herself:— + +“His red eyes again! They are just the same.” It was such an odd expression, coming _apropos_ of nothing, that it quite startled me. I slewed round a little, so as to see Lucy well without seeming to stare at her, and saw that she was in a half-dreamy state, with an odd look on her face that I could not quite make out; so I said nothing, but followed her eyes. She appeared to be looking over at our own seat, whereon was a dark figure seated alone. I was a little startled myself, for it seemed for an instant as if the stranger had great eyes like burning flames; but a second look dispelled the illusion. The red sunlight was shining on the windows of St. Mary’s Church behind our seat, and as the sun dipped there was just sufficient change in the refraction and reflection to make it appear as if the light moved. I called Lucy’s attention to the peculiar effect, and she became herself with a start, but she looked sad all the same; it may have been that she was thinking of that terrible night up there. We never refer to it; so I said nothing, and we went home to dinner. Lucy had a headache and went early to bed. I saw her asleep, and went out for a little stroll myself; I walked along the cliffs to the westward, and was full of sweet sadness, for I was thinking of Jonathan. When coming home—it was then bright moonlight, so bright that, though the front of our part of the Crescent was in shadow, everything could be well seen—I threw a glance up at our window, and saw Lucy’s head leaning out. I thought that perhaps she was looking out for me, so I opened my handkerchief and waved it. She did not notice or make any movement whatever. Just then, the moonlight crept round an angle of the building, and the light fell on the window. There distinctly was Lucy with her head lying up against the side of the window-sill and her eyes shut. She was fast asleep, and by her, seated on the window-sill, was something that looked like a good-sized bird. I was afraid she might get a chill, so I ran upstairs, but as I came into the room she was moving back to her bed, fast asleep, and breathing heavily; she was holding her hand to her throat, as though to protect it from cold. + +I did not wake her, but tucked her up warmly; I have taken care that the door is locked and the window securely fastened. + +She looks so sweet as she sleeps; but she is paler than is her wont, and there is a drawn, haggard look under her eyes which I do not like. I fear she is fretting about something. I wish I could find out what it is. + +_15 August._ — Rose later than usual. Lucy was languid and tired, and slept on after we had been called. We had a happy surprise at breakfast. Arthur’s father is better, and wants the marriage to come off soon. Lucy is full of quiet joy, and her mother is glad and sorry at once. Later on in the day she told me the cause. She is grieved to lose Lucy as her very own, but she is rejoiced that she is soon to have some one to protect her. Poor dear, sweet lady! She confided to me that she has got her death-warrant. She has not told Lucy, and made me promise secrecy; her doctor told her that within a few months, at most, she must die, for her heart is weakening. At any time, even now, a sudden shock would be almost sure to kill her. Ah, we were wise to keep from her the affair of the dreadful night of Lucy’s sleep-walking. + +_17 August._ — No diary for two whole days. I have not had the heart to write. Some sort of shadowy pall seems to be coming over our happiness. No news from Jonathan, and Lucy seems to be growing weaker, whilst her mother’s hours are numbering to a close. I do not understand Lucy’s fading away as she is doing. She eats well and sleeps well, and enjoys the fresh air; but all the time the roses in her cheeks are fading, and she gets weaker and more languid day by day; at night I hear her gasping as if for air. I keep the key of our door always fastened to my wrist at night, but she gets up and walks about the room, and sits at the open window. Last night I found her leaning out when I woke up, and when I tried to wake her I could not; she was in a faint. When I managed to restore her she was as weak as water, and cried silently between long, painful struggles for breath. When I asked her how she came to be at the window she shook her head and turned away. I trust her feeling ill may not be from that unlucky prick of the safety-pin. I looked at her throat just now as she lay asleep, and the tiny wounds seem not to have healed. They are still open, and, if anything, larger than before, and the edges of them are faintly white. They are like little white dots with red centres. Unless they heal within a day or two, I shall insist on the doctor seeing about them. + +_Letter, Samuel F. Billington & Son, Solicitors, Whitby, to Messrs. Carter, Paterson & Co., London._ + +“_17 August._ + +“Dear Sirs,— + +“Herewith please receive invoice of goods sent by Great Northern Railway. Same are to be delivered at Carfax, near Purfleet, immediately on receipt at goods station King’s Cross. The house is at present empty, but enclosed please find keys, all of which are labelled. + +“You will please deposit the boxes, fifty in number, which form the consignment, in the partially ruined building forming part of the house and marked ‘A’ on rough diagram enclosed. Your agent will easily recognise the locality, as it is the ancient chapel of the mansion. The goods leave by the train at 9:30 to-night, and will be due at King’s Cross at 4:30 to-morrow afternoon. As our client wishes the delivery made as soon as possible, we shall be obliged by your having teams ready at King’s Cross at the time named and forthwith conveying the goods to destination. In order to obviate any delays possible through any routine requirements as to payment in your departments, we enclose cheque herewith for ten pounds (£10), receipt of which please acknowledge. Should the charge be less than this amount, you can return balance; if greater, we shall at once send cheque for difference on hearing from you. You are to leave the keys on coming away in the main hall of the house, where the proprietor may get them on his entering the house by means of his duplicate key. + +“Pray do not take us as exceeding the bounds of business courtesy in pressing you in all ways to use the utmost expedition. + +_“We are, dear Sirs, + +“Faithfully yours, + +“SAMUEL F. BILLINGTON & SON.”_ + +_Letter, Messrs. Carter, Paterson & Co., London, to Messrs. Billington & Son, Whitby._ + +“_21 August._ + +“Dear Sirs,— + +“We beg to acknowledge £10 received and to return cheque £1 17s. 9d, amount of overplus, as shown in receipted account herewith. Goods are delivered in exact accordance with instructions, and keys left in parcel in main hall, as directed. + +“We are, dear Sirs, + +“Yours respectfully. + +“_Pro_ CARTER, PATERSON & CO.” + +_Mina Murray’s Journal._ + +_18 August._ — I am happy to-day, and write sitting on the seat in the churchyard. Lucy is ever so much better. Last night she slept well all night, and did not disturb me once. The roses seem coming back already to her cheeks, though she is still sadly pale and wan-looking. If she were in any way anæmic I could understand it, but she is not. She is in gay spirits and full of life and cheerfulness. All the morbid reticence seems to have passed from her, and she has just reminded me, as if I needed any reminding, of _that_ night, and that it was here, on this very seat, I found her asleep. As she told me she tapped playfully with the heel of her boot on the stone slab and said:— + +“My poor little feet didn’t make much noise then! I daresay poor old Mr. Swales would have told me that it was because I didn’t want to wake up Geordie.” As she was in such a communicative humour, I asked her if she had dreamed at all that night. Before she answered, that sweet, puckered look came into her forehead, which Arthur—I call him Arthur from her habit—says he loves; and, indeed, I don’t wonder that he does. Then she went on in a half-dreaming kind of way, as if trying to recall it to herself:— + +“I didn’t quite dream; but it all seemed to be real. I only wanted to be here in this spot—I don’t know why, for I was afraid of something—I don’t know what. I remember, though I suppose I was asleep, passing through the streets and over the bridge. A fish leaped as I went by, and I leaned over to look at it, and I heard a lot of dogs howling—the whole town seemed as if it must be full of dogs all howling at once—as I went up the steps. Then I had a vague memory of something long and dark with red eyes, just as we saw in the sunset, and something very sweet and very bitter all around me at once; and then I seemed sinking into deep green water, and there was a singing in my ears, as I have heard there is to drowning men; and then everything seemed passing away from me; my soul seemed to go out from my body and float about the air. I seem to remember that once the West Lighthouse was right under me, and then there was a sort of agonising feeling, as if I were in an earthquake, and I came back and found you shaking my body. I saw you do it before I felt you.” + +Then she began to laugh. It seemed a little uncanny to me, and I listened to her breathlessly. I did not quite like it, and thought it better not to keep her mind on the subject, so we drifted on to other subjects, and Lucy was like her old self again. When we got home the fresh breeze had braced her up, and her pale cheeks were really more rosy. Her mother rejoiced when she saw her, and we all spent a very happy evening together. + +_19 August._ — Joy, joy, joy! although not all joy. At last, news of Jonathan. The dear fellow has been ill; that is why he did not write. I am not afraid to think it or say it, now that I know. Mr. Hawkins sent me on the letter, and wrote himself, oh, so kindly. I am to leave in the morning and go over to Jonathan, and to help to nurse him if necessary, and to bring him home. Mr. Hawkins says it would not be a bad thing if we were to be married out there. I have cried over the good Sister’s letter till I can feel it wet against my bosom, where it lies. It is of Jonathan, and must be next my heart, for he is _in_ my heart. My journey is all mapped out, and my luggage ready. I am only taking one change of dress; Lucy will bring my trunk to London and keep it till I send for it, for it may be that ... I must write no more; I must keep it to say to Jonathan, my husband. The letter that he has seen and touched must comfort me till we meet. + +_Letter, Sister Agatha, Hospital of St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, Buda-Pesth, to Miss Wilhelmina Murray._ + +“_12 August._ + +“Dear Madam,— + +“I write by desire of Mr. Jonathan Harker, who is himself not strong enough to write, though progressing well, thanks to God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary. He has been under our care for nearly six weeks, suffering from a violent brain fever. He wishes me to convey his love, and to say that by this post I write for him to Mr. Peter Hawkins, Exeter, to say, with his dutiful respects, that he is sorry for his delay, and that all of his work is completed. He will require some few weeks’ rest in our sanatorium in the hills, but will then return. He wishes me to say that he has not sufficient money with him, and that he would like to pay for his staying here, so that others who need shall not be wanting for help. + +“Believe me, + +“Yours, with sympathy and all blessings, + +“SISTER AGATHA. + +“P. S.—My patient being asleep, I open this to let you know something more. He has told me all about you, and that you are shortly to be his wife. All blessings to you both! He has had some fearful shock—so says our doctor—and in his delirium his ravings have been dreadful; of wolves and poison and blood; of ghosts and demons; and I fear to say of what. Be careful with him always that there may be nothing to excite him of this kind for a long time to come; the traces of such an illness as his do not lightly die away. We should have written long ago, but we knew nothing of his friends, and there was on him nothing that any one could understand. He came in the train from Klausenburg, and the guard was told by the station-master there that he rushed into the station shouting for a ticket for home. Seeing from his violent demeanour that he was English, they gave him a ticket for the furthest station on the way thither that the train reached. + +“Be assured that he is well cared for. He has won all hearts by his sweetness and gentleness. He is truly getting on well, and I have no doubt will in a few weeks be all himself. But be careful of him for safety’s sake. There are, I pray God and St. Joseph and Ste. Mary, many, many, happy years for you both.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_19 August._ — Strange and sudden change in Renfield last night. About eight o’clock he began to get excited and sniff about as a dog does when setting. The attendant was struck by his manner, and knowing my interest in him, encouraged him to talk. He is usually respectful to the attendant and at times servile; but to-night, the man tells me, he was quite haughty. Would not condescend to talk with him at all. All he would say was:— + +[quote] +“I don’t want to talk to you: you don’t count now; the Master is at hand.” + +The attendant thinks it is some sudden form of religious mania which has seized him. If so, we must look out for squalls, for a strong man with homicidal and religious mania at once might be dangerous. The combination is a dreadful one. At nine o’clock I visited him myself. His attitude to me was the same as that to the attendant; in his sublime self-feeling the difference between myself and attendant seemed to him as nothing. It looks like religious mania, and he will soon think that he himself is God. These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for an Omnipotent Being. How these madmen give themselves away! The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall; but the God created from human vanity sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow. Oh, if men only knew! + +For half an hour or more Renfield kept getting excited in greater and greater degree. I did not pretend to be watching him, but I kept strict observation all the same. All at once that shifty look came into his eyes which we always see when a madman has seized an idea, and with it the shifty movement of the head and back which asylum attendants come to know so well. He became quite quiet, and went and sat on the edge of his bed resignedly, and looked into space with lack-lustre eyes. I thought I would find out if his apathy were real or only assumed, and tried to lead him to talk of his pets, a theme which had never failed to excite his attention. At first he made no reply, but at length said testily:— + +“Bother them all! I don’t care a pin about them.” + +“What?” I said. “You don’t mean to tell me you don’t care about spiders?” (Spiders at present are his hobby and the note-book is filling up with columns of small figures.) To this he answered enigmatically:— + +“The bride-maidens rejoice the eyes that wait the coming of the bride; but when the bride draweth nigh, then the maidens shine not to the eyes that are filled.” + +He would not explain himself, but remained obstinately seated on his bed all the time I remained with him. + +I am weary to-night and low in spirits. I cannot but think of Lucy, and how different things might have been. If I don’t sleep at once, chloral, the modern Morpheus—C_{2}HCl_{3}O. H_{2}O! I must be careful not to let it grow into a habit. No, I shall take none to-night! I have thought of Lucy, and I shall not dishonour her by mixing the two. If need be, to-night shall be sleepless.... + +_Later._ — Glad I made the resolution; gladder that I kept to it. I had lain tossing about, and had heard the clock strike only twice, when the night-watchman came to me, sent up from the ward, to say that Renfield had escaped. I threw on my clothes and ran down at once; my patient is too dangerous a person to be roaming about. Those ideas of his might work out dangerously with strangers. The attendant was waiting for me. He said he had seen him not ten minutes before, seemingly asleep in his bed, when he had looked through the observation-trap in the door. His attention was called by the sound of the window being wrenched out. He ran back and saw his feet disappear through the window, and had at once sent up for me. He was only in his night-gear, and cannot be far off. The attendant thought it would be more useful to watch where he should go than to follow him, as he might lose sight of him whilst getting out of the building by the door. He is a bulky man, and couldn’t get through the window. I am thin, so, with his aid, I got out, but feet foremost, and, as we were only a few feet above ground, landed unhurt. The attendant told me the patient had gone to the left, and had taken a straight line, so I ran as quickly as I could. As I got through the belt of trees I saw a white figure scale the high wall which separates our grounds from those of the deserted house. + +I ran back at once, told the watchman to get three or four men immediately and follow me into the grounds of Carfax, in case our friend might be dangerous. I got a ladder myself, and crossing the wall, dropped down on the other side. I could see Renfield’s figure just disappearing behind the angle of the house, so I ran after him. On the far side of the house I found him pressed close against the old ironbound oak door of the chapel. He was talking, apparently to some one, but I was afraid to go near enough to hear what he was saying, lest I might frighten him, and he should run off. Chasing an errant swarm of bees is nothing to following a naked lunatic, when the fit of escaping is upon him! After a few minutes, however, I could see that he did not take note of anything around him, and so ventured to draw nearer to him—the more so as my men had now crossed the wall and were closing him in. I heard him say:— + +“I am here to do Your bidding, Master. I am Your slave, and You will reward me, for I shall be faithful. I have worshipped You long and afar off. Now that You are near, I await Your commands, and You will not pass me by, will You, dear Master, in Your distribution of good things?” + +He _is_ a selfish old beggar anyhow. He thinks of the loaves and fishes even when he believes he is in a Real Presence. His manias make a startling combination. When we closed in on him he fought like a tiger. He is immensely strong, for he was more like a wild beast than a man. I never saw a lunatic in such a paroxysm of rage before; and I hope I shall not again. It is a mercy that we have found out his strength and his danger in good time. With strength and determination like his, he might have done wild work before he was caged. He is safe now at any rate. Jack Sheppard himself couldn’t get free from the strait-waistcoat that keeps him restrained, and he’s chained to the wall in the padded room. His cries are at times awful, but the silences that follow are more deadly still, for he means murder in every turn and movement. + +Just now he spoke coherent words for the first time:— + +“I shall be patient, Master. It is coming—coming—coming!” + +So I took the hint, and came too. I was too excited to sleep, but this diary has quieted me, and I feel I shall get some sleep to-night. + +== CHAPTER IX + +_Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra._ + +“_Buda-Pesth, 24 August._ + +“My dearest Lucy,— + +“I know you will be anxious to hear all that has happened since we parted at the railway station at Whitby. Well, my dear, I got to Hull all right, and caught the boat to Hamburg, and then the train on here. I feel that I can hardly recall anything of the journey, except that I knew I was coming to Jonathan, and, that as I should have to do some nursing, I had better get all the sleep I could.... I found my dear one, oh, so thin and pale and weak-looking. All the resolution has gone out of his dear eyes, and that quiet dignity which I told you was in his face has vanished. He is only a wreck of himself, and he does not remember anything that has happened to him for a long time past. At least, he wants me to believe so, and I shall never ask. He has had some terrible shock, and I fear it might tax his poor brain if he were to try to recall it. Sister Agatha, who is a good creature and a born nurse, tells me that he raved of dreadful things whilst he was off his head. I wanted her to tell me what they were; but she would only cross herself, and say she would never tell; that the ravings of the sick were the secrets of God, and that if a nurse through her vocation should hear them, she should respect her trust. She is a sweet, good soul, and the next day, when she saw I was troubled, she opened up the subject again, and after saying that she could never mention what my poor dear raved about, added: ‘I can tell you this much, my dear: that it was not about anything which he has done wrong himself; and you, as his wife to be, have no cause to be concerned. He has not forgotten you or what he owes to you. His fear was of great and terrible things, which no mortal can treat of.’ I do believe the dear soul thought I might be jealous lest my poor dear should have fallen in love with any other girl. The idea of _my_ being jealous about Jonathan! And yet, my dear, let me whisper, I felt a thrill of joy through me when I _knew_ that no other woman was a cause of trouble. I am now sitting by his bedside, where I can see his face while he sleeps. He is waking!... + +“When he woke he asked me for his coat, as he wanted to get something from the pocket; I asked Sister Agatha, and she brought all his things. I saw that amongst them was his note-book, and was going to ask him to let me look at it—for I knew then that I might find some clue to his trouble—but I suppose he must have seen my wish in my eyes, for he sent me over to the window, saying he wanted to be quite alone for a moment. Then he called me back, and when I came he had his hand over the note-book, and he said to me very solemnly:— + +“‘Wilhelmina’—I knew then that he was in deadly earnest, for he has never called me by that name since he asked me to marry him—‘you know, dear, my ideas of the trust between husband and wife: there should be no secret, no concealment. I have had a great shock, and when I try to think of what it is I feel my head spin round, and I do not know if it was all real or the dreaming of a madman. You know I have had brain fever, and that is to be mad. The secret is here, and I do not want to know it. I want to take up my life here, with our marriage.’ For, my dear, we had decided to be married as soon as the formalities are complete. ‘Are you willing, Wilhelmina, to share my ignorance? Here is the book. Take it and keep it, read it if you will, but never let me know; unless, indeed, some solemn duty should come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, sane or mad, recorded here.’ He fell back exhausted, and I put the book under his pillow, and kissed him. I have asked Sister Agatha to beg the Superior to let our wedding be this afternoon, and am waiting her reply.... + +“She has come and told me that the chaplain of the English mission church has been sent for. We are to be married in an hour, or as soon after as Jonathan awakes.... + +“Lucy, the time has come and gone. I feel very solemn, but very, very happy. Jonathan woke a little after the hour, and all was ready, and he sat up in bed, propped up with pillows. He answered his ‘I will’ firmly and strongly. I could hardly speak; my heart was so full that even those words seemed to choke me. The dear sisters were so kind. Please God, I shall never, never forget them, nor the grave and sweet responsibilities I have taken upon me. I must tell you of my wedding present. When the chaplain and the sisters had left me alone with my husband—oh, Lucy, it is the first time I have written the words ‘my husband’—left me alone with my husband, I took the book from under his pillow, and wrapped it up in white paper, and tied it with a little bit of pale blue ribbon which was round my neck, and sealed it over the knot with sealing-wax, and for my seal I used my wedding ring. Then I kissed it and showed it to my husband, and told him that I would keep it so, and then it would be an outward and visible sign for us all our lives that we trusted each other; that I would never open it unless it were for his own dear sake or for the sake of some stern duty. Then he took my hand in his, and oh, Lucy, it was the first time he took _his wife’s_ hand, and said that it was the dearest thing in all the wide world, and that he would go through all the past again to win it, if need be. The poor dear meant to have said a part of the past, but he cannot think of time yet, and I shall not wonder if at first he mixes up not only the month, but the year. + +“Well, my dear, what could I say? I could only tell him that I was the happiest woman in all the wide world, and that I had nothing to give him except myself, my life, and my trust, and that with these went my love and duty for all the days of my life. And, my dear, when he kissed me, and drew me to him with his poor weak hands, it was like a very solemn pledge between us.... + +“Lucy dear, do you know why I tell you all this? It is not only because it is all sweet to me, but because you have been, and are, very dear to me. It was my privilege to be your friend and guide when you came from the schoolroom to prepare for the world of life. I want you to see now, and with the eyes of a very happy wife, whither duty has led me; so that in your own married life you too may be all happy as I am. My dear, please Almighty God, your life may be all it promises: a long day of sunshine, with no harsh wind, no forgetting duty, no distrust. I must not wish you no pain, for that can never be; but I do hope you will be _always_ as happy as I am _now_. Good-bye, my dear. I shall post this at once, and, perhaps, write you very soon again. I must stop, for Jonathan is waking—I must attend to my husband! + +“Your ever-loving + +“MINA HARKER.” + +_Letter, Lucy Westenra to Mina Harker._ + +“_Whitby, 30 August._ + +“My dearest Mina,— + +“Oceans of love and millions of kisses, and may you soon be in your own home with your husband. I wish you could be coming home soon enough to stay with us here. The strong air would soon restore Jonathan; it has quite restored me. I have an appetite like a cormorant, am full of life, and sleep well. You will be glad to know that I have quite given up walking in my sleep. I think I have not stirred out of my bed for a week, that is when I once got into it at night. Arthur says I am getting fat. By the way, I forgot to tell you that Arthur is here. We have such walks and drives, and rides, and rowing, and tennis, and fishing together; and I love him more than ever. He _tells_ me that he loves me more, but I doubt that, for at first he told me that he couldn’t love me more than he did then. But this is nonsense. There he is, calling to me. So no more just at present from your loving + +“LUCY. + +“P. S.—Mother sends her love. She seems better, poor dear. “P. P. S.—We are to be married on 28 September.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_20 August._ — The case of Renfield grows even more interesting. He has now so far quieted that there are spells of cessation from his passion. For the first week after his attack he was perpetually violent. Then one night, just as the moon rose, he grew quiet, and kept murmuring to himself: “Now I can wait; now I can wait.” The attendant came to tell me, so I ran down at once to have a look at him. He was still in the strait-waistcoat and in the padded room, but the suffused look had gone from his face, and his eyes had something of their old pleading—I might almost say, “cringing”—softness. I was satisfied with his present condition, and directed him to be relieved. The attendants hesitated, but finally carried out my wishes without protest. It was a strange thing that the patient had humour enough to see their distrust, for, coming close to me, he said in a whisper, all the while looking furtively at them:— + +“They think I could hurt you! Fancy _me_ hurting _you_! The fools!” + +It was soothing, somehow, to the feelings to find myself dissociated even in the mind of this poor madman from the others; but all the same I do not follow his thought. Am I to take it that I have anything in common with him, so that we are, as it were, to stand together; or has he to gain from me some good so stupendous that my well-being is needful to him? I must find out later on. To-night he will not speak. Even the offer of a kitten or even a full-grown cat will not tempt him. He will only say: “I don’t take any stock in cats. I have more to think of now, and I can wait; I can wait.” + +After a while I left him. The attendant tells me that he was quiet until just before dawn, and that then he began to get uneasy, and at length violent, until at last he fell into a paroxysm which exhausted him so that he swooned into a sort of coma. + +... Three nights has the same thing happened—violent all day then quiet from moonrise to sunrise. I wish I could get some clue to the cause. It would almost seem as if there was some influence which came and went. Happy thought! We shall to-night play sane wits against mad ones. He escaped before without our help; to-night he shall escape with it. We shall give him a chance, and have the men ready to follow in case they are required.... + +_23 August._ — “The unexpected always happens.” How well Disraeli knew life. Our bird when he found the cage open would not fly, so all our subtle arrangements were for nought. At any rate, we have proved one thing; that the spells of quietness last a reasonable time. We shall in future be able to ease his bonds for a few hours each day. I have given orders to the night attendant merely to shut him in the padded room, when once he is quiet, until an hour before sunrise. The poor soul’s body will enjoy the relief even if his mind cannot appreciate it. Hark! The unexpected again! I am called; the patient has once more escaped. + +_Later._ — Another night adventure. Renfield artfully waited until the attendant was entering the room to inspect. Then he dashed out past him and flew down the passage. I sent word for the attendants to follow. Again he went into the grounds of the deserted house, and we found him in the same place, pressed against the old chapel door. When he saw me he became furious, and had not the attendants seized him in time, he would have tried to kill me. As we were holding him a strange thing happened. He suddenly redoubled his efforts, and then as suddenly grew calm. I looked round instinctively, but could see nothing. Then I caught the patient’s eye and followed it, but could trace nothing as it looked into the moonlit sky except a big bat, which was flapping its silent and ghostly way to the west. Bats usually wheel and flit about, but this one seemed to go straight on, as if it knew where it was bound for or had some intention of its own. The patient grew calmer every instant, and presently said:— + +“You needn’t tie me; I shall go quietly!” Without trouble we came back to the house. I feel there is something ominous in his calm, and shall not forget this night.... + +_Lucy Westenra’s Diary_ + +_Hillingham, 24 August._ — I must imitate Mina, and keep writing things down. Then we can have long talks when we do meet. I wonder when it will be. I wish she were with me again, for I feel so unhappy. Last night I seemed to be dreaming again just as I was at Whitby. Perhaps it is the change of air, or getting home again. It is all dark and horrid to me, for I can remember nothing; but I am full of vague fear, and I feel so weak and worn out. When Arthur came to lunch he looked quite grieved when he saw me, and I hadn’t the spirit to try to be cheerful. I wonder if I could sleep in mother’s room to-night. I shall make an excuse and try. + +_25 August._ — Another bad night. Mother did not seem to take to my proposal. She seems not too well herself, and doubtless she fears to worry me. I tried to keep awake, and succeeded for a while; but when the clock struck twelve it waked me from a doze, so I must have been falling asleep. There was a sort of scratching or flapping at the window, but I did not mind it, and as I remember no more, I suppose I must then have fallen asleep. More bad dreams. I wish I could remember them. This morning I am horribly weak. My face is ghastly pale, and my throat pains me. It must be something wrong with my lungs, for I don’t seem ever to get air enough. I shall try to cheer up when Arthur comes, or else I know he will be miserable to see me so. + +_Letter, Arthur Holmwood to Dr. Seward._ + +“_Albemarle Hotel, 31 August._ + +“My dear Jack,— + +“I want you to do me a favour. Lucy is ill; that is, she has no special disease, but she looks awful, and is getting worse every day. I have asked her if there is any cause; I do not dare to ask her mother, for to disturb the poor lady’s mind about her daughter in her present state of health would be fatal. Mrs. Westenra has confided to me that her doom is spoken—disease of the heart—though poor Lucy does not know it yet. I am sure that there is something preying on my dear girl’s mind. I am almost distracted when I think of her; to look at her gives me a pang. I told her I should ask you to see her, and though she demurred at first—I know why, old fellow—she finally consented. It will be a painful task for you, I know, old friend, but it is for _her_ sake, and I must not hesitate to ask, or you to act. You are to come to lunch at Hillingham to-morrow, two o’clock, so as not to arouse any suspicion in Mrs. Westenra, and after lunch Lucy will take an opportunity of being alone with you. I shall come in for tea, and we can go away together; I am filled with anxiety, and want to consult with you alone as soon as I can after you have seen her. Do not fail! + +“ARTHUR.” + +_Telegram, Arthur Holmwood to Seward._ + +“_1 September._ + +“Am summoned to see my father, who is worse. Am writing. Write me fully by to-night’s post to Ring. Wire me if necessary.” + +_Letter from Dr. Seward to Arthur Holmwood._ + +“_2 September._ + +“My dear old fellow,— + +“With regard to Miss Westenra’s health I hasten to let you know at once that in my opinion there is not any functional disturbance or any malady that I know of. At the same time, I am not by any means satisfied with her appearance; she is woefully different from what she was when I saw her last. Of course you must bear in mind that I did not have full opportunity of examination such as I should wish; our very friendship makes a little difficulty which not even medical science or custom can bridge over. I had better tell you exactly what happened, leaving you to draw, in a measure, your own conclusions. I shall then say what I have done and propose doing. + +“I found Miss Westenra in seemingly gay spirits. Her mother was present, and in a few seconds I made up my mind that she was trying all she knew to mislead her mother and prevent her from being anxious. I have no doubt she guesses, if she does not know, what need of caution there is. We lunched alone, and as we all exerted ourselves to be cheerful, we got, as some kind of reward for our labours, some real cheerfulness amongst us. Then Mrs. Westenra went to lie down, and Lucy was left with me. We went into her boudoir, and till we got there her gaiety remained, for the servants were coming and going. As soon as the door was closed, however, the mask fell from her face, and she sank down into a chair with a great sigh, and hid her eyes with her hand. When I saw that her high spirits had failed, I at once took advantage of her reaction to make a diagnosis. She said to me very sweetly:— + +“‘I cannot tell you how I loathe talking about myself.’ I reminded her that a doctor’s confidence was sacred, but that you were grievously anxious about her. She caught on to my meaning at once, and settled that matter in a word. ‘Tell Arthur everything you choose. I do not care for myself, but all for him!’ So I am quite free. + +“I could easily see that she is somewhat bloodless, but I could not see the usual anæmic signs, and by a chance I was actually able to test the quality of her blood, for in opening a window which was stiff a cord gave way, and she cut her hand slightly with broken glass. It was a slight matter in itself, but it gave me an evident chance, and I secured a few drops of the blood and have analysed them. The qualitative analysis gives a quite normal condition, and shows, I should infer, in itself a vigorous state of health. In other physical matters I was quite satisfied that there is no need for anxiety; but as there must be a cause somewhere, I have come to the conclusion that it must be something mental. She complains of difficulty in breathing satisfactorily at times, and of heavy, lethargic sleep, with dreams that frighten her, but regarding which she can remember nothing. She says that as a child she used to walk in her sleep, and that when in Whitby the habit came back, and that once she walked out in the night and went to East Cliff, where Miss Murray found her; but she assures me that of late the habit has not returned. I am in doubt, and so have done the best thing I know of; I have written to my old friend and master, Professor Van Helsing, of Amsterdam, who knows as much about obscure diseases as any one in the world. I have asked him to come over, and as you told me that all things were to be at your charge, I have mentioned to him who you are and your relations to Miss Westenra. This, my dear fellow, is in obedience to your wishes, for I am only too proud and happy to do anything I can for her. Van Helsing would, I know, do anything for me for a personal reason, so, no matter on what ground he comes, we must accept his wishes. He is a seemingly arbitrary man, but this is because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day; and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, an indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats—these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind—work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy. I tell you these facts that you may know why I have such confidence in him. I have asked him to come at once. I shall see Miss Westenra to-morrow again. She is to meet me at the Stores, so that I may not alarm her mother by too early a repetition of my call. + +“Yours always, + +“JOHN SEWARD.” + +_Letter, Abraham Van Helsing, M. D., D. Ph., D. Lit., etc., etc., to Dr. Seward._ + +“_2 September._ + +“My good Friend,— + +“When I have received your letter I am already coming to you. By good fortune I can leave just at once, without wrong to any of those who have trusted me. Were fortune other, then it were bad for those who have trusted, for I come to my friend when he call me to aid those he holds dear. Tell your friend that when that time you suck from my wound so swiftly the poison of the gangrene from that knife that our other friend, too nervous, let slip, you did more for him when he wants my aids and you call for them than all his great fortune could do. But it is pleasure added to do for him, your friend; it is to you that I come. Have then rooms for me at the Great Eastern Hotel, so that I may be near to hand, and please it so arrange that we may see the young lady not too late on to-morrow, for it is likely that I may have to return here that night. But if need be I shall come again in three days, and stay longer if it must. Till then good-bye, my friend John. + +“VAN HELSING.” + +_Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood._ + +“_3 September._ + +“My dear Art,— + +“Van Helsing has come and gone. He came on with me to Hillingham, and found that, by Lucy’s discretion, her mother was lunching out, so that we were alone with her. Van Helsing made a very careful examination of the patient. He is to report to me, and I shall advise you, for of course I was not present all the time. He is, I fear, much concerned, but says he must think. When I told him of our friendship and how you trust to me in the matter, he said: ‘You must tell him all you think. Tell him what I think, if you can guess it, if you will. Nay, I am not jesting. This is no jest, but life and death, perhaps more.’ I asked what he meant by that, for he was very serious. This was when we had come back to town, and he was having a cup of tea before starting on his return to Amsterdam. He would not give me any further clue. You must not be angry with me, Art, because his very reticence means that all his brains are working for her good. He will speak plainly enough when the time comes, be sure. So I told him I would simply write an account of our visit, just as if I were doing a descriptive special article for _The Daily Telegraph_. He seemed not to notice, but remarked that the smuts in London were not quite so bad as they used to be when he was a student here. I am to get his report to-morrow if he can possibly make it. In any case I am to have a letter. + +“Well, as to the visit. Lucy was more cheerful than on the day I first saw her, and certainly looked better. She had lost something of the ghastly look that so upset you, and her breathing was normal. She was very sweet to the professor (as she always is), and tried to make him feel at ease; though I could see that the poor girl was making a hard struggle for it. I believe Van Helsing saw it, too, for I saw the quick look under his bushy brows that I knew of old. Then he began to chat of all things except ourselves and diseases and with such an infinite geniality that I could see poor Lucy’s pretense of animation merge into reality. Then, without any seeming change, he brought the conversation gently round to his visit, and suavely said:— + +“‘My dear young miss, I have the so great pleasure because you are so much beloved. That is much, my dear, ever were there that which I do not see. They told me you were down in the spirit, and that you were of a ghastly pale. To them I say: “Pouf!”’ And he snapped his fingers at me and went on: ‘But you and I shall show them how wrong they are. How can he’—and he pointed at me with the same look and gesture as that with which once he pointed me out to his class, on, or rather after, a particular occasion which he never fails to remind me of—‘know anything of a young ladies? He has his madmans to play with, and to bring them back to happiness, and to those that love them. It is much to do, and, oh, but there are rewards, in that we can bestow such happiness. But the young ladies! He has no wife nor daughter, and the young do not tell themselves to the young, but to the old, like me, who have known so many sorrows and the causes of them. So, my dear, we will send him away to smoke the cigarette in the garden, whiles you and I have little talk all to ourselves.’ I took the hint, and strolled about, and presently the professor came to the window and called me in. He looked grave, but said: ‘I have made careful examination, but there is no functional cause. With you I agree that there has been much blood lost; it has been, but is not. But the conditions of her are in no way anæmic. I have asked her to send me her maid, that I may ask just one or two question, that so I may not chance to miss nothing. I know well what she will say. And yet there is cause; there is always cause for everything. I must go back home and think. You must send to me the telegram every day; and if there be cause I shall come again. The disease—for not to be all well is a disease—interest me, and the sweet young dear, she interest me too. She charm me, and for her, if not for you or disease, I come.’ + +“As I tell you, he would not say a word more, even when we were alone. And so now, Art, you know all I know. I shall keep stern watch. I trust your poor father is rallying. It must be a terrible thing to you, my dear old fellow, to be placed in such a position between two people who are both so dear to you. I know your idea of duty to your father, and you are right to stick to it; but, if need be, I shall send you word to come at once to Lucy; so do not be over-anxious unless you hear from me.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_4 September._ — Zoöphagous patient still keeps up our interest in him. He had only one outburst and that was yesterday at an unusual time. Just before the stroke of noon he began to grow restless. The attendant knew the symptoms, and at once summoned aid. Fortunately the men came at a run, and were just in time, for at the stroke of noon he became so violent that it took all their strength to hold him. In about five minutes, however, he began to get more and more quiet, and finally sank into a sort of melancholy, in which state he has remained up to now. The attendant tells me that his screams whilst in the paroxysm were really appalling; I found my hands full when I got in, attending to some of the other patients who were frightened by him. Indeed, I can quite understand the effect, for the sounds disturbed even me, though I was some distance away. It is now after the dinner-hour of the asylum, and as yet my patient sits in a corner brooding, with a dull, sullen, woe-begone look in his face, which seems rather to indicate than to show something directly. I cannot quite understand it. + +_Later._ — Another change in my patient. At five o’clock I looked in on him, and found him seemingly as happy and contented as he used to be. He was catching flies and eating them, and was keeping note of his capture by making nail-marks on the edge of the door between the ridges of padding. When he saw me, he came over and apologised for his bad conduct, and asked me in a very humble, cringing way to be led back to his own room and to have his note-book again. I thought it well to humour him: so he is back in his room with the window open. He has the sugar of his tea spread out on the window-sill, and is reaping quite a harvest of flies. He is not now eating them, but putting them into a box, as of old, and is already examining the corners of his room to find a spider. I tried to get him to talk about the past few days, for any clue to his thoughts would be of immense help to me; but he would not rise. For a moment or two he looked very sad, and said in a sort of far-away voice, as though saying it rather to himself than to me:— + +“All over! all over! He has deserted me. No hope for me now unless I do it for myself!” Then suddenly turning to me in a resolute way, he said: “Doctor, won’t you be very good to me and let me have a little more sugar? I think it would be good for me.” + +“And the flies?” I said. + +“Yes! The flies like it, too, and I like the flies; therefore I like it.” And there are people who know so little as to think that madmen do not argue. I procured him a double supply, and left him as happy a man as, I suppose, any in the world. I wish I could fathom his mind. + +_Midnight._ — Another change in him. I had been to see Miss Westenra, whom I found much better, and had just returned, and was standing at our own gate looking at the sunset, when once more I heard him yelling. As his room is on this side of the house, I could hear it better than in the morning. It was a shock to me to turn from the wonderful smoky beauty of a sunset over London, with its lurid lights and inky shadows and all the marvellous tints that come on foul clouds even as on foul water, and to realise all the grim sternness of my own cold stone building, with its wealth of breathing misery, and my own desolate heart to endure it all. I reached him just as the sun was going down, and from his window saw the red disc sink. As it sank he became less and less frenzied; and just as it dipped he slid from the hands that held him, an inert mass, on the floor. It is wonderful, however, what intellectual recuperative power lunatics have, for within a few minutes he stood up quite calmly and looked around him. I signalled to the attendants not to hold him, for I was anxious to see what he would do. He went straight over to the window and brushed out the crumbs of sugar; then he took his fly-box, and emptied it outside, and threw away the box; then he shut the window, and crossing over, sat down on his bed. All this surprised me, so I asked him: “Are you not going to keep flies any more?” + +“No,” said he; “I am sick of all that rubbish!” He certainly is a wonderfully interesting study. I wish I could get some glimpse of his mind or of the cause of his sudden passion. Stop; there may be a clue after all, if we can find why to-day his paroxysms came on at high noon and at sunset. Can it be that there is a malign influence of the sun at periods which affects certain natures—as at times the moon does others? We shall see. + +_Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam._ + +“_4 September._ — Patient still better to-day.” + +_Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam._ + +“_5 September._ — Patient greatly improved. Good appetite; sleeps naturally; good spirits; colour coming back.” + +_Telegram, Seward, London, to Van Helsing, Amsterdam._ + +“_6 September._ — Terrible change for the worse. Come at once; do not lose an hour. I hold over telegram to Holmwood till have seen you.” + +== CHAPTER X + +_Letter, Dr. Seward to Hon. Arthur Holmwood._ + +“_6 September._ + +“My dear Art,— + +“My news to-day is not so good. Lucy this morning had gone back a bit. There is, however, one good thing which has arisen from it; Mrs. Westenra was naturally anxious concerning Lucy, and has consulted me professionally about her. I took advantage of the opportunity, and told her that my old master, Van Helsing, the great specialist, was coming to stay with me, and that I would put her in his charge conjointly with myself; so now we can come and go without alarming her unduly, for a shock to her would mean sudden death, and this, in Lucy’s weak condition, might be disastrous to her. We are hedged in with difficulties, all of us, my poor old fellow; but, please God, we shall come through them all right. If any need I shall write, so that, if you do not hear from me, take it for granted that I am simply waiting for news. In haste + +“Yours ever, + +“JOHN SEWARD.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_7 September._ — The first thing Van Helsing said to me when we met at Liverpool Street was:— + +“Have you said anything to our young friend the lover of her?” + +“No,” I said. “I waited till I had seen you, as I said in my telegram. I wrote him a letter simply telling him that you were coming, as Miss Westenra was not so well, and that I should let him know if need be.” + +“Right, my friend,” he said, “quite right! Better he not know as yet; perhaps he shall never know. I pray so; but if it be needed, then he shall know all. And, my good friend John, let me caution you. You deal with the madmen. All men are mad in some way or the other; and inasmuch as you deal discreetly with your madmen, so deal with God’s madmen, too—the rest of the world. You tell not your madmen what you do nor why you do it; you tell them not what you think. So you shall keep knowledge in its place, where it may rest—where it may gather its kind around it and breed. You and I shall keep as yet what we know here, and here.” He touched me on the heart and on the forehead, and then touched himself the same way. “I have for myself thoughts at the present. Later I shall unfold to you.” + +“Why not now?” I asked. “It may do some good; we may arrive at some decision.” He stopped and looked at me, and said:— + +“My friend John, when the corn is grown, even before it has ripened—while the milk of its mother-earth is in him, and the sunshine has not yet begun to paint him with his gold, the husbandman he pull the ear and rub him between his rough hands, and blow away the green chaff, and say to you: ‘Look! he’s good corn; he will make good crop when the time comes.’” I did not see the application, and told him so. For reply he reached over and took my ear in his hand and pulled it playfully, as he used long ago to do at lectures, and said: “The good husbandman tell you so then because he knows, but not till then. But you do not find the good husbandman dig up his planted corn to see if he grow; that is for the children who play at husbandry, and not for those who take it as of the work of their life. See you now, friend John? I have sown my corn, and Nature has her work to do in making it sprout; if he sprout at all, there’s some promise; and I wait till the ear begins to swell.” He broke off, for he evidently saw that I understood. Then he went on, and very gravely:— + +“You were always a careful student, and your case-book was ever more full than the rest. You were only student then; now you are master, and I trust that good habit have not fail. Remember, my friend, that knowledge is stronger than memory, and we should not trust the weaker. Even if you have not kept the good practise, let me tell you that this case of our dear miss is one that may be—mind, I say _may be_ — of such interest to us and others that all the rest may not make him kick the beam, as your peoples say. Take then good note of it. Nothing is too small. I counsel you, put down in record even your doubts and surmises. Hereafter it may be of interest to you to see how true you guess. We learn from failure, not from success!” + +When I described Lucy’s symptoms—the same as before, but infinitely more marked—he looked very grave, but said nothing. He took with him a bag in which were many instruments and drugs, “the ghastly paraphernalia of our beneficial trade,” as he once called, in one of his lectures, the equipment of a professor of the healing craft. When we were shown in, Mrs. Westenra met us. She was alarmed, but not nearly so much as I expected to find her. Nature in one of her beneficent moods has ordained that even death has some antidote to its own terrors. Here, in a case where any shock may prove fatal, matters are so ordered that, from some cause or other, the things not personal—even the terrible change in her daughter to whom she is so attached—do not seem to reach her. It is something like the way Dame Nature gathers round a foreign body an envelope of some insensitive tissue which can protect from evil that which it would otherwise harm by contact. If this be an ordered selfishness, then we should pause before we condemn any one for the vice of egoism, for there may be deeper root for its causes than we have knowledge of. + +I used my knowledge of this phase of spiritual pathology, and laid down a rule that she should not be present with Lucy or think of her illness more than was absolutely required. She assented readily, so readily that I saw again the hand of Nature fighting for life. Van Helsing and I were shown up to Lucy’s room. If I was shocked when I saw her yesterday, I was horrified when I saw her to-day. She was ghastly, chalkily pale; the red seemed to have gone even from her lips and gums, and the bones of her face stood out prominently; her breathing was painful to see or hear. Van Helsing’s face grew set as marble, and his eyebrows converged till they almost touched over his nose. Lucy lay motionless, and did not seem to have strength to speak, so for a while we were all silent. Then Van Helsing beckoned to me, and we went gently out of the room. The instant we had closed the door he stepped quickly along the passage to the next door, which was open. Then he pulled me quickly in with him and closed the door. “My God!” he said; “this is dreadful. There is no time to be lost. She will die for sheer want of blood to keep the heart’s action as it should be. There must be transfusion of blood at once. Is it you or me?” + +“I am younger and stronger, Professor. It must be me.” + +“Then get ready at once. I will bring up my bag. I am prepared.” + +I went downstairs with him, and as we were going there was a knock at the hall-door. When we reached the hall the maid had just opened the door, and Arthur was stepping quickly in. He rushed up to me, saying in an eager whisper:— + +“Jack, I was so anxious. I read between the lines of your letter, and have been in an agony. The dad was better, so I ran down here to see for myself. Is not that gentleman Dr. Van Helsing? I am so thankful to you, sir, for coming.” When first the Professor’s eye had lit upon him he had been angry at his interruption at such a time; but now, as he took in his stalwart proportions and recognised the strong young manhood which seemed to emanate from him, his eyes gleamed. Without a pause he said to him gravely as he held out his hand:— + +“Sir, you have come in time. You are the lover of our dear miss. She is bad, very, very bad. Nay, my child, do not go like that.” For he suddenly grew pale and sat down in a chair almost fainting. “You are to help her. You can do more than any that live, and your courage is your best help.” + +“What can I do?” asked Arthur hoarsely. “Tell me, and I shall do it. My life is hers, and I would give the last drop of blood in my body for her.” The Professor has a strongly humorous side, and I could from old knowledge detect a trace of its origin in his answer:— + +“My young sir, I do not ask so much as that—not the last!” + +“What shall I do?” There was fire in his eyes, and his open nostril quivered with intent. Van Helsing slapped him on the shoulder. “Come!” he said. “You are a man, and it is a man we want. You are better than me, better than my friend John.” Arthur looked bewildered, and the Professor went on by explaining in a kindly way:— + +“Young miss is bad, very bad. She wants blood, and blood she must have or die. My friend John and I have consulted; and we are about to perform what we call transfusion of blood—to transfer from full veins of one to the empty veins which pine for him. John was to give his blood, as he is the more young and strong than me”—here Arthur took my hand and wrung it hard in silence—“but, now you are here, you are more good than us, old or young, who toil much in the world of thought. Our nerves are not so calm and our blood not so bright than yours!” Arthur turned to him and said:— + +“If you only knew how gladly I would die for her you would understand—” + +He stopped, with a sort of choke in his voice. + +“Good boy!” said Van Helsing. “In the not-so-far-off you will be happy that you have done all for her you love. Come now and be silent. You shall kiss her once before it is done, but then you must go; and you must leave at my sign. Say no word to Madame; you know how it is with her! There must be no shock; any knowledge of this would be one. Come!” + +We all went up to Lucy’s room. Arthur by direction remained outside. Lucy turned her head and looked at us, but said nothing. She was not asleep, but she was simply too weak to make the effort. Her eyes spoke to us; that was all. Van Helsing took some things from his bag and laid them on a little table out of sight. Then he mixed a narcotic, and coming over to the bed, said cheerily:— + +“Now, little miss, here is your medicine. Drink it off, like a good child. See, I lift you so that to swallow is easy. Yes.” She had made the effort with success. + +It astonished me how long the drug took to act. This, in fact, marked the extent of her weakness. The time seemed endless until sleep began to flicker in her eyelids. At last, however, the narcotic began to manifest its potency; and she fell into a deep sleep. When the Professor was satisfied he called Arthur into the room, and bade him strip off his coat. Then he added: “You may take that one little kiss whiles I bring over the table. Friend John, help to me!” So neither of us looked whilst he bent over her. + +Van Helsing turning to me, said: + +“He is so young and strong and of blood so pure that we need not defibrinate it.” + +Then with swiftness, but with absolute method, Van Helsing performed the operation. As the transfusion went on something like life seemed to come back to poor Lucy’s cheeks, and through Arthur’s growing pallor the joy of his face seemed absolutely to shine. After a bit I began to grow anxious, for the loss of blood was telling on Arthur, strong man as he was. It gave me an idea of what a terrible strain Lucy’s system must have undergone that what weakened Arthur only partially restored her. But the Professor’s face was set, and he stood watch in hand and with his eyes fixed now on the patient and now on Arthur. I could hear my own heart beat. Presently he said in a soft voice: “Do not stir an instant. It is enough. You attend him; I will look to her.” When all was over I could see how much Arthur was weakened. I dressed the wound and took his arm to bring him away, when Van Helsing spoke without turning round—the man seems to have eyes in the back of his head:— + +“The brave lover, I think, deserve another kiss, which he shall have presently.” And as he had now finished his operation, he adjusted the pillow to the patient’s head. As he did so the narrow black velvet band which she seems always to wear round her throat, buckled with an old diamond buckle which her lover had given her, was dragged a little up, and showed a red mark on her throat. Arthur did not notice it, but I could hear the deep hiss of indrawn breath which is one of Van Helsing’s ways of betraying emotion. He said nothing at the moment, but turned to me, saying: “Now take down our brave young lover, give him of the port wine, and let him lie down a while. He must then go home and rest, sleep much and eat much, that he may be recruited of what he has so given to his love. He must not stay here. Hold! a moment. I may take it, sir, that you are anxious of result. Then bring it with you that in all ways the operation is successful. You have saved her life this time, and you can go home and rest easy in mind that all that can be is. I shall tell her all when she is well; she shall love you none the less for what you have done. Good-bye.” + +When Arthur had gone I went back to the room. Lucy was sleeping gently, but her breathing was stronger; I could see the counterpane move as her breast heaved. By the bedside sat Van Helsing, looking at her intently. The velvet band again covered the red mark. I asked the Professor in a whisper:— + +“What do you make of that mark on her throat?” + +“What do you make of it?” + +“I have not examined it yet,” I answered, and then and there proceeded to loose the band. Just over the external jugular vein there were two punctures, not large, but not wholesome-looking. There was no sign of disease, but the edges were white and worn-looking, as if by some trituration. It at once occurred to me that this wound, or whatever it was, might be the means of that manifest loss of blood; but I abandoned the idea as soon as formed, for such a thing could not be. The whole bed would have been drenched to a scarlet with the blood which the girl must have lost to leave such a pallor as she had before the transfusion. + +“Well?” said Van Helsing. + +“Well,” said I, “I can make nothing of it.” The Professor stood up. “I must go back to Amsterdam to-night,” he said. “There are books and things there which I want. You must remain here all the night, and you must not let your sight pass from her.” + +“Shall I have a nurse?” I asked. + +“We are the best nurses, you and I. You keep watch all night; see that she is well fed, and that nothing disturbs her. You must not sleep all the night. Later on we can sleep, you and I. I shall be back as soon as possible. And then we may begin.” + +“May begin?” I said. “What on earth do you mean?” + +“We shall see!” he answered, as he hurried out. He came back a moment later and put his head inside the door and said with warning finger held up:— + +“Remember, she is your charge. If you leave her, and harm befall, you shall not sleep easy hereafter!” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary—continued._ + +_8 September._ — I sat up all night with Lucy. The opiate worked itself off towards dusk, and she waked naturally; she looked a different being from what she had been before the operation. Her spirits even were good, and she was full of a happy vivacity, but I could see evidences of the absolute prostration which she had undergone. When I told Mrs. Westenra that Dr. Van Helsing had directed that I should sit up with her she almost pooh-poohed the idea, pointing out her daughter’s renewed strength and excellent spirits. I was firm, however, and made preparations for my long vigil. When her maid had prepared her for the night I came in, having in the meantime had supper, and took a seat by the bedside. She did not in any way make objection, but looked at me gratefully whenever I caught her eye. After a long spell she seemed sinking off to sleep, but with an effort seemed to pull herself together and shook it off. This was repeated several times, with greater effort and with shorter pauses as the time moved on. It was apparent that she did not want to sleep, so I tackled the subject at once:— + +“You do not want to go to sleep?” + +“No; I am afraid.” + +“Afraid to go to sleep! Why so? It is the boon we all crave for.” + +“Ah, not if you were like me—if sleep was to you a presage of horror!” + +“A presage of horror! What on earth do you mean?” + +“I don’t know; oh, I don’t know. And that is what is so terrible. All this weakness comes to me in sleep; until I dread the very thought.” + +“But, my dear girl, you may sleep to-night. I am here watching you, and I can promise that nothing will happen.” + +“Ah, I can trust you!” I seized the opportunity, and said: “I promise you that if I see any evidence of bad dreams I will wake you at once.” + +“You will? Oh, will you really? How good you are to me. Then I will sleep!” And almost at the word she gave a deep sigh of relief, and sank back, asleep. + +All night long I watched by her. She never stirred, but slept on and on in a deep, tranquil, life-giving, health-giving sleep. Her lips were slightly parted, and her breast rose and fell with the regularity of a pendulum. There was a smile on her face, and it was evident that no bad dreams had come to disturb her peace of mind. + +In the early morning her maid came, and I left her in her care and took myself back home, for I was anxious about many things. I sent a short wire to Van Helsing and to Arthur, telling them of the excellent result of the operation. My own work, with its manifold arrears, took me all day to clear off; it was dark when I was able to inquire about my zoöphagous patient. The report was good; he had been quite quiet for the past day and night. A telegram came from Van Helsing at Amsterdam whilst I was at dinner, suggesting that I should be at Hillingham to-night, as it might be well to be at hand, and stating that he was leaving by the night mail and would join me early in the morning. + +_9 September_.—I was pretty tired and worn out when I got to Hillingham. For two nights I had hardly had a wink of sleep, and my brain was beginning to feel that numbness which marks cerebral exhaustion. Lucy was up and in cheerful spirits. When she shook hands with me she looked sharply in my face and said:— + +“No sitting up to-night for you. You are worn out. I am quite well again; indeed, I am; and if there is to be any sitting up, it is I who will sit up with you.” I would not argue the point, but went and had my supper. Lucy came with me, and, enlivened by her charming presence, I made an excellent meal, and had a couple of glasses of the more than excellent port. Then Lucy took me upstairs, and showed me a room next her own, where a cozy fire was burning. “Now,” she said, “you must stay here. I shall leave this door open and my door too. You can lie on the sofa for I know that nothing would induce any of you doctors to go to bed whilst there is a patient above the horizon. If I want anything I shall call out, and you can come to me at once.” I could not but acquiesce, for I was “dog-tired,” and could not have sat up had I tried. So, on her renewing her promise to call me if she should want anything, I lay on the sofa, and forgot all about everything. + +_Lucy Westenra’s Diary._ + +_9 September._ — I feel so happy to-night. I have been so miserably weak, that to be able to think and move about is like feeling sunshine after a long spell of east wind out of a steel sky. Somehow Arthur feels very, very close to me. I seem to feel his presence warm about me. I suppose it is that sickness and weakness are selfish things and turn our inner eyes and sympathy on ourselves, whilst health and strength give Love rein, and in thought and feeling he can wander where he wills. I know where my thoughts are. If Arthur only knew! My dear, my dear, your ears must tingle as you sleep, as mine do waking. Oh, the blissful rest of last night! How I slept, with that dear, good Dr. Seward watching me. And to-night I shall not fear to sleep, since he is close at hand and within call. Thank everybody for being so good to me! Thank God! Good-night, Arthur. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_10 September._ — I was conscious of the Professor’s hand on my head, and started awake all in a second. That is one of the things that we learn in an asylum, at any rate. + +“And how is our patient?” + +“Well, when I left her, or rather when she left me,” I answered. + +“Come, let us see,” he said. And together we went into the room. + +The blind was down, and I went over to raise it gently, whilst Van Helsing stepped, with his soft, cat-like tread, over to the bed. + +As I raised the blind, and the morning sunlight flooded the room, I heard the Professor’s low hiss of inspiration, and knowing its rarity, a deadly fear shot through my heart. As I passed over he moved back, and his exclamation of horror, “Gott in Himmel!” needed no enforcement from his agonised face. He raised his hand and pointed to the bed, and his iron face was drawn and ashen white. I felt my knees begin to tremble. + +There on the bed, seemingly in a swoon, lay poor Lucy, more horribly white and wan-looking than ever. Even the lips were white, and the gums seemed to have shrunken back from the teeth, as we sometimes see in a corpse after a prolonged illness. Van Helsing raised his foot to stamp in anger, but the instinct of his life and all the long years of habit stood to him, and he put it down again softly. “Quick!” he said. “Bring the brandy.” I flew to the dining-room, and returned with the decanter. He wetted the poor white lips with it, and together we rubbed palm and wrist and heart. He felt her heart, and after a few moments of agonising suspense said:— + +“It is not too late. It beats, though but feebly. All our work is undone; we must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now; I have to call on you yourself this time, friend John.” As he spoke, he was dipping into his bag and producing the instruments for transfusion; I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirt-sleeve. There was no possibility of an opiate just at present, and no need of one; and so, without a moment’s delay, we began the operation. After a time—it did not seem a short time either, for the draining away of one’s blood, no matter how willingly it be given, is a terrible feeling—Van Helsing held up a warning finger. “Do not stir,” he said, “but I fear that with growing strength she may wake; and that would make danger, oh, so much danger. But I shall precaution take. I shall give hypodermic injection of morphia.” He proceeded then, swiftly and deftly, to carry out his intent. The effect on Lucy was not bad, for the faint seemed to merge subtly into the narcotic sleep. It was with a feeling of personal pride that I could see a faint tinge of colour steal back into the pallid cheeks and lips. No man knows, till he experiences it, what it is to feel his own life-blood drawn away into the veins of the woman he loves. + +The Professor watched me critically. “That will do,” he said. “Already?” I remonstrated. “You took a great deal more from Art.” To which he smiled a sad sort of smile as he replied:— + +“He is her lover, her _fiancé_. You have work, much work, to do for her and for others; and the present will suffice.” + +When we stopped the operation, he attended to Lucy, whilst I applied digital pressure to my own incision. I laid down, whilst I waited his leisure to attend to me, for I felt faint and a little sick. By-and-by he bound up my wound, and sent me downstairs to get a glass of wine for myself. As I was leaving the room, he came after me, and half whispered:— + +“Mind, nothing must be said of this. If our young lover should turn up unexpected, as before, no word to him. It would at once frighten him and enjealous him, too. There must be none. So!” + +When I came back he looked at me carefully, and then said:— + +“You are not much the worse. Go into the room, and lie on your sofa, and rest awhile; then have much breakfast, and come here to me.” + +I followed out his orders, for I knew how right and wise they were. I had done my part, and now my next duty was to keep up my strength. I felt very weak, and in the weakness lost something of the amazement at what had occurred. I fell asleep on the sofa, however, wondering over and over again how Lucy had made such a retrograde movement, and how she could have been drained of so much blood with no sign anywhere to show for it. I think I must have continued my wonder in my dreams, for, sleeping and waking, my thoughts always came back to the little punctures in her throat and the ragged, exhausted appearance of their edges—tiny though they were. + +Lucy slept well into the day, and when she woke she was fairly well and strong, though not nearly so much so as the day before. When Van Helsing had seen her, he went out for a walk, leaving me in charge, with strict injunctions that I was not to leave her for a moment. I could hear his voice in the hall, asking the way to the nearest telegraph office. + +Lucy chatted with me freely, and seemed quite unconscious that anything had happened. I tried to keep her amused and interested. When her mother came up to see her, she did not seem to notice any change whatever, but said to me gratefully:— + +“We owe you so much, Dr. Seward, for all you have done, but you really must now take care not to overwork yourself. You are looking pale yourself. You want a wife to nurse and look after you a bit; that you do!” As she spoke, Lucy turned crimson, though it was only momentarily, for her poor wasted veins could not stand for long such an unwonted drain to the head. The reaction came in excessive pallor as she turned imploring eyes on me. I smiled and nodded, and laid my finger on my lips; with a sigh, she sank back amid her pillows. + +Van Helsing returned in a couple of hours, and presently said to me: “Now you go home, and eat much and drink enough. Make yourself strong. I stay here to-night, and I shall sit up with little miss myself. You and I must watch the case, and we must have none other to know. I have grave reasons. No, do not ask them; think what you will. Do not fear to think even the most not-probable. Good-night.” + +In the hall two of the maids came to me, and asked if they or either of them might not sit up with Miss Lucy. They implored me to let them; and when I said it was Dr. Van Helsing’s wish that either he or I should sit up, they asked me quite piteously to intercede with the “foreign gentleman.” I was much touched by their kindness. Perhaps it is because I am weak at present, and perhaps because it was on Lucy’s account, that their devotion was manifested; for over and over again have I seen similar instances of woman’s kindness. I got back here in time for a late dinner; went my rounds—all well; and set this down whilst waiting for sleep. It is coming. + +_11 September._ — This afternoon I went over to Hillingham. Found Van Helsing in excellent spirits, and Lucy much better. Shortly after I had arrived, a big parcel from abroad came for the Professor. He opened it with much impressment—assumed, of course—and showed a great bundle of white flowers. + +“These are for you, Miss Lucy,” he said. + +“For me? Oh, Dr. Van Helsing!” + +“Yes, my dear, but not for you to play with. These are medicines.” Here Lucy made a wry face. “Nay, but they are not to take in a decoction or in nauseous form, so you need not snub that so charming nose, or I shall point out to my friend Arthur what woes he may have to endure in seeing so much beauty that he so loves so much distort. Aha, my pretty miss, that bring the so nice nose all straight again. This is medicinal, but you do not know how. I put him in your window, I make pretty wreath, and hang him round your neck, so that you sleep well. Oh yes! they, like the lotus flower, make your trouble forgotten. It smell so like the waters of Lethe, and of that fountain of youth that the Conquistadores sought for in the Floridas, and find him all too late.” + +Whilst he was speaking, Lucy had been examining the flowers and smelling them. Now she threw them down, saying, with half-laughter, and half-disgust:— + +“Oh, Professor, I believe you are only putting up a joke on me. Why, these flowers are only common garlic.” + +To my surprise, Van Helsing rose up and said with all his sternness, his iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting:— + +“No trifling with me! I never jest! There is grim purpose in all I do; and I warn you that you do not thwart me. Take care, for the sake of others if not for your own.” Then seeing poor Lucy scared, as she might well be, he went on more gently: “Oh, little miss, my dear, do not fear me. I only do for your good; but there is much virtue to you in those so common flowers. See, I place them myself in your room. I make myself the wreath that you are to wear. But hush! no telling to others that make so inquisitive questions. We must obey, and silence is a part of obedience; and obedience is to bring you strong and well into loving arms that wait for you. Now sit still awhile. Come with me, friend John, and you shall help me deck the room with my garlic, which is all the way from Haarlem, where my friend Vanderpool raise herb in his glass-houses all the year. I had to telegraph yesterday, or they would not have been here.” + +We went into the room, taking the flowers with us. The Professor’s actions were certainly odd and not to be found in any pharmacopoeia that I ever heard of. First he fastened up the windows and latched them securely; next, taking a handful of the flowers, he rubbed them all over the sashes, as though to ensure that every whiff of air that might get in would be laden with the garlic smell. Then with the wisp he rubbed all over the jamb of the door, above, below, and at each side, and round the fireplace in the same way. It all seemed grotesque to me, and presently I said:— + +“Well, Professor, I know you always have a reason for what you do, but this certainly puzzles me. It is well we have no sceptic here, or he would say that you were working some spell to keep out an evil spirit.” + +“Perhaps I am!” he answered quietly as he began to make the wreath which Lucy was to wear round her neck. + +We then waited whilst Lucy made her toilet for the night, and when she was in bed he came and himself fixed the wreath of garlic round her neck. The last words he said to her were:— + +“Take care you do not disturb it; and even if the room feel close, do not to-night open the window or the door.” + +“I promise,” said Lucy, “and thank you both a thousand times for all your kindness to me! Oh, what have I done to be blessed with such friends?” + +As we left the house in my fly, which was waiting, Van Helsing said:— + +“To-night I can sleep in peace, and sleep I want—two nights of travel, much reading in the day between, and much anxiety on the day to follow, and a night to sit up, without to wink. To-morrow in the morning early you call for me, and we come together to see our pretty miss, so much more strong for my ‘spell’ which I have work. Ho! ho!” + +He seemed so confident that I, remembering my own confidence two nights before and with the baneful result, felt awe and vague terror. It must have been my weakness that made me hesitate to tell it to my friend, but I felt it all the more, like unshed tears. + +== CHAPTER XI + +_Lucy Westenra’s Diary._ + +_12 September._ — How good they all are to me. I quite love that dear Dr. Van Helsing. I wonder why he was so anxious about these flowers. He positively frightened me, he was so fierce. And yet he must have been right, for I feel comfort from them already. Somehow, I do not dread being alone to-night, and I can go to sleep without fear. I shall not mind any flapping outside the window. Oh, the terrible struggle that I have had against sleep so often of late; the pain of the sleeplessness, or the pain of the fear of sleep, with such unknown horrors as it has for me! How blessed are some people, whose lives have no fears, no dreads; to whom sleep is a blessing that comes nightly, and brings nothing but sweet dreams. Well, here I am to-night, hoping for sleep, and lying like Ophelia in the play, with “virgin crants and maiden strewments.” I never liked garlic before, but to-night it is delightful! There is peace in its smell; I feel sleep coming already. Good-night, everybody. