Jewish antiquities--oh dear!--devout epigrams--the
sacred chime
of favorite hymns--all alike were as flat as tunes
beaten on wood:
even the spring flowers and the grass had a dull
shiver in them
under the afternoon clouds that hid the sun fitfully; even the
sustaining thoughts which had become habits seemed to have in them
the
weariness of long future days in which she would still live
with them for her sole companions. It was another or rather a
fuller sort of
companionship that poor Dorothea was
hungering for,
and the
hunger had grown from the
perpetual effort demanded by her
married life. She was always
trying to be what her husband wished,
and never able to
repose on his delight in what she was. The thing
that she liked, that she spontaneously cared to have, seemed to be
always excluded from her life; for if it was only granted and not
shared by her husband it might as well have been denied. About Will
Ladislaw there had been a difference between them from the first,
and it had ended, since Mr. Casaubon had so
severely repulsed
Dorothea's strong feeling about his claims on the family property,
by her being convinced that she was in the right and her husband
in the wrong, but that she was
helpless. This afternoon the
helplessness was more wretchedly benumbing than ever: she longed
for objects who could be dear to her, and to whom she could be dear.
She longed for work which would be directly beneficent like the
sunshine and the rain, and now it appeared that she was to live
more and more in a virtual tomb, where there was the apparatus
of a
ghastly labor producing what would never see the light.
Today she had stood at the door of the tomb and seen Will Ladislaw
receding into the distant world of warm activity and fellowship--
turning his face towards her as he went.
Books were of no use. Thinking was of no use. It was Sunday, and she
could not have the
carriage to go to Celia, who had
lately had a baby.
There was no
refuge now from
spiritual emptiness and discontent,
and Dorothea had to bear her bad mood, as she would have borne
a headache.
After dinner, at the hour when she usually began to read aloud,
Mr. Casaubon proposed that they should go into the library, where,
he said, he had ordered a fire and lights. He seemed to have revived,
and to be thinking intently.
In the library Dorothea observed that he had newly arranged a row
of his note-books on a table, and now he took up and put into her hand
a
well-knownvolume, which was a table of
contents to all the others.
"You will
oblige me, my dear," he said, seating himself, "if instead
of other
reading this evening, you will go through this aloud,
pencil in hand, and at each point where I say `mark,' will make a
cross with your pencil. This is the first step in a sifting process
which I have long had in view, and as we go on I shall be able
to indicate to you certain principles of
selectionwhereby you will,
I trust, have an
intelligentparticipation in my purpose."
This proposal was only one more sign added to many since his
memorable
interview with Lydgate, that Mr. Casaubon's original
reluctance to let Dorothea work with him had given place to the
contrary
disposition,
namely, to demand much interest and labor from her.
After she had read and marked for two hours, he said, "We will
take the
volume up-stairs--and the pencil, if you please--
and in case of
reading in the night, we can
pursue this task.
It is not wearisome to you, I trust, Dorothea?"
"I prefer always
reading what you like best to hear," said Dorothea,
who told the simple truth; for what she dreaded was to exert herself
in
reading or anything else which left him as joyless as ever.
It was a proof of the force with which certain characteristics
in Dorothea impressed those around her, that her husband,
with all his
jealousy and
suspicion, had gathered implicit trust
in the
integrity of her promises, and her power of devoting herself
to her idea of the right and best. Of late he had begun to feel
that these qualities were a
peculiar possession for himself,
and he wanted to
engross them.
The
reading in the night did come. Dorothea in her young
wearinesshad slept soon and fast: she was awakened by a sense of light,
which seemed to her at first like a sudden
vision of
sunset after
she had climbed a steep hill: she opened her eyes and saw her
husband wrapped in his warm gown seating himself in the arm-chair
near the fire-place where the embers were still glowing.
He had lit two candles, expecting that Dorothea would awake,
but not
liking to rouse her by more direct means.
"Are you ill, Edward?" she said, rising immediately.
"I felt some
uneasiness in a reclining
posture. I will sit here
for a time." She threw wood on the fire, wrapped herself up,
and said, "You would like me to read to you?"
"You would
oblige me greatly by doing so, Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon,
with a shade more
meekness than usual in his
polite manner.
"I am wakeful: my mind is
remarkably lucid."
"I fear that the
excitement may be too great for you," said Dorothea,
remembering Lydgate's cautions.
"No, I am not
conscious of undue
excitement. Thought is easy."
Dorothea dared not insist, and she read for an hour or more on
the same plan as she had done in the evening, but getting over
the pages with more quickness. Mr. Casaubon's mind was more alert,
and he seemed to
anticipate what was coming after a very slight
verbal
indication,
saying, "That will do--mark that"--or "Pass
on to the next head--I omit the second excursus on Crete."
Dorothea was amazed to think of the bird-like speed with which his
mind was surveying the ground where it had been creeping for years.
At last he said--
"Close the book now, my dear. We will resume our work to-morrow.
I have deferred it too long, and would
gladly see it completed.
But you observe that the principle on which my
selection is made,
is to give
adequate, and not disproportionate
illustration to each
of the theses enumerated in my
introduction, as at present sketched.
You have perceived that
distinctly, Dorothea?"
"Yes," said Dorothea, rather tremulously. She felt sick at heart.
"And now I think that I can take some
repose," said Mr. Casaubon.
He laid down again and begged her to put out the lights. When she
had lain down too, and there was a darkness only broken by a dull
glow on the
hearth, he said--
"Before I sleep, I have a request to make, Dorothea."
"What is it?" said Dorothea, with dread in her mind.
"It is that you will let me know,
deliberately, whether, in case
of my death, you will carry out my wishes: whether you will avoid
doing what I should deprecate, and apply yourself to do what I
should desire."
Dorothea was not taken by surprise: many incidents had been leading
her to the
conjecture of some
intention on her husband's part
which might make a new yoke for her. She did not answer immediately.
"You refuse?" said Mr. Casaubon, with more edge in his tone.
"No, I do not yet refuse," said Dorothea, in a clear voice, the need
of freedom asserting itself within her; "but it is too solemn--
I think it is not right--to make a promise when I am ignorant
what it will bind me to. Whatever
affection prompted I would do
without promising."
"But you would use your own judgment: I ask you to obey mine;
you refuse."
"No, dear, no!" said Dorothea, beseechingly, crushed by opposing fears.
"But may I wait and
reflect a little while? I desire with my whole soul
to do what will comfort you; but I cannot give any
pledge suddenly--
still less a
pledge to do I know not what."
"You cannot then
confide in the nature of my wishes?"
"Grant me till to-morrow," said Dorothea, beseechingly.
"Till to-morrow then," said Mr. Casaubon.
Soon she could hear that he was
sleeping, but there was no more
sleep for her. While she constrained herself to lie still lest she
should
disturb him, her mind was carrying on a
conflict in which
imagination ranged its forces first on one side and then on the other.
She had no presentiment that the power which her husband wished