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His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

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His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

themselves

How many times the word 'themselves' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

unexpected

How many times the word 'unexpected' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

judgments

How many times the word 'judgments' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

hindered

How many times the word 'hindered' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

too

How many times the word 'too' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

yours

How many times the word 'yours' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

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His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

sentences

How many times the word 'sentences' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

inestimable

How many times the word 'inestimable' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

fearlessly

How many times the word 'fearlessly' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

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His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

persevering

How many times the word 'persevering' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

revolves

How many times the word 'revolves' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

foul

How many times the word 'foul' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

chattering

How many times the word 'chattering' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

remained

How many times the word 'remained' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

conceptions

How many times the word 'conceptions' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

hands

How many times the word 'hands' appears in the text?

His hands, as the world s wife had. It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen s letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone across to Holland, had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for money, was incapable of any resolution at present. Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her conduct by the world of St Ogg s; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy, Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable since the words she had heard from her brother s lips. Across all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge. But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her lodging at Bob s. She meant to persuade her mother to return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or other she would maintain herself at St Ogg s. Dr Kenn would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother called every day at Mr Deane s to learn how Lucy was; the report was always sad, nothing had yet roused her from the feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs Tulliver s absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on the occasion. As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr Kenn; he was in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob s dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Maggie s pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice; the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for the righteous to bestow. She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr Kenn s study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie, I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am glad you did. Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at the bazaar, and said, I want to tell you everything. But her eyes filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more. Do tell me everything, Dr Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his grave, firm voice. Think of me as one to whom a long experience has been granted, which may enable him to help you. In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents of Stephen s letter, and he had believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie s statement. That involuntary plaint of hers, _Oh, I must go_, had remained with him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict. Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of the past. When she had ended, Dr Kenn was silent for some minutes; there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking at Maggie, Your prompting to go to your nearest friends, to remain where all the ties of your life have been formed, is a true prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds, opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed, they can hardly be said to exist in the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the relaxation of ties, toward the substitution of wayward choice for the adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point, Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish about you what my advice to you would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances. Dr Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly, quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He went on. Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct, conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them. Oh, I do, I begin to see, said Maggie, unable to repress this utterance of her recent pain. I know I shall be insulted. I shall be thought worse than I am. You perhaps do not yet know, said Dr Kenn, with a touch of more personal pity, that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most of all difficult. Oh, where is he? said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no presence could have hindered. He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her. Dr Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on. That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you, because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions. For this reason and for this only I ask you to consider whether it will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance, according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you. Oh, if I could but stop here! said Maggie. I have no heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in some way to Lucy to others; I could convince them that I m sorry. And, she added, with some of the old proud fire flashing out, I will not go away because people say false things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last, because because others wish it, I will not go now. Well, said Dr Kenn, after some consideration, if you determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare. The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get my bread and be independent, said Maggie. I shall not want much. I can go on lodging where I am. I must think over the subject maturely, said Dr Kenn, and in a few days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind. When Maggie had left him, Dr Kenn stood ruminating with his hands behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen s letter, which he had read, and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St Ogg s on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie s stay there. On the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie s heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was clogged with evil. The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed, the truth, that moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot. All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience, discrimination, impartiality, without any care to assure themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human. Chapter III. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to wound the family honour in the tenderest point. When at last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was compelled. If you were not to stand by your kin as long as there was a shred of honour attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by? Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and though Mrs Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie s future at a time when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace. The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs Glegg s experience; nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She quarrelled with Mr Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of Maggie as Mr Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Baxter s Saints Rest from morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr Glegg brought from Mr Deane the news of Stephen s letter. Then Mrs Glegg felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs Pullet could do nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs Pullet could never enter St Ogg s again, because acquaintances knew of it all, Mrs Glegg only hoped that Mrs Wooll, or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person! Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom, like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that Maggie s nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride. Mrs Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished, she was not a woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was, but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show that their own kin were better. Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear, said poor Mrs Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, as I didn t go to her before; she said it wasn t for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please, oh dear! but she s said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you yet, my child. For she says, for all she s been so set again having one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house, if you ll go to her dutiful, and she ll uphold you against folks as say harm of you when they ve no call. And I told her I thought you couldn t bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, _I_ won t throw ill words at her; there s them out o th family ull be ready enough to do that. But I ll give her good advice; an she must be humble. It s wonderful o Jane; for I m sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me, if it was the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it was. Oh, mother, said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, tell her I m very grateful; I ll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can t see any one just yet, except Dr Kenn. I ve been to him, he will advise me, and help me to get some occupation. I can t live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you hear nothing of Philip Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one that has mentioned him? No, my dear; but I ve been to Lucy s, and I saw your uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she s on the turn to be better. What a world this is, what trouble, oh dear! The law was the first beginning, and it s gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden, just when the luck seemed on the turn? This was the first lamentation that Mrs Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been revived by the interview with sister Glegg. My poor, poor mother! Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother s neck; I was always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been happy if it hadn t been for me. Eh, my dear, said Mrs Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young cheek; I must put up wi my children, I shall never have no more; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There s nothing else much to be fond on, for my furnitur went long ago. And you d got to be very good once; I can t think how it s turned out the wrong way so! Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his son s hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in St Ogg s; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one asked him a question about his son. But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her? At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name, a hand in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow. Maggie, I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but through all the suggestions almost murderous suggestions of rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for Lucy s sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and the beauty it bears for him. I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain, the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want? But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something stronger in you than your love for him. I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even in its utmost agony even in those terrible throes that love must suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire my love for you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you, to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you of, that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what colour is to my eyes, what music is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your

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How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

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How many times the word 'silencer' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

bless

How many times the word 'bless' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

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How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

restaurant

How many times the word 'restaurant' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

leave

How many times the word 'leave' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

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How many times the word 'open' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

beautiful

How many times the word 'beautiful' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

elevator

How many times the word 'elevator' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

grossly

How many times the word 'grossly' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

shakes

How many times the word 'shakes' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

gun

How many times the word 'gun' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

something

How many times the word 'something' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

cliff

How many times the word 'cliff' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

job

How many times the word 'job' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

happened

How many times the word 'happened' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

above

How many times the word 'above' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

leaf--

How many times the word 'leaf--' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

over

How many times the word 'over' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

doors

How many times the word 'doors' appears in the text?