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_13 September._ — Called at the Berkeley and found Van Helsing, as usual, up to time. The carriage ordered from the hotel was waiting. The Professor took his bag, which he always brings with him now. + +Let all be put down exactly. Van Helsing and I arrived at Hillingham at eight o’clock. It was a lovely morning; the bright sunshine and all the fresh feeling of early autumn seemed like the completion of nature’s annual work. The leaves were turning to all kinds of beautiful colours, but had not yet begun to drop from the trees. When we entered we met Mrs. Westenra coming out of the morning room. She is always an early riser. She greeted us warmly and said:— + +“You will be glad to know that Lucy is better. The dear child is still asleep. I looked into her room and saw her, but did not go in, lest I should disturb her.” The Professor smiled, and looked quite jubilant. He rubbed his hands together, and said:— + +“Aha! I thought I had diagnosed the case. My treatment is working,” to which she answered:— + +“You must not take all the credit to yourself, doctor. Lucy’s state this morning is due in part to me.” + +“How you do mean, ma’am?” asked the Professor. + +“Well, I was anxious about the dear child in the night, and went into her room. She was sleeping soundly—so soundly that even my coming did not wake her. But the room was awfully stuffy. There were a lot of those horrible, strong-smelling flowers about everywhere, and she had actually a bunch of them round her neck. I feared that the heavy odour would be too much for the dear child in her weak state, so I took them all away and opened a bit of the window to let in a little fresh air. You will be pleased with her, I am sure.” + +She moved off into her boudoir, where she usually breakfasted early. As she had spoken, I watched the Professor’s face, and saw it turn ashen grey. He had been able to retain his self-command whilst the poor lady was present, for he knew her state and how mischievous a shock would be; he actually smiled on her as he held open the door for her to pass into her room. But the instant she had disappeared he pulled me, suddenly and forcibly, into the dining-room and closed the door. + +Then, for the first time in my life, I saw Van Helsing break down. He raised his hands over his head in a sort of mute despair, and then beat his palms together in a helpless way; finally he sat down on a chair, and putting his hands before his face, began to sob, with loud, dry sobs that seemed to come from the very racking of his heart. Then he raised his arms again, as though appealing to the whole universe. “God! God! God!” he said. “What have we done, what has this poor thing done, that we are so sore beset? Is there fate amongst us still, sent down from the pagan world of old, that such things must be, and in such way? This poor mother, all unknowing, and all for the best as she think, does such thing as lose her daughter body and soul; and we must not tell her, we must not even warn her, or she die, and then both die. Oh, how we are beset! How are all the powers of the devils against us!” Suddenly he jumped to his feet. “Come,” he said, “come, we must see and act. Devils or no devils, or all the devils at once, it matters not; we fight him all the same.” He went to the hall-door for his bag; and together we went up to Lucy’s room. + +Once again I drew up the blind, whilst Van Helsing went towards the bed. This time he did not start as he looked on the poor face with the same awful, waxen pallor as before. He wore a look of stern sadness and infinite pity. + +“As I expected,” he murmured, with that hissing inspiration of his which meant so much. Without a word he went and locked the door, and then began to set out on the little table the instruments for yet another operation of transfusion of blood. I had long ago recognised the necessity, and begun to take off my coat, but he stopped me with a warning hand. “No!” he said. “To-day you must operate. I shall provide. You are weakened already.” As he spoke he took off his coat and rolled up his shirt-sleeve. + +Again the operation; again the narcotic; again some return of colour to the ashy cheeks, and the regular breathing of healthy sleep. This time I watched whilst Van Helsing recruited himself and rested. + +Presently he took an opportunity of telling Mrs. Westenra that she must not remove anything from Lucy’s room without consulting him; that the flowers were of medicinal value, and that the breathing of their odour was a part of the system of cure. Then he took over the care of the case himself, saying that he would watch this night and the next and would send me word when to come. + +After another hour Lucy waked from her sleep, fresh and bright and seemingly not much the worse for her terrible ordeal. + +What does it all mean? I am beginning to wonder if my long habit of life amongst the insane is beginning to tell upon my own brain. + +_Lucy Westenra’s Diary._ + +_17 September._ — Four days and nights of peace. I am getting so strong again that I hardly know myself. It is as if I had passed through some long nightmare, and had just awakened to see the beautiful sunshine and feel the fresh air of the morning around me. I have a dim half-remembrance of long, anxious times of waiting and fearing; darkness in which there was not even the pain of hope to make present distress more poignant: and then long spells of oblivion, and the rising back to life as a diver coming up through a great press of water. Since, however, Dr. Van Helsing has been with me, all this bad dreaming seems to have passed away; the noises that used to frighten me out of my wits—the flapping against the windows, the distant voices which seemed so close to me, the harsh sounds that came from I know not where and commanded me to do I know not what—have all ceased. I go to bed now without any fear of sleep. I do not even try to keep awake. I have grown quite fond of the garlic, and a boxful arrives for me every day from Haarlem. To-night Dr. Van Helsing is going away, as he has to be for a day in Amsterdam. But I need not be watched; I am well enough to be left alone. Thank God for mother’s sake, and dear Arthur’s, and for all our friends who have been so kind! I shall not even feel the change, for last night Dr. Van Helsing slept in his chair a lot of the time. I found him asleep twice when I awoke; but I did not fear to go to sleep again, although the boughs or bats or something napped almost angrily against the window-panes. + +_“The Pall Mall Gazette,” 18 September._ + +THE ESCAPED WOLF. + +PERILOUS ADVENTURE OF OUR INTERVIEWER. + +_Interview with the Keeper in the Zoölogical Gardens._ + +After many inquiries and almost as many refusals, and perpetually using the words “Pall Mall Gazette” as a sort of talisman, I managed to find the keeper of the section of the Zoölogical Gardens in which the wolf department is included. Thomas Bilder lives in one of the cottages in the enclosure behind the elephant-house, and was just sitting down to his tea when I found him. Thomas and his wife are hospitable folk, elderly, and without children, and if the specimen I enjoyed of their hospitality be of the average kind, their lives must be pretty comfortable. The keeper would not enter on what he called “business” until the supper was over, and we were all satisfied. Then when the table was cleared, and he had lit his pipe, he said:— + +“Now, sir, you can go on and arsk me what you want. You’ll excoose me refoosin’ to talk of perfeshunal subjects afore meals. I gives the wolves and the jackals and the hyenas in all our section their tea afore I begins to arsk them questions.” + +“How do you mean, ask them questions?” I queried, wishful to get him into a talkative humour. + +“’Ittin’ of them over the ’ead with a pole is one way; scratchin’ of their hears is another, when gents as is flush wants a bit of a show-orf to their gals. I don’t so much mind the fust—the ’ittin’ with a pole afore I chucks in their dinner; but I waits till they’ve ’ad their sherry and kawffee, so to speak, afore I tries on with the ear-scratchin’. Mind you,” he added philosophically, “there’s a deal of the same nature in us as in them theer animiles. Here’s you a-comin’ and arskin’ of me questions about my business, and I that grumpy-like that only for your bloomin’ ’arf-quid I’d ’a’ seen you blowed fust ’fore I’d answer. Not even when you arsked me sarcastic-like if I’d like you to arsk the Superintendent if you might arsk me questions. Without offence did I tell yer to go to ’ell?” + +“You did.” + +“An’ when you said you’d report me for usin’ of obscene language that was ’ittin’ me over the ’ead; but the ’arf-quid made that all right. I weren’t a-goin’ to fight, so I waited for the food, and did with my ’owl as the wolves, and lions, and tigers does. But, Lor’ love yer ’art, now that the old ’ooman has stuck a chunk of her tea-cake in me, an’ rinsed me out with her bloomin’ old teapot, and I’ve lit hup, you may scratch my ears for all you’re worth, and won’t git even a growl out of me. Drive along with your questions. I know what yer a-comin’ at, that ’ere escaped wolf.” + +“Exactly. I want you to give me your view of it. Just tell me how it happened; and when I know the facts I’ll get you to say what you consider was the cause of it, and how you think the whole affair will end.” + +“All right, guv’nor. This ’ere is about the ’ole story. That ’ere wolf what we called Bersicker was one of three grey ones that came from Norway to Jamrach’s, which we bought off him four years ago. He was a nice well-behaved wolf, that never gave no trouble to talk of. I’m more surprised at ’im for wantin’ to get out nor any other animile in the place. But, there, you can’t trust wolves no more nor women.” + +“Don’t you mind him, sir!” broke in Mrs. Tom, with a cheery laugh. “’E’s got mindin’ the animiles so long that blest if he ain’t like a old wolf ’isself! But there ain’t no ’arm in ’im.” + +“Well, sir, it was about two hours after feedin’ yesterday when I first hear my disturbance. I was makin’ up a litter in the monkey-house for a young puma which is ill; but when I heard the yelpin’ and ’owlin’ I kem away straight. There was Bersicker a-tearin’ like a mad thing at the bars as if he wanted to get out. There wasn’t much people about that day, and close at hand was only one man, a tall, thin chap, with a ’ook nose and a pointed beard, with a few white hairs runnin’ through it. He had a ’ard, cold look and red eyes, and I took a sort of mislike to him, for it seemed as if it was ’im as they was hirritated at. He ’ad white kid gloves on ’is ’ands, and he pointed out the animiles to me and says: ‘Keeper, these wolves seem upset at something.’ + +“‘Maybe it’s you,’ says I, for I did not like the airs as he give ’isself. He didn’t git angry, as I ’oped he would, but he smiled a kind of insolent smile, with a mouth full of white, sharp teeth. ‘Oh no, they wouldn’t like me,’ ’e says. + +“‘Ow yes, they would,’ says I, a-imitatin’ of him. ‘They always likes a bone or two to clean their teeth on about tea-time, which you ’as a bagful.’ + +“Well, it was a odd thing, but when the animiles see us a-talkin’ they lay down, and when I went over to Bersicker he let me stroke his ears same as ever. That there man kem over, and blessed but if he didn’t put in his hand and stroke the old wolf’s ears too! + +“‘Tyke care,’ says I. ‘Bersicker is quick.’ + +“‘Never mind,’ he says. ‘I’m used to ’em!’ + +“‘Are you in the business yourself?’ I says, tyking off my ’at, for a man what trades in wolves, anceterer, is a good friend to keepers. + +“‘No,’ says he, ‘not exactly in the business, but I ’ave made pets of several.’ And with that he lifts his ’at as perlite as a lord, and walks away. Old Bersicker kep’ a-lookin’ arter ’im till ’e was out of sight, and then went and lay down in a corner and wouldn’t come hout the ’ole hevening. Well, larst night, so soon as the moon was hup, the wolves here all began a-’owling. There warn’t nothing for them to ’owl at. There warn’t no one near, except some one that was evidently a-callin’ a dog somewheres out back of the gardings in the Park road. Once or twice I went out to see that all was right, and it was, and then the ’owling stopped. Just before twelve o’clock I just took a look round afore turnin’ in, an’, bust me, but when I kem opposite to old Bersicker’s cage I see the rails broken and twisted about and the cage empty. And that’s all I know for certing.” + +“Did any one else see anything?” + +“One of our gard’ners was a-comin’ ’ome about that time from a ’armony, when he sees a big grey dog comin’ out through the garding ’edges. At least, so he says, but I don’t give much for it myself, for if he did ’e never said a word about it to his missis when ’e got ’ome, and it was only after the escape of the wolf was made known, and we had been up all night-a-huntin’ of the Park for Bersicker, that he remembered seein’ anything. My own belief was that the ’armony ’ad got into his ’ead.” + +“Now, Mr. Bilder, can you account in any way for the escape of the wolf?” + +“Well, sir,” he said, with a suspicious sort of modesty, “I think I can; but I don’t know as ’ow you’d be satisfied with the theory.” + +“Certainly I shall. If a man like you, who knows the animals from experience, can’t hazard a good guess at any rate, who is even to try?” + +“Well then, sir, I accounts for it this way; it seems to me that ’ere wolf escaped—simply because he wanted to get out.” + +From the hearty way that both Thomas and his wife laughed at the joke I could see that it had done service before, and that the whole explanation was simply an elaborate sell. I couldn’t cope in badinage with the worthy Thomas, but I thought I knew a surer way to his heart, so I said:— + +“Now, Mr. Bilder, we’ll consider that first half-sovereign worked off, and this brother of his is waiting to be claimed when you’ve told me what you think will happen.” + +“Right y’are, sir,” he said briskly. “Ye’ll excoose me, I know, for a-chaffin’ of ye, but the old woman here winked at me, which was as much as telling me to go on.” + +“Well, I never!” said the old lady. + +“My opinion is this: that ’ere wolf is a-’idin’ of, somewheres. The gard’ner wot didn’t remember said he was a-gallopin’ northward faster than a horse could go; but I don’t believe him, for, yer see, sir, wolves don’t gallop no more nor dogs does, they not bein’ built that way. Wolves is fine things in a storybook, and I dessay when they gets in packs and does be chivyin’ somethin’ that’s more afeared than they is they can make a devil of a noise and chop it up, whatever it is. But, Lor’ bless you, in real life a wolf is only a low creature, not half so clever or bold as a good dog; and not half a quarter so much fight in ’im. This one ain’t been used to fightin’ or even to providin’ for hisself, and more like he’s somewhere round the Park a-’idin’ an’ a-shiverin’ of, and, if he thinks at all, wonderin’ where he is to get his breakfast from; or maybe he’s got down some area and is in a coal-cellar. My eye, won’t some cook get a rum start when she sees his green eyes a-shining at her out of the dark! If he can’t get food he’s bound to look for it, and mayhap he may chance to light on a butcher’s shop in time. If he doesn’t, and some nursemaid goes a-walkin’ orf with a soldier, leavin’ of the hinfant in the perambulator—well, then I shouldn’t be surprised if the census is one babby the less. That’s all.” + +I was handing him the half-sovereign, when something came bobbing up against the window, and Mr. Bilder’s face doubled its natural length with surprise. + +“God bless me!” he said. “If there ain’t old Bersicker come back by ’isself!” + +He went to the door and opened it; a most unnecessary proceeding it seemed to me. I have always thought that a wild animal never looks so well as when some obstacle of pronounced durability is between us; a personal experience has intensified rather than diminished that idea. + +After all, however, there is nothing like custom, for neither Bilder nor his wife thought any more of the wolf than I should of a dog. The animal itself was as peaceful and well-behaved as that father of all picture-wolves—Red Riding Hood’s quondam friend, whilst moving her confidence in masquerade. + +The whole scene was an unutterable mixture of comedy and pathos. The wicked wolf that for half a day had paralysed London and set all the children in the town shivering in their shoes, was there in a sort of penitent mood, and was received and petted like a sort of vulpine prodigal son. Old Bilder examined him all over with most tender solicitude, and when he had finished with his penitent said:— + +“There, I knew the poor old chap would get into some kind of trouble; didn’t I say it all along? Here’s his head all cut and full of broken glass. ’E’s been a-gettin’ over some bloomin’ wall or other. It’s a shyme that people are allowed to top their walls with broken bottles. This ’ere’s what comes of it. Come along, Bersicker.” + +He took the wolf and locked him up in a cage, with a piece of meat that satisfied, in quantity at any rate, the elementary conditions of the fatted calf, and went off to report. + +I came off, too, to report the only exclusive information that is given to-day regarding the strange escapade at the Zoo. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_17 September._ — I was engaged after dinner in my study posting up my books, which, through press of other work and the many visits to Lucy, had fallen sadly into arrear. Suddenly the door was burst open, and in rushed my patient, with his face distorted with passion. I was thunderstruck, for such a thing as a patient getting of his own accord into the Superintendent’s study is almost unknown. Without an instant’s pause he made straight at me. He had a dinner-knife in his hand, and, as I saw he was dangerous, I tried to keep the table between us. He was too quick and too strong for me, however; for before I could get my balance he had struck at me and cut my left wrist rather severely. Before he could strike again, however, I got in my right and he was sprawling on his back on the floor. My wrist bled freely, and quite a little pool trickled on to the carpet. I saw that my friend was not intent on further effort, and occupied myself binding up my wrist, keeping a wary eye on the prostrate figure all the time. When the attendants rushed in, and we turned our attention to him, his employment positively sickened me. He was lying on his belly on the floor licking up, like a dog, the blood which had fallen from my wounded wrist. He was easily secured, and, to my surprise, went with the attendants quite placidly, simply repeating over and over again: “The blood is the life! The blood is the life!” + +I cannot afford to lose blood just at present; I have lost too much of late for my physical good, and then the prolonged strain of Lucy’s illness and its horrible phases is telling on me. I am over-excited and weary, and I need rest, rest, rest. Happily Van Helsing has not summoned me, so I need not forego my sleep; to-night I could not well do without it. + +_Telegram, Van Helsing, Antwerp, to Seward, Carfax._ + +(Sent to Carfax, Sussex, as no county given; delivered late by twenty-two hours.) + +“_17 September._ — Do not fail to be at Hillingham to-night. If not watching all the time frequently, visit and see that flowers are as placed; very important; do not fail. Shall be with you as soon as possible after arrival.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_18 September._ — Just off for train to London. The arrival of Van Helsing’s telegram filled me with dismay. A whole night lost, and I know by bitter experience what may happen in a night. Of course it is possible that all may be well, but what _may_ have happened? Surely there is some horrible doom hanging over us that every possible accident should thwart us in all we try to do. I shall take this cylinder with me, and then I can complete my entry on Lucy’s phonograph. + +_Memorandum left by Lucy Westenra._ + +_17 September. Night._ — I write this and leave it to be seen, so that no one may by any chance get into trouble through me. This is an exact record of what took place to-night. I feel I am dying of weakness, and have barely strength to write, but it must be done if I die in the doing. + +I went to bed as usual, taking care that the flowers were placed as Dr. Van Helsing directed, and soon fell asleep. + +I was waked by the flapping at the window, which had begun after that sleep-walking on the cliff at Whitby when Mina saved me, and which now I know so well. I was not afraid, but I did wish that Dr. Seward was in the next room—as Dr. Van Helsing said he would be—so that I might have called him. I tried to go to sleep, but could not. Then there came to me the old fear of sleep, and I determined to keep awake. Perversely sleep would try to come then when I did not want it; so, as I feared to be alone, I opened my door and called out: “Is there anybody there?” There was no answer. I was afraid to wake mother, and so closed my door again. Then outside in the shrubbery I heard a sort of howl like a dog’s, but more fierce and deeper. I went to the window and looked out, but could see nothing, except a big bat, which had evidently been buffeting its wings against the window. So I went back to bed again, but determined not to go to sleep. Presently the door opened, and mother looked in; seeing by my moving that I was not asleep, came in, and sat by me. She said to me even more sweetly and softly than her wont:— + +“I was uneasy about you, darling, and came in to see that you were all right.” + +I feared she might catch cold sitting there, and asked her to come in and sleep with me, so she came into bed, and lay down beside me; she did not take off her dressing gown, for she said she would only stay a while and then go back to her own bed. As she lay there in my arms, and I in hers, the flapping and buffeting came to the window again. She was startled and a little frightened, and cried out: “What is that?” I tried to pacify her, and at last succeeded, and she lay quiet; but I could hear her poor dear heart still beating terribly. After a while there was the low howl again out in the shrubbery, and shortly after there was a crash at the window, and a lot of broken glass was hurled on the floor. The window blind blew back with the wind that rushed in, and in the aperture of the broken panes there was the head of a great, gaunt grey wolf. Mother cried out in a fright, and struggled up into a sitting posture, and clutched wildly at anything that would help her. Amongst other things, she clutched the wreath of flowers that Dr. Van Helsing insisted on my wearing round my neck, and tore it away from me. For a second or two she sat up, pointing at the wolf, and there was a strange and horrible gurgling in her throat; then she fell over—as if struck with lightning, and her head hit my forehead and made me dizzy for a moment or two. The room and all round seemed to spin round. I kept my eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole myriad of little specks seemed to come blowing in through the broken window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that travellers describe when there is a simoon in the desert. I tried to stir, but there was some spell upon me, and dear mother’s poor body, which seemed to grow cold already—for her dear heart had ceased to beat—weighed me down; and I remembered no more for a while. + +The time did not seem long, but very, very awful, till I recovered consciousness again. Somewhere near, a passing bell was tolling; the dogs all round the neighbourhood were howling; and in our shrubbery, seemingly just outside, a nightingale was singing. I was dazed and stupid with pain and terror and weakness, but the sound of the nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort me. The sounds seemed to have awakened the maids, too, for I could hear their bare feet pattering outside my door. I called to them, and they came in, and when they saw what had happened, and what it was that lay over me on the bed, they screamed out. The wind rushed in through the broken window, and the door slammed to. They lifted off the body of my dear mother, and laid her, covered up with a sheet, on the bed after I had got up. They were all so frightened and nervous that I directed them to go to the dining-room and have each a glass of wine. The door flew open for an instant and closed again. The maids shrieked, and then went in a body to the dining-room; and I laid what flowers I had on my dear mother’s breast. When they were there I remembered what Dr. Van Helsing had told me, but I didn’t like to remove them, and, besides, I would have some of the servants to sit up with me now. I was surprised that the maids did not come back. I called them, but got no answer, so I went to the dining-room to look for them. + +My heart sank when I saw what had happened. They all four lay helpless on the floor, breathing heavily. The decanter of sherry was on the table half full, but there was a queer, acrid smell about. I was suspicious, and examined the decanter. It smelt of laudanum, and looking on the sideboard, I found that the bottle which mother’s doctor uses for her—oh! did use—was empty. What am I to do? what am I to do? I am back in the room with mother. I cannot leave her, and I am alone, save for the sleeping servants, whom some one has drugged. Alone with the dead! I dare not go out, for I can hear the low howl of the wolf through the broken window. + +The air seems full of specks, floating and circling in the draught from the window, and the lights burn blue and dim. What am I to do? God shield me from harm this night! I shall hide this paper in my breast, where they shall find it when they come to lay me out. My dear mother gone! It is time that I go too. Good-bye, dear Arthur, if I should not survive this night. God keep you, dear, and God help me! + +== CHAPTER XII + +DR. SEWARD’S DIARY + +_18 September._ — I drove at once to Hillingham and arrived early. Keeping my cab at the gate, I went up the avenue alone. I knocked gently and rang as quietly as possible, for I feared to disturb Lucy or her mother, and hoped to only bring a servant to the door. After a while, finding no response, I knocked and rang again; still no answer. I cursed the laziness of the servants that they should lie abed at such an hour—for it was now ten o’clock—and so rang and knocked again, but more impatiently, but still without response. Hitherto I had blamed only the servants, but now a terrible fear began to assail me. Was this desolation but another link in the chain of doom which seemed drawing tight around us? Was it indeed a house of death to which I had come, too late? I knew that minutes, even seconds of delay, might mean hours of danger to Lucy, if she had had again one of those frightful relapses; and I went round the house to try if I could find by chance an entry anywhere. + +I could find no means of ingress. Every window and door was fastened and locked, and I returned baffled to the porch. As I did so, I heard the rapid pit-pat of a swiftly driven horse’s feet. They stopped at the gate, and a few seconds later I met Van Helsing running up the avenue. When he saw me, he gasped out:— + +“Then it was you, and just arrived. How is she? Are we too late? Did you not get my telegram?” + +I answered as quickly and coherently as I could that I had only got his telegram early in the morning, and had not lost a minute in coming here, and that I could not make any one in the house hear me. He paused and raised his hat as he said solemnly:— + +“Then I fear we are too late. God’s will be done!” With his usual recuperative energy, he went on: “Come. If there be no way open to get in, we must make one. Time is all in all to us now.” + +We went round to the back of the house, where there was a kitchen window. The Professor took a small surgical saw from his case, and handing it to me, pointed to the iron bars which guarded the window. I attacked them at once and had very soon cut through three of them. Then with a long, thin knife we pushed back the fastening of the sashes and opened the window. I helped the Professor in, and followed him. There was no one in the kitchen or in the servants’ rooms, which were close at hand. We tried all the rooms as we went along, and in the dining-room, dimly lit by rays of light through the shutters, found four servant-women lying on the floor. There was no need to think them dead, for their stertorous breathing and the acrid smell of laudanum in the room left no doubt as to their condition. Van Helsing and I looked at each other, and as we moved away he said: “We can attend to them later.” Then we ascended to Lucy’s room. For an instant or two we paused at the door to listen, but there was no sound that we could hear. With white faces and trembling hands, we opened the door gently, and entered the room. + +How shall I describe what we saw? On the bed lay two women, Lucy and her mother. The latter lay farthest in, and she was covered with a white sheet, the edge of which had been blown back by the draught through the broken window, showing the drawn, white face, with a look of terror fixed upon it. By her side lay Lucy, with face white and still more drawn. The flowers which had been round her neck we found upon her mother’s bosom, and her throat was bare, showing the two little wounds which we had noticed before, but looking horribly white and mangled. Without a word the Professor bent over the bed, his head almost touching poor Lucy’s breast; then he gave a quick turn of his head, as of one who listens, and leaping to his feet, he cried out to me:— + +“It is not yet too late! Quick! quick! Bring the brandy!” + +I flew downstairs and returned with it, taking care to smell and taste it, lest it, too, were drugged like the decanter of sherry which I found on the table. The maids were still breathing, but more restlessly, and I fancied that the narcotic was wearing off. I did not stay to make sure, but returned to Van Helsing. He rubbed the brandy, as on another occasion, on her lips and gums and on her wrists and the palms of her hands. He said to me:— + +“I can do this, all that can be at the present. You go wake those maids. Flick them in the face with a wet towel, and flick them hard. Make them get heat and fire and a warm bath. This poor soul is nearly as cold as that beside her. She will need be heated before we can do anything more.” + +I went at once, and found little difficulty in waking three of the women. The fourth was only a young girl, and the drug had evidently affected her more strongly, so I lifted her on the sofa and let her sleep. The others were dazed at first, but as remembrance came back to them they cried and sobbed in a hysterical manner. I was stern with them, however, and would not let them talk. I told them that one life was bad enough to lose, and that if they delayed they would sacrifice Miss Lucy. So, sobbing and crying, they went about their way, half clad as they were, and prepared fire and water. Fortunately, the kitchen and boiler fires were still alive, and there was no lack of hot water. We got a bath and carried Lucy out as she was and placed her in it. Whilst we were busy chafing her limbs there was a knock at the hall door. One of the maids ran off, hurried on some more clothes, and opened it. Then she returned and whispered to us that there was a gentleman who had come with a message from Mr. Holmwood. I bade her simply tell him that he must wait, for we could see no one now. She went away with the message, and, engrossed with our work, I clean forgot all about him. + +I never saw in all my experience the Professor work in such deadly earnest. I knew—as he knew—that it was a stand-up fight with death, and in a pause told him so. He answered me in a way that I did not understand, but with the sternest look that his face could wear:— + +“If that were all, I would stop here where we are now, and let her fade away into peace, for I see no light in life over her horizon.” He went on with his work with, if possible, renewed and more frenzied vigour. + +Presently we both began to be conscious that the heat was beginning to be of some effect. Lucy’s heart beat a trifle more audibly to the stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement. Van Helsing’s face almost beamed, and as we lifted her from the bath and rolled her in a hot sheet to dry her he said to me:— + +“The first gain is ours! Check to the King!” + +We took Lucy into another room, which had by now been prepared, and laid her in bed and forced a few drops of brandy down her throat. I noticed that Van Helsing tied a soft silk handkerchief round her throat. She was still unconscious, and was quite as bad as, if not worse than, we had ever seen her. + +Van Helsing called in one of the women, and told her to stay with her and not to take her eyes off her till we returned, and then beckoned me out of the room. + +“We must consult as to what is to be done,” he said as we descended the stairs. In the hall he opened the dining-room door, and we passed in, he closing the door carefully behind him. The shutters had been opened, but the blinds were already down, with that obedience to the etiquette of death which the British woman of the lower classes always rigidly observes. The room was, therefore, dimly dark. It was, however, light enough for our purposes. Van Helsing’s sternness was somewhat relieved by a look of perplexity. He was evidently torturing his mind about something, so I waited for an instant, and he spoke:— + +“What are we to do now? Where are we to turn for help? We must have another transfusion of blood, and that soon, or that poor girl’s life won’t be worth an hour’s purchase. You are exhausted already; I am exhausted too. I fear to trust those women, even if they would have courage to submit. What are we to do for some one who will open his veins for her?” + +“What’s the matter with me, anyhow?” + +The voice came from the sofa across the room, and its tones brought relief and joy to my heart, for they were those of Quincey Morris. Van Helsing started angrily at the first sound, but his face softened and a glad look came into his eyes as I cried out: “Quincey Morris!” and rushed towards him with outstretched hands. + +“What brought you here?” I cried as our hands met. + +“I guess Art is the cause.” + +He handed me a telegram:— + +“Have not heard from Seward for three days, and am terribly anxious. Cannot leave. Father still in same condition. Send me word how Lucy is. Do not delay.—HOLMWOOD.” + +“I think I came just in the nick of time. You know you have only to tell me what to do.” + +Van Helsing strode forward, and took his hand, looking him straight in the eyes as he said:— + +“A brave man’s blood is the best thing on this earth when a woman is in trouble. You’re a man and no mistake. Well, the devil may work against us for all he’s worth, but God sends us men when we want them.” + +Once again we went through that ghastly operation. I have not the heart to go through with the details. Lucy had got a terrible shock and it told on her more than before, for though plenty of blood went into her veins, her body did not respond to the treatment as well as on the other occasions. Her struggle back into life was something frightful to see and hear. However, the action of both heart and lungs improved, and Van Helsing made a subcutaneous injection of morphia, as before, and with good effect. Her faint became a profound slumber. The Professor watched whilst I went downstairs with Quincey Morris, and sent one of the maids to pay off one of the cabmen who were waiting. I left Quincey lying down after having a glass of wine, and told the cook to get ready a good breakfast. Then a thought struck me, and I went back to the room where Lucy now was. When I came softly in, I found Van Helsing with a sheet or two of note-paper in his hand. He had evidently read it, and was thinking it over as he sat with his hand to his brow. There was a look of grim satisfaction in his face, as of one who has had a doubt solved. He handed me the paper saying only: “It dropped from Lucy’s breast when we carried her to the bath.” + +When I had read it, I stood looking at the Professor, and after a pause asked him: “In God’s name, what does it all mean? Was she, or is she, mad; or what sort of horrible danger is it?” I was so bewildered that I did not know what to say more. Van Helsing put out his hand and took the paper, saying:— + +“Do not trouble about it now. Forget it for the present. You shall know and understand it all in good time; but it will be later. And now what is it that you came to me to say?” This brought me back to fact, and I was all myself again. + +“I came to speak about the certificate of death. If we do not act properly and wisely, there may be an inquest, and that paper would have to be produced. I am in hopes that we need have no inquest, for if we had it would surely kill poor Lucy, if nothing else did. I know, and you know, and the other doctor who attended her knows, that Mrs. Westenra had disease of the heart, and we can certify that she died of it. Let us fill up the certificate at once, and I shall take it myself to the registrar and go on to the undertaker.” + +“Good, oh my friend John! Well thought of! Truly Miss Lucy, if she be sad in the foes that beset her, is at least happy in the friends that love her. One, two, three, all open their veins for her, besides one old man. Ah yes, I know, friend John; I am not blind! I love you all the more for it! Now go.” + +In the hall I met Quincey Morris, with a telegram for Arthur telling him that Mrs. Westenra was dead; that Lucy also had been ill, but was now going on better; and that Van Helsing and I were with her. I told him where I was going, and he hurried me out, but as I was going said:— + +“When you come back, Jack, may I have two words with you all to ourselves?” I nodded in reply and went out. I found no difficulty about the registration, and arranged with the local undertaker to come up in the evening to measure for the coffin and to make arrangements. + +When I got back Quincey was waiting for me. I told him I would see him as soon as I knew about Lucy, and went up to her room. She was still sleeping, and the Professor seemingly had not moved from his seat at her side. From his putting his finger to his lips, I gathered that he expected her to wake before long and was afraid of forestalling nature. So I went down to Quincey and took him into the breakfast-room, where the blinds were not drawn down, and which was a little more cheerful, or rather less cheerless, than the other rooms. When we were alone, he said to me:— + +“Jack Seward, I don’t want to shove myself in anywhere where I’ve no right to be; but this is no ordinary case. You know I loved that girl and wanted to marry her; but, although that’s all past and gone, I can’t help feeling anxious about her all the same. What is it that’s wrong with her? The Dutchman—and a fine old fellow he is; I can see that—said, that time you two came into the room, that you must have _another_ transfusion of blood, and that both you and he were exhausted. Now I know well that you medical men speak _in camera_, and that a man must not expect to know what they consult about in private. But this is no common matter, and, whatever it is, I have done my part. Is not that so?” + +“That’s so,” I said, and he went on:— + +“I take it that both you and Van Helsing had done already what I did to-day. Is not that so?” + +“That’s so.” + +“And I guess Art was in it too. When I saw him four days ago down at his own place he looked queer. I have not seen anything pulled down so quick since I was on the Pampas and had a mare that I was fond of go to grass all in a night. One of those big bats that they call vampires had got at her in the night, and what with his gorge and the vein left open, there wasn’t enough blood in her to let her stand up, and I had to put a bullet through her as she lay. Jack, if you may tell me without betraying confidence, Arthur was the first, is not that so?” As he spoke the poor fellow looked terribly anxious. He was in a torture of suspense regarding the woman he loved, and his utter ignorance of the terrible mystery which seemed to surround her intensified his pain. His very heart was bleeding, and it took all the manhood of him—and there was a royal lot of it, too—to keep him from breaking down. I paused before answering, for I felt that I must not betray anything which the Professor wished kept secret; but already he knew so much, and guessed so much, that there could be no reason for not answering, so I answered in the same phrase: “That’s so.” + +“And how long has this been going on?” + +“About ten days.” + +“Ten days! Then I guess, Jack Seward, that that poor pretty creature that we all love has had put into her veins within that time the blood of four strong men. Man alive, her whole body wouldn’t hold it.” Then, coming close to me, he spoke in a fierce half-whisper: “What took it out?” + +I shook my head. “That,” I said, “is the crux. Van Helsing is simply frantic about it, and I am at my wits’ end. I can’t even hazard a guess. There has been a series of little circumstances which have thrown out all our calculations as to Lucy being properly watched. But these shall not occur again. Here we stay until all be well—or ill.” Quincey held out his hand. “Count me in,” he said. “You and the Dutchman will tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.” + +When she woke late in the afternoon, Lucy’s first movement was to feel in her breast, and, to my surprise, produced the paper which Van Helsing had given me to read. The careful Professor had replaced it where it had come from, lest on waking she should be alarmed. Her eye then lit on Van Helsing and on me too, and gladdened. Then she looked around the room, and seeing where she was, shuddered; she gave a loud cry, and put her poor thin hands before her pale face. We both understood what that meant—that she had realised to the full her mother’s death; so we tried what we could to comfort her. Doubtless sympathy eased her somewhat, but she was very low in thought and spirit, and wept silently and weakly for a long time. We told her that either or both of us would now remain with her all the time, and that seemed to comfort her. Towards dusk she fell into a doze. Here a very odd thing occurred. Whilst still asleep she took the paper from her breast and tore it in two. Van Helsing stepped over and took the pieces from her. All the same, however, she went on with the action of tearing, as though the material were still in her hands; finally she lifted her hands and opened them as though scattering the fragments. Van Helsing seemed surprised, and his brows gathered as if in thought, but he said nothing. + +_19 September._ — All last night she slept fitfully, being always afraid to sleep, and something weaker when she woke from it. The Professor and I took it in turns to watch, and we never left her for a moment unattended. Quincey Morris said nothing about his intention, but I knew that all night long he patrolled round and round the house. + +When the day came, its searching light showed the ravages in poor Lucy’s strength. She was hardly able to turn her head, and the little nourishment which she could take seemed to do her no good. At times she slept, and both Van Helsing and I noticed the difference in her, between sleeping and waking. Whilst asleep she looked stronger, although more haggard, and her breathing was softer; her open mouth showed the pale gums drawn back from the teeth, which thus looked positively longer and sharper than usual; when she woke the softness of her eyes evidently changed the expression, for she looked her own self, although a dying one. In the afternoon she asked for Arthur, and we telegraphed for him. Quincey went off to meet him at the station. + +When he arrived it was nearly six o’clock, and the sun was setting full and warm, and the red light streamed in through the window and gave more colour to the pale cheeks. When he saw her, Arthur was simply choking with emotion, and none of us could speak. In the hours that had passed, the fits of sleep, or the comatose condition that passed for it, had grown more frequent, so that the pauses when conversation was possible were shortened. Arthur’s presence, however, seemed to act as a stimulant; she rallied a little, and spoke to him more brightly than she had done since we arrived. He too pulled himself together, and spoke as cheerily as he could, so that the best was made of everything. + +It was now nearly one o’clock, and he and Van Helsing are sitting with her. I am to relieve them in a quarter of an hour, and I am entering this on Lucy’s phonograph. Until six o’clock they are to try to rest. I fear that to-morrow will end our watching, for the shock has been too great; the poor child cannot rally. God help us all. + +_Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra._ + +(Unopened by her.) + +“_17 September._ + +“My dearest Lucy,— + +“It seems _an age_ since I heard from you, or indeed since I wrote. You will pardon me, I know, for all my faults when you have read all my budget of news. Well, I got my husband back all right; when we arrived at Exeter there was a carriage waiting for us, and in it, though he had an attack of gout, Mr. Hawkins. He took us to his house, where there were rooms for us all nice and comfortable, and we dined together. After dinner Mr. Hawkins said:— + +“‘My dears, I want to drink your health and prosperity; and may every blessing attend you both. I know you both from children, and have, with love and pride, seen you grow up. Now I want you to make your home here with me. I have left to me neither chick nor child; all are gone, and in my will I have left you everything.’ I cried, Lucy dear, as Jonathan and the old man clasped hands. Our evening was a very, very happy one. + +“So here we are, installed in this beautiful old house, and from both my bedroom and the drawing-room I can see the great elms of the cathedral close, with their great black stems standing out against the old yellow stone of the cathedral and I can hear the rooks overhead cawing and cawing and chattering and gossiping all day, after the manner of rooks—and humans. I am busy, I need not tell you, arranging things and housekeeping. Jonathan and Mr. Hawkins are busy all day; for, now that Jonathan is a partner, Mr. Hawkins wants to tell him all about the clients. + +“How is your dear mother getting on? I wish I could run up to town for a day or two to see you, dear, but I dare not go yet, with so much on my shoulders; and Jonathan wants looking after still. He is beginning to put some flesh on his bones again, but he was terribly weakened by the long illness; even now he sometimes starts out of his sleep in a sudden way and awakes all trembling until I can coax him back to his usual placidity. However, thank God, these occasions grow less frequent as the days go on, and they will in time pass away altogether, I trust. And now I have told you my news, let me ask yours. When are you to be married, and where, and who is to perform the ceremony, and what are you to wear, and is it to be a public or a private wedding? Tell me all about it, dear; tell me all about everything, for there is nothing which interests you which will not be dear to me. Jonathan asks me to send his ‘respectful duty,’ but I do not think that is good enough from the junior partner of the important firm Hawkins & Harker; and so, as you love me, and he loves me, and I love you with all the moods and tenses of the verb, I send you simply his ‘love’ instead. Good-bye, my dearest Lucy, and all blessings on you. + +“Yours, + +“MINA HARKER.” + +_Report from Patrick Hennessey, M. D., M. R. C. S. L. K. Q. C. P. I., etc., etc., to John Seward, M. D._ + +“_20 September._ + +“My dear Sir,— + +“In accordance with your wishes, I enclose report of the conditions of everything left in my charge.... With regard to patient, Renfield, there is more to say. He has had another outbreak, which might have had a dreadful ending, but which, as it fortunately happened, was unattended with any unhappy results. This afternoon a carrier’s cart with two men made a call at the empty house whose grounds abut on ours—the house to which, you will remember, the patient twice ran away. The men stopped at our gate to ask the porter their way, as they were strangers. I was myself looking out of the study window, having a smoke after dinner, and saw one of them come up to the house. As he passed the window of Renfield’s room, the patient began to rate him from within, and called him all the foul names he could lay his tongue to. The man, who seemed a decent fellow enough, contented himself by telling him to “shut up for a foul-mouthed beggar,” whereon our man accused him of robbing him and wanting to murder him and said that he would hinder him if he were to swing for it. I opened the window and signed to the man not to notice, so he contented himself after looking the place over and making up his mind as to what kind of a place he had got to by saying: ‘Lor’ bless yer, sir, I wouldn’t mind what was said to me in a bloomin’ madhouse. I pity ye and the guv’nor for havin’ to live in the house with a wild beast like that.’ Then he asked his way civilly enough, and I told him where the gate of the empty house was; he went away, followed by threats and curses and revilings from our man. I went down to see if I could make out any cause for his anger, since he is usually such a well-behaved man, and except his violent fits nothing of the kind had ever occurred. I found him, to my astonishment, quite composed and most genial in his manner. I tried to get him to talk of the incident, but he blandly asked me questions as to what I meant, and led me to believe that he was completely oblivious of the affair. It was, I am sorry to say, however, only another instance of his cunning, for within half an hour I heard of him again. This time he had broken out through the window of his room, and was running down the avenue. I called to the attendants to follow me, and ran after him, for I feared he was intent on some mischief. My fear was justified when I saw the same cart which had passed before coming down the road, having on it some great wooden boxes. The men were wiping their foreheads, and were flushed in the face, as if with violent exercise. Before I could get up to him the patient rushed at them, and pulling one of them off the cart, began to knock his head against the ground. If I had not seized him just at the moment I believe he would have killed the man there and then. The other fellow jumped down and struck him over the head with the butt-end of his heavy whip. It was a terrible blow; but he did not seem to mind it, but seized him also, and struggled with the three of us, pulling us to and fro as if we were kittens. You know I am no light weight, and the others were both burly men. At first he was silent in his fighting; but as we began to master him, and the attendants were putting a strait-waistcoat on him, he began to shout: ‘I’ll frustrate them! They shan’t rob me! they shan’t murder me by inches! I’ll fight for my Lord and Master!’ and all sorts of similar incoherent ravings. It was with very considerable difficulty that they got him back to the house and put him in the padded room. One of the attendants, Hardy, had a finger broken. However, I set it all right; and he is going on well. + +“The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of actions for damages, and promised to rain all the penalties of the law on us. Their threats were, however, mingled with some sort of indirect apology for the defeat of the two of them by a feeble madman. They said that if it had not been for the way their strength had been spent in carrying and raising the heavy boxes to the cart they would have made short work of him. They gave as another reason for their defeat the extraordinary state of drouth to which they had been reduced by the dusty nature of their occupation and the reprehensible distance from the scene of their labours of any place of public entertainment. I quite understood their drift, and after a stiff glass of grog, or rather more of the same, and with each a sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore that they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure of meeting so ‘bloomin’ good a bloke’ as your correspondent. I took their names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They are as follows:—Jack Smollet, of Dudding’s Rents, King George’s Road, Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley’s Row, Guide Court, Bethnal Green. They are both in the employment of Harris & Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange Master’s Yard, Soho. + +“I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here, and shall wire you at once if there is anything of importance. + +“Believe me, dear Sir, + +“Yours faithfully, + +“PATRICK HENNESSEY.” + +_Letter, Mina Harker to Lucy Westenra_. + +(Unopened by her.) + +“_18 September._ + +“My dearest Lucy,— + +“Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very suddenly. Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had both come to so love him that it really seems as though we had lost a father. I never knew either father or mother, so that the dear old man’s death is a real blow to me. Jonathan is greatly distressed. It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on another account. He says the amount of responsibility which it puts upon him makes him nervous. He begins to doubt himself. I try to cheer him up, and _my_ belief in _him_ helps him to have a belief in himself. But it is here that the grave shock that he experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too hard that a sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his—a nature which enabled him by our dear, good friend’s aid to rise from clerk to master in a few years—should be so injured that the very essence of its strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my troubles in the midst of your own happiness; but, Lucy dear, I must tell some one, for the strain of keeping up a brave and cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here that I can confide in. I dread coming up to London, as we must do the day after to-morrow; for poor Mr. Hawkins left in his will that he was to be buried in the grave with his father. As there are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner. I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few minutes. Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings, + +“Your loving + +“MINA HARKER.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_20 September._ — Only resolution and habit can let me make an entry to-night. I am too miserable, too low-spirited, too sick of the world and all in it, including life itself, that I would not care if I heard this moment the flapping of the wings of the angel of death. And he has been flapping those grim wings to some purpose of late—Lucy’s mother and Arthur’s father, and now.... Let me get on with my work. + +I duly relieved Van Helsing in his watch over Lucy. We wanted Arthur to go to rest also, but he refused at first. It was only when I told him that we should want him to help us during the day, and that we must not all break down for want of rest, lest Lucy should suffer, that he agreed to go. Van Helsing was very kind to him. “Come, my child,” he said; “come with me. You are sick and weak, and have had much sorrow and much mental pain, as well as that tax on your strength that we know of. You must not be alone; for to be alone is to be full of fears and alarms. Come to the drawing-room, where there is a big fire, and there are two sofas. You shall lie on one, and I on the other, and our sympathy will be comfort to each other, even though we do not speak, and even if we sleep.” Arthur went off with him, casting back a longing look on Lucy’s face, which lay in her pillow, almost whiter than the lawn. She lay quite still, and I looked round the room to see that all was as it should be. I could see that the Professor had carried out in this room, as in the other, his purpose of using the garlic; the whole of the window-sashes reeked with it, and round Lucy’s neck, over the silk handkerchief which Van Helsing made her keep on, was a rough chaplet of the same odorous flowers. Lucy was breathing somewhat stertorously, and her face was at its worst, for the open mouth showed the pale gums. Her teeth, in the dim, uncertain light, seemed longer and sharper than they had been in the morning. In particular, by some trick of the light, the canine teeth looked longer and sharper than the rest. I sat down by her, and presently she moved uneasily. At the same moment there came a sort of dull flapping or buffeting at the window. I went over to it softly, and peeped out by the corner of the blind. There was a full moonlight, and I could see that the noise was made by a great bat, which wheeled round—doubtless attracted by the light, although so dim—and every now and again struck the window with its wings. When I came back to my seat, I found that Lucy had moved slightly, and had torn away the garlic flowers from her throat. I replaced them as well as I could, and sat watching her. + +Presently she woke, and I gave her food, as Van Helsing had prescribed. She took but a little, and that languidly. There did not seem to be with her now the unconscious struggle for life and strength that had hitherto so marked her illness. It struck me as curious that the moment she became conscious she pressed the garlic flowers close to her. It was certainly odd that whenever she got into that lethargic state, with the stertorous breathing, she put the flowers from her; but that when she waked she clutched them close. There was no possibility of making any mistake about this, for in the long hours that followed, she had many spells of sleeping and waking and repeated both actions many times. + +At six o’clock Van Helsing came to relieve me. Arthur had then fallen into a doze, and he mercifully let him sleep on. When he saw Lucy’s face I could hear the sissing indraw of his breath, and he said to me in a sharp whisper: “Draw up the blind; I want light!” Then he bent down, and, with his face almost touching Lucy’s, examined her carefully. He removed the flowers and lifted the silk handkerchief from her throat. As he did so he started back, and I could hear his ejaculation, “Mein Gott!” as it was smothered in his throat. I bent over and looked, too, and as I noticed some queer chill came over me. + +The wounds on the throat had absolutely disappeared. + +For fully five minutes Van Helsing stood looking at her, with his face at its sternest. Then he turned to me and said calmly:— + +“She is dying. It will not be long now. It will be much difference, mark me, whether she dies conscious or in her sleep. Wake that poor boy, and let him come and see the last; he trusts us, and we have promised him.” + +I went to the dining-room and waked him. He was dazed for a moment, but when he saw the sunlight streaming in through the edges of the shutters he thought he was late, and expressed his fear. I assured him that Lucy was still asleep, but told him as gently as I could that both Van Helsing and I feared that the end was near. He covered his face with his hands, and slid down on his knees by the sofa, where he remained, perhaps a minute, with his head buried, praying, whilst his shoulders shook with grief. I took him by the hand and raised him up. “Come,” I said, “my dear old fellow, summon all your fortitude: it will be best and easiest for her.” + +When we came into Lucy’s room I could see that Van Helsing had, with his usual forethought, been putting matters straight and making everything look as pleasing as possible. He had even brushed Lucy’s hair, so that it lay on the pillow in its usual sunny ripples. When we came into the room she opened her eyes, and seeing him, whispered softly:— + +“Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come!” He was stooping to kiss her, when Van Helsing motioned him back. “No,” he whispered, “not yet! Hold her hand; it will comfort her more.” + +So Arthur took her hand and knelt beside her, and she looked her best, with all the soft lines matching the angelic beauty of her eyes. Then gradually her eyes closed, and she sank to sleep. For a little bit her breast heaved softly, and her breath came and went like a tired child’s. + +And then insensibly there came the strange change which I had noticed in the night. Her breathing grew stertorous, the mouth opened, and the pale gums, drawn back, made the teeth look longer and sharper than ever. In a sort of sleep-waking, vague, unconscious way she opened her eyes, which were now dull and hard at once, and said in a soft, voluptuous voice, such as I had never heard from her lips:— + +“Arthur! Oh, my love, I am so glad you have come! Kiss me!” Arthur bent eagerly over to kiss her; but at that instant Van Helsing, who, like me, had been startled by her voice, swooped upon him, and catching him by the neck with both hands, dragged him back with a fury of strength which I never thought he could have possessed, and actually hurled him almost across the room. + +“Not for your life!” he said; “not for your living soul and hers!” And he stood between them like a lion at bay. + +Arthur was so taken aback that he did not for a moment know what to do or say; and before any impulse of violence could seize him he realised the place and the occasion, and stood silent, waiting. + +I kept my eyes fixed on Lucy, as did Van Helsing, and we saw a spasm as of rage flit like a shadow over her face; the sharp teeth champed together. Then her eyes closed, and she breathed heavily. + +Very shortly after she opened her eyes in all their softness, and putting out her poor, pale, thin hand, took Van Helsing’s great brown one; drawing it to her, she kissed it. “My true friend,” she said, in a faint voice, but with untellable pathos, “My true friend, and his! Oh, guard him, and give me peace!” + +“I swear it!” he said solemnly, kneeling beside her and holding up his hand, as one who registers an oath. Then he turned to Arthur, and said to him: “Come, my child, take her hand in yours, and kiss her on the forehead, and only once.” + +Their eyes met instead of their lips; and so they parted. + +Lucy’s eyes closed; and Van Helsing, who had been watching closely, took Arthur’s arm, and drew him away. + +And then Lucy’s breathing became stertorous again, and all at once it ceased. + +“It is all over,” said Van Helsing. “She is dead!” + +I took Arthur by the arm, and led him away to the drawing-room, where he sat down, and covered his face with his hands, sobbing in a way that nearly broke me down to see. + +I went back to the room, and found Van Helsing looking at poor Lucy, and his face was sterner than ever. Some change had come over her body. Death had given back part of her beauty, for her brow and cheeks had recovered some of their flowing lines; even the lips had lost their deadly pallor. It was as if the blood, no longer needed for the working of the heart, had gone to make the harshness of death as little rude as might be. + +“We thought her dying whilst she slept, And sleeping when she died.” + +I stood beside Van Helsing, and said:— + +“Ah, well, poor girl, there is peace for her at last. It is the end!” + +He turned to me, and said with grave solemnity:— + +“Not so; alas! not so. It is only the beginning!” + +When I asked him what he meant, he only shook his head and answered:— + +“We can do nothing as yet. Wait and see.” + +== CHAPTER XIII + +DR. SEWARD’S DIARY—_continued_. + +The funeral was arranged for the next succeeding day, so that Lucy and her mother might be buried together. I attended to all the ghastly formalities, and the urbane undertaker proved that his staff were afflicted—or blessed—with something of his own obsequious suavity. Even the woman who performed the last offices for the dead remarked to me, in a confidential, brother-professional way, when she had come out from the death-chamber:— + +“She makes a very beautiful corpse, sir. It’s quite a privilege to attend on her. It’s not too much to say that she will do credit to our establishment!” + +I noticed that Van Helsing never kept far away. This was possible from the disordered state of things in the household. There were no relatives at hand; and as Arthur had to be back the next day to attend at his father’s funeral, we were unable to notify any one who should have been bidden. Under the circumstances, Van Helsing and I took it upon ourselves to examine papers, etc. He insisted upon looking over Lucy’s papers himself. I asked him why, for I feared that he, being a foreigner, might not be quite aware of English legal requirements, and so might in ignorance make some unnecessary trouble. He answered me:— + +“I know; I know. You forget that I am a lawyer as well as a doctor. But this is not altogether for the law. You knew that, when you avoided the coroner. I have more than him to avoid. There may be papers more—such as this.” + +As he spoke he took from his pocket-book the memorandum which had been in Lucy’s breast, and which she had torn in her sleep. + +“When you find anything of the solicitor who is for the late Mrs. Westenra, seal all her papers, and write him to-night. For me, I watch here in the room and in Miss Lucy’s old room all night, and I myself search for what may be. It is not well that her very thoughts go into the hands of strangers.” + +I went on with my part of the work, and in another half hour had found the name and address of Mrs. Westenra’s solicitor and had written to him. All the poor lady’s papers were in order; explicit directions regarding the place of burial were given. I had hardly sealed the letter, when, to my surprise, Van Helsing walked into the room, saying:— + +“Can I help you, friend John? I am free, and if I may, my service is to you.” + +“Have you got what you looked for?” I asked, to which he replied:— + +“I did not look for any specific thing. I only hoped to find, and find I have, all that there was—only some letters and a few memoranda, and a diary new begun. But I have them here, and we shall for the present say nothing of them. I shall see that poor lad to-morrow evening, and, with his sanction, I shall use some.” + +When we had finished the work in hand, he said to me:— + +“And now, friend John, I think we may to bed. We want sleep, both you and I, and rest to recuperate. To-morrow we shall have much to do, but for the to-night there is no need of us. Alas!” + +Before turning in we went to look at poor Lucy. The undertaker had certainly done his work well, for the room was turned into a small _chapelle ardente_. There was a wilderness of beautiful white flowers, and death was made as little repulsive as might be. The end of the winding-sheet was laid over the face; when the Professor bent over and turned it gently back, we both started at the beauty before us, the tall wax candles showing a sufficient light to note it well. All Lucy’s loveliness had come back to her in death, and the hours that had passed, instead of leaving traces of “decay’s effacing fingers,” had but restored the beauty of life, till positively I could not believe my eyes that I was looking at a corpse. + +The Professor looked sternly grave. He had not loved her as I had, and there was no need for tears in his eyes. He said to me: “Remain till I return,” and left the room. He came back with a handful of wild garlic from the box waiting in the hall, but which had not been opened, and placed the flowers amongst the others on and around the bed. Then he took from his neck, inside his collar, a little gold crucifix, and placed it over the mouth. He restored the sheet to its place, and we came away. + +I was undressing in my own room, when, with a premonitory tap at the door, he entered, and at once began to speak:— + +“To-morrow I want you to bring me, before night, a set of post-mortem knives.” + +“Must we make an autopsy?” I asked. + +“Yes and no. I want to operate, but not as you think. Let me tell you now, but not a word to another. I want to cut off her head and take out her heart. Ah! you a surgeon, and so shocked! You, whom I have seen with no tremble of hand or heart, do operations of life and death that make the rest shudder. Oh, but I must not forget, my dear friend John, that you loved her; and I have not forgotten it, for it is I that shall operate, and you must only help. I would like to do it to-night, but for Arthur I must not; he will be free after his father’s funeral to-morrow, and he will want to see her—to see _it_. Then, when she is coffined ready for the next day, you and I shall come when all sleep. We shall unscrew the coffin-lid, and shall do our operation: and then replace all, so that none know, save we alone.” + +“But why do it at all? The girl is dead. Why mutilate her poor body without need? And if there is no necessity for a post-mortem and nothing to gain by it—no good to her, to us, to science, to human knowledge—why do it? Without such it is monstrous.” + +For answer he put his hand on my shoulder, and said, with infinite tenderness:— + +“Friend John, I pity your poor bleeding heart; and I love you the more because it does so bleed. If I could, I would take on myself the burden that you do bear. But there are things that you know not, but that you shall know, and bless me for knowing, though they are not pleasant things. John, my child, you have been my friend now many years, and yet did you ever know me to do any without good cause? I may err—I am but man; but I believe in all I do. Was it not for these causes that you send for me when the great trouble came? Yes! Were you not amazed, nay horrified, when I would not let Arthur kiss his love—though she was dying—and snatched him away by all my strength? Yes! And yet you saw how she thanked me, with her so beautiful dying eyes, her voice, too, so weak, and she kiss my rough old hand and bless me? Yes! And did you not hear me swear promise to her, that so she closed her eyes grateful? Yes! + +“Well, I have good reason now for all I want to do. You have for many years trust me; you have believe me weeks past, when there be things so strange that you might have well doubt. Believe me yet a little, friend John. If you trust me not, then I must tell what I think; and that is not perhaps well. And if I work—as work I shall, no matter trust or no trust—without my friend trust in me, I work with heavy heart and feel, oh! so lonely when I want all help and courage that may be!” He paused a moment and went on solemnly: “Friend John, there are strange and terrible days before us. Let us not be two, but one, that so we work to a good end. Will you not have faith in me?” + +I took his hand, and promised him. I held my door open as he went away, and watched him go into his room and close the door. As I stood without moving, I saw one of the maids pass silently along the passage—she had her back towards me, so did not see me—and go into the room where Lucy lay. The sight touched me. Devotion is so rare, and we are so grateful to those who show it unasked to those we love. Here was a poor girl putting aside the terrors which she naturally had of death to go watch alone by the bier of the mistress whom she loved, so that the poor clay might not be lonely till laid to eternal rest.... + +I must have slept long and soundly, for it was broad daylight when Van Helsing waked me by coming into my room. He came over to my bedside and said:— + +“You need not trouble about the knives; we shall not do it.” + +“Why not?” I asked. For his solemnity of the night before had greatly impressed me. + +“Because,” he said sternly, “it is too late—or too early. See!” Here he held up the little golden crucifix. “This was stolen in the night.” + +“How, stolen,” I asked in wonder, “since you have it now?” + +“Because I get it back from the worthless wretch who stole it, from the woman who robbed the dead and the living. Her punishment will surely come, but not through me; she knew not altogether what she did and thus unknowing, she only stole. Now we must wait.” + +He went away on the word, leaving me with a new mystery to think of, a new puzzle to grapple with. + +The forenoon was a dreary time, but at noon the solicitor came: Mr. Marquand, of Wholeman, Sons, Marquand & Lidderdale. He was very genial and very appreciative of what we had done, and took off our hands all cares as to details. During lunch he told us that Mrs. Westenra had for some time expected sudden death from her heart, and had put her affairs in absolute order; he informed us that, with the exception of a certain entailed property of Lucy’s father’s which now, in default of direct issue, went back to a distant branch of the family, the whole estate, real and personal, was left absolutely to Arthur Holmwood. When he had told us so much he went on:— + +“Frankly we did our best to prevent such a testamentary disposition, and pointed out certain contingencies that might leave her daughter either penniless or not so free as she should be to act regarding a matrimonial alliance. Indeed, we pressed the matter so far that we almost came into collision, for she asked us if we were or were not prepared to carry out her wishes. Of course, we had then no alternative but to accept. We were right in principle, and ninety-nine times out of a hundred we should have proved, by the logic of events, the accuracy of our judgment. Frankly, however, I must admit that in this case any other form of disposition would have rendered impossible the carrying out of her wishes. For by her predeceasing her daughter the latter would have come into