CHAPTER XLVIII
Surely the golden hours are turning gray
And dance no more, and vainly strive to run:
I see their white locks streaming in the wind--
Each face is haggard as it looks at me,
Slow turning in the constant clasping round
Storm-driven.
Dorothea's distress when she was leaving the church came chiefly
from the perception that Mr. Casaubon was determined not to speak
to his cousin, and that Will's presence at church had served
to mark more strongly the alienation between them. Will's coming
seemed to her quite excusable, nay, she thought it an amiable
movement in him towards a reconciliation which she herself had been
constantly wishing for. He had probably imagined, as she had,
that if Mr. Casaubon and he could meet easily, they would shake
hands and friendly intercourse might return. But now Dorothea felt
quite robbed of that hope. Will was banished further than ever,
for Mr. Casaubon must have been newly embittered by this thrusting
upon him of a presence which he refused to recognize.
He had not been very well that morning, suffering from some
difficulty in breathing, and had not preached in consequence;
she was not surprised, therefore, that he was nearly silent
at luncheon, still less that he made no allusion to Will Ladislaw.
For her own part she felt that she could never again introduce
that subject. They usually spent apart the hours between luncheon
and dinner on a Sunday; Mr. Casaubon in the library dozing chiefly,
and Dorothea in her boudoir, where she was wont to occupy
herself with some of her favorite books. There was a little
heap of them on the table in the bow-window--of various sorts,
from Herodotus, which she was learning to read with Mr. Casaubon,
to her old companion Pascal, and Keble's "Christian Year."
But to-day opened one after another, and could read none of them.
Everything seemed dreary: the portents before the birth of Cyrus--
Jewish antiquities--oh dear!--devout epigrams--the sacred chime
of favorite hymns--all alike were as flat as tunes beaten on wood:
even the spring flowers and the grass had a dull shiver in them
under the afternoon clouds that hid the sun fitfully; even the
sustaining thoughts which had become habits seemed to have in them
the weariness of long future days in which she would still live
with them for her sole companions. It was another or rather a
fuller sort of companionship that poor Dorothea was hungering for,
and the hunger had grown from the perpetual effort demanded by her
married life. She was always trying to be what her husband wished,
and never able to repose on his delight in what she was. The thing
that she liked, that she spontaneously cared to have, seemed to be
always excluded from her life; for if it was only granted and not
shared by her husband it might as well have been denied. About Will
Ladislaw there had been a difference between them from the first,
and it had ended, since Mr. Casaubon had so severely repulsed
Dorothea's strong feeling about his claims on the family property,
by her being convinced that she was in the right and her husband
in the wrong, but that she was helpless. This afternoon the
helplessness was more wretchedly benumbing than ever: she longed
for objects who could be dear to her, and to whom she could be dear.
She longed for work which would be directly beneficent like the
sunshine and the rain, and now it appeared that she was to live
more and more in a virtual tomb, where there was the apparatus
of a ghastly labor producing what would never see the light.
Today she had stood at the door of the tomb and seen Will Ladislaw
receding into the distant world of warm activity and fellowship--
turning his face towards her as he went.
Books were of no use. Thinking was of no use. It was Sunday, and she
could not have the carriage to go to Celia, who had lately had a baby.
There was no refuge now from spiritual emptiness and discontent,
and Dorothea had to bear her bad mood, as she would have borne
a headache.
After dinner, at the hour when she usually began to read aloud,
Mr. Casaubon proposed that they should go into the library, where,
he said, he had ordered a fire and lights. He seemed to have revived,
and to be thinking intently.
In the library Dorothea observed that he had newly arranged a row
of his note-books on a table, and now he took up and put into her hand
a well-known volume, which was a table of contents to all the others.
"You will oblige me, my dear," he said, seating himself, "if instead
of other reading this evening, you will go through this aloud,
pencil in hand, and at each point where I say `mark,' will make a
cross with your pencil. This is the first step in a sifting process
which I have long had in view, and as we go on I shall be able
to indicate to you certain principles of selection whereby you will,
I trust, have an intelligent participation in my purpose."
This proposal was only one more sign added to many since his
memorable interview with Lydgate, that Mr. Casaubon's original
reluctance to let Dorothea work with him had given place to the
contrary disposition, namely, to demand much interest and labor from her.