How? VITTI Heart attack. Sudden thing. BEN Were you and your father close? VITTI Close? Yeah, you know, pretty close. I guess we weren't getting along that great right then. (CONTINUED) 58. 39 CONTINUED: (4) 39 BEN Why was that? VITTI I was hangin' out in the neighborhood. I had a borghata -- like a kid gang -- hooligan shit, nothin' big. But my father didn't like it. BEN You fought about it? VITTI He slapped the shit out of me. BEN And then? VITTI And then that night he died. BEN How did that feel? VITTI It felt great! How did it feel? (shrugs) I don't know. BEN Well, think about it. Were you angry, were you afraid? Sad? VITTI Yeah, I guess. BEN Any feelings of guilt? VITTI About what? I didn't kill him. BEN I'm just speculating, but maybe in some way you wanted him to die. VITTI Why would I want my father to die? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 59. 39 CONTINUED: (5) 39 BEN Well, you said you were fighting. You were rebelling against his authority. There may have been some unresolved Oedipal conflict. VITTI English. BEN Oedipus was a Greek king who killed his father and married his mother. VITTI Fuckin' Greeks. BEN It's an instinctual developmental drive. The young boy wants to replace his father so he can totally possess his mother. VITTI Are you saying I wanted to fuck my mother? BEN It's a primal fantasy -- VITTI Have you seen my mother? That is the sickest fucking thing I've ever heard. BEN It's Freud. VITTI Well, then Freud's a sick fuck, and you are too for bringing it up. CUT TO: 39A OMITTED 39A and and 40 40 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/24/98 60/61. 40A INT. OCEAN VIEW RESTAURANT - NIGHT 40A Laura's family, the MacNamaras, and a few close friends have gathered for the rehearsal dinner. There are three tables in a roped-off section of the restaurant with large floral centerpieces, a small bar in the corner. The MacNamaras, SCOTT and BELINDA, are standing with Laura, Ben, Michael and a couple of other relatives. BELINDA Well, isn't this wonderful, all of us finally getting to spend some time together. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 62. 40A CONTINUED: 40A SCOTT All set for the big day, Ben? BEN Can't wait, Scott. Can I call you 'Scott?' SCOTT My friends call me 'Captain.' BEN Captain. BELINDA Well, if tomorrow goes as well as the rehearsal, I'd say it's going to be a beautiful wedding. BEN Yes, thanks for going to all this trouble, and I have to thank you and the Captain for something else. SCOTT For what? BEN (pointing to Laura) For this. Everyone "ahhs" as Ben gives Laura a peck on the cheek. Michael makes a face. LAURA (to Ben) Would you like a drink, because I'm definitely having eight or nine. BELINDA (disapproving) Shall we go to the table? As the woman go to their seats, Scott holds Ben back for a private moment. SCOTT Ben, there's a lot I'd like to say to you, but I'm going to skip the big father-in-law speech because I know you've been married before. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 63. 40A CONTINUED: (2) 40A BEN Technically, it wasn't considered a marriage. It was like the Korean War -- more of a police action. SCOTT I served in Korea, son. I don't think you'd be laughing if you'd seen some of the things I saw. BEN You're right. Sorry. VITTI (O.S.) Senor Sobol! Everyone turns to see Paul and Marie Vitti coming into the room, followed by their kids and a knot of bodyguards. Ben's face falls. He rushes over to intercept them. BEN (sputtering) Mr. Vitti! How are you? Mrs. Vitti! Honey, it's the Vittis! Laura glares at Ben. VITTI (charming) Look at everybody. Everybody's smiling, everybody's happy. Nice. This is Marie, my girls, my boy, then all these guys. BEN Mr. and Mrs. Vitti, this is Laura, my fiancee. VITTI Nice to meet you. LAURA (stunned) Thank you very much. A tense moment. Ben presses on. BEN And this is my son Michael. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 64. 40A CONTINUED: (3) 40A VITTI Whoa. He's a bruiser. (to Ben) You're sure this is your kid? You're a pound and a half soaking wet. I've had lobsters bigger than you. (to Michael) You ever want a job, you come talk to me, right? MICHAEL Seriously? BEN Michael! SCOTT You're Paul Vitti. The mobster. BEN Mr. MacNamara -- uh -- VITTI Excuse me. Is that polite? Is it? I'm trying to be nice here. Do I walk up to you and go, 'You're whoever you are. The prick'? MARIE Paul! BEN Mr. Vitti, this is Laura's father. VITTI Yeah? Okay, well, sorry. But you should know, there is no mob, and, P.S., I personally have never been convicted of a crime. (to Jelly) We're nine for nine, right? JELLY That's right. Vitti takes an envelope from his jacket pocket and presses it into Laura's hand. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 65. 40A CONTINUED: (4) 40A VITTI (quietly) I heard about the wedding. Here you go. A little something for the bride and groom. God bless. You should live and be well. LAURA Mr. Vitti, we can't accept this. VITTI Yeah, you can. Now, if you don't mind, I just need to borrow this guy for a couple of minutes, then that's it. I'm out of here. Okay? LAURA Okay. Then you leave us alone, right? VITTI Of course. I wouldn't do anything to screw up your wedding. (to Ben) I gotta talk to you. Come on. (to group) Have a great night, everybody. Nice to meet you. Vitti starts for the door. BEN (to Laura) I've just got to talk to him for a sec. You okay? LAURA I've never been less okay. BEN Great. Ben is yanked away by Jimmy. Marie stands with Laura. MARIE I bet you eat a lot of fish since your fiance's in the business. Laura stares. CUT TO: ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66. 40B EXT. TERRACE - FEW MINUTES LATER 40B Vitti, Ben and Jelly step out. VITTI (to Jelly) Watch that door. And don't listen to what we say. JELLY My ears are sealed. VITTI (to Ben) Okay, listen. I had a really weird dream last night. BEN I feel like I'm having one right now. How could you interrupt our party? VITTI You know, you're very rigid about certain things. BEN Just tell me the dream. VITTI Okay. I'm asleep. I hear a baby crying. I go to the refrigerator, I get a bottle of milk, I take it to the baby, but when I go to give it to him, I see that the milk is black. JELLY That's fuckin' weird. VITTI Okay, get out of here! JELLY Sorry. Jelly exits. VITTI (to Ben) What's it mean? And I don't want to hear any more filth about my mother. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/22/98 66A. 40B CONTINUED: 40B BEN I don't know what it means. What does it mean to you? VITTI This is what I'm paying you for? I say something, you say it right back to me? I could get Jelly to do this for nothing. BEN Then get Jelly. Ben starts to walk off the patio and comes face to face with Laura's father, Scott. BEN Mr. MacNamara. Ben exits. Scott MacNamara stares suspiciously at Vitti, wondering about his connection to Ben. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 67. 40B CONTINUED: (2) 40B VITTI (to Scott) Why don't you look over that way before I have to bust your fuckin' head open? Scott looks away, terrified, as Vitti exits past him. CUT TO: 40C OMITTED 40C & & 40D 40D 40E EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 40E The sun shines brightly on the wedding day. Guests are assembling for the ceremony. CUT TO: 41 INT. HOTEL ENTRANCE - MOMENTS LATER 41 Tino, the hitman, arrives and saunters into the hotel. CUT TO: 42 INT. AREA OUTSIDE HOTEL ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 42 Jelly walks up to one of the bodyguards. JELLY I'm gonna get something to eat. You want like a sandwich or somethin'? BODYGUARD Yeah. What kinda sandwich isn't too fattening? JELLY A half a sandwich. BODYGUARD Sounds good. JELLY I'll be back in about twenty minutes. The elevator arrives, Jelly gets in and the doors close behind him. ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/13/98 68/69. 43 ANOTHER ELEVATOR 43 The doors open and the Bodyguard turns to look. TWO SHOTS from a PISTOL with a SILENCER strike him in the chest and he falls to the floor dead. Tino steps out and drags the body to the stairwell. 44 OMITTED 44 44A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - LATER 44A The guests are seated, Ben and Michael stand with the justice of the peace as Scott walks Laura down the aisle. The harpist is playing and all's right with the world. Scott shakes Ben's hand. SCOTT (quietly, to Ben) Nod your head and smile. Now, you listen to me, goombah. I know what your game is, and you'd better call it quits, because if you and your paisans do anything to hurt my little girl, I'll kill you. Understand? Nod and smile. Scott crosses away. LAURA (sotto) What was that about? BEN Nothing. Your father thinks I'm in the Mafia. LAURA Oh. BEN Let's get married. CUT TO: 45 INT. VITTI'S HOTEL SUITE - SAME TIME 45 Using a stolen pass key, Tino quietly opens the door and enters. He steps into the living room and hears WATER RUNNING in the bathroom. He stealthily approaches the bathroom door and draws his pistol with a silencer on it from under his jacket. 70. 46 INT. BATHROOM - SAME TIME 46 Vitti stares at his reflection in the mirror, then starts washing his face. In the mirror we can see the door starting to open behind him, and the long barrel of Tino's pistol through the crack. Vitti blindly gropes for a towel and starts drying his face. 47 INT. VITTI'S BEDROOM - SAME TIME 47 Tino is about to shoot when Jelly comes up behind him, throws one strong arm around his neck in a powerful choke-hold, and grabs Tino's gun-hand with his free hand. Vitti hears the sounds of a scuffle, steps out of the bathroom, and sees Jelly struggling with Tino. Tino gets off a couple of wild SHOTS, but Jelly finally shakes the GUN loose from Tino's hand. Vitti picks up the gun and puts it to Tino's head. Tino shuts his eyes and turns away, expecting the shot, but then Vitti's hand starts to shake and he breaks into a cold sweat. Tino opens his eyes, sees Vitti frozen, and starts fighting with renewed strength. Jelly hangs on, looks at Vitti with concern, then wrestles Tino out onto the balcony. CUT TO: 47A EXT. HOTEL COURTYARD - DAY 47A The ceremony is in progress. JUSTICE If any man here knows why these two people should not be joined in holy matrimony, let him speak now or forever hold his peace. A beat, then a SCREAM is heard from above, then Tino crashes into a buffet table in the b.g. Wedding guests react in horror. CUT TO: 48 OMITTED 48 & & 49 49 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 71. 50 INT. VITTI'S SUITE - LATER 50 Jimmy and Jelly are hastily throwing clothes into suitcases. Vitti comes out of the bedroom hurriedly buttoning up his shirt. VITTI (urgently, to Jelly) Tell Mikey to take Marie and the kids right to the airport. (to Jimmy) You get the car, bring it around to the back and wait for me. Ben bursts into the room. BEN That's it. I've had it with you! VITTI What happened? BEN What happened? I just saw a man fall seven stories into a platter of poached salmon! That's what happened. VITTI Did he break anything? BEN Yes. Everything! They're still picking the capers out of his forehead. VITTI Hey, people get depressed, they jump. It's a human tragedy, but it's not my fault. BEN You're telling me it was suicide? VITTI (to Jelly) I think he left a note. Jelly, did they find that note? JELLY No, but they will in a minute. BEN Oh, yeah, here it is. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 72. 50 CONTINUED: 50 BEN (CONT'D) (picks up a slip of paper, pretends to read) 'Life is bullshit. I can't fuckin' take it no more. Tino.' VITTI Enough talking. We got to get out of here. The place is crawling with feds. I'm going back to New York and I suggest you do the same. They're probably onto you too now. BEN Onto me? What are you talking about? Being an accessory to murder was not part of our understanding. VITTI Hey, why you busting my balls? I didn't kill him. I can't speak for everyone in the room, but -- (he looks at Jelly) The son-of-a-bitch came after me! It was self-defense. Trust me, Doc. In this one, we're the good guys. Suddenly Laura bursts into the room, still in her wedding dress, but disheveled. BEN Laura! LAURA (distraught, to Vitti) How could you do that? VITTI Great. Another country heard from. (sotto voice to Ben) Get her outta here. BEN Honey, why don't you wait downstairs? (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 73. 50 CONTINUED: (2) 50 LAURA Why, they're going to throw me off the balcony, too? (to Vitti) I am thirty -- over thirty years old and all my life I have dreamed of walking down the aisle in a beautiful white dress and marrying the man I love. VITTI That's a beautiful dress. LAURA Thank you, but it's not about the dress! We were supposed to get married! VITTI You're upset. LAURA Of course I'm upset! (to Ben) I'm going downstairs to pack, then I'm going to New York and I'm getting married with you or without you. Okay? BEN I'll be right there. (walks her to the door) Everything's going to be all right. I promise. He kisses her and closes the door behind her. BEN Are you happy now? You ruined my life! VITTI What, you think I wanted this? I'm the victim here! I swear, I'm going to kill that son-of-a-bitch! BEN Is that all you know? Do you hear yourself? I knew this would happen. (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74. 