possession of the property, and, even had she only survived her mother by five minutes, her property would, in case there were no will—and a will was a practical impossibility in such a case—have been treated at her decease as under intestacy. In which case Lord Godalming, though so dear a friend, would have had no claim in the world; and the inheritors, being remote, would not be likely to abandon their just rights, for sentimental reasons regarding an entire stranger. I assure you, my dear sirs, I am rejoiced at the result, perfectly rejoiced.” + +He was a good fellow, but his rejoicing at the one little part—in which he was officially interested—of so great a tragedy, was an object-lesson in the limitations of sympathetic understanding. + +He did not remain long, but said he would look in later in the day and see Lord Godalming. His coming, however, had been a certain comfort to us, since it assured us that we should not have to dread hostile criticism as to any of our acts. Arthur was expected at five o’clock, so a little before that time we visited the death-chamber. It was so in very truth, for now both mother and daughter lay in it. The undertaker, true to his craft, had made the best display he could of his goods, and there was a mortuary air about the place that lowered our spirits at once. Van Helsing ordered the former arrangement to be adhered to, explaining that, as Lord Godalming was coming very soon, it would be less harrowing to his feelings to see all that was left of his _fiancée_ quite alone. The undertaker seemed shocked at his own stupidity and exerted himself to restore things to the condition in which we left them the night before, so that when Arthur came such shocks to his feelings as we could avoid were saved. + +Poor fellow! He looked desperately sad and broken; even his stalwart manhood seemed to have shrunk somewhat under the strain of his much-tried emotions. He had, I knew, been very genuinely and devotedly attached to his father; and to lose him, and at such a time, was a bitter blow to him. With me he was warm as ever, and to Van Helsing he was sweetly courteous; but I could not help seeing that there was some constraint with him. The Professor noticed it, too, and motioned me to bring him upstairs. I did so, and left him at the door of the room, as I felt he would like to be quite alone with her, but he took my arm and led me in, saying huskily:— + +“You loved her too, old fellow; she told me all about it, and there was no friend had a closer place in her heart than you. I don’t know how to thank you for all you have done for her. I can’t think yet....” + +Here he suddenly broke down, and threw his arms round my shoulders and laid his head on my breast, crying:— + +“Oh, Jack! Jack! What shall I do! The whole of life seems gone from me all at once, and there is nothing in the wide world for me to live for.” + +I comforted him as well as I could. In such cases men do not need much expression. A grip of the hand, the tightening of an arm over the shoulder, a sob in unison, are expressions of sympathy dear to a man’s heart. I stood still and silent till his sobs died away, and then I said softly to him:— + +“Come and look at her.” + +Together we moved over to the bed, and I lifted the lawn from her face. God! how beautiful she was. Every hour seemed to be enhancing her loveliness. It frightened and amazed me somewhat; and as for Arthur, he fell a-trembling, and finally was shaken with doubt as with an ague. At last, after a long pause, he said to me in a faint whisper:— + +“Jack, is she really dead?” + +I assured him sadly that it was so, and went on to suggest—for I felt that such a horrible doubt should not have life for a moment longer than I could help—that it often happened that after death faces became softened and even resolved into their youthful beauty; that this was especially so when death had been preceded by any acute or prolonged suffering. It seemed to quite do away with any doubt, and, after kneeling beside the couch for a while and looking at her lovingly and long, he turned aside. I told him that that must be good-bye, as the coffin had to be prepared; so he went back and took her dead hand in his and kissed it, and bent over and kissed her forehead. He came away, fondly looking back over his shoulder at her as he came. + +I left him in the drawing-room, and told Van Helsing that he had said good-bye; so the latter went to the kitchen to tell the undertaker’s men to proceed with the preparations and to screw up the coffin. When he came out of the room again I told him of Arthur’s question, and he replied:— + +“I am not surprised. Just now I doubted for a moment myself!” + +We all dined together, and I could see that poor Art was trying to make the best of things. Van Helsing had been silent all dinner-time; but when we had lit our cigars he said— + +“Lord—”; but Arthur interrupted him:— + +“No, no, not that, for God’s sake! not yet at any rate. Forgive me, sir: I did not mean to speak offensively; it is only because my loss is so recent.” + +The Professor answered very sweetly:— + +“I only used that name because I was in doubt. I must not call you ‘Mr.,’ and I have grown to love you—yes, my dear boy, to love you—as Arthur.” + +Arthur held out his hand, and took the old man’s warmly. + +“Call me what you will,” he said. “I hope I may always have the title of a friend. And let me say that I am at a loss for words to thank you for your goodness to my poor dear.” He paused a moment, and went on: “I know that she understood your goodness even better than I do; and if I was rude or in any way wanting at that time you acted so—you remember”—the Professor nodded—“you must forgive me.” + +He answered with a grave kindness:— + +“I know it was hard for you to quite trust me then, for to trust such violence needs to understand; and I take it that you do not—that you cannot—trust me now, for you do not yet understand. And there may be more times when I shall want you to trust when you cannot—and may not—and must not yet understand. But the time will come when your trust shall be whole and complete in me, and when you shall understand as though the sunlight himself shone through. Then you shall bless me from first to last for your own sake, and for the sake of others and for her dear sake to whom I swore to protect.” + +“And, indeed, indeed, sir,” said Arthur warmly, “I shall in all ways trust you. I know and believe you have a very noble heart, and you are Jack’s friend, and you were hers. You shall do what you like.” + +The Professor cleared his throat a couple of times, as though about to speak, and finally said:— + +“May I ask you something now?” + +“Certainly.” + +“You know that Mrs. Westenra left you all her property?” + +“No, poor dear; I never thought of it.” + +“And as it is all yours, you have a right to deal with it as you will. I want you to give me permission to read all Miss Lucy’s papers and letters. Believe me, it is no idle curiosity. I have a motive of which, be sure, she would have approved. I have them all here. I took them before we knew that all was yours, so that no strange hand might touch them—no strange eye look through words into her soul. I shall keep them, if I may; even you may not see them yet, but I shall keep them safe. No word shall be lost; and in the good time I shall give them back to you. It’s a hard thing I ask, but you will do it, will you not, for Lucy’s sake?” + +Arthur spoke out heartily, like his old self:— + +“Dr. Van Helsing, you may do what you will. I feel that in saying this I am doing what my dear one would have approved. I shall not trouble you with questions till the time comes.” + +The old Professor stood up as he said solemnly:— + +“And you are right. There will be pain for us all; but it will not be all pain, nor will this pain be the last. We and you too—you most of all, my dear boy—will have to pass through the bitter water before we reach the sweet. But we must be brave of heart and unselfish, and do our duty, and all will be well!” + +I slept on a sofa in Arthur’s room that night. Van Helsing did not go to bed at all. He went to and fro, as if patrolling the house, and was never out of sight of the room where Lucy lay in her coffin, strewn with the wild garlic flowers, which sent, through the odour of lily and rose, a heavy, overpowering smell into the night. + +_Mina Harker’s Journal._ + +_22 September._ — In the train to Exeter. Jonathan sleeping. + +It seems only yesterday that the last entry was made, and yet how much between then, in Whitby and all the world before me, Jonathan away and no news of him; and now, married to Jonathan, Jonathan a solicitor, a partner, rich, master of his business, Mr. Hawkins dead and buried, and Jonathan with another attack that may harm him. Some day he may ask me about it. Down it all goes. I am rusty in my shorthand—see what unexpected prosperity does for us—so it may be as well to freshen it up again with an exercise anyhow.... + +The service was very simple and very solemn. There were only ourselves and the servants there, one or two old friends of his from Exeter, his London agent, and a gentleman representing Sir John Paxton, the President of the Incorporated Law Society. Jonathan and I stood hand in hand, and we felt that our best and dearest friend was gone from us.... + +We came back to town quietly, taking a ’bus to Hyde Park Corner. Jonathan thought it would interest me to go into the Row for a while, so we sat down; but there were very few people there, and it was sad-looking and desolate to see so many empty chairs. It made us think of the empty chair at home; so we got up and walked down Piccadilly. Jonathan was holding me by the arm, the way he used to in old days before I went to school. I felt it very improper, for you can’t go on for some years teaching etiquette and decorum to other girls without the pedantry of it biting into yourself a bit; but it was Jonathan, and he was my husband, and we didn’t know anybody who saw us—and we didn’t care if they did—so on we walked. I was looking at a very beautiful girl, in a big cart-wheel hat, sitting in a victoria outside Guiliano’s, when I felt Jonathan clutch my arm so tight that he hurt me, and he said under his breath: “My God!” I am always anxious about Jonathan, for I fear that some nervous fit may upset him again; so I turned to him quickly, and asked him what it was that disturbed him. + +He was very pale, and his eyes seemed bulging out as, half in terror and half in amazement, he gazed at a tall, thin man, with a beaky nose and black moustache and pointed beard, who was also observing the pretty girl. He was looking at her so hard that he did not see either of us, and so I had a good view of him. His face was not a good face; it was hard, and cruel, and sensual, and his big white teeth, that looked all the whiter because his lips were so red, were pointed like an animal’s. Jonathan kept staring at him, till I was afraid he would notice. I feared he might take it ill, he looked so fierce and nasty. I asked Jonathan why he was disturbed, and he answered, evidently thinking that I knew as much about it as he did: “Do you see who it is?” + +“No, dear,” I said; “I don’t know him; who is it?” His answer seemed to shock and thrill me, for it was said as if he did not know that it was to me, Mina, to whom he was speaking:— + +“It is the man himself!” + +The poor dear was evidently terrified at something—very greatly terrified; I do believe that if he had not had me to lean on and to support him he would have sunk down. He kept staring; a man came out of the shop with a small parcel, and gave it to the lady, who then drove off. The dark man kept his eyes fixed on her, and when the carriage moved up Piccadilly he followed in the same direction, and hailed a hansom. Jonathan kept looking after him, and said, as if to himself:— + +“I believe it is the Count, but he has grown young. My God, if this be so! Oh, my God! my God! If I only knew! if I only knew!” He was distressing himself so much that I feared to keep his mind on the subject by asking him any questions, so I remained silent. I drew him away quietly, and he, holding my arm, came easily. We walked a little further, and then went in and sat for a while in the Green Park. It was a hot day for autumn, and there was a comfortable seat in a shady place. After a few minutes’ staring at nothing, Jonathan’s eyes closed, and he went quietly into a sleep, with his head on my shoulder. I thought it was the best thing for him, so did not disturb him. In about twenty minutes he woke up, and said to me quite cheerfully:— + +“Why, Mina, have I been asleep! Oh, do forgive me for being so rude. Come, and we’ll have a cup of tea somewhere.” He had evidently forgotten all about the dark stranger, as in his illness he had forgotten all that this episode had reminded him of. I don’t like this lapsing into forgetfulness; it may make or continue some injury to the brain. I must not ask him, for fear I shall do more harm than good; but I must somehow learn the facts of his journey abroad. The time is come, I fear, when I must open that parcel, and know what is written. Oh, Jonathan, you will, I know, forgive me if I do wrong, but it is for your own dear sake. + +_Later._ — A sad home-coming in every way—the house empty of the dear soul who was so good to us; Jonathan still pale and dizzy under a slight relapse of his malady; and now a telegram from Van Helsing, whoever he may be:— + +“You will be grieved to hear that Mrs. Westenra died five days ago, and that Lucy died the day before yesterday. They were both buried to-day.” + +Oh, what a wealth of sorrow in a few words! Poor Mrs. Westenra! poor Lucy! Gone, gone, never to return to us! And poor, poor Arthur, to have lost such sweetness out of his life! God help us all to bear our troubles. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_22 September._ — It is all over. Arthur has gone back to Ring, and has taken Quincey Morris with him. What a fine fellow is Quincey! I believe in my heart of hearts that he suffered as much about Lucy’s death as any of us; but he bore himself through it like a moral Viking. If America can go on breeding men like that, she will be a power in the world indeed. Van Helsing is lying down, having a rest preparatory to his journey. He goes over to Amsterdam to-night, but says he returns to-morrow night; that he only wants to make some arrangements which can only be made personally. He is to stop with me then, if he can; he says he has work to do in London which may take him some time. Poor old fellow! I fear that the strain of the past week has broken down even his iron strength. All the time of the burial he was, I could see, putting some terrible restraint on himself. When it was all over, we were standing beside Arthur, who, poor fellow, was speaking of his part in the operation where his blood had been transfused to his Lucy’s veins; I could see Van Helsing’s face grow white and purple by turns. Arthur was saying that he felt since then as if they two had been really married and that she was his wife in the sight of God. None of us said a word of the other operations, and none of us ever shall. Arthur and Quincey went away together to the station, and Van Helsing and I came on here. The moment we were alone in the carriage he gave way to a regular fit of hysterics. He has denied to me since that it was hysterics, and insisted that it was only his sense of humour asserting itself under very terrible conditions. He laughed till he cried, and I had to draw down the blinds lest any one should see us and misjudge; and then he cried, till he laughed again; and laughed and cried together, just as a woman does. I tried to be stern with him, as one is to a woman under the circumstances; but it had no effect. Men and women are so different in manifestations of nervous strength or weakness! Then when his face grew grave and stern again I asked him why his mirth, and why at such a time. His reply was in a way characteristic of him, for it was logical and forceful and mysterious. He said:— + +“Ah, you don’t comprehend, friend John. Do not think that I am not sad, though I laugh. See, I have cried even when the laugh did choke me. But no more think that I am all sorry when I cry, for the laugh he come just the same. Keep it always with you that laughter who knock at your door and say, ‘May I come in?’ is not the true laughter. No! he is a king, and he come when and how he like. He ask no person; he choose no time of suitability. He say, ‘I am here.’ Behold, in example I grieve my heart out for that so sweet young girl; I give my blood for her, though I am old and worn; I give my time, my skill, my sleep; I let my other sufferers want that so she may have all. And yet I can laugh at her very grave—laugh when the clay from the spade of the sexton drop upon her coffin and say ‘Thud! thud!’ to my heart, till it send back the blood from my cheek. My heart bleed for that poor boy—that dear boy, so of the age of mine own boy had I been so blessed that he live, and with his hair and eyes the same. There, you know now why I love him so. And yet when he say things that touch my husband-heart to the quick, and make my father-heart yearn to him as to no other man—not even to you, friend John, for we are more level in experiences than father and son—yet even at such moment King Laugh he come to me and shout and bellow in my ear, ‘Here I am! here I am!’ till the blood come dance back and bring some of the sunshine that he carry with him to my cheek. Oh, friend John, it is a strange world, a sad world, a world full of miseries, and woes, and troubles; and yet when King Laugh come he make them all dance to the tune he play. Bleeding hearts, and dry bones of the churchyard, and tears that burn as they fall—all dance together to the music that he make with that smileless mouth of him. And believe me, friend John, that he is good to come, and kind. Ah, we men and women are like ropes drawn tight with strain that pull us different ways. Then tears come; and, like the rain on the ropes, they brace us up, until perhaps the strain become too great, and we break. But King Laugh he come like the sunshine, and he ease off the strain again; and we bear to go on with our labour, what it may be.” + +I did not like to wound him by pretending not to see his idea; but, as I did not yet understand the cause of his laughter, I asked him. As he answered me his face grew stern, and he said in quite a different tone:— + +“Oh, it was the grim irony of it all—this so lovely lady garlanded with flowers, that looked so fair as life, till one by one we wondered if she were truly dead; she laid in that so fine marble house in that lonely churchyard, where rest so many of her kin, laid there with the mother who loved her, and whom she loved; and that sacred bell going ‘Toll! toll! toll!’ so sad and slow; and those holy men, with the white garments of the angel, pretending to read books, and yet all the time their eyes never on the page; and all of us with the bowed head. And all for what? She is dead; so! Is it not?” + +“Well, for the life of me, Professor,” I said, “I can’t see anything to laugh at in all that. Why, your explanation makes it a harder puzzle than before. But even if the burial service was comic, what about poor Art and his trouble? Why, his heart was simply breaking.” + +“Just so. Said he not that the transfusion of his blood to her veins had made her truly his bride?” + +“Yes, and it was a sweet and comforting idea for him.” + +“Quite so. But there was a difficulty, friend John. If so that, then what about the others? Ho, ho! Then this so sweet maid is a polyandrist, and me, with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church’s law, though no wits, all gone—even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife, am bigamist.” + +“I don’t see where the joke comes in there either!” I said; and I did not feel particularly pleased with him for saying such things. He laid his hand on my arm, and said:— + +“Friend John, forgive me if I pain. I showed not my feeling to others when it would wound, but only to you, my old friend, whom I can trust. If you could have looked into my very heart then when I want to laugh; if you could have done so when the laugh arrived; if you could do so now, when King Laugh have pack up his crown, and all that is to him—for he go far, far away from me, and for a long, long time—maybe you would perhaps pity me the most of all.” + +I was touched by the tenderness of his tone, and asked why. + +“Because I know!” + +And now we are all scattered; and for many a long day loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings. Lucy lies in the tomb of her kin, a lordly death-house in a lonely churchyard, away from teeming London; where the air is fresh, and the sun rises over Hampstead Hill, and where wild flowers grow of their own accord. + +So I can finish this diary; and God only knows if I shall ever begin another. If I do, or if I even open this again, it will be to deal with different people and different themes; for here at the end, where the romance of my life is told, ere I go back to take up the thread of my life-work, I say sadly and without hope, + +“FINIS.” + +_“The Westminster Gazette,” 25 September._ + +A HAMPSTEAD MYSTERY. + +The neighbourhood of Hampstead is just at present exercised with a series of events which seem to run on lines parallel to those of what was known to the writers of headlines as “The Kensington Horror,” or “The Stabbing Woman,” or “The Woman in Black.” During the past two or three days several cases have occurred of young children straying from home or neglecting to return from their playing on the Heath. In all these cases the children were too young to give any properly intelligible account of themselves, but the consensus of their excuses is that they had been with a “bloofer lady.” It has always been late in the evening when they have been missed, and on two occasions the children have not been found until early in the following morning. It is generally supposed in the neighbourhood that, as the first child missed gave as his reason for being away that a “bloofer lady” had asked him to come for a walk, the others had picked up the phrase and used it as occasion served. This is the more natural as the favourite game of the little ones at present is luring each other away by wiles. A correspondent writes us that to see some of the tiny tots pretending to be the “bloofer lady” is supremely funny. Some of our caricaturists might, he says, take a lesson in the irony of grotesque by comparing the reality and the picture. It is only in accordance with general principles of human nature that the “bloofer lady” should be the popular rôle at these _al fresco_ performances. Our correspondent naïvely says that even Ellen Terry could not be so winningly attractive as some of these grubby-faced little children pretend—and even imagine themselves—to be. + +There is, however, possibly a serious side to the question, for some of the children, indeed all who have been missed at night, have been slightly torn or wounded in the throat. The wounds seem such as might be made by a rat or a small dog, and although of not much importance individually, would tend to show that whatever animal inflicts them has a system or method of its own. The police of the division have been instructed to keep a sharp look-out for straying children, especially when very young, in and around Hampstead Heath, and for any stray dog which may be about. + +_“The Westminster Gazette,” 25 September._ + +_Extra Special._ + +THE HAMPSTEAD HORROR. + +ANOTHER CHILD INJURED. + +_The “Bloofer Lady.”_ + +We have just received intelligence that another child, missed last night, was only discovered late in the morning under a furze bush at the Shooter’s Hill side of Hampstead Heath, which is, perhaps, less frequented than the other parts. It has the same tiny wound in the throat as has been noticed in other cases. It was terribly weak, and looked quite emaciated. It too, when partially restored, had the common story to tell of being lured away by the “bloofer lady.” + +== CHAPTER XIV + +MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL + +_23 September_.—Jonathan is better after a bad night. I am so glad that he has plenty of work to do, for that keeps his mind off the terrible things; and oh, I am rejoiced that he is not now weighed down with the responsibility of his new position. I knew he would be true to himself, and now how proud I am to see my Jonathan rising to the height of his advancement and keeping pace in all ways with the duties that come upon him. He will be away all day till late, for he said he could not lunch at home. My household work is done, so I shall take his foreign journal, and lock myself up in my room and read it.... + +_24 September_.—I hadn’t the heart to write last night; that terrible record of Jonathan’s upset me so. Poor dear! How he must have suffered, whether it be true or only imagination. I wonder if there is any truth in it at all. Did he get his brain fever, and then write all those terrible things, or had he some cause for it all? I suppose I shall never know, for I dare not open the subject to him.... And yet that man we saw yesterday! He seemed quite certain of him.... Poor fellow! I suppose it was the funeral upset him and sent his mind back on some train of thought.... He believes it all himself. I remember how on our wedding-day he said: “Unless some solemn duty come upon me to go back to the bitter hours, asleep or awake, mad or sane.” There seems to be through it all some thread of continuity.... That fearful Count was coming to London.... If it should be, and he came to London, with his teeming millions.... There may be a solemn duty; and if it come we must not shrink from it.... I shall be prepared. I shall get my typewriter this very hour and begin transcribing. Then we shall be ready for other eyes if required. And if it be wanted; then, perhaps, if I am ready, poor Jonathan may not be upset, for I can speak for him and never let him be troubled or worried with it at all. If ever Jonathan quite gets over the nervousness he may want to tell me of it all, and I can ask him questions and find out things, and see how I may comfort him. + +_Letter, Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker._ + +“_24 September._ + +(_Confidence_) + +“Dear Madam,— + +“I pray you to pardon my writing, in that I am so far friend as that I sent to you sad news of Miss Lucy Westenra’s death. By the kindness of Lord Godalming, I am empowered to read her letters and papers, for I am deeply concerned about certain matters vitally important. In them I find some letters from you, which show how great friends you were and how you love her. Oh, Madam Mina, by that love, I implore you, help me. It is for others’ good that I ask—to redress great wrong, and to lift much and terrible troubles—that may be more great than you can know. May it be that I see you? You can trust me. I am friend of Dr. John Seward and of Lord Godalming (that was Arthur of Miss Lucy). I must keep it private for the present from all. I should come to Exeter to see you at once if you tell me I am privilege to come, and where and when. I implore your pardon, madam. I have read your letters to poor Lucy, and know how good you are and how your husband suffer; so I pray you, if it may be, enlighten him not, lest it may harm. Again your pardon, and forgive me. + +“VAN HELSING.” + +_Telegram, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing._ + +“_25 September._ — Come to-day by quarter-past ten train if you can catch it. Can see you any time you call. + +“WILHELMINA HARKER.” + +MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL. + +_25 September._ — I cannot help feeling terribly excited as the time draws near for the visit of Dr. Van Helsing, for somehow I expect that it will throw some light upon Jonathan’s sad experience; and as he attended poor dear Lucy in her last illness, he can tell me all about her. That is the reason of his coming; it is concerning Lucy and her sleep-walking, and not about Jonathan. Then I shall never know the real truth now! How silly I am. That awful journal gets hold of my imagination and tinges everything with something of its own colour. Of course it is about Lucy. That habit came back to the poor dear, and that awful night on the cliff must have made her ill. I had almost forgotten in my own affairs how ill she was afterwards. She must have told him of her sleep-walking adventure on the cliff, and that I knew all about it; and now he wants me to tell him what she knows, so that he may understand. I hope I did right in not saying anything of it to Mrs. Westenra; I should never forgive myself if any act of mine, were it even a negative one, brought harm on poor dear Lucy. I hope, too, Dr. Van Helsing will not blame me; I have had so much trouble and anxiety of late that I feel I cannot bear more just at present. + +I suppose a cry does us all good at times—clears the air as other rain does. Perhaps it was reading the journal yesterday that upset me, and then Jonathan went away this morning to stay away from me a whole day and night, the first time we have been parted since our marriage. I do hope the dear fellow will take care of himself, and that nothing will occur to upset him. It is two o’clock, and the doctor will be here soon now. I shall say nothing of Jonathan’s journal unless he asks me. I am so glad I have type-written out my own journal, so that, in case he asks about Lucy, I can hand it to him; it will save much questioning. + +_Later._ — He has come and gone. Oh, what a strange meeting, and how it all makes my head whirl round! I feel like one in a dream. Can it be all possible, or even a part of it? If I had not read Jonathan’s journal first, I should never have accepted even a possibility. Poor, poor, dear Jonathan! How he must have suffered. Please the good God, all this may not upset him again. I shall try to save him from it; but it may be even a consolation and a help to him—terrible though it be and awful in its consequences—to know for certain that his eyes and ears and brain did not deceive him, and that it is all true. It may be that it is the doubt which haunts him; that when the doubt is removed, no matter which—waking or dreaming—may prove the truth, he will be more satisfied and better able to bear the shock. Dr. Van Helsing must be a good man as well as a clever one if he is Arthur’s friend and Dr. Seward’s, and if they brought him all the way from Holland to look after Lucy. I feel from having seen him that he _is_ good and kind and of a noble nature. When he comes to-morrow I shall ask him about Jonathan; and then, please God, all this sorrow and anxiety may lead to a good end. I used to think I would like to practise interviewing; Jonathan’s friend on “The Exeter News” told him that memory was everything in such work—that you must be able to put down exactly almost every word spoken, even if you had to refine some of it afterwards. Here was a rare interview; I shall try to record it _verbatim_. + +It was half-past two o’clock when the knock came. I took my courage _à deux mains_ and waited. In a few minutes Mary opened the door, and announced “Dr. Van Helsing.” + +I rose and bowed, and he came towards me; a man of medium weight, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes one at once as indicative of thought and power; the head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large, resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big, bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart; such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man’s moods. He said to me:— + +“Mrs. Harker, is it not?” I bowed assent. + +“That was Miss Mina Murray?” Again I assented. + +“It is Mina Murray that I came to see that was friend of that poor dear child Lucy Westenra. Madam Mina, it is on account of the dead I come.” + +“Sir,” I said, “you could have no better claim on me than that you were a friend and helper of Lucy Westenra.” And I held out my hand. He took it and said tenderly:— + +“Oh, Madam Mina, I knew that the friend of that poor lily girl must be good, but I had yet to learn—” He finished his speech with a courtly bow. I asked him what it was that he wanted to see me about, so he at once began:— + +“I have read your letters to Miss Lucy. Forgive me, but I had to begin to inquire somewhere, and there was none to ask. I know that you were with her at Whitby. She sometimes kept a diary—you need not look surprised, Madam Mina; it was begun after you had left, and was in imitation of you—and in that diary she traces by inference certain things to a sleep-walking in which she puts down that you saved her. In great perplexity then I come to you, and ask you out of your so much kindness to tell me all of it that you can remember.” + +“I can tell you, I think, Dr. Van Helsing, all about it.” + +“Ah, then you have good memory for facts, for details? It is not always so with young ladies.” + +“No, doctor, but I wrote it all down at the time. I can show it to you if you like.” + +“Oh, Madam Mina, I will be grateful; you will do me much favour.” I could not resist the temptation of mystifying him a bit—I suppose it is some of the taste of the original apple that remains still in our mouths—so I handed him the shorthand diary. He took it with a grateful bow, and said:— + +“May I read it?” + +“If you wish,” I answered as demurely as I could. He opened it, and for an instant his face fell. Then he stood up and bowed. + +“Oh, you so clever woman!” he said. “I knew long that Mr. Jonathan was a man of much thankfulness; but see, his wife have all the good things. And will you not so much honour me and so help me as to read it for me? Alas! I know not the shorthand.” By this time my little joke was over, and I was almost ashamed; so I took the typewritten copy from my workbasket and handed it to him. + +“Forgive me,” I said: “I could not help it; but I had been thinking that it was of dear Lucy that you wished to ask, and so that you might not have time to wait—not on my account, but because I know your time must be precious—I have written it out on the typewriter for you.” + +He took it and his eyes glistened. “You are so good,” he said. “And may I read it now? I may want to ask you some things when I have read.” + +“By all means,” I said, “read it over whilst I order lunch; and then you can ask me questions whilst we eat.” He bowed and settled himself in a chair with his back to the light, and became absorbed in the papers, whilst I went to see after lunch chiefly in order that he might not be disturbed. When I came back, I found him walking hurriedly up and down the room, his face all ablaze with excitement. He rushed up to me and took me by both hands. + +“Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, “how can I say what I owe to you? This paper is as sunshine. It opens the gate to me. I am daze, I am dazzle, with so much light, and yet clouds roll in behind the light every time. But that you do not, cannot, comprehend. Oh, but I am grateful to you, you so clever woman. Madam”—he said this very solemnly—“if ever Abraham Van Helsing can do anything for you or yours, I trust you will let me know. It will be pleasure and delight if I may serve you as a friend; as a friend, but all I have ever learned, all I can ever do, shall be for you and those you love. There are darknesses in life, and there are lights; you are one of the lights. You will have happy life and good life, and your husband will be blessed in you.” + +“But, doctor, you praise me too much, and—and you do not know me.” + +“Not know you—I, who am old, and who have studied all my life men and women; I, who have made my specialty the brain and all that belongs to him and all that follow from him! And I have read your diary that you have so goodly written for me, and which breathes out truth in every line. I, who have read your so sweet letter to poor Lucy of your marriage and your trust, not know you! Oh, Madam Mina, good women tell all their lives, and by day and by hour and by minute, such things that angels can read; and we men who wish to know have in us something of angels’ eyes. Your husband is noble nature, and you are noble too, for you trust, and trust cannot be where there is mean nature. And your husband—tell me of him. Is he quite well? Is all that fever gone, and is he strong and hearty?” I saw here an opening to ask him about Jonathan, so I said:— + +“He was almost recovered, but he has been greatly upset by Mr. Hawkins’s death.” He interrupted:— + +“Oh, yes, I know, I know. I have read your last two letters.” I went on:— + +“I suppose this upset him, for when we were in town on Thursday last he had a sort of shock.” + +“A shock, and after brain fever so soon! That was not good. What kind of a shock was it?” + +“He thought he saw some one who recalled something terrible, something which led to his brain fever.” And here the whole thing seemed to overwhelm me in a rush. The pity for Jonathan, the horror which he experienced, the whole fearful mystery of his diary, and the fear that has been brooding over me ever since, all came in a tumult. I suppose I was hysterical, for I threw myself on my knees and held up my hands to him, and implored him to make my husband well again. He took my hands and raised me up, and made me sit on the sofa, and sat by me; he held my hand in his, and said to me with, oh, such infinite sweetness:— + +“My life is a barren and lonely one, and so full of work that I have not had much time for friendships; but since I have been summoned to here by my friend John Seward I have known so many good people and seen such nobility that I feel more than ever—and it has grown with my advancing years—the loneliness of my life. Believe, me, then, that I come here full of respect for you, and you have given me hope—hope, not in what I am seeking of, but that there are good women still left to make life happy—good women, whose lives and whose truths may make good lesson for the children that are to be. I am glad, glad, that I may here be of some use to you; for if your husband suffer, he suffer within the range of my study and experience. I promise you that I will gladly do _all_ for him that I can—all to make his life strong and manly, and your life a happy one. Now you must eat. You are overwrought and perhaps over-anxious. Husband Jonathan would not like to see you so pale; and what he like not where he love, is not to his good. Therefore for his sake you must eat and smile. You have told me all about Lucy, and so now we shall not speak of it, lest it distress. I shall stay in Exeter to-night, for I want to think much over what you have told me, and when I have thought I will ask you questions, if I may. And then, too, you will tell me of husband Jonathan’s trouble so far as you can, but not yet. You must eat now; afterwards you shall tell me all.” + +After lunch, when we went back to the drawing-room, he said to me:— + +“And now tell me all about him.” When it came to speaking to this great learned man, I began to fear that he would think me a weak fool, and Jonathan a madman—that journal is all so strange—and I hesitated to go on. But he was so sweet and kind, and he had promised to help, and I trusted him, so I said:— + +“Dr. Van Helsing, what I have to tell you is so queer that you must not laugh at me or at my husband. I have been since yesterday in a sort of fever of doubt; you must be kind to me, and not think me foolish that I have even half believed some very strange things.” He reassured me by his manner as well as his words when he said:— + +“Oh, my dear, if you only know how strange is the matter regarding which I am here, it is you who would laugh. I have learned not to think little of any one’s belief, no matter how strange it be. I have tried to keep an open mind; and it is not the ordinary things of life that could close it, but the strange things, the extraordinary things, the things that make one doubt if they be mad or sane.” + +“Thank you, thank you, a thousand times! You have taken a weight off my mind. If you will let me, I shall give you a paper to read. It is long, but I have typewritten it out. It will tell you my trouble and Jonathan’s. It is the copy of his journal when abroad, and all that happened. I dare not say anything of it; you will read for yourself and judge. And then when I see you, perhaps, you will be very kind and tell me what you think.” + +“I promise,” he said as I gave him the papers; “I shall in the morning, so soon as I can, come to see you and your husband, if I may.” + +“Jonathan will be here at half-past eleven, and you must come to lunch with us and see him then; you could catch the quick 3:34 train, which will leave you at Paddington before eight.” He was surprised at my knowledge of the trains off-hand, but he does not know that I have made up all the trains to and from Exeter, so that I may help Jonathan in case he is in a hurry. + +So he took the papers with him and went away, and I sit here thinking—thinking I don’t know what. + +_Letter (by hand), Van Helsing to Mrs. Harker._ + +“_25 September, 6 o’clock._ + +“Dear Madam Mina,— + +“I have read your husband’s so wonderful diary. You may sleep without doubt. Strange and terrible as it is, it is _true_! I will pledge my life on it. It may be worse for others; but for him and you there is no dread. He is a noble fellow; and let me tell you from experience of men, that one who would do as he did in going down that wall and to that room—ay, and going a second time—is not one to be injured in permanence by a shock. His brain and his heart are all right; this I swear, before I have even seen him; so be at rest. I shall have much to ask him of other things. I am blessed that to-day I come to see you, for I have learn all at once so much that again I am dazzle—dazzle more than ever, and I must think. + +“Yours the most faithful, + +“ABRAHAM VAN HELSING.” + +_Letter, Mrs. Harker to Van Helsing._ + +“_25 September, 6:30 p. m._ + +“My dear Dr. Van Helsing,— + +“A thousand thanks for your kind letter, which has taken a great weight off my mind. And yet, if it be true, what terrible things there are in the world, and what an awful thing if that man, that monster, be really in London! I fear to think. I have this moment, whilst writing, had a wire from Jonathan, saying that he leaves by the 6:25 to-night from Launceston and will be here at 10:18, so that I shall have no fear to-night. Will you, therefore, instead of lunching with us, please come to breakfast at eight o’clock, if this be not too early for you? You can get away, if you are in a hurry, by the 10:30 train, which will bring you to Paddington by 2:35. Do not answer this, as I shall take it that, if I do not hear, you will come to breakfast. + +“Believe me, + +“Your faithful and grateful friend, + +“MINA HARKER.” + +_Jonathan Harker’s Journal._ + +_26 September._ — I thought never to write in this diary again, but the time has come. When I got home last night Mina had supper ready, and when we had supped she told me of Van Helsing’s visit, and of her having given him the two diaries copied out, and of how anxious she has been about me. She showed me in the doctor’s letter that all I wrote down was true. It seems to have made a new man of me. It was the doubt as to the reality of the whole thing that knocked me over. I felt impotent, and in the dark, and distrustful. But, now that I _know_, I am not afraid, even of the Count. He has succeeded after all, then, in his design in getting to London, and it was he I saw. He has got younger, and how? Van Helsing is the man to unmask him and hunt him out, if he is anything like what Mina says. We sat late, and talked it all over. Mina is dressing, and I shall call at the hotel in a few minutes and bring him over.... + +He was, I think, surprised to see me. When I came into the room where he was, and introduced myself, he took me by the shoulder, and turned my face round to the light, and said, after a sharp scrutiny:— + +“But Madam Mina told me you were ill, that you had had a shock.” It was so funny to hear my wife called “Madam Mina” by this kindly, strong-faced old man. I smiled, and said:— + +“I _was_ ill, I _have_ had a shock; but you have cured me already.” + +“And how?” + +“By your letter to Mina last night. I was in doubt, and then everything took a hue of unreality, and I did not know what to trust, even the evidence of my own senses. Not knowing what to trust, I did not know what to do; and so had only to keep on working in what had hitherto been the groove of my life. The groove ceased to avail me, and I mistrusted myself. Doctor, you don’t know what it is to doubt everything, even yourself. No, you don’t; you couldn’t with eyebrows like yours.” He seemed pleased, and laughed as he said:— + +“So! You are physiognomist. I learn more here with each hour. I am with so much pleasure coming to you to breakfast; and, oh, sir, you will pardon praise from an old man, but you are blessed in your wife.” I would listen to him go on praising Mina for a day, so I simply nodded and stood silent. + +“She is one of God’s women, fashioned by His own hand to show us men and other women that there is a heaven where we can enter, and that its light can be here on earth. So true, so sweet, so noble, so little an egoist—and that, let me tell you, is much in this age, so sceptical and selfish. And you, sir—I have read all the letters to poor Miss Lucy, and some of them speak of you, so I know you since some days from the knowing of others; but I have seen your true self since last night. You will give me your hand, will you not? And let us be friends for all our lives.” + +We shook hands, and he was so earnest and so kind that it made me quite choky. + +“And now,” he said, “may I ask you for some more help? I have a great task to do, and at the beginning it is to know. You can help me here. Can you tell me what went before your going to Transylvania? Later on I may ask more help, and of a different kind; but at first this will do.” + +“Look here, sir,” I said, “does what you have to do concern the Count?” + +“It does,” he said solemnly. + +“Then I am with you heart and soul. As you go by the 10:30 train, you will not have time to read them; but I shall get the bundle of papers. You can take them with you and read them in the train.” + +After breakfast I saw him to the station. When we were parting he said:— + +“Perhaps you will come to town if I send to you, and take Madam Mina too.” + +“We shall both come when you will,” I said. + +I had got him the morning papers and the London papers of the previous night, and while we were talking at the carriage window, waiting for the train to start, he was turning them over. His eyes suddenly seemed to catch something in one of them, “The Westminster Gazette”—I knew it by the colour—and he grew quite white. He read something intently, groaning to himself: “Mein Gott! Mein Gott! So soon! so soon!” I do not think he remembered me at the moment. Just then the whistle blew, and the train moved off. This recalled him to himself, and he leaned out of the window and waved his hand, calling out: “Love to Madam Mina; I shall write so soon as ever I can.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_26 September._ — Truly there is no such thing as finality. Not a week since I said “Finis,” and yet here I am starting fresh again, or rather going on with the same record. Until this afternoon I had no cause to think of what is done. Renfield had become, to all intents, as sane as he ever was. He was already well ahead with his fly business; and he had just started in the spider line also; so he had not been of any trouble to me. I had a letter from Arthur, written on Sunday, and from it I gather that he is bearing up wonderfully well. Quincey Morris is with him, and that is much of a help, for he himself is a bubbling well of good spirits. Quincey wrote me a line too, and from him I hear that Arthur is beginning to recover something of his old buoyancy; so as to them all my mind is at rest. As for myself, I was settling down to my work with the enthusiasm which I used to have for it, so that I might fairly have said that the wound which poor Lucy left on me was becoming cicatrised. Everything is, however, now reopened; and what is to be the end God only knows. I have an idea that Van Helsing thinks he knows, too, but he will only let out enough at a time to whet curiosity. He went to Exeter yesterday, and stayed there all night. To-day he came back, and almost bounded into the room at about half-past five o’clock, and thrust last night’s “Westminster Gazette” into my hand. + +“What do you think of that?” he asked as he stood back and folded his arms. + +I looked over the paper, for I really did not know what he meant; but he took it from me and pointed out a paragraph about children being decoyed away at Hampstead. It did not convey much to me, until I reached a passage where it described small punctured wounds on their throats. An idea struck me, and I looked up. “Well?” he said. + +“It is like poor Lucy’s.” + +“And what do you make of it?” + +“Simply that there is some cause in common. Whatever it was that injured her has injured them.” I did not quite understand his answer:— + +“That is true indirectly, but not directly.” + +“How do you mean, Professor?” I asked. I was a little inclined to take his seriousness lightly—for, after all, four days of rest and freedom from burning, harrowing anxiety does help to restore one’s spirits—but when I saw his face, it sobered me. Never, even in the midst of our despair about poor Lucy, had he looked more stern. + +“Tell me!” I said. “I can hazard no opinion. I do not know what to think, and I have no data on which to found a conjecture.” + +“Do you mean to tell me, friend John, that you have no suspicion as to what poor Lucy died of; not after all the hints given, not only by events, but by me?” + +“Of nervous prostration following on great loss or waste of blood.” + +“And how the blood lost or waste?” I shook my head. He stepped over and sat down beside me, and went on:— + +“You are clever man, friend John; you reason well, and your wit is bold; but you are too prejudiced. You do not let your eyes see nor your ears hear, and that which is outside your daily life is not of account to you. Do you not think that there are things which you cannot understand, and yet which are; that some people see things that others cannot? But there are things old and new which must not be contemplate by men’s eyes, because they know—or think they know—some things which other men have told them. Ah, it is the fault of our science that it wants to explain all; and if it explain not, then it says there is nothing to explain. But yet we see around us every day the growth of new beliefs, which think themselves new; and which are yet but the old, which pretend to be young—like the fine ladies at the opera. I suppose now you do not believe in corporeal transference. No? Nor in materialisation. No? Nor in astral bodies. No? Nor in the reading of thought. No? Nor in hypnotism—” + +“Yes,” I said. “Charcot has proved that pretty well.” He smiled as he went on: “Then you are satisfied as to it. Yes? And of course then you understand how it act, and can follow the mind of the great Charcot—alas that he is no more!—into the very soul of the patient that he influence. No? Then, friend John, am I to take it that you simply accept fact, and are satisfied to let from premise to conclusion be a blank? No? Then tell me—for I am student of the brain—how you accept the hypnotism and reject the thought reading. Let me tell you, my friend, that there are things done to-day in electrical science which would have been deemed unholy by the very men who discovered electricity—who would themselves not so long before have been burned as wizards. There are always mysteries in life. Why was it that Methuselah lived nine hundred years, and ‘Old Parr’ one hundred and sixty-nine, and yet that poor Lucy, with four men’s blood in her poor veins, could not live even one day? For, had she live one more day, we could have save her. Do you know all the mystery of life and death? Do you know the altogether of comparative anatomy and can say wherefore the qualities of brutes are in some men, and not in others? Can you tell me why, when other spiders die small and soon, that one great spider lived for centuries in the tower of the old Spanish church and grew and grew, till, on descending, he could drink the oil of all the church lamps? Can you tell me why in the Pampas, ay and elsewhere, there are bats that come at night and open the veins of cattle and horses and suck dry their veins; how in some islands of the Western seas there are bats which hang on the trees all day, and those who have seen describe as like giant nuts or pods, and that when the sailors sleep on the deck, because that it is hot, flit down on them, and then—and then in the morning are found dead men, white as even Miss Lucy was?” + +“Good God, Professor!” I said, starting up. “Do you mean to tell me that Lucy was bitten by such a bat; and that such a thing is here in London in the nineteenth century?” He waved his hand for silence, and went on:— + +“Can you tell me why the tortoise lives more long than generations of men; why the elephant goes on and on till he have seen dynasties; and why the parrot never die only of bite of cat or dog or other complaint? Can you tell me why men believe in all ages and places that there are some few who live on always if they be permit; that there are men and women who cannot die? We all know—because science has vouched for the fact—that there have been toads shut up in rocks for thousands of years, shut in one so small hole that only hold him since the youth of the world. Can you tell me how the Indian fakir can make himself to die and have been buried, and his grave sealed and corn sowed on it, and the corn reaped and be cut and sown and reaped and cut again, and then men come and take away the unbroken seal and that there lie the Indian fakir, not dead, but that rise up and walk amongst them as before?” Here I interrupted him. I was getting bewildered; he so crowded on my mind his list of nature’s eccentricities and possible impossibilities that my imagination was getting fired. I had a dim idea that he was teaching me some lesson, as long ago he used to do in his study at Amsterdam; but he used then to tell me the thing, so that I could have the object of thought in mind all the time. But now I was without this help, yet I wanted to follow him, so I said:— + +“Professor, let me be your pet student again. Tell me the thesis, so that I may apply your knowledge as you go on. At present I am going in my mind from point to point as a mad man, and not a sane one, follows an idea. I feel like a novice lumbering through a bog in a mist, jumping from one tussock to another in the mere blind effort to move on without knowing where I am going.” + +“That is good image,” he said. “Well, I shall tell you. My thesis is this: I want you to believe.” + +“To believe what?” + +“To believe in things that you cannot. Let me illustrate. I heard once of an American who so defined faith: ‘that faculty which enables us to believe things which we know to be untrue.’ For one, I follow that man. He meant that we shall have an open mind, and not let a little bit of truth check the rush of a big truth, like a small rock does a railway truck. We get the small truth first. Good! We keep him, and we value him; but all the same we must not let him think himself all the truth in the universe.” + +“Then you want me not to let some previous conviction injure the receptivity of my mind with regard to some strange matter. Do I read your lesson aright?” + +“Ah, you are my favourite pupil still. It is worth to teach you. Now that you are willing to understand, you have taken the first step to understand. You think then that those so small holes in the children’s throats were made by the same that made the hole in Miss Lucy?” + +“I suppose so.” He stood up and said solemnly:— + +“Then you are wrong. Oh, would it were so! but alas! no. It is worse, far, far worse.” + +“In God’s name, Professor Van Helsing, what do you mean?” I cried. + +He threw himself with a despairing gesture into a chair, and placed his elbows on the table, covering his face with his hands as he spoke:— + +“They were made by Miss Lucy!” + +== CHAPTER XV + +DR. SEWARD’S DIARY—_continued_. + +For a while sheer anger mastered me; it was as if he had during her life struck Lucy on the face. I smote the table hard and rose up as I said to him:— + +“Dr. Van Helsing, are you mad?” He raised his head and looked at me, and somehow the tenderness of his face calmed me at once. “Would I were!” he said. “Madness were easy to bear compared with truth like this. Oh, my friend, why, think you, did I go so far round, why take so long to tell you so simple a thing? Was it because I hate you and have hated you all my life? Was it because I wished to give you pain? Was it that I wanted, now so late, revenge for that time when you saved my life, and from a fearful death? Ah no!” + +“Forgive me,” said I. He went on:— + +“My friend, it was because I wished to be gentle in the breaking to you, for I know you have loved that so sweet lady. But even yet I do not expect you to believe. It is so hard to accept at once any abstract truth, that we may doubt such to be possible when we have always believed the ‘no’ of it; it is more hard still to accept so sad a concrete truth, and of such a one as Miss Lucy. To-night I go to prove it. Dare you come with me?” + +This staggered me. A man does not like to prove such a truth; Byron excepted from the category, jealousy. + +“And prove the very truth he most abhorred.” + +He saw my hesitation, and spoke:— + +“The logic is simple, no madman’s logic this time, jumping from tussock to tussock in a misty bog. If it be not true, then proof will be relief; at worst it will not harm. If it be true! Ah, there is the dread; yet very dread should help my cause, for in it is some need of belief. Come, I tell you what I propose: first, that we go off now and see that child in the hospital. Dr. Vincent, of the North Hospital, where the papers say the child is, is friend of mine, and I think of yours since you were in class at Amsterdam. He will let two scientists see his case, if he will not let two friends. We shall tell him nothing, but only that we wish to learn. And then—” + +“And then?” He took a key from his pocket and held it up. “And then we spend the night, you and I, in the churchyard where Lucy lies. This is the key that lock the tomb. I had it from the coffin-man to give to Arthur.” My heart sank within me, for I felt that there was some fearful ordeal before us. I could do nothing, however, so I plucked up what heart I could and said that we had better hasten, as the afternoon was passing.... + +We found the child awake. It had had a sleep and taken some food, and altogether was going on well. Dr. Vincent took the bandage from its throat, and showed us the punctures. There was no mistaking the similarity to those which had been on Lucy’s throat. They were smaller, and the edges looked fresher; that was all. We asked Vincent to what he attributed them, and he replied that it must have been a bite of some animal, perhaps a rat; but, for his own part, he was inclined to think that it was one of the bats which are so numerous on the northern heights of London. “Out of so many harmless ones,” he said, “there may be some wild specimen from the South of a more malignant species. Some sailor may have brought one home, and it managed to escape; or even from the Zoölogical Gardens a young one may have got loose, or one be bred there from a vampire. These things do occur, you know. Only ten days ago a wolf got out, and was, I believe, traced up in this direction. For a week after, the children were playing nothing but Red Riding Hood on the Heath and in every alley in the place until this ‘bloofer lady’ scare came along, since when it has been quite a gala-time with them. Even this poor little mite, when he woke up to-day, asked the nurse if he might go away. When she asked him why he wanted to go, he said he wanted to play with the ‘bloofer lady.’” + +“I hope,” said Van Helsing, “that when you are sending the child home you will caution its parents to keep strict watch over it. These fancies to stray are most dangerous; and if the child were to remain out another night, it would probably be fatal. But in any case I suppose you will not let it away for some days?” + +“Certainly not, not for a week at least; longer if the wound is not healed.” + +Our visit to the hospital took more time than we had reckoned on, and the sun had dipped before we came out. When Van Helsing saw how dark it was, he said:— + +“There is no hurry. It is more late than I thought. Come, let us seek somewhere that we may eat, and then we shall go on our way.” + +We dined at “Jack Straw’s Castle” along with a little crowd of bicyclists and others who were genially noisy. About ten o’clock we started from the inn. It was then very dark, and the scattered lamps made the darkness greater when we were once outside their individual radius. The Professor had evidently noted the road we were to go, for he went on unhesitatingly; but, as for me, I was in quite a mixup as to locality. As we went further, we met fewer and fewer people, till at last we were somewhat surprised when we met even the patrol of horse police going their usual suburban round. At last we reached the wall of the churchyard, which we climbed over. With some little difficulty—for it was very dark, and the whole place seemed so strange to us—we found the Westenra tomb. The Professor took the key, opened the creaky door, and standing back, politely, but quite unconsciously, motioned me to precede him. There was a delicious irony in the offer, in the courtliness of giving preference on such a ghastly occasion. My companion followed me quickly, and cautiously drew the door to, after carefully ascertaining that the lock was a falling, and not a spring, one. In the latter case we should have been in a bad plight. Then he fumbled in his bag, and taking out a matchbox and a piece of candle, proceeded to make a light. The tomb in the day-time, and when wreathed with fresh flowers, had looked grim and gruesome enough; but now, some days afterwards, when the flowers hung lank and dead, their whites turning to rust and their greens to browns; when the spider and the beetle had resumed their accustomed dominance; when time-discoloured stone, and dust-encrusted mortar, and rusty, dank iron, and tarnished brass, and clouded silver-plating gave back the feeble glimmer of a candle, the effect was more miserable and sordid than could have been imagined. It conveyed irresistibly the idea that life—animal life—was not the only thing which could pass away. + +Van Helsing went about his work systematically. Holding his candle so that he could read the coffin plates, and so holding it that the sperm dropped in white patches which congealed as they touched the metal, he made assurance of Lucy’s coffin. Another search in his bag, and he took out a turnscrew. + +“What are you going to do?” I asked. + +“To open the coffin. You shall yet be convinced.” Straightway he began taking out the screws, and finally lifted off the lid, showing the casing of lead beneath. The sight was almost too much for me. It seemed to be as much an affront to the dead as it would have been to have stripped off her clothing in her sleep whilst living; I actually took hold of his hand to stop him. He only said: “You shall see,” and again fumbling in his bag, took out a tiny fret-saw. Striking the turnscrew through the lead with a swift downward stab, which made me wince, he made a small hole, which was, however, big enough to admit the point of the saw. I had expected a rush of gas from the week-old corpse. We doctors, who have had to study our dangers, have to become accustomed to such things, and I drew back towards the door. But the Professor never stopped for a moment; he sawed down a couple of feet along one side of the lead coffin, and then across, and down the other side. Taking the edge of the loose flange, he bent it back towards the foot of the coffin, and holding up the candle into the aperture, motioned to me to look. + +I drew near and looked. The coffin was empty. + +It was certainly a surprise to me, and gave me a considerable shock, but Van Helsing was unmoved. He was now more sure than ever of his ground, and so emboldened to proceed in his task. “Are you satisfied now, friend John?” he asked. + +I felt all the dogged argumentativeness of my nature awake within me as I answered him:— + +“I am satisfied that Lucy’s body is not in that coffin; but that only proves one thing.” + +“And what is that, friend John?” + +“That it is not there.” + +“That is good logic,” he said, “so far as it goes. But how do you—how can you—account for it not being there?” + +“Perhaps a body-snatcher,” I suggested. “Some of the undertaker’s people may have stolen it.” I felt that I was speaking folly, and yet it was the only real cause which I could suggest. The Professor sighed. “Ah well!” he said, “we must have more proof. Come with me.” + +He put on the coffin-lid again, gathered up all his things and placed them in the bag, blew out the light, and placed the candle also in the bag. We opened the door, and went out. Behind us he closed the door and locked it. He handed me the key, saying: “Will you keep it? You had better be assured.” I laughed—it was not a very cheerful laugh, I am bound to say—as I motioned him to keep it. “A key is nothing,” I said; “there may be duplicates; and anyhow it is not difficult to pick a lock of that kind.” He said nothing, but put the key in his pocket. Then he told me to watch at one side of the churchyard whilst he would watch at the other. I took up my place behind a yew-tree, and I saw his dark figure move until the intervening headstones and trees hid it from my sight. + +It was a lonely vigil. Just after I had taken my place I heard a distant clock strike twelve, and in time came one and two. I was chilled and unnerved, and angry with the Professor for taking me on such an errand and with myself for coming. I was too cold and too sleepy to be keenly observant, and not sleepy enough to betray my trust so altogether I had a dreary, miserable time. + +Suddenly, as I turned round, I thought I saw something like a white streak, moving between two dark yew-trees at the side of the churchyard farthest from the tomb; at the same time a dark mass moved from the Professor’s side of the ground, and hurriedly went towards it. Then I too moved; but I had to go round headstones and railed-off tombs, and I stumbled over graves. The sky was overcast, and somewhere far off an early cock crew. A little way off, beyond a line of scattered juniper-trees, which marked the pathway to the church, a white, dim figure flitted in the direction of the tomb. The tomb itself was hidden by trees, and I could not see where the figure disappeared. I heard the rustle of actual movement where I had first seen the white figure, and coming over, found the Professor holding in his arms a tiny child. When he saw me he held it out to me, and said:— + +“Are you satisfied now?” + +“No,” I said, in a way that I felt was aggressive. + +“Do you not see the child?” + +“Yes, it is a child, but who brought it here? And is it wounded?” I asked. + +“We shall see,” said the Professor, and with one impulse we took our way out of the churchyard, he carrying the sleeping child. + +When we had got some little distance away, we went into a clump of trees, and struck a match, and looked at the child’s throat. It was without a scratch or scar of any kind. + +“Was I right?” I asked triumphantly. + +“We were just in time,” said the Professor thankfully. + +We had now to decide what we were to do with the child, and so consulted about it. If we were to take it to a police-station we should have to give some account of our movements during the night; at least, we should have had to make some statement as to how we had come to find the child. So finally we decided that we would take it to the Heath, and when we heard a policeman coming, would leave it where he could not fail to find it; we would then seek our way home as quickly as we could. All fell out well. At the edge of Hampstead Heath we heard a policeman’s heavy tramp, and laying the child on the pathway, we waited and watched until he saw it as he flashed his lantern to and fro. We heard his exclamation of astonishment, and then we went away silently. By good chance we got a cab near the “Spaniards,” and drove to town. + +I cannot sleep, so I make this entry. But I must try to get a few hours’ sleep, as Van Helsing is to call for me at noon. He insists that I shall go with him on another expedition. + +_27 September._ — It was two o’clock before we found a suitable opportunity for our attempt. The funeral held at noon was all completed, and the last stragglers of the mourners had taken themselves lazily away, when, looking carefully from behind a clump of alder-trees, we saw the sexton lock the gate after him. We knew then that we were safe till morning did we desire it; but the Professor told me that we should not want more than an hour at most. Again I felt that horrid sense of the reality of things, in which any effort of imagination seemed out of place; and I realised distinctly the perils of the law which we were incurring in our unhallowed work. Besides, I felt it was all so useless. Outrageous as it was to open a leaden coffin, to see if a woman dead nearly a week were really dead, it now seemed the height of folly to open the tomb again, when we knew, from the evidence of our own eyesight, that the coffin was empty. I shrugged my shoulders, however, and rested silent, for Van Helsing had a way of going on his own road, no matter who remonstrated. He took the key, opened the vault, and again courteously motioned me to precede. The place was not so gruesome as last night, but oh, how unutterably mean-looking when the sunshine streamed in. Van Helsing walked over to Lucy’s coffin, and I followed. He bent over and again forced back the leaden flange; and then a shock of surprise and dismay shot through me. + +There lay Lucy, seemingly just as we had seen her the night before her funeral. She was, if possible, more radiantly beautiful than ever; and I could not believe that she was dead. The lips were red, nay redder than before; and on the cheeks was a delicate bloom. + +“Is this a juggle?” I said to him. + +“Are you convinced now?” said the Professor in response, and as he spoke he put over his hand, and in a way that made me shudder, pulled back the dead lips and showed the white teeth. + +“See,” he went on, “see, they are even sharper than before. With this and this”—and he touched one of the canine teeth and that below it—“the little children can be bitten. Are you of belief now, friend John?” Once more, argumentative hostility woke within me. I _could_ not accept such an overwhelming idea as he suggested; so, with an attempt to argue of which I was even at the moment ashamed, I said:— + +“She may have been placed here since last night.” + +“Indeed? That is so, and by whom?” + +“I do not know. Some one has done it.” + +“And yet she has been dead one week. Most peoples in that time would not look so.” I had no answer for this, so was silent. Van Helsing did not seem to notice my silence; at any rate, he showed neither chagrin nor triumph. He was looking intently at the face of the dead woman, raising the eyelids and looking at the eyes, and once more opening the lips and examining the teeth. Then he turned to me and said:— + +“Here, there is one thing which is different from all recorded; here is some dual life that is not as the common. She was bitten by the vampire when she was in a trance, sleep-walking—oh, you start; you do not know that, friend John, but you shall know it all later—and in trance could he best come to take more blood. In trance she died, and in trance she is Un-Dead, too. So it is that she differ from all other. Usually when the Un-Dead sleep at home”—as he spoke he made a comprehensive sweep of his arm to designate what to a vampire was “home”—“their face show what they are, but this so sweet that was when she not Un-Dead she go back to the nothings of the common dead. There is no malign there, see, and so it make hard that I must kill her in her sleep.” This turned my blood cold, and it began to dawn upon me that I was accepting Van Helsing’s theories; but if she were really dead, what was there of terror in the idea of killing her? He looked up at me, and evidently saw the change in my face, for he said almost joyously:— + +“Ah, you believe now?” + +I answered: “Do not press me too hard all at once. I am willing to accept. How will you do this bloody work?” + +“I shall cut off her head and fill her mouth with garlic, and I shall drive a stake through her body.” It made me shudder to think of so mutilating the body of the woman whom I had loved. And yet the feeling was not so strong as I had expected. I was, in fact, beginning to shudder at the presence of this being, this Un-Dead, as Van Helsing called it, and to loathe it. Is it possible that love is all subjective, or all objective + +?I waited a considerable time for Van Helsing to begin, but he stood as if wrapped in thought. Presently he closed the catch of his bag with a snap, and said:— + +“I have been thinking, and have made up my mind as to what is best. If I did simply follow my inclining I would do now, at this moment, what is to be done; but there are other things to follow, and things that are thousand times more difficult in that them we do not know. This is simple. She have yet no life taken, though that is of time; and to act now would be to take danger from her for ever. But then we may have to want Arthur, and how shall we tell him of this? If you, who saw the wounds on Lucy’s throat, and saw the wounds so similar on the child’s at the hospital; if you, who saw the coffin empty last night and full to-day with a woman who have not change only to be more rose and more beautiful in a whole week, after she die—if you know of this and know of the white figure last night that brought the child to the churchyard, and yet of your own senses you did not believe, how, then, can I expect Arthur, who know none of those things, to believe? He doubted me when I took him from her kiss when she was dying. I know he has forgiven me because in some mistaken idea I have done things that prevent him say good-bye as he ought; and he may think that in some more mistaken idea this woman was buried alive; and that in most mistake of all we have killed her. He will then argue back that it is we, mistaken ones, that have killed her by our ideas; and so he will be much unhappy always. Yet he never can be sure; and that is the worst of all. And he will sometimes think that she he loved was buried alive, and that will paint his dreams with horrors of what she must have suffered; and again, he will think that we may be right, and that his so beloved was, after all, an Un-Dead. No! I told him once, and since then I learn much. Now, since I know it is all true, a hundred thousand times more do I know that he must pass through the bitter waters to reach the sweet. He, poor fellow, must have one hour that will make the very face of heaven grow black to him; then we can act for good all round and send him peace. My mind is made up. Let us go. You return home for to-night to your asylum, and see that all be well. As for me, I shall spend the night here in this churchyard in my own way. To-morrow night you will come to me to the Berkeley Hotel at ten of the clock. I shall send for Arthur to come too, and also that so fine young man of America that gave his blood. Later we shall all have work to do. I come with you so far as Piccadilly and there dine, for I must be back here before the sun set.” + +So we locked the tomb and came away, and got over the wall of the churchyard, which was not much of a task, and drove back to Piccadilly. + +_Note left by Van Helsing in his portmanteau, Berkeley Hotel directed to John Seward, M. D._ + +(Not delivered.) + +“_27 September._ + +“Friend John,— + +“I write this in case anything should happen. I go alone to watch in that churchyard. It pleases me that the Un-Dead, Miss Lucy, shall not leave to-night, that so on the morrow night she may be more eager. Therefore I shall fix some things she like not—garlic and a crucifix—and so seal up the door of the tomb. She is young as Un-Dead, and will heed. Moreover, these are only to prevent her coming out; they may not prevail on her wanting to get in; for then the Un-Dead is desperate, and must find the line of least resistance, whatsoever it may be. I shall be at hand all the night from sunset till after the sunrise, and if there be aught that may be learned I shall learn it. For Miss Lucy or from her, I have no fear; but that other to whom is there that she is Un-Dead, he have now the power to seek her tomb and find shelter. He is cunning, as I know from Mr. Jonathan and from the way that all along he have fooled us when he played with us for Miss Lucy’s life, and we lost; and in many ways the Un-Dead are strong. He have always the strength in his hand of twenty men; even we four who gave our strength to Miss Lucy it also is all to him. Besides, he can summon his wolf and I know not what. So if it be that he come thither on this night he shall find me; but none other shall—until it be too late. But it may be that he will not attempt the place. There is no reason why he should; his hunting ground is more full of game than the churchyard where the Un-Dead woman sleep, and the one old man watch. + +“Therefore I write this in case.... Take the papers that are with this, the diaries of Harker and the rest, and read them, and then find this great Un-Dead, and cut off his head and burn his heart or drive a stake through it, so that the world may rest from him. + +“If it be so, farewell. + +“VAN HELSING.