The Tragic Comedians, Complete

scarcely calling for a plan of action. Who can hold her back when a woman is decided to move? Husbands have tried it vainly, and parents; and though the husband and the parents are not d

re intent soothed his inherent wildness, in the contemplation of the possibility that the latter might be roused by those people, her parents, to upset his honourable ambition to win a wife after the fashion of orderly citizens. It woul

imation ever vivider in contrast with obstruction? Her hair would kindle the frosty shades to a throb of vitality: it would be sunshine in the subterranean sp

pulses of the minutes, much as she did, only more fierily. The ceaseless warfare called politics must have been the distraction: he forgot any other of another kind. He was a bridegroom for whom the rosed Alps rolled out, a panorama of illimitable felicity. And there were certain things he must overcome before he could name hi

wyer bent on acting within and up to the measure of the law as well as pleading eloquently. The desire to wing a telegram to her he thought it wise to repress, and he found himself in consequence composing verses, turgid enough, even to his own judgement. Poets would have failed at

nning of the battle and despair at the first repulse. 'And now my turn!' said he, not overjoyously. The words Jew and demagogue and baroness, quoted in the letter, were old missiles hurling again at him. But Clotilde's parents

at the answer to a tap. He started; his face was a shield's welcom

er speeding on his most kell

I have

in his hands, palpit

her: 'What

le, hard in her throat

m both subsequent to th

s hop

father an

them. They hate-hate you, hate me for thinking of you. I had no choice; I wrote at once and followed my letter; I ran

e sank on the nest,

d up at him. Her strained pale

said he, glancing round at the room, with a sensatio

They will not listen; they lo

e not met

not, will n

y mu

daring to say she loves you, is

he fiery laugh of a thirster for strife. 'They

hat she said I cannot recollect: it was a hiss. Then my father. Your name changed his features and his voice. They treated me as impure for mentioning it. You must have deadly enemies. I was unable to recognize either father or mothe

esolution

gentle kind of drillmaster straightens a fair pupil's shoulders. 'Yes, you have shown courage. Now it must be submission to

gether alone. She could not refuse the protection he offered in a person of her own sex; and now, flushing with the thought of where they were together alone, feminine modesty shrivelled at the idea of entreating a man to bear her off, though feminine desperation urged to it. She felt herself very bare of clothing, and she named a lady, a Madame Emerly, living near the hotel. Her heart sank like a stone. 'It is for you!' cried Alvan,

the carriage he had ordered that she was already half a wife. She was not conscious of a blush. The sprite in the young woman's mind whispered of fire not burning when one is in the heart of it. And undoubtedly, contemplated from the outside, this room was the heart of fire. An impulse to fall on Alvan's breast and bless him for his chivalrousness had to be kept under lest she should wreck the thing she praised. Otherwise

e whole Teutonic portion of the Continent knew Alvan by reputation. He was insurrectionally notorious in morals and menacingly in politics; but his fine air, handsome face, flowing tongue, and the signal proof of his respect for

east her sincerity before

he house. What was to be done? And was the visit accidental? She announced it, and Clotilde cried out, bu

emonitorily; and then she said: 'I think indeed it will be safer, if

otilde replied

rigid with an entreaty tha

ened, madame, with the shadow of a conventional untruth on our account. And when it would be bad policy?... Oh, no, worse than the sin! as

es knew what there would be to encounter better than he. But th

downstairs to Madame Emerly's reception room

sk it in the deeply questioning

e would have sa

r fingers. '

ng spirit in a blind relian

for a warning while yet there was time to leave the house instead of turning into that room, had not a remainder of her first exaltation

s a certain tendency to disintegrate the will, and by so doin

eality abjuring their idea of that other, and offering themselves up to the genius of Power in whatsoever direction it may chan

of putting themselves in the right to themselves. The love she bore him, because it was the love his high conceit exacted, hung on success she was ready to fly with him and love him faithfully but not without some reason (where reason, we will own, should not quite so coldly obtrude) will it seem to her, that the man who would not fly, and would try the conflict, insisted to stake her love on the issue he provoked. He roused the tempest, he angered the Fates, he tossed her to them; and reason, coldest reason, close as it ever is to the craven's heart in its hour of trial, whispers that he was prompted to fling the gambler'

y: 'Be careful!' And then they were in

mother stood in the middle of the room, and met them full face, with

I will not suffer him

l me, madame, in God's name

my husband will know how to deal with

ng her hand on his arm, feeling herself almost his equal, said: 'Let us go: come. I wi

hand, assuring the Frau von Rudiger that no word of hers could irritate him. 'Nothing can make me forget that you

ecause there is no one present to chastise him, he dares to address me and talk of his foul passion for my daughter. I repeat: that w