50 CONTINUED: (3) 50 BEN (CONT'D) This whole thing has been one big disaster from the minute you walked into my office. We're finished! You hear me? I am no longer your doctor! VITTI Just 'cause of this? BEN Of course because of this! You don't have even the tiniest shred of human decency. All you know is threats and violence and that's all you'll ever know and I can't be around that! Vitti stares at Ben for a long beat. VITTI What do you want me to do? CUT TO: 51 INT. SINDONE'S OFFICE - CONTINUOUS ACTION 51 Sindone is watching "America's Most Wanted," rooting for the criminals. Moony comes to him looking concerned. SINDONE How come I can't get on this show? This is a good show. MOONY Primo. You got a phone call. It's Paul Vitti. SINDONE (warily) Vitti. (picks up the phone) Hello? INTERCUT Vitti and Sindone. Vitti is on the phone, struggling to contain his rage. Ben watches. VITTI Primo, it's Paul Vitti. (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74A. 51 CONTINUED: 51 SINDONE Yeah, how's it goin'? VITTI Not good. Whoever killed Dominic is shooting at me now and I'm having a lot of feelings about it and I'd like to get some kinda -- BEN Closure. VITTI -- closure on this. Ben nods in encouragement. SINDONE What kind of feelings? VITTI I feel very angry, you know. Very, uh, enraged. Mad. Real mad. Thumbs up from Ben. SINDONE So why you telling me? VITTI Why am I telling you? Like you had nothing to do with it? SINDONE I don't know what you're talking about. VITTI Okay, whatever, I just wanted to tell you how I feel because I know that anger is -- He looks at Ben. BEN A blocked wish -- VITTI -- a blocked wish, and I'm getting my wish unblocked and I'm looking forward to getting some closure -- (MORE) (CONTINUED) ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74B. 51 CONTINUED: (2) 51 VITTI (CONT'D) (loses it) -- and if you make one more move on me I swear to God I'll cut your fuckin' balls off and shove 'em up your ass! SINDONE Vaffancul'! Vitti rips the phone cord out of the jack and smashes the phone against the wall. He stands there fuming. Sindone hangs up the phone on his end, worried. SINDONE Get a dictionary and find out what this 'closure' is. If that's what he's hitting us with, I want to know what the hell it is. CUT TO: 51A INT. VITTI'S SUITE - MOMENTS LATER 51A Vitti is still fuming. VITTI Good? BEN Yeah, right up until the shoving the balls. You can't keep doing this! You want to get physical? Take a walk. Get a punching bag. Hit a pillow. Vitti whips out a .9MM AUTOMATIC and EMPTIES the CLIP into a pillow on the couch. VITTI There's your fucking pillow. BEN Feel better now? VITTI Yeah, I do. CUT TO: 52 OMITTED 52 thru thru 57 57 ANALYZE THIS - Rev. 7/20/98 74C. 58 LARGE ITALIANATE FOUNTAIN 58 Cheeky marble cherubs bathe in the soaring jets and bubbling pools of a large rococo fountain. PULL BACK TO: (CONTINUED) 75. 58 CONTINUED: 58 EXT. BEN'S DRIVEWAY - DAY Ben, Laura and Michael are staring up at the elaborate fountain that now fills the back yard. BEN Call the Vatican. Ask them if anything's missing. MICHAEL So cool! JANET Michael, get your bags out of the car, please. MICHAEL It's almost as tall as the house! Michael crosses away. Laura glares at Ben. BEN (reads the card) He felt bad. It's a wedding gift. LAURA Well, we're not married, so I guess we'll have to send it back. BEN Hey, don't blame me. You didn't want to finish the ceremony. LAURA What did you expect? You think that's what I want to remember on our anniversary? 'Gee, honey, let's go look at the wedding video. There's my parents, there's your parents, and there's the guy who plunged to his death.' BEN I just want to marry you. LAURA I'm starting to think that's not going to happen. BEN Come on. Next Saturday. It's all set. I even asked for a room with a low ceiling, just to discourage the jumpers. (CONTINUED) 76. 58 CONTINUED: (2) 58 LAURA And who's going to be there? BEN Us three, a clergyman, and any family members who've completed their crisis counseling. LAURA And no guests without necks. Everybody has to have a neck. BEN We'll do a neck check at the door. They kiss. CUT TO: 59 INT. SOBOL FAMILY ROOM - MOMENTS LATER 59 The back door opens and Ben, Laura and Michael enter, struggling with the luggage. They freeze. Sitting in the family room are the three FBI agents: Steadman, Ricci and Provano. AGENT STEADMAN (showing his badge) Doctor Sobol, Mrs. Sobol -- I'm Agent Steadman, Agent Ricci, Agent Provano, Federal Bureau of Investigation, O.C.D. BEN (stunned) Obsessive-compulsive disorder? AGENT PROVANO Organized Crime Division. We need to talk. Laura recognizes Provano from the hotel and glares at him. MICHAEL The FBI! This is better than the fountain! BEN Michael, go to your room. (CONTINUED) 77. 59 CONTINUED: 59 MICHAEL But -- BEN Go! MICHAEL Fine. I can hear better in there anyway. Michael exits. On the coffee table are dozens of pictures of Ben and Paul Vitti taken in Miami and just about everywhere else. BEN (a beat) So. FBI. AGENT STEADMAN Can you explain these photographs, Doctor Sobol? BEN I'm a psychotherapist. Paul Vitti is my patient. LAURA Was your patient. BEN Right. Was. That's what I meant. LAURA But not like a real patient. BEN Right. PROVANO So why did he send you that fountain? BEN That was a gift to celebrate the completion of his therapy. We got our television from an agoraphobic, so it's not that unusual -- you know, maybe you should discuss this with my attorney. LAURA Yeah, maybe you should. (CONTINUED) 78. 59 CONTINUED: (2) 59 AGENT STEADMAN Doctor Sobol, Paul Vitti is an extremely dangerous man. We're talking conspiracy, fraud, extortion, racketeering, grand theft, murder... BEN Well, yeah, but don't forget, the man is a sociopath. You've got to expect that kind of behavior -- Ben looks out the window and does a double take. 60 BEN'S POV 60 Isaac and Dorothy are standing in the yard, gawking at the fountain. 61 BACK IN FAMILY ROOM 61 BEN Excuse me, fellas. My folks are here and I'd like to -- well, die would be my first choice. Can I go out? AGENT RICCI It's your house. LAURA Too bad you didn't remember that when you were breaking in. BEN (as he goes) Honey, maybe the federal agents would like something to drink? Could you see what we have? LAURA (firmly) No. BEN (to the Agents) I tried, guys. Ben exits. CUT TO: 79. 62 EXT. BACK YARD - CONTINUOUS ACTION 62 Ben rushes up to Isaac and Dorothy. BEN Hi! What a surprise. Ben kisses his mother as she stares at the fountain. DOROTHY That certainly makes a statement. It's a little big for the yard, don't you think? BEN What can I tell you, Mom? It looked much smaller in the store. ISAAC Think it'll affect your water pressure? BEN I think it'll affect the tides. What are you doing here? DOROTHY Your father and I are just very concerned about what happened in Florida. ISAAC How was your flight home? Anyone hang themselves in first class. DOROTHY We got in last night, we couldn't sleep a wink. Is Laura inside? BEN Yeah, but she and Michael are spending some time alone, you know, getting to know each other. That's important. I don't want to disturb that dynamic. DOROTHY (a beat) So you're not going to invite us in? BEN (a beat) No. (CONTINUED) 80. 62 CONTINUED: 62 DOROTHY (insulted) Well, I'm going to wait in the car. There's too much spray. Dorothy crosses away. ISAAC All right. What's with you and Paul Vitti? BEN Well, Dad, I'm not at liberty to discuss that. ISAAC He's your patient? Are you joking? Have you thought about what this could do to your reputation? BEN You, know, I always wanted to be great, but then I realized that I might have to settle for just being good enough. Now I've got this guy who's hurting and I'm thinking that if I can help this guy, maybe I can be a little bit great. ISAAC Jesus, Ben, you're the one who's going to be hurting. I want you to stop seeing him. BEN Didn't you read your own book? Instead of trying to run my life, why don't you just close your eyes, take a deep breath, tell me what you feel, tell me what you want. ISAAC (uncomfortable) This is bullshit. BEN You wrote it. (CONTINUED) 81. 62 CONTINUED: (2) 62 ISAAC Okay. (with difficulty) I love you -- and I'm afraid for you -- I want you to be safe -- and I want you to have a good life. BEN (deeply touched) Is that really it? ISAAC That's it. They embrace awkwardly. BEN You know why I became a shrink? Because I grew up with a great one walking around the house. ISAAC I thought you became a shrink because you were sleeping with your psychology professor at Columbia. BEN Yes, and because of you. CUT TO: 63 INT. FAMILY ROOM - MINUTES LATER 63 Ben comes back to Laura and the Agents. BEN Okay, so you were saying? AGENT STEADMAN Let me cut to the chase. Sometime in the next week or so, the heads of every major crime family in the United States are going to meet together somewhere in the New York area. Ben nods, finally understanding Vitti's two week deadline. AGENT PROVANO We think the stage is set for a major bloodbath. Has he mentioned anything about it to you? (CONTINUED) 82. 63 CONTINUED: 63 LAURA A bloodbath? BEN No. If he said anything about a bloodbath, I probably would've remembered it. Bloodbath is one of those words that, you know, stands out in a conversation. AGENT STEADMAN (gathering photos) You could really help us out by supplying information about that meeting. BEN And if I don't? AGENT STEADMAN If you don't, I will personally make your life a living hell. I want you to think about that and call me at this number when you change your mind. BEN You mean if I change my mind. AGENT STEADMAN I mean when. LAURA (tough) Okay. Guess what, fellas? You don't scare me. BEN Laura -- LAURA Sit down! (to the Agents) There's going to be a bloodbath. Oh, yeah. Only it's going to be between you and me. You think you can break into our home and intimidate us? That ain't the way it works here, boys. Whatever he and Paul Vitti talked about is privileged. He doesn't have to tell you a thing. (MORE) (CONTINUED) 83. 63 CONTINUED: (2) 63 LAURA (CONT'D) Tarasoff vs. The University of California. Look it up. Now, if he's done something wrong, take him downtown and book him. Otherwise, I'll ask you very kindly to get the hell out of my house. AGENT STEADMAN We'll be in touch. The Agents exit. BEN (impressed) Laura, that was really -- LAURA (furious) Oh, shut up! Laura storms out of the room in a fury. Ben stands, looking miserable, then we hear Michael's voice from the vent. MICHAEL (V.O.) You are in trouble. CUT TO: 64 INT. OLD LION SOCIAL CLUB - DAY 64 Vitti is conferring with Sal Masiello, his consigliere. MASIELLO Paul, I don't mean this in a disrespectful way. You know I was a good friend to your father and I will always be a good friend to you. But the word is out that you've been talking to a shrink. Is that right? Vitti shoots Jelly a sharp look. Jelly looks away. VITTI What's the point here? (CONTINUED) 84. 64 CONTINUED: 64 MASIELLO This concerns the whole family. Right now, we're the only ones who know about it, but if it gets out on the street -- what then? Who knows what you've been saying in there? VITTI It's none of anybody's business what I say in there. MASIELLO Paul, I beg to differ. If you're doing this to establish some kind of insanity defense later, that's one thing. But everybody's gonna think you're falling apart, and that ain't good. They'll take it as a sign of weakness, and that makes us all vulnerable. Sindone would take over everything. VITTI So what do you want me to do? MASIELLO It's time to end it. VITTI What do you mean, end it? MASIELLO Get rid of this shrink. He knows too much already. VITTI You want me to whack my doctor? MASIELLO If you don't do it, somebody else will. It's the only way. VITTI No. Nobody touches him. You hear me? Anybody lays a finger on him, I'll kill 'em. Is that clear? CUT TO: 85. 64A FLASHBACK - EXT. STREET ON LOWER EAST SIDE - DAY 64A Vitti and Ben are walking down the street. For some reason, Vitti is wearing a hat. BEN I'm going to buy some fruit. You want anything? VITTI No, go ahead. Ben crosses to a sidewalk fruit stand and starts picking out oranges. Vitti leans up against a car waiting for him to finish. SHOTS are FIRED. He runs toward the car. More SHOTS are FIRED. Ben is hit. Vitti pulls out his gun but he fumbles and drops it. The gunmen run off. Ben sinks to the pavement, mortally wounded. Vitti kneels next to him and sobs loudly. He puts his hand to his head, knocking off his hat. VITTI Papa! Papa! 64B INT. BEN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT 64B Ben jerks upright in bed, knocked awake by the nightmare. DISSOLVE TO: 65 HOLY WATER FONT 65 Someone dips their fingers in. INT. CATHOLIC CHURCH - NEXT DAY It's Vitti. He goes down on one knee and genuflects in front of a big crucifix. Ben wiggles his finger in the holy water, just kind of curtsies and waves at Jesus on the cross. VITTI You look lousy. You all right. BEN Listen, Paul, please don't send me any more gifts. VITTI You didn't like the fountain? (CONTINUED) 86. 65 CONTINUED: 65 BEN That's not the point. It's a boundary issue. VITTI Boundary issue? I say if more people gave from the heart, we'd all be better off. Let's see your watch. (as Ben shows his wrist) Piece of junk. You're getting a Rolex. BEN Don't buy me a Rolex. VITTI Who said anything about buying it? They cross to the main aisle of the church. BEN Listen, I really need to talk to you. Ben stops cold. A casket sits in front of the altar. A funeral service is in progress. VITTI Tommy Angels. We grew up together. Worked for a crew out of Jersey City. BEN How did he die? VITTI He was on his way to talk to a federal prosecutor. Got hit by a truck -- twice. BEN Do I need to know that? I'm having nightmares as it is. The funeral procession comes down the aisle. BEN Last night I dreamed we were walking down