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_28 September._ — It is wonderful what a good night’s sleep will do for one. Yesterday I was almost willing to accept Van Helsing’s monstrous ideas; but now they seem to start out lurid before me as outrages on common sense. I have no doubt that he believes it all. I wonder if his mind can have become in any way unhinged. Surely there must be _some_ rational explanation of all these mysterious things. Is it possible that the Professor can have done it himself? He is so abnormally clever that if he went off his head he would carry out his intent with regard to some fixed idea in a wonderful way. I am loath to think it, and indeed it would be almost as great a marvel as the other to find that Van Helsing was mad; but anyhow I shall watch him carefully. I may get some light on the mystery. + +_29 September, morning._.... Last night, at a little before ten o’clock, Arthur and Quincey came into Van Helsing’s room; he told us all that he wanted us to do, but especially addressing himself to Arthur, as if all our wills were centred in his. He began by saying that he hoped we would all come with him too, “for,” he said, “there is a grave duty to be done there. You were doubtless surprised at my letter?” This query was directly addressed to Lord Godalming. + +“I was. It rather upset me for a bit. There has been so much trouble around my house of late that I could do without any more. I have been curious, too, as to what you mean. Quincey and I talked it over; but the more we talked, the more puzzled we got, till now I can say for myself that I’m about up a tree as to any meaning about anything.” + +“Me too,” said Quincey Morris laconically. + +“Oh,” said the Professor, “then you are nearer the beginning, both of you, than friend John here, who has to go a long way back before he can even get so far as to begin.” + +It was evident that he recognised my return to my old doubting frame of mind without my saying a word. Then, turning to the other two, he said with intense gravity:— + +“I want your permission to do what I think good this night. It is, I know, much to ask; and when you know what it is I propose to do you will know, and only then, how much. Therefore may I ask that you promise me in the dark, so that afterwards, though you may be angry with me for a time—I must not disguise from myself the possibility that such may be—you shall not blame yourselves for anything.” + +“That’s frank anyhow,” broke in Quincey. “I’ll answer for the Professor. I don’t quite see his drift, but I swear he’s honest; and that’s good enough for me.” + +“I thank you, sir,” said Van Helsing proudly. “I have done myself the honour of counting you one trusting friend, and such endorsement is dear to me.” He held out a hand, which Quincey took. + +Then Arthur spoke out:— + +“Dr. Van Helsing, I don’t quite like to ‘buy a pig in a poke,’ as they say in Scotland, and if it be anything in which my honour as a gentleman or my faith as a Christian is concerned, I cannot make such a promise. If you can assure me that what you intend does not violate either of these two, then I give my consent at once; though for the life of me, I cannot understand what you are driving at.” + +“I accept your limitation,” said Van Helsing, “and all I ask of you is that if you feel it necessary to condemn any act of mine, you will first consider it well and be satisfied that it does not violate your reservations.” + +“Agreed!” said Arthur; “that is only fair. And now that the _pourparlers_ are over, may I ask what it is we are to do?” + +“I want you to come with me, and to come in secret, to the churchyard at Kingstead.” + +Arthur’s face fell as he said in an amazed sort of way:— + +“Where poor Lucy is buried?” The Professor bowed. Arthur went on: “And when there?” + +“To enter the tomb!” Arthur stood up. + +“Professor, are you in earnest; or it is some monstrous joke? Pardon me, I see that you are in earnest.” He sat down again, but I could see that he sat firmly and proudly, as one who is on his dignity. There was silence until he asked again:— + +“And when in the tomb?” + +“To open the coffin.” + +“This is too much!” he said, angrily rising again. “I am willing to be patient in all things that are reasonable; but in this—this desecration of the grave—of one who—” He fairly choked with indignation. The Professor looked pityingly at him. + +“If I could spare you one pang, my poor friend,” he said, “God knows I would. But this night our feet must tread in thorny paths; or later, and for ever, the feet you love must walk in paths of flame!” + +Arthur looked up with set white face and said:— + +“Take care, sir, take care!” + +“Would it not be well to hear what I have to say?” said Van Helsing. “And then you will at least know the limit of my purpose. Shall I go on?” + +“That’s fair enough,” broke in Morris. + +After a pause Van Helsing went on, evidently with an effort:— + +“Miss Lucy is dead; is it not so? Yes! Then there can be no wrong to her. But if she be not dead—” + +Arthur jumped to his feet. + +“Good God!” he cried. “What do you mean? Has there been any mistake; has she been buried alive?” He groaned in anguish that not even hope could soften. + +“I did not say she was alive, my child; I did not think it. I go no further than to say that she might be Un-Dead.” + +“Un-Dead! Not alive! What do you mean? Is this all a nightmare, or what is it?” + +“There are mysteries which men can only guess at, which age by age they may solve only in part. Believe me, we are now on the verge of one. But I have not done. May I cut off the head of dead Miss Lucy?” + +“Heavens and earth, no!” cried Arthur in a storm of passion. “Not for the wide world will I consent to any mutilation of her dead body. Dr. Van Helsing, you try me too far. What have I done to you that you should torture me so? What did that poor, sweet girl do that you should want to cast such dishonour on her grave? Are you mad to speak such things, or am I mad to listen to them? Don’t dare to think more of such a desecration; I shall not give my consent to anything you do. I have a duty to do in protecting her grave from outrage; and, by God, I shall do it!” + +Van Helsing rose up from where he had all the time been seated, and said, gravely and sternly:— + +“My Lord Godalming, I, too, have a duty to do, a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead; and, by God, I shall do it! All I ask you now is that you come with me, that you look and listen; and if when later I make the same request you do not be more eager for its fulfilment even than I am, then—then I shall do my duty, whatever it may seem to me. And then, to follow of your Lordship’s wishes I shall hold myself at your disposal to render an account to you, when and where you will.” His voice broke a little, and he went on with a voice full of pity:— + +“But, I beseech you, do not go forth in anger with me. In a long life of acts which were often not pleasant to do, and which sometimes did wring my heart, I have never had so heavy a task as now. Believe me that if the time comes for you to change your mind towards me, one look from you will wipe away all this so sad hour, for I would do what a man can to save you from sorrow. Just think. For why should I give myself so much of labour and so much of sorrow? I have come here from my own land to do what I can of good; at the first to please my friend John, and then to help a sweet young lady, whom, too, I came to love. For her—I am ashamed to say so much, but I say it in kindness—I gave what you gave; the blood of my veins; I gave it, I, who was not, like you, her lover, but only her physician and her friend. I gave to her my nights and days—before death, after death; and if my death can do her good even now, when she is the dead Un-Dead, she shall have it freely.” He said this with a very grave, sweet pride, and Arthur was much affected by it. He took the old man’s hand and said in a broken voice:— + +“Oh, it is hard to think of it, and I cannot understand; but at least I shall go with you and wait.” + +== CHAPTER XVI + +DR. SEWARD’S DIARY—_continued_ + +It was just a quarter before twelve o’clock when we got into the churchyard over the low wall. The night was dark with occasional gleams of moonlight between the rents of the heavy clouds that scudded across the sky. We all kept somehow close together, with Van Helsing slightly in front as he led the way. When we had come close to the tomb I looked well at Arthur, for I feared that the proximity to a place laden with so sorrowful a memory would upset him; but he bore himself well. I took it that the very mystery of the proceeding was in some way a counteractant to his grief. The Professor unlocked the door, and seeing a natural hesitation amongst us for various reasons, solved the difficulty by entering first himself. The rest of us followed, and he closed the door. He then lit a dark lantern and pointed to the coffin. Arthur stepped forward hesitatingly; Van Helsing said to me:— + +“You were with me here yesterday. Was the body of Miss Lucy in that coffin?” + +“It was.” The Professor turned to the rest saying:— + +“You hear; and yet there is no one who does not believe with me.” He took his screwdriver and again took off the lid of the coffin. Arthur looked on, very pale but silent; when the lid was removed he stepped forward. He evidently did not know that there was a leaden coffin, or, at any rate, had not thought of it. When he saw the rent in the lead, the blood rushed to his face for an instant, but as quickly fell away again, so that he remained of a ghastly whiteness; he was still silent. Van Helsing forced back the leaden flange, and we all looked in and recoiled. + +The coffin was empty! + +For several minutes no one spoke a word. The silence was broken by Quincey Morris:— + +“Professor, I answered for you. Your word is all I want. I wouldn’t ask such a thing ordinarily—I wouldn’t so dishonour you as to imply a doubt; but this is a mystery that goes beyond any honour or dishonour. Is this your doing?” + +“I swear to you by all that I hold sacred that I have not removed nor touched her. What happened was this: Two nights ago my friend Seward and I came here—with good purpose, believe me. I opened that coffin, which was then sealed up, and we found it, as now, empty. We then waited, and saw something white come through the trees. The next day we came here in day-time, and she lay there. Did she not, friend John?” + +“Yes.” + +“That night we were just in time. One more so small child was missing, and we find it, thank God, unharmed amongst the graves. Yesterday I came here before sundown, for at sundown the Un-Dead can move. I waited here all the night till the sun rose, but I saw nothing. It was most probable that it was because I had laid over the clamps of those doors garlic, which the Un-Dead cannot bear, and other things which they shun. Last night there was no exodus, so to-night before the sundown I took away my garlic and other things. And so it is we find this coffin empty. But bear with me. So far there is much that is strange. Wait you with me outside, unseen and unheard, and things much stranger are yet to be. So”—here he shut the dark slide of his lantern—“now to the outside.” He opened the door, and we filed out, he coming last and locking the door behind him. + +Oh! but it seemed fresh and pure in the night air after the terror of that vault. How sweet it was to see the clouds race by, and the passing gleams of the moonlight between the scudding clouds crossing and passing—like the gladness and sorrow of a man’s life; how sweet it was to breathe the fresh air, that had no taint of death and decay; how humanising to see the red lighting of the sky beyond the hill, and to hear far away the muffled roar that marks the life of a great city. Each in his own way was solemn and overcome. Arthur was silent, and was, I could see, striving to grasp the purpose and the inner meaning of the mystery. I was myself tolerably patient, and half inclined again to throw aside doubt and to accept Van Helsing’s conclusions. Quincey Morris was phlegmatic in the way of a man who accepts all things, and accepts them in the spirit of cool bravery, with hazard of all he has to stake. Not being able to smoke, he cut himself a good-sized plug of tobacco and began to chew. As to Van Helsing, he was employed in a definite way. First he took from his bag a mass of what looked like thin, wafer-like biscuit, which was carefully rolled up in a white napkin; next he took out a double-handful of some whitish stuff, like dough or putty. He crumbled the wafer up fine and worked it into the mass between his hands. This he then took, and rolling it into thin strips, began to lay them into the crevices between the door and its setting in the tomb. I was somewhat puzzled at this, and being close, asked him what it was that he was doing. Arthur and Quincey drew near also, as they too were curious. He answered:— + +“I am closing the tomb, so that the Un-Dead may not enter.” + +“And is that stuff you have put there going to do it?” asked Quincey. “Great Scott! Is this a game?” + +“It is.” + +“What is that which you are using?” This time the question was by Arthur. Van Helsing reverently lifted his hat as he answered:— + +“The Host. I brought it from Amsterdam. I have an Indulgence.” It was an answer that appalled the most sceptical of us, and we felt individually that in the presence of such earnest purpose as the Professor’s, a purpose which could thus use the to him most sacred of things, it was impossible to distrust. In respectful silence we took the places assigned to us close round the tomb, but hidden from the sight of any one approaching. I pitied the others, especially Arthur. I had myself been apprenticed by my former visits to this watching horror; and yet I, who had up to an hour ago repudiated the proofs, felt my heart sink within me. Never did tombs look so ghastly white; never did cypress, or yew, or juniper so seem the embodiment of funereal gloom; never did tree or grass wave or rustle so ominously; never did bough creak so mysteriously; and never did the far-away howling of dogs send such a woeful presage through the night. + +There was a long spell of silence, a big, aching void, and then from the Professor a keen “S-s-s-s!” He pointed; and far down the avenue of yews we saw a white figure advance—a dim white figure, which held something dark at its breast. The figure stopped, and at the moment a ray of moonlight fell upon the masses of driving clouds and showed in startling prominence a dark-haired woman, dressed in the cerements of the grave. We could not see the face, for it was bent down over what we saw to be a fair-haired child. There was a pause and a sharp little cry, such as a child gives in sleep, or a dog as it lies before the fire and dreams. We were starting forward, but the Professor’s warning hand, seen by us as he stood behind a yew-tree, kept us back; and then as we looked the white figure moved forwards again. It was now near enough for us to see clearly, and the moonlight still held. My own heart grew cold as ice, and I could hear the gasp of Arthur, as we recognised the features of Lucy Westenra. Lucy Westenra, but yet how changed. The sweetness was turned to adamantine, heartless cruelty, and the purity to voluptuous wantonness. Van Helsing stepped out, and, obedient to his gesture, we all advanced too; the four of us ranged in a line before the door of the tomb. Van Helsing raised his lantern and drew the slide; by the concentrated light that fell on Lucy’s face we could see that the lips were crimson with fresh blood, and that the stream had trickled over her chin and stained the purity of her lawn death-robe. + +We shuddered with horror. I could see by the tremulous light that even Van Helsing’s iron nerve had failed. Arthur was next to me, and if I had not seized his arm and held him up, he would have fallen. + +When Lucy—I call the thing that was before us Lucy because it bore her shape—saw us she drew back with an angry snarl, such as a cat gives when taken unawares; then her eyes ranged over us. Lucy’s eyes in form and colour; but Lucy’s eyes unclean and full of hell-fire, instead of the pure, gentle orbs we knew. At that moment the remnant of my love passed into hate and loathing; had she then to be killed, I could have done it with savage delight. As she looked, her eyes blazed with unholy light, and the face became wreathed with a voluptuous smile. Oh, God, how it made me shudder to see it! With a careless motion, she flung to the ground, callous as a devil, the child that up to now she had clutched strenuously to her breast, growling over it as a dog growls over a bone. The child gave a sharp cry, and lay there moaning. There was a cold-bloodedness in the act which wrung a groan from Arthur; when she advanced to him with outstretched arms and a wanton smile he fell back and hid his face in his hands. + +She still advanced, however, and with a languorous, voluptuous grace, said:— + +“Come to me, Arthur. Leave these others and come to me. My arms are hungry for you. Come, and we can rest together. Come, my husband, come!” + +There was something diabolically sweet in her tones—something of the tingling of glass when struck—which rang through the brains even of us who heard the words addressed to another. As for Arthur, he seemed under a spell; moving his hands from his face, he opened wide his arms. She was leaping for them, when Van Helsing sprang forward and held between them his little golden crucifix. She recoiled from it, and, with a suddenly distorted face, full of rage, dashed past him as if to enter the tomb. + +When within a foot or two of the door, however, she stopped, as if arrested by some irresistible force. Then she turned, and her face was shown in the clear burst of moonlight and by the lamp, which had now no quiver from Van Helsing’s iron nerves. Never did I see such baffled malice on a face; and never, I trust, shall such ever be seen again by mortal eyes. The beautiful colour became livid, the eyes seemed to throw out sparks of hell-fire, the brows were wrinkled as though the folds of the flesh were the coils of Medusa’s snakes, and the lovely, blood-stained mouth grew to an open square, as in the passion masks of the Greeks and Japanese. If ever a face meant death—if looks could kill—we saw it at that moment. + +And so for full half a minute, which seemed an eternity, she remained between the lifted crucifix and the sacred closing of her means of entry. Van Helsing broke the silence by asking Arthur:— + +“Answer me, oh my friend! Am I to proceed in my work?” + +Arthur threw himself on his knees, and hid his face in his hands, as he answered:— + +“Do as you will, friend; do as you will. There can be no horror like this ever any more;” and he groaned in spirit. Quincey and I simultaneously moved towards him, and took his arms. We could hear the click of the closing lantern as Van Helsing held it down; coming close to the tomb, he began to remove from the chinks some of the sacred emblem which he had placed there. We all looked on in horrified amazement as we saw, when he stood back, the woman, with a corporeal body as real at that moment as our own, pass in through the interstice where scarce a knife-blade could have gone. We all felt a glad sense of relief when we saw the Professor calmly restoring the strings of putty to the edges of the door. + +When this was done, he lifted the child and said: + +“Come now, my friends; we can do no more till to-morrow. There is a funeral at noon, so here we shall all come before long after that. The friends of the dead will all be gone by two, and when the sexton lock the gate we shall remain. Then there is more to do; but not like this of to-night. As for this little one, he is not much harm, and by to-morrow night he shall be well. We shall leave him where the police will find him, as on the other night; and then to home.” Coming close to Arthur, he said:— + +“My friend Arthur, you have had a sore trial; but after, when you look back, you will see how it was necessary. You are now in the bitter waters, my child. By this time to-morrow you will, please God, have passed them, and have drunk of the sweet waters; so do not mourn overmuch. Till then I shall not ask you to forgive me.” + +Arthur and Quincey came home with me, and we tried to cheer each other on the way. We had left the child in safety, and were tired; so we all slept with more or less reality of sleep. + +_29 September, night._ — A little before twelve o’clock we three—Arthur, Quincey Morris, and myself—called for the Professor. It was odd to notice that by common consent we had all put on black clothes. Of course, Arthur wore black, for he was in deep mourning, but the rest of us wore it by instinct. We got to the churchyard by half-past one, and strolled about, keeping out of official observation, so that when the gravediggers had completed their task and the sexton under the belief that every one had gone, had locked the gate, we had the place all to ourselves. Van Helsing, instead of his little black bag, had with him a long leather one, something like a cricketing bag; it was manifestly of fair weight. + +When we were alone and had heard the last of the footsteps die out up the road, we silently, and as if by ordered intention, followed the Professor to the tomb. He unlocked the door, and we entered, closing it behind us. Then he took from his bag the lantern, which he lit, and also two wax candles, which, when lighted, he stuck, by melting their own ends, on other coffins, so that they might give light sufficient to work by. When he again lifted the lid off Lucy’s coffin we all looked—Arthur trembling like an aspen—and saw that the body lay there in all its death-beauty. But there was no love in my own heart, nothing but loathing for the foul Thing which had taken Lucy’s shape without her soul. I could see even Arthur’s face grow hard as he looked. Presently he said to Van Helsing:— + +“Is this really Lucy’s body, or only a demon in her shape?” + +“It is her body, and yet not it. But wait a while, and you all see her as she was, and is.” + +She seemed like a nightmare of Lucy as she lay there; the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth—which it made one shudder to see—the whole carnal and unspiritual appearance, seeming like a devilish mockery of Lucy’s sweet purity. Van Helsing, with his usual methodicalness, began taking the various contents from his bag and placing them ready for use. First he took out a soldering iron and some plumbing solder, and then a small oil-lamp, which gave out, when lit in a corner of the tomb, gas which burned at fierce heat with a blue flame; then his operating knives, which he placed to hand; and last a round wooden stake, some two and a half or three inches thick and about three feet long. One end of it was hardened by charring in the fire, and was sharpened to a fine point. With this stake came a heavy hammer, such as in households is used in the coal-cellar for breaking the lumps. To me, a doctor’s preparations for work of any kind are stimulating and bracing, but the effect of these things on both Arthur and Quincey was to cause them a sort of consternation. They both, however, kept their courage, and remained silent and quiet. + +When all was ready, Van Helsing said:— + +“Before we do anything, let me tell you this; it is out of the lore and experience of the ancients and of all those who have studied the powers of the Un-Dead. When they become such, there comes with the change the curse of immortality; they cannot die, but must go on age after age adding new victims and multiplying the evils of the world; for all that die from the preying of the Un-Dead becomes themselves Un-Dead, and prey on their kind. And so the circle goes on ever widening, like as the ripples from a stone thrown in the water. Friend Arthur, if you had met that kiss which you know of before poor Lucy die; or again, last night when you open your arms to her, you would in time, when you had died, have become _nosferatu_, as they call it in Eastern Europe, and would all time make more of those Un-Deads that so have fill us with horror. The career of this so unhappy dear lady is but just begun. Those children whose blood she suck are not as yet so much the worse; but if she live on, Un-Dead, more and more they lose their blood and by her power over them they come to her; and so she draw their blood with that so wicked mouth. But if she die in truth, then all cease; the tiny wounds of the throats disappear, and they go back to their plays unknowing ever of what has been. But of the most blessed of all, when this now Un-Dead be made to rest as true dead, then the soul of the poor lady whom we love shall again be free. Instead of working wickedness by night and growing more debased in the assimilating of it by day, she shall take her place with the other Angels. So that, my friend, it will be a blessed hand for her that shall strike the blow that sets her free. To this I am willing; but is there none amongst us who has a better right? Will it be no joy to think of hereafter in the silence of the night when sleep is not: ‘It was my hand that sent her to the stars; it was the hand of him that loved her best; the hand that of all she would herself have chosen, had it been to her to choose?’ Tell me if there be such a one amongst us?” + +We all looked at Arthur. He saw, too, what we all did, the infinite kindness which suggested that his should be the hand which would restore Lucy to us as a holy, and not an unholy, memory; he stepped forward and said bravely, though his hand trembled, and his face was as pale as snow:— + +“My true friend, from the bottom of my broken heart I thank you. Tell me what I am to do, and I shall not falter!” Van Helsing laid a hand on his shoulder, and said:— + +“Brave lad! A moment’s courage, and it is done. This stake must be driven through her. It will be a fearful ordeal—be not deceived in that—but it will be only a short time, and you will then rejoice more than your pain was great; from this grim tomb you will emerge as though you tread on air. But you must not falter when once you have begun. Only think that we, your true friends, are round you, and that we pray for you all the time.” + +“Go on,” said Arthur hoarsely. “Tell me what I am to do.” + +“Take this stake in your left hand, ready to place the point over the heart, and the hammer in your right. Then when we begin our prayer for the dead—I shall read him, I have here the book, and the others shall follow—strike in God’s name, that so all may be well with the dead that we love and that the Un-Dead pass away.” + +Arthur took the stake and the hammer, and when once his mind was set on action his hands never trembled nor even quivered. Van Helsing opened his missal and began to read, and Quincey and I followed as well as we could. Arthur placed the point over the heart, and as I looked I could see its dint in the white flesh. Then he struck with all his might. + +The Thing in the coffin writhed; and a hideous, blood-curdling screech came from the opened red lips. The body shook and quivered and twisted in wild contortions; the sharp white teeth champed together till the lips were cut, and the mouth was smeared with a crimson foam. But Arthur never faltered. He looked like a figure of Thor as his untrembling arm rose and fell, driving deeper and deeper the mercy-bearing stake, whilst the blood from the pierced heart welled and spurted up around it. His face was set, and high duty seemed to shine through it; the sight of it gave us courage so that our voices seemed to ring through the little vault. + +And then the writhing and quivering of the body became less, and the teeth seemed to champ, and the face to quiver. Finally it lay still. The terrible task was over. + +The hammer fell from Arthur’s hand. He reeled and would have fallen had we not caught him. The great drops of sweat sprang from his forehead, and his breath came in broken gasps. It had indeed been an awful strain on him; and had he not been forced to his task by more than human considerations he could never have gone through with it. For a few minutes we were so taken up with him that we did not look towards the coffin. When we did, however, a murmur of startled surprise ran from one to the other of us. We gazed so eagerly that Arthur rose, for he had been seated on the ground, and came and looked too; and then a glad, strange light broke over his face and dispelled altogether the gloom of horror that lay upon it. + +There, in the coffin lay no longer the foul Thing that we had so dreaded and grown to hate that the work of her destruction was yielded as a privilege to the one best entitled to it, but Lucy as we had seen her in her life, with her face of unequalled sweetness and purity. True that there were there, as we had seen them in life, the traces of care and pain and waste; but these were all dear to us, for they marked her truth to what we knew. One and all we felt that the holy calm that lay like sunshine over the wasted face and form was only an earthly token and symbol of the calm that was to reign for ever. + +Van Helsing came and laid his hand on Arthur’s shoulder, and said to him:— + +“And now, Arthur my friend, dear lad, am I not forgiven?” + +The reaction of the terrible strain came as he took the old man’s hand in his, and raising it to his lips, pressed it, and said:— + +“Forgiven! God bless you that you have given my dear one her soul again, and me peace.” He put his hands on the Professor’s shoulder, and laying his head on his breast, cried for a while silently, whilst we stood unmoving. When he raised his head Van Helsing said to him:— + +“And now, my child, you may kiss her. Kiss her dead lips if you will, as she would have you to, if for her to choose. For she is not a grinning devil now—not any more a foul Thing for all eternity. No longer she is the devil’s Un-Dead. She is God’s true dead, whose soul is with Him!” + +Arthur bent and kissed her, and then we sent him and Quincey out of the tomb; the Professor and I sawed the top off the stake, leaving the point of it in the body. Then we cut off the head and filled the mouth with garlic. We soldered up the leaden coffin, screwed on the coffin-lid, and gathering up our belongings, came away. When the Professor locked the door he gave the key to Arthur. + +Outside the air was sweet, the sun shone, and the birds sang, and it seemed as if all nature were tuned to a different pitch. There was gladness and mirth and peace everywhere, for we were at rest ourselves on one account, and we were glad, though it was with a tempered joy. + +Before we moved away Van Helsing said:— + +“Now, my friends, one step of our work is done, one the most harrowing to ourselves. But there remains a greater task: to find out the author of all this our sorrow and to stamp him out. I have clues which we can follow; but it is a long task, and a difficult, and there is danger in it, and pain. Shall you not all help me? We have learned to believe, all of us—is it not so? And since so, do we not see our duty? Yes! And do we not promise to go on to the bitter end?” + +Each in turn, we took his hand, and the promise was made. Then said the Professor as we moved off:— + +“Two nights hence you shall meet with me and dine together at seven of the clock with friend John. I shall entreat two others, two that you know not as yet; and I shall be ready to all our work show and our plans unfold. Friend John, you come with me home, for I have much to consult about, and you can help me. To-night I leave for Amsterdam, but shall return to-morrow night. And then begins our great quest. But first I shall have much to say, so that you may know what is to do and to dread. Then our promise shall be made to each other anew; for there is a terrible task before us, and once our feet are on the ploughshare we must not draw back.” + +== CHAPTER XVII + +DR. SEWARD’S DIARY—_continued_ + +When we arrived at the Berkeley Hotel, Van Helsing found a telegram waiting for him:— + +[quote] +“Am coming up by train. Jonathan at Whitby. Important news.—MINA HARKER.” + +The Professor was delighted. “Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina,” he said, “pearl among women! She arrive, but I cannot stay. She must go to your house, friend John. You must meet her at the station. Telegraph her _en route_, so that she may be prepared.” + +When the wire was despatched he had a cup of tea; over it he told me of a diary kept by Jonathan Harker when abroad, and gave me a typewritten copy of it, as also of Mrs. Harker’s diary at Whitby. “Take these,” he said, “and study them well. When I have returned you will be master of all the facts, and we can then better enter on our inquisition. Keep them safe, for there is in them much of treasure. You will need all your faith, even you who have had such an experience as that of to-day. What is here told,” he laid his hand heavily and gravely on the packet of papers as he spoke, “may be the beginning of the end to you and me and many another; or it may sound the knell of the Un-Dead who walk the earth. Read all, I pray you, with the open mind; and if you can add in any way to the story here told do so, for it is all-important. You have kept diary of all these so strange things; is it not so? Yes! Then we shall go through all these together when we meet.” He then made ready for his departure, and shortly after drove off to Liverpool Street. I took my way to Paddington, where I arrived about fifteen minutes before the train came in. + +The crowd melted away, after the bustling fashion common to arrival platforms; and I was beginning to feel uneasy, lest I might miss my guest, when a sweet-faced, dainty-looking girl stepped up to me, and, after a quick glance, said: “Dr. Seward, is it not?” + +“And you are Mrs. Harker!” I answered at once; whereupon she held out her hand. + +“I knew you from the description of poor dear Lucy; but—” She stopped suddenly, and a quick blush overspread her face. + +The blush that rose to my own cheeks somehow set us both at ease, for it was a tacit answer to her own. I got her luggage, which included a typewriter, and we took the Underground to Fenchurch Street, after I had sent a wire to my housekeeper to have a sitting-room and bedroom prepared at once for Mrs. Harker. + +In due time we arrived. She knew, of course, that the place was a lunatic asylum, but I could see that she was unable to repress a shudder when we entered. + +She told me that, if she might, she would come presently to my study, as she had much to say. So here I am finishing my entry in my phonograph diary whilst I await her. As yet I have not had the chance of looking at the papers which Van Helsing left with me, though they lie open before me. I must get her interested in something, so that I may have an opportunity of reading them. She does not know how precious time is, or what a task we have in hand. I must be careful not to frighten her. Here she is! + +_Mina Harker’s Journal._ + +_29 September._ — After I had tidied myself, I went down to Dr. Seward’s study. At the door I paused a moment, for I thought I heard him talking with some one. As, however, he had pressed me to be quick, I knocked at the door, and on his calling out, “Come in,” I entered. + +To my intense surprise, there was no one with him. He was quite alone, and on the table opposite him was what I knew at once from the description to be a phonograph. I had never seen one, and was much interested. + +“I hope I did not keep you waiting,” I said; “but I stayed at the door as I heard you talking, and thought there was some one with you.” + +“Oh,” he replied with a smile, “I was only entering my diary.” + +“Your diary?” I asked him in surprise. + +“Yes,” he answered. “I keep it in this.” As he spoke he laid his hand on the phonograph. I felt quite excited over it, and blurted out:— + +“Why, this beats even shorthand! May I hear it say something?” + +“Certainly,” he replied with alacrity, and stood up to put it in train for speaking. Then he paused, and a troubled look overspread his face. + +“The fact is,” he began awkwardly, “I only keep my diary in it; and as it is entirely—almost entirely—about my cases, it may be awkward—that is, I mean—” He stopped, and I tried to help him out of his embarrassment:— + +“You helped to attend dear Lucy at the end. Let me hear how she died; for all that I know of her, I shall be very grateful. She was very, very dear to me.” + +To my surprise, he answered, with a horrorstruck look in his face:— + +“Tell you of her death? Not for the wide world!” + +“Why not?” I asked, for some grave, terrible feeling was coming over me. Again he paused, and I could see that he was trying to invent an excuse. At length he stammered out:— + +“You see, I do not know how to pick out any particular part of the diary.” Even while he was speaking an idea dawned upon him, and he said with unconscious simplicity, in a different voice, and with the naïveté of a child: “That’s quite true, upon my honour. Honest Indian!” I could not but smile, at which he grimaced. “I gave myself away that time!” he said. “But do you know that, although I have kept the diary for months past, it never once struck me how I was going to find any particular part of it in case I wanted to look it up?” By this time my mind was made up that the diary of a doctor who attended Lucy might have something to add to the sum of our knowledge of that terrible Being, and I said boldly:— + +“Then, Dr. Seward, you had better let me copy it out for you on my typewriter.” He grew to a positively deathly pallor as he said:— + +“No! no! no! For all the world, I wouldn’t let you know that terrible story!” + +Then it was terrible; my intuition was right! For a moment I thought, and as my eyes ranged the room, unconsciously looking for something or some opportunity to aid me, they lit on a great batch of typewriting on the table. His eyes caught the look in mine, and, without his thinking, followed their direction. As they saw the parcel he realised my meaning. + +“You do not know me,” I said. “When you have read those papers—my own diary and my husband’s also, which I have typed—you will know me better. I have not faltered in giving every thought of my own heart in this cause; but, of course, you do not know me—yet; and I must not expect you to trust me so far.” + +He is certainly a man of noble nature; poor dear Lucy was right about him. He stood up and opened a large drawer, in which were arranged in order a number of hollow cylinders of metal covered with dark wax, and said:— + +“You are quite right. I did not trust you because I did not know you. But I know you now; and let me say that I should have known you long ago. I know that Lucy told you of me; she told me of you too. May I make the only atonement in my power? Take the cylinders and hear them—the first half-dozen of them are personal to me, and they will not horrify you; then you will know me better. Dinner will by then be ready. In the meantime I shall read over some of these documents, and shall be better able to understand certain things.” He carried the phonograph himself up to my sitting-room and adjusted it for me. Now I shall learn something pleasant, I am sure; for it will tell me the other side of a true love episode of which I know one side already.... + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_29 September._ — I was so absorbed in that wonderful diary of Jonathan Harker and that other of his wife that I let the time run on without thinking. Mrs. Harker was not down when the maid came to announce dinner, so I said: “She is possibly tired; let dinner wait an hour,” and I went on with my work. I had just finished Mrs. Harker’s diary, when she came in. She looked sweetly pretty, but very sad, and her eyes were flushed with crying. This somehow moved me much. Of late I have had cause for tears, God knows! but the relief of them was denied me; and now the sight of those sweet eyes, brightened with recent tears, went straight to my heart. So I said as gently as I could:— + +“I greatly fear I have distressed you.” + +“Oh, no, not distressed me,” she replied, “but I have been more touched than I can say by your grief. That is a wonderful machine, but it is cruelly true. It told me, in its very tones, the anguish of your heart. It was like a soul crying out to Almighty God. No one must hear them spoken ever again! See, I have tried to be useful. I have copied out the words on my typewriter, and none other need now hear your heart beat, as I did.” + +“No one need ever know, shall ever know,” I said in a low voice. She laid her hand on mine and said very gravely:— + +“Ah, but they must!” + +“Must! But why?” I asked. + +“Because it is a part of the terrible story, a part of poor dear Lucy’s death and all that led to it; because in the struggle which we have before us to rid the earth of this terrible monster we must have all the knowledge and all the help which we can get. I think that the cylinders which you gave me contained more than you intended me to know; but I can see that there are in your record many lights to this dark mystery. You will let me help, will you not? I know all up to a certain point; and I see already, though your diary only took me to 7 September, how poor Lucy was beset, and how her terrible doom was being wrought out. Jonathan and I have been working day and night since Professor Van Helsing saw us. He is gone to Whitby to get more information, and he will be here to-morrow to help us. We need have no secrets amongst us; working together and with absolute trust, we can surely be stronger than if some of us were in the dark.” She looked at me so appealingly, and at the same time manifested such courage and resolution in her bearing, that I gave in at once to her wishes. “You shall,” I said, “do as you like in the matter. God forgive me if I do wrong! There are terrible things yet to learn of; but if you have so far travelled on the road to poor Lucy’s death, you will not be content, I know, to remain in the dark. Nay, the end—the very end—may give you a gleam of peace. Come, there is dinner. We must keep one another strong for what is before us; we have a cruel and dreadful task. When you have eaten you shall learn the rest, and I shall answer any questions you ask—if there be anything which you do not understand, though it was apparent to us who were present.” + +_Mina Harker’s Journal._ + +_29 September._ — After dinner I came with Dr. Seward to his study. He brought back the phonograph from my room, and I took my typewriter. He placed me in a comfortable chair, and arranged the phonograph so that I could touch it without getting up, and showed me how to stop it in case I should want to pause. Then he very thoughtfully took a chair, with his back to me, so that I might be as free as possible, and began to read. I put the forked metal to my ears and listened. + +When the terrible story of Lucy’s death, and—and all that followed, was done, I lay back in my chair powerless. Fortunately I am not of a fainting disposition. When Dr. Seward saw me he jumped up with a horrified exclamation, and hurriedly taking a case-bottle from a cupboard, gave me some brandy, which in a few minutes somewhat restored me. My brain was all in a whirl, and only that there came through all the multitude of horrors, the holy ray of light that my dear, dear Lucy was at last at peace, I do not think I could have borne it without making a scene. It is all so wild, and mysterious, and strange that if I had not known Jonathan’s experience in Transylvania I could not have believed. As it was, I didn’t know what to believe, and so got out of my difficulty by attending to something else. I took the cover off my typewriter, and said to Dr. Seward:— + +“Let me write this all out now. We must be ready for Dr. Van Helsing when he comes. I have sent a telegram to Jonathan to come on here when he arrives in London from Whitby. In this matter dates are everything, and I think that if we get all our material ready, and have every item put in chronological order, we shall have done much. You tell me that Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris are coming too. Let us be able to tell him when they come.” He accordingly set the phonograph at a slow pace, and I began to typewrite from the beginning of the seventh cylinder. I used manifold, and so took three copies of the diary, just as I had done with all the rest. It was late when I got through, but Dr. Seward went about his work of going his round of the patients; when he had finished he came back and sat near me, reading, so that I did not feel too lonely whilst I worked. How good and thoughtful he is; the world seems full of good men—even if there _are_ monsters in it. Before I left him I remembered what Jonathan put in his diary of the Professor’s perturbation at reading something in an evening paper at the station at Exeter; so, seeing that Dr. Seward keeps his newspapers, I borrowed the files of “The Westminster Gazette” and “The Pall Mall Gazette,” and took them to my room. I remember how much “The Dailygraph” and “The Whitby Gazette,” of which I had made cuttings, helped us to understand the terrible events at Whitby when Count Dracula landed, so I shall look through the evening papers since then, and perhaps I shall get some new light. I am not sleepy, and the work will help to keep me quiet. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_30 September._ — Mr. Harker arrived at nine o’clock. He had got his wife’s wire just before starting. He is uncommonly clever, if one can judge from his face, and full of energy. If this journal be true—and judging by one’s own wonderful experiences, it must be—he is also a man of great nerve. That going down to the vault a second time was a remarkable piece of daring. After reading his account of it I was prepared to meet a good specimen of manhood, but hardly the quiet, business-like gentleman who came here to-day. + +_Later._ — After lunch Harker and his wife went back to their own room, and as I passed a while ago I heard the click of the typewriter. They are hard at it. Mrs. Harker says that they are knitting together in chronological order every scrap of evidence they have. Harker has got the letters between the consignee of the boxes at Whitby and the carriers in London who took charge of them. He is now reading his wife’s typescript of my diary. I wonder what they make out of it. Here it is.... + +Strange that it never struck me that the very next house might be the Count’s hiding-place! Goodness knows that we had enough clues from the conduct of the patient Renfield! The bundle of letters relating to the purchase of the house were with the typescript. Oh, if we had only had them earlier we might have saved poor Lucy! Stop; that way madness lies! Harker has gone back, and is again collating his material. He says that by dinner-time they will be able to show a whole connected narrative. He thinks that in the meantime I should see Renfield, as hitherto he has been a sort of index to the coming and going of the Count. I hardly see this yet, but when I get at the dates I suppose I shall. What a good thing that Mrs. Harker put my cylinders into type! We never could have found the dates otherwise.... + +I found Renfield sitting placidly in his room with his hands folded, smiling benignly. At the moment he seemed as sane as any one I ever saw. I sat down and talked with him on a lot of subjects, all of which he treated naturally. He then, of his own accord, spoke of going home, a subject he has never mentioned to my knowledge during his sojourn here. In fact, he spoke quite confidently of getting his discharge at once. I believe that, had I not had the chat with Harker and read the letters and the dates of his outbursts, I should have been prepared to sign for him after a brief time of observation. As it is, I am darkly suspicious. All those outbreaks were in some way linked with the proximity of the Count. What then does this absolute content mean? Can it be that his instinct is satisfied as to the vampire’s ultimate triumph? + +Stay; he is himself zoöphagous, and in his wild ravings outside the chapel door of the deserted house he always spoke of “master.” This all seems confirmation of our idea. However, after a while I came away; my friend is just a little too sane at present to make it safe to probe him too deep with questions. He might begin to think, and then—! So I came away. I mistrust these quiet moods of his; so I have given the attendant a hint to look closely after him, and to have a strait-waistcoat ready in case of need. + +_Jonathan Harker’s Journal._ + +_29 September, in train to London._ — When I received Mr. Billington’s courteous message that he would give me any information in his power I thought it best to go down to Whitby and make, on the spot, such inquiries as I wanted. It was now my object to trace that horrid cargo of the Count’s to its place in London. Later, we may be able to deal with it. Billington junior, a nice lad, met me at the station, and brought me to his father’s house, where they had decided that I must stay the night. They are hospitable, with true Yorkshire hospitality: give a guest everything, and leave him free to do as he likes. They all knew that I was busy, and that my stay was short, and Mr. Billington had ready in his office all the papers concerning the consignment of boxes. It gave me almost a turn to see again one of the letters which I had seen on the Count’s table before I knew of his diabolical plans. Everything had been carefully thought out, and done systematically and with precision. He seemed to have been prepared for every obstacle which might be placed by accident in the way of his intentions being carried out. To use an Americanism, he had “taken no chances,” and the absolute accuracy with which his instructions were fulfilled, was simply the logical result of his care. I saw the invoice, and took note of it: “Fifty cases of common earth, to be used for experimental purposes.” Also the copy of letter to Carter Paterson, and their reply; of both of these I got copies. This was all the information Mr. Billington could give me, so I went down to the port and saw the coastguards, the Customs officers and the harbour-master. They had all something to say of the strange entry of the ship, which is already taking its place in local tradition; but no one could add to the simple description “Fifty cases of common earth.” I then saw the station-master, who kindly put me in communication with the men who had actually received the boxes. Their tally was exact with the list, and they had nothing to add except that the boxes were “main and mortal heavy,” and that shifting them was dry work. One of them added that it was hard lines that there wasn’t any gentleman “such-like as yourself, squire,” to show some sort of appreciation of their efforts in a liquid form; another put in a rider that the thirst then generated was such that even the time which had elapsed had not completely allayed it. Needless to add, I took care before leaving to lift, for ever and adequately, this source of reproach. + +_30 September._ — The station-master was good enough to give me a line to his old companion the station-master at King’s Cross, so that when I arrived there in the morning I was able to ask him about the arrival of the boxes. He, too, put me at once in communication with the proper officials, and I saw that their tally was correct with the original invoice. The opportunities of acquiring an abnormal thirst had been here limited; a noble use of them had, however, been made, and again I was compelled to deal with the result in an _ex post facto_ manner. + +From thence I went on to Carter Paterson’s central office, where I met with the utmost courtesy. They looked up the transaction in their day-book and letter-book, and at once telephoned to their King’s Cross office for more details. By good fortune, the men who did the teaming were waiting for work, and the official at once sent them over, sending also by one of them the way-bill and all the papers connected with the delivery of the boxes at Carfax. Here again I found the tally agreeing exactly; the carriers’ men were able to supplement the paucity of the written words with a few details. These were, I shortly found, connected almost solely with the dusty nature of the job, and of the consequent thirst engendered in the operators. On my affording an opportunity, through the medium of the currency of the realm, of the allaying, at a later period, this beneficial evil, one of the men remarked:— + +“That ’ere ’ouse, guv’nor, is the rummiest I ever was in. Blyme! but it ain’t been touched sence a hundred years. There was dust that thick in the place that you might have slep’ on it without ’urtin’ of yer bones; an’ the place was that neglected that yer might ’ave smelled ole Jerusalem in it. But the ole chapel—that took the cike, that did! Me and my mate, we thort we wouldn’t never git out quick enough. Lor’, I wouldn’t take less nor a quid a moment to stay there arter dark.” + +Having been in the house, I could well believe him; but if he knew what I know, he would, I think, have raised his terms. + +Of one thing I am now satisfied: that _all_ the boxes which arrived at Whitby from Varna in the _Demeter_ were safely deposited in the old chapel at Carfax. There should be fifty of them there, unless any have since been removed—as from Dr. Seward’s diary I fear. + +I shall try to see the carter who took away the boxes from Carfax when Renfield attacked them. By following up this clue we may learn a good deal. + +_Later._ — Mina and I have worked all day, and we have put all the papers into order. + +_Mina Harker’s Journal_ + +_30 September._ — I am so glad that I hardly know how to contain myself. It is, I suppose, the reaction from the haunting fear which I have had: that this terrible affair and the reopening of his old wound might act detrimentally on Jonathan. I saw him leave for Whitby with as brave a face as I could, but I was sick with apprehension. The effort has, however, done him good. He was never so resolute, never so strong, never so full of volcanic energy, as at present. It is just as that dear, good Professor Van Helsing said: he is true grit, and he improves under strain that would kill a weaker nature. He came back full of life and hope and determination; we have got everything in order for to-night. I feel myself quite wild with excitement. I suppose one ought to pity any thing so hunted as is the Count. That is just it: this Thing is not human—not even beast. To read Dr. Seward’s account of poor Lucy’s death, and what followed, is enough to dry up the springs of pity in one’s heart. + +_Later._ — Lord Godalming and Mr. Morris arrived earlier than we expected. Dr. Seward was out on business, and had taken Jonathan with him, so I had to see them. It was to me a painful meeting, for it brought back all poor dear Lucy’s hopes of only a few months ago. Of course they had heard Lucy speak of me, and it seemed that Dr. Van Helsing, too, has been quite “blowing my trumpet,” as Mr. Morris expressed it. Poor fellows, neither of them is aware that I know all about the proposals they made to Lucy. They did not quite know what to say or do, as they were ignorant of the amount of my knowledge; so they had to keep on neutral subjects. However, I thought the matter over, and came to the conclusion that the best thing I could do would be to post them in affairs right up to date. I knew from Dr. Seward’s diary that they had been at Lucy’s death—her real death—and that I need not fear to betray any secret before the time. So I told them, as well as I could, that I had read all the papers and diaries, and that my husband and I, having typewritten them, had just finished putting them in order. I gave them each a copy to read in the library. When Lord Godalming got his and turned it over—it does make a pretty good pile—he said:— + +“Did you write all this, Mrs. Harker?” + +I nodded, and he went on:— + +“I don’t quite see the drift of it; but you people are all so good and kind, and have been working so earnestly and so energetically, that all I can do is to accept your ideas blindfold and try to help you. I have had one lesson already in accepting facts that should make a man humble to the last hour of his life. Besides, I know you loved my poor Lucy—” Here he turned away and covered his face with his hands. I could hear the tears in his voice. Mr. Morris, with instinctive delicacy, just laid a hand for a moment on his shoulder, and then walked quietly out of the room. I suppose there is something in woman’s nature that makes a man free to break down before her and express his feelings on the tender or emotional side without feeling it derogatory to his manhood; for when Lord Godalming found himself alone with me he sat down on the sofa and gave way utterly and openly. I sat down beside him and took his hand. I hope he didn’t think it forward of me, and that if he ever thinks of it afterwards he never will have such a thought. There I wrong him; I _know_ he never will—he is too true a gentleman. I said to him, for I could see that his heart was breaking:— + +“I loved dear Lucy, and I know what she was to you, and what you were to her. She and I were like sisters; and now she is gone, will you not let me be like a sister to you in your trouble? I know what sorrows you have had, though I cannot measure the depth of them. If sympathy and pity can help in your affliction, won’t you let me be of some little service—for Lucy’s sake?” + +In an instant the poor dear fellow was overwhelmed with grief. It seemed to me that all that he had of late been suffering in silence found a vent at once. He grew quite hysterical, and raising his open hands, beat his palms together in a perfect agony of grief. He stood up and then sat down again, and the tears rained down his cheeks. I felt an infinite pity for him, and opened my arms unthinkingly. With a sob he laid his head on my shoulder and cried like a wearied child, whilst he shook with emotion. + +We women have something of the mother in us that makes us rise above smaller matters when the mother-spirit is invoked; I felt this big sorrowing man’s head resting on me, as though it were that of the baby that some day may lie on my bosom, and I stroked his hair as though he were my own child. I never thought at the time how strange it all was. + +After a little bit his sobs ceased, and he raised himself with an apology, though he made no disguise of his emotion. He told me that for days and nights past—weary days and sleepless nights—he had been unable to speak with any one, as a man must speak in his time of sorrow. There was no woman whose sympathy could be given to him, or with whom, owing to the terrible circumstance with which his sorrow was surrounded, he could speak freely. “I know now how I suffered,” he said, as he dried his eyes, “but I do not know even yet—and none other can ever know—how much your sweet sympathy has been to me to-day. I shall know better in time; and believe me that, though I am not ungrateful now, my gratitude will grow with my understanding. You will let me be like a brother, will you not, for all our lives—for dear Lucy’s sake?” + +“For dear Lucy’s sake,” I said as we clasped hands. “Ay, and for your own sake,” he added, “for if a man’s esteem and gratitude are ever worth the winning, you have won mine to-day. If ever the future should bring to you a time when you need a man’s help, believe me, you will not call in vain. God grant that no such time may ever come to you to break the sunshine of your life; but if it should ever come, promise me that you will let me know.” He was so earnest, and his sorrow was so fresh, that I felt it would comfort him, so I said:— + +“I promise.” + +As I came along the corridor I saw Mr. Morris looking out of a window. He turned as he heard my footsteps. “How is Art?” he said. Then noticing my red eyes, he went on: “Ah, I see you have been comforting him. Poor old fellow! he needs it. No one but a woman can help a man when he is in trouble of the heart; and he had no one to comfort him.” + +He bore his own trouble so bravely that my heart bled for him. I saw the manuscript in his hand, and I knew that when he read it he would realise how much I knew; so I said to him:— + +“I wish I could comfort all who suffer from the heart. Will you let me be your friend, and will you come to me for comfort if you need it? You will know, later on, why I speak.” He saw that I was in earnest, and stooping, took my hand, and raising it to his lips, kissed it. It seemed but poor comfort to so brave and unselfish a soul, and impulsively I bent over and kissed him. The tears rose in his eyes, and there was a momentary choking in his throat; he said quite calmly:— + +“Little girl, you will never regret that true-hearted kindness, so long as ever you live!” Then he went into the study to his friend. + +“Little girl!”—the very words he had used to Lucy, and oh, but he proved himself a friend! + +== CHAPTER XVIII + +DR. SEWARD’S DIARY + +_30 September._ — I got home at five o’clock, and found that Godalming and Morris had not only arrived, but had already studied the transcript of the various diaries and letters which Harker and his wonderful wife had made and arranged. Harker had not yet returned from his visit to the carriers’ men, of whom Dr. Hennessey had written to me. Mrs. Harker gave us a cup of tea, and I can honestly say that, for the first time since I have lived in it, this old house seemed like _home_. When we had finished, Mrs. Harker said:— + +“Dr. Seward, may I ask a favour? I want to see your patient, Mr. Renfield. Do let me see him. What you have said of him in your diary interests me so much!” She looked so appealing and so pretty that I could not refuse her, and there was no possible reason why I should; so I took her with me. When I went into the room, I told the man that a lady would like to see him; to which he simply answered: “Why?” + +“She is going through the house, and wants to see every one in it,” I answered. “Oh, very well,” he said; “let her come in, by all means; but just wait a minute till I tidy up the place.” His method of tidying was peculiar: he simply swallowed all the flies and spiders in the boxes before I could stop him. It was quite evident that he feared, or was jealous of, some interference. When he had got through his disgusting task, he said cheerfully: “Let the lady come in,” and sat down on the edge of his bed with his head down, but with his eyelids raised so that he could see her as she entered. For a moment I thought that he might have some homicidal intent; I remembered how quiet he had been just before he attacked me in my own study, and I took care to stand where I could seize him at once if he attempted to make a spring at her. She came into the room with an easy gracefulness which would at once command the respect of any lunatic—for easiness is one of the qualities mad people most respect. She walked over to him, smiling pleasantly, and held out her hand. + +“Good-evening, Mr. Renfield,” said she. “You see, I know you, for Dr. Seward has told me of you.” He made no immediate reply, but eyed her all over intently with a set frown on his face. This look gave way to one of wonder, which merged in doubt; then, to my intense astonishment, he said:— + +“You’re not the girl the doctor wanted to marry, are you? You can’t be, you know, for she’s dead.” Mrs. Harker smiled sweetly as she replied:— + +“Oh no! I have a husband of my own, to whom I was married before I ever saw Dr. Seward, or he me. I am Mrs. Harker.” + +“Then what are you doing here?” + +“My husband and I are staying on a visit with Dr. Seward.” + +“Then don’t stay.” + +“But why not?” I thought that this style of conversation might not be pleasant to Mrs. Harker, any more than it was to me, so I joined in:— + +“How did you know I wanted to marry any one?” His reply was simply contemptuous, given in a pause in which he turned his eyes from Mrs. Harker to me, instantly turning them back again:— + +“What an asinine question!” + +“I don’t see that at all, Mr. Renfield,” said Mrs. Harker, at once championing me. He replied to her with as much courtesy and respect as he had shown contempt to me:— + +“You will, of course, understand, Mrs. Harker, that when a man is so loved and honoured as our host is, everything regarding him is of interest in our little community. Dr. Seward is loved not only by his household and his friends, but even by his patients, who, being some of them hardly in mental equilibrium, are apt to distort causes and effects. Since I myself have been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, I cannot but notice that the sophistic tendencies of some of its inmates lean towards the errors of _non causa_ and _ignoratio elenchi_.” I positively opened my eyes at this new development. Here was my own pet lunatic—the most pronounced of his type that I had ever met with—talking elemental philosophy, and with the manner of a polished gentleman. I wonder if it was Mrs. Harker’s presence which had touched some chord in his memory. If this new phase was spontaneous, or in any way due to her unconscious influence, she must have some rare gift or power. + +We continued to talk for some time; and, seeing that he was seemingly quite reasonable, she ventured, looking at me questioningly as she began, to lead him to his favourite topic. I was again astonished, for he addressed himself to the question with the impartiality of the completest sanity; he even took himself as an example when he mentioned certain things. + +“Why, I myself am an instance of a man who had a strange belief. Indeed, it was no wonder that my friends were alarmed, and insisted on my being put under control. I used to fancy that life was a positive and perpetual entity, and that by consuming a multitude of live things, no matter how low in the scale of creation, one might indefinitely prolong life. At times I held the belief so strongly that I actually tried to take human life. The doctor here will bear me out that on one occasion I tried to kill him for the purpose of strengthening my vital powers by the assimilation with my own body of his life through the medium of his blood—relying, of course, upon the Scriptural phrase, ‘For the blood is the life.’ Though, indeed, the vendor of a certain nostrum has vulgarised the truism to the very point of contempt. Isn’t that true, doctor?” I nodded assent, for I was so amazed that I hardly knew what to either think or say; it was hard to imagine that I had seen him eat up his spiders and flies not five minutes before. Looking at my watch, I saw that I should go to the station to meet Van Helsing, so I told Mrs. Harker that it was time to leave. She came at once, after saying pleasantly to Mr. Renfield: “Good-bye, and I hope I may see you often, under auspices pleasanter to yourself,” to which, to my astonishment, he replied:— + +“Good-bye, my dear. I pray God I may never see your sweet face again. May He bless and keep you!” + +When I went to the station to meet Van Helsing I left the boys behind me. Poor Art seemed more cheerful than he has been since Lucy first took ill, and Quincey is more like his own bright self than he has been for many a long day. + +Van Helsing stepped from the carriage with the eager nimbleness of a boy. He saw me at once, and rushed up to me, saying:— + +“Ah, friend John, how goes all? Well? So! I have been busy, for I come here to stay if need be. All affairs are settled with me, and I have much to tell. Madam Mina is with you? Yes. And her so fine husband? And Arthur and my friend Quincey, they are with you, too? Good!” + +As I drove to the house I told him of what had passed, and of how my own diary had come to be of some use through Mrs. Harker’s suggestion; at which the Professor interrupted me:— + +“Ah, that wonderful Madam Mina! She has man’s brain—a brain that a man should have were he much gifted—and a woman’s heart. The good God fashioned her for a purpose, believe me, when He made that so good combination. Friend John, up to now fortune has made that woman of help to us; after to-night she must not have to do with this so terrible affair. It is not good that she run a risk so great. We men are determined—nay, are we not pledged?—to destroy this monster; but it is no part for a woman. Even if she be not harmed, her heart may fail her in so much and so many horrors; and hereafter she may suffer—both in waking, from her nerves, and in sleep, from her dreams. And, besides, she is young woman and not so long married; there may be other things to think of some time, if not now. You tell me she has wrote all, then she must consult with us; but to-morrow she say good-bye to this work, and we go alone.” I agreed heartily with him, and then I told him what we had found in his absence: that the house which Dracula had bought was the very next one to my own. He was amazed, and a great concern seemed to come on him. “Oh that we had known it before!” he said, “for then we might have reached him in time to save poor Lucy. However, ‘the milk that is spilt cries not out afterwards,’ as you say. We shall not think of that, but go on our way to the end.” Then he fell into a silence that lasted till we entered my own gateway. Before we went to prepare for dinner he said to Mrs. Harker:— + +“I am told, Madam Mina, by my friend John that you and your husband have put up in exact order all things that have been, up to this moment.” + +“Not up to this moment, Professor,” she said impulsively, “but up to this morning.” + +“But why not up to now? We have seen hitherto how good light all the little things have made. We have told our secrets, and yet no one who has told is the worse for it.” + +Mrs. Harker began to blush, and taking a paper from her pockets, she said:— + +“Dr. Van Helsing, will you read this, and tell me if it must go in. It is my record of to-day. I too have seen the need of putting down at present everything, however trivial; but there is little in this except what is personal. Must it go in?” The Professor read it over gravely, and handed it back, saying:— + +“It need not go in if you do not wish it; but I pray that it may. It can but make your husband love you the more, and all us, your friends, more honour you—as well as more esteem and love.” She took it back with another blush and a bright smile. + +And so now, up to this very hour, all the records we have are complete and in order. The Professor took away one copy to study after dinner, and before our meeting, which is fixed for nine o’clock. The rest of us have already read everything; so when we meet in the study we shall all be informed as to facts, and can arrange our plan of battle with this terrible and mysterious enemy. + +_Mina Harker’s Journal._ + +_30 September._ — When we met in Dr. Seward’s study two hours after dinner, which had been at six o’clock, we unconsciously formed a sort of board or committee. Professor Van Helsing took the head of the table, to which Dr. Seward motioned him as he came into the room. He made me sit next to him on his right, and asked me to act as secretary; Jonathan sat next to me. Opposite us were Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris—Lord Godalming being next the Professor, and Dr. Seward in the centre. The Professor said:— + +“I may, I suppose, take it that we are all acquainted with the facts that are in these papers.” We all expressed assent, and he went on:— + +“Then it were, I think good that I tell you something of the kind of enemy with which we have to deal. I shall then make known to you something of the history of this man, which has been ascertained for me. So we then can discuss how we shall act, and can take our measure according. + +“There are such beings as vampires; some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples. I admit that at the first I was sceptic. Were it not that through long years I have train myself to keep an open mind, I could not have believe until such time as that fact thunder on my ear. ‘See! see! I prove; I prove.’ Alas! Had I known at the first what now I know—nay, had I even guess at him—one so precious life had been spared to many of us who did love her. But that is gone; and we must so work, that other poor souls perish not, whilst we can save. The _nosferatu_ do not die like the bee when he sting once. He is only stronger; and being stronger, have yet more power to work evil. This vampire which is amongst us is of himself so strong in person as twenty men; he is of cunning more than mortal, for his cunning be the growth of ages; he have still the aids of necromancy, which is, as his etymology imply, the divination by the dead, and all the dead that he can come nigh to are for him at command; he is brute, and more than brute; he is devil in callous, and the heart of him is not; he can, within limitations, appear at will when, and where, and in any of the forms that are to him; he can, within his range, direct the elements; the storm, the fog, the thunder; he can command all the meaner things: the rat, and the owl, and the bat—the moth, and the fox, and the wolf; he can grow and become small; and he can at times vanish and come unknown. How then are we to begin our strike to destroy him? How shall we find his where; and having found it, how can we destroy? My friends, this is much; it is a terrible task that we undertake, and there may be consequence to make the brave shudder. For if we fail in this our fight he must surely win; and then where end we? Life is nothings; I heed him not. But to fail here, is not mere life or death. It is that we become as him; that we henceforward become foul things of the night like him—without heart or conscience, preying on the bodies and the souls of those we love best. To us for ever are the gates of heaven shut; for who shall open them to us again? We go on for all time abhorred by all; a blot on the face of God’s sunshine; an arrow in the side of Him who died for man. But we are face to face with duty; and in such case must we shrink? For me, I say, no; but then I am old, and life, with his sunshine, his fair places, his song of birds, his music and his love, lie far behind. You others are young. Some have seen sorrow; but there are fair days yet in store. What say you?” + +Whilst he was speaking, Jonathan had taken my hand. I feared, oh so much, that the appalling nature of our danger was overcoming him when I saw his hand stretch out; but it was life to me to feel its touch—so strong, so self-reliant, so resolute. A brave man’s hand can speak for itself; it does not even need a woman’s love to hear its music. + +When the Professor had done speaking my husband looked in my eyes, and I in his; there was no need for speaking between us. + +“I answer for Mina and myself,” he said. + +“Count me in, Professor,” said Mr. Quincey Morris, laconically as usual. + +“I am with you,” said Lord Godalming, “for Lucy’s sake, if for no other reason.” + +Dr. Seward simply nodded. The Professor stood up and, after laying his golden crucifix on the table, held out his hand on either side. I took his right hand, and Lord Godalming his left; Jonathan held my right with his left and stretched across to Mr. Morris. So as we all took hands our solemn compact was made. I felt my heart icy cold, but it did not even occur to me to draw back. We resumed our places, and Dr. Van Helsing went on with a sort of cheerfulness which showed that the serious work had begun. It was to be taken as gravely, and in as businesslike a way, as any other transaction of life:— + +“Well, you know what we have to contend against; but we, too, are not without strength. We have on our side power of combination—a power denied to the vampire kind; we have sources of science; we are free to act and think; and the hours of the day and the night are ours equally. In fact, so far as our powers extend, they are unfettered, and we are free to use them. We have self-devotion in a cause, and an end to achieve which is not a selfish one. These things are much. + +“Now let us see how far the general powers arrayed against us are restrict, and how the individual cannot. In fine, let us consider the limitations of the vampire in general, and of this one in particular. + +“All we have to go upon are traditions and superstitions. These do not at the first appear much, when the matter is one of life and death—nay of more than either life or death. Yet must we be satisfied; in the first place because we have to be—no other means is at our control—and secondly, because, after all, these things—tradition and superstition—are everything. Does not the belief in vampires rest for others—though not, alas! for us—on them? A year ago which of us would have received such a possibility, in the midst of our scientific, sceptical, matter-of-fact nineteenth century? We even scouted a belief that we saw justified under our very eyes. Take it, then, that the vampire, and the belief in his limitations and his cure, rest for the moment on the same base. For, let me tell you, he is known everywhere that men have been. In old Greece, in old Rome; he flourish in Germany all over, in France, in India, even in the Chernosese; and in China, so far from us in all ways, there even is he, and the peoples fear him at this day. He have follow the wake of the berserker Icelander, the devil-begotten Hun, the Slav, the Saxon, the Magyar. So far, then, we have all we may act upon; and let me tell you that very much of the beliefs are justified by what we have seen in our own so unhappy experience. The vampire live on, and cannot die by mere passing of the time; he can flourish when that he can fatten on the blood of the living. Even more, we have seen amongst us that he can even grow younger; that his vital faculties grow strenuous, and seem as though they refresh themselves when his special pabulum is plenty. But he cannot flourish without this diet; he eat not as others. Even friend Jonathan, who lived with him for weeks, did never see him to eat, never! He throws no shadow; he make in the mirror no reflect, as again Jonathan observe. He has the strength of many of his hand—witness again Jonathan when he shut the door against the wolfs, and when he help him from the diligence too. He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog; he can be as bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as my friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy. He can come in mist which he create—that noble ship’s captain proved him of this; but, from what we know, the distance he can make this mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. He come on moonlight rays as elemental dust—as again Jonathan saw those sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become so small—we ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a hairbreadth space at the tomb door. He can, when once he find his way, come out from anything or into anything, no matter how close it be bound or even fused up with fire—solder you call it. He can see in the dark—no small power this, in a world which is one half shut from the light. Ah, but hear me through. He can do all these things, yet he is not free. Nay; he is even more prisoner than the slave of the galley, than the madman in his cell. He cannot go where he lists; he who is not of nature has yet to obey some of nature’s laws—why we know not. He may not enter anywhere at the first, unless there be some one of the household who bid him to come; though afterwards he can come as he please. His power ceases, as does that of all evil things, at the coming of the day. Only at certain times can he have limited freedom. If he be not at the place whither he is bound, he can only change himself at noon or at exact sunrise or sunset. These things are we told, and in this record of ours we have proof by inference. Thus, whereas he can do as he will within his limit, when he have his earth-home, his coffin-home, his hell-home, the place unhallowed, as we saw when he went to the grave of the suicide at Whitby; still at other time he can only change when the time come. It is said, too, that he can only pass running water at the slack or the flood of the tide. Then there are things which so afflict him that he has no power, as the garlic that we know of; and as for things sacred, as this symbol, my crucifix, that was amongst us even now when we resolve, to them he is nothing, but in their presence he take his place far off and silent with respect. There are others, too, which I shall tell you of, lest in our seeking we may need them. The branch of wild rose on his coffin keep him that he move not from it; a sacred bullet fired into the coffin kill him so that he be true dead; and as for the stake through him, we know already of its peace; or the cut-off head that giveth rest. We have seen it with our eyes. + +“Thus when we find the habitation of this man-that-was, we can confine him to his coffin and destroy him, if we obey what we know. But he is clever. I have asked my friend Arminius, of Buda-Pesth University, to make his record; and, from all the means that are, he tell me of what he has been. He must, indeed, have been that Voivode Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land. If it be so, then was he no common man; for in that time, and for centuries after, he was spoken of as the cleverest and the most cunning, as well as the bravest of the sons of the ‘land beyond the forest.’ That mighty brain and that iron resolution went with him to his grave, and are even now arrayed against us. The Draculas were, says Arminius, a great and noble race, though now and again were scions who were held by their coevals to have had dealings with the Evil One. They learned his secrets in the Scholomance, amongst the mountains over Lake Hermanstadt, where the devil claims the tenth scholar as his due. In the records are such words as ‘stregoica’—witch, ‘ordog,’ and ‘pokol’—Satan and hell; and in one manuscript this very Dracula is spoken of as ‘wampyr,’ which we all understand too well. There have been from the loins of this very one great men and good women, and their graves make sacred the earth where alone this foulness can dwell. For it is not the least of its terrors that this evil thing is rooted deep in all good; in soil barren of holy memories it cannot rest.” + +Whilst they were talking Mr. Morris was looking steadily at the window, and he now got up quietly, and went out of the room. There was a little pause, and then the Professor went on:— + +“And now we must settle what we do. We have here much data, and we must proceed to lay out our campaign. We know from the inquiry of Jonathan that from the castle to Whitby came fifty boxes of earth, all of which were delivered at Carfax; we also know that at least some of these boxes have been removed. It seems to me, that our first step should be to ascertain whether all the rest remain in the house beyond that wall where we look to-day; or whether any more have been removed. If the latter, we must trace—” + +Here we were interrupted in a very startling way. Outside the house came the sound of a pistol-shot; the glass of the window was shattered with a bullet, which, ricochetting from the top of the embrasure, struck the far wall of the room. I am afraid I am at heart a coward, for I shrieked out. The men all jumped to their feet; Lord Godalming flew over to the window and threw up the sash. As he did so we heard Mr. Morris’s voice without:— + +“Sorry! I fear I have alarmed you. I shall come in and tell you about it.” A minute later he came in and said:— + +“It was an idiotic thing of me to do, and I ask your pardon, Mrs. Harker, most sincerely; I fear I must have frightened you terribly. But the fact is that whilst the Professor was talking there came a big bat and sat on the window-sill. I have got such a horror of the damned brutes from recent events that I cannot stand them, and I went out to have a shot, as I have been doing of late of evenings, whenever I have seen one. You used to laugh at me for it then, Art.” + +“Did you hit it?” asked Dr. Van Helsing. + +“I don’t know; I fancy not, for it flew away into the wood.” Without saying any more he took his seat, and the Professor began to resume his statement:— + +“We must trace each of these boxes; and when we are ready, we must either capture or kill this monster in his lair; or we must, so to speak, sterilise the earth, so that no more he can seek safety in it. Thus in the end we may find him in his form of man between the hours of noon and sunset, and so engage with him when he is at his most weak. + +“And now for you, Madam Mina, this night is the end until all be well. You are too precious to us to have such risk. When we part to-night, you no more must question. We shall tell you all in good time. We are men and are able to bear; but you must be our star and our hope, and we shall act all the more free that you are not in the danger, such as we are.” + +All the men, even Jonathan, seemed relieved; but it did not seem to me good that they should brave danger and, perhaps, lessen their safety—strength being the best safety—through care of me; but their minds were made up, and, though it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, I could say nothing, save to accept their chivalrous care of me. + +Mr. Morris resumed the discussion:— + +“As there is no time to lose, I vote we have a look at his house right now. Time is everything with him; and swift action on our part may save another victim.” + +I own that my heart began to fail me when the time for action came so close, but I did not say anything, for I had a greater fear that if I appeared as a drag or a hindrance to their work, they might even leave me out of their counsels altogether. They have now gone off to Carfax, with means to get into the house. + +Manlike, they had told me to go to bed and sleep; as if a woman can sleep when those she loves are in danger! I shall lie down and pretend to sleep, lest Jonathan have added anxiety about me when he returns. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_1 October, 4 a. m._ — Just as we were about to leave the house, an urgent message was brought to me from Renfield to know if I would see him at once, as he had something of the utmost importance to say to me. I told the messenger to say that I would attend to his wishes in the morning; I was busy just at the moment. The attendant added:— + +“He seems very importunate, sir. I have never seen him so eager. I don’t know but what, if you don’t see him soon, he will have one of his violent fits.” I knew the man would not have said this without some cause, so I said: “All right; I’ll go now”; and I asked the others to wait a few minutes for me, as I had to go and see my “patient.” + +“Take me with you, friend John,” said the Professor. “His case in your diary interest me much, and it had bearing, too, now and again on _our_ case. I should much like to see him, and especial when his mind is disturbed.” + +“May I come also?” asked Lord Godalming. + +“Me too?” said Quincey Morris. “May I come?” said Harker. I nodded, and we all went down the passage together. + +We found him in a state of considerable excitement, but far more rational in his speech and manner than I had ever seen him. There was an unusual understanding of himself, which was unlike anything I had ever met with in a lunatic; and he took it for granted that his reasons would prevail with others entirely sane. We all four went into the room, but none of the others at first said anything. His request was that I would at once release him from the asylum and send him home. This he backed up with arguments regarding his complete recovery, and adduced his own existing sanity. “I appeal to your friends,” he said, “they will, perhaps, not mind sitting in judgment on my case. By the way, you have not introduced me.” I was so much astonished, that the oddness of introducing a madman in an asylum did not strike me at the moment; and, besides, there was a certain dignity in the man’s manner, so much of the habit of equality, that I at once made the introduction: “Lord Godalming; Professor Van Helsing; Mr. Quincey Morris, of Texas; Mr. Renfield.” He shook hands with each of them, saying in turn:— + +“Lord Godalming, I had the honour of seconding your father at the Windham; I grieve to know, by your holding the title, that he is no more. He was a man loved and honoured by all who knew him; and in his youth was, I have heard, the inventor of a burnt rum punch, much patronised on Derby night. Mr. Morris, you should be proud of your great state. Its reception into the Union was a precedent which may have far-reaching effects hereafter, when the Pole and the Tropics may hold alliance to the Stars and Stripes. The power of Treaty may yet prove a vast engine of enlargement, when the Monroe doctrine takes its true place as a political fable. What shall any man say of his pleasure at meeting Van Helsing? Sir, I make no apology for dropping all forms of conventional prefix. When an individual has revolutionised therapeutics by his discovery of the continuous evolution of brain-matter, conventional forms are unfitting, since they would seem to limit him to one of a class. You, gentlemen, who by nationality, by heredity, or by the possession of natural gifts, are fitted to hold your respective places in the moving world, I take to witness that I am as sane as at least the majority of men who are in full possession of their liberties. And I am sure that you, Dr. Seward, humanitarian and medico-jurist as well as scientist, will deem it a moral duty to deal with me as one to be considered as under exceptional circumstances.” He made this last appeal with a courtly air of conviction which was not without its own charm. + +I think we were all staggered. For my own part, I was under the conviction, despite my knowledge of the man’s character and history, that his reason had been restored; and I felt under a strong impulse to tell him that I was satisfied as to his sanity, and would see about the necessary formalities for his release in the morning. I thought it better to wait, however, before making so grave a statement, for of old I knew the sudden changes to which this particular patient was liable. So I contented myself with making a general statement that he appeared to be improving very rapidly; that I would have a longer chat with him in the morning, and would then see what I could do in the direction of meeting his wishes. This did not at all satisfy him, for he said quickly:— + +“But I fear, Dr. Seward, that you hardly apprehend my wish. I desire to go at once—here—now—this very hour—this very moment, if I may. Time presses, and in our implied agreement with the old scytheman it is of the essence of the contract. I am sure it is only necessary to put before so admirable a practitioner as Dr. Seward so simple, yet so momentous a wish, to ensure its fulfilment.” He looked at me keenly, and seeing the negative in my face, turned to the others, and scrutinised them closely. Not meeting any sufficient response, he went on:— + +“Is it possible that I have erred in my supposition?” + +“You have,” I said frankly, but at the same time, as I felt, brutally. There was a considerable pause, and then he said slowly:— + +“Then I suppose I must only shift my ground of request. Let me ask for this concession—boon, privilege, what you will. I am content to implore in such a case, not on personal grounds, but for the sake of others. I am not at liberty to give you the whole of my reasons; but you may, I assure you, take it from me that they are good ones, sound and unselfish, and spring from the highest sense of duty. Could you look, sir, into my heart, you would approve to the full the sentiments which animate me. Nay, more, you would count me amongst the best and truest of your friends.” Again he looked at us all keenly. I had a growing conviction that this sudden change of his entire intellectual method was but yet another form or phase of his madness, and so determined to let him go on a little longer, knowing from experience that he would, like all lunatics, give himself away in the end. Van Helsing was gazing at him with a look of utmost intensity, his bushy eyebrows almost meeting with the fixed concentration of his look. He said to Renfield in a tone which did not surprise me at the time, but only when I thought of it afterwards—for it was as of one addressing an equal:— + +“Can you not tell frankly your real reason for wishing to be free to-night? I will undertake that if you will satisfy even me—a stranger, without prejudice, and with the habit of keeping an open mind—Dr. Seward will give you, at his own risk and on his own responsibility, the privilege you seek.” He shook his head sadly, and with a look of poignant regret on his face. The Professor went on:— + +“Come, sir, bethink yourself. You claim the privilege of reason in the highest degree, since you seek to impress us with your complete reasonableness. You do this, whose sanity we have reason to doubt, since you are not yet released from medical treatment for this very defect. If you will not help us in our effort to choose the wisest course, how can we perform the duty which you yourself put upon us? Be wise, and help us; and if we can we shall aid you to achieve your wish.” He still shook his head as he said:— + +“Dr. Van Helsing, I have nothing to say. Your argument is complete, and if I were free to speak I should not hesitate a moment; but I am not my own master in the matter. I can only ask you to trust me. If I am refused, the responsibility does not rest with me.” I thought it was now time to end the scene, which was becoming too comically grave, so I went towards the door, simply saying:— + +“Come, my friends, we have work to do. Good-night.” + +As, however, I got near the door, a new change came over the patient. He moved towards me so quickly that for the moment I feared that he was about to make another homicidal attack. My fears, however, were groundless, for he held up his two hands imploringly, and made his petition in a moving manner. As he saw that the very excess of his emotion was militating against him, by restoring us more to our old relations, he became still more demonstrative. I glanced at Van Helsing, and saw my conviction reflected in his eyes; so I became a little more fixed in my manner, if not more stern, and motioned to him that his efforts were unavailing. I had previously seen something of the same constantly growing excitement in him when he had to make some request of which at the time he had thought much, such, for instance, as when he wanted a cat; and I was prepared to see the collapse into the same sullen acquiescence on this occasion. My expectation was not realised, for, when he found that his appeal would not be successful, he got into quite a frantic condition. He threw himself on his knees, and held up his hands, wringing them in plaintive supplication, and poured forth a torrent of entreaty, with the tears rolling down his cheeks, and his whole face and form expressive of the deepest emotion:— + +“Let me entreat you, Dr. Seward, oh, let me implore you, to let me out of this house at once. Send me away how you will and where you will; send keepers with me with whips and chains; let them take me in a strait-waistcoat, manacled and leg-ironed, even to a gaol; but let me go out of this. You don’t know what you do by keeping me here. I am speaking from the depths of my heart—of my very soul. You don’t know whom you wrong, or how; and I may not tell. Woe is me! I may not tell. By all you hold sacred—by all you hold dear—by your love that is lost—by your hope that lives—for the sake of the Almighty, take me out of this and save my soul from guilt! Can’t you hear me, man? Can’t you understand? Will you never learn? Don’t you know that I am sane and earnest now; that I am no lunatic in a mad fit, but a sane man fighting for his soul? Oh, hear me! hear me! Let me go! let me go! let me go!” + +I thought that the longer this went on the wilder he would get, and so would bring on a fit; so I took him by the hand and raised him up. + +“Come,” I said sternly, “no more of this; we have had quite enough already. Get to your bed and try to behave more discreetly.” + +He suddenly stopped and looked at me intently for several moments. Then, without a word, he rose and moving over, sat down on the side of the bed. The collapse had come, as on former occasion, just as I had expected. + +When I was leaving the room, last of our party, he said to me in a quiet, well-bred voice:— + +“You will, I trust, Dr. Seward, do me the justice to bear in mind, later on, that I did what I could to convince you to-night.” + +== CHAPTER XIX + +JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL + +_1 October, 5 a. m._ — I went with the party to the search with an easy mind, for I think I never saw Mina so absolutely strong and well. I am so glad that she consented to hold back and let us men do the work. Somehow, it was a dread to me that she was in this fearful business at all; but now that her work is done, and that it is due to her energy and brains and foresight that the whole story is put together in such a way that every point tells, she may well feel that her part is finished, and that she can henceforth leave the rest to us. We were, I think, all a little upset by the scene with Mr. Renfield. When we came away from his room we were silent till we got back to the study. Then Mr. Morris said to Dr. Seward:— + +“Say, Jack, if that man wasn’t attempting a bluff, he is about the sanest lunatic I ever saw. I’m not sure, but I believe that he had some serious purpose, and if he had, it was pretty rough on him not to get a chance.” Lord Godalming and I were silent, but Dr. Van Helsing added:— + +“Friend John, you know more of lunatics than I do, and I’m glad of it, for I fear that if it had been to me to decide I would before that last hysterical outburst have given him free. But we live and learn, and in our present task we must take no chance, as my friend Quincey would say. All is best as they are.” Dr. Seward seemed to answer them both in a dreamy kind of way:— + +“I don’t know but that I agree with you. If that man had been an ordinary lunatic I would have taken my chance of trusting him; but he seems so mixed up with the Count in an indexy kind of way that I am afraid of doing anything wrong by helping his fads. I can’t forget how he prayed with almost equal fervour for a cat, and then tried to tear my throat out with his teeth. Besides, he called the Count ‘lord and master,’ and he may want to get out to help him in some diabolical way. That horrid thing has the wolves and the rats and his own kind to help him, so I suppose he isn’t above trying to use a respectable lunatic. He certainly did seem earnest, though. I only hope we have done what is best. These things, in conjunction with the wild work we have in hand, help to unnerve a man.” The Professor stepped over, and laying his hand on his shoulder, said in his grave, kindly way:— + +“Friend John, have no fear. We are trying to do our duty in a very sad and terrible case; we can only do as we deem best. What else have we to hope for, except the pity of the good God?” Lord Godalming had slipped away for a few minutes, but now he returned. He held up a little silver whistle, as he remarked:— + +“That old place may be full of rats, and if so, I’ve got an antidote on call.” Having passed the wall, we took our way to the house, taking care to keep in the shadows of the trees on the lawn when the moonlight shone out. When we got to the porch the Professor opened his bag and took out a lot of things, which he laid on the step, sorting them into four little groups, evidently one for each. Then he spoke:— + +“My friends, we are going into a terrible danger, and we need arms of many kinds. Our enemy is not merely spiritual. Remember that he has the strength of twenty men, and that, though our necks or our windpipes are of the common kind—and therefore breakable or crushable—his are not amenable to mere strength. A stronger man, or a body of men more strong in all than him, can at certain times hold him; but they cannot hurt him as we can be hurt by him. We must, therefore, guard ourselves from his touch. Keep this near your heart”—as he spoke he lifted a little silver crucifix and held it out to me, I being nearest to him—“put these flowers round your neck”—here he handed to me a wreath of withered garlic blossoms—“for other enemies more mundane, this revolver and this knife; and for aid in all, these so small electric lamps, which you can fasten to your breast; and for all, and above all at the last, this, which we must not desecrate needless.” This was a portion of Sacred Wafer, which he put in an envelope and handed to me. Each of the others was similarly equipped. “Now,” he said, “friend John, where are the skeleton keys? If so that we can open the door, we need not break house by the window, as before at Miss Lucy’s.” + +Dr. Seward tried one or two skeleton keys, his mechanical dexterity as a surgeon standing him in good stead. Presently he got one to suit; after a little play back and forward the bolt yielded, and, with a rusty clang, shot back. We pressed on the door, the rusty hinges creaked, and it slowly opened. It was startlingly like the image conveyed to me in Dr. Seward’s diary of the opening of Miss Westenra’s tomb; I fancy that the same idea seemed to strike the others, for with one accord they shrank back. The Professor was the first to move forward, and stepped into the open door. + +“_In manus tuas, Domine!_” he said, crossing himself as he passed over the threshold. We closed the door behind us, lest when we should have lit our lamps we should possibly attract attention from the road. The Professor carefully tried the lock, lest we might not be able to open it from within should we be in a hurry making our exit. Then we all lit our lamps and proceeded on our search. + +The light from the tiny lamps fell in all sorts of odd forms, as the rays crossed each other, or the opacity of our bodies threw great shadows. I could not for my life get away from the feeling that there was some one else amongst us. I suppose it was the recollection, so powerfully brought home to me by the grim surroundings, of that terrible experience in Transylvania. I think the feeling was common to us all, for I noticed that the others kept looking over their shoulders at every sound and every new shadow, just as I felt myself doing. + +The whole place was thick with dust. The floor was seemingly inches deep, except where there were recent footsteps, in which on holding down my lamp I could see marks of hobnails where the dust was cracked. The walls were fluffy and heavy with dust, and in the corners were masses of spider’s webs, whereon the dust had gathered till they looked like old tattered rags as the weight had torn them partly down. On a table in the hall was a great bunch of keys, with a time-yellowed label on each. They had been used several times, for on the table were several similar rents in the blanket of dust, similar to that exposed when the Professor lifted them. He turned to me and said:— + +“You know this place, Jonathan. You have copied maps of it, and you know it at least more than we do. Which is the way to the chapel?” I had an idea of its direction, though on my former visit I had not been able to get admission to it; so I led the way, and after a few wrong turnings found myself opposite a low, arched oaken door, ribbed with iron bands. “This is the spot,” said the Professor as he turned his lamp on a small map of the house, copied from the file of my original correspondence regarding the purchase. With a little trouble we found the key on the bunch and opened the door. We were prepared for some unpleasantness, for as we were opening the door a faint, malodorous air seemed to exhale through the gaps, but none of us ever expected such an odour as we encountered. None of the others had met the Count at all at close quarters, and when I had seen him he was either in the fasting stage of his existence in his rooms or, when he was gloated with fresh blood, in a ruined building open to the air; but here the place was small and close, and the long disuse had made the air stagnant and foul. There was an earthy smell, as of some dry miasma, which came through the fouler air. But as to the odour itself, how shall I describe it? It was not alone that it was composed of all the ills of mortality and with the pungent, acrid smell of blood, but it seemed as though corruption had become itself corrupt. Faugh! it sickens me to think of it. Every breath exhaled by that monster seemed to have clung to the place and intensified its loathsomeness. + +Under ordinary circumstances such a stench would have brought our enterprise to an end; but this was no ordinary case, and the high and terrible purpose in which we were involved gave us a strength which rose above merely physical considerations. After the involuntary shrinking consequent on the first nauseous whiff, we one and all set about our work as though that loathsome place were a garden of roses. + +We made an accurate examination of the place, the Professor saying as we began:— + +“The first thing is to see how many of the boxes are left; we must then examine every hole and corner and cranny and see if we cannot get some clue as to what has become of the rest.” A glance was sufficient to show how many remained, for the great earth chests were bulky, and there was no mistaking them. + +There were only twenty-nine left out of the fifty! Once I got a fright, for, seeing Lord Godalming suddenly turn and look out of the vaulted door into the dark passage beyond, I looked too, and for an instant my heart stood still. Somewhere, looking out from the shadow, I seemed to see the high lights of the Count’s evil face, the ridge of the nose, the red eyes, the red lips, the awful pallor. It was only for a moment, for, as Lord Godalming said, “I thought I saw a face, but it was only the shadows,” and resumed his inquiry, I turned my lamp in the direction, and stepped into the passage. There was no sign of any one; and as there were no corners, no doors, no aperture of any kind, but only the solid walls of the passage, there could be no hiding-place even for _him_. I took it that fear had helped imagination, and said nothing. + +A few minutes later I saw Morris step suddenly back from a corner, which he was examining. We all followed his movements with our eyes, for undoubtedly some nervousness was growing on us, and we saw a whole mass of phosphorescence, which twinkled like stars. We all instinctively drew back. The whole place was becoming alive with rats. + +For a moment or two we stood appalled, all save Lord Godalming, who was seemingly prepared for such an emergency. Rushing over to the great iron-bound oaken door, which Dr. Seward had described from the outside, and which I had seen myself, he turned the key in the lock, drew the huge bolts, and swung the door open. Then, taking his little silver whistle from his pocket, he blew a low, shrill call. It was answered from behind Dr. Seward’s house by the yelping of dogs, and after about a minute three terriers came dashing round the corner of the house. Unconsciously we had all moved towards the door, and as we moved I noticed that the dust had been much disturbed: the boxes which had been taken out had been brought this way. But even in the minute that had elapsed the number of the rats had vastly increased. They seemed to swarm over the place all at once, till the lamplight, shining on their moving dark bodies and glittering, baleful eyes, made the place look like a bank of earth set with fireflies. The dogs dashed on, but at the threshold suddenly stopped and snarled, and then, simultaneously lifting their noses, began to howl in most lugubrious fashion. The rats were multiplying in thousands, and we moved out. + +Lord Godalming lifted one of the dogs, and carrying him in, placed him on the floor. The instant his feet touched the ground he seemed to recover his courage, and rushed at his natural enemies. They fled before him so fast that before he had shaken the life out of a score, the other dogs, who had by now been lifted in the same manner, had but small prey ere the whole mass had vanished. + +With their going it seemed as if some evil presence had departed, for the dogs frisked about and barked merrily as they made sudden darts at their prostrate foes, and turned them over and over and tossed them in the air with vicious shakes. We all seemed to find our spirits rise. Whether it was the purifying of the deadly atmosphere by the opening of the chapel door, or the relief which we experienced by finding ourselves in the open I know not; but most certainly the shadow of dread seemed to slip from us like a robe, and the occasion of our coming lost something of its grim significance, though we did not slacken a whit in our resolution. We closed the outer door and barred and locked it, and bringing the dogs with us, began our search of the house. We found nothing throughout except dust in extraordinary proportions, and all untouched save for my own footsteps when I had made my first visit. Never once did the dogs exhibit any symptom of uneasiness, and even when we returned to the chapel they frisked about as though they had been rabbit-hunting in a summer wood. + +The morning was quickening in the east when we emerged from the front. Dr. Van Helsing had taken the key of the hall-door from the bunch, and locked the door in orthodox fashion, putting the key into his pocket when he had done. + +“So far,” he said, “our night has been eminently successful. No harm has come to us such as I feared might be and yet we have ascertained how many boxes are missing. More than all do I rejoice that this, our first—and perhaps our most difficult and dangerous—step has been accomplished without the bringing thereinto our most sweet Madam Mina or troubling her waking or sleeping thoughts with sights and sounds and smells of horror which she might never forget. One lesson, too, we have learned, if it be allowable to argue _a particulari_: that the brute beasts which are to the Count’s command are yet themselves not amenable to his spiritual power; for look, these rats that would come to his call, just as from his castle top he summon the wolves to your going and to that poor mother’s cry, though they come to him, they run pell-mell from the so little dogs of my friend Arthur. We have other matters before us, other dangers, other fears; and that monster—he has not used his power over the brute world for the only or the last time to-night. So be it that he has gone elsewhere. Good! It has given us opportunity to cry ‘check’ in some ways in this chess game, which we play for the stake of human souls. And now let us go home. The dawn is close at hand, and we have reason to be content with our first night’s work. It may be ordained that we have many nights and days to follow, if full of peril; but we must go on, and from no danger shall we shrink.” + +The house was silent when we got back, save for some poor creature who was screaming away in one of the distant wards, and a low, moaning sound from Renfield’s room. The poor wretch was doubtless torturing himself, after the manner of the insane, with needless thoughts of pain. + +I came tiptoe into our own room, and found Mina asleep, breathing so softly that I had to put my ear down to hear it. She looks paler than usual. I hope the meeting to-night has not upset her. I am truly thankful that she is to be left out of our future work, and even of our deliberations. It is too great a strain for a woman to bear. I did not think so at first, but I know better now. Therefore I am glad that it is settled. There may be things which would frighten her to hear; and yet to conceal them from her might be worse than to tell her if once she suspected that there was any concealment. Henceforth our work is to be a sealed book to her, till at least such time as we can tell her that all is finished, and the earth free from a monster of the nether world. I daresay it will be difficult to begin to keep silence after such confidence as ours; but I must be resolute, and to-morrow I shall keep dark over to-night’s doings, and shall refuse to speak of anything that has happened. I rest on the sofa, so as not to disturb her. + +_1 October, later._ — I suppose it was natural that we should have all overslept ourselves, for the day was a busy one, and the night had no rest at all. Even Mina must have felt its exhaustion, for though I slept till the sun was high, I was awake before her, and had to call two or three times before she awoke. Indeed, she was so sound asleep that for a few seconds she did not recognize me, but looked at me with a sort of blank terror, as one looks who has been waked out of a bad dream. She complained a little of being tired, and I let her rest till later in the day. We now know of twenty-one boxes having been removed, and if it be that several were taken in any of these removals we may be able to trace them all. Such will, of course, immensely simplify our labour, and the sooner the matter is attended to the better. I shall look up Thomas Snelling to-day. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_1 October._ — It was towards noon when I was awakened by the Professor walking into my room. He was more jolly and cheerful than usual, and it is quite evident that last night’s work has helped to take some of the brooding weight off his mind. After going over the adventure of the night he suddenly said:— + +“Your patient interests me much. May it be that with you I visit him this morning? Or if that you are too occupy, I can go alone if it may be. It is a new experience to me to find a lunatic who talk philosophy, and reason so sound.” I had some work to do which pressed, so I told him that if he would go alone I would be glad, as then I should not have to keep him waiting; so I called an attendant and gave him the necessary instructions. Before the Professor left the room I cautioned him against getting any false impression from my patient. “But,” he answered, “I want him to talk of himself and of his delusion as to consuming live things. He said to Madam Mina, as I see in your diary of yesterday, that he had once had such a belief. Why do you smile, friend John?” + +“Excuse me,” I said, “but the answer is here.” I laid my hand on the type-written matter. “When our sane and learned lunatic made that very statement of how he _used_ to consume life, his mouth was actually nauseous with the flies and spiders which he had eaten just before Mrs. Harker entered the room.” Van Helsing smiled in turn. “Good!” he said. “Your memory is true, friend John. I should have remembered. And yet it is this very obliquity of thought and memory which makes mental disease such a fascinating study. Perhaps I may gain more knowledge out of the folly of this madman than I shall from the teaching of the most wise. Who knows?” I went on with my work, and before long was through that in hand. It seemed that the time had been very short indeed, but there was Van Helsing back in the study. “Do I interrupt?” he asked politely as he stood at the door. + +“Not at all,” I answered. “Come in. My work is finished, and I am free. I can go with you now, if you like. + +“It is needless; I have seen him!” + +“Well?” + +“I fear that he does not appraise me at much. Our interview was short. When I entered his room he was sitting on a stool in the centre, with his elbows on his knees, and his face was the picture of sullen discontent. I spoke to him as cheerfully as I could, and with such a measure of respect as I could assume. He made no reply whatever. “Don’t you know me?” I asked. His answer was not reassuring: “I know you well enough; you are the old fool Van Helsing. I wish you would take yourself and your idiotic brain theories somewhere else. Damn all thick-headed Dutchmen!” Not a word more would he say, but sat in his implacable sullenness as indifferent to me as though I had not been in the room at all. Thus departed for this time my chance of much learning from this so clever lunatic; so I shall go, if I may, and cheer myself with a few happy words with that sweet soul Madam Mina. Friend John, it does rejoice me unspeakable that she is no more to be pained, no more to be worried with our terrible things. Though we shall much miss her help, it is better so.” + +“I agree with you with all my heart,” I answered earnestly, for I did not want him to weaken in this matter. “Mrs. Harker is better out of it. Things are quite bad enough for us, all men of the world, and who have been in many tight places in our time; but it is no place for a woman, and if she had remained in touch with the affair, it would in time infallibly have wrecked her.” + +So Van Helsing has gone to confer with Mrs. Harker and Harker; Quincey and Art are all out following up the clues as to the earth-boxes. I shall finish my round of work and we shall meet to-night. + +_Mina Harker’s Journal._ + +_1 October._ — It is strange to me to be kept in the dark as I am to-day; after Jonathan’s full confidence for so many years, to see him manifestly avoid certain matters, and those the most vital of all. This morning I slept late after the fatigues of yesterday, and though Jonathan was late too, he was the earlier. He spoke to me before he went out, never more sweetly or tenderly, but he never mentioned a word of what had happened in the visit to the Count’s house. And yet he must have known how terribly anxious I was. Poor dear fellow! I suppose it must have distressed him even more than it did me. They all agreed that it was best that I should not be drawn further into this awful work, and I acquiesced. But to think that he keeps anything from me! And now I am crying like a silly fool, when I _know_ it comes from my husband’s great love and from the good, good wishes of those other strong men. + +That has done me good. Well, some day Jonathan will tell me all; and lest it should ever be that he should think for a moment that I kept anything from him, I still keep my journal as usual. Then if he has feared of my trust I shall show it to him, with every thought of my heart put down for his dear eyes to read. I feel strangely sad and low-spirited to-day. I suppose it is the reaction from the terrible excitement. + +Last night I went to bed when the men had gone, simply because they told me to. I didn’t feel sleepy, and I did feel full of devouring anxiety. I kept thinking over everything that has been ever since Jonathan came to see me in London, and it all seems like a horrible tragedy, with fate pressing on relentlessly to some destined end. Everything that one does seems, no matter how right it may be, to bring on the very thing which is most to be deplored. If I hadn’t gone to Whitby, perhaps poor dear Lucy would be with us now. She hadn’t taken to visiting the churchyard till I came, and if she hadn’t come there in the day-time with me she wouldn’t have walked there in her sleep; and if she hadn’t gone there at night and asleep, that monster couldn’t have destroyed her as he did. Oh, why did I ever go to Whitby? There now, crying again! I wonder what has come over me to-day. I must hide it from Jonathan, for if he knew that I had been crying twice in one morning—I, who never cried on my own account, and whom he has never caused to shed a tear—the dear fellow would fret his heart out. I shall put a bold face on, and if I do feel weepy, he shall never see it. I suppose it is one of the lessons that we poor women have to learn.... + +I can’t quite remember how I fell asleep last night. I remember hearing the sudden barking of the dogs and a lot of queer sounds, like praying on a very tumultuous scale, from Mr. Renfield’s room, which is somewhere under this. And then there was silence over everything, silence so profound that it startled me, and I got up and looked out of the window. All was dark and silent, the black shadows thrown by the moonlight seeming full of a silent mystery of their own. Not a thing seemed to be stirring, but all to be grim and fixed as death or fate; so that a thin streak of white mist, that crept with almost imperceptible slowness across the grass towards the house, seemed to have a sentience and a vitality of its own. I think that the digression of my thoughts must have done me good, for when I got back to bed I found a lethargy creeping over me. I lay a while, but could not quite sleep, so I got out and looked out of the window again. The mist was spreading, and was now close up to the house, so that I could see it lying thick against the wall, as though it were stealing up to the windows. The poor man was more loud than ever, and though I could not distinguish a word he said, I could in some way recognise in his tones some passionate entreaty on his part. Then there was the sound of a struggle, and I knew that the attendants were dealing with him. I was so frightened that I crept into bed, and pulled the clothes over my head, putting my fingers in my ears. I was not then a bit sleepy, at least so I thought; but I must have fallen asleep, for, except dreams, I do not remember anything until the morning, when Jonathan woke me. I think that it took me an effort and a little time to realise where I was, and that it was Jonathan who was bending over me. My dream was very peculiar, and was almost typical of the way that waking thoughts become merged in, or continued in, dreams. + +I thought that I was asleep, and waiting for Jonathan to come back. I was very anxious about him, and I was powerless to act; my feet, and my hands, and my brain were weighted, so that nothing could proceed at the usual pace. And so I slept uneasily and thought. Then it began to dawn upon me that the air was heavy, and dank, and cold. I put back the clothes from my face, and found, to my surprise, that all was dim around. The gaslight which I had left lit for Jonathan, but turned down, came only like a tiny red spark through the fog, which had evidently grown thicker and poured into the room. Then it occurred to me that I had shut the window before I had come to bed. I would have got out to make certain on the point, but some leaden lethargy seemed to chain my limbs and even my will. I lay still and endured; that was all. I closed my eyes, but could still see through my eyelids. (It is wonderful what tricks our dreams play us, and how conveniently we can imagine.) The mist grew thicker and thicker and I could see now how it came in, for I could see it like smoke—or with the white energy of boiling water—pouring in, not through the window, but through the joinings of the door. It got thicker and thicker, till it seemed as if it became concentrated into a sort of pillar of cloud in the room, through the top of which I could see the light of the gas shining like a red eye. Things began to whirl through my brain just as the cloudy column was now whirling in the room, and through it all came the scriptural words “a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night.” Was it indeed some such spiritual guidance that was coming to me in my sleep? But the pillar was composed of both the day and the night-guiding, for the fire was in the red eye, which at the thought got a new fascination for me; till, as I looked, the fire divided, and seemed to shine on me through the fog like two red eyes, such as Lucy told me of in her momentary mental wandering when, on the cliff, the dying sunlight struck the windows of St. Mary’s Church. Suddenly the horror burst upon me that it was thus that Jonathan had seen those awful women growing into reality through the whirling mist in the moonlight, and in my dream I must have fainted, for all became black darkness. The last conscious effort which imagination made was to show me a livid white face bending over me out of the mist. I must be careful of such dreams, for they would unseat one’s reason if there were too much of them. I would get Dr. Van Helsing or Dr. Seward to prescribe something for me which would make me sleep, only that I fear to alarm them. Such a dream at the present time would become woven into their fears for me. To-night I shall strive hard to sleep naturally. If I do not, I shall to-morrow night get them to give me a dose of chloral; that cannot hurt me for once, and it will give me a good night’s sleep. Last night tired me more than if I had not slept at all. + +_2 October 10 p. m._ — Last night I slept, but did not dream. I must have slept soundly, for I was not waked by Jonathan coming to bed; but the sleep has not refreshed me, for to-day I feel terribly weak and spiritless. I spent all yesterday trying to read, or lying down dozing. In the afternoon Mr. Renfield asked if he might see me. Poor man, he was very gentle, and when I came away he kissed my hand and bade God bless me. Some way it affected me much; I am crying when I think of him. This is a new weakness, of which I must be careful. Jonathan would be miserable if he knew I had been crying. He and the others were out till dinner-time, and they all came in tired. I did what I could to brighten them up, and I suppose that the effort did me good, for I forgot how tired I was. After dinner they sent me to bed, and all went off to smoke together, as they said, but I knew that they wanted to tell each other of what had occurred to each during the day; I could see from Jonathan’s manner that he had something important to communicate. I was not so sleepy as I should have been; so before they went I asked Dr. Seward to give me a little opiate of some kind, as I had not slept well the night before. He very kindly made me up a sleeping draught, which he gave to me, telling me that it would do me no harm, as it was very mild.... I have taken it, and am waiting for sleep, which still keeps aloof. I hope I have not done wrong, for as sleep begins to flirt with me, a new fear comes: that I may have been foolish in thus depriving myself of the power of waking. I might want it. Here comes sleep. Good-night. + +== CHAPTER XX + +JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL + +_1 October, evening._ — I found Thomas Snelling in his house at Bethnal Green, but unhappily he was not in a condition to remember anything. The very prospect of beer which my expected coming had opened to him had proved too much, and he had begun too early on his expected debauch. I learned, however, from his wife, who seemed a decent, poor soul, that he was only the assistant to Smollet, who of the two mates was the responsible person. So off I drove to Walworth, and found Mr. Joseph Smollet at home and in his shirtsleeves, taking a late tea out of a saucer. He is a decent, intelligent fellow, distinctly a good, reliable type of workman, and with a headpiece of his own. He remembered all about the incident of the boxes, and from a wonderful dog’s-eared notebook, which he produced from some mysterious receptacle about the seat of his trousers, and which had hieroglyphical entries in thick, half-obliterated pencil, he gave me the destinations of the boxes. There were, he said, six in the cartload which he took from Carfax and left at 197, Chicksand Street, Mile End New Town, and another six which he deposited at Jamaica Lane, Bermondsey. If then the Count meant to scatter these ghastly refuges of his over London, these places were chosen as the first of delivery, so that later he might distribute more fully. The systematic manner in which this was done made me think that he could not mean to confine himself to two sides of London. He was now fixed on the far east of the northern shore, on the east of the southern shore, and on the south. The north and west were surely never meant to be left out of his diabolical scheme—let alone the City itself and the very heart of fashionable London in the south-west and west. I went back to Smollet, and asked him if he could tell us if any other boxes had been taken from Carfax. + +He replied:— + +“Well, guv’nor, you’ve treated me wery ’an’some”—I had given him half a sovereign—“an’ I’ll tell yer all I know. I heard a man by the name of Bloxam say four nights ago in the ’Are an’ ’Ounds, in Pincher’s Alley, as ’ow he an’ his mate ’ad ’ad a rare dusty job in a old ’ouse at Purfect. There ain’t a-many such jobs as this ’ere, an’ I’m thinkin’ that maybe Sam Bloxam could tell ye summut.” I asked if he could tell me where to find him. I told him that if he could get me the address it would be worth another half-sovereign to him. So he gulped down the rest of his tea and stood up, saying that he was going to begin the search then and there. At the door he stopped, and said:— + +“Look ’ere, guv’nor, there ain’t no sense in me a-keepin’ you ’ere. I may find Sam soon, or I mayn’t; but anyhow he ain’t like to be in a way to tell ye much to-night. Sam is a rare one when he starts on the booze. If you can give me a envelope with a stamp on it, and put yer address on it, I’ll find out where Sam is to be found and post it ye to-night. But ye’d better be up arter ’im soon in the mornin’, or maybe ye won’t ketch ’im; for Sam gets off main early, never mind the booze the night afore.” + +This was all practical, so one of the children went off with a penny to buy an envelope and a sheet of paper, and to keep the change. When she came back, I addressed the envelope and stamped it, and when Smollet had again faithfully promised to post the address when found, I took my way to home. We’re on the track anyhow. I am tired to-night, and want sleep. Mina is fast asleep, and looks a little too pale; her eyes look as though she had been crying. Poor dear, I’ve no doubt it frets her to be kept in the dark, and it may make her doubly anxious about me and the others. But it is best as it is. It is better to be disappointed and worried in such a way now than to have her nerve broken. The doctors were quite right to insist on her being kept out of this dreadful business. I must be firm, for on me this particular burden of silence must rest. I shall not ever enter on the subject with her under any circumstances. Indeed, it may not be a hard task, after all, for she herself has become reticent on the subject, and has not spoken of the Count or his doings ever since we told her of our decision. + +_2 October, evening._ — A long and trying and exciting day. By the first post I got my directed envelope with a dirty scrap of paper enclosed, on which was written with a carpenter’s pencil in a sprawling hand:— + +“Sam Bloxam, Korkrans, 4, Poters Cort, Bartel Street, Walworth. Arsk for the depite.” + +I got the letter in bed, and rose without waking Mina. She looked heavy and sleepy and pale, and far from well. I determined not to wake her, but that, when I should return from this new search, I would arrange for her going back to Exeter. I think she would be happier in our own home, with her daily tasks to interest her, than in being here amongst us and in ignorance. I only saw Dr. Seward for a moment, and told him where I was off to, promising to come back and tell the rest so soon as I should have found out anything. I drove to Walworth and found, with some difficulty, Potter’s Court. Mr. Smollet’s spelling misled me, as I asked for Poter’s Court instead of Potter’s Court. However, when I had found the court, I had no difficulty in discovering Corcoran’s lodging-house. When I asked the man who came to the door for the “depite,” he shook his head, and said: “I dunno ’im. There ain’t no such a person ’ere; I never ’eard of ’im in all my bloomin’ days. Don’t believe there ain’t nobody of that kind livin’ ere or anywheres.” I took out Smollet’s letter, and as I read it it seemed to me that the lesson of the spelling of the name of the court might guide me. “What are you?” I asked. + +“I’m the depity,” he answered. I saw at once that I was on the right track; phonetic spelling had again misled me. A half-crown tip put the deputy’s knowledge at my disposal, and I learned that Mr. Bloxam, who had slept off the remains of his beer on the previous night at Corcoran’s, had left for his work at Poplar at five o’clock that morning. He could not tell me where the place of work was situated, but he had a vague idea that it was some kind of a “new-fangled ware’us”; and with this slender clue I had to start for Poplar. It was twelve o’clock before I got any satisfactory hint of such a building, and this I got at a coffee-shop, where some workmen were having their dinner. One of these suggested that there was being erected at Cross Angel Street a new “cold storage” building; and as this suited the condition of a “new-fangled ware’us,” I at once drove to it. An interview with a surly gatekeeper and a surlier foreman, both of whom were appeased with the coin of the realm, put me on the track of Bloxam; he was sent for on my suggesting that I was willing to pay his day’s wages to his foreman for the privilege of asking him a few questions on a private matter. He was a smart enough fellow, though rough of speech and bearing. When I had promised to pay for his information and given him an earnest, he told me that he had made two journeys between Carfax and a house in Piccadilly, and had taken from this house to the latter nine great boxes—“main heavy ones”—with a horse and cart hired by him for this purpose. I asked him if he could tell me the number of the house in Piccadilly, to which he replied:— + +“Well, guv’nor, I forgits the number, but it was only a few doors from a big white church or somethink of the kind, not long built. It was a dusty old ’ouse, too, though nothin’ to the dustiness of the ’ouse we tooked the bloomin’ boxes from.” + +“How did you get into the houses if they were both empty?” + +“There was the old party what engaged me a-waitin’ in the ’ouse at Purfleet. He ’elped me to lift the boxes and put them in the dray. Curse me, but he was the strongest chap I ever struck, an’ him a old feller, with a white moustache, one that thin you would think he couldn’t throw a shadder.” + +How this phrase thrilled through me! + +“Why, ’e took up ’is end o’ the boxes like they was pounds of tea, and me a-puffin’ an’ a-blowin’ afore I could up-end mine anyhow—an’ I’m no chicken, neither.” + +“How did you get into the house in Piccadilly?” I asked. + +“He was there too. He must ’a’ started off and got there afore me, for when I rung of the bell he kem an’ opened the door ’isself an’ ’elped me to carry the boxes into the ’all.” + +“The whole nine?” I asked. + +“Yus; there was five in the first load an’ four in the second. It was main dry work, an’ I don’t so well remember ’ow I got ’ome.” I interrupted him:— + +“Were the boxes left in the hall?” + +“Yus; it was a big ’all, an’ there was nothin’ else in it.” I made one more attempt to further matters:— + +“You didn’t have any key?” + +“Never used no key nor nothink. The old gent, he opened the door ’isself an’ shut it again when I druv off. I don’t remember the last time—but that was the beer.” + +“And you can’t remember the number of the house?” + +“No, sir. But ye needn’t have no difficulty about that. It’s a ’igh ’un with a stone front with a bow on it, an’ ’igh steps up to the door. I know them steps, ’avin’ ’ad to carry the boxes up with three loafers what come round to earn a copper. The old gent give them shillin’s, an’ they seein’ they got so much, they wanted more; but ’e took one of them by the shoulder and was like to throw ’im down the steps, till the lot of them went away cussin’.” I thought that with this description I could find the house, so, having paid my friend for his information, I started off for Piccadilly. I had gained a new painful experience; the Count could, it was evident, handle the earth-boxes himself. If so, time was precious; for, now that he had achieved a certain amount of distribution, he could, by choosing his own time, complete the task unobserved. At Piccadilly Circus I discharged my cab, and walked westward; beyond the Junior Constitutional I came across the house described, and was satisfied that this was the next of the lairs arranged by Dracula. The house looked as though it had been long untenanted. The windows were encrusted with dust, and the shutters were up. All the framework was black with time, and from the iron the paint had mostly scaled away. It was evident that up to lately there had been a large notice-board in front of the balcony; it had, however, been roughly torn away, the uprights which had supported it still remaining. Behind the rails of the balcony I saw there were some loose boards, whose raw edges looked white. I would have given a good deal to have been able to see the notice-board intact, as it would, perhaps, have given some clue to the ownership of the house. I remembered my experience of the investigation and purchase of Carfax, and I could not but feel that if I could find the former owner there might be some means discovered of gaining access to the house. + +There was at present nothing to be learned from the Piccadilly side, and nothing could be done; so I went round to the back to see if anything could be gathered from this quarter. The mews were active, the Piccadilly houses being mostly in occupation. I asked one or two of the grooms and helpers whom I saw around if they could tell me anything about the empty house. One of them said that he heard it had lately been taken, but he couldn’t say from whom. He told me, however, that up to very lately there had been a notice-board of “For Sale” up, and that perhaps Mitchell, Sons, & Candy, the house agents, could tell me something, as he thought he remembered seeing the name of that firm on the board. I did not wish to seem too eager, or to let my informant know or guess too much, so, thanking him in the usual manner, I strolled away. It was now growing dusk, and the autumn night was closing in, so I did not lose any time. Having learned the address of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy from a directory at the Berkeley, I was soon at their office in Sackville Street. + +The gentleman who saw me was particularly suave in manner, but uncommunicative in equal proportion. Having once told me that the Piccadilly house—which throughout our interview he called a “mansion”—was sold, he considered my business as concluded. When I asked who had purchased it, he opened his eyes a thought wider, and paused a few seconds before replying:— + +“It is sold, sir.” + +“Pardon me,” I said, with equal politeness, “but I have a special reason for wishing to know who purchased it.” + +Again he paused longer, and raised his eyebrows still more. “It is sold, sir,” was again his laconic reply. + +“Surely,” I said, “you do not mind letting me know so much.” + +“But I do mind,” he answered. “The affairs of their clients are absolutely safe in the hands of Mitchell, Sons, & Candy.” This was manifestly a prig of the first water, and there was no use arguing with him. I thought I had best meet him on his own ground, so I said:— + +“Your clients, sir, are happy in having so resolute a guardian of their confidence. I am myself a professional man.” Here I handed him my card. “In this instance I am not prompted by curiosity; I act on the part of Lord Godalming, who wishes to know something of the property which was, he understood, lately for sale.” These words put a different complexion on affairs. He said:— + +“I would like to oblige you if I could, Mr. Harker, and especially would I like to oblige his lordship. We once carried out a small matter of renting some chambers for him when he was the Honourable Arthur Holmwood. If you will let me have his lordship’s address I will consult the House on the subject, and will, in any case, communicate with his lordship by to-night’s post. It will be a pleasure if we can so far deviate from our rules as to give the required information to his lordship.” + +I wanted to secure a friend, and not to make an enemy, so I thanked him, gave the address at Dr. Seward’s and came away. It was now dark, and I was tired and hungry. I got a cup of tea at the Aërated Bread Company and came down to Purfleet by the next train. + +I found all the others at home. Mina was looking tired and pale, but she made a gallant effort to be bright and cheerful, it wrung my heart to think that I had had to keep anything from her and so caused her inquietude. Thank God, this will be the last night of her looking on at our conferences, and feeling the sting of our not showing our confidence. It took all my courage to hold to the wise resolution of keeping her out of our grim task. She seems somehow more reconciled; or else the very subject seems to have become repugnant to her, for when any accidental allusion is made she actually shudders. I am glad we made our resolution in time, as with such a feeling as this, our growing knowledge would be torture to her. + +I could not tell the others of the day’s discovery till we were alone; so after dinner—followed by a little music to save appearances even amongst ourselves—I took Mina to her room and left her to go to bed. The dear girl was more affectionate with me than ever, and clung to me as though she would detain me; but there was much to be talked of and I came away. Thank God, the ceasing of telling things has made no difference between us. + +When I came down again I found the others all gathered round the fire in the study. In the train I had written my diary so far, and simply read it off to them as the best means of letting them get abreast of my own information; when I had finished Van Helsing said:— + +“This has been a great day’s work, friend Jonathan. Doubtless we are on the track of the missing boxes. If we find them all in that house, then our work is near the end. But if there be some missing, we must search until we find them. Then shall we make our final _coup_, and hunt the wretch to his real death.” We all sat silent awhile and all at once Mr. Morris spoke:— + +“Say! how are we going to get into that house?” + +“We got into the other,” answered Lord Godalming quickly. + +“But, Art, this is different. We broke house at Carfax, but we had night and a walled park to protect us. It will be a mighty different thing to commit burglary in Piccadilly, either by day or night. I confess I don’t see how we are going to get in unless that agency duck can find us a key of some sort; perhaps we shall know when you get his letter in the morning.” Lord Godalming’s brows contracted, and he stood up and walked about the room. By-and-by he stopped and said, turning from one to another of us:— + +“Quincey’s head is level. This burglary business is getting serious; we got off once all right; but we have now a rare job on hand—unless we can find the Count’s key basket.” + +As nothing could well be done before morning, and as it would be at least advisable to wait till Lord Godalming should hear from Mitchell’s, we decided not to take any active step before breakfast time. For a good while we sat and smoked, discussing the matter in its various lights and bearings; I took the opportunity of bringing this diary right up to the moment. I am very sleepy and shall go to bed.... + +Just a line. Mina sleeps soundly and her breathing is regular. Her forehead is puckered up into little wrinkles, as though she thinks even in her sleep. She is still too pale, but does not look so haggard as she did this morning. To-morrow will, I hope, mend all this; she will be herself at home in Exeter. Oh, but I am sleepy! + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_1 October._ — I am puzzled afresh about Renfield. His moods change so rapidly that I find it difficult to keep touch of them, and as they always mean something more than his own well-being, they form a more than interesting study. This morning, when I went to see him after his repulse of Van Helsing, his manner was that of a man commanding destiny. He was, in fact, commanding destiny—subjectively. He did not really care for any of the things of mere earth; he was in the clouds and looked down on all the weaknesses and wants of us poor mortals. I thought I would improve the occasion and learn something, so I asked him:— + +“What about the flies these times?” He smiled on me in quite a superior sort of way—such a smile as would have become the face of Malvolio—as he answered me:— + +“The fly, my dear sir, has one striking feature; its wings are typical of the aërial powers of the psychic faculties. The ancients did well when they typified the soul as a butterfly!” + +I thought I would push his analogy to its utmost logically, so I said quickly:— + +“Oh, it is a soul you are after now, is it?” His madness foiled his reason, and a puzzled look spread over his face as, shaking his head with a decision which I had but seldom seen in him, he said:— + +“Oh, no, oh no! I want no souls. Life is all I want.” Here he brightened up; “I am pretty indifferent about it at present. Life is all right; I have all I want. You must get a new patient, doctor, if you wish to study zoöphagy!” + +This puzzled me a little, so I drew him on:— + +“Then you command life; you are a god, I suppose?” He smiled with an ineffably benign superiority. + +“Oh no! Far be it from me to arrogate to myself the attributes of the Deity. I am not even concerned in His especially spiritual doings. If I may state my intellectual position I am, so far as concerns things purely terrestrial, somewhat in the position which Enoch occupied spiritually!” This was a poser to me. I could not at the moment recall Enoch’s appositeness; so I had to ask a simple question, though I felt that by so doing I was lowering myself in the eyes of the lunatic:— + +“And why with Enoch?” + +“Because he walked with God.” I could not see the analogy, but did not like to admit it; so I harked back to what he had denied:— + +“So you don’t care about life and you don’t want souls. Why not?” I put my question quickly and somewhat sternly, on purpose to disconcert him. The effort succeeded; for an instant he unconsciously relapsed into his old servile manner, bent low before me, and actually fawned upon me as he replied:— + +“I don’t want any souls, indeed, indeed! I don’t. I couldn’t use them if I had them; they would be no manner of use to me. I couldn’t eat them or—” He suddenly stopped and the old cunning look spread over his face, like a wind-sweep on the surface of the water. “And doctor, as to life, what is it after all? When you’ve got all you require, and you know that you will never want, that is all. I have friends—good friends—like you, Dr. Seward”; this was said with a leer of inexpressible cunning. “I know that I shall never lack the means of life!” + +I think that through the cloudiness of his insanity he saw some antagonism in me, for he at once fell back on the last refuge of such as he—a dogged silence. After a short time I saw that for the present it was useless to speak to him. He was sulky, and so I came away. + +Later in the day he sent for me. Ordinarily I would not have come without special reason, but just at present I am so interested in him that I would gladly make an effort. Besides, I am glad to have anything to help to pass the time. Harker is out, following up clues; and so are Lord Godalming and Quincey. Van Helsing sits in my study poring over the record prepared by the Harkers; he seems to think that by accurate knowledge of all details he will light upon some clue. He does not wish to be disturbed in the work, without cause. I would have taken him with me to see the patient, only I thought that after his last repulse he might not care to go again. There was also another reason: Renfield might not speak so freely before a third person as when he and I were alone. + +I found him sitting out in the middle of the floor on his stool, a pose which is generally indicative of some mental energy on his part. When I came in, he said at once, as though the question had been waiting on his lips:— + +“What about souls?” It was evident then that my surmise had been correct. Unconscious cerebration was doing its work, even with the lunatic. I determined to have the matter out. “What about them yourself?” I asked. He did not reply for a moment but looked all round him, and up and down, as though he expected to find some inspiration for an answer. + +“I don’t want any souls!” he said in a feeble, apologetic way. The matter seemed preying on his mind, and so I determined to use it—to “be cruel only to be kind.” So I said:— + +“You like life, and you want life?” + +“Oh yes! but that is all right; you needn’t worry about that!” + +“But,” I asked, “how are we to get the life without getting the soul also?” This seemed to puzzle him, so I followed it up:— + +“A nice time you’ll have some time when you’re flying out there, with the souls of thousands of flies and spiders and birds and cats buzzing and twittering and miauing all round you. You’ve got their lives, you know, and you must put up with their souls!” Something seemed to affect his imagination, for he put his fingers to his ears and shut his eyes, screwing them up tightly just as a small boy does when his face is being soaped. There was something pathetic in it that touched me; it also gave me a lesson, for it seemed that before me was a child—only a child, though the features were worn, and the stubble on the jaws was white. It was evident that he was undergoing some process of mental disturbance, and, knowing how his past moods had interpreted things seemingly foreign to himself, I thought I would enter into his mind as well as I could and go with him. The first step was to restore confidence, so I asked him, speaking pretty loud so that he would hear me through his closed ears:— + +“Would you like some sugar to get your flies round again?” He seemed to wake up all at once, and shook his head. With a laugh he replied:— + +“Not much! flies are poor things, after all!” After a pause he added, “But I don’t want their souls buzzing round me, all the same.” + +“Or spiders?” I went on. + +“Blow spiders! What’s the use of spiders? There isn’t anything in them to eat or”—he stopped suddenly, as though reminded of a forbidden topic. + +“So, so!” I thought to myself, “this is the second time he has suddenly stopped at the word ‘drink’; what does it mean?” Renfield seemed himself aware of having made a lapse, for he hurried on, as though to distract my attention from it:— + +“I don’t take any stock at all in such matters. ‘Rats and mice and such small deer,’ as Shakespeare has it, ‘chicken-feed of the larder’ they might be called. I’m past all that sort of nonsense. You might as well ask a man to eat molecules with a pair of chop-sticks, as to try to interest me about the lesser carnivora, when I know of what is before me.” + +“I see,” I said. “You want big things that you can make your teeth meet in? How would you like to breakfast on elephant?” + +“What ridiculous nonsense you are talking!” He was getting too wide awake, so I thought I would press him hard. “I wonder,” I said reflectively, “what an elephant’s soul is like!” + +The effect I desired was obtained, for he at once fell from his high-horse and became a child again. + +“I don’t want an elephant’s soul, or any soul at all!” he said. For a few moments he sat despondently. Suddenly he jumped to his feet, with his eyes blazing and all the signs of intense cerebral excitement. “To hell with you and your souls!” he shouted. “Why do you plague me about souls? Haven’t I got enough to worry, and pain, and distract me already, without thinking of souls!” He looked so hostile that I thought he was in for another homicidal fit, so I blew my whistle. The instant, however, that I did so he became calm, and said apologetically:— + +“Forgive me, Doctor; I forgot myself. You do not need any help. I am so worried in my mind that I am apt to be irritable. If you only knew the problem I have to face, and that I am working out, you would pity, and tolerate, and pardon me. Pray do not put me in a strait-waistcoat. I want to think and I cannot think freely when my body is confined. I am sure you will understand!” He had evidently self-control; so when the attendants came I told them not to mind, and they withdrew. Renfield watched them go; when the door was closed he said, with considerable dignity and sweetness:— + +“Dr. Seward, you have been very considerate towards me. Believe me that I am very, very grateful to you!” I thought it well to leave him in this mood, and so I came away. There is certainly something to ponder over in this man’s state. Several points seem to make what the American interviewer calls “a story,” if one could only get them in proper order. Here they are:— + +Will not mention “drinking.” + +Fears the thought of being burdened with the “soul” of anything. + +Has no dread of wanting “life” in the future. + +Despises the meaner forms of life altogether, though he dreads being haunted by their souls. + +Logically all these things point one way! he has assurance of some kind that he will acquire some higher life. He dreads the consequence—the burden of a soul. Then it is a human life he looks to! + +And the assurance— + +?Merciful God! the Count has been to him, and there is some new scheme of terror afoot! + +_Later._ — I went after my round to Van Helsing and told him my suspicion. He grew very grave; and, after thinking the matter over for a while asked me to take him to Renfield. I did so. As we came to the door we heard the lunatic within singing gaily, as he used to do in the time which now seems so long ago. When we entered we saw with amazement that he had spread out his sugar as of old; the flies, lethargic with the autumn, were beginning to buzz into the room. We tried to make him talk of the subject of our previous conversation, but he would not attend. He went on with his singing, just as though we had not been present. He had got a scrap of paper and was folding it into a note-book. We had to come away as ignorant as we went in. + +His is a curious case indeed; we must watch him to-night. + +_Letter, Mitchell, Sons and Candy to Lord Godalming._ + +_“1 October._ + +“My Lord, + +“We are at all times only too happy to meet your wishes. We beg, with regard to the desire of your Lordship, expressed by Mr. Harker on your behalf, to supply the following information concerning the sale and purchase of No. 347, Piccadilly. The original vendors are the executors of the late Mr. Archibald Winter-Suffield. The purchaser is a foreign nobleman, Count de Ville, who effected the purchase himself paying the purchase money in notes ‘over the counter,’ if your Lordship will pardon us using so vulgar an expression. Beyond this we know nothing whatever of him. + +“We are, my Lord, + +“Your Lordship’s humble servants, + +“MITCHELL, SONS & CANDY.