After she had read and marked for two hours, he said, "We will
take the volume up-stairs--and the pencil, if you please--
and in case of reading in the night, we can pursue this task.
It is not wearisome to you, I trust, Dorothea?"
"I prefer always reading what you like best to hear," said Dorothea,
who told the simple truth; for what she dreaded was to exert herself
in reading or anything else which left him as joyless as ever.
It was a proof of the force with which certain characteristics
in Dorothea impressed those around her, that her husband,
with all his jealousy and suspicion, had gathered implicit trust
in the integrity of her promises, and her power of devoting herself
to her idea of the right and best. Of late he had begun to feel
that these qualities were a peculiar possession for himself,
and he wanted to engross them.
The reading in the night did come. Dorothea in her young weariness
had slept soon and fast: she was awakened by a sense of light,
which seemed to her at first like a sudden vision of sunset after
she had climbed a steep hill: she opened her eyes and saw her
husband wrapped in his warm gown seating himself in the arm-chair
near the fire-place where the embers were still glowing.
He had lit two candles, expecting that Dorothea would awake,
but not liking to rouse her by more direct means.
"Are you ill, Edward?" she said, rising immediately.
"I felt some uneasiness in a reclining posture. I will sit here
for a time." She threw wood on the fire, wrapped herself up,
and said, "You would like me to read to you?"
"You would oblige me greatly by doing so, Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon,
with a shade more meekness than usual in his polite manner.
"I am wakeful: my mind is remarkably lucid."
"I fear that the excitement may be too great for you," said Dorothea,
remembering Lydgate's cautions.
"No, I am not conscious of undue excitement. Thought is easy."
Dorothea dared not insist, and she read for an hour or more on
the same plan as she had done in the evening, but getting over
the pages with more quickness. Mr. Casaubon's mind was more alert,
and he seemed to anticipate what was coming after a very slight
verbal indication, saying, "That will do--mark that"--or "Pass
on to the next head--I omit the second excursus on Crete."
Dorothea was amazed to think of the bird-like speed with which his
mind was surveying the ground where it had been creeping for years.
At last he said--
"Close the book now, my dear. We will resume our work to-morrow.
I have deferred it too long, and would gladly see it completed.
But you observe that the principle on which my selection is made,
is to give adequate, and not disproportionate illustration to each
of the theses enumerated in my introduction, as at present sketched.
You have perceived that distinctly, Dorothea?"
"Yes," said Dorothea, rather tremulously. She felt sick at heart.
"And now I think that I can take some repose," said Mr. Casaubon.
He laid down again and begged her to put out the lights. When she
had lain down too, and there was a darkness only broken by a dull
glow on the hearth, he said--
"Before I sleep, I have a request to make, Dorothea."
"What is it?" said Dorothea, with dread in her mind.
"It is that you will let me know, deliberately, whether, in case
of my death, you will carry out my wishes: whether you will avoid
doing what I should deprecate, and apply yourself to do what I
should desire."
Dorothea was not taken by surprise: many incidents had been leading
her to the conjecture of some intention on her husband's part
which might make a new yoke for her. She did not answer immediately.
"You refuse?" said Mr. Casaubon, with more edge in his tone.
"No, I do not yet refuse," said Dorothea, in a clear voice, the need
of freedom asserting itself within her; "but it is too solemn--
I think it is not right--to make a promise when I am ignorant
what it will bind me to. Whatever affection prompted I would do
without promising."
"But you would use your own judgment: I ask you to obey mine;
you refuse."
"No, dear, no!" said Dorothea, beseechingly, crushed by opposing fears.
"But may I wait and reflect a little while? I desire with my whole soul
to do what will comfort you; but I cannot give any pledge suddenly--
still less a pledge to do I know not what."
"You cannot then confide in the nature of my wishes?"
"Grant me till to-morrow," said Dorothea, beseechingly.
"Till to-morrow then," said Mr. Casaubon.
Soon she could hear that he was sleeping, but there was no more
sleep for her. While she constrained herself to lie still lest she
should disturb him, her mind was carrying on a conflict in which
imagination ranged its forces first on one side and then on the other.