generally

How many times the word 'generally' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

time

How many times the word 'time' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

proven

How many times the word 'proven' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

domestic

How many times the word 'domestic' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

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I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

cost

How many times the word 'cost' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

colonel

How many times the word 'colonel' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

mon

How many times the word 'mon' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

eighteen

How many times the word 'eighteen' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

worthy

How many times the word 'worthy' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

hinted

How many times the word 'hinted' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

ear

How many times the word 'ear' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

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I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

wife

How many times the word 'wife' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

freedom

How many times the word 'freedom' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

perplexities

How many times the word 'perplexities' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

depressed

How many times the word 'depressed' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

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I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

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How many times the word 'reduce' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

pension

How many times the word 'pension' appears in the text?

I am as a woman--a spendthrift of genius." "We will sleep on it and discuss it all to-morrow morning." "You will dine with the Duke. My d'Herouville will receive you as civilly as if you were the saviour of the State; and to-morrow you can decide. Come, be jolly, old boy! Life is a garment; when it is dirty, we must brush it; when it is ragged, it must be patched; but we keep it on as long as we can." This philosophy of life, and her high spirits, postponed Hulot's keenest pangs. At noon next day, after a capital breakfast, Hulot saw the arrival of one of those living masterpieces which Paris alone of all the cities in the world can produce, by means of the constant concubinage of luxury and poverty, of vice and decent honesty, of suppressed desire and renewed temptation, which makes the French capital the daughter of Ninevah, of Babylon, and of Imperial Rome. Mademoiselle Olympe Bijou, a child of sixteen, had the exquisite face which Raphael drew for his Virgins; eyes of pathetic innocence, weary with overwork--black eyes, with long lashes, their moisture parched with the heat of laborious nights, and darkened with fatigue; a complexion like porcelain, almost too delicate; a mouth like a partly opened pomegranate; a heaving bosom, a full figure, pretty hands, the whitest teeth, and a mass of black hair; and the whole meagrely set off by a cotton frock at seventy-five centimes the metre, leather shoes without heels, and the cheapest gloves. The girl, all unconscious of her charms, had put on her best frock to wait on the fine lady. The Baron, gripped again by the clutch of profligacy, felt all his life concentrated in his eyes. He forgot everything on beholding this delightful creature. He was like a sportsman in sight of the game; if an emperor were present, he must take aim! "And warranted sound," said Josepha in his ear. "An honest child, and wanting bread. This is Paris--I have been there!" "It is a bargain," replied the old man, getting up and rubbing his hands. When Olympe Bijou was gone, Josepha looked mischievously at the Baron. "If you want things to keep straight, Daddy," said she, "be as firm as the Public Prosecutor on the bench. Keep a tight hand on her, be a Bartholo! Ware Auguste, Hippolyte, Nestor, Victor--_or_, that is gold, in every form. When once the child is fed and dressed, if she gets the upper hand, she will drive you like a serf.--I will see to settling you comfortably. The Duke does the handsome; he will lend--that is, give--you ten thousand francs; and he deposits eight thousand with his notary, who will pay you six hundred francs every quarter, for I cannot trust you.--Now, am I nice?" "Adorable." Ten days after deserting his family, when they were gathered round Adeline, who seemed to be dying, as she said again and again, in a weak voice, "Where is he?" Hector, under the name of Thoul, was established in the Rue Saint-Maur, at the head of a business as embroiderer, under the name of Thoul and Bijou. Victorin Hulot, under the overwhelming disasters of his family, had received the finishing touch which makes or mars the man. He was perfection. In the great storms of life we act like the captain of a ship who, under the stress of a hurricane, lightens the ship of its heaviest cargo. The young lawyer lost his self-conscious pride, his too evident assertiveness, his arrogance as an orator and his political pretensions. He was as a man what his wife was as a woman. He made up his mind to make the best of his Celestine--who certainly did not realize his dreams--and was wise enough to estimate life at its true value by contenting himself in all things with the second best. He vowed to fulfil his duties, so much had he been shocked by his father's example. These feelings were confirmed as he stood by his mother's bed on the day when she was out of danger. Nor did this happiness come single. Claude Vignon, who called every day from the Prince de Wissembourg to inquire as to Madame Hulot's progress, desired the re-elected deputy to go with him to see the Minister. "His Excellency," said he, "wants to talk over your family affairs with you." The Prince had long known Victorin Hulot, and received him with a friendliness that promised well. "My dear fellow," said the old soldier, "I promised your uncle, in this room, that I would take care of your mother. That saintly woman, I am told, is getting well again; now is the time to pour oil into your wounds. I have for you here two hundred thousand francs; I will give them to you----" The lawyer's gesture was worthy of his uncle the Marshal. "Be quite easy," said the Prince, smiling; "it is money in trust. My days are numbered; I shall not always be here; so take this sum, and fill my place towards your family. You may use this money to pay off the mortgage on your house. These two hundred thousand francs are the property of your mother and your sister. If I gave the money to Madame Hulot, I fear that, in her devotion to her husband, she would be tempted to waste it. And the intention of those who restore it to you is, that it should produce bread for Madame Hulot and her daughter, the Countess Steinbock. You are a steady man, the worthy son of your noble mother, the true nephew of my friend the Marshal; you are appreciated here, you see--and elsewhere. So be the guardian angel of your family, and take this as a legacy from your uncle and me." "Monseigneur," said Hulot, taking the Minister's hand and pressing it, "such men as you know that thanks in words mean nothing; gratitude must be proven." "Prove yours--" said the old man. "In what way?" "By accepting what I have to offer you," said the Minister. "We propose to appoint you to be attorney to the War Office, which just now is involved in litigations in consequence of the plan for fortifying Paris; consulting clerk also to the Prefecture of Police; and a member of the Board of the Civil List. These three appointments will secure you salaries amounting to eighteen thousand francs, and will leave you politically free. You can vote in the Chamber in obedience to your opinions and your conscience. Act in perfect freedom on that score. It would be a bad thing for us if there were no national opposition! "Also, a few lines from your uncle, written a day or two before he breathed his last, suggested what I could do for your mother, whom he loved very truly.--Mesdames Popinot, de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Batie have made a place for your mother as a Lady Superintendent of their charities. These ladies, presidents of various branches of benevolent work, cannot do everything themselves; they need a lady of character who can act for them by going to see the objects of their beneficence, ascertaining that charity is not imposed upon, and whether the help given really reaches those who applied for it, finding out that the poor who are ashamed to beg, and so forth. Your mother will fulfil an angelic function; she will be thrown in with none but priests and these charitable ladies; she will be paid six thousand francs and the cost of her hackney coaches. "You see, young man, that a pure and nobly virtuous man can still assist his family, even from the grave. Such a name as your uncle's is, and ought to be, a buckler against misfortune in a well-organized scheme of society. Follow in his path; you have started in it, I know; continue in it." "Such delicate kindness cannot surprise me in my mother's friend," said Victorin. "I will try to come up to all your hopes." "Go at once, and take comfort to your family.--By the way," added the Prince, as he shook hands with Victorin, "your father has disappeared?" "Alas! yes." "So much the better. That unhappy man has shown his wit, in which, indeed, he is not lacking." "There are bills of his to be met." "Well, you shall have six months' pay of your three appointments in advance. This pre-payment will help you, perhaps, to get the notes out of the hands of the money-lender. And I will see Nucingen, and perhaps may succeed in releasing your father's pension, pledged to him, without its costing you or our office a sou. The peer has not killed the banker in Nucingen; he is insatiable; he wants some concession.--I know not what----" So on his return to the Rue Plumet, Victorin could carry out his plan of lodging his mother and sister under his roof. The young lawyer, already famous, had, for his sole fortune, one of the handsomest houses in Paris, purchased in 1834 in preparation for his marriage, situated on the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand. A speculator had built two houses between the boulevard and the street; and between these, with the gardens and courtyards to the front and back, there remained still standing a splendid wing, the remains of the magnificent mansion of the Verneuils. The younger Hulot had purchased this fine property, on the strength of Mademoiselle Crevel's marriage-portion, for one million francs, when it was put up to auction, paying five hundred thousand down. He lived on the ground floor, expecting to pay the remainder out of letting the rest; but though it is safe to speculate in house-property in Paris, such investments are capricious or hang fire, depending on unforeseen circumstances. As the Parisian lounger may have observed, the boulevard between the Rue de la Paix and the Rue Louis-le-Grand prospered but slowly; it took so long to furbish and beautify itself, that trade did not set up its display there till 1840--the gold of the money-changers, the fairy-work of fashion, and the luxurious splendor of shop-fronts. In spite of two hundred thousand francs given by Crevel to his daughter at the time when his vanity was flattered by this marriage, before the Baron had robbed him of Josepha; in spite of the two hundred thousand francs paid off by Victorin in the course of seven years, the property was still burdened with a debt of five hundred thousand francs, in consequence of Victorin's devotion to his father. Happily, a rise in rents and the advantages of the situation had at this time improved the value of the houses. The speculation was justifying itself after eight years' patience, during which the lawyer had strained every nerve to pay the interest and some trifling amounts of the capital borrowed. The tradespeople were ready to offer good rents for the shops, on condition of being granted leases for eighteen years. The dwelling apartments rose in value by the shifting of the centre in Paris life--henceforth transferred to the region between the Bourse and the Madeleine, now the seat of the political power and financial authority in Paris. The money paid to him by the Minister, added to a year's rent in advance and the premiums paid by his tenants, would finally reduce the outstanding debt to two hundred thousand francs. The two houses, if entirely let, would bring in a hundred thousand francs a year. Within two years more, during which the Hulots could live on his salaries, added to by the Marshal's investments, Victorin would be in a splendid position. This was manna from heaven. Victorin could give up the first floor of his own house to his mother, and the second to Hortense, excepting two rooms reserved for Lisbeth. With Cousin Betty as the housekeeper, this compound household could bear all these charges, and yet keep up a good appearance, as beseemed a pleader of note. The great stars of the law-courts were rapidly disappearing; and Victorin Hulot, gifted with a shrewd tongue and strict honesty, was listened to by the Bench and Councillors; he studied his cases thoroughly, and advanced nothing that he could not prove. He would not hold every brief that offered; in fact, he was a credit to the bar. The Baroness' home in the Rue Plumet had become so odious to her, that she allowed herself to be taken to the Rue Louis-le-Grand. Thus, by her son's care, Adeline occupied a fine apartment; she was spared all the daily worries of life; for Lisbeth consented to begin again, working wonders of domestic economy, such as she had achieved for Madame Marneffe, seeing here a way of exerting her silent vengeance on those three noble lives, the object, each, of her hatred, which was kept growing by the overthrow of all her hopes. Once a month she went to see Valerie, sent, indeed, by Hortense, who wanted news of Wenceslas, and by Celestine, who was seriously uneasy at the acknowledged and well-known connection between her father and a woman to whom her mother-in-law and sister-in-law owed their ruin and their sorrows. As may be supposed, Lisbeth took advantage of this to see Valerie as often as possible. Thus, about twenty months passed by, during which the Baroness recovered her health, though her palsied trembling never left her. She made