go at once to Clotilde's father. I may hope, that with a

use, and he will have you d

'But, madame, I will act on your warning, and spare her father, for all sakes,

ou will be flun

possible to destroy eve

ir, is a

y on ourselves; it is

y inducing her to leave her father's house and hesitate to return. Oh! you are known. You are known for your deal

angry pride of the man in arms, and could discern that she had struck the wound in hi

tolen my ch

. Yes, to him I fled, feeling that I belonged more to him than to you. And never will I return to you. You have killed my love; I am this man's own because I love him only; him ever! him you abuse, as his partner in

e not worthy of him now? And would th

. It was as if she had offered her beauty to a glass, and found a refl

otilde, my Clotilde! may I count on you to do all and everything for me? Is there any sacrifice I

of slave to him before her mother, in a ghastly apprehension of the part he was for playing to the same audience. 'Yes, I will do all, all that you comm

tening and growing more foreign, histrionic, unreadable to her. 'And this great

ng eyes. 'If you can ask me-if you can positively wish it-yes,' she said

est bride, an unimpeachable wife, a lady handed to him ins

You see she is mine to give, she obeys me, and I-though it can be only for a short time-give her back to you. She goe

our whole heart. Let them not misuse you: otherwise do their bidding. Be sure of my knowing how you are treated, and at the slightest act of injustice I shall be beside you to take you to myself. Be sure of that, and be not unhappy. They shall not keep you from me for long. Submit a s

d. The horribly empty sublimity of his behaviour

play of a great-minded deference to the claims of family ties and duties, intoxicated him. He thought but of the present achievement and its just effect: he had cancelled a bad reputation among these people, from whom he was about to lead forth a daughter for Alvan's wife, and he reasoned by the grandeur of his exhibition of generosity-which was brought out in strong relief when h

ter; and the lady of the house. He was going-he could actually go and leave her! She stretched herself to him faintly; she let it be seen that she did so as much as she had force to make it visible. She sa

who once proposed it, he had the choice of y

herself. It was incredible,

the room was black an

handed you back to them the

anced at her mother heaving in stern triumph, her s

avern lynx for light, set her on the idea that she was

hose who might pick her up. She was, in her humiliation and dread, all of the moment, she could see to no distance; and judging of him, feeling for herself, within that contracted circle of sensation-sure, from her knowledge of her cowardice, that he had done unwisely-she became swayed about like a castaway in soul, until her distinguishing of his mad recklessness in the challenge of a power greater than his own grew present with

ll perception and bend like a flower pelted. Her cry to him: 'If you had been wiser, this would not have been!' will sink to the inward meditation: 'If he had been truer!'-and though she does not necessarily think him untrue for cha

d, literally marched through the streets in the custody of her father, who clutched her by the hair-Alvan's beloved golden locks!-and held her under terror of a huge forester's weapon, that he had seized at the first tidings of his daughter's flight to the Jew. He seemed to have a grim indifference to exposure; contempt, with a sense of the humour of it: and this was a satisfaction to him, founded on his practical observance of two or three maxims quite equal to t

noise of hammering, he himself nailed up the window-shutters of the room she was locked in hard and fast, and he left her there and roared across the household

s time for returning. The tug between rigour and endurance continued for about forty hours. She then thought, in an exhaustion: 'Strange that my father should be so fiercely excited against this man! Can he have reasons I have not heard of?' Her father's unwonted harshness suggested the question in her quailing nature, which was beginning to have a movement to kiss the whip. The question set her thinking of the reasons she knew. She saw them involuntarily from the side of parents, and they wore a sinister appearance; in reality her present scourging was due to them as well as to Alvan's fatal decision. Her misery was traceable to his conduct and his judgement-both bad. And yet all

re i

on

whe

left t

of her, and thinking practically that it was useless to aim a letter at a man without an address. She did not as

why she wept with so delirious a persistency was, that her nature felt the necessity for draining her of her self-pitifulness, knowing that it nourished the love whereby she was tormented. They do not

, with sympathy that set her tears running again, and arguments she could not answer: how could he hold up his head in his regiment as the relative of the scandalous Jew democrat? He would have to leave the service, or be duelling with his brother officers every other day of his life, for rightly or wrongly Alvan was abhorred, and his connection would be fatal to them all, perhaps to

seem a soft reminder of what life had been. Alvan had gone. Her natural blankness of imagination read his absence as an entire relinquishment; it knelled in a vacant chamber. He had gone; he had committed an irretrievable error, he had given up a fight of his own vain provoking, that was too severe for him: he was not the lover he fancied himself, or not th

He may come, and I am his if he comes: and if not, I am bound to my people.' He had taught her to rely on him blindly, and thus she did it inanimately while cutting herself loose f