She had no presentiment that the power which her husband wished
to establish over her future action had relation to anything else
than his work. But it was clear enough to her that he would expect
her to devote herself to sifting those mixed heaps of material,
which were to be the doubtful illustration of principles still
more doubtful. The poor child had become altogether unbelieving
as to the trustworthiness of that Key which had made the ambition
and the labor of her husband's life. It was not wonderful that,
in spite of her small instruction, her judgment in this matter was
truer than his: for she looked with unbiassed comparison and
healthy sense at probabilities on which he had risked all his egoism.
And now she pictured to herself the days, and months, and years which
she must spend in sorting what might be called shattered mummies,
and fragments of a tradition which was itself a mosaic wrought from
crushed ruins--sorting them as food for a theory which was already
withered in the birth like an elfin child. Doubtless a vigorous
error vigorously pursued has kept the embryos of truth a-breathing:
the quest of gold being at the same time a questioning of substances,
the body of chemistry is prepared for its soul, and Lavoisier is born.
But Mr. Casaubon's theory of the elements which made the seed of all
tradition was not likely to bruise itself unawares against discoveries:
it floated among flexible conjectures no more solid than those
etymologies which seemed strong because of likeness in sound until
it was shown that likeness in sound made them impossible: it was
a method of interpretation which was not tested by the necessity
of forming anything which had sharper collisions than an elaborate
notion of Gog and Magog: it was as free from interruption as a
plan for threading the stars together. And Dorothea had so often
had to check her weariness and impatience over this questionable
riddle-guessing, as it revealed itself to her instead of the
fellowship in high knowledge which was to make life worthier!
She could understand well enough now why her husband had come
to cling to her, as possibly the only hope left that his labors
would ever take a shape in which they could be given to the world.
At first it had seemed that he wished to keep even her aloof from
any close knowledge of what he was doing; but gradually the terrible
stringency of human need--the prospect of a too speedy death--
And here Dorothea's pity turned from her own future to her
husband's past--nay, to his present hard struggle with a lot which had
grown out of that past: the lonely labor, the ambition breathing
hardly under the pressure of self-distrust; the goal receding,
and the heavier limbs; and now at last the sword visibly trembling
above him! And had she not wished to marry him that she might help
him in his life's labor?--But she had thought the work was to be
something greater, which she could serve in devoutly for its own sake.
Was it right, even to soothe his grief--would it be possible,
even if she promised--to work as in a treadmill fruitlessly?
And yet, could she deny him? Could she say, "I refuse to content
this pining hunger?" It would be refusing to do for him dead,
what she was almost sure to do for him living. If he lived
as Lydgate had said he might, for fifteen years or more, her life
would certainly be spent in helping him and obeying him.
Still, there was a deep difference between that devotion to the
living and that indefinite promise of devotion to the dead.
While he lived, he could claim nothing that she would not still
be free to remonstrate against, and even to refuse. But--
the thought passed through her mind more than once, though she
could not believe in it--might he not mean to demand something
more from her than she had been able to imagine, since he wanted
her pledge to carry out his wishes without telling her exactly
what they were? No; his heart was bound up in his work only:
that was the end for which his failing life was to be eked out by hers.
And now, if she were to say, "No! if you die, I will put no finger
to your work"--it seemed as if she would be crushing that bruised heart.
For four hours Dorothea lay in this conflict, till she felt ill
and bewildered, unable to resolve, praying mutely. Helpless as a
child which has sobbed and sought too long, she fell into a late
morning sleep, and when she waked Mr. Casaubon was already up.
Tantripp told her that he had read prayers, breakfasted, and was
in the library.
"I never saw you look so pale, madam," said Tantripp, a solid-figured
woman who had been with the sisters at Lausanne.
"Was I ever high-colored, Tantripp?" said Dorothea, smiling faintly.
"Well, not to say high-colored, but with a bloom like a Chiny rose.
But always smelling those leather books, what can be expected?
Do rest a little this morning, madam. Let me say you are ill and not
able to go into that close library."
"Oh no, no! let me make haste," said Dorothea. "Mr. Casaubon wants
me particularly."
When she went down she felt sure that she should promise to fulfil
his wishes; but that would be later in the day--not yet.