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_2 October._ — I placed a man in the corridor last night, and told him to make an accurate note of any sound he might hear from Renfield’s room, and gave him instructions that if there should be anything strange he was to call me. After dinner, when we had all gathered round the fire in the study—Mrs. Harker having gone to bed—we discussed the attempts and discoveries of the day. Harker was the only one who had any result, and we are in great hopes that his clue may be an important one. + +Before going to bed I went round to the patient’s room and looked in through the observation trap. He was sleeping soundly, and his heart rose and fell with regular respiration. + +This morning the man on duty reported to me that a little after midnight he was restless and kept saying his prayers somewhat loudly. I asked him if that was all; he replied that it was all he heard. There was something about his manner so suspicious that I asked him point blank if he had been asleep. He denied sleep, but admitted to having “dozed” for a while. It is too bad that men cannot be trusted unless they are watched. + +To-day Harker is out following up his clue, and Art and Quincey are looking after horses. Godalming thinks that it will be well to have horses always in readiness, for when we get the information which we seek there will be no time to lose. We must sterilise all the imported earth between sunrise and sunset; we shall thus catch the Count at his weakest, and without a refuge to fly to. Van Helsing is off to the British Museum looking up some authorities on ancient medicine. The old physicians took account of things which their followers do not accept, and the Professor is searching for witch and demon cures which may be useful to us later. + +I sometimes think we must be all mad and that we shall wake to sanity in strait-waistcoats. + +_Later._ — We have met again. We seem at last to be on the track, and our work of to-morrow may be the beginning of the end. I wonder if Renfield’s quiet has anything to do with this. His moods have so followed the doings of the Count, that the coming destruction of the monster may be carried to him in some subtle way. If we could only get some hint as to what passed in his mind, between the time of my argument with him to-day and his resumption of fly-catching, it might afford us a valuable clue. He is now seemingly quiet for a spell.... Is he?— That wild yell seemed to come from his room.... + +The attendant came bursting into my room and told me that Renfield had somehow met with some accident. He had heard him yell; and when he went to him found him lying on his face on the floor, all covered with blood. I must go at once.... + +== CHAPTER XXI + +DR. SEWARD’S DIARY + +_3 October._ — Let me put down with exactness all that happened, as well as I can remember it, since last I made an entry. Not a detail that I can recall must be forgotten; in all calmness I must proceed. + +When I came to Renfield’s room I found him lying on the floor on his left side in a glittering pool of blood. When I went to move him, it became at once apparent that he had received some terrible injuries; there seemed none of that unity of purpose between the parts of the body which marks even lethargic sanity. As the face was exposed I could see that it was horribly bruised, as though it had been beaten against the floor—indeed it was from the face wounds that the pool of blood originated. The attendant who was kneeling beside the body said to me as we turned him over:— + +“I think, sir, his back is broken. See, both his right arm and leg and the whole side of his face are paralysed.” How such a thing could have happened puzzled the attendant beyond measure. He seemed quite bewildered, and his brows were gathered in as he said:— + +“I can’t understand the two things. He could mark his face like that by beating his own head on the floor. I saw a young woman do it once at the Eversfield Asylum before anyone could lay hands on her. And I suppose he might have broke his neck by falling out of bed, if he got in an awkward kink. But for the life of me I can’t imagine how the two things occurred. If his back was broke, he couldn’t beat his head; and if his face was like that before the fall out of bed, there would be marks of it.” I said to him:— + +“Go to Dr. Van Helsing, and ask him to kindly come here at once. I want him without an instant’s delay.” The man ran off, and within a few minutes the Professor, in his dressing gown and slippers, appeared. When he saw Renfield on the ground, he looked keenly at him a moment, and then turned to me. I think he recognised my thought in my eyes, for he said very quietly, manifestly for the ears of the attendant:— + +“Ah, a sad accident! He will need very careful watching, and much attention. I shall stay with you myself; but I shall first dress myself. If you will remain I shall in a few minutes join you.” + +The patient was now breathing stertorously and it was easy to see that he had suffered some terrible injury. Van Helsing returned with extraordinary celerity, bearing with him a surgical case. He had evidently been thinking and had his mind made up; for, almost before he looked at the patient, he whispered to me:— + +“Send the attendant away. We must be alone with him when he becomes conscious, after the operation.” So I said:— + +“I think that will do now, Simmons. We have done all that we can at present. You had better go your round, and Dr. Van Helsing will operate. Let me know instantly if there be anything unusual anywhere.” + +The man withdrew, and we went into a strict examination of the patient. The wounds of the face was superficial; the real injury was a depressed fracture of the skull, extending right up through the motor area. The Professor thought a moment and said:— + +“We must reduce the pressure and get back to normal conditions, as far as can be; the rapidity of the suffusion shows the terrible nature of his injury. The whole motor area seems affected. The suffusion of the brain will increase quickly, so we must trephine at once or it may be too late.” As he was speaking there was a soft tapping at the door. I went over and opened it and found in the corridor without, Arthur and Quincey in pajamas and slippers: the former spoke:— + +“I heard your man call up Dr. Van Helsing and tell him of an accident. So I woke Quincey or rather called for him as he was not asleep. Things are moving too quickly and too strangely for sound sleep for any of us these times. I’ve been thinking that to-morrow night will not see things as they have been. We’ll have to look back—and forward a little more than we have done. May we come in?” I nodded, and held the door open till they had entered; then I closed it again. When Quincey saw the attitude and state of the patient, and noted the horrible pool on the floor, he said softly:— + +“My God! what has happened to him? Poor, poor devil!” I told him briefly, and added that we expected he would recover consciousness after the operation—for a short time, at all events. He went at once and sat down on the edge of the bed, with Godalming beside him; we all watched in patience. + +“We shall wait,” said Van Helsing, “just long enough to fix the best spot for trephining, so that we may most quickly and perfectly remove the blood clot; for it is evident that the hæmorrhage is increasing.” + +The minutes during which we waited passed with fearful slowness. I had a horrible sinking in my heart, and from Van Helsing’s face I gathered that he felt some fear or apprehension as to what was to come. I dreaded the words that Renfield might speak. I was positively afraid to think; but the conviction of what was coming was on me, as I have read of men who have heard the death-watch. The poor man’s breathing came in uncertain gasps. Each instant he seemed as though he would open his eyes and speak; but then would follow a prolonged stertorous breath, and he would relapse into a more fixed insensibility. Inured as I was to sick beds and death, this suspense grew, and grew upon me. I could almost hear the beating of my own heart; and the blood surging through my temples sounded like blows from a hammer. The silence finally became agonising. I looked at my companions, one after another, and saw from their flushed faces and damp brows that they were enduring equal torture. There was a nervous suspense over us all, as though overhead some dread bell would peal out powerfully when we should least expect it. + +At last there came a time when it was evident that the patient was sinking fast; he might die at any moment. I looked up at the Professor and caught his eyes fixed on mine. His face was sternly set as he spoke:— + +“There is no time to lose. His words may be worth many lives; I have been thinking so, as I stood here. It may be there is a soul at stake! We shall operate just above the ear.” + +Without another word he made the operation. For a few moments the breathing continued to be stertorous. Then there came a breath so prolonged that it seemed as though it would tear open his chest. Suddenly his eyes opened, and became fixed in a wild, helpless stare. This was continued for a few moments; then it softened into a glad surprise, and from the lips came a sigh of relief. He moved convulsively, and as he did so, said:— + +“I’ll be quiet, Doctor. Tell them to take off the strait-waistcoat. I have had a terrible dream, and it has left me so weak that I cannot move. What’s wrong with my face? it feels all swollen, and it smarts dreadfully.” He tried to turn his head; but even with the effort his eyes seemed to grow glassy again so I gently put it back. Then Van Helsing said in a quiet grave tone:— + +“Tell us your dream, Mr. Renfield.” As he heard the voice his face brightened, through its mutilation, and he said:— + +“That is Dr. Van Helsing. How good it is of you to be here. Give me some water, my lips are dry; and I shall try to tell you. I dreamed”—he stopped and seemed fainting, I called quietly to Quincey—“The brandy—it is in my study—quick!” He flew and returned with a glass, the decanter of brandy and a carafe of water. We moistened the parched lips, and the patient quickly revived. It seemed, however, that his poor injured brain had been working in the interval, for, when he was quite conscious, he looked at me piercingly with an agonised confusion which I shall never forget, and said:— + +“I must not deceive myself; it was no dream, but all a grim reality.” Then his eyes roved round the room; as they caught sight of the two figures sitting patiently on the edge of the bed he went on:— + +“If I were not sure already, I would know from them.” For an instant his eyes closed—not with pain or sleep but voluntarily, as though he were bringing all his faculties to bear; when he opened them he said, hurriedly, and with more energy than he had yet displayed:— + +“Quick, Doctor, quick. I am dying! I feel that I have but a few minutes; and then I must go back to death—or worse! Wet my lips with brandy again. I have something that I must say before I die; or before my poor crushed brain dies anyhow. Thank you! It was that night after you left me, when I implored you to let me go away. I couldn’t speak then, for I felt my tongue was tied; but I was as sane then, except in that way, as I am now. I was in an agony of despair for a long time after you left me; it seemed hours. Then there came a sudden peace to me. My brain seemed to become cool again, and I realised where I was. I heard the dogs bark behind our house, but not where He was!” As he spoke, Van Helsing’s eyes never blinked, but his hand came out and met mine and gripped it hard. He did not, however, betray himself; he nodded slightly and said: “Go on,” in a low voice. Renfield proceeded:— + +“He came up to the window in the mist, as I had seen him often before; but he was solid then—not a ghost, and his eyes were fierce like a man’s when angry. He was laughing with his red mouth; the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight when he turned to look back over the belt of trees, to where the dogs were barking. I wouldn’t ask him to come in at first, though I knew he wanted to—just as he had wanted all along. Then he began promising me things—not in words but by doing them.” He was interrupted by a word from the Professor:— + +“How?” + +“By making them happen; just as he used to send in the flies when the sun was shining. Great big fat ones with steel and sapphire on their wings; and big moths, in the night, with skull and cross-bones on their backs.” Van Helsing nodded to him as he whispered to me unconsciously:— + +“The _Acherontia Aitetropos of the Sphinges_ — what you call the ‘Death’s-head Moth’?” The patient went on without stopping. + +“Then he began to whisper: ‘Rats, rats, rats! Hundreds, thousands, millions of them, and every one a life; and dogs to eat them, and cats too. All lives! all red blood, with years of life in it; and not merely buzzing flies!’ I laughed at him, for I wanted to see what he could do. Then the dogs howled, away beyond the dark trees in His house. He beckoned me to the window. I got up and looked out, and He raised his hands, and seemed to call out without using any words. A dark mass spread over the grass, coming on like the shape of a flame of fire; and then He moved the mist to the right and left, and I could see that there were thousands of rats with their eyes blazing red—like His, only smaller. He held up his hand, and they all stopped; and I thought he seemed to be saying: ‘All these lives will I give you, ay, and many more and greater, through countless ages, if you will fall down and worship me!’ And then a red cloud, like the colour of blood, seemed to close over my eyes; and before I knew what I was doing, I found myself opening the sash and saying to Him: ‘Come in, Lord and Master!’ The rats were all gone, but He slid into the room through the sash, though it was only open an inch wide—just as the Moon herself has often come in through the tiniest crack and has stood before me in all her size and splendour.” + +His voice was weaker, so I moistened his lips with the brandy again, and he continued; but it seemed as though his memory had gone on working in the interval for his story was further advanced. I was about to call him back to the point, but Van Helsing whispered to me: “Let him go on. Do not interrupt him; he cannot go back, and maybe could not proceed at all if once he lost the thread of his thought.” He proceeded:— + +“All day I waited to hear from him, but he did not send me anything, not even a blow-fly, and when the moon got up I was pretty angry with him. When he slid in through the window, though it was shut, and did not even knock, I got mad with him. He sneered at me, and his white face looked out of the mist with his red eyes gleaming, and he went on as though he owned the whole place, and I was no one. He didn’t even smell the same as he went by me. I couldn’t hold him. I thought that, somehow, Mrs. Harker had come into the room.” + +The two men sitting on the bed stood up and came over, standing behind him so that he could not see them, but where they could hear better. They were both silent, but the Professor started and quivered; his face, however, grew grimmer and sterner still. Renfield went on without noticing:— + +“When Mrs. Harker came in to see me this afternoon she wasn’t the same; it was like tea after the teapot had been watered.” Here we all moved, but no one said a word; he went on:— + +“I didn’t know that she was here till she spoke; and she didn’t look the same. I don’t care for the pale people; I like them with lots of blood in them, and hers had all seemed to have run out. I didn’t think of it at the time; but when she went away I began to think, and it made me mad to know that He had been taking the life out of her.” I could feel that the rest quivered, as I did, but we remained otherwise still. “So when He came to-night I was ready for Him. I saw the mist stealing in, and I grabbed it tight. I had heard that madmen have unnatural strength; and as I knew I was a madman—at times anyhow—I resolved to use my power. Ay, and He felt it too, for He had to come out of the mist to struggle with me. I held tight; and I thought I was going to win, for I didn’t mean Him to take any more of her life, till I saw His eyes. They burned into me, and my strength became like water. He slipped through it, and when I tried to cling to Him, He raised me up and flung me down. There was a red cloud before me, and a noise like thunder, and the mist seemed to steal away under the door.” His voice was becoming fainter and his breath more stertorous. Van Helsing stood up instinctively. + +“We know the worst now,” he said. “He is here, and we know his purpose. It may not be too late. Let us be armed—the same as we were the other night, but lose no time; there is not an instant to spare.” There was no need to put our fear, nay our conviction, into words—we shared them in common. We all hurried and took from our rooms the same things that we had when we entered the Count’s house. The Professor had his ready, and as we met in the corridor he pointed to them significantly as he said:— + +“They never leave me; and they shall not till this unhappy business is over. Be wise also, my friends. It is no common enemy that we deal with. Alas! alas! that that dear Madam Mina should suffer!” He stopped; his voice was breaking, and I do not know if rage or terror predominated in my own heart. + +Outside the Harkers’ door we paused. Art and Quincey held back, and the latter said:— + +“Should we disturb her?” + +“We must,” said Van Helsing grimly. “If the door be locked, I shall break it in.” + +“May it not frighten her terribly? It is unusual to break into a lady’s room!” + +Van Helsing said solemnly, “You are always right; but this is life and death. All chambers are alike to the doctor; and even were they not they are all as one to me to-night. Friend John, when I turn the handle, if the door does not open, do you put your shoulder down and shove; and you too, my friends. Now!” + +He turned the handle as he spoke, but the door did not yield. We threw ourselves against it; with a crash it burst open, and we almost fell headlong into the room. The Professor did actually fall, and I saw across him as he gathered himself up from hands and knees. What I saw appalled me. I felt my hair rise like bristles on the back of my neck, and my heart seemed to stand still. + +The moonlight was so bright that through the thick yellow blind the room was light enough to see. On the bed beside the window lay Jonathan Harker, his face flushed and breathing heavily as though in a stupor. Kneeling on the near edge of the bed facing outwards was the white-clad figure of his wife. By her side stood a tall, thin man, clad in black. His face was turned from us, but the instant we saw we all recognised the Count—in every way, even to the scar on his forehead. With his left hand he held both Mrs. Harker’s hands, keeping them away with her arms at full tension; his right hand gripped her by the back of the neck, forcing her face down on his bosom. Her white nightdress was smeared with blood, and a thin stream trickled down the man’s bare breast which was shown by his torn-open dress. The attitude of the two had a terrible resemblance to a child forcing a kitten’s nose into a saucer of milk to compel it to drink. As we burst into the room, the Count turned his face, and the hellish look that I had heard described seemed to leap into it. His eyes flamed red with devilish passion; the great nostrils of the white aquiline nose opened wide and quivered at the edge; and the white sharp teeth, behind the full lips of the blood-dripping mouth, champed together like those of a wild beast. With a wrench, which threw his victim back upon the bed as though hurled from a height, he turned and sprang at us. But by this time the Professor had gained his feet, and was holding towards him the envelope which contained the Sacred Wafer. The Count suddenly stopped, just as poor Lucy had done outside the tomb, and cowered back. Further and further back he cowered, as we, lifting our crucifixes, advanced. The moonlight suddenly failed, as a great black cloud sailed across the sky; and when the gaslight sprang up under Quincey’s match, we saw nothing but a faint vapour. This, as we looked, trailed under the door, which with the recoil from its bursting open, had swung back to its old position. Van Helsing, Art, and I moved forward to Mrs. Harker, who by this time had drawn her breath and with it had given a scream so wild, so ear-piercing, so despairing that it seems to me now that it will ring in my ears till my dying day. For a few seconds she lay in her helpless attitude and disarray. Her face was ghastly, with a pallor which was accentuated by the blood which smeared her lips and cheeks and chin; from her throat trickled a thin stream of blood; her eyes were mad with terror. Then she put before her face her poor crushed hands, which bore on their whiteness the red mark of the Count’s terrible grip, and from behind them came a low desolate wail which made the terrible scream seem only the quick expression of an endless grief. Van Helsing stepped forward and drew the coverlet gently over her body, whilst Art, after looking at her face for an instant despairingly, ran out of the room. Van Helsing whispered to me:— + +“Jonathan is in a stupor such as we know the Vampire can produce. We can do nothing with poor Madam Mina for a few moments till she recovers herself; I must wake him!” He dipped the end of a towel in cold water and with it began to flick him on the face, his wife all the while holding her face between her hands and sobbing in a way that was heart-breaking to hear. I raised the blind, and looked out of the window. There was much moonshine; and as I looked I could see Quincey Morris run across the lawn and hide himself in the shadow of a great yew-tree. It puzzled me to think why he was doing this; but at the instant I heard Harker’s quick exclamation as he woke to partial consciousness, and turned to the bed. On his face, as there might well be, was a look of wild amazement. He seemed dazed for a few seconds, and then full consciousness seemed to burst upon him all at once, and he started up. His wife was aroused by the quick movement, and turned to him with her arms stretched out, as though to embrace him; instantly, however, she drew them in again, and putting her elbows together, held her hands before her face, and shuddered till the bed beneath her shook. + +“In God’s name what does this mean?” Harker cried out. “Dr. Seward, Dr. Van Helsing, what is it? What has happened? What is wrong? Mina, dear, what is it? What does that blood mean? My God, my God! has it come to this!” and, raising himself to his knees, he beat his hands wildly together. “Good God help us! help her! oh, help her!” With a quick movement he jumped from bed, and began to pull on his clothes,—all the man in him awake at the need for instant exertion. “What has happened? Tell me all about it!” he cried without pausing. “Dr. Van Helsing, you love Mina, I know. Oh, do something to save her. It cannot have gone too far yet. Guard her while I look for _him_!” His wife, through her terror and horror and distress, saw some sure danger to him: instantly forgetting her own grief, she seized hold of him and cried out:— + +“No! no! Jonathan, you must not leave me. I have suffered enough to-night, God knows, without the dread of his harming you. You must stay with me. Stay with these friends who will watch over you!” Her expression became frantic as she spoke; and, he yielding to her, she pulled him down sitting on the bed side, and clung to him fiercely. + +Van Helsing and I tried to calm them both. The Professor held up his little golden crucifix, and said with wonderful calmness:— + +“Do not fear, my dear. We are here; and whilst this is close to you no foul thing can approach. You are safe for to-night; and we must be calm and take counsel together.” She shuddered and was silent, holding down her head on her husband’s breast. When she raised it, his white night-robe was stained with blood where her lips had touched, and where the thin open wound in her neck had sent forth drops. The instant she saw it she drew back, with a low wail, and whispered, amidst choking sobs:— + +“Unclean, unclean! I must touch him or kiss him no more. Oh, that it should be that it is I who am now his worst enemy, and whom he may have most cause to fear.” To this he spoke out resolutely:— + +“Nonsense, Mina. It is a shame to me to hear such a word. I would not hear it of you; and I shall not hear it from you. May God judge me by my deserts, and punish me with more bitter suffering than even this hour, if by any act or will of mine anything ever come between us!” He put out his arms and folded her to his breast; and for a while she lay there sobbing. He looked at us over her bowed head, with eyes that blinked damply above his quivering nostrils; his mouth was set as steel. After a while her sobs became less frequent and more faint, and then he said to me, speaking with a studied calmness which I felt tried his nervous power to the utmost:— + +“And now, Dr. Seward, tell me all about it. Too well I know the broad fact; tell me all that has been.” I told him exactly what had happened, and he listened with seeming impassiveness; but his nostrils twitched and his eyes blazed as I told how the ruthless hands of the Count had held his wife in that terrible and horrid position, with her mouth to the open wound in his breast. It interested me, even at that moment, to see, that, whilst the face of white set passion worked convulsively over the bowed head, the hands tenderly and lovingly stroked the ruffled hair. Just as I had finished, Quincey and Godalming knocked at the door. They entered in obedience to our summons. Van Helsing looked at me questioningly. I understood him to mean if we were to take advantage of their coming to divert if possible the thoughts of the unhappy husband and wife from each other and from themselves; so on nodding acquiescence to him he asked them what they had seen or done. To which Lord Godalming answered:— + +“I could not see him anywhere in the passage, or in any of our rooms. I looked in the study but, though he had been there, he had gone. He had, however—” He stopped suddenly, looking at the poor drooping figure on the bed. Van Helsing said gravely:— + +“Go on, friend Arthur. We want here no more concealments. Our hope now is in knowing all. Tell freely!” So Art went on:— + +“He had been there, and though it could only have been for a few seconds, he made rare hay of the place. All the manuscript had been burned, and the blue flames were flickering amongst the white ashes; the cylinders of your phonograph too were thrown on the fire, and the wax had helped the flames.” Here I interrupted. “Thank God there is the other copy in the safe!” His face lit for a moment, but fell again as he went on: “I ran downstairs then, but could see no sign of him. I looked into Renfield’s room; but there was no trace there except—!” Again he paused. “Go on,” said Harker hoarsely; so he bowed his head and moistening his lips with his tongue, added: “except that the poor fellow is dead.” Mrs. Harker raised her head, looking from one to the other of us she said solemnly:— + +“God’s will be done!” I could not but feel that Art was keeping back something; but, as I took it that it was with a purpose, I said nothing. Van Helsing turned to Morris and asked:— + +“And you, friend Quincey, have you any to tell?” + +“A little,” he answered. “It may be much eventually, but at present I can’t say. I thought it well to know if possible where the Count would go when he left the house. I did not see him; but I saw a bat rise from Renfield’s window, and flap westward. I expected to see him in some shape go back to Carfax; but he evidently sought some other lair. He will not be back to-night; for the sky is reddening in the east, and the dawn is close. We must work to-morrow!” + +He said the latter words through his shut teeth. For a space of perhaps a couple of minutes there was silence, and I could fancy that I could hear the sound of our hearts beating; then Van Helsing said, placing his hand very tenderly on Mrs. Harker’s head:— + +“And now, Madam Mina—poor, dear, dear Madam Mina—tell us exactly what happened. God knows that I do not want that you be pained; but it is need that we know all. For now more than ever has all work to be done quick and sharp, and in deadly earnest. The day is close to us that must end all, if it may be so; and now is the chance that we may live and learn.” + +The poor, dear lady shivered, and I could see the tension of her nerves as she clasped her husband closer to her and bent her head lower and lower still on his breast. Then she raised her head proudly, and held out one hand to Van Helsing who took it in his, and, after stooping and kissing it reverently, held it fast. The other hand was locked in that of her husband, who held his other arm thrown round her protectingly. After a pause in which she was evidently ordering her thoughts, she began:— + +“I took the sleeping draught which you had so kindly given me, but for a long time it did not act. I seemed to become more wakeful, and myriads of horrible fancies began to crowd in upon my mind—all of them connected with death, and vampires; with blood, and pain, and trouble.” Her husband involuntarily groaned as she turned to him and said lovingly: “Do not fret, dear. You must be brave and strong, and help me through the horrible task. If you only knew what an effort it is to me to tell of this fearful thing at all, you would understand how much I need your help. Well, I saw I must try to help the medicine to its work with my will, if it was to do me any good, so I resolutely set myself to sleep. Sure enough sleep must soon have come to me, for I remember no more. Jonathan coming in had not waked me, for he lay by my side when next I remember. There was in the room the same thin white mist that I had before noticed. But I forget now if you know of this; you will find it in my diary which I shall show you later. I felt the same vague terror which had come to me before and the same sense of some presence. I turned to wake Jonathan, but found that he slept so soundly that it seemed as if it was he who had taken the sleeping draught, and not I. I tried, but I could not wake him. This caused me a great fear, and I looked around terrified. Then indeed, my heart sank within me: beside the bed, as if he had stepped out of the mist—or rather as if the mist had turned into his figure, for it had entirely disappeared—stood a tall, thin man, all in black. I knew him at once from the description of the others. The waxen face; the high aquiline nose, on which the light fell in a thin white line; the parted red lips, with the sharp white teeth showing between; and the red eyes that I had seemed to see in the sunset on the windows of St. Mary’s Church at Whitby. I knew, too, the red scar on his forehead where Jonathan had struck him. For an instant my heart stood still, and I would have screamed out, only that I was paralysed. In the pause he spoke in a sort of keen, cutting whisper, pointing as he spoke to Jonathan:— + +“‘Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out before your very eyes.’ I was appalled and was too bewildered to do or say anything. With a mocking smile, he placed one hand upon my shoulder and, holding me tight, bared my throat with the other, saying as he did so, ‘First, a little refreshment to reward my exertions. You may as well be quiet; it is not the first time, or the second, that your veins have appeased my thirst!’ I was bewildered, and, strangely enough, I did not want to hinder him. I suppose it is a part of the horrible curse that such is, when his touch is on his victim. And oh, my God, my God, pity me! He placed his reeking lips upon my throat!” Her husband groaned again. She clasped his hand harder, and looked at him pityingly, as if he were the injured one, and went on:— + +“I felt my strength fading away, and I was in a half swoon. How long this horrible thing lasted I know not; but it seemed that a long time must have passed before he took his foul, awful, sneering mouth away. I saw it drip with the fresh blood!” The remembrance seemed for a while to overpower her, and she drooped and would have sunk down but for her husband’s sustaining arm. With a great effort she recovered herself and went on:— + +“Then he spoke to me mockingly, ‘And so you, like the others, would play your brains against mine. You would help these men to hunt me and frustrate me in my designs! You know now, and they know in part already, and will know in full before long, what it is to cross my path. They should have kept their energies for use closer to home. Whilst they played wits against me—against me who commanded nations, and intrigued for them, and fought for them, hundreds of years before they were born—I was countermining them. And you, their best beloved one, are now to me, flesh of my flesh; blood of my blood; kin of my kin; my bountiful wine-press for a while; and shall be later on my companion and my helper. You shall be avenged in turn; for not one of them but shall minister to your needs. But as yet you are to be punished for what you have done. You have aided in thwarting me; now you shall come to my call. When my brain says “Come!” to you, you shall cross land or sea to do my bidding; and to that end this!’ With that he pulled open his shirt, and with his long sharp nails opened a vein in his breast. When the blood began to spurt out, he took my hands in one of his, holding them tight, and with the other seized my neck and pressed my mouth to the wound, so that I must either suffocate or swallow some of the— Oh my God! my God! what have I done? What have I done to deserve such a fate, I who have tried to walk in meekness and righteousness all my days. God pity me! Look down on a poor soul in worse than mortal peril; and in mercy pity those to whom she is dear!” Then she began to rub her lips as though to cleanse them from pollution. + +As she was telling her terrible story, the eastern sky began to quicken, and everything became more and more clear. Harker was still and quiet; but over his face, as the awful narrative went on, came a grey look which deepened and deepened in the morning light, till when the first red streak of the coming dawn shot up, the flesh stood darkly out against the whitening hair. + +We have arranged that one of us is to stay within call of the unhappy pair till we can meet together and arrange about taking action. + +Of this I am sure: the sun rises to-day on no more miserable house in all the great round of its daily course. + +== CHAPTER XXII + +JONATHAN HARKER’S JOURNAL + +_3 October._ — As I must do something or go mad, I write this diary. It is now six o’clock, and we are to meet in the study in half an hour and take something to eat; for Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward are agreed that if we do not eat we cannot work our best. Our best will be, God knows, required to-day. I must keep writing at every chance, for I dare not stop to think. All, big and little, must go down; perhaps at the end the little things may teach us most. The teaching, big or little, could not have landed Mina or me anywhere worse than we are to-day. However, we must trust and hope. Poor Mina told me just now, with the tears running down her dear cheeks, that it is in trouble and trial that our faith is tested—that we must keep on trusting; and that God will aid us up to the end. The end! oh my God! what end?... To work! To work! + +When Dr. Van Helsing and Dr. Seward had come back from seeing poor Renfield, we went gravely into what was to be done. First, Dr. Seward told us that when he and Dr. Van Helsing had gone down to the room below they had found Renfield lying on the floor, all in a heap. His face was all bruised and crushed in, and the bones of the neck were broken. + +Dr. Seward asked the attendant who was on duty in the passage if he had heard anything. He said that he had been sitting down—he confessed to half dozing—when he heard loud voices in the room, and then Renfield had called out loudly several times, “God! God! God!” after that there was a sound of falling, and when he entered the room he found him lying on the floor, face down, just as the doctors had seen him. Van Helsing asked if he had heard “voices” or “a voice,” and he said he could not say; that at first it had seemed to him as if there were two, but as there was no one in the room it could have been only one. He could swear to it, if required, that the word “God” was spoken by the patient. Dr. Seward said to us, when we were alone, that he did not wish to go into the matter; the question of an inquest had to be considered, and it would never do to put forward the truth, as no one would believe it. As it was, he thought that on the attendant’s evidence he could give a certificate of death by misadventure in falling from bed. In case the coroner should demand it, there would be a formal inquest, necessarily to the same result. + +When the question began to be discussed as to what should be our next step, the very first thing we decided was that Mina should be in full confidence; that nothing of any sort—no matter how painful—should be kept from her. She herself agreed as to its wisdom, and it was pitiful to see her so brave and yet so sorrowful, and in such a depth of despair. “There must be no concealment,” she said, “Alas! we have had too much already. And besides there is nothing in all the world that can give me more pain than I have already endured—than I suffer now! Whatever may happen, it must be of new hope or of new courage to me!” Van Helsing was looking at her fixedly as she spoke, and said, suddenly but quietly:— + +“But dear Madam Mina, are you not afraid; not for yourself, but for others from yourself, after what has happened?” Her face grew set in its lines, but her eyes shone with the devotion of a martyr as she answered:— + +“Ah no! for my mind is made up!” + +“To what?” he asked gently, whilst we were all very still; for each in our own way we had a sort of vague idea of what she meant. Her answer came with direct simplicity, as though she were simply stating a fact:— + +“Because if I find in myself—and I shall watch keenly for it—a sign of harm to any that I love, I shall die!” + +“You would not kill yourself?” he asked, hoarsely. + +“I would; if there were no friend who loved me, who would save me such a pain, and so desperate an effort!” She looked at him meaningly as she spoke. He was sitting down; but now he rose and came close to her and put his hand on her head as he said solemnly: + +“My child, there is such an one if it were for your good. For myself I could hold it in my account with God to find such an euthanasia for you, even at this moment if it were best. Nay, were it safe! But my child—” For a moment he seemed choked, and a great sob rose in his throat; he gulped it down and went on:— + +“There are here some who would stand between you and death. You must not die. You must not die by any hand; but least of all by your own. Until the other, who has fouled your sweet life, is true dead you must not die; for if he is still with the quick Un-Dead, your death would make you even as he is. No, you must live! You must struggle and strive to live, though death would seem a boon unspeakable. You must fight Death himself, though he come to you in pain or in joy; by the day, or the night; in safety or in peril! On your living soul I charge you that you do not die—nay, nor think of death—till this great evil be past.” The poor dear grew white as death, and shock and shivered, as I have seen a quicksand shake and shiver at the incoming of the tide. We were all silent; we could do nothing. At length she grew more calm and turning to him said, sweetly, but oh! so sorrowfully, as she held out her hand:— + +“I promise you, my dear friend, that if God will let me live, I shall strive to do so; till, if it may be in His good time, this horror may have passed away from me.” She was so good and brave that we all felt that our hearts were strengthened to work and endure for her, and we began to discuss what we were to do. I told her that she was to have all the papers in the safe, and all the papers or diaries and phonographs we might hereafter use; and was to keep the record as she had done before. She was pleased with the prospect of anything to do—if “pleased” could be used in connection with so grim an interest. + +As usual Van Helsing had thought ahead of everyone else, and was prepared with an exact ordering of our work. + +“It is perhaps well,” he said, “that at our meeting after our visit to Carfax we decided not to do anything with the earth-boxes that lay there. Had we done so, the Count must have guessed our purpose, and would doubtless have taken measures in advance to frustrate such an effort with regard to the others; but now he does not know our intentions. Nay, more, in all probability, he does not know that such a power exists to us as can sterilise his lairs, so that he cannot use them as of old. We are now so much further advanced in our knowledge as to their disposition that, when we have examined the house in Piccadilly, we may track the very last of them. To-day, then, is ours; and in it rests our hope. The sun that rose on our sorrow this morning guards us in its course. Until it sets to-night, that monster must retain whatever form he now has. He is confined within the limitations of his earthly envelope. He cannot melt into thin air nor disappear through cracks or chinks or crannies. If he go through a doorway, he must open the door like a mortal. And so we have this day to hunt out all his lairs and sterilise them. So we shall, if we have not yet catch him and destroy him, drive him to bay in some place where the catching and the destroying shall be, in time, sure.” Here I started up for I could not contain myself at the thought that the minutes and seconds so preciously laden with Mina’s life and happiness were flying from us, since whilst we talked action was impossible. But Van Helsing held up his hand warningly. “Nay, friend Jonathan,” he said, “in this, the quickest way home is the longest way, so your proverb say. We shall all act and act with desperate quick, when the time has come. But think, in all probable the key of the situation is in that house in Piccadilly. The Count may have many houses which he has bought. Of them he will have deeds of purchase, keys and other things. He will have paper that he write on; he will have his book of cheques. There are many belongings that he must have somewhere; why not in this place so central, so quiet, where he come and go by the front or the back at all hour, when in the very vast of the traffic there is none to notice. We shall go there and search that house; and when we learn what it holds, then we do what our friend Arthur call, in his phrases of hunt ‘stop the earths’ and so we run down our old fox—so? is it not?” + +“Then let us come at once,” I cried, “we are wasting the precious, precious time!” The Professor did not move, but simply said:— + +“And how are we to get into that house in Piccadilly?” + +“Any way!” I cried. “We shall break in if need be.” + +“And your police; where will they be, and what will they say?” + +I was staggered; but I knew that if he wished to delay he had a good reason for it. So I said, as quietly as I could:— + +“Don’t wait more than need be; you know, I am sure, what torture I am in.” + +“Ah, my child, that I do; and indeed there is no wish of me to add to your anguish. But just think, what can we do, until all the world be at movement. Then will come our time. I have thought and thought, and it seems to me that the simplest way is the best of all. Now we wish to get into the house, but we have no key; is it not so?” I nodded. + +“Now suppose that you were, in truth, the owner of that house, and could not still get in; and think there was to you no conscience of the housebreaker, what would you do?” + +“I should get a respectable locksmith, and set him to work to pick the lock for me.” + +“And your police, they would interfere, would they not?” + +“Oh, no! not if they knew the man was properly employed.” + +“Then,” he looked at me as keenly as he spoke, “all that is in doubt is the conscience of the employer, and the belief of your policemen as to whether or no that employer has a good conscience or a bad one. Your police must indeed be zealous men and clever—oh, so clever!—in reading the heart, that they trouble themselves in such matter. No, no, my friend Jonathan, you go take the lock off a hundred empty house in this your London, or of any city in the world; and if you do it as such things are rightly done, and at the time such things are rightly done, no one will interfere. I have read of a gentleman who owned a so fine house in London, and when he went for months of summer to Switzerland and lock up his house, some burglar came and broke window at back and got in. Then he went and made open the shutters in front and walk out and in through the door, before the very eyes of the police. Then he have an auction in that house, and advertise it, and put up big notice; and when the day come he sell off by a great auctioneer all the goods of that other man who own them. Then he go to a builder, and he sell him that house, making an agreement that he pull it down and take all away within a certain time. And your police and other authority help him all they can. And when that owner come back from his holiday in Switzerland he find only an empty hole where his house had been. This was all done _en règle_; and in our work we shall be _en règle_ too. We shall not go so early that the policemen who have then little to think of, shall deem it strange; but we shall go after ten o’clock, when there are many about, and such things would be done were we indeed owners of the house.” + +I could not but see how right he was and the terrible despair of Mina’s face became relaxed a thought; there was hope in such good counsel. Van Helsing went on:— + +“When once within that house we may find more clues; at any rate some of us can remain there whilst the rest find the other places where there be more earth-boxes—at Bermondsey and Mile End.” + +Lord Godalming stood up. “I can be of some use here,” he said. “I shall wire to my people to have horses and carriages where they will be most convenient.” + +“Look here, old fellow,” said Morris, “it is a capital idea to have all ready in case we want to go horsebacking; but don’t you think that one of your snappy carriages with its heraldic adornments in a byway of Walworth or Mile End would attract too much attention for our purposes? It seems to me that we ought to take cabs when we go south or east; and even leave them somewhere near the neighbourhood we are going to.” + +“Friend Quincey is right!” said the Professor. “His head is what you call in plane with the horizon. It is a difficult thing that we go to do, and we do not want no peoples to watch us if so it may.” + +Mina took a growing interest in everything and I was rejoiced to see that the exigency of affairs was helping her to forget for a time the terrible experience of the night. She was very, very pale—almost ghastly, and so thin that her lips were drawn away, showing her teeth in somewhat of prominence. I did not mention this last, lest it should give her needless pain; but it made my blood run cold in my veins to think of what had occurred with poor Lucy when the Count had sucked her blood. As yet there was no sign of the teeth growing sharper; but the time as yet was short, and there was time for fear. + +When we came to the discussion of the sequence of our efforts and of the disposition of our forces, there were new sources of doubt. It was finally agreed that before starting for Piccadilly we should destroy the Count’s lair close at hand. In case he should find it out too soon, we should thus be still ahead of him in our work of destruction; and his presence in his purely material shape, and at his weakest, might give us some new clue. + +As to the disposal of forces, it was suggested by the Professor that, after our visit to Carfax, we should all enter the house in Piccadilly; that the two doctors and I should remain there, whilst Lord Godalming and Quincey found the lairs at Walworth and Mile End and destroyed them. It was possible, if not likely, the Professor urged, that the Count might appear in Piccadilly during the day, and that if so we might be able to cope with him then and there. At any rate, we might be able to follow him in force. To this plan I strenuously objected, and so far as my going was concerned, for I said that I intended to stay and protect Mina, I thought that my mind was made up on the subject; but Mina would not listen to my objection. She said that there might be some law matter in which I could be useful; that amongst the Count’s papers might be some clue which I could understand out of my experience in Transylvania; and that, as it was, all the strength we could muster was required to cope with the Count’s extraordinary power. I had to give in, for Mina’s resolution was fixed; she said that it was the last hope for _her_ that we should all work together. “As for me,” she said, “I have no fear. Things have been as bad as they can be; and whatever may happen must have in it some element of hope or comfort. Go, my husband! God can, if He wishes it, guard me as well alone as with any one present.” So I started up crying out: “Then in God’s name let us come at once, for we are losing time. The Count may come to Piccadilly earlier than we think.” + +“Not so!” said Van Helsing, holding up his hand. + +“But why?” I asked. + +“Do you forget,” he said, with actually a smile, “that last night he banqueted heavily, and will sleep late?” + +Did I forget! shall I ever—can I ever! Can any of us ever forget that terrible scene! Mina struggled hard to keep her brave countenance; but the pain overmastered her and she put her hands before her face, and shuddered whilst she moaned. Van Helsing had not intended to recall her frightful experience. He had simply lost sight of her and her part in the affair in his intellectual effort. When it struck him what he said, he was horrified at his thoughtlessness and tried to comfort her. “Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, “dear, dear Madam Mina, alas! that I of all who so reverence you should have said anything so forgetful. These stupid old lips of mine and this stupid old head do not deserve so; but you will forget it, will you not?” He bent low beside her as he spoke; she took his hand, and looking at him through her tears, said hoarsely:— + +“No, I shall not forget, for it is well that I remember; and with it I have so much in memory of you that is sweet, that I take it all together. Now, you must all be going soon. Breakfast is ready, and we must all eat that we may be strong.” + +Breakfast was a strange meal to us all. We tried to be cheerful and encourage each other, and Mina was the brightest and most cheerful of us. When it was over, Van Helsing stood up and said:— + +“Now, my dear friends, we go forth to our terrible enterprise. Are we all armed, as we were on that night when first we visited our enemy’s lair; armed against ghostly as well as carnal attack?” We all assured him. “Then it is well. Now, Madam Mina, you are in any case _quite_ safe here until the sunset; and before then we shall return—if— We shall return! But before we go let me see you armed against personal attack. I have myself, since you came down, prepared your chamber by the placing of things of which we know, so that He may not enter. Now let me guard yourself. On your forehead I touch this piece of Sacred Wafer in the name of the Father, the Son, and—” + +There was a fearful scream which almost froze our hearts to hear. As he had placed the Wafer on Mina’s forehead, it had seared it—had burned into the flesh as though it had been a piece of white-hot metal. My poor darling’s brain had told her the significance of the fact as quickly as her nerves received the pain of it; and the two so overwhelmed her that her overwrought nature had its voice in that dreadful scream. But the words to her thought came quickly; the echo of the scream had not ceased to ring on the air when there came the reaction, and she sank on her knees on the floor in an agony of abasement. Pulling her beautiful hair over her face, as the leper of old his mantle, she wailed out:— + +“Unclean! Unclean! Even the Almighty shuns my polluted flesh! I must bear this mark of shame upon my forehead until the Judgment Day.” They all paused. I had thrown myself beside her in an agony of helpless grief, and putting my arms around held her tight. For a few minutes our sorrowful hearts beat together, whilst the friends around us turned away their eyes that ran tears silently. Then Van Helsing turned and said gravely; so gravely that I could not help feeling that he was in some way inspired, and was stating things outside himself:— + +“It may be that you may have to bear that mark till God himself see fit, as He most surely shall, on the Judgment Day, to redress all wrongs of the earth and of His children that He has placed thereon. And oh, Madam Mina, my dear, my dear, may we who love you be there to see, when that red scar, the sign of God’s knowledge of what has been, shall pass away, and leave your forehead as pure as the heart we know. For so surely as we live, that scar shall pass away when God sees right to lift the burden that is hard upon us. Till then we bear our Cross, as His Son did in obedience to His Will. It may be that we are chosen instruments of His good pleasure, and that we ascend to His bidding as that other through stripes and shame; through tears and blood; through doubts and fears, and all that makes the difference between God and man.” + +There was hope in his words, and comfort; and they made for resignation. Mina and I both felt so, and simultaneously we each took one of the old man’s hands and bent over and kissed it. Then without a word we all knelt down together, and, all holding hands, swore to be true to each other. We men pledged ourselves to raise the veil of sorrow from the head of her whom, each in his own way, we loved; and we prayed for help and guidance in the terrible task which lay before us. + +It was then time to start. So I said farewell to Mina, a parting which neither of us shall forget to our dying day; and we set out. + +To one thing I have made up my mind: if we find out that Mina must be a vampire in the end, then she shall not go into that unknown and terrible land alone. I suppose it is thus that in old times one vampire meant many; just as their hideous bodies could only rest in sacred earth, so the holiest love was the recruiting sergeant for their ghastly ranks. + +We entered Carfax without trouble and found all things the same as on the first occasion. It was hard to believe that amongst so prosaic surroundings of neglect and dust and decay there was any ground for such fear as already we knew. Had not our minds been made up, and had there not been terrible memories to spur us on, we could hardly have proceeded with our task. We found no papers, or any sign of use in the house; and in the old chapel the great boxes looked just as we had seen them last. Dr. Van Helsing said to us solemnly as we stood before them:— + +“And now, my friends, we have a duty here to do. We must sterilise this earth, so sacred of holy memories, that he has brought from a far distant land for such fell use. He has chosen this earth because it has been holy. Thus we defeat him with his own weapon, for we make it more holy still. It was sanctified to such use of man, now we sanctify it to God.” As he spoke he took from his bag a screwdriver and a wrench, and very soon the top of one of the cases was thrown open. The earth smelled musty and close; but we did not somehow seem to mind, for our attention was concentrated on the Professor. Taking from his box a piece of the Sacred Wafer he laid it reverently on the earth, and then shutting down the lid began to screw it home, we aiding him as he worked. + +One by one we treated in the same way each of the great boxes, and left them as we had found them to all appearance; but in each was a portion of the Host. + +When we closed the door behind us, the Professor said solemnly:— + +“So much is already done. If it may be that with all the others we can be so successful, then the sunset of this evening may shine on Madam Mina’s forehead all white as ivory and with no stain!” + +As we passed across the lawn on our way to the station to catch our train we could see the front of the asylum. I looked eagerly, and in the window of my own room saw Mina. I waved my hand to her, and nodded to tell that our work there was successfully accomplished. She nodded in reply to show that she understood. The last I saw, she was waving her hand in farewell. It was with a heavy heart that we sought the station and just caught the train, which was steaming in as we reached the platform. + +I have written this in the train. + +_Piccadilly, 12:30 o’clock._ — Just before we reached Fenchurch Street Lord Godalming said to me:— + +“Quincey and I will find a locksmith. You had better not come with us in case there should be any difficulty; for under the circumstances it wouldn’t seem so bad for us to break into an empty house. But you are a solicitor and the Incorporated Law Society might tell you that you should have known better.” I demurred as to my not sharing any danger even of odium, but he went on: “Besides, it will attract less attention if there are not too many of us. My title will make it all right with the locksmith, and with any policeman that may come along. You had better go with Jack and the Professor and stay in the Green Park, somewhere in sight of the house; and when you see the door opened and the smith has gone away, do you all come across. We shall be on the lookout for you, and shall let you in.” + +“The advice is good!” said Van Helsing, so we said no more. Godalming and Morris hurried off in a cab, we following in another. At the corner of Arlington Street our contingent got out and strolled into the Green Park. My heart beat as I saw the house on which so much of our hope was centred, looming up grim and silent in its deserted condition amongst its more lively and spruce-looking neighbours. We sat down on a bench within good view, and began to smoke cigars so as to attract as little attention as possible. The minutes seemed to pass with leaden feet as we waited for the coming of the others. + +At length we saw a four-wheeler drive up. Out of it, in leisurely fashion, got Lord Godalming and Morris; and down from the box descended a thick-set working man with his rush-woven basket of tools. Morris paid the cabman, who touched his hat and drove away. Together the two ascended the steps, and Lord Godalming pointed out what he wanted done. The workman took off his coat leisurely and hung it on one of the spikes of the rail, saying something to a policeman who just then sauntered along. The policeman nodded acquiescence, and the man kneeling down placed his bag beside him. After searching through it, he took out a selection of tools which he produced to lay beside him in orderly fashion. Then he stood up, looked into the keyhole, blew into it, and turning to his employers, made some remark. Lord Godalming smiled, and the man lifted a good-sized bunch of keys; selecting one of them, he began to probe the lock, as if feeling his way with it. After fumbling about for a bit he tried a second, and then a third. All at once the door opened under a slight push from him, and he and the two others entered the hall. We sat still; my own cigar burnt furiously, but Van Helsing’s went cold altogether. We waited patiently as we saw the workman come out and bring in his bag. Then he held the door partly open, steadying it with his knees, whilst he fitted a key to the lock. This he finally handed to Lord Godalming, who took out his purse and gave him something. The man touched his hat, took his bag, put on his coat and departed; not a soul took the slightest notice of the whole transaction. + +When the man had fairly gone, we three crossed the street and knocked at the door. It was immediately opened by Quincey Morris, beside whom stood Lord Godalming lighting a cigar. + +“The place smells so vilely,” said the latter as we came in. It did indeed smell vilely—like the old chapel at Carfax—and with our previous experience it was plain to us that the Count had been using the place pretty freely. We moved to explore the house, all keeping together in case of attack; for we knew we had a strong and wily enemy to deal with, and as yet we did not know whether the Count might not be in the house. In the dining-room, which lay at the back of the hall, we found eight boxes of earth. Eight boxes only out of the nine, which we sought! Our work was not over, and would never be until we should have found the missing box. First we opened the shutters of the window which looked out across a narrow stone-flagged yard at the blank face of a stable, pointed to look like the front of a miniature house. There were no windows in it, so we were not afraid of being over-looked. We did not lose any time in examining the chests. With the tools which we had brought with us we opened them, one by one, and treated them as we had treated those others in the old chapel. It was evident to us that the Count was not at present in the house, and we proceeded to search for any of his effects. + +After a cursory glance at the rest of the rooms, from basement to attic, we came to the conclusion that the dining-room contained any effects which might belong to the Count; and so we proceeded to minutely examine them. They lay in a sort of orderly disorder on the great dining-room table. There were title deeds of the Piccadilly house in a great bundle; deeds of the purchase of the houses at Mile End and Bermondsey; note-paper, envelopes, and pens and ink. All were covered up in thin wrapping paper to keep them from the dust. There were also a clothes brush, a brush and comb, and a jug and basin—the latter containing dirty water which was reddened as if with blood. Last of all was a little heap of keys of all sorts and sizes, probably those belonging to the other houses. When we had examined this last find, Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris taking accurate notes of the various addresses of the houses in the East and the South, took with them the keys in a great bunch, and set out to destroy the boxes in these places. The rest of us are, with what patience we can, waiting their return—or the coming of the Count. + +== CHAPTER XXIII + +DR. SEWARD’S DIARY + +_3 October._ — The time seemed terribly long whilst we were waiting for the coming of Godalming and Quincey Morris. The Professor tried to keep our minds active by using them all the time. I could see his beneficent purpose, by the side glances which he threw from time to time at Harker. The poor fellow is overwhelmed in a misery that is appalling to see. Last night he was a frank, happy-looking man, with strong, youthful face, full of energy, and with dark brown hair. To-day he is a drawn, haggard old man, whose white hair matches well with the hollow burning eyes and grief-written lines of his face. His energy is still intact; in fact, he is like a living flame. This may yet be his salvation, for, if all go well, it will tide him over the despairing period; he will then, in a kind of way, wake again to the realities of life. Poor fellow, I thought my own trouble was bad enough, but his—! The Professor knows this well enough, and is doing his best to keep his mind active. What he has been saying was, under the circumstances, of absorbing interest. So well as I can remember, here it is:— + +“I have studied, over and over again since they came into my hands, all the papers relating to this monster; and the more I have studied, the greater seems the necessity to utterly stamp him out. All through there are signs of his advance; not only of his power, but of his knowledge of it. As I learned from the researches of my friend Arminus of Buda-Pesth, he was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist—which latter was the highest development of the science-knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse. He dared even to attend the Scholomance, and there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay. Well, in him the brain powers survived the physical death; though it would seem that memory was not all complete. In some faculties of mind he has been, and is, only a child; but he is growing, and some things that were childish at the first are now of man’s stature. He is experimenting, and doing it well; and if it had not been that we have crossed his path he would be yet—he may be yet if we fail—the father or furtherer of a new order of beings, whose road must lead through Death, not Life.” + +Harker groaned and said, “And this is all arrayed against my darling! But how is he experimenting? The knowledge may help us to defeat him!” + +“He has all along, since his coming, been trying his power, slowly but surely; that big child-brain of his is working. Well for us, it is, as yet, a child-brain; for had he dared, at the first, to attempt certain things he would long ago have been beyond our power. However, he means to succeed, and a man who has centuries before him can afford to wait and to go slow. _Festina lente_ may well be his motto.” + +“I fail to understand,” said Harker wearily. “Oh, do be more plain to me! Perhaps grief and trouble are dulling my brain.” + +The Professor laid his hand tenderly on his shoulder as he spoke:— + +“Ah, my child, I will be plain. Do you not see how, of late, this monster has been creeping into knowledge experimentally. How he has been making use of the zoöphagous patient to effect his entry into friend John’s home; for your Vampire, though in all afterwards he can come when and how he will, must at the first make entry only when asked thereto by an inmate. But these are not his most important experiments. Do we not see how at the first all these so great boxes were moved by others. He knew not then but that must be so. But all the time that so great child-brain of his was growing, and he began to consider whether he might not himself move the box. So he began to help; and then, when he found that this be all-right, he try to move them all alone. And so he progress, and he scatter these graves of him; and none but he know where they are hidden. He may have intend to bury them deep in the ground. So that he only use them in the night, or at such time as he can change his form, they do him equal well; and none may know these are his hiding-place! But, my child, do not despair; this knowledge come to him just too late! Already all of his lairs but one be sterilise as for him; and before the sunset this shall be so. Then he have no place where he can move and hide. I delayed this morning that so we might be sure. Is there not more at stake for us than for him? Then why we not be even more careful than him? By my clock it is one hour and already, if all be well, friend Arthur and Quincey are on their way to us. To-day is our day, and we must go sure, if slow, and lose no chance. See! there are five of us when those absent ones return.” + +Whilst he was speaking we were startled by a knock at the hall door, the double postman’s knock of the telegraph boy. We all moved out to the hall with one impulse, and Van Helsing, holding up his hand to us to keep silence, stepped to the door and opened it. The boy handed in a despatch. The Professor closed the door again, and, after looking at the direction, opened it and read aloud. + +“Look out for D. He has just now, 12:45, come from Carfax hurriedly and hastened towards the South. He seems to be going the round and may want to see you: Mina.” + +There was a pause, broken by Jonathan Harker’s voice:— + +“Now, God be thanked, we shall soon meet!” Van Helsing turned to him quickly and said:— + +“God will act in His own way and time. Do not fear, and do not rejoice as yet; for what we wish for at the moment may be our undoings.” + +“I care for nothing now,” he answered hotly, “except to wipe out this brute from the face of creation. I would sell my soul to do it!” + +“Oh, hush, hush, my child!” said Van Helsing. “God does not purchase souls in this wise; and the Devil, though he may purchase, does not keep faith. But God is merciful and just, and knows your pain and your devotion to that dear Madam Mina. Think you, how her pain would be doubled, did she but hear your wild words. Do not fear any of us, we are all devoted to this cause, and to-day shall see the end. The time is coming for action; to-day this Vampire is limit to the powers of man, and till sunset he may not change. It will take him time to arrive here—see, it is twenty minutes past one—and there are yet some times before he can hither come, be he never so quick. What we must hope for is that my Lord Arthur and Quincey arrive first.” + +About half an hour after we had received Mrs. Harker’s telegram, there came a quiet, resolute knock at the hall door. It was just an ordinary knock, such as is given hourly by thousands of gentlemen, but it made the Professor’s heart and mine beat loudly. We looked at each other, and together moved out into the hall; we each held ready to use our various armaments—the spiritual in the left hand, the mortal in the right. Van Helsing pulled back the latch, and, holding the door half open, stood back, having both hands ready for action. The gladness of our hearts must have shown upon our faces when on the step, close to the door, we saw Lord Godalming and Quincey Morris. They came quickly in and closed the door behind them, the former saying, as they moved along the hall:— + +“It is all right. We found both places; six boxes in each and we destroyed them all!” + +“Destroyed?” asked the Professor. + +“For him!” We were silent for a minute, and then Quincey said:— + +“There’s nothing to do but to wait here. If, however, he doesn’t turn up by five o’clock, we must start off; for it won’t do to leave Mrs. Harker alone after sunset.” + +“He will be here before long now,” said Van Helsing, who had been consulting his pocket-book. “_Nota bene_, in Madam’s telegram he went south from Carfax, that means he went to cross the river, and he could only do so at slack of tide, which should be something before one o’clock. That he went south has a meaning for us. He is as yet only suspicious; and he went from Carfax first to the place where he would suspect interference least. You must have been at Bermondsey only a short time before him. That he is not here already shows that he went to Mile End next. This took him some time; for he would then have to be carried over the river in some way. Believe me, my friends, we shall not have long to wait now. We should have ready some plan of attack, so that we may throw away no chance. Hush, there is no time now. Have all your arms! Be ready!” He held up a warning hand as he spoke, for we all could hear a key softly inserted in the lock of the hall door. + +I could not but admire, even at such a moment, the way in which a dominant spirit asserted itself. In all our hunting parties and adventures in different parts of the world, Quincey Morris had always been the one to arrange the plan of action, and Arthur and I had been accustomed to obey him implicitly. Now, the old habit seemed to be renewed instinctively. With a swift glance around the room, he at once laid out our plan of attack, and, without speaking a word, with a gesture, placed us each in position. Van Helsing, Harker, and I were just behind the door, so that when it was opened the Professor could guard it whilst we two stepped between the incomer and the door. Godalming behind and Quincey in front stood just out of sight ready to move in front of the window. We waited in a suspense that made the seconds pass with nightmare slowness. The slow, careful steps came along the hall; the Count was evidently prepared for some surprise—at least he feared it. + +Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room, winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so panther-like in the movement—something so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who, with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eye-teeth long and pointed; but the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organised plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count’s leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorne through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank-notes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count’s face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm; and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity—of anger and hellish rage—which came over the Count’s face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker’s arm, ere his blow could fall, and, grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the “ting” of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging. + +We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us:— + +“You think to baffle me, you—with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher’s. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest; but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already; and through them you and others shall yet be mine—my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!” With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor, as, realising the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall. + +“We have learnt something—much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us; he fear time, he fear want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he return.” As he spoke he put the money remaining into his pocket; took the title-deeds in the bundle as Harker had left them, and swept the remaining things into the open fireplace, where he set fire to them with a match. + +Godalming and Morris had rushed out into the yard, and Harker had lowered himself from the window to follow the Count. He had, however, bolted the stable door; and by the time they had forced it open there was no sign of him. Van Helsing and I tried to make inquiry at the back of the house; but the mews was deserted and no one had seen him depart. + +It was now late in the afternoon, and sunset was not far off. We had to recognise that our game was up; with heavy hearts we agreed with the Professor when he said:— + +“Let us go back to Madam Mina—poor, poor dear Madam Mina. All we can do just now is done; and we can there, at least, protect her. But we need not despair. There is but one more earth-box, and we must try to find it; when that is done all may yet be well.” I could see that he spoke as bravely as he could to comfort Harker. The poor fellow was quite broken down; now and again he gave a low groan which he could not suppress—he was thinking of his wife. + +With sad hearts we came back to my house, where we found Mrs. Harker waiting us, with an appearance of cheerfulness which did honour to her bravery and unselfishness. When she saw our faces, her own became as pale as death: for a second or two her eyes were closed as if she were in secret prayer; and then she said cheerfully:— + +“I can never thank you all enough. Oh, my poor darling!” As she spoke, she took her husband’s grey head in her hands and kissed it—“Lay your poor head here and rest it. All will yet be well, dear! God will protect us if He so will it in His good intent.” The poor fellow groaned. There was no place for words in his sublime misery. + +We had a sort of perfunctory supper together, and I think it cheered us all up somewhat. It was, perhaps, the mere animal heat of food to hungry people—for none of us had eaten anything since breakfast—or the sense of companionship may have helped us; but anyhow we were all less miserable, and saw the morrow as not altogether without hope. True to our promise, we told Mrs. Harker everything which had passed; and although she grew snowy white at times when danger had seemed to threaten her husband, and red at others when his devotion to her was manifested, she listened bravely and with calmness. When we came to the part where Harker had rushed at the Count so recklessly, she clung to her husband’s arm, and held it tight as though her clinging could protect him from any harm that might come. She said nothing, however, till the narration was all done, and matters had been brought right up to the present time. Then without letting go her husband’s hand she stood up amongst us and spoke. Oh, that I could give any idea of the scene; of that sweet, sweet, good, good woman in all the radiant beauty of her youth and animation, with the red scar on her forehead, of which she was conscious, and which we saw with grinding of our teeth—remembering whence and how it came; her loving kindness against our grim hate; her tender faith against all our fears and doubting; and we, knowing that so far as symbols went, she with all her goodness and purity and faith, was outcast from God. + +“Jonathan,” she said, and the word sounded like music on her lips it was so full of love and tenderness, “Jonathan dear, and you all my true, true friends, I want you to bear something in mind through all this dreadful time. I know that you must fight—that you must destroy even as you destroyed the false Lucy so that the true Lucy might live hereafter; but it is not a work of hate. That poor soul who has wrought all this misery is the saddest case of all. Just think what will be his joy when he, too, is destroyed in his worser part that his better part may have spiritual immortality. You must be pitiful to him, too, though it may not hold your hands from his destruction.” + +As she spoke I could see her husband’s face darken and draw together, as though the passion in him were shrivelling his being to its core. Instinctively the clasp on his wife’s hand grew closer, till his knuckles looked white. She did not flinch from the pain which I knew she must have suffered, but looked at him with eyes that were more appealing than ever. As she stopped speaking he leaped to his feet, almost tearing his hand from hers as he spoke:— + +“May God give him into my hand just for long enough to destroy that earthly life of him which we are aiming at. If beyond it I could send his soul for ever and ever to burning hell I would do it!” + +“Oh, hush! oh, hush! in the name of the good God. Don’t say such things, Jonathan, my husband; or you will crush me with fear and horror. Just think, my dear—I have been thinking all this long, long day of it—that ... perhaps ... some day ... I, too, may need such pity; and that some other like you—and with equal cause for anger—may deny it to me! Oh, my husband! my husband, indeed I would have spared you such a thought had there been another way; but I pray that God may not have treasured your wild words, except as the heart-broken wail of a very loving and sorely stricken man. Oh, God, let these poor white hairs go in evidence of what he has suffered, who all his life has done no wrong, and on whom so many sorrows have come.” + +We men were all in tears now. There was no resisting them, and we wept openly. She wept, too, to see that her sweeter counsels had prevailed. Her husband flung himself on his knees beside her, and putting his arms round her, hid his face in the folds of her dress. Van Helsing beckoned to us and we stole out of the room, leaving the two loving hearts alone with their God. + +Before they retired the Professor fixed up the room against any coming of the Vampire, and assured Mrs. Harker that she might rest in peace. She tried to school herself to the belief, and, manifestly for her husband’s sake, tried to seem content. It was a brave struggle; and was, I think and believe, not without its reward. Van Helsing had placed at hand a bell which either of them was to sound in case of any emergency. When they had retired, Quincey, Godalming, and I arranged that we should sit up, dividing the night between us, and watch over the safety of the poor stricken lady. The first watch falls to Quincey, so the rest of us shall be off to bed as soon as we can. Godalming has already turned in, for his is the second watch. Now that my work is done I, too, shall go to bed. + +_Jonathan Harker’s Journal._ + +_3-4 October, close to midnight._ — I thought yesterday would never end. There was over me a yearning for sleep, in some sort of blind belief that to wake would be to find things changed, and that any change must now be for the better. Before we parted, we discussed what our next step was to be, but we could arrive at no result. All we knew was that one earth-box remained, and that the Count alone knew where it was. If he chooses to lie hidden, he may baffle us for years; and in the meantime!