herself familiar with her duties, which afforded her a noble distraction from her sorrow and constant food for the divine goodness of her heart. She also regarded it as an opportunity for finding her husband in the course of one of those expeditions which took her into every part of Paris. During this time, Vauvinet had been paid, and the pension of six thousand francs was almost redeemed. Victorin could maintain his mother as well as Hortense out of the ten thousand francs interest on the money left by Marshal Hulot in trust for them. Adeline's salary amounted to six thousand francs a year; and this, added to the Baron's pension when it was freed, would presently secure an income of twelve thousand francs a year to the mother and daughter. Thus, the poor woman would have been almost happy but for her perpetual anxieties as to the Baron's fate; for she longed to have him with her to share the improved fortunes that smiled on the family; and but for the constant sight of her forsaken daughter; and but for the terrible thrusts constantly and _unconsciously_ dealt her by Lisbeth, whose diabolical character had free course. A scene which took place at the beginning of the month of March 1843 will show the results of Lisbeth's latent and persistent hatred, still seconded, as she always was, by Madame Marneffe. Two great events had occurred in the Marneffe household. In the first place, Valerie had given birth to a still-born child, whose little coffin had cost her two thousand francs a year. And then, as to Marneffe himself, eleven months since, this is the report given by Lisbeth to the Hulot family one day on her return from a visit of discovery at the hotel Marneffe. "This morning," said she, "that dreadful Valerie sent for Doctor Bianchon to ask whether the medical men who had condemned her husband yesterday had made no mistake. Bianchon pronounced that to-night at the latest that horrible creature will depart to the torments that await him. Old Crevel and Madame Marneffe saw the doctor out; and your father, my dear Celestine, gave him five gold pieces for his good news. "When he came back into the drawing-room, Crevel cut capers like a dancer; he embraced that woman, exclaiming, 'Then, at last, you will be Madame Crevel!'--And to me, when she had gone back to her husband's bedside, for he was at his last gasp, your noble father said to me, 'With Valerie as my wife, I can become a peer of France! I shall buy an estate I have my eye on--Presles, which Madame de Serizy wants to sell. I shall be Crevel de Presles, member of the Common Council of Seine-et-Oise, and Deputy. I shall have a son! I shall be everything I have ever wished to be.'--'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'--'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.--My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.--I shall judge of my son-in-law and Celestine by their conduct on my marriage; as they behave, so shall I. If they are nice to their stepmother, I will receive them. I am a man, after all!'--In short, all this rhodomontade! And an attitude like Napoleon on the column." The ten months' widowhood insisted on by the law had now elapsed some few days since. The estate of Presles was purchased. Victorin and Celestine had that very morning sent Lisbeth to make inquiries as to the marriage of the fascinating widow to the Mayor of Paris, now a member of the Common Council of the Department of Seine-et-Oise. Celestine and Hortense, in whom the ties of affection had been drawn closer since they had lived under the same roof, were almost inseparable. The Baroness, carried away by a sense of honesty which led her to exaggerate the duties of her place, devoted herself to the work of charity of which she was the agent; she was out almost every day from eleven till five. The sisters-in-law, united in their cares for the children whom they kept together, sat at home and worked. They had arrived at the intimacy which thinks aloud, and were a touching picture of two sisters, one cheerful and the other sad. The less happy of the two, handsome, lively, high-spirited, and clever, seemed by her manner to defy her painful situation; while the melancholy Celestine, sweet and calm, and as equable as reason itself, might have been supposed to have some secret grief. It was this contradiction, perhaps, that added to their warm friendship. Each supplied the other with what she lacked. Seated in a little summer-house in the garden, which the speculator's trowel had spared by some fancy of the builder's, who believed that he was preserving these hundred feet square of earth for his own pleasure, they were admiring the first green shoots of the lilac-trees, a spring festival which can only be fully appreciated in Paris when the inhabitants have lived for six months oblivious of what vegetation means, among the cliffs of stone where the ocean of humanity tosses to and fro. "Celestine," said Hortense to her sister-in-law, who had complained that in such fine weather her husband should be kept at the Chamber, "I think you do not fully appreciate your happiness. Victorin is a perfect angel, and you sometimes torment him." "My dear, men like to be tormented! Certain ways of teasing are a proof of affection. If your poor mother had only been--I will not say exacting, but always prepared to be exacting, you would not have had so much to grieve over." "Lisbeth is not come back. I shall have to sing the song of _Malbrouck_," said Hortense. "I do long for some news of Wenceslas!--What does he live on? He has not done a thing these two years." "Victorin saw him, he told me, with that horrible woman not long ago; and he fancied that she maintains him in idleness.--If you only would, dear soul, you might bring your husband back to you yet." Hortense shook her head. "Believe me," Celestine went on, "the position will ere long be intolerable. In the first instance, rage, despair, indignation, gave you strength. The awful disasters that have come upon us since--two deaths, ruin, and the disappearance of Baron Hulot--have occupied your mind and heart; but now you live in peace and silence, you will find it hard to bear the void in your life; and as you cannot, and will never leave the path of virtue, you will have to be reconciled to Wenceslas. Victorin, who loves you so much, is of that opinion. There is something stronger than one's feelings even, and that is Nature!" "But such a mean creature!" cried the proud Hortense. "He cares for that woman because she feeds him.--And has she paid his debts, do you suppose?--Good Heaven! I think of that man's position day and night! He is the father of my child, and he is degrading himself." "But look at your mother, my dear," said Celestine. Celestine was one of those women who, when you have given them reasons enough to convince a Breton peasant, still go back for the hundredth time to their original argument. The character of her face, somewhat flat, dull, and common, her light-brown hair in stiff, neat bands, her very complexion spoke of a sensible woman, devoid of charm, but also devoid of weakness. "The Baroness would willingly go to join her husband in his disgrace, to comfort him and hide him in her heart from every eye," Celestine went on. "Why, she has a room made ready upstairs for Monsieur Hulot, as if she expected to find him and bring him home from one day to the next." "Oh yes, my mother is sublime!" replied Hortense. "She has been so every minute of every day for six-and-twenty years; but I am not like her, it is not my nature.--How can I help it? I am angry with myself sometimes; but you do not know, Celestine, what it would be to make terms with infamy." "There is my father!" said Celestine placidly. "He has certainly started on the road that ruined yours. He is ten years younger than the Baron, to be sure, and was only a tradesman; but how can it end? This Madame Marneffe has made a slave of my father; he is her dog; she is mistress of his fortune and his opinions, and nothing can open his eyes. I tremble when I remember that their banns of marriage are already published!--My husband means to make a last attempt; he thinks it a duty to try to avenge society and the family, and bring that woman to account for all her crimes. Alas! my dear Hortense, such lofty souls as Victorin and hearts like ours come too late to a comprehension of the world and its ways!--This is a secret, dear, and I have told you because you are interested in it, but never by a word or a look betray it to Lisbeth, or your mother, or anybody, for--" "Here is Lisbeth!" said Hortense. "Well, cousin, and how is the Inferno of the Rue Barbet going on?" "Badly for you, my children.--Your husband, my dear Hortense, is more crazy about that woman than ever, and she, I must own, is madly in love with him.--Your father, dear Celestine, is gloriously blind. That, to be sure, is nothing; I have had occasion to see it once a fortnight; really, I am lucky never to have had anything to do with men, they are besotted creatures.--Five days hence you, dear child, and Victorin will have lost your father's fortune." "Then the banns are cried?" said Celestine. "Yes," said Lisbeth, "and I have just been arguing your case. I pointed out to that monster, who is going the way of the other, that if he would only get you out of the difficulties you are in by paying off the mortgage on the house, you would show your gratitude and receive your stepmother--" Hortense started in horror. "Victorin will see about that," said Celestine coldly. "But do you know what Monsieur le Maire's answer was?" said Lisbeth. "'I mean to leave them where they are. Horses can only be broken in by lack of food, sleep, and sugar.'--Why, Baron Hulot was not so bad as Monsieur Crevel. "So, my poor dears, you may say good-bye to the money. And such a fine fortune! Your father paid three million francs for the Presles estate, and he has thirty thousand francs a year in stocks! Oh!--he has no secrets from me. He talks of buying the Hotel de Navarreins, in the Rue du Bac. Madame Marneffe herself has forty thousand francs a year.--Ah!--here is our guardian angel, here comes your mother!" she exclaimed, hearing the rumble of wheels. And presently the Baroness came down the garden steps and joined the party. At fifty-five, though crushed by so many troubles, and constantly trembling as if shivering with ague, Adeline, whose face was indeed pale and wrinkled, still had a fine figure, a noble outline, and natural dignity. Those who saw her said, "She must have been beautiful!" Worn with the grief of not knowing her husband's fate, of being unable to share with him this oasis in the heart of Paris, this peace and seclusion and the better fortune that was dawning on the family, her beauty was the beauty of a ruin. As each gleam of hope died out, each day of search proved vain, Adeline sank into fits of deep melancholy that drove her children to despair. The Baroness had gone out that morning with fresh hopes, and was anxiously expected. An official, who was under obligations to Hulot, to whom he owed his position and advancement, declared that he had seen the Baron in a box at the Ambigu-Comique theatre with a woman of extraordinary beauty. So Adeline had gone to call on the Baron Verneuil. This important personage, while asserting that he had positively seen his old patron, and that his behaviour to the woman indicated an illicit establishment, told Madame Hulot that to avoid meeting him the Baron had left long before the end of the play. "He looked like a man at home with the damsel, but his dress betrayed some lack of means," said he in conclusion. "Well?" said the three women as the Baroness came towards them. "Well, Monsieur Hulot is in Paris; and to me," said Adeline, "it is a gleam of happiness only to know that he is within reach of us." "But he does not seem to have mended his ways," Lisbeth remarked when Adeline had finished her report of her visit to Baron Verneuil. "He has taken up some little work-girl. But where can he get the money from? I could bet that he begs of his former mistresses--Mademoiselle Jenny Cadine or Josepha." The Baroness trembled more severely than ever; every nerve quivered; she wiped away the tears that rose to her eyes and looked mournfully up to heaven. "I cannot think that a Grand Commander of the Legion of Honor will have fallen so low," said she. "For his pleasure what would he not do?" said Lisbeth. "He robbed the State, he will rob private persons, commit murder--who knows?" "Oh, Lisbeth!" cried the Baroness, "keep such thoughts to yourself." At this moment Louise came up to the family group, now increased by the arrival of the two Hulot children and little Wenceslas to see if their grandmother's pockets did not contain some sweetmeats. "What is it, Louise?" asked one and another. "A man who wants to see Mademoiselle Fischer." "Who is the man?" asked Lisbeth. "He is in rags, mademoiselle, and covered with flue like a mattress-picker; his nose is red, and he smells of brandy.--He is one of those men who work half of the week at most." This uninviting picture had the effect of making Lisbeth hurry into the courtyard of the house in the Rue Louis-le-Grand, where she found a man smoking a pipe colored in a style that showed him an artist in tobacco. "Why have you come here, Pere Chardin?" she asked. "It is understood that you go, on the first Saturday in every month, to the gate of the Hotel Marneffe, Rue Barbet-de-Jouy. I have just come back after waiting there for five hours, and you did not come." "I did go there, good and charitable lady!" replied the mattress-picker. "But there was a game at pool going on at the Cafe des Savants, Rue du Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.--It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.--If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound on it; but it is mixed. God is not for all, as the saying goes. He has His favorites--well, He has the right. Now, here is the writing of your estimable relative and my very good friend--his political opinion." Chardin attempted to trace some zigzag lines in the air with the forefinger of his right hand. Lisbeth, not listening to him, read these few words: "DEAR COUSIN,--Be my Providence; give me three hundred francs this day. "HECTOR." "What does he want so much money for?" "The lan'lord!" said Chardin, still trying to sketch arabesques. "And then my son, you see, has come back from Algiers through Spain and Bayonee, and, and--he has _found_ nothing--against his rule, for a sharp cove is my son, saving your presence. How can he help it, he is in want of food; but he will repay all we lend him, for he is going to get up a