As Dorothea entered the library, Mr. Casaubon turned round from
the table where he had been placing some books, and said--
"I was waiting for your appearance, my dear. I had hoped
to set to work at once this morning, but I find myself under
some indisposition, probably from too much excitement yesterday.
I am going now to take a turn in the shrubbery, since the air is milder."
"I am glad to hear that," said Dorothea. "Your mind, I feared,
was too active last night."
"I would fain have it set at rest on the point
I last spoke of, Dorothea. You can now, I hope, give me an answer."
"May I come out to you in the garden presently?" said Dorothea,
winning a little breathing space in that way.
"I shall be in the Yew-tree Walk for the next half-hour,"
said Mr. Casaubon, and then he left her.
Dorothea, feeling very weary, rang and asked Tantripp to bring
her some wraps. She had been sitting still for a few minutes,
but not in any renewal of the former conflict: she simply felt
that she was going to say "Yes" to her own doom: she was too weak,
too full of dread at the thought of inflicting a keen-edged blow
on her husband, to do anything but submit completely. She sat still
and let Tantripp put on her bonnet and shawl, a passivity which was
unusual with her, for she liked to wait on herself.
"God bless you, madam!" said Tantripp, with an irrepressible movement
of love towards the beautiful, gentle creature for whom she felt
unable to do anything more, now that she had finished tying the bonnet.
This was too much for Dorothea's highly-strung feeling, and she
burst into tears, sobbing against Tantripp's arm. But soon she
checked herself, dried her eyes, and went out at the glass door
into the shrubbery.
"I wish every book in that library was built into a caticom for
your master," said Tantripp to Pratt, the butler, finding him in the
breakfast-room. She had been at Rome, and visited the antiquities,
as we know; and she always declined to call Mr. Casaubon anything
but "your master," when speaking to the other servants.
Pratt laughed. He liked his master very well, but he liked
Tantripp better.
When Dorothea was out on the gravel walks, she lingered among the
nearer clumps of trees, hesitating, as she had done once before,
though from a different cause. Then she had feared lest her effort
at fellowship should be unwelcome; now she dreaded going to the spot
where she foresaw that she must bind herself to a fellowship from
which she shrank. Neither law nor the world's opinion compelled
her to this--only her husband's nature and her own compassion,
only the ideal and not the real yoke of marriage. She saw clearly
enough the whole situation, yet she was fettered: she could not
smite the stricken soul that entreated hers. If that were weakness,
Dorothea was weak. But the half-hour was passing, and she must not
delay longer. When she entered the Yew-tree Walk she could not see
her husband; but the walk had bends, and she went, expecting to catch
sight of his figure wrapped in a blue cloak, which, with a warm
velvet cap, was his outer garment on chill days for the garden.
It occurred to her that he might be resting in the summer-house,
towards which the path diverged a little. Turning the angle,
she could see him seated on the bench, close to a stone table.
His arms were resting on the table, and his brow was bowed down on them,
the blue cloak being dragged forward and screening his face on
each side.
"He exhausted himself last night," Dorothea said to herself,
thinking at first that he was asleep, and that the summer-house was
too damp a place to rest in. But then she remembered that of late
she had seen him take that attitude when she was reading to him,
as if he found it easier than any other; and that he would
sometimes speak, as well as listen, with his face down in that way.
She went into the summerhouse and said, "I am come, Edward; I am ready."
He took no notice, and she thought that he must be fast asleep.
She laid her hand on his shoulder, and repeated, "I am ready!"
Still he was motionless; and with a sudden confused fear, she leaned
down to him, took off his velvet cap, and leaned her cheek close to
his head, crying in a distressed tone--
"Wake, dear, wake! Listen to me. I am come to answer."
But Dorothea never gave her answer.
Later in the day, Lydgate was seated by her bedside, and she was
talking deliriously, thinking aloud, and recalling what had gone
through her mind the night before. She knew him, and called him
by his name, but appeared to think it right that she should explain
everything to him; and again, and again, begged him to explain
everything to her husband.
"Tell him I shall go to him soon: I am ready to promise.
Only, thinking about it was so dreadful--it has made me ill.
Not very ill. I shall soon be better. Go and tell him."
But the silence in her husband's ear was never more to be broken.