—the thought is too horrible, I dare not think of it even now. This I know: that if ever there was a woman who was all perfection, that one is my poor wronged darling. I love her a thousand times more for her sweet pity of last night, a pity that made my own hate of the monster seem despicable. Surely God will not permit the world to be the poorer by the loss of such a creature. This is hope to me. We are all drifting reefwards now, and faith is our only anchor. Thank God! Mina is sleeping, and sleeping without dreams. I fear what her dreams might be like, with such terrible memories to ground them in. She has not been so calm, within my seeing, since the sunset. Then, for a while, there came over her face a repose which was like spring after the blasts of March. I thought at the time that it was the softness of the red sunset on her face, but somehow now I think it has a deeper meaning. I am not sleepy myself, though I am weary—weary to death. However, I must try to sleep; for there is to-morrow to think of, and there is no rest for me until.... + +_Later._ — I must have fallen asleep, for I was awaked by Mina, who was sitting up in bed, with a startled look on her face. I could see easily, for we did not leave the room in darkness; she had placed a warning hand over my mouth, and now she whispered in my ear:— + +“Hush! there is someone in the corridor!” I got up softly, and crossing the room, gently opened the door. + +Just outside, stretched on a mattress, lay Mr. Morris, wide awake. He raised a warning hand for silence as he whispered to me:— + +“Hush! go back to bed; it is all right. One of us will be here all night. We don’t mean to take any chances!” + +His look and gesture forbade discussion, so I came back and told Mina. She sighed and positively a shadow of a smile stole over her poor, pale face as she put her arms round me and said softly:— + +“Oh, thank God for good brave men!” With a sigh she sank back again to sleep. I write this now as I am not sleepy, though I must try again. + +_4 October, morning._ — Once again during the night I was wakened by Mina. This time we had all had a good sleep, for the grey of the coming dawn was making the windows into sharp oblongs, and the gas flame was like a speck rather than a disc of light. She said to me hurriedly:— + +“Go, call the Professor. I want to see him at once.” + +“Why?” I asked. + +“I have an idea. I suppose it must have come in the night, and matured without my knowing it. He must hypnotise me before the dawn, and then I shall be able to speak. Go quick, dearest; the time is getting close.” I went to the door. Dr. Seward was resting on the mattress, and, seeing me, he sprang to his feet. + +“Is anything wrong?” he asked, in alarm. + +“No,” I replied; “but Mina wants to see Dr. Van Helsing at once.” + +“I will go,” he said, and hurried into the Professor’s room. + +In two or three minutes later Van Helsing was in the room in his dressing-gown, and Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming were with Dr. Seward at the door asking questions. When the Professor saw Mina smile—a positive smile ousted the anxiety of his face; he rubbed his hands as he said:— + +“Oh, my dear Madam Mina, this is indeed a change. See! friend Jonathan, we have got our dear Madam Mina, as of old, back to us to-day!” Then turning to her, he said, cheerfully: “And what am I do for you? For at this hour you do not want me for nothings.” + +“I want you to hypnotise me!” she said. “Do it before the dawn, for I feel that then I can speak, and speak freely. Be quick, for the time is short!” Without a word he motioned her to sit up in bed. + +Looking fixedly at her, he commenced to make passes in front of her, from over the top of her head downward, with each hand in turn. Mina gazed at him fixedly for a few minutes, during which my own heart beat like a trip hammer, for I felt that some crisis was at hand. Gradually her eyes closed, and she sat, stock still; only by the gentle heaving of her bosom could one know that she was alive. The Professor made a few more passes and then stopped, and I could see that his forehead was covered with great beads of perspiration. Mina opened her eyes; but she did not seem the same woman. There was a far-away look in her eyes, and her voice had a sad dreaminess which was new to me. Raising his hand to impose silence, the Professor motioned to me to bring the others in. They came on tip-toe, closing the door behind them, and stood at the foot of the bed, looking on. Mina appeared not to see them. The stillness was broken by Van Helsing’s voice speaking in a low level tone which would not break the current of her thoughts:— + +“Where are you?” The answer came in a neutral way:— + +“I do not know. Sleep has no place it can call its own.” For several minutes there was silence. Mina sat rigid, and the Professor stood staring at her fixedly; the rest of us hardly dared to breathe. The room was growing lighter; without taking his eyes from Mina’s face, Dr. Van Helsing motioned me to pull up the blind. I did so, and the day seemed just upon us. A red streak shot up, and a rosy light seemed to diffuse itself through the room. On the instant the Professor spoke again:— + +“Where are you now?” The answer came dreamily, but with intention; it were as though she were interpreting something. I have heard her use the same tone when reading her shorthand notes. + +“I do not know. It is all strange to me!” + +“What do you see?” + +“I can see nothing; it is all dark.” + +“What do you hear?” I could detect the strain in the Professor’s patient voice. + +“The lapping of water. It is gurgling by, and little waves leap. I can hear them on the outside.” + +“Then you are on a ship?” We all looked at each other, trying to glean something each from the other. We were afraid to think. The answer came quick:— + +“Oh, yes!” + +“What else do you hear?” + +“The sound of men stamping overhead as they run about. There is the creaking of a chain, and the loud tinkle as the check of the capstan falls into the rachet.” + +“What are you doing?” + +“I am still—oh, so still. It is like death!” The voice faded away into a deep breath as of one sleeping, and the open eyes closed again. + +By this time the sun had risen, and we were all in the full light of day. Dr. Van Helsing placed his hands on Mina’s shoulders, and laid her head down softly on her pillow. She lay like a sleeping child for a few moments, and then, with a long sigh, awoke and stared in wonder to see us all around her. “Have I been talking in my sleep?” was all she said. She seemed, however, to know the situation without telling, though she was eager to know what she had told. The Professor repeated the conversation, and she said:— + +“Then there is not a moment to lose: it may not be yet too late!” Mr. Morris and Lord Godalming started for the door but the Professor’s calm voice called them back:— + +“Stay, my friends. That ship, wherever it was, was weighing anchor whilst she spoke. There are many ships weighing anchor at the moment in your so great Port of London. Which of them is it that you seek? God be thanked that we have once again a clue, though whither it may lead us we know not. We have been blind somewhat; blind after the manner of men, since when we can look back we see what we might have seen looking forward if we had been able to see what we might have seen! Alas, but that sentence is a puddle; is it not? We can know now what was in the Count’s mind, when he seize that money, though Jonathan’s so fierce knife put him in the danger that even he dread. He meant escape. Hear me, ESCAPE! He saw that with but one earth-box left, and a pack of men following like dogs after a fox, this London was no place for him. He have take his last earth-box on board a ship, and he leave the land. He think to escape, but no! we follow him. Tally Ho! as friend Arthur would say when he put on his red frock! Our old fox is wily; oh! so wily, and we must follow with wile. I, too, am wily and I think his mind in a little while. In meantime we may rest and in peace, for there are waters between us which he do not want to pass, and which he could not if he would—unless the ship were to touch the land, and then only at full or slack tide. See, and the sun is just rose, and all day to sunset is to us. Let us take bath, and dress, and have breakfast which we all need, and which we can eat comfortably since he be not in the same land with us.” Mina looked at him appealingly as she asked:— + +“But why need we seek him further, when he is gone away from us?” He took her hand and patted it as he replied:— + +“Ask me nothings as yet. When we have breakfast, then I answer all questions.” He would say no more, and we separated to dress. + +After breakfast Mina repeated her question. He looked at her gravely for a minute and then said sorrowfully:— + +“Because my dear, dear Madam Mina, now more than ever must we find him even if we have to follow him to the jaws of Hell!” She grew paler as she asked faintly:— + +“Why?” + +“Because,” he answered solemnly, “he can live for centuries, and you are but mortal woman. Time is now to be dreaded—since once he put that mark upon your throat.” + +I was just in time to catch her as she fell forward in a faint. + +== CHAPTER XXIV + +DR. SEWARD’S PHONOGRAPH DIARY, SPOKEN BY VAN HELSING + +This to Jonathan Harker. + +You are to stay with your dear Madam Mina. We shall go to make our search—if I can call it so, for it is not search but knowing, and we seek confirmation only. But do you stay and take care of her to-day. This is your best and most holiest office. This day nothing can find him here. Let me tell you that so you will know what we four know already, for I have tell them. He, our enemy, have gone away; he have gone back to his Castle in Transylvania. I know it so well, as if a great hand of fire wrote it on the wall. He have prepare for this in some way, and that last earth-box was ready to ship somewheres. For this he took the money; for this he hurry at the last, lest we catch him before the sun go down. It was his last hope, save that he might hide in the tomb that he think poor Miss Lucy, being as he thought like him, keep open to him. But there was not of time. When that fail he make straight for his last resource—his last earth-work I might say did I wish _double entente_. He is clever, oh, so clever! he know that his game here was finish; and so he decide he go back home. He find ship going by the route he came, and he go in it. We go off now to find what ship, and whither bound; when we have discover that, we come back and tell you all. Then we will comfort you and poor dear Madam Mina with new hope. For it will be hope when you think it over: that all is not lost. This very creature that we pursue, he take hundreds of years to get so far as London; and yet in one day, when we know of the disposal of him we drive him out. He is finite, though he is powerful to do much harm and suffers not as we do. But we are strong, each in our purpose; and we are all more strong together. Take heart afresh, dear husband of Madam Mina. This battle is but begun, and in the end we shall win—so sure as that God sits on high to watch over His children. Therefore be of much comfort till we return. + +VAN HELSING. + +_Jonathan Harker’s Journal._ + +_4 October._ — When I read to Mina, Van Helsing’s message in the phonograph, the poor girl brightened up considerably. Already the certainty that the Count is out of the country has given her comfort; and comfort is strength to her. For my own part, now that his horrible danger is not face to face with us, it seems almost impossible to believe in it. Even my own terrible experiences in Castle Dracula seem like a long-forgotten dream. Here in the crisp autumn air in the bright sunlight— + +Alas! how can I disbelieve! In the midst of my thought my eye fell on the red scar on my poor darling’s white forehead. Whilst that lasts, there can be no disbelief. And afterwards the very memory of it will keep faith crystal clear. Mina and I fear to be idle, so we have been over all the diaries again and again. Somehow, although the reality seems greater each time, the pain and the fear seem less. There is something of a guiding purpose manifest throughout, which is comforting. Mina says that perhaps we are the instruments of ultimate good. It may be! I shall try to think as she does. We have never spoken to each other yet of the future. It is better to wait till we see the Professor and the others after their investigations. + +The day is running by more quickly than I ever thought a day could run for me again. It is now three o’clock. + +_Mina Harker’s Journal._ + +_5 October, 5 p. m._ — Our meeting for report. Present: Professor Van Helsing, Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, Mr. Quincey Morris, Jonathan Harker, Mina Harker. + +Dr. Van Helsing described what steps were taken during the day to discover on what boat and whither bound Count Dracula made his escape:— + +“As I knew that he wanted to get back to Transylvania, I felt sure that he must go by the Danube mouth; or by somewhere in the Black Sea, since by that way he come. It was a dreary blank that was before us. _Omne ignotum pro magnifico_; and so with heavy hearts we start to find what ships leave for the Black Sea last night. He was in sailing ship, since Madam Mina tell of sails being set. These not so important as to go in your list of the shipping in the _Times_, and so we go, by suggestion of Lord Godalming, to your Lloyd’s, where are note of all ships that sail, however so small. There we find that only one Black-Sea-bound ship go out with the tide. She is the _Czarina Catherine_, and she sail from Doolittle’s Wharf for Varna, and thence on to other parts and up the Danube. ‘Soh!’ said I, ‘this is the ship whereon is the Count.’ So off we go to Doolittle’s Wharf, and there we find a man in an office of wood so small that the man look bigger than the office. From him we inquire of the goings of the _Czarina Catherine_. He swear much, and he red face and loud of voice, but he good fellow all the same; and when Quincey give him something from his pocket which crackle as he roll it up, and put it in a so small bag which he have hid deep in his clothing, he still better fellow and humble servant to us. He come with us, and ask many men who are rough and hot; these be better fellows too when they have been no more thirsty. They say much of blood and bloom, and of others which I comprehend not, though I guess what they mean; but nevertheless they tell us all things which we want to know. + +“They make known to us among them, how last afternoon at about five o’clock comes a man so hurry. A tall man, thin and pale, with high nose and teeth so white, and eyes that seem to be burning. That he be all in black, except that he have a hat of straw which suit not him or the time. That he scatter his money in making quick inquiry as to what ship sails for the Black Sea and for where. Some took him to the office and then to the ship, where he will not go aboard but halt at shore end of gang-plank, and ask that the captain come to him. The captain come, when told that he will be pay well; and though he swear much at the first he agree to term. Then the thin man go and some one tell him where horse and cart can be hired. He go there and soon he come again, himself driving cart on which a great box; this he himself lift down, though it take several to put it on truck for the ship. He give much talk to captain as to how and where his box is to be place; but the captain like it not and swear at him in many tongues, and tell him that if he like he can come and see where it shall be. But he say ‘no’; that he come not yet, for that he have much to do. Whereupon the captain tell him that he had better be quick—with blood—for that his ship will leave the place—of blood—before the turn of the tide—with blood. Then the thin man smile and say that of course he must go when he think fit; but he will be surprise if he go quite so soon. The captain swear again, polyglot, and the thin man make him bow, and thank him, and say that he will so far intrude on his kindness as to come aboard before the sailing. Final the captain, more red than ever, and in more tongues tell him that he doesn’t want no Frenchmen—with bloom upon them and also with blood—in his ship—with blood on her also. And so, after asking where there might be close at hand a ship where he might purchase ship forms, he departed. + +“No one knew where he went ‘or bloomin’ well cared,’ as they said, for they had something else to think of—well with blood again; for it soon became apparent to all that the _Czarina Catherine_ would not sail as was expected. A thin mist began to creep up from the river, and it grew, and grew; till soon a dense fog enveloped the ship and all around her. The captain swore polyglot—very polyglot—polyglot with bloom and blood; but he could do nothing. The water rose and rose; and he began to fear that he would lose the tide altogether. He was in no friendly mood, when just at full tide, the thin man came up the gang-plank again and asked to see where his box had been stowed. Then the captain replied that he wished that he and his box—old and with much bloom and blood—were in hell. But the thin man did not be offend, and went down with the mate and saw where it was place, and came up and stood awhile on deck in fog. He must have come off by himself, for none notice him. Indeed they thought not of him; for soon the fog begin to melt away, and all was clear again. My friends of the thirst and the language that was of bloom and blood laughed, as they told how the captain’s swears exceeded even his usual polyglot, and was more than ever full of picturesque, when on questioning other mariners who were on movement up and down on the river that hour, he found that few of them had seen any of fog at all, except where it lay round the wharf. However, the ship went out on the ebb tide; and was doubtless by morning far down the river mouth. She was by then, when they told us, well out to sea. + +“And so, my dear Madam Mina, it is that we have to rest for a time, for our enemy is on the sea, with the fog at his command, on his way to the Danube mouth. To sail a ship takes time, go she never so quick; and when we start we go on land more quick, and we meet him there. Our best hope is to come on him when in the box between sunrise and sunset; for then he can make no struggle, and we may deal with him as we should. There are days for us, in which we can make ready our plan. We know all about where he go; for we have seen the owner of the ship, who have shown us invoices and all papers that can be. The box we seek is to be landed in Varna, and to be given to an agent, one Ristics who will there present his credentials; and so our merchant friend will have done his part. When he ask if there be any wrong, for that so, he can telegraph and have inquiry made at Varna, we say ‘no’; for what is to be done is not for police or of the customs. It must be done by us alone and in our own way.” + +When Dr. Van Helsing had done speaking, I asked him if he were certain that the Count had remained on board the ship. He replied: “We have the best proof of that: your own evidence, when in the hypnotic trance this morning.” I asked him again if it were really necessary that they should pursue the Count, for oh! I dread Jonathan leaving me, and I know that he would surely go if the others went. He answered in growing passion, at first quietly. As he went on, however, he grew more angry and more forceful, till in the end we could not but see wherein was at least some of that personal dominance which made him so long a master amongst men:— + +“Yes, it is necessary—necessary—necessary! For your sake in the first, and then for the sake of humanity. This monster has done much harm already, in the narrow scope where he find himself, and in the short time when as yet he was only as a body groping his so small measure in darkness and not knowing. All this have I told these others; you, my dear Madam Mina, will learn it in the phonograph of my friend John, or in that of your husband. I have told them how the measure of leaving his own barren land—barren of peoples—and coming to a new land where life of man teems till they are like the multitude of standing corn, was the work of centuries. Were another of the Un-Dead, like him, to try to do what he has done, perhaps not all the centuries of the world that have been, or that will be, could aid him. With this one, all the forces of nature that are occult and deep and strong must have worked together in some wondrous way. The very place, where he have been alive, Un-Dead for all these centuries, is full of strangeness of the geologic and chemical world. There are deep caverns and fissures that reach none know whither. There have been volcanoes, some of whose openings still send out waters of strange properties, and gases that kill or make to vivify. Doubtless, there is something magnetic or electric in some of these combinations of occult forces which work for physical life in strange way; and in himself were from the first some great qualities. In a hard and warlike time he was celebrate that he have more iron nerve, more subtle brain, more braver heart, than any man. In him some vital principle have in strange way found their utmost; and as his body keep strong and grow and thrive, so his brain grow too. All this without that diabolic aid which is surely to him; for it have to yield to the powers that come from, and are, symbolic of good. And now this is what he is to us. He have infect you—oh, forgive me, my dear, that I must say such; but it is for good of you that I speak. He infect you in such wise, that even if he do no more, you have only to live—to live in your own old, sweet way; and so in time, death, which is of man’s common lot and with God’s sanction, shall make you like to him. This must not be! We have sworn together that it must not. Thus are we ministers of God’s own wish: that the world, and men for whom His Son die, will not be given over to monsters, whose very existence would defame Him. He have allowed us to redeem one soul already, and we go out as the old knights of the Cross to redeem more. Like them we shall travel towards the sunrise; and like them, if we fall, we fall in good cause.” He paused and I said:— + +“But will not the Count take his rebuff wisely? Since he has been driven from England, will he not avoid it, as a tiger does the village from which he has been hunted?” + +“Aha!” he said, “your simile of the tiger good, for me, and I shall adopt him. Your man-eater, as they of India call the tiger who has once tasted blood of the human, care no more for the other prey, but prowl unceasing till he get him. This that we hunt from our village is a tiger, too, a man-eater, and he never cease to prowl. Nay, in himself he is not one to retire and stay afar. In his life, his living life, he go over the Turkey frontier and attack his enemy on his own ground; he be beaten back, but did he stay? No! He come again, and again, and again. Look at his persistence and endurance. With the child-brain that was to him he have long since conceive the idea of coming to a great city. What does he do? He find out the place of all the world most of promise for him. Then he deliberately set himself down to prepare for the task. He find in patience just how is his strength, and what are his powers. He study new tongues. He learn new social life; new environment of old ways, the politic, the law, the finance, the science, the habit of a new land and a new people who have come to be since he was. His glimpse that he have had, whet his appetite only and enkeen his desire. Nay, it help him to grow as to his brain; for it all prove to him how right he was at the first in his surmises. He have done this alone; all alone! from a ruin tomb in a forgotten land. What more may he not do when the greater world of thought is open to him. He that can smile at death, as we know him; who can flourish in the midst of diseases that kill off whole peoples. Oh, if such an one was to come from God, and not the Devil, what a force for good might he not be in this old world of ours. But we are pledged to set the world free. Our toil must be in silence, and our efforts all in secret; for in this enlightened age, when men believe not even what they see, the doubting of wise men would be his greatest strength. It would be at once his sheath and his armour, and his weapons to destroy us, his enemies, who are willing to peril even our own souls for the safety of one we love—for the good of mankind, and for the honour and glory of God.” + +After a general discussion it was determined that for to-night nothing be definitely settled; that we should all sleep on the facts, and try to think out the proper conclusions. To-morrow, at breakfast, we are to meet again, and, after making our conclusions known to one another, we shall decide on some definite cause of action. + +I feel a wonderful peace and rest to-night. It is as if some haunting presence were removed from me. Perhaps ... + +My surmise was not finished, could not be; for I caught sight in the mirror of the red mark upon my forehead; and I knew that I was still unclean. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_5 October._ — We all rose early, and I think that sleep did much for each and all of us. When we met at early breakfast there was more general cheerfulness than any of us had ever expected to experience again. + +It is really wonderful how much resilience there is in human nature. Let any obstructing cause, no matter what, be removed in any way—even by death—and we fly back to first principles of hope and enjoyment. More than once as we sat around the table, my eyes opened in wonder whether the whole of the past days had not been a dream. It was only when I caught sight of the red blotch on Mrs. Harker’s forehead that I was brought back to reality. Even now, when I am gravely revolving the matter, it is almost impossible to realise that the cause of all our trouble is still existent. Even Mrs. Harker seems to lose sight of her trouble for whole spells; it is only now and again, when something recalls it to her mind, that she thinks of her terrible scar. We are to meet here in my study in half an hour and decide on our course of action. I see only one immediate difficulty, I know it by instinct rather than reason: we shall all have to speak frankly; and yet I fear that in some mysterious way poor Mrs. Harker’s tongue is tied. I _know_ that she forms conclusions of her own, and from all that has been I can guess how brilliant and how true they must be; but she will not, or cannot, give them utterance. I have mentioned this to Van Helsing, and he and I are to talk it over when we are alone. I suppose it is some of that horrid poison which has got into her veins beginning to work. The Count had his own purposes when he gave her what Van Helsing called “the Vampire’s baptism of blood.” Well, there may be a poison that distils itself out of good things; in an age when the existence of ptomaines is a mystery we should not wonder at anything! One thing I know: that if my instinct be true regarding poor Mrs. Harker’s silences, then there is a terrible difficulty—an unknown danger—in the work before us. The same power that compels her silence may compel her speech. I dare not think further; for so I should in my thoughts dishonour a noble woman! + +Van Helsing is coming to my study a little before the others. I shall try to open the subject with him. + +_Later._ — When the Professor came in, we talked over the state of things. I could see that he had something on his mind which he wanted to say, but felt some hesitancy about broaching the subject. After beating about the bush a little, he said suddenly:— + +“Friend John, there is something that you and I must talk of alone, just at the first at any rate. Later, we may have to take the others into our confidence”; then he stopped, so I waited; he went on:— + +“Madam Mina, our poor, dear Madam Mina is changing.” A cold shiver ran through me to find my worst fears thus endorsed. Van Helsing continued:— + +“With the sad experience of Miss Lucy, we must this time be warned before things go too far. Our task is now in reality more difficult than ever, and this new trouble makes every hour of the direst importance. I can see the characteristics of the vampire coming in her face. It is now but very, very slight; but it is to be seen if we have eyes to notice without to prejudge. Her teeth are some sharper, and at times her eyes are more hard. But these are not all, there is to her the silence now often; as so it was with Miss Lucy. She did not speak, even when she wrote that which she wished to be known later. Now my fear is this. If it be that she can, by our hypnotic trance, tell what the Count see and hear, is it not more true that he who have hypnotise her first, and who have drink of her very blood and make her drink of his, should, if he will, compel her mind to disclose to him that which she know?” I nodded acquiescence; he went on:— + +“Then, what we must do is to prevent this; we must keep her ignorant of our intent, and so she cannot tell what she know not. This is a painful task! Oh, so painful that it heart-break me to think of; but it must be. When to-day we meet, I must tell her that for reason which we will not to speak she must not more be of our council, but be simply guarded by us.” He wiped his forehead, which had broken out in profuse perspiration at the thought of the pain which he might have to inflict upon the poor soul already so tortured. I knew that it would be some sort of comfort to him if I told him that I also had come to the same conclusion; for at any rate it would take away the pain of doubt. I told him, and the effect was as I expected. + +It is now close to the time of our general gathering. Van Helsing has gone away to prepare for the meeting, and his painful part of it. I really believe his purpose is to be able to pray alone. + +_Later._ — At the very outset of our meeting a great personal relief was experienced by both Van Helsing and myself. Mrs. Harker had sent a message by her husband to say that she would not join us at present, as she thought it better that we should be free to discuss our movements without her presence to embarrass us. The Professor and I looked at each other for an instant, and somehow we both seemed relieved. For my own part, I thought that if Mrs. Harker realised the danger herself, it was much pain as well as much danger averted. Under the circumstances we agreed, by a questioning look and answer, with finger on lip, to preserve silence in our suspicions, until we should have been able to confer alone again. We went at once into our Plan of Campaign. Van Helsing roughly put the facts before us first:— + +“The _Czarina Catherine_ left the Thames yesterday morning. It will take her at the quickest speed she has ever made at least three weeks to reach Varna; but we can travel overland to the same place in three days. Now, if we allow for two days less for the ship’s voyage, owing to such weather influences as we know that the Count can bring to bear; and if we allow a whole day and night for any delays which may occur to us, then we have a margin of nearly two weeks. Thus, in order to be quite safe, we must leave here on 17th at latest. Then we shall at any rate be in Varna a day before the ship arrives, and able to make such preparations as may be necessary. Of course we shall all go armed—armed against evil things, spiritual as well as physical.” Here Quincey Morris added:— + +“I understand that the Count comes from a wolf country, and it may be that he shall get there before us. I propose that we add Winchesters to our armament. I have a kind of belief in a Winchester when there is any trouble of that sort around. Do you remember, Art, when we had the pack after us at Tobolsk? What wouldn’t we have given then for a repeater apiece!” + +“Good!” said Van Helsing, “Winchesters it shall be. Quincey’s head is level at all times, but most so when there is to hunt, metaphor be more dishonour to science than wolves be of danger to man. In the meantime we can do nothing here; and as I think that Varna is not familiar to any of us, why not go there more soon? It is as long to wait here as there. To-night and to-morrow we can get ready, and then, if all be well, we four can set out on our journey.” + +“We four?” said Harker interrogatively, looking from one to another of us. + +“Of course!” answered the Professor quickly, “you must remain to take care of your so sweet wife!” Harker was silent for awhile and then said in a hollow voice:— + +“Let us talk of that part of it in the morning. I want to consult with Mina.” I thought that now was the time for Van Helsing to warn him not to disclose our plans to her; but he took no notice. I looked at him significantly and coughed. For answer he put his finger on his lips and turned away. + +_Jonathan Harker’s Journal._ + +_5 October, afternoon._ — For some time after our meeting this morning I could not think. The new phases of things leave my mind in a state of wonder which allows no room for active thought. Mina’s determination not to take any part in the discussion set me thinking; and as I could not argue the matter with her, I could only guess. I am as far as ever from a solution now. The way the others received it, too, puzzled me; the last time we talked of the subject we agreed that there was to be no more concealment of anything amongst us. Mina is sleeping now, calmly and sweetly like a little child. Her lips are curved and her face beams with happiness. Thank God, there are such moments still for her. + +_Later._ — How strange it all is. I sat watching Mina’s happy sleep, and came as near to being happy myself as I suppose I shall ever be. As the evening drew on, and the earth took its shadows from the sun sinking lower, the silence of the room grew more and more solemn to me. All at once Mina opened her eyes, and looking at me tenderly, said:— + +“Jonathan, I want you to promise me something on your word of honour. A promise made to me, but made holily in God’s hearing, and not to be broken though I should go down on my knees and implore you with bitter tears. Quick, you must make it to me at once.” + +“Mina,” I said, “a promise like that, I cannot make at once. I may have no right to make it.” + +“But, dear one,” she said, with such spiritual intensity that her eyes were like pole stars, “it is I who wish it; and it is not for myself. You can ask Dr. Van Helsing if I am not right; if he disagrees you may do as you will. Nay, more, if you all agree, later, you are absolved from the promise.” + +“I promise!” I said, and for a moment she looked supremely happy; though to me all happiness for her was denied by the red scar on her forehead. She said:— + +“Promise me that you will not tell me anything of the plans formed for the campaign against the Count. Not by word, or inference, or implication; not at any time whilst this remains to me!” and she solemnly pointed to the scar. I saw that she was in earnest, and said solemnly:— + +“I promise!” and as I said it I felt that from that instant a door had been shut between us. + +_Later, midnight._ — Mina has been bright and cheerful all the evening. So much so that all the rest seemed to take courage, as if infected somewhat with her gaiety; as a result even I myself felt as if the pall of gloom which weighs us down were somewhat lifted. We all retired early. Mina is now sleeping like a little child; it is a wonderful thing that her faculty of sleep remains to her in the midst of her terrible trouble. Thank God for it, for then at least she can forget her care. Perhaps her example may affect me as her gaiety did to-night. I shall try it. Oh! for a dreamless sleep. + +_6 October, morning._ — Another surprise. Mina woke me early, about the same time as yesterday, and asked me to bring Dr. Van Helsing. I thought that it was another occasion for hypnotism, and without question went for the Professor. He had evidently expected some such call, for I found him dressed in his room. His door was ajar, so that he could hear the opening of the door of our room. He came at once; as he passed into the room, he asked Mina if the others might come, too. + +“No,” she said quite simply, “it will not be necessary. You can tell them just as well. I must go with you on your journey.” + +Dr. Van Helsing was as startled as I was. After a moment’s pause he asked:— + +“But why?” + +“You must take me with you. I am safer with you, and you shall be safer, too.” + +“But why, dear Madam Mina? You know that your safety is our solemnest duty. We go into danger, to which you are, or may be, more liable than any of us from—from circumstances—things that have been.” He paused, embarrassed. + +As she replied, she raised her finger and pointed to her forehead:— + +“I know. That is why I must go. I can tell you now, whilst the sun is coming up; I may not be able again. I know that when the Count wills me I must go. I know that if he tells me to come in secret, I must come by wile; by any device to hoodwink—even Jonathan.” God saw the look that she turned on me as she spoke, and if there be indeed a Recording Angel that look is noted to her everlasting honour. I could only clasp her hand. I could not speak; my emotion was too great for even the relief of tears. She went on:— + +“You men are brave and strong. You are strong in your numbers, for you can defy that which would break down the human endurance of one who had to guard alone. Besides, I may be of service, since you can hypnotise me and so learn that which even I myself do not know.” Dr. Van Helsing said very gravely:— + +“Madam Mina, you are, as always, most wise. You shall with us come; and together we shall do that which we go forth to achieve.” When he had spoken, Mina’s long spell of silence made me look at her. She had fallen back on her pillow asleep; she did not even wake when I had pulled up the blind and let in the sunlight which flooded the room. Van Helsing motioned to me to come with him quietly. We went to his room, and within a minute Lord Godalming, Dr. Seward, and Mr. Morris were with us also. He told them what Mina had said, and went on:— + +“In the morning we shall leave for Varna. We have now to deal with a new factor: Madam Mina. Oh, but her soul is true. It is to her an agony to tell us so much as she has done; but it is most right, and we are warned in time. There must be no chance lost, and in Varna we must be ready to act the instant when that ship arrives.” + +“What shall we do exactly?” asked Mr. Morris laconically. The Professor paused before replying:— + +“We shall at the first board that ship; then, when we have identified the box, we shall place a branch of the wild rose on it. This we shall fasten, for when it is there none can emerge; so at least says the superstition. And to superstition must we trust at the first; it was man’s faith in the early, and it have its root in faith still. Then, when we get the opportunity that we seek, when none are near to see, we shall open the box, and—and all will be well.” + +“I shall not wait for any opportunity,” said Morris. “When I see the box I shall open it and destroy the monster, though there were a thousand men looking on, and if I am to be wiped out for it the next moment!” I grasped his hand instinctively and found it as firm as a piece of steel. I think he understood my look; I hope he did. + +“Good boy,” said Dr. Van Helsing. “Brave boy. Quincey is all man. God bless him for it. My child, believe me none of us shall lag behind or pause from any fear. I do but say what we may do—what we must do. But, indeed, indeed we cannot say what we shall do. There are so many things which may happen, and their ways and their ends are so various that until the moment we may not say. We shall all be armed, in all ways; and when the time for the end has come, our effort shall not be lack. Now let us to-day put all our affairs in order. Let all things which touch on others dear to us, and who on us depend, be complete; for none of us can tell what, or when, or how, the end may be. As for me, my own affairs are regulate; and as I have nothing else to do, I shall go make arrangements for the travel. I shall have all tickets and so forth for our journey.” + +There was nothing further to be said, and we parted. I shall now settle up all my affairs of earth, and be ready for whatever may come.... + +_Later._ — It is all done; my will is made, and all complete. Mina if she survive is my sole heir. If it should not be so, then the others who have been so good to us shall have remainder. + +It is now drawing towards the sunset; Mina’s uneasiness calls my attention to it. I am sure that there is something on her mind which the time of exact sunset will reveal. These occasions are becoming harrowing times for us all, for each sunrise and sunset opens up some new danger—some new pain, which, however, may in God’s will be means to a good end. I write all these things in the diary since my darling must not hear them now; but if it may be that she can see them again, they shall be ready. + +She is calling to me. + +== CHAPTER XXV + +DR. SEWARD’S DIARY + +_11 October, Evening._ — Jonathan Harker has asked me to note this, as he says he is hardly equal to the task, and he wants an exact record kept. + +I think that none of us were surprised when we were asked to see Mrs. Harker a little before the time of sunset. We have of late come to understand that sunrise and sunset are to her times of peculiar freedom; when her old self can be manifest without any controlling force subduing or restraining her, or inciting her to action. This mood or condition begins some half hour or more before actual sunrise or sunset, and lasts till either the sun is high, or whilst the clouds are still aglow with the rays streaming above the horizon. At first there is a sort of negative condition, as if some tie were loosened, and then the absolute freedom quickly follows; when, however, the freedom ceases the change-back or relapse comes quickly, preceded only by a spell of warning silence. + +To-night, when we met, she was somewhat constrained, and bore all the signs of an internal struggle. I put it down myself to her making a violent effort at the earliest instant she could do so. A very few minutes, however, gave her complete control of herself; then, motioning her husband to sit beside her on the sofa where she was half reclining, she made the rest of us bring chairs up close. Taking her husband’s hand in hers began:— + +“We are all here together in freedom, for perhaps the last time! I know, dear; I know that you will always be with me to the end.” This was to her husband whose hand had, as we could see, tightened upon hers. “In the morning we go out upon our task, and God alone knows what may be in store for any of us. You are going to be so good to me as to take me with you. I know that all that brave earnest men can do for a poor weak woman, whose soul perhaps is lost—no, no, not yet, but is at any rate at stake—you will do. But you must remember that I am not as you are. There is a poison in my blood, in my soul, which may destroy me; which must destroy me, unless some relief comes to us. Oh, my friends, you know as well as I do, that my soul is at stake; and though I know there is one way out for me, you must not and I must not take it!” She looked appealingly to us all in turn, beginning and ending with her husband. + +“What is that way?” asked Van Helsing in a hoarse voice. “What is that way, which we must not—may not—take?” + +“That I may die now, either by my own hand or that of another, before the greater evil is entirely wrought. I know, and you know, that were I once dead you could and would set free my immortal spirit, even as you did my poor Lucy’s. Were death, or the fear of death, the only thing that stood in the way I would not shrink to die here, now, amidst the friends who love me. But death is not all. I cannot believe that to die in such a case, when there is hope before us and a bitter task to be done, is God’s will. Therefore, I, on my part, give up here the certainty of eternal rest, and go out into the dark where may be the blackest things that the world or the nether world holds!” We were all silent, for we knew instinctively that this was only a prelude. The faces of the others were set and Harker’s grew ashen grey; perhaps he guessed better than any of us what was coming. She continued:— + +“This is what I can give into the hotch-pot.” I could not but note the quaint legal phrase which she used in such a place, and with all seriousness. “What will each of you give? Your lives I know,” she went on quickly, “that is easy for brave men. Your lives are God’s, and you can give them back to Him; but what will you give to me?” She looked again questioningly, but this time avoided her husband’s face. Quincey seemed to understand; he nodded, and her face lit up. “Then I shall tell you plainly what I want, for there must be no doubtful matter in this connection between us now. You must promise me, one and all—even you, my beloved husband—that, should the time come, you will kill me.” + +“What is that time?” The voice was Quincey’s, but it was low and strained. + +“When you shall be convinced that I am so changed that it is better that I die than I may live. When I am thus dead in the flesh, then you will, without a moment’s delay, drive a stake through me and cut off my head; or do whatever else may be wanting to give me rest!” + +Quincey was the first to rise after the pause. He knelt down before her and taking her hand in his said solemnly:— + +“I’m only a rough fellow, who hasn’t, perhaps, lived as a man should to win such a distinction, but I swear to you by all that I hold sacred and dear that, should the time ever come, I shall not flinch from the duty that you have set us. And I promise you, too, that I shall make all certain, for if I am only doubtful I shall take it that the time has come!” + +“My true friend!” was all she could say amid her fast-falling tears, as, bending over, she kissed his hand. + +“I swear the same, my dear Madam Mina!” said Van Helsing. + +“And I!” said Lord Godalming, each of them in turn kneeling to her to take the oath. I followed, myself. Then her husband turned to her wan-eyed and with a greenish pallor which subdued the snowy whiteness of his hair, and asked:— + +“And must I, too, make such a promise, oh, my wife?” + +“You too, my dearest,” she said, with infinite yearning of pity in her voice and eyes. “You must not shrink. You are nearest and dearest and all the world to me; our souls are knit into one, for all life and all time. Think, dear, that there have been times when brave men have killed their wives and their womenkind, to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy. Their hands did not falter any the more because those that they loved implored them to slay them. It is men’s duty towards those whom they love, in such times of sore trial! And oh, my dear, if it is to be that I must meet death at any hand, let it be at the hand of him that loves me best. Dr. Van Helsing, I have not forgotten your mercy in poor Lucy’s case to him who loved”—she stopped with a flying blush, and changed her phrase—“to him who had best right to give her peace. If that time shall come again, I look to you to make it a happy memory of my husband’s life that it was his loving hand which set me free from the awful thrall upon me.” + +“Again I swear!” came the Professor’s resonant voice. Mrs. Harker smiled, positively smiled, as with a sigh of relief she leaned back and said:— + +“And now one word of warning, a warning which you must never forget: this time, if it ever come, may come quickly and unexpectedly, and in such case you must lose no time in using your opportunity. At such a time I myself might be—nay! if the time ever comes, _shall be_ — leagued with your enemy against you.” + +“One more request;” she became very solemn as she said this, “it is not vital and necessary like the other, but I want you to do one thing for me, if you will.” We all acquiesced, but no one spoke; there was no need to speak:— + +“I want you to read the Burial Service.” She was interrupted by a deep groan from her husband; taking his hand in hers, she held it over her heart, and continued: “You must read it over me some day. Whatever may be the issue of all this fearful state of things, it will be a sweet thought to all or some of us. You, my dearest, will I hope read it, for then it will be in your voice in my memory for ever—come what may!” + +“But oh, my dear one,” he pleaded, “death is afar off from you.” + +“Nay,” she said, holding up a warning hand. “I am deeper in death at this moment than if the weight of an earthly grave lay heavy upon me!” + +“Oh, my wife, must I read it?” he said, before he began. + +“It would comfort me, my husband!” was all she said; and he began to read when she had got the book ready. + +“How can I—how could any one—tell of that strange scene, its solemnity, its gloom, its sadness, its horror; and, withal, its sweetness. Even a sceptic, who can see nothing but a travesty of bitter truth in anything holy or emotional, would have been melted to the heart had he seen that little group of loving and devoted friends kneeling round that stricken and sorrowing lady; or heard the tender passion of her husband’s voice, as in tones so broken with emotion that often he had to pause, he read the simple and beautiful service from the Burial of the Dead. I—I cannot go on—words—and—v-voice—f-fail m-me!” + +She was right in her instinct. Strange as it all was, bizarre as it may hereafter seem even to us who felt its potent influence at the time, it comforted us much; and the silence, which showed Mrs. Harker’s coming relapse from her freedom of soul, did not seem so full of despair to any of us as we had dreaded. + +_Jonathan Harker’s Journal._ + +_15 October, Varna._ — We left Charing Cross on the morning of the 12th, got to Paris the same night, and took the places secured for us in the Orient Express. We travelled night and day, arriving here at about five o’clock. Lord Godalming went to the Consulate to see if any telegram had arrived for him, whilst the rest of us came on to this hotel—“the Odessus.” The journey may have had incidents; I was, however, too eager to get on, to care for them. Until the _Czarina Catherine_ comes into port there will be no interest for me in anything in the wide world. Thank God! Mina is well, and looks to be getting stronger; her colour is coming back. She sleeps a great deal; throughout the journey she slept nearly all the time. Before sunrise and sunset, however, she is very wakeful and alert; and it has become a habit for Van Helsing to hypnotise her at such times. At first, some effort was needed, and he had to make many passes; but now, she seems to yield at once, as if by habit, and scarcely any action is needed. He seems to have power at these particular moments to simply will, and her thoughts obey him. He always asks her what she can see and hear. She answers to the first:— + +“Nothing; all is dark.” And to the second:— + +“I can hear the waves lapping against the ship, and the water rushing by. Canvas and cordage strain and masts and yards creak. The wind is high—I can hear it in the shrouds, and the bow throws back the foam.” It is evident that the _Czarina Catherine_ is still at sea, hastening on her way to Varna. Lord Godalming has just returned. He had four telegrams, one each day since we started, and all to the same effect: that the _Czarina Catherine_ had not been reported to Lloyd’s from anywhere. He had arranged before leaving London that his agent should send him every day a telegram saying if the ship had been reported. He was to have a message even if she were not reported, so that he might be sure that there was a watch being kept at the other end of the wire. + +We had dinner and went to bed early. To-morrow we are to see the Vice-Consul, and to arrange, if we can, about getting on board the ship as soon as she arrives. Van Helsing says that our chance will be to get on the boat between sunrise and sunset. The Count, even if he takes the form of a bat, cannot cross the running water of his own volition, and so cannot leave the ship. As he dare not change to man’s form without suspicion—which he evidently wishes to avoid—he must remain in the box. If, then, we can come on board after sunrise, he is at our mercy; for we can open the box and make sure of him, as we did of poor Lucy, before he wakes. What mercy he shall get from us will not count for much. We think that we shall not have much trouble with officials or the seamen. Thank God! this is the country where bribery can do anything, and we are well supplied with money. We have only to make sure that the ship cannot come into port between sunset and sunrise without our being warned, and we shall be safe. Judge Moneybag will settle this case, I think! + +_16 October._ — Mina’s report still the same: lapping waves and rushing water, darkness and favouring winds. We are evidently in good time, and when we hear of the _Czarina Catherine_ we shall be ready. As she must pass the Dardanelles we are sure to have some report. + +_17 October._ — Everything is pretty well fixed now, I think, to welcome the Count on his return from his tour. Godalming told the shippers that he fancied that the box sent aboard might contain something stolen from a friend of his, and got a half consent that he might open it at his own risk. The owner gave him a paper telling the Captain to give him every facility in doing whatever he chose on board the ship, and also a similar authorisation to his agent at Varna. We have seen the agent, who was much impressed with Godalming’s kindly manner to him, and we are all satisfied that whatever he can do to aid our wishes will be done. We have already arranged what to do in case we get the box open. If the Count is there, Van Helsing and Seward will cut off his head at once and drive a stake through his heart. Morris and Godalming and I shall prevent interference, even if we have to use the arms which we shall have ready. The Professor says that if we can so treat the Count’s body, it will soon after fall into dust. In such case there would be no evidence against us, in case any suspicion of murder were aroused. But even if it were not, we should stand or fall by our act, and perhaps some day this very script may be evidence to come between some of us and a rope. For myself, I should take the chance only too thankfully if it were to come. We mean to leave no stone unturned to carry out our intent. We have arranged with certain officials that the instant the _Czarina Catherine_ is seen, we are to be informed by a special messenger. + +_24 October._ — A whole week of waiting. Daily telegrams to Godalming, but only the same story: “Not yet reported.” Mina’s morning and evening hypnotic answer is unvaried: lapping waves, rushing water, and creaking masts. + +_Telegram, October 24th._ + +_Rufus Smith, Lloyd’s, London, to Lord Godalming, care of H. B. M. Vice-Consul, Varna._ + +“_Czarina Catherine_ reported this morning from Dardanelles.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_25 October._ — How I miss my phonograph! To write diary with a pen is irksome to me; but Van Helsing says I must. We were all wild with excitement yesterday when Godalming got his telegram from Lloyd’s. I know now what men feel in battle when the call to action is heard. Mrs. Harker, alone of our party, did not show any signs of emotion. After all, it is not strange that she did not; for we took special care not to let her know anything about it, and we all tried not to show any excitement when we were in her presence. In old days she would, I am sure, have noticed, no matter how we might have tried to conceal it; but in this way she is greatly changed during the past three weeks. The lethargy grows upon her, and though she seems strong and well, and is getting back some of her colour, Van Helsing and I are not satisfied. We talk of her often; we have not, however, said a word to the others. It would break poor Harker’s heart—certainly his nerve—if he knew that we had even a suspicion on the subject. Van Helsing examines, he tells me, her teeth very carefully, whilst she is in the hypnotic condition, for he says that so long as they do not begin to sharpen there is no active danger of a change in her. If this change should come, it would be necessary to take steps!... We both know what those steps would have to be, though we do not mention our thoughts to each other. We should neither of us shrink from the task—awful though it be to contemplate. “Euthanasia” is an excellent and a comforting word! I am grateful to whoever invented it. + +It is only about 24 hours’ sail from the Dardanelles to here, at the rate the _Czarina Catherine_ has come from London. She should therefore arrive some time in the morning; but as she cannot possibly get in before then, we are all about to retire early. We shall get up at one o’clock, so as to be ready. + +_25 October, Noon_.—No news yet of the ship’s arrival. Mrs. Harker’s hypnotic report this morning was the same as usual, so it is possible that we may get news at any moment. We men are all in a fever of excitement, except Harker, who is calm; his hands are cold as ice, and an hour ago I found him whetting the edge of the great Ghoorka knife which he now always carries with him. It will be a bad lookout for the Count if the edge of that “Kukri” ever touches his throat, driven by that stern, ice-cold hand! + +Van Helsing and I were a little alarmed about Mrs. Harker to-day. About noon she got into a sort of lethargy which we did not like; although we kept silence to the others, we were neither of us happy about it. She had been restless all the morning, so that we were at first glad to know that she was sleeping. When, however, her husband mentioned casually that she was sleeping so soundly that he could not wake her, we went to her room to see for ourselves. She was breathing naturally and looked so well and peaceful that we agreed that the sleep was better for her than anything else. Poor girl, she has so much to forget that it is no wonder that sleep, if it brings oblivion to her, does her good. + +_Later._ — Our opinion was justified, for when after a refreshing sleep of some hours she woke up, she seemed brighter and better than she had been for days. At sunset she made the usual hypnotic report. Wherever he may be in the Black Sea, the Count is hurrying to his destination. To his doom, I trust! + +_26 October._ — Another day and no tidings of the _Czarina Catherine_. She ought to be here by now. That she is still journeying _somewhere_ is apparent, for Mrs. Harker’s hypnotic report at sunrise was still the same. It is possible that the vessel may be lying by, at times, for fog; some of the steamers which came in last evening reported patches of fog both to north and south of the port. We must continue our watching, as the ship may now be signalled any moment. + +_27 October, Noon._ — Most strange; no news yet of the ship we wait for. Mrs. Harker reported last night and this morning as usual: “lapping waves and rushing water,” though she added that “the waves were very faint.” The telegrams from London have been the same: “no further report.” Van Helsing is terribly anxious, and told me just now that he fears the Count is escaping us. He added significantly:— + +“I did not like that lethargy of Madam Mina’s. Souls and memories can do strange things during trance.” I was about to ask him more, but Harker just then came in, and he held up a warning hand. We must try to-night at sunset to make her speak more fully when in her hypnotic state. + +_28 October._ — Telegram. _Rufus Smith, London, to Lord Godalming, care H. B. M. Vice Consul, Varna._ + +“_Czarina Catherine_ reported entering Galatz at one o’clock to-day.” + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_28 October._ — When the telegram came announcing the arrival in Galatz I do not think it was such a shock to any of us as might have been expected. True, we did not know whence, or how, or when, the bolt would come; but I think we all expected that something strange would happen. The delay of arrival at Varna made us individually satisfied that things would not be just as we had expected; we only waited to learn where the change would occur. None the less, however, was it a surprise. I suppose that nature works on such a hopeful basis that we believe against ourselves that things will be as they ought to be, not as we should know that they will be. Transcendentalism is a beacon to the angels, even if it be a will-o’-the-wisp to man. It was an odd experience and we all took it differently. Van Helsing raised his hand over his head for a moment, as though in remonstrance with the Almighty; but he said not a word, and in a few seconds stood up with his face sternly set. Lord Godalming grew very pale, and sat breathing heavily. I was myself half stunned and looked in wonder at one after another. Quincey Morris tightened his belt with that quick movement which I knew so well; in our old wandering days it meant “action.” Mrs. Harker grew ghastly white, so that the scar on her forehead seemed to burn, but she folded her hands meekly and looked up in prayer. Harker smiled—actually smiled—the dark, bitter smile of one who is without hope; but at the same time his action belied his words, for his hands instinctively sought the hilt of the great Kukri knife and rested there. “When does the next train start for Galatz?” said Van Helsing to us generally. + +“At 6:30 to-morrow morning!” We all started, for the answer came from Mrs. Harker. + +“How on earth do you know?” said Art. + +“You forget—or perhaps you do not know, though Jonathan does and so does Dr. Van Helsing—that I am the train fiend. At home in Exeter I always used to make up the time-tables, so as to be helpful to my husband. I found it so useful sometimes, that I always make a study of the time-tables now. I knew that if anything were to take us to Castle Dracula we should go by Galatz, or at any rate through Bucharest, so I learned the times very carefully. Unhappily there are not many to learn, as the only train to-morrow leaves as I say.” + +“Wonderful woman!” murmured the Professor. + +“Can’t we get a special?” asked Lord Godalming. Van Helsing shook his head: “I fear not. This land is very different from yours or mine; even if we did have a special, it would probably not arrive as soon as our regular train. Moreover, we have something to prepare. We must think. Now let us organize. You, friend Arthur, go to the train and get the tickets and arrange that all be ready for us to go in the morning. Do you, friend Jonathan, go to the agent of the ship and get from him letters to the agent in Galatz, with authority to make search the ship just as it was here. Morris Quincey, you see the Vice-Consul, and get his aid with his fellow in Galatz and all he can do to make our way smooth, so that no times be lost when over the Danube. John will stay with Madam Mina and me, and we shall consult. For so if time be long you may be delayed; and it will not matter when the sun set, since I am here with Madam to make report.” + +“And I,” said Mrs. Harker brightly, and more like her old self than she had been for many a long day, “shall try to be of use in all ways, and shall think and write for you as I used to do. Something is shifting from me in some strange way, and I feel freer than I have been of late!” The three younger men looked happier at the moment as they seemed to realise the significance of her words; but Van Helsing and I, turning to each other, met each a grave and troubled glance. We said nothing at the time, however. + +When the three men had gone out to their tasks Van Helsing asked Mrs. Harker to look up the copy of the diaries and find him the part of Harker’s journal at the Castle. She went away to get it; when the door was shut upon her he said to me:— + +“We mean the same! speak out!” + +“There is some change. It is a hope that makes me sick, for it may deceive us.” + +“Quite so. Do you know why I asked her to get the manuscript?” + +“No!” said I, “unless it was to get an opportunity of seeing me alone.” + +“You are in part right, friend John, but only in part. I want to tell you something. And oh, my friend, I am taking a great—a terrible—risk; but I believe it is right. In the moment when Madam Mina said those words that arrest both our understanding, an inspiration came to me. In the trance of three days ago the Count sent her his spirit to read her mind; or more like he took her to see him in his earth-box in the ship with water rushing, just as it go free at rise and set of sun. He learn then that we are here; for she have more to tell in her open life with eyes to see and ears to hear than he, shut, as he is, in his coffin-box. Now he make his most effort to escape us. At present he want her not. + +“He is sure with his so great knowledge that she will come at his call; but he cut her off—take her, as he can do, out of his own power, that so she come not to him. Ah! there I have hope that our man-brains that have been of man so long and that have not lost the grace of God, will come higher than his child-brain that lie in his tomb for centuries, that grow not yet to our stature, and that do only work selfish and therefore small. Here comes Madam Mina; not a word to her of her trance! She know it not; and it would overwhelm her and make despair just when we want all her hope, all her courage; when most we want all her great brain which is trained like man’s brain, but is of sweet woman and have a special power which the Count give her, and which he may not take away altogether—though he think not so. Hush! let me speak, and you shall learn. Oh, John, my friend, we are in awful straits. I fear, as I never feared before. We can only trust the good God. Silence! here she comes!” + +I thought that the Professor was going to break down and have hysterics, just as he had when Lucy died, but with a great effort he controlled himself and was at perfect nervous poise when Mrs. Harker tripped into the room, bright and happy-looking and, in the doing of work, seemingly forgetful of her misery. As she came in, she handed a number of sheets of typewriting to Van Helsing. He looked over them gravely, his face brightening up as he read. Then holding the pages between his finger and thumb he said:— + +“Friend John, to you with so much of experience already—and you, too, dear Madam Mina, that are young—here is a lesson: do not fear ever to think. A half-thought has been buzzing often in my brain, but I fear to let him loose his wings. Here now, with more knowledge, I go back to where that half-thought come from and I find that he be no half-thought at all; that be a whole thought, though so young that he is not yet strong to use his little wings. Nay, like the “Ugly Duck” of my friend Hans Andersen, he be no duck-thought at all, but a big swan-thought that sail nobly on big wings, when the time come for him to try them. See I read here what Jonathan have written:— + +“That other of his race who, in a later age, again and again, brought his forces over The Great River into Turkey Land; who, when he was beaten back, came again, and again, and again, though he had to come alone from the bloody field where his troops were being slaughtered, since he knew that he alone could ultimately triumph.” + +“What does this tell us? Not much? no! The Count’s child-thought see nothing; therefore he speak so free. Your man-thought see nothing; my man-thought see nothing, till just now. No! But there comes another word from some one who speak without thought because she, too, know not what it mean—what it _might_ mean. Just as there are elements which rest, yet when in nature’s course they move on their way and they touch—then pouf! and there comes a flash of light, heaven wide, that blind and kill and destroy some; but that show up all earth below for leagues and leagues. Is it not so? Well, I shall explain. To begin, have you ever study the philosophy of crime? ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ You, John, yes; for it is a study of insanity. You, no, Madam Mina; for crime touch you not—not but once. Still, your mind works true, and argues not _a particulari ad universale_. There is this peculiarity in criminals. It is so constant, in all countries and at all times, that even police, who know not much from philosophy, come to know it empirically, that _it is_. That is to be empiric. The criminal always work at one crime—that is the true criminal who seems predestinate to crime, and who will of none other. This criminal has not full man-brain. He is clever and cunning and resourceful; but he be not of man-stature as to brain. He be of child-brain in much. Now this criminal of ours is predestinate to crime also; he, too, have child-brain, and it is of the child to do what he have done. The little bird, the little fish, the little animal learn not by principle, but empirically; and when he learn to do, then there is to him the ground to start from to do more. ‘_Dos pou sto_,’ said Archimedes. ‘Give me a fulcrum, and I shall move the world!’ To do once, is the fulcrum whereby child-brain become man-brain; and until he have the purpose to do more, he continue to do the same again every time, just as he have done before! Oh, my dear, I see that your eyes are opened, and that to you the lightning flash show all the leagues,” for Mrs. Harker began to clap her hands and her eyes sparkled. He went on:— + +“Now you shall speak. Tell us two dry men of science what you see with those so bright eyes.” He took her hand and held it whilst she spoke. His finger and thumb closed on her pulse, as I thought instinctively and unconsciously, as she spoke:— + +“The Count is a criminal and of criminal type. Nordau and Lombroso would so classify him, and _quâ_ criminal he is of imperfectly formed mind. Thus, in a difficulty he has to seek resource in habit. His past is a clue, and the one page of it that we know—and that from his own lips—tells that once before, when in what Mr. Morris would call a ‘tight place,’ he went back to his own country from the land he had tried to invade, and thence, without losing purpose, prepared himself for a new effort. He came again better equipped for his work; and won. So he came to London to invade a new land. He was beaten, and when all hope of success was lost, and his existence in danger, he fled back over the sea to his home; just as formerly he had fled back over the Danube from Turkey Land.” + +“Good, good! oh, you so clever lady!” said Van Helsing, enthusiastically, as he stooped and kissed her hand. A moment later he said to me, as calmly as though we had been having a sick-room consultation:— + +“Seventy-two only; and in all this excitement. I have hope.” Turning to her again, he said with keen expectation:— + +“But go on. Go on! there is more to tell if you will. Be not afraid; John and I know. I do in any case, and shall tell you if you are right. Speak, without fear!” + +“I will try to; but you will forgive me if I seem egotistical.” + +“Nay! fear not, you must be egotist, for it is of you that we think.” + +“Then, as he is criminal he is selfish; and as his intellect is small and his action is based on selfishness, he confines himself to one purpose. That purpose is remorseless. As he fled back over the Danube, leaving his forces to be cut to pieces, so now he is intent on being safe, careless of all. So his own selfishness frees my soul somewhat from the terrible power which he acquired over me on that dreadful night. I felt it! Oh, I felt it! Thank God, for His great mercy! My soul is freer than it has been since that awful hour; and all that haunts me is a fear lest in some trance or dream he may have used my knowledge for his ends.” The Professor stood up:— + +“He has so used your mind; and by it he has left us here in Varna, whilst the ship that carried him rushed through enveloping fog up to Galatz, where, doubtless, he had made preparation for escaping from us. But his child-mind only saw so far; and it may be that, as ever is in God’s Providence, the very thing that the evil-doer most reckoned on for his selfish good, turns out to be his chiefest harm. The hunter is taken in his own snare, as the great Psalmist says. For now that he think he is free from every trace of us all, and that he has escaped us with so many hours to him, then his selfish child-brain will whisper him to sleep. He think, too, that as he cut himself off from knowing your mind, there can be no knowledge of him to you; there is where he fail! That terrible baptism of blood which he give you makes you free to go to him in spirit, as you have as yet done in your times of freedom, when the sun rise and set. At such times you go by my volition and not by his; and this power to good of you and others, as you have won from your suffering at his hands. This is now all the more precious that he know it not, and to guard himself have even cut himself off from his knowledge of our where. We, however, are not selfish, and we believe that God is with us through all this blackness, and these many dark hours. We shall follow him; and we shall not flinch; even if we peril ourselves that we become like him. Friend John, this has been a great hour; and it have done much to advance us on our way. You must be scribe and write him all down, so that when the others return from their work you can give it to them; then they shall know as we do.” + +And so I have written it whilst we wait their return, and Mrs. Harker has written with her typewriter all since she brought the MS. to us. + +== CHAPTER XXVI + +DR. SEWARD’S DIARY + +_29 October._ — This is written in the train from Varna to Galatz. Last night we all assembled a little before the time of sunset. Each of us had done his work as well as he could; so far as thought, and endeavour, and opportunity go, we are prepared for the whole of our journey, and for our work when we get to Galatz. When the usual time came round Mrs. Harker prepared herself for her hypnotic effort; and after a longer and more serious effort on the part of Van Helsing than has been usually necessary, she sank into the trance. Usually she speaks on a hint; but this time the Professor had to ask her questions, and to ask them pretty resolutely, before we could learn anything; at last her answer came:— + +“I can see nothing; we are still; there are no waves lapping, but only a steady swirl of water softly running against the hawser. I can hear men’s voices calling, near and far, and the roll and creak of oars in the rowlocks. A gun is fired somewhere; the echo of it seems far away. There is tramping of feet overhead, and ropes and chains are dragged along. What is this? There is a gleam of light; I can feel the air blowing upon me.” + +Here she stopped. She had risen, as if impulsively, from where she lay on the sofa, and raised both her hands, palms upwards, as if lifting a weight. Van Helsing and I looked at each other with understanding. Quincey raised his eyebrows slightly and looked at her intently, whilst Harker’s hand instinctively closed round the hilt of his Kukri. There was a long pause. We all knew that the time when she could speak was passing; but we felt that it was useless to say anything. Suddenly she sat up, and, as she opened her eyes, said sweetly:— + +“Would none of you like a cup of tea? You must all be so tired!” We could only make her happy, and so acquiesced. She bustled off to get tea; when she had gone Van Helsing said:— + +“You see, my friends. _He_ is close to land: he has left his earth-chest. But he has yet to get on shore. In the night he may lie hidden somewhere; but if he be not carried on shore, or if the ship do not touch it, he cannot achieve the land. In such case he can, if it be in the night, change his form and can jump or fly on shore, as he did at Whitby. But if the day come before he get on shore, then, unless he be carried he cannot escape. And if he be carried, then the customs men may discover what the box contain. Thus, in fine, if he escape not on shore to-night, or before dawn, there will be the whole day lost to him. We may then arrive in time; for if he escape not at night we shall come on him in daytime, boxed up and at our mercy; for he dare not be his true self, awake and visible, lest he be discovered.” + +There was no more to be said, so we waited in patience until the dawn; at which time we might learn more from Mrs. Harker. + +Early this morning we listened, with breathless anxiety, for her response in her trance. The hypnotic stage was even longer in coming than before; and when it came the time remaining until full sunrise was so short that we began to despair. Van Helsing seemed to throw his whole soul into the effort; at last, in obedience to his will she made reply:— + +“All is dark. I hear lapping water, level with me, and some creaking as of wood on wood.” She paused, and the red sun shot up. We must wait till to-night. + +And so it is that we are travelling towards Galatz in an agony of expectation. We are due to arrive between two and three in the morning; but already, at Bucharest, we are three hours late, so we cannot possibly get in till well after sun-up. Thus we shall have two more hypnotic messages from Mrs. Harker; either or both may possibly throw more light on what is happening. + +_Later._ — Sunset has come and gone. Fortunately it came at a time when there was no distraction; for had it occurred whilst we were at a station, we might not have secured the necessary calm and isolation. Mrs. Harker yielded to the hypnotic influence even less readily than this morning. I am in fear that her power of reading the Count’s sensations may die away, just when we want it most. It seems to me that her imagination is beginning to work. Whilst she has been in the trance hitherto she has confined herself to the simplest of facts. If this goes on it may ultimately mislead us. If I thought that the Count’s power over her would die away equally with her power of knowledge it would be a happy thought; but I am afraid that it may not be so. When she did speak, her words were enigmatical:— + +“Something is going out; I can feel it pass me like a cold wind. I can hear, far off, confused sounds—as of men talking in strange tongues, fierce-falling water, and the howling of wolves.” She stopped and a shudder ran through her, increasing in intensity for a few seconds, till, at the end, she shook as though in a palsy. She said no more, even in answer to the Professor’s imperative questioning. When she woke from the trance, she was cold, and exhausted, and languid; but her mind was all alert. She could not remember anything, but asked what she had said; when she was told, she pondered over it deeply for a long time and in silence. + +_30 October, 7 a. m._ — We are near Galatz now, and I may not have time to write later. Sunrise this morning was anxiously looked for by us all. Knowing of the increasing difficulty of procuring the hypnotic trance, Van Helsing began his passes earlier than usual. They produced no effect, however, until the regular time, when she yielded with a still greater difficulty, only a minute before the sun rose. The Professor lost no time in his questioning; her answer came with equal quickness:— + +“All is dark. I hear water swirling by, level with my ears, and the creaking of wood on wood. Cattle low far off. There is another sound, a queer one like—” She stopped and grew white, and whiter still. + +“Go on; go on! Speak, I command you!” said Van Helsing in an agonised voice. At the same time there was despair in his eyes, for the risen sun was reddening even Mrs. Harker’s pale face. She opened her eyes, and we all started as she said, sweetly and seemingly with the utmost unconcern:— + +“Oh, Professor, why ask me to do what you know I can’t? I don’t remember anything.” Then, seeing the look of amazement on our faces, she said, turning from one to the other with a troubled look:— + +“What have I said? What have I done? I know nothing, only that I was lying here, half asleep, and heard you say ‘go on! speak, I command you!’ It seemed so funny to hear you order me about, as if I were a bad child!” + +“Oh, Madam Mina,” he said, sadly, “it is proof, if proof be needed, of how I love and honour you, when a word for your good, spoken more earnest than ever, can seem so strange because it is to order her whom I am proud to obey!” + +The whistles are sounding; we are nearing Galatz. We are on fire with anxiety and eagerness. + +_Mina Harker’s Journal._ + +_30 October._ — Mr. Morris took me to the hotel where our rooms had been ordered by telegraph, he being the one who could best be spared, since he does not speak any foreign language. The forces were distributed much as they had been at Varna, except that Lord Godalming went to the Vice-Consul, as his rank might serve as an immediate guarantee of some sort to the official, we being in extreme hurry. Jonathan and the two doctors went to the shipping agent to learn particulars of the arrival of the _Czarina Catherine_. + +_Later._ — Lord Godalming has returned. The Consul is away, and the Vice-Consul sick; so the routine work has been attended to by a clerk. He was very obliging, and offered to do anything in his power. + +_Jonathan Harker’s Journal._ + +_30 October._ — At nine o’clock Dr. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and I called on Messrs. Mackenzie & Steinkoff, the agents of the London firm of Hapgood. They had received a wire from London, in answer to Lord Godalming’s telegraphed request, asking us to show them any civility in their power. They were more than kind and courteous, and took us at once on board the _Czarina Catherine_, which lay at anchor out in the river harbour. There we saw the Captain, Donelson by name, who told us of his voyage. He said that in all his life he had never had so favourable a run. + +“Man!” he said, “but it made us afeard, for we expeckit that we should have to pay for it wi’ some rare piece o’ ill luck, so as to keep up the average. It’s no canny to run frae London to the Black Sea wi’ a wind ahint ye, as though the Deil himself were blawin’ on yer sail for his ain purpose. An’ a’ the time we could no speer a thing. Gin we were nigh a ship, or a port, or a headland, a fog fell on us and travelled wi’ us, till when after it had lifted and we looked out, the deil a thing could we see. We ran by Gibraltar wi’oot bein’ able to signal; an’ till we came to the Dardanelles and had to wait to get our permit to pass, we never were within hail o’ aught. At first I inclined to slack off sail and beat about till the fog was lifted; but whiles, I thocht that if the Deil was minded to get us into the Black Sea quick, he was like to do it whether we would or no. If we had a quick voyage it would be no to our miscredit wi’ the owners, or no hurt to our traffic; an’ the Old Mon who had served his ain purpose wad be decently grateful to us for no hinderin’ him.” This mixture of simplicity and cunning, of superstition and commercial reasoning, aroused Van Helsing, who said:— + +“Mine friend, that Devil is more clever than he is thought by some; and he know when he meet his match!” The skipper was not displeased with the compliment, and went on:— + +“When we got past the Bosphorus the men began to grumble; some o’ them, the Roumanians, came and asked me to heave overboard a big box which had been put on board by a queer lookin’ old man just before we had started frae London. I had seen them speer at the fellow, and put out their twa fingers when they saw him, to guard against the evil eye. Man! but the supersteetion of foreigners is pairfectly rideeculous! I sent them aboot their business pretty quick; but as just after a fog closed in on us I felt a wee bit as they did anent something, though I wouldn’t say it was agin the big box. Well, on we went, and as the fog didn’t let up for five days I joost let the wind carry us; for if the Deil wanted to get somewheres—well, he would fetch it up a’reet. An’ if he didn’t, well, we’d keep a sharp lookout anyhow. Sure eneuch, we had a fair way and deep water all the time; and two days ago, when the mornin’ sun came through the fog, we found ourselves just in the river opposite Galatz. The Roumanians were wild, and wanted me right or wrong to take out the box and fling it in the river. I had to argy wi’ them aboot it wi’ a handspike; an’ when the last o’ them rose off the deck wi’ his head in his hand, I had convinced them that, evil eye or no evil eye, the property and the trust of my owners were better in my hands than in the river Danube. They had, mind ye, taken the box on the deck ready to fling in, and as it was marked Galatz _via_ Varna, I thocht I’d let it lie till we discharged in the port an’ get rid o’t althegither. We didn’t do much clearin’ that day, an’ had to remain the nicht at anchor; but in the mornin’, braw an’ airly, an hour before sun-up, a man came aboard wi’ an order, written to him from England, to receive a box marked for one Count Dracula. Sure eneuch the matter was one ready to his hand. He had his papers a’ reet, an’ glad I was to be rid o’ the dam’ thing, for I was beginnin’ masel’ to feel uneasy at it. If the Deil did have any luggage aboord the ship, I’m thinkin’ it was nane ither than that same!” + +“What was the name of the man who took it?” asked Dr. Van Helsing with restrained eagerness. + +“I’ll be tellin’ ye quick!” he answered, and, stepping down to his cabin, produced a receipt signed “Immanuel Hildesheim.” Burgen-strasse 16 was the address. We found out that this was all the Captain knew; so with thanks we came away. + +We found Hildesheim in his office, a Hebrew of rather the Adelphi Theatre type, with a nose like a sheep, and a fez. His arguments were pointed with specie—we doing the punctuation—and with a little bargaining he told us what he knew. This turned out to be simple but important. He had received a letter from Mr. de Ville of London, telling him to receive, if possible before sunrise so as to avoid customs, a box which would arrive at Galatz in the _Czarina Catherine_. This he was to give in charge to a certain Petrof Skinsky, who dealt with the Slovaks who traded down the river to the port. He had been paid for his work by an English bank note, which had been duly cashed for gold at the Danube International Bank. When Skinsky had come to him, he had taken him to the ship and handed over the box, so as to save porterage. That was all he knew. + +We then sought for Skinsky, but were unable to find him. One of his neighbours, who did not seem to bear him any affection, said that he had gone away two days before, no one knew whither. This was corroborated by his landlord, who had received by messenger the key of the house together with the rent due, in English money. This had been between ten and eleven o’clock last night. We were at a standstill again. + +Whilst we were talking one came running and breathlessly gasped out that the body of Skinsky had been found inside the wall of the churchyard of St. Peter, and that the throat had been torn open as if by some wild animal. Those we had been speaking with ran off to see the horror, the women crying out “This is the work of a Slovak!” We hurried away lest we should have been in some way drawn into the affair, and so detained. + +As we came home we could arrive at no definite conclusion. We were all convinced that the box was on its way, by water, to somewhere; but where that might be we would have to discover. With heavy hearts we came home to the hotel to Mina. + +When we met together, the first thing was to consult as to taking Mina again into our confidence. Things are getting desperate, and it is at least a chance, though a hazardous one. As a preliminary step, I was released from my promise to her. + +_Mina Harker’s Journal._ + +_30 October, evening._ — They were so tired and worn out and dispirited that there was nothing to be done till they had some rest; so I asked them all to lie down for half an hour whilst I should enter everything up to the moment. I feel so grateful to the man who invented the “Traveller’s” typewriter, and to Mr. Morris for getting this one for me. I should have felt quite astray doing the work if I had to write with a pen.... + +It is all done; poor dear, dear Jonathan, what he must have suffered, what must he be suffering now. He lies on the sofa hardly seeming to breathe, and his whole body appears in collapse. His brows are knit; his face is drawn with pain. Poor fellow, maybe he is thinking, and I can see his face all wrinkled up with the concentration of his thoughts. Oh! if I could only help at all.... I shall do what I can. + +I have asked Dr. Van Helsing, and he has got me all the papers that I have not yet seen.... Whilst they are resting, I shall go over all carefully, and perhaps I may arrive at some conclusion. I shall try to follow the Professor’s example, and think without prejudice on the facts before me.... + +I do believe that under God’s providence I have made a discovery. I shall get the maps and look over them.... + +I am more than ever sure that I am right. My new conclusion is ready, so I shall get our party together and read it. They can judge it; it is well to be accurate, and every minute is precious. + +_Mina Harker’s Memorandum._ + +(Entered in her Journal.) + +_Ground of inquiry._ — Count Dracula’s problem is to get back to his own place. + +(_a_) He must be _brought back_ by some one. This is evident; for had he power to move himself as he wished he could go either as man, or wolf, or bat, or in some other way. He evidently fears discovery or interference, in the state of helplessness in which he must be—confined as he is between dawn and sunset in his wooden box. + +(_b_) _How is he to be taken?_ — Here a process of exclusions may help us. By road, by rail, by water? + +1. _By Road._ — There are endless difficulties, especially in leaving the city. +(_x_) There are people; and people are curious, and investigate. A hint, a surmise, a doubt as to what might be in the box, would destroy him. +(_y_) There are, or there may be, customs and octroi officers to pass. +(_z_) His pursuers might follow. This is his highest fear; and in order to prevent his being betrayed he has repelled, so far as he can, even his victim—me! +2. _By Rail._ — There is no one in charge of the box. It would have to take its chance of being delayed; and delay would be fatal, with enemies on the track. True, he might escape at night; but what would he be, if left in a strange place with no refuge that he could fly to? This is not what he intends; and he does not mean to risk it. +3. _By Water._ — Here is the safest way, in one respect, but with most danger in another. On the water he is powerless except at night; even then he can only summon fog and storm and snow and his wolves. But were he wrecked, the living water would engulf him, helpless; and he would indeed be lost. He could have the vessel drive to land; but if it were unfriendly land, wherein he was not free to move, his position would still be desperate. + +We know from the record that he was on the water; so what we have to do is to ascertain _what_ water. + +The first thing is to realise exactly what he has done as yet; we may, then, get a light on what his later task is to be. + +_Firstly._ — We must differentiate between what he did in London as part of his general plan of action, when he was pressed for moments and had to arrange as best he could. + +_Secondly_ we must see, as well as we can surmise it from the facts we know of, what he has done here. + +As to the first, he evidently intended to arrive at Galatz, and sent invoice to Varna to deceive us lest we should ascertain his means of exit from England; his immediate and sole purpose then was to escape. The proof of this, is the letter of instructions sent to Immanuel Hildesheim to clear and take away the box _before sunrise_. There is also the instruction to Petrof Skinsky. These we must only guess at; but there must have been some letter or message, since Skinsky came to Hildesheim. + +That, so far, his plans were successful we know. The _Czarina Catherine_ made a phenomenally quick journey—so much so that Captain Donelson’s suspicions were aroused; but his superstition united with his canniness played the Count’s game for him, and he ran with his favouring wind through fogs and all till he brought up blindfold at Galatz. That the Count’s arrangements were well made, has been proved. Hildesheim cleared the box, took it off, and gave it to Skinsky. Skinsky took it—and here we lose the trail. We only know that the box is somewhere on the water, moving along. The customs and the octroi, if there be any, have been avoided. + +Now we come to what the Count must have done after his arrival—_on land_, at Galatz. + +The box was given to Skinsky before sunrise. At sunrise the Count could appear in his own form. Here, we ask why Skinsky was chosen at all to aid in the work? In my husband’s diary, Skinsky is mentioned as dealing with the Slovaks who trade down the river to the port; and the man’s remark, that the murder was the work of a Slovak, showed the general feeling against his class. The Count wanted isolation. + +My surmise is, this: that in London the Count decided to get back to his castle by water, as the most safe and secret way. He was brought from the castle by Szgany, and probably they delivered their cargo to Slovaks who took the boxes to Varna, for there they were shipped for London. Thus the Count had knowledge of the persons who could arrange this service. When the box was on land, before sunrise or after sunset, he came out from his box, met Skinsky and instructed him what to do as to arranging the carriage of the box up some river. When this was done, and he knew that all was in train, he blotted out his traces, as he thought, by murdering his agent. + +I have examined the map and find that the river most suitable for the Slovaks to have ascended is either the Pruth or the Sereth. I read in the typescript that in my trance I heard cows low and water swirling level with my ears and the creaking of wood. The Count in his box, then, was on a river in an open boat—propelled probably either by oars or poles, for the banks are near and it is working against stream. There would be no such sound if floating down stream. + +Of course it may not be either the Sereth or the Pruth, but we may possibly investigate further. Now of these two, the Pruth is the more easily navigated, but the Sereth is, at Fundu, joined by the Bistritza which runs up round the Borgo Pass. The loop it makes is manifestly as close to Dracula’s castle as can be got by water. + +_Mina Harker’s Journal—continued._ + +When I had done reading, Jonathan took me in his arms and kissed me. The others kept shaking me by both hands, and Dr. Van Helsing said:— + +“Our dear Madam Mina is once more our teacher. Her eyes have been where we were blinded. Now we are on the track once again, and this time we may succeed. Our enemy is at his most helpless; and if we can come on him by day, on the water, our task will be over. He has a start, but he is powerless to hasten, as he may not leave his box lest those who carry him may suspect; for them to suspect would be to prompt them to throw him in the stream where he perish. This he knows, and will not. Now men, to our Council of War; for, here and now, we must plan what each and all shall do.” + +“I shall get a steam launch and follow him,” said Lord Godalming. + +“And I, horses to follow on the bank lest by chance he land,” said Mr. Morris. + +“Good!” said the Professor, “both good. But neither must go alone. There must be force to overcome force if need be; the Slovak is strong and rough, and he carries rude arms.” All the men smiled, for amongst them they carried a small arsenal. Said Mr. Morris:— + +“I have brought some Winchesters; they are pretty handy in a crowd, and there may be wolves. The Count, if you remember, took some other precautions; he made some requisitions on others that Mrs. Harker could not quite hear or understand. We must be ready at all points.” Dr. Seward said:— + +“I think I had better go with Quincey. We have been accustomed to hunt together, and we two, well armed, will be a match for whatever may come along. You must not be alone, Art. It may be necessary to fight the Slovaks, and a chance thrust—for I don’t suppose these fellows carry guns—would undo all our plans. There must be no chances, this time; we shall not rest until the Count’s head and body have been separated, and we are sure that he cannot re-incarnate.” He looked at Jonathan as he spoke, and Jonathan looked at me. I could see that the poor dear was torn about in his mind. Of course he wanted to be with me; but then the boat service would, most likely, be the one which would destroy the ... the ... the ... Vampire. (Why did I hesitate to write the word?) He was silent awhile, and during his silence Dr. Van Helsing spoke:— + +“Friend Jonathan, this is to you for twice reasons. First, because you are young and brave and can fight, and all energies may be needed at the last; and again that it is your right to destroy him—that—which has wrought such woe to you and yours. Be not afraid for Madam Mina; she will be my care, if I may. I am old. My legs are not so quick to run as once; and I am not used to ride so long or to pursue as need be, or to fight with lethal weapons. But I can be of other service; I can fight in other way. And I can die, if need be, as well as younger men. Now let me say that what I would is this: while you, my Lord Godalming and friend Jonathan go in your so swift little steamboat up the river, and whilst John and Quincey guard the bank where perchance he might be landed, I will take Madam Mina right into the heart of the enemy’s country. Whilst the old fox is tied in his box, floating on the running stream whence he cannot escape to land—where he dares not raise the lid of his coffin-box lest his Slovak carriers should in fear leave him to perish—we shall go in the track where Jonathan went,—from Bistritz over the Borgo, and find our way to the Castle of Dracula. Here, Madam Mina’s hypnotic power will surely help, and we shall find our way—all dark and unknown otherwise—after the first sunrise when we are near that fateful place. There is much to be done, and other places to be made sanctify, so that that nest of vipers be obliterated.” Here Jonathan interrupted him hotly:— + +“Do you mean to say, Professor Van Helsing, that you would bring Mina, in her sad case and tainted as she is with that devil’s illness, right into the jaws of his death-trap? Not for the world! Not for Heaven or Hell!” He became almost speechless for a minute, and then went on:— + +“Do you know what the place is? Have you seen that awful den of hellish infamy—with the very moonlight alive with grisly shapes, and every speck of dust that whirls in the wind a devouring monster in embryo? Have you felt the Vampire’s lips upon your throat?” Here he turned to me, and as his eyes lit on my forehead he threw up his arms with a cry: “Oh, my God, what have we done to have this terror upon us!” and he sank down on the sofa in a collapse of misery. The Professor’s voice, as he spoke in clear, sweet tones, which seemed to vibrate in the air, calmed us all:— + +“Oh, my friend, it is because I would save Madam Mina from that awful place that I would go. God forbid that I should take her into that place. There is work—wild work—to be done there, that her eyes may not see. We men here, all save Jonathan, have seen with their own eyes what is to be done before that place can be purify. Remember that we are in terrible straits. If the Count escape us this time—and he is strong and subtle and cunning—he may choose to sleep him for a century, and then in time our dear one”—he took my hand—“would come to him to keep him company, and would be as those others that you, Jonathan, saw. You have told us of their gloating lips; you heard their ribald laugh as they clutched the moving bag that the Count threw to them. You shudder; and well may it be. Forgive me that I make you so much pain, but it is necessary. My friend, is it not a dire need for the which I am giving, possibly my life? If it were that any one went into that place to stay, it is I who would have to go to keep them company.” + +“Do as you will,” said Jonathan, with a sob that shook him all over, “we are in the hands of God!” + +_Later._ — Oh, it did me good to see the way that these brave men worked. How can women help loving men when they are so earnest, and so true, and so brave! And, too, it made me think of the wonderful power of money! What can it not do when it is properly applied; and what might it do when basely used. I felt so thankful that Lord Godalming is rich, and that both he and Mr. Morris, who also has plenty of money, are willing to spend it so freely. For if they did not, our little expedition could not start, either so promptly or so well equipped, as it will within another hour. It is not three hours since it was arranged what part each of us was to do; and now Lord Godalming and Jonathan have a lovely steam launch, with steam up ready to start at a moment’s notice. Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris have half a dozen good horses, well appointed. We have all the maps and appliances of various kinds that can be had. Professor Van Helsing and I are to leave by the 11:40 train to-night for Veresti, where we are to get a carriage to drive to the Borgo Pass. We are bringing a good deal of ready money, as we are to buy a carriage and horses. We shall drive ourselves, for we have no one whom we can trust in the matter. The Professor knows something of a great many languages, so we shall get on all right. We have all got arms, even for me a large-bore revolver; Jonathan would not be happy unless I was armed like the rest. Alas! I cannot carry one arm that the rest do; the scar on my forehead forbids that. Dear Dr. Van Helsing comforts me by telling me that I am fully armed as there may be wolves; the weather is getting colder every hour, and there are snow-flurries which come and go as warnings. + +_Later._ — It took all my courage to say good-bye to my darling. We may never meet again. Courage, Mina! the Professor is looking at you keenly; his look is a warning. There must be no tears now—unless it may be that God will let them fall in gladness. + +_Jonathan Harker’s Journal._ + +_October 30. Night._ — I am writing this in the light from the furnace door of the steam launch: Lord Godalming is firing up. He is an experienced hand at the work, as he has had for years a launch of his own on the Thames, and another on the Norfolk Broads. Regarding our plans, we finally decided that Mina’s guess was correct, and that if any waterway was chosen for the Count’s escape back to his Castle, the Sereth and then the Bistritza at its junction, would be the one. We took it, that somewhere about the 47th degree, north latitude, would be the place chosen for the crossing the country between the river and the Carpathians. We have no fear in running at good speed up the river at night; there is plenty of water, and the banks are wide enough apart to make steaming, even in the dark, easy enough. Lord Godalming tells me to sleep for a while, as it is enough for the present for one to be on watch. But I cannot sleep—how can I with the terrible danger hanging over my darling, and her going out into that awful place.... My only comfort is that we are in the hands of God. Only for that faith it would be easier to die than to live, and so be quit of all the trouble. Mr. Morris and Dr. Seward were off on their long ride before we started; they are to keep up the right bank, far enough off to get on higher lands where they can see a good stretch of river and avoid the following of its curves. They have, for the first stages, two men to ride and lead their spare horses—four in all, so as not to excite curiosity. When they dismiss the men, which shall be shortly, they shall themselves look after the horses. It may be necessary for us to join forces; if so they can mount our whole party. One of the saddles has a movable horn, and can be easily adapted for Mina, if required. + +It is a wild adventure we are on. Here, as we are rushing along through the darkness, with the cold from the river seeming to rise up and strike us; with all the mysterious voices of the night around us, it all comes home. We seem to be drifting into unknown places and unknown ways; into a whole world of dark and dreadful things. Godalming is shutting the furnace door.... + +_31 October._ — Still hurrying along. The day has come, and Godalming is sleeping. I am on watch. The morning is bitterly cold; the furnace heat is grateful, though we have heavy fur coats. As yet we have passed only a few open boats, but none of them had on board any box or package of anything like the size of the one we seek. The men were scared every time we turned our electric lamp on them, and fell on their knees and prayed. + +_1 November, evening._ — No news all day; we have found nothing of the kind we seek. We have now passed into the Bistritza; and if we are wrong in our surmise our chance is gone. We have over-hauled every boat, big and little. Early this morning, one crew took us for a Government boat, and treated us accordingly. We saw in this a way of smoothing matters, so at Fundu, where the Bistritza runs into the Sereth, we got a Roumanian flag which we now fly conspicuously. With every boat which we have over-hauled since then this trick has succeeded; we have had every deference shown to us, and not once any objection to whatever we chose to ask or do. Some of the Slovaks tell us that a big boat passed them, going at more than usual speed as she had a double crew on board. This was before they came to Fundu, so they could not tell us whether the boat turned into the Bistritza or continued on up the Sereth. At Fundu we could not hear of any such boat, so she must have passed there in the night. I am feeling very sleepy; the cold is perhaps beginning to tell upon me, and nature must have rest some time. Godalming insists that he shall keep the first watch. God bless him for all his goodness to poor dear Mina and me. + +_2 November, morning._ — It is broad daylight. That good fellow would not wake me. He says it would have been a sin to, for I slept peacefully and was forgetting my trouble. It seems brutally selfish to me to have slept so long, and let him watch all night; but he was quite right. I am a new man this morning; and, as I sit here and watch him sleeping, I can do all that is necessary both as to minding the engine, steering, and keeping watch. I can feel that my strength and energy are coming back to me. I wonder where Mina is now, and Van Helsing. They should have got to Veresti about noon on Wednesday. It would take them some time to get the carriage and horses; so if they had started and travelled hard, they would be about now at the Borgo Pass. God guide and help them! I am afraid to think what may happen. If we could only go faster! but we cannot; the engines are throbbing and doing their utmost. I wonder how Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris are getting on. There seem to be endless streams running down the mountains into this river, but as none of them are very large—at present, at all events, though they are terrible doubtless in winter and when the snow melts—the horsemen may not have met much obstruction. I hope that before we get to Strasba we may see them; for if by that time we have not overtaken the Count, it may be necessary to take counsel together what to do next. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_2 November._ — Three days on the road. No news, and no time to write it if there had been, for every moment is precious. We have had only the rest needful for the horses; but we are both bearing it wonderfully. Those adventurous days of ours are turning up useful. We must push on; we shall never feel happy till we get the launch in sight again. + +_3 November._ — We heard at Fundu that the launch had gone up the Bistritza. I wish it wasn’t so cold. There are signs of snow coming; and if it falls heavy it will stop us. In such case we must get a sledge and go on, Russian fashion. + +_4 November._ — To-day we heard of the launch having been detained by an accident when trying to force a way up the rapids. The Slovak boats get up all right, by aid of a rope and steering with knowledge. Some went up only a few hours before. Godalming is an amateur fitter himself, and evidently it was he who put the launch in trim again. Finally, they got up the rapids all right, with local help, and are off on the chase afresh. I fear that the boat is not any better for the accident; the peasantry tell us that after she got upon smooth water again, she kept stopping every now and again so long as she was in sight. We must push on harder than ever; our help may be wanted soon. + +_Mina Harker’s Journal._ + +_31 October._ — Arrived at Veresti at noon. The Professor tells me that this morning at dawn he could hardly hypnotise me at all, and that all I could say was: “dark and quiet.” He is off now buying a carriage and horses. He says that he will later on try to buy additional horses, so that we may be able to change them on the way. We have something more than 70 miles before us. The country is lovely, and most interesting; if only we were under different conditions, how delightful it would be to see it all. If Jonathan and I were driving through it alone what a pleasure it would be. To stop and see people, and learn something of their life, and to fill our minds and memories with all the colour and picturesqueness of the whole wild, beautiful country and the quaint people! But, alas!— + +_Later._ — Dr. Van Helsing has returned. He has got the carriage and horses; we are to have some dinner, and to start in an hour. The landlady is putting us up a huge basket of provisions; it seems enough for a company of soldiers. The Professor encourages her, and whispers to me that it may be a week before we can get any good food again. He has been shopping too, and has sent home such a wonderful lot of fur coats and wraps, and all sorts of warm things. There will not be any chance of our being cold. + +We shall soon be off. I am afraid to think what may happen to us. We are truly in the hands of God. He alone knows what may be, and I pray Him, with all the strength of my sad and humble soul, that He will watch over my beloved husband; that whatever may happen, Jonathan may know that I loved him and honoured him more than I can say, and that my latest and truest thought will be always for him. + +== CHAPTER XXVII + +MINA HARKER’S JOURNAL + +_1 November._ — All day long we have travelled, and at a good speed. The horses seem to know that they are being kindly treated, for they go willingly their full stage at best speed. We have now had so many changes and find the same thing so constantly that we are encouraged to think that the journey will be an easy one. Dr. Van Helsing is laconic; he tells the farmers that he is hurrying to Bistritz, and pays them well to make the exchange of horses. We get hot soup, or coffee, or tea; and off we go. It is a lovely country; full of beauties of all imaginable kinds, and the people are brave, and strong, and simple, and seem full of nice qualities. They are _very, very_ superstitious. In the first house where we stopped, when the woman who served us saw the scar on my forehead, she crossed herself and put out two fingers towards me, to keep off the evil eye. I believe they went to the trouble of putting an extra amount of garlic into our food; and I can’t abide garlic. Ever since then I have taken care not to take off my hat or veil, and so have escaped their suspicions. We are travelling fast, and as we have no driver with us to carry tales, we go ahead of scandal; but I daresay that fear of the evil eye will follow hard behind us all the way. The Professor seems tireless; all day he would not take any rest, though he made me sleep for a long spell. At sunset time he hypnotised me, and he says that I answered as usual “darkness, lapping water and creaking wood”; so our enemy is still on the river. I am afraid to think of Jonathan, but somehow I have now no fear for him, or for myself. I write this whilst we wait in a farmhouse for the horses to be got ready. Dr. Van Helsing is sleeping. Poor dear, he looks very tired and old and grey, but his mouth is set as firmly as a conqueror’s; even in his sleep he is instinct with resolution. When we have well started I must make him rest whilst I drive. I shall tell him that we have days before us, and we must not break down when most of all his strength will be needed.... All is ready; we are off shortly. + +_2 November, morning._ — I was successful, and we took turns driving all night; now the day is on us, bright though cold. There is a strange heaviness in the air—I say heaviness for want of a better word; I mean that it oppresses us both. It is very cold, and only our warm furs keep us comfortable. At dawn Van Helsing hypnotised me; he says I answered “darkness, creaking wood and roaring water,” so the river is changing as they ascend. I do hope that my darling will not run any chance of danger—more than need be; but we are in God’s hands. + +_2 November, night._ — All day long driving. The country gets wilder as we go, and the great spurs of the Carpathians, which at Veresti seemed so far from us and so low on the horizon, now seem to gather round us and tower in front. We both seem in good spirits; I think we make an effort each to cheer the other; in the doing so we cheer ourselves. Dr. Van Helsing says that by morning we shall reach the Borgo Pass. The houses are very few here now, and the Professor says that the last horse we got will have to go on with us, as we may not be able to change. He got two in addition to the two we changed, so that now we have a rude four-in-hand. The dear horses are patient and good, and they give us no trouble. We are not worried with other travellers, and so even I can drive. We shall get to the Pass in daylight; we do not want to arrive before. So we take it easy, and have each a long rest in turn. Oh, what will to-morrow bring to us? We go to seek the place where my poor darling suffered so much. God grant that we may be guided aright, and that He will deign to watch over my husband and those dear to us both, and who are in such deadly peril. As for me, I am not worthy in His sight. Alas! I am unclean to His eyes, and shall be until He may deign to let me stand forth in His sight as one of those who have not incurred His wrath. + +_Memorandum by Abraham Van Helsing._ + +_4 November._ — This to my old and true friend John Seward, M.D., of Purfleet, London, in case I may not see him. It may explain. It is morning, and I write by a fire which all the night I have kept alive—Madam Mina aiding me. It is cold, cold; so cold that the grey heavy sky is full of snow, which when it falls will settle for all winter as the ground is hardening to receive it. It seems to have affected Madam Mina; she has been so heavy of head all day that she was not like herself. She sleeps, and sleeps, and sleeps! She who is usual so alert, have done literally nothing all the day; she even have lost her appetite. She make no entry into her little diary, she who write so faithful at every pause. Something whisper to me that all is not well. However, to-night she is more _vif_. Her long sleep all day have refresh and restore her, for now she is all sweet and bright as ever. At sunset I try to hypnotise her, but alas! with no effect; the power has grown less and less with each day, and to-night it fail me altogether. Well, God’s will be done—whatever it may be, and whithersoever it may lead! + +Now to the historical, for as Madam Mina write not in her stenography, I must, in my cumbrous old fashion, that so each day of us may not go unrecorded. + +We got to the Borgo Pass just after sunrise yesterday morning. When I saw the signs of the dawn I got ready for the hypnotism. We stopped our carriage, and got down so that there might be no disturbance. I made a couch with furs, and Madam Mina, lying down, yield herself as usual, but more slow and more short time than ever, to the hypnotic sleep. As before, came the answer: “darkness and the swirling of water.” Then she woke, bright and radiant and we go on our way and soon reach the Pass. At this time and place, she become all on fire with zeal; some new guiding power be in her manifested, for she point to a road and say:— + +“This is the way.” + +“How know you it?” I ask. + +“Of course I know it,” she answer, and with a pause, add: “Have not my Jonathan travelled it and wrote of his travel?” + +At first I think somewhat strange, but soon I see that there be only one such by-road. It is used but little, and very different from the coach road from the Bukovina to Bistritz, which is more wide and hard, and more of use. + +So we came down this road; when we meet other ways—not always were we sure that they were roads at all, for they be neglect and light snow have fallen—the horses know and they only. I give rein to them, and they go on so patient. By-and-by we find all the things which Jonathan have note in that wonderful diary of him. Then we go on for long, long hours and hours. At the first, I tell Madam Mina to sleep; she try, and she succeed. She sleep all the time; till at the last, I feel myself to suspicious grow, and attempt to wake her. But she sleep on, and I may not wake her though I try. I do not wish to try too hard lest I harm her; for I know that she have suffer much, and sleep at times be all-in-all to her. I think I drowse myself, for all of sudden I feel guilt, as though I have done something; I find myself bolt up, with the reins in my hand, and the good horses go along jog, jog, just as ever. I look down and find Madam Mina still sleep. It is now not far off sunset time, and over the snow the light of the sun flow in big yellow flood, so that we throw great long shadow on where the mountain rise so steep. For we are going up, and up; and all is oh! so wild and rocky, as though it were the end of the world. + +Then I arouse Madam Mina. This time she wake with not much trouble, and then I try to put her to hypnotic sleep. But she sleep not, being as though I were not. Still I try and try, till all at once I find her and myself in dark; so I look round, and find that the sun have gone down. Madam Mina laugh, and I turn and look at her. She is now quite awake, and look so well as I never saw her since that night at Carfax when we first enter the Count’s house. I am amaze, and not at ease then; but she is so bright and tender and thoughtful for me that I forget all fear. I light a fire, for we have brought supply of wood with us, and she prepare food while I undo the horses and set them, tethered in shelter, to feed. Then when I return to the fire she have my supper ready. I go to help her; but she smile, and tell me that she have eat already—that she was so hungry that she would not wait. I like it not, and I have grave doubts; but I fear to affright her, and so I am silent of it. She help me and I eat alone; and then we wrap in fur and lie beside the fire, and I tell her to sleep while I watch. But presently I forget all of watching; and when I sudden remember that I watch, I find her lying quiet, but awake, and looking at me with so bright eyes. Once, twice more the same occur, and I get much sleep till before morning. When I wake I try to hypnotise her; but alas! though she shut her eyes obedient, she may not sleep. The sun rise up, and up, and up; and then sleep come to her too late, but so heavy that she will not wake. I have to lift her up, and place her sleeping in the carriage when I have harnessed the horses and made all ready. Madam still sleep, and she look in her sleep more healthy and more redder than before. And I like it not. And I am afraid, afraid, afraid!—I am afraid of all things—even to think but I must go on my way. The stake we play for is life and death, or more than these, and we must not flinch. + +_5 November, morning._ — Let me be accurate in everything, for though you and I have seen some strange things together, you may at the first think that I, Van Helsing, am mad—that the many horrors and the so long strain on nerves has at the last turn my brain. + +All yesterday we travel, ever getting closer to the mountains, and moving into a more and more wild and desert land. There are great, frowning precipices and much falling water, and Nature seem to have held sometime her carnival. Madam Mina still sleep and sleep; and though I did have hunger and appeased it, I could not waken her—even for food. I began to fear that the fatal spell of the place was upon her, tainted as she is with that Vampire baptism. “Well,” said I to myself, “if it be that she sleep all the day, it shall also be that I do not sleep at night.” As we travel on the rough road, for a road of an ancient and imperfect kind there was, I held down my head and slept. Again I waked with a sense of guilt and of time passed, and found Madam Mina still sleeping, and the sun low down. But all was indeed changed; the frowning mountains seemed further away, and we were near the top of a steep-rising hill, on summit of which was such a castle as Jonathan tell of in his diary. At once I exulted and feared; for now, for good or ill, the end was near. + +I woke Madam Mina, and again tried to hypnotise her; but alas! unavailing till too late. Then, ere the great dark came upon us—for even after down-sun the heavens reflected the gone sun on the snow, and all was for a time in a great twilight—I took out the horses and fed them in what shelter I could. Then I make a fire; and near it I make Madam Mina, now awake and more charming than ever, sit comfortable amid her rugs. I got ready food: but she would not eat, simply saying that she had not hunger. I did not press her, knowing her unavailingness. But I myself eat, for I must needs now be strong for all. Then, with the fear on me of what might be, I drew a ring so big for her comfort, round where Madam Mina sat; and over the ring I passed some of the wafer, and I broke it fine so that all was well guarded. She sat still all the time—so still as one dead; and she grew whiter and ever whiter till the snow was not more pale; and no word she said. But when I drew near, she clung to me, and I could know that the poor soul shook her from head to feet with a tremor that was pain to feel. I said to her presently, when she had grown more quiet:— + +“Will you not come over to the fire?” for I wished to make a test of what she could. She rose obedient, but when she have made a step she stopped, and stood as one stricken. + +“Why not go on?” I asked. She shook her head, and, coming back, sat down in her place. Then, looking at me with open eyes, as of one waked from sleep, she said simply:— + +“I cannot!” and remained silent. I rejoiced, for I knew that what she could not, none of those that we dreaded could. Though there might be danger to her body, yet her soul was safe! + +Presently the horses began to scream, and tore at their tethers till I came to them and quieted them. When they did feel my hands on them, they whinnied low as in joy, and licked at my hands and were quiet for a time. Many times through the night did I come to them, till it arrive to the cold hour when all nature is at lowest; and every time my coming was with quiet of them. In the cold hour the fire began to die, and I was about stepping forth to replenish it, for now the snow came in flying sweeps and with it a chill mist. Even in the dark there was a light of some kind, as there ever is over snow; and it seemed as though the snow-flurries and the wreaths of mist took shape as of women with trailing garments. All was in dead, grim silence only that the horses whinnied and cowered, as if in terror of the worst. I began to fear—horrible fears; but then came to me the sense of safety in that ring wherein I stood. I began, too, to think that my imaginings were of the night, and the gloom, and the unrest that I have gone through, and all the terrible anxiety. It was as though my memories of all Jonathan’s horrid experience were befooling me; for the snow flakes and the mist began to wheel and circle round, till I could get as though a shadowy glimpse of those women that would have kissed him. And then the horses cowered lower and lower, and moaned in terror as men do in pain. Even the madness of fright was not to them, so that they could break away. I feared for my dear Madam Mina when these weird figures drew near and circled round. I looked at her, but she sat calm, and smiled at me; when I would have stepped to the fire to replenish it, she caught me and held me back, and whispered, like a voice that one hears in a dream, so low it was:— + +“No! No! Do not go without. Here you are safe!” I turned to her, and looking in her eyes, said:— + +“But you? It is for you that I fear!” whereat she laughed—a laugh, low and unreal, and said:— + +“Fear for _me_! Why fear for me? None safer in all the world from them than I am,” and as I wondered at the meaning of her words, a puff of wind made the flame leap up, and I see the red scar on her forehead. Then, alas! I knew. Did I not, I would soon have learned, for the wheeling figures of mist and snow came closer, but keeping ever without the Holy circle. Then they began to materialise till—if God have not take away my reason, for I saw it through my eyes—there were before me in actual flesh the same three women that Jonathan saw in the room, when they would have kissed his throat. I knew the swaying round forms, the bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous lips. They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina; and as their laugh came through the silence of the night, they twined their arms and pointed to her, and said in those so sweet tingling tones that Jonathan said were of the intolerable sweetness of the water-glasses:— + +“Come, sister. Come to us. Come! Come!” In fear I turned to my poor Madam Mina, and my heart with gladness leapt like flame; for oh! the terror in her sweet eyes, the repulsion, the horror, told a story to my heart that was all of hope. God be thanked she was not, yet, of them. I seized some of the firewood which was by me, and holding out some of the Wafer, advanced on them towards the fire. They drew back before me, and laughed their low horrid laugh. I fed the fire, and feared them not; for I knew that we were safe within our protections. They could not approach, me, whilst so armed, nor Madam Mina whilst she remained within the ring, which she could not leave no more than they could enter. The horses had ceased to moan, and lay still on the ground; the snow fell on them softly, and they grew whiter. I knew that there was for the poor beasts no more of terror. + +And so we remained till the red of the dawn to fall through the snow-gloom. I was desolate and afraid, and full of woe and terror; but when that beautiful sun began to climb the horizon life was to me again. At the first coming of the dawn the horrid figures melted in the whirling mist and snow; the wreaths of transparent gloom moved away towards the castle, and were lost. + +Instinctively, with the dawn coming, I turned to Madam Mina, intending to hypnotise her; but she lay in a deep and sudden sleep, from which I could not wake her. I tried to hypnotise through her sleep, but she made no response, none at all; and the day broke. I fear yet to stir. I have made my fire and have seen the horses, they are all dead. To-day I have much to do here, and I keep waiting till the sun is up high; for there may be places where I must go, where that sunlight, though snow and mist obscure it, will be to me a safety. + +I will strengthen me with breakfast, and then I will to my terrible work. Madam Mina still sleeps; and, God be thanked! she is calm in her sleep.... + +_Jonathan Harker’s Journal._ + +_4 November, evening._ — The accident to the launch has been a terrible thing for us. Only for it we should have overtaken the boat long ago; and by now my dear Mina would have been free. I fear to think of her, off on the wolds near that horrid place. We have got horses, and we follow on the track. I note this whilst Godalming is getting ready. We have our arms. The Szgany must look out if they mean fight. Oh, if only Morris and Seward were with us. We must only hope! If I write no more Good-bye, Mina! God bless and keep you. + +_Dr. Seward’s Diary._ + +_5 November._ — With the dawn we saw the body of Szgany before us dashing away from the river with their leiter-wagon. They surrounded it in a cluster, and hurried along as though beset. The snow is falling lightly and there is a strange excitement in the air. It may be our own feelings, but the depression is strange. Far off I hear the howling of wolves; the snow brings them down from the mountains, and there are dangers to all of us, and from all sides. The horses are nearly ready, and we are soon off. We ride to death of some one. God alone knows who, or where, or what, or when, or how it may be.... + +_Dr. Van Helsing’s Memorandum._ + +_5 November, afternoon._ — I am at least sane. Thank God for that mercy at all events, though the proving it has been dreadful. When I left Madam Mina sleeping within the Holy circle, I took my way to the castle. The blacksmith hammer which I took in the carriage from Veresti was useful; though the doors were all open I broke them off the rusty hinges, lest some ill-intent or ill-chance should close them, so that being entered I might not get out. Jonathan’s bitter experience served me here. By memory of his diary I found my way to the old chapel, for I knew that here my work lay. The air was oppressive; it seemed as if there was some sulphurous fume, which at times made me dizzy. Either there was a roaring in my ears or I heard afar off the howl of wolves. Then I bethought me of my dear Madam Mina, and I was in terrible plight. The dilemma had me between his horns. + +Her, I had not dare to take into this place, but left safe from the Vampire in that Holy circle; and yet even there would be the wolf! I resolve me that my work lay here, and that as to the wolves we must submit, if it were God’s will. At any rate it was only death and freedom beyond. So did I choose for her. Had it but been for myself the choice had been easy, the maw of the wolf were better to rest in than the grave of the Vampire! So I make my choice to go on with my work. + +I knew that there were at least three graves to find—graves that are inhabit; so I search, and search, and I find one of them. She lay in her Vampire sleep, so full of life and voluptuous beauty that I shudder as though I have come to do murder. Ah, I doubt not that in old time, when such things were, many a man who set forth to do such a task as mine, found at the last his heart fail him, and then his nerve. So he delay, and delay, and delay, till the mere beauty and the fascination of the wanton Un-Dead have hypnotise him; and he remain on and on, till sunset come, and the Vampire sleep be over. Then the beautiful eyes of the fair woman open and look love, and the voluptuous mouth present to a kiss—and man is weak. And there remain one more victim in the Vampire fold; one more to swell the grim and grisly ranks of the Un-Dead!... + +There is some fascination, surely, when I am moved by the mere presence of such an one, even lying as she lay in a tomb fretted with age and heavy with the dust of centuries, though there be that horrid odour such as the lairs of the Count have had. Yes, I was moved—I, Van Helsing, with all my purpose and with my motive for hate—I was moved to a yearning for delay which seemed to paralyse my faculties and to clog my very soul. It may have been that the need of natural sleep, and the strange oppression of the air were beginning to overcome me. Certain it was that I was lapsing into sleep, the open-eyed sleep of one who yields to a sweet fascination, when there came through the snow-stilled air a long, low wail, so full of woe and pity that it woke me like the sound of a clarion. For it was the voice of my dear Madam Mina that I heard. + +Then I braced myself again to my horrid task, and found by wrenching away tomb-tops one other of the sisters, the other dark one. I dared not pause to look on her as I had on her sister, lest once more I should begin to be enthrall; but I go on searching until, presently, I find in a high great tomb as if made to one much beloved that other fair sister which, like Jonathan I had seen to gather herself out of the atoms of the mist. She was so fair to look on, so radiantly beautiful, so exquisitely voluptuous, that the very instinct of man in me, which calls some of my sex to love and to protect one of hers, made my head whirl with new emotion. But God be thanked, that soul-wail of my dear Madam Mina had not died out of my ears; and, before the spell could be wrought further upon me, I had nerved myself to my wild work. By this time I had searched all the tombs in the chapel, so far as I could tell; and as there had been only three of these Un-Dead phantoms around us in the night, I took it that there were no more of active Un-Dead existent. There was one great tomb more lordly than all the rest; huge it was, and nobly proportioned. On it was but one word + +DRACULA. + +This then was the Un-Dead home of the King-Vampire, to whom so many more were due. Its emptiness spoke eloquent to make certain what I knew. Before I began to restore these women to their dead selves through my awful work, I laid in Dracula’s tomb some of the Wafer, and so banished him from it, Un-Dead, for ever. + +Then began my terrible task, and I dreaded it. Had it been but one, it had been easy, comparative. But three! To begin twice more after I had been through a deed of horror; for if it was terrible with the sweet Miss Lucy, what would it not be with these strange ones who had survived through centuries, and who had been strengthened by the passing of the years; who would, if they could, have fought for their foul lives.... + +Oh, my friend John, but it was butcher work; had I not been nerved by thoughts of other dead, and of the living over whom hung such a pall of fear, I could not have gone on. I tremble and tremble even yet, though till all was over, God be thanked, my nerve did stand. Had I not seen the repose in the first place, and the gladness that stole over it just ere the final dissolution came, as realisation that the soul had been won, I could not have gone further with my butchery. I could not have endured the horrid screeching as the stake drove home; the plunging of writhing form, and lips of bloody foam. I should have fled in terror and left my work undone. But it is over! And the poor souls, I can pity them now and weep, as I think of them placid each in her full sleep of death for a short moment ere fading. For, friend John, hardly had my knife severed the head of each, before the whole body began to melt away and crumble in to its native dust, as though the death that should have come centuries agone had at last assert himself and say at once and loud “I am here!” + +Before I left the castle I so fixed its entrances that never more can the Count enter there Un-Dead. + +When I stepped into the circle where Madam Mina slept, she woke from her sleep, and, seeing, me, cried out in pain that I had endured too much. + +“Come!” she said, “come away from this awful place! Let us go to meet my husband who is, I know, coming towards us.” She was looking thin and pale and weak; but her eyes were pure and glowed with fervour. I was glad to see her paleness and her illness, for my mind was full of the fresh horror of that ruddy vampire sleep. + +And so with trust and hope, and yet full of fear, we go eastward to meet our friends—and _him_ — whom Madam Mina tell me that she _know_ are coming to meet us. + +_Mina Harker’s Journal._ + +_6 November._ — It was late in the afternoon when the Professor and I took our way towards the east whence I knew Jonathan was coming. We did not go fast, though the way was steeply downhill, for we had to take heavy rugs and wraps with us; we dared not face the possibility of being left without warmth in the cold and the snow. We had to take some of our provisions, too, for we were in a perfect desolation, and, so far as we could see through the snowfall, there was not even the sign of habitation. When we had gone about a mile, I was tired with the heavy walking and sat down to rest. Then we looked back and saw where the clear line of Dracula’s castle cut the sky; for we were so deep under the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective of the Carpathian mountains was far below it. We saw it in all its grandeur, perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice, and with seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the adjacent mountain on any side. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We could hear the distant howling of wolves. They were far off, but the sound, even though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was full of terror. I knew from the way Dr. Van Helsing was searching about that he was trying to seek some strategic point, where we would be less exposed in case of attack. The rough roadway still led downwards; we could trace it through the drifted snow. + +In a little while the Professor signalled to me, so I got up and joined him. He had found a wonderful spot, a sort of natural hollow in a rock, with an entrance like a doorway between two boulders. He took me by the hand and drew me in: “See!” he said, “here you will be in shelter; and if the wolves do come I can meet them one by one.” He brought in our furs, and made a snug nest for me, and got out some provisions and forced them upon me. But I could not eat; to even try to do so was repulsive to me, and, much as I would have liked to please him, I could not bring myself to the attempt. He looked very sad, but did not reproach me. Taking his field-glasses from the case, he stood on the top of the rock, and began to search the horizon. Suddenly he called out:— + +“Look! Madam Mina, look! look!” I sprang up and stood beside him on the rock; he handed me his glasses and pointed. The snow was now falling more heavily, and swirled about fiercely, for a high wind was beginning to blow. However, there were times when there were pauses between the snow flurries and I could see a long way round. From the height where we were it was possible to see a great distance; and far off, beyond the white waste of snow, I could see the river lying like a black ribbon in kinks and curls as it wound its way. Straight in front of us and not far off—in fact, so near that I wondered we had not noticed before—came a group of mounted men hurrying along. In the midst of them was a cart, a long leiter-wagon which swept from side to side, like a dog’s tail wagging, with each stern inequality of the road. Outlined against the snow as they were, I could see from the men’s clothes that they were peasants or gypsies of some kind. + +On the cart was a great square chest. My heart leaped as I saw it, for I felt that the end was coming. The evening was now drawing close, and well I knew that at sunset the Thing, which was till then imprisoned there, would take new freedom and could in any of many forms elude all pursuit. In fear I turned to the Professor; to my consternation, however, he was not there. An instant later, I saw him below me. Round the rock he had drawn a circle, such as we had found shelter in last night. When he had completed it he stood beside me again, saying:— + +“At least you shall be safe here from _him_!” He took the glasses from me, and at the next lull of the snow swept the whole space below us. “See,” he said, “they come quickly; they are flogging the horses, and galloping as hard as they can.” He paused and went on in a hollow voice:— + +“They are racing for the sunset. We may be too late. God’s will be done!” Down came another blinding rush of driving snow, and the whole landscape was blotted out. It soon passed, however, and once more his glasses were fixed on the plain. Then came a sudden cry:— + +“Look! Look! Look! See, two horsemen follow fast, coming up from the south. It must be Quincey and John. Take the glass. Look before the snow blots it all out!” I took it and looked. The two men might be Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris. I knew at all events that neither of them was Jonathan. At the same time I _knew_ that Jonathan was not far off; looking around I saw on the north side of the coming party two other men, riding at break-neck speed. One of them I knew was Jonathan, and the other I took, of course, to be Lord Godalming. They, too, were pursuing the party with the cart. When I told the Professor he shouted in glee like a schoolboy, and, after looking intently till a snow fall made sight impossible, he laid his Winchester rifle ready for use against the boulder at the opening of our shelter. “They are all converging,” he said. “When the time comes we shall have gypsies on all sides.” I got out my revolver ready to hand, for whilst we were speaking the howling of wolves came louder and closer. When the snow storm abated a moment we looked again. It was strange to see the snow falling in such heavy flakes close to us, and beyond, the sun shining more and more brightly as it sank down towards the far mountain tops. Sweeping the glass all around us I could see here and there dots moving singly and in twos and threes and larger numbers—the wolves were gathering for their prey. + +Every instant seemed an age whilst we waited. The wind came now in fierce bursts, and the snow was driven with fury as it swept upon us in circling eddies. At times we could not see an arm’s length before us; but at others, as the hollow-sounding wind swept by us, it seemed to clear the air-space around us so that we could see afar off. We had of late been so accustomed to watch for sunrise and sunset, that we knew with fair accuracy when it would be; and we knew that before long the sun would set. It was hard to believe that by our watches it was less than an hour that we waited in that rocky shelter before the various bodies began to converge close upon us. The wind came now with fiercer and more bitter sweeps, and more steadily from the north. It seemingly had driven the snow clouds from us, for, with only occasional bursts, the snow fell. We could distinguish clearly the individuals of each party, the pursued and the pursuers. Strangely enough those pursued did not seem to realise, or at least to care, that they were pursued; they seemed, however, to hasten with redoubled speed as the sun dropped lower and lower on the mountain tops. + +Closer and closer they drew. The Professor and I crouched down behind our rock, and held our weapons ready; I could see that he was determined that they should not pass. One and all were quite unaware of our presence. + +All at once two voices shouted out to: “Halt!” One was my Jonathan’s, raised in a high key of passion; the other Mr. Morris’ strong resolute tone of quiet command. The gypsies may not have known the language, but there was no mistaking the tone, in whatever tongue the words were spoken. Instinctively they reined in, and at the instant Lord Godalming and Jonathan dashed up at one side and Dr. Seward and Mr. Morris on the other. The leader of the gypsies, a splendid-looking fellow who sat his horse like a centaur, waved them back, and in a fierce voice gave to his companions some word to proceed. They lashed the horses which sprang forward; but the four men raised their Winchester rifles, and in an unmistakable way commanded them to stop. At the same moment Dr. Van Helsing and I rose behind the rock and pointed our weapons at them. Seeing that they were surrounded the men tightened their reins and drew up. The leader turned to them and gave a word at which every man of the gypsy party drew what weapon he carried, knife or pistol, and held himself in readiness to attack. Issue was joined in an instant. + +The leader, with a quick movement of his rein, threw his horse out in front, and pointing first to the sun—now close down on the hill tops—and then to the castle, said something which I did not understand. For answer, all four men of our party threw themselves from their horses and dashed towards the cart. I should have felt terrible fear at seeing Jonathan in such danger, but that the ardour of battle must have been upon me as well as the rest of them; I felt no fear, but only a wild, surging desire to do something. Seeing the quick movement of our parties, the leader of the gypsies gave a command; his men instantly formed round the cart in a sort of undisciplined endeavour, each one shouldering and pushing the other in his eagerness to carry out the order. + +In the midst of this I could see that Jonathan on one side of the ring of men, and Quincey on the other, were forcing a way to the cart; it was evident that they were bent on finishing their task before the sun should set. Nothing seemed to stop or even to hinder them. Neither the levelled weapons nor the flashing knives of the gypsies in front, nor the howling of the wolves behind, appeared to even attract their attention. Jonathan’s impetuosity, and the manifest singleness of his purpose, seemed to overawe those in front of him; instinctively they cowered, aside and let him pass. In an instant he had jumped upon the cart, and, with a strength which seemed incredible, raised the great box, and flung it over the wheel to the ground. In the meantime, Mr. Morris had had to use force to pass through his side of the ring of Szgany. All the time I had been breathlessly watching Jonathan I had, with the tail of my eye, seen him pressing desperately forward, and had seen the knives of the gypsies flash as he won a way through them, and they cut at him. He had parried with his great bowie knife, and at first I thought that he too had come through in safety; but as he sprang beside Jonathan, who had by now jumped from the cart, I could see that with his left hand he was clutching at his side, and that the blood was spurting through his fingers. He did not delay notwithstanding this, for as Jonathan, with desperate energy, attacked one end of the chest, attempting to prize off the lid with his great Kukri knife, he attacked the other frantically with his bowie. Under the efforts of both men the lid began to yield; the nails drew with a quick screeching sound, and the top of the box was thrown back. + +By this time the gypsies, seeing themselves covered by the Winchesters, and at the mercy of Lord Godalming and Dr. Seward, had given in and made no resistance. The sun was almost down on the mountain tops, and the shadows of the whole group fell long upon the snow. I saw the Count lying within the box upon the earth, some of which the rude falling from the cart had scattered over him. He was deathly pale, just like a waxen image, and the red eyes glared with the horrible vindictive look which I knew too well. + +As I looked, the eyes saw the sinking sun, and the look of hate in them turned to triumph. + +But, on the instant, came the sweep and flash of Jonathan’s great knife. I shrieked as I saw it shear through the throat; whilst at the same moment Mr. Morris’s bowie knife plunged into the heart. + +It was like a miracle; but before our very eyes, and almost in the drawing of a breath, the whole body crumbled into dust and passed from our sight. + +I shall be glad as long as I live that even in that moment of final dissolution, there was in the face a look of peace, such as I never could have imagined might have rested there. + +The Castle of Dracula now stood out against the red sky, and every stone of its broken battlements was articulated against the light of the setting sun. + +The gypsies, taking us as in some way the cause of the extraordinary disappearance of the dead man, turned, without a word, and rode away as if for their lives. Those who were unmounted jumped upon the leiter-wagon and shouted to the horsemen not to desert them. The wolves, which had withdrawn to a safe distance, followed in their wake, leaving us alone. + +Mr. Morris, who had sunk to the ground, leaned on his elbow, holding his hand pressed to his side; the blood still gushed through his fingers. I flew to him, for the Holy circle did not now keep me back; so did the two doctors. Jonathan knelt behind him and the wounded man laid back his head on his shoulder. With a sigh he took, with a feeble effort, my hand in that of his own which was unstained. He must have seen the anguish of my heart in my face, for he smiled at me and said:— + +“I am only too happy to have been of any service! Oh, God!” he cried suddenly, struggling up to a sitting posture and pointing to me, “It was worth for this to die! Look! look!” + +The sun was now right down upon the mountain top, and the red gleams fell upon my face, so that it was bathed in rosy light. With one impulse the men sank on their knees and a deep and earnest “Amen” broke from all as their eyes followed the pointing of his finger. The dying man spoke:— + +“Now God be thanked that all has not been in vain! See! the snow is not more stainless than her forehead! The curse has passed away!” + +And, to our bitter grief, with a smile and in silence, he died, a gallant gentleman. + +== NOTE + +Seven years ago we all went through the flames; and the happiness of some of us since then is, we think, well worth the pain we endured. It is an added joy to Mina and to me that our boy’s birthday is the same day as that on which Quincey Morris died. His mother holds, I know, the secret belief that some of our brave friend’s spirit has passed into him. His bundle of names links all our little band of men together; but we call him Quincey. + +In the summer of this year we made a journey to Transylvania, and went over the old ground which was, and is, to us so full of vivid and terrible memories. It was almost impossible to believe that the things which we had seen with our own eyes and heard with our own ears were living truths. Every trace of all that had been was blotted out. The castle stood as before, reared high above a waste of desolation. + +When we got home we were talking of the old time—which we could all look back on without despair, for Godalming and Seward are both happily married. I took the papers from the safe where they had been ever since our return so long ago. We were struck with the fact, that in all the mass of material of which the record is composed, there is hardly one authentic document; nothing but a mass of typewriting, except the later note-books of Mina and Seward and myself, and Van Helsing’s memorandum. We could hardly ask any one, even did we wish to, to accept these as proofs of so wild a story. Van Helsing summed it all up as he said, with our boy on his knee:— + +“We want no proofs; we ask none to believe us! This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is. Already he knows her sweetness and loving care; later on he will understand how some men so loved her, that they did dare much for her sake.” + +JONATHAN HARKER. + +THE END \ No newline at end of file