promised

How many times the word 'promised' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

studio

How many times the word 'studio' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

education

How many times the word 'education' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

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I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

fire

How many times the word 'fire' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

rose

How many times the word 'rose' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

amused

How many times the word 'amused' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

drew

How many times the word 'drew' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

severe

How many times the word 'severe' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

personalities

How many times the word 'personalities' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

monsieur

How many times the word 'monsieur' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

softening

How many times the word 'softening' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

tighter

How many times the word 'tighter' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

thoughts

How many times the word 'thoughts' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

thousand

How many times the word 'thousand' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

who

How many times the word 'who' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

obey

How many times the word 'obey' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

soul

How many times the word 'soul' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

bore

How many times the word 'bore' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

speak

How many times the word 'speak' appears in the text?

I am dreaming. Where am I?" "You!" I retorted, "you, madame, who are easily excited, and who, understanding so well the most imperceptible emotions, are able to cultivate in a man's heart the most delicate of sentiments, without crushing it, without shattering it at the very outset, you who have compassion for the tortures of the heart, and who, with the wit of the Parisian, combine a passionate temperament worthy of Spain or Italy----" She realized that my words were heavily charged with bitter irony; and, thereupon, without seeming to notice it, she interrupted me to say: "Oh! you describe me to suit your own taste. A strange kind of tyranny! You wish me not to be _myself_!" "Oh! I wish nothing," I cried, alarmed by the severity of her manner. "At all events, it is true, is it not, that you like to hear stories of the fierce passions, kindled in our heart by the enchanting women of the South?" "Yes. And then?" "Why, I will come to your house about nine o'clock to-morrow evening, and elucidate this mystery for you." "No," she replied, with a pout; "I wish it done now." "You have not yet given me the right to obey you when you say, 'I wish it.'" "At this moment," she said, with an exhibition of coquetry of the sort that drives men to despair, "I have a most violent desire to know this secret. To-morrow it may be that I will not listen to you." She smiled and we parted, she still as proud and as cruel, I as ridiculous, as ever. She had the audacity to waltz with a young aide-de-camp, and I was by turns angry, sulky, admiring, loving, and jealous. "Until to-morrow," she said to me, as she left the ball about two o'clock in the morning. "I won't go," I thought. "I give up. You are a thousand times more capricious, more fanciful, than--my imagination." The next evening we were seated in front of a bright fire in a dainty little salon, she on a couch, I on cushions almost at her feet, looking up into her face. The street was silent. The lamp shed a soft light. It was one of those evenings which delight the soul, one of those moments which are never forgotten, one of those hours passed in peace and longing, whose charm is always in later years a source of regret, even when we are happier. What can efface the deep imprint of the first solicitations of love? "Go on," she said. "I am listening." "But I dare not begin. There are passages in the story which are dangerous to the narrator. If I become excited, you will make me hold my peace." "Speak." "I obey. "Ernest-Jean Sarrasine was the only son of a prosecuting attorney of Franche-Comte," I began after a pause. "His father had, by faithful work, amassed a fortune which yielded an income of six to eight thousand francs, then considered a colossal fortune for an attorney in the provinces. Old Maitre Sarrasine, having but one child, determined to give him a thorough education; he hoped to make a magistrate of him, and to live long enough to see, in his old age, the grandson of Mathieu Sarrasine, a ploughman in the Saint-Die country, seated on the lilies, and dozing through the sessions for the greater glory of the Parliament; but Heaven had not that joy in store for the attorney. Young Sarrasine, entrusted to the care of the Jesuits at an early age, gave indications of an extraordinarily unruly disposition. His was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer's heroes. And, when he did choose to amuse himself, he displayed extraordinary ardor in his games. Whenever there was a contest of any sort between a comrade and himself, it rarely ended without bloodshed. If he were the weaker, he would use his teeth. Active and passive by turns, either lacking in aptitude, or too intelligent, his abnormal temperament caused him to distrust his masters as much as his schoolmates. Instead of learning the elements of the Greek language, he drew a picture of the reverend father who was interpreting a passage of Thucydides, sketched the teacher of mathematics, the prefect, the assistants, the man who administered punishment, and smeared all the walls with shapeless figures. Instead of singing the praises of the Lord in the chapel, he amused himself, during the services, by notching a bench; or, when he had stolen a piece of wood, he would carve the figure of some saint. If he had no wood or stone or pencil, he worked out his ideas with bread. Whether he copied the figures in the pictures which adorned the choir, or improvised, he always left at this seat rough sketches, whose obscene character drove the young fathers to despair; and the evil-tongued alleged that the Jesuits smiled at them. At last, if we are to believe college traditions, he was expelled because, while awaiting his turn to go to the confessional one Good Friday, he carved a figure of the Christ from a stick of wood. The impiety evidenced by that figure was too flagrant not to draw down chastisement on the artist. He had actually had the hardihood to place that decidedly cynical image on the top of the tabernacle! "Sarrasine came to Paris to seek a refuge against the threats of a father's malediction. Having one of those strong wills which know no obstacles, he obeyed the behests of his genius and entered Bouchardon's studio. He worked all day and went about at night begging for subsistence. Bouchardon, marveling at the young artist's intelligence and rapid progress, soon divined his pupil's destitute condition; he assisted him, became attached to him, and treated him like his own child. Then, when Sarrasine's genius stood revealed in one of those works wherein future talent contends with the effervescence of youth, the generous Bouchardon tried to restore him to the old attorney's good graces. The paternal wrath subsided in face of the famous sculptor's authority. All Besancon congratulated itself on having brought forth a future great man. In the first outburst of delight due to his flattered vanity, the miserly attorney supplied his son with the means to appear to advantage in society. The long and laborious study demanded by the sculptor's profession subdued for a long time Sarrasine's impetuous temperament and unruly genius. Bouchardon, foreseeing how violently the passions would some day rage in that youthful heart, as highly tempered perhaps as Michelangelo's, smothered its vehemence with constant toil. He succeeded in restraining within reasonable bounds Sarrasine's extraordinary impetuosity, by forbidding him to work, by proposing diversions when he saw that he was on the point of plunging into dissipation. But with that passionate nature, gentleness was always the most powerful of all weapons, and the master did not acquire great influence over his pupil until he had aroused his gratitude by fatherly kindness. "At the age of twenty-two Sarrasine was forcibly removed from the salutary influence which Bouchardon exercised over his morals and his habits. He paid the penalty of his genius by winning the prize for sculpture founded by the Marquis de Marigny, Madame de Pompadour's brother, who did so much for art. Diderot praised Bouchardon's pupil's statue as a masterpiece. Not without profound sorrow did the king's sculptor witness the departure for Italy of a young man whose profound ignorance of the things of life he had, as a matter of principle, refrained from enlightening. Sarrasine was Bouchardon's guest for six years. Fanatically devoted to his art, as Canova was at a later day, he rose at dawn and went to the studio, there to remain until night, and lived with his muse alone. If he went to the Comedie-Francaise, he was dragged thither by his master. He was so bored at Madame Geoffrin's, and in the fashionable society to which Bouchardon tried to introduce him, that he preferred to remain alone, and held aloof from the pleasures of that licentious age. He had no other mistresses than sculpture and Clotilde, one of the celebrities of the Opera. Even that intrigue was of brief duration. Sarrasine was decidedly ugly, always badly dressed, and naturally so independent, so irregular in his private life, that the illustrious nymph, dreading some catastrophe, soon remitted the sculptor to love of the arts. Sophie Arnould made some witty remark on the subject. She was surprised, I think, that her colleague was able to triumph over statues. "Sarrasine started for Italy in 1758. On the journey his ardent imagination took fire beneath a sky of copper and at the sight of the marvelous monuments with which the fatherland of the arts is strewn. He admired the statues, the frescoes, the pictures; and, fired with a spirit of emulation, he went on to Rome, burning to inscribe his name between the names of Michelangelo and Bouchardon. At first, therefore, he divided his time between his studio work and examination of the works of art which abound in Rome. He had already passed a fortnight in the ecstatic state into which all youthful imaginations fall at the sight of the queen of ruins, when he happened one evening to enter the Argentina theatre, in front of which there was an enormous crowd. He inquired the reasons for the presence of so great a throng, and every one answered by two names: "'Zambinella! Jomelli!' "He entered and took a seat in the pit, crowded between two unconscionably stout _abbati_; but luckily he was quite near the stage. The curtain rose. For the first time in his life he heard the music whose charms Monsieur Jean-Jacques Rousseau had extolled so eloquently at one of Baron d'Holbach's evening parties. The young sculptor's senses were lubricated, so to speak, by Jomelli's harmonious strains. The languorous peculiarities of those skilfully blended Italian voices plunged him in an ecstasy of delight. He sat there, mute and motionless, not even conscious of the crowding of the two priests. His soul poured out through his ears and his eyes. He seemed to be listening with every one of his pores. Suddenly a whirlwind of applause greeted the appearance of the prima donna. She came forward coquettishly to the footlights and curtsied to the audience with infinite grace. The brilliant light, the enthusiasm of a vast multitude, the illusion of the stage, the glamour of a costume which was most attractive for the time, all conspired in that woman's favor. Sarrasine cried aloud with pleasure. He saw before him at that moment the ideal beauty whose perfections he had hitherto sought here and there in nature, taking from one model, often of humble rank, the rounded outline of a shapely leg, from another the contour of the breast; from another her white shoulders; stealing the neck of that young girl, the hands of this woman, and the polished knees of yonder child, but never able to find beneath the cold skies of Paris the rich and satisfying creations of ancient Greece. La Zambinella displayed in her single person, intensely alive and delicate beyond words, all those exquisite proportions of the female form which he had so ardently longed to behold, and of which a sculptor is the most severe and at the same time the most passionate judge. She had an expressive mouth, eyes instinct with love, flesh of dazzling whiteness. And add to these details, which would have filled a painter's soul with rapture, all the marvelous charms of the Venuses worshiped and copied by the chisel of the Greeks. The artist did not tire of admiring the inimitable grace with which the arms were attached to the body, the wonderful roundness of the throat, the graceful curves described by the eyebrows and the nose, and the perfect oval of the face, the purity of its clean-cut lines, and the effect of the thick, drooping lashes which bordered the large and voluptuous eyelids. She was more than a woman; she was a masterpiece! In that unhoped-for creation there was love enough to enrapture all mankind, and beauties calculated to satisfy the most exacting critic. "Sarrasine devoured with his eyes what seemed to him Pygmalion's statue descended from its pedestal. When La Zambinella sang, he was beside himself. He was cold; then suddenly he felt a fire burning in the secret depths of his being, in what, for lack of a better word, we call the heart. He did not applaud, he said nothing; he felt a mad impulse, a sort of frenzy of the sort that seizes us only at the age when there is a something indefinably terrible and infernal in our desires. Sarrasine longed to rush upon the stage and seize that woman. His strength, increased a hundredfold by a moral depression impossible to describe,--for such phenomena take place in a sphere inaccessible to human observation,--insisted upon manifesting itself with deplorable violence. Looking at him, you would have said that he was a cold, dull man. Renown, science, future, life, prizes, all vanished. "'To win her love or die!' Such was the sentence Sarrasine pronounced upon himself. "He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice, to inhale the fragrant powder with which her hair was covered, to see the slightest inequalities of her face, to count the blue veins which threaded their way beneath the satiny skin. And that fresh, brisk voice of silvery _timbre_, flexible as a thread to which the faintest breath of air gives form, which it rolls and unrolls, tangles and blows away, that voice attacked his heart so fiercely that he more than once uttered an involuntary exclamation, extorted by the convulsive ecstasy too rarely evoked by human passions. He was soon obliged to leave the theatre. His trembling legs almost refused to bear him. He was prostrated, weak, like a nervous man who has given way to a terrible burst of anger. He had had such exquisite pleasure, or perhaps had suffered so, that his life had flowed away like water from an overturned vessel. He felt a void within him, a sense of goneness like the utter lack of strength which discourages a convalescent just recovering from a serious sickness. Overwhelmed by inexplicable melancholy, he sat down on the steps of a church. There, with his back resting against a pillar, he lost himself in a fit of meditation as confused as a dream. Passion had dealt him a crushing blow. On his return to his apartments he was seized by one of those paroxysms of activity which reveal to us the presence of new principles in our existence. A prey to that first fever of love which resembles pain as much as pleasure, he sought to defeat his impatience and his frenzy by sketching La Zambinella from memory. It was a sort of material meditation. Upon one leaf La Zambinella appeared in that pose, apparently calm and cold, affected by Raphael, Georgione, and all the great painters. On another, she was coyly turning her head as she finished a roulade, and seemed to be listening to herself. Sarrasine drew his mistress in all poses: he drew her unveiled, seated, standing, reclining, chaste, and amorous--interpreting, thanks to the delirious activity of his pencil, all the fanciful ideas which beset our imagination when our thoughts are completely engrossed by a mistress. But his frantic thoughts outran his pencil. He met La Zambinella, spoke to her, entreated her, exhausted a thousand years of life and happiness with her, placing her in all imaginable situations, trying the future with her, so to speak. The next day he sent his servant to hire a box near the stage for the whole season. Then, like all young men of powerful feelings, he exaggerated the difficulties of his undertaking, and gave his passion, for its first pasturage, the joy of being able to admire his mistress without obstacle. The golden age of love, during which we enjoy our own sentiments, and in which we are almost as happy by ourselves, was not likely to last long with Sarrasine. However, events surprised him when he was still under the spell of that springtime hallucination, as naive as it was voluptuous. In a week he lived a whole lifetime, occupied through the day in molding the clay with which he succeeded in copying La Zambinella, notwithstanding the veils, the skirts, the waists, and the bows of ribbon which concealed her from him. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished. First of all, he familiarized himself gradually with the too intense emotions which his mistress' singing caused him; then he taught his eyes to look at her, and was finally able to contemplate her at his leisure without fearing an explosion of concealed frenzy, like that which had seized him the first day. His passion became more profound as it became more tranquil. But the unsociable sculptor would not allow his solitude, peopled as it was with images, adorned with the fanciful creations of hope, and full of happiness, to be disturbed by his comrades. His love was so intense and so ingenuous, that he had to undergo the innocent scruples with which we are assailed when we love for the first time. As he began to realize that he would soon be required to bestir himself, to intrigue, to ask where La Zambinella lived, to ascertain whether she had a mother, an uncle, a guardian, a family,--in a word, as he reflected upon the methods of seeing her, of speaking to her, he felt that his heart was so swollen with such ambitious ideas, that he postponed those cares until the following day, as happy in his physical sufferings as in his intellectual pleasures." "But," said Madame de Rochefide, interrupting me, "I see nothing of Marianina or her little old man in all this." "You see nothing but him!" I cried, as vexed as an author for whom some one has spoiled the effect of a _coup de theatre_. "For some days," I resumed after a pause, "Sarrasine had been so faithful in attendance in his box, and his glances expressed such passionate love, that his passion for La Zambinella's voice would have been the town-talk of Paris, if the episode had happened here; but in Italy, madame, every one goes to the theatre for his own enjoyment, with all his own passions, with a heartfelt interest which precludes all thought of espionage with opera-glasses. However, the sculptor's frantic admiration could not long escape the notice of the performers, male and female. One evening the Frenchman noticed that they were laughing at him in the wings. It is hard to say what violent measures he might have resorted to, had not La Zambinella come on the stage. She cast at Sarrasine one of those eloquent glances which often say more than women intend. That glance was a complete revelation in itself. Sarrasine was beloved! "'If it is a mere caprice,' he thought, already accusing his mistress of too great ardor, 'she does not know the sort of domination to which she is about to become subject. Her caprice will last, I trust, as long as my life.' "At that moment, three light taps on the door of his box attracted the artist's attention. He opened the door. An old woman entered with an air of mystery. "'Young man,' she said, 'if you wish to be happy, be prudent. Wrap yourself in a cloak, pull a broad-brimmed hat over your eyes, and be on the Rue du Corso, in front of the Hotel d'Espagne, about ten o'clock to-night.' "'I will be there,' he replied, putting two louis in the duenna's wrinkled hand. "He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last. Then he hurried home, in order to borrow from his wardrobe all the charms it could loan him. As he left the theatre, a stranger grasped his arm. "'Beware, Signor Frenchman,' he said in his ear. 'This is a matter of life and death. Cardinal Cicognara is her protector, and he is no trifler.' "If a demon had placed the deep pit of hell between Sarrasine and La Zambinella, he would have crossed it with one stride at that moment. Like the horses of the immortal gods described by Homer, the sculptor's love had traversed vast spaces in a twinkling. "'If death awaited me on leaving the house, I would go the more quickly,' he replied. "'_Poverino!_' cried the stranger, as he disappeared. "To talk of danger to a man in love is to sell him pleasure. Sarrasine's valet had never seen his master so painstaking in the matter of dress. His finest sword, a gift from Bouchardon, the bow-knot Clotilde gave him, his coat with gold braid, his waistcoat of cloth of silver, his gold snuff-box, his valuable watch, everything was taken from its place, and he arrayed himself like a maiden about to appear before her first lover. At the appointed hour, drunk with love and boiling over with hope, Sarrasine, his nose buried in his cloak, hurried to the rendezvous appointed by the old woman. She was waiting. "'You are very late,' she said. 'Come.' "She led the Frenchman through several narrow streets and stopped in front of a palace of attractive appearance. She knocked; the door opened. She led Sarrasine through a labyrinth of stairways, galleries, and apartments which were lighted only by uncertain gleams of moonlight, and soon reached a door through the cracks of which stole a bright light, and from which came the joyous sound of several voices. Sarrasine was suddenly blinded when, at a word from the old woman, he was admitted to that mysterious apartment and found himself in a salon as brilliantly lighted as it was sumptuously furnished; in the centre stood a bountifully supplied table, laden with inviolable bottles, with laughing decanters whose red facets sparkled merrily. He recognized the singers from the theatre, male and female, mingled with charming women, all ready to begin an artists' spree and waiting only for him. Sarrasine restrained a feeling of displeasure and put a good face on the matter. He had hoped for a dimly lighted chamber, his mistress leaning over a brazier, a jealous rival within two steps, death and love, confidences exchanged in low tones, heart to heart, hazardous kisses, and faces so near together that La Zambinella's hair would have touched caressingly his desire-laden brow, burning with happiness. "'_Vive la folie!_' he cried. '_Signori e belle donne_, you will allow me to postpone my revenge and bear witness to my gratitude for the welcome you offer a poor sculptor.' "After receiving congratulations not lacking in warmth from most of those present, whom he knew by sight, he tried to approach the couch on which La Zambinella was nonchalantly reclining. Ah! how his heart beat when he spied a tiny foot in one of those slippers which--if you will allow me to say so, madame--formerly imparted to a woman's feet such a coquettish, voluptuous look that I cannot conceive how men could resist them. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.'s time contributed somewhat, I fancy, to the demoralization of Europe and the clergy." "Somewhat!" exclaimed the marchioness. "Have you read nothing, pray?" "La Zambinella," I continued, smiling, "had boldly crossed her legs, and as she prattled swung the upper one, a duchess' attitude very well suited to her capricious type of beauty, overflowing with a certain attractive suppleness. She had laid aside her stage costume, and wore a waist which outlined a slender figure, displayed to the best advantage by a _panier_ and a satin dress embroidered with blue flowers. Her breast, whose treasures were concealed by a coquettish arrangement of lace, was of a gleaming white. Her hair was dressed almost like Madame du Barry's; her face, although overshadowed by a large cap, seemed only the daintier therefor, and the powder was very becoming to her. She smiled graciously at the sculptor. Sarrasine, disgusted beyond measure at finding himself unable to speak to her without witnesses, courteously seated himself beside her, and discoursed of music, extolling her prodigious talent; but his voice trembled with love and fear and hope. "'What do you fear?' queried Vitagliani, the most celebrated singer in the troupe. 'Go on, you have no rival here to fear.' "After he had said this the tenor smiled silently. The lips of all the guests repeated that smile, in which there was a lurking expression of malice likely to escape a lover. The publicity of his love was like a sudden dagger-thrust in Sarrasine's heart. Although possessed of a certain strength of character, and although nothing that might happen could subdue the violence of his passion, it had not before occurred to him that La Zambinella was almost a courtesan, and that he could not hope to enjoy at one and the same time the pure delights which would make a maiden's love so sweet, and the passionate transports with which one must purchase the perilous favors of an actress. He reflected and resigned himself to his fate. The supper was served. Sarrasine and La Zambinella seated themselves side by side without ceremony. During the first half of the feast the artists exercised some restraint, and the sculptor was able to converse with the singer. He found that she was very bright and quick-witted; but she was amazingly ignorant and seemed weak and superstitious. The delicacy of her organs was reproduced in her understanding. When Vitagliani opened the first bottle of champagne, Sarrasine read in his neighbor's eyes a shrinking dread of the report caused by the release of the gas. The involuntary shudder of that thoroughly feminine temperament was interpreted by the amorous artist as indicating extreme delicacy of feeling. This weakness delighted the Frenchman. There is so much of the element of protection in a man's love! "'You may make use of my power as a shield!' "Is not that sentence written at the root of all declarations of love? Sarrasine, who was too passionately in love to make fine speeches to the fair Italian, was, like all lovers, grave, jovial, meditative, by turns. Although he seemed to listen to the guests, he did not hear a word that they said, he was so wrapped up in the pleasure of sitting by her side, of touching her hand, of waiting on her. He was swimming in a sea of concealed joy. Despite the eloquence of divers glances they exchanged, he was amazed at La Zambinella's continued reserve toward him. She had begun, it is true, by touching his foot with hers and stimulating his passion with the mischievous pleasure of a woman who is free and in love; but she had suddenly enveloped herself in maidenly modesty, after she had heard Sarrasine relate an incident which illustrated the extreme violence of his temper. When the supper became a debauch, the guests began to sing, inspired by the Peralta and the Pedro-Ximenes. There were fascinating duets, Calabrian ballads, Spanish _sequidillas_, and Neapolitan _canzonettes_. Drunkenness was in all eyes, in the music, in the hearts and voices of the guests. There was a sudden overflow of bewitching vivacity, of cordial unconstraint, of Italian good nature, of which no words can convey an idea to those who know only the evening parties of Paris, the routs of London, or the clubs of Vienna. Jests and words of love flew from side to side like bullets in a battle, amid laughter, impieties, invocations to the Blessed Virgin or the _Bambino_. One man lay on a sofa and fell asleep. A young woman listened to a declaration, unconscious that she was spilling Xeres wine on the tablecloth. Amid all this confusion La Zambinella, as if terror-stricken, seemed lost in thought. She refused to drink, but ate perhaps a little too much; but gluttony is attractive in women, it is said. Sarrasine, admiring his mistress' modesty, indulged in serious reflections concerning the future. "'She desires to be married, I presume,' he said to himself. "Thereupon he abandoned himself to blissful anticipations of marriage with her. It seemed to him that his whole life would be too short to exhaust the living spring of happiness which he found in the depths of his heart. Vitagliani, who sat on his other side, filled his glass so often that, about three in the morning, Sarrasine, while not absolutely drunk, was powerless to resist his delirious passion. In a moment of frenzy he seized the woman and carried her to a sort of boudoir which opened from the salon, and toward which he had more than once turned his eyes. The Italian was armed with a dagger. "'If you come hear me,' she said, 'I shall be compelled to plunge this blade into your heart. Go! you would despise me. I have conceived too great a respect for your character to abandon myself to you thus. I do not choose to destroy the sentiment with which you honor me.' "'Ah!' said Sarrasine, 'to stimulate a passion is a poor way to extinguish it! Are

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I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

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I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

river

How many times the word 'river' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

pots

How many times the word 'pots' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

tandem

How many times the word 'tandem' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

forsooth

How many times the word 'forsooth' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

bird

How many times the word 'bird' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

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How many times the word 'book' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

marvel

How many times the word 'marvel' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

definite

How many times the word 'definite' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

eolian

How many times the word 'eolian' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

rich

How many times the word 'rich' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

principal

How many times the word 'principal' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

thinking

How many times the word 'thinking' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

all

How many times the word 'all' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

better

How many times the word 'better' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

ivory

How many times the word 'ivory' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

variety

How many times the word 'variety' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

would

How many times the word 'would' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

memoria

How many times the word 'memoria' appears in the text?

I am likely neither to receive nor do harm by remaining here between this and Easter." "What! remain here, sir, with all the young men about?" asked Dr. Bluett, with astonishment, "with all the young men about you, sir?" Charles really had not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen of the College." Dr. Bluett's jaw dropped, and his eyes assumed a hollow aspect. "You will corrupt their minds, sir," he said,--"you will corrupt their minds." Then he added, in a sepulchral tone, which came from the very depths of his inside: "You will introduce them, sir, to some subtle Jesuit--to some subtle Jesuit, Mr. Reding." CHAPTER XI. Mrs. Reding was by this time settled in the neighbourhood of old friends in Devonshire; and there Charles spent the winter and early spring with her and his three sisters, the eldest of whom was two years older than himself. "Come, shut your dull books, Charles," said Caroline, the youngest, a girl of fourteen; "make way for the tea; I am sure you have read enough. You sometimes don't speak a word for an hour together; at least, you might tell us what you are reading about." "My dear Carry, you would not be much the wiser if I did," answered Charles; "it is Greek history." "Oh," said Caroline, "I know more than you think; I have read Goldsmith, and good part of Rollin, besides Pope's Homer." "Capital!" said Charles; "well, I am reading about Pelopidas--who was he?" "Pelopidas!" answered Caroline, "I ought to know. Oh, I recollect, he had an ivory shoulder." "Well said, Carry; but I have not yet a distinct idea of him either. Was he a statue, or flesh and blood, with this shoulder of his?" "Oh, he was alive; somebody ate him, I think." "Well, was he a god or a man?" said Charles. "Oh, it's a mistake of mine," said Caroline; "he was a goddess, the ivory-footed--no, that was Thetis." "My dear Caroline," said her mother, "do not talk so at random; think before you speak; you know better than this." "She has, ma'am," said Charles, "what Mr. Jennings would call 'a very inaccurate mind.'" "I recollect perfectly now," said Caroline, "he was a friend of Epaminondas." "When did he live?" asked Charles. Caroline was silent. "Oh, Carry," said Eliza, "don't you recollect the _memoria technica_?" "I never could learn it," said Caroline; "I hate it." "Nor can I," said Mary; "give me good native numbers; they are sweet and kindly, like flowers in a bed; but I don't like your artificial flower-pots." "But surely," said Charles, "a _memoria technica_ makes you recollect a great many dates which you otherwise could not?" "The crabbed names are more difficult even to pronounce than the numbers to learn," said Caroline. "That's because you have very few dates to get up," said Charles; "but common writing is a _memoria technica_." "That's beyond Caroline," said Mary. "What are words but artificial signs for ideas?" said Charles; "they are more musical, but as arbitrary. There is no more reason why the sound 'hat' should mean the particular thing so called, which we put on our heads, than why 'abul-distof' should stand for 1520." "Oh, my dear child," said Mrs. Reding, "how you run on! Don't be paradoxical." "My dear mother," said Charles, coming round to the fire, "I don't want to be paradoxical; it's only a generalization." "Keep it, then, for the schools, my dear; I dare say it will do you good there," continued Mrs. Reding, while she continued her hemming; "poor Caroline will be as much put to it in logic as in history." "I am in a dilemma," said Charles, as he seated himself on a little stool at his mother's feet; "for Carry calls me stupid if I am silent, and you call me paradoxical if I speak." "Good sense," said his mother, "is the golden mean." "And what is common sense?" said Charles. "The silver mean," said Eliza. "Well done," said Charles; "it is small change for every hour." "Rather," said Caroline, "it is the copper mean, for we want it, like alms for the poor, to give away. People are always asking _me_ for it. If I can't tell who Isaac's father was, Mary says, 'O Carry, where's your common sense?' If I am going out of doors, Eliza runs up, 'Carry,' she cries, 'you haven't common sense; your shawl's all pinned awry.' And when I ask mamma the shortest way across the fields to Dalton, she says, 'Use your common sense, my dear.'" "No wonder you have so little of it, poor dear child," said Charles; "no bank could stand such a run." "No such thing," said Mary; "it flows into her bank ten times as fast as it comes out. She has plenty of it from us; and what she does with it no one can make out; she either hoards or she speculates." "'Like the great ocean,'" said Charles, "'which receives the rivers, yet is not full.'" "That's somewhere in Scripture," said Eliza. "In the 'Preacher,'" said Charles, and he continued the quotation; "'All things are full of labour, man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.'" His mother sighed; "Take my cup, my love," she said; "no more." "I know why Charles is so fond of the 'Preacher,'" said Mary; "it's because he's tired of reading; 'much study is a weariness to the flesh.' I wish we could help you, dear Charles." "My dear boy, I really think you read too much," said his mother; "only think how many hours you have been at it to-day. You are always up one or two hours before the sun; and I don't think you have had your walk to-day." "It's so dismal walking alone, my dear mother; and as to walking with you and my sisters, it's pleasant enough, but no exercise." "But, Charlie," said Mary, "that's absurd of you; these nice sunny days, which you could not expect at this season, are just the time for long walks. Why don't you resolve to make straight for the plantations, or to mount Hart Hill, or go right through Dun Wood and back?" "Because all woods are dun and dingy just now, Mary, and not green. It's quite melancholy to see them." "Just the finest time of the year," said his mother; "it's universally allowed; all painters say that the autumn is the season to see a landscape in." "All gold and russet," said Mary. "It makes me melancholy," said Charles. "What! the beautiful autumn make you melancholy?" asked his mother. "Oh, my dear mother, you mean to say that I am paradoxical again; I cannot help it. I like spring; but autumn saddens me." "Charles always says so," said Mary; "he thinks nothing of the rich hues into which the sober green changes; he likes the dull uniform of summer." "No, it is not that," said Charles; "I never saw anything so gorgeous as Magdalen Water-walk, for instance, in October; it is quite wonderful, the variety of colours. I admire, and am astonished; but I cannot love or like it. It is because I can't separate the look of things from what it portends; that rich variety is but the token of disease and death." "Surely," said Mary, "colours have their own intrinsic beauty; we may like them for their own sake." "No, no," said Charles, "we always go by association; else why not admire raw beef, or a toad, or some other reptiles, which are as beautiful and bright as tulips or cherries, yet revolting, because we consider what they are, not how they look?" "What next?" said his mother, looking up from her work; "my dear Charles, you are not serious in comparing cherries to raw beef or to toads?" "No, my dear mother," answered Charles, laughing, "no, I only say that they look like them, not are like them." "A toad look like a cherry, Charles!" persisted Mrs. Reding. "Oh, my dear mother," he answered, "I can't explain; I really have said nothing out of the way. Mary does not think I have." "But," said Mary, "why not associate pleasant thoughts with autumn?" "It is impossible," said Charles; "it is the sick season and the deathbed of Nature. I cannot look with pleasure on the decay of the mother of all living. The many hues upon the landscape are but the spots of dissolution." "This is a strained, unnatural view, Charles," said Mary; "shake yourself, and you will come to a better mind. Don't you like to see a rich sunset? yet the sun is leaving you." Charles was for a moment posed; then he said, "Yes, but there was no autumn in Eden; suns rose and set in Paradise, but the leaves were always green, and did not wither. There was a river to feed them. Autumn is the 'fall.'" "So, my dearest Charles," said Mrs. Reding, "you don't go out walking these fine days because there was no autumn in the garden of Eden?" "Oh," said Charles, laughing, "it is cruel to bring me so to book. What I meant was, that my reading was a direct obstacle to walking, and that the fine weather did not tempt me to remove it." "I am glad we have you here, my dear," said his mother, "for we can force you out now and then; at College I suspect you never walk at all." "It's only for a time, ma'am," said Charles; "when my examination is over, I will take as long walks as I did with Edward Gandy that winter after I left school." "Ah, how merry you were then, Charles!" said Mary; "so happy with the thoughts of Oxford before you!" "Ah, my dear," said Mrs. Reding, "you'll then walk too much, as you now walk too little. My good boy, you are so earnest about everything." "It's a shame to find fault with him for being diligent," said Mary: "you like him to read for honours, I know, mamma; but if he is to get them he must read a great deal." "True, my love," answered Mrs. Reding; "Charles is a dear good fellow, I know. How glad we all shall be to have him ordained, and settled in a curacy!" Charles sighed. "Come, Mary," he said, "give us some music, now the urn has gone away. Play me that beautiful air of Beethoven, the one I call 'The Voice of the Dead.'" "Oh, Charles, you do give such melancholy names to things!" cried Mary. "The other day," said Eliza, "we had a most beautiful scent wafted across the road as we were walking, and he called it 'the Ghost of the Past;' and he says that the sound of the Eolian harp is 'remorseful.'" "Now, you'd think all that very pretty," said Charles, "if you saw it in a book of poems; but you call it melancholy when I say it." "Oh, yes," said Caroline, "because poets never mean what they say, and would not be poetical unless they were melancholy." "Well," said Mary, "I play to you, Charles, on this one condition, that you let me give you some morning a serious lecture on that melancholy of yours, which, I assure you is growing on you." CHAPTER XII. Charles's perplexities rapidly took a definite form on his coming into Devonshire. The very fact of his being at home, and not at Oxford where he ought to have been, brought them before his mind; and the near prospect of his examination and degree justified the consideration of them. No addition indeed was made to their substance, as already described; but they were no longer vague and indistinct, but thoroughly apprehended by him; nor did he make up his mind that they were insurmountable, but he saw clearly what it was that had to be surmounted. The particular form of argument into which they happened to fall was determined by the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, and was this, viz. how he could subscribe the Articles _ex animo_, without faith, more or less, in his Church as the imponent; and next, how he could have faith in her, her history and present condition being what they were. The fact of these difficulties was a great source of distress to him. It was aggravated by the circumstance that he had no one to talk to, or to sympathize with him under them. And it was completed by the necessity of carrying about with him a secret which he dared not tell to others, yet which he foreboded must be told one day. All this was the secret of that depression of spirits which his sisters had observed in him. He was one day sitting thoughtfully over the fire with a book in his hand, when Mary entered. "I wish you would teach _me_ the art of reading Greek in live coals," she said. "Sermons in stones, and good in everything," answered Charles. "You do well to liken yourself to the melancholy Jaques," she replied. "Not so," said he, "but to the good Duke Charles, who was banished to the green forest." "A great grievance," answered Mary, "we being the wild things with whom you are forced to live. My dear Charles," she continued, "I hope the tittle-tattle that drove you here does not still dwell on your mind." "Why, it is not very pleasant, Mary, after having been on the best terms with the whole College, and in particular with the Principal and Jennings, at last to be sent down, as a rowing-man might be rusticated for tandem-driving. You have no notion how strong the old Principal was, and Jennings too." "Well, my dearest Charles, you must not brood over it," said Mary, "as I fear you are doing." "I don't see where it is to end," said Charles; "the Principal expressly said that my prospects at the University were knocked up. I suppose they would not give me a testimonial, if I wished to stand for a fellowship anywhere." "Oh, it is a temporary mistake," said Mary; "I dare say by this time they know better. And it's one great gain to have you with us; we, at least, ought to be obliged to them." "I have been so very careful, Mary," said Charles; "I have never been to the evening-parties, or to the sermons which are talked about in the University. It's quite amazing to me what can have put it into their heads. At the Article-lecture I now and then asked a question, but it was really because I wished to understand and get up the different subjects. Jennings fell on me the moment I entered his room. I can call it nothing else; very civil at first in his manner, but there was something in his eye before he spoke which told me at once what was coming. It's odd a man of such self-command as he should not better hide his feelings; but I have always been able to see what Jennings was thinking about." "Depend on it," said his sister, "you will think nothing of it whatever this time next year. It will be like a summer-cloud, come and gone." "And then it damps me, and interrupts me in my reading. I fall back thinking of it, and cannot give my mind to my books, or exert myself. It is very hard." Mary sighed; "I wish I could help you," she said; "but women can do so little. Come, let me take the fretting, and you the reading; that'll be a fair division." "And then my dear mother too," he continued; "what will she think of it when it comes to her ears? and come it must." "Nonsense," said Mary, "don't make a mountain of a mole-hill. You will go back, take your degree, and nobody will be the wiser." "No, it can't be so," said Charles seriously. "What do you mean?" asked Mary. "These things don't clear off in that way," said he; "it is no summer-cloud; it may turn to rain, for what they know." Mary looked at him with some surprise. "I mean," he said, "that I have no confidence that they will let me take my degree, any more than let me reside there." "That is very absurd," said she; "it's what I meant by brooding over things, and making mountains of mole-hills." "My sweet Mary," he said, affectionately taking her hand, "my only real confidant and comfort, I would tell you something more, if you could bear it." Mary was frightened, and her heart beat. "Charles," she said, withdrawing her hand, "any pain is less than to see you thus. I see too clearly that something is on your mind." Charles put his feet on the fender, and looked down. "I _can't_ tell you," he said, at length, with vehemence; then, seeing by her face how much he was distressing her, he said, half-laughing, as if to turn the edge of his words, "My dear Mary, when people bear witness against one, one can't help fearing that there is, perhaps, something to bear witness against." "Impossible, Charles! _you_ corrupt other people! _you_ falsify the Prayer Book and Articles! impossible!" "Mary, which do you think would be the best judge whether my face was dirty and my coat shabby, you or I? Well, then, perhaps Jennings, or at least common report, knows more about me than I do myself." "You must not speak in this way," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do pain me now. What can you mean?" Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have begun the subject." There was a silence. "My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything, and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way. But really you frighten me." "Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't." "But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford life? not we." "No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders." "Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and she sat down with a look of great anxiety. "Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a stranger in, the Church of England." There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles." "No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this, and no more--that I feel out of place." "Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension, you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it." "I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go, whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel. No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me. And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down." "Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued: "Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat them; we used to apply them to you; something about hope or love 'making all things bright with her own magic smile.'" Charles was touched when he was reminded of what he had been three years before; he said: "I suppose it is coming out of shadows into realities." "There has been much to sadden you," she added, sighing; "and now these nasty books are too much for you. Why should you go up for honours? what's the good of it?" There was a pause again. "I wish I could bring home to you," said Charles, "the number of intimations, as it were, which have been given me of my uncongeniality, as it may be called, with things as they are. What perhaps most affected me, was a talk I had with Carlton, whom I have lately been reading with; for, if I could not agree with _him_, or rather, if _he_ bore witness against me, who could be expected to say a word for me? I cannot bear the pomp and pretence which I see everywhere. I am not speaking against individuals; they are very good persons, I know; but, really, if you saw Oxford as it is! The Heads with such large incomes; they are indeed very liberal of their money, and their wives are often simple, self-denying persons, as every one says, and do a great deal of good in the place; but I speak of the system. Here are ministers of Christ with large incomes, living in finely furnished houses, with wives and families, and stately butlers and servants in livery, giving dinners all in the best style, condescending and gracious, waving their hands and mincing their words, as if they were the cream of the earth, but without anything to make them clergymen but a black coat and a white tie. And then Bishops or Deans come, with women tucked under their arm; and they can't enter church but a fine powdered man runs first with a cushion for them to sit on, and a warm sheepskin to keep their feet from the stones." Mary laughed: "Well, my dear Charles," she said, "I did not think you had seen so much of Bishops, Deans, Professors, and Heads of houses at St. Saviour's; you have kept good company." "I have my eyes about me," said Charles, "and have had quite opportunities enough; I can't go into particulars." "Well, you have been hard on them, I think," said Mary; "when a poor old man has the rheumatism," and she sighed a little, "it is hard he mayn't have his feet kept from the cold." "Ah, Mary, I can't bring it home to you! but you must, please, throw yourself into what I say, and not criticize my instances or my terms. What I mean is, that there is a worldly air about everything, as unlike as possible the spirit of the Gospel. I don't impute to the dons ambition or avarice; but still, what Heads of houses, Fellows, and all of them evidently put before them as an end is, to enjoy the world in the first place, and to serve God in the second. Not that they don't make it their final object to get to heaven; but their immediate object is to be comfortable, to marry, to have a fair income, station, and respectability, a convenient house, a pleasant country, a sociable neighbourhood. There is nothing high about them. I declare I think the Puseyites are the only persons who have high views in the whole place; I should say, the only persons who profess them, for I don't know them to speak about them." He thought of White. "Well, you are talking of things I don't know about," said Mary; "but I can't think all the young clever men of the place are looking out for ease and comfort; nor can I believe that in the Church of Rome money has always been put to the best of purposes." "I said nothing about the Church of Rome," said Charles; "why do you bring in the Church of Rome? that's another thing altogether. What I mean is, that there is a worldly smell about Oxford which I can't abide. I am not using 'worldly' in its worse sense. People are religious and charitable; but--I don't like to mention names--but I know various dons, and the notion of evangelical poverty, the danger of riches, the giving up all for Christ, all those ideas which are first principles in Scripture, as I read it, don't seem to enter into their idea of religion. I declare, I think that is the reason why the Puseyites are so unpopular." "Well, I can't see," said Mary, "why you must be disgusted with the world, and with your place and duties in it, because there are worldly people in it." "But I was speaking of Carlton," said Charles; "do you know, good fellow as he is--and I love, admire, and respect him exceedingly--he actually laid it down almost as an axiom, that a clergyman of the English Church ought to marry? He said that celibacy might be very well in other communions, but that a man made himself a fool, and was out of joint with the age, who remained single in the Church of England." Poor Charles was so serious, and the proposition which he related was so monstrous, that Mary, in spite of her real distress, could not help laughing out. "I really cannot help it," she said; "well, it really was a most extraordinary statement, I confess. But, my dear Charlie, you are not afraid that he will carry you off against your will, and marry you to some fair lady before you know where you are?" "Don't talk in that way, Mary," said Charles; "I can't bear a joke just now. I mean, Carlton is so sensible a man, and takes so just a view of things, that the conviction flashed on my mind, that the Church of England really was what he implied it to be--a form of religion very unlike that of the Apostles." This sobered Mary indeed. "Alas," she said, "we have got upon very different ground now; not what our Church thinks of you, but what you think of our Church." There was a pause. "I thought this was at the bottom," she said; "I never could believe that a parcel of people, some of whom you cared nothing for, telling you that you were not in your place, would make you think so, unless you first felt it yourself. That's the real truth; and then you interpret what others say in your own way." Another uncomfortable pause. Then she continued: "I see how it will be. When you take up a thing, Charles, I know well you don't lay it down. No, you have made up your mind already. We shall see you a Roman Catholic." "Do _you_ then bear witness against me, Mary, as well as the rest?" said he sorrowfully. She saw her mistake. "No," she answered; "all I say is, that it rests with yourself, not with others. _If_ you have made up your mind, there's no help for it. It is not others who drive you, who bear witness against you. Dear Charles, don't mistake me, and don't deceive yourself. You have a strong _will_." At this moment Caroline entered the room. "I could not think where you were, Mary," she said; "here Perkins has been crying after you ever so long. It's something about dinner; I don't know what. We have hunted high and low, and never guessed you were helping Charles at his books." Mary gave a deep sigh, and left the room. CHAPTER XIII. Neither to brother nor to sister had the conversation been a satisfaction or relief. "I can go nowhere for sympathy," thought Charles; "dear Mary does not understand me more than others. I can't bring out what I mean and feel; and when I attempt to do so, my statements and arguments seem absurd to myself. It has been a great effort to tell her; and in one sense it is a gain, for it is a trial over. Else I have taken nothing by my move, and might as well have held my tongue. I have simply pained her without relieving myself. By-the-bye, she has gone off believing about twice as much as the fact. I was going to set her right when Carry came in. My only difficulty is about taking orders; and she thinks I am going to be a Roman Catholic. How absurd! but women will run on so; give an inch, and they take an ell. I know nothing of the Roman Catholics. The simple question is, whether I should go to the Bar or the Church. I declare, I think I have made vastly too much of it myself. I ought to have begun this way with her,--I ought to have said, 'D'you know, I have serious thoughts of reading law?' I've made a hash of it." Poor Mary, on the other hand, was in a confusion of thought and feeling as painful as it was new to her; though for a time household matters and necessary duties towards her younger sisters occupied her mind in a different direction. She had been indeed taken at her word; little had she expected what would come on her when she engaged to "take the fretting, while he took the reading